LIBRARY XJOTVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS CHARLES GODFREY LELAND IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I Charles 2,elanl> A BIOGRAPHY BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I WITH ILLUSTRATIONS Lamia* ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 1906 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS COPYRIGHT 1905 AND 1906 BY ELIZABETH ROBINS PENNELL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published September iqob TO HIS SISTER EMILY LELAND HARRISON PREFACE MY chief authorities in writing the Life of Charles Godfrey Leland have been the "Me moirs" he published during his lifetime and the papers he left to me after his death. But I owe a great deal to many of his relations and friends, who have done all within their power to aid me. His sister, Mrs. John Harrison, has come to my assistance in every possible way. With her son, Mr. Leland Harrison, and my brother, Mr. Edward Robins, she has gone through a vast accumulation of family papers, and she has entrusted me with a large part of the family correspondence. For many of his letters, I am indebted also to the kindness of the late Lady Besant, Mrs. Edwin Edwards, Miss Lily Doer- ing, Miss Annie Dymes, Miss Mary Owen, Mr. David MacRitchie, Mr. J. Dyneley Prince, Mr. J. C. Groome, Mr. T. Fisher Unwin. I am also indebted to Mr. Charles Eliot Norton for authority to reproduce a hitherto unpublished letter by James Russell Lowell, and to my publishers, Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Com- Vlll PREFACE pany,-for their permission to quote several letters from Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. My thanks are also due to Lord Tennyson, for permission to include the letters of his father; to Lord Lytton, who has allowed me to print those of his grandfather; to Mrs. Donkin and Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Company, who have consented to my use of Professor E. H. Palmer's letters; to Mr. Barrett Browning and Messrs. Smith, Elder and Company, who have been as generous with Browning's. I have to thank no less Sir John Stirling Maxwell, Lady Burne- Jones, Mr. Hubert Smith, the late Lady Besant, Mrs. Boker, Mrs. Van de Velde, Mr. J. C. Groome, in the case of the letters of Mrs. Norton, Burne- Jones, Borrow, Besant, George Boker, Bret Harte, Francis Groome, whom, respectively, they represent; and Mr. Mac- Ritchie and Mr. John Sampson, in the case of their own, so important in the history of the Romany Ryes. Dr. Moncure D. Con way has been as kind. M. Bracquemond has placed his portrait at my disposal. Old friends, like Mr. John E. Norcross, who was on the "Philadel phia Press" in the early newspaper days, and the friends of later years, like the Rev. J. Wood Brown, have been helpful in supplying me with PREFACE ix facts and suggestive reminders. It is a pleasure to me to express my indebtedness to all those who, through their affection for my uncle and their appreciation of his work, have enabled me to complete the story of his life. E. R. P. LONDON, 14 BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND, July 10, 1906. CONTENTS I. EARLY YEARS i II. PRINCETON 40 III. HEIDELBERG 65 IV. MUNICH 95 V. PARIS IN '48 .... . 129 VI. YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS . . 205 VII. YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS (Continued) 265 VIII. HANS BREITMANN 322 IX. THE FIRST HOLIDAY . . . . 371 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHARLES G. LELAND, FROM A PHOTOTYPE BY GUTEKUNST .... Frontispiece LETTER FROM OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES ON THE BURIAL OF N. P. WILLIS . . . .12 SILHOUETTE OF MR. LELAND, MADE AT HEIDEL- BERG IN 1846 78 PAGE OF LETTER FROM MR. LELAND . . 146 PAGE OF LETTER FROM MR. LELAND . . .200 PAGE OF LETTER FROM MR. LELAND IN PARIS 230 PERMIT USED BY MR. LELAND WHEN PROSPECTING FOR OIL 278 LETTER FROM JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL . . 290 PROFESSOR E. H. PALMER ..... 332 TWO ADDITIONAL VERSES TO " SCHNITZERL's PHI- LOSOPEDE," WRITTEN IN 1882 . . . 364 DRAWING TO ILLUSTRATE TWO ADDITIONAL VERSES 365 PLATE DECORATED BY MR. LELAND . . . 386 POWDER HORN IN PAPIER-MACH, MADE AND DECORATED BY MR. LELAND . . . 386 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS IT had for long been understood between us that I was to finish the " Memoirs " of my uncle, Charles Godfrey Leland, if he did not live to finish them himself. He talked the matter over with me, on the far too rare occa sions during his later years when I went to see him at Florence where he lived, or joined him at Siena, Baveno, or Homburg, where he spent his summers. He entered further into detail during the last weeks of all which I spent with him, the year before his death, in the mountains above Pistoia. He made in numerable notes and minute " Memoranda" to help me. He left all his papers, all his letters, all his manuscripts, to my care. I was to take up the thread of the story where he had dropped it, and this he thought I could do the better because, in his published " Memoirs," 2 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND he had almost reached the period when for a while I was constantly with him his daily companion. But no sooner did the time come to carry out his wishes, and I re-read the " Memoirs," than I felt the impossibility of doing the work in exactly the manner both he and I had thought it could be done. The " Memoirs " are so entirely, so intimately, so essentially his, and he was a man of such marked indi viduality, a writer with such a personal style, that to add anything would be to destroy the character he gave to them. Therefore I have left the " Memoirs " the fragment the har monious fragment they are, and have told the story of his life from the beginning in my own fashion : thus fulfilling the trust he confided to me, without risk of spoiling that which he had done so well. The "Memoirs " are, in a measure, my guide through the earlier years, but I have had the benefit of important papers he did not have by him when he wrote. After 1870, where the "Memoirs" end, there is ample material in the letters and papers that have come to me. Many of these were in sad confusion, elo quent of constant work and frequent jour- EARLY YEARS 3 neys. They left great gaps, with not a note from himself or a letter from anybody as a clue for my guidance, until, at the last mo ment, many more were discovered by chance, only just in time for me to re-write chapters already written without them. Of the last period of his life from 1884 onward there is much, almost too much. " I am, I believe, the Last of the Letter Writers," he wrote to me once ; and, indeed, his letters to the correspondents he cared for were so long and frequent that, of the number at my disposal, I can use but a fraction. This I regret, for I think he was never so delightful as when talking on paper to his friends. I have also the "Memoranda" he began early in tne Nineties, never yet published. " Memoranda Notes, Reminiscences, Jot tings, Ana, Memorials, Anecdotes, Comments, etc.," is the heading to one of the volumes, and there could be no better description. Some times he put down the events of the day, sometimes he recalled the events of days long past. More often he criticised the books he was reading, copying the passages that struck him, or sketched the scheme of books he was writing, even elaborating them into the form 4 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND they took in print. Anything and everything from the last discovery in science which had inspired him to the last kind of gum or colour he was using in his decorative work went into the "Memoranda." And he illustrated them : with initial letters and borders in pen- and-ink or brilliantly illuminated, with prints and curious advertisements out of the papers, for one reason or another useful to him. He pasted in letters he wished to preserve. He found a place for whatever was strange or odd, from the menu of an unusual dinner to the latest broadside issued in Florence. No wonder the " Memoranda " run to many man uscript volumes. It is in turning over their pages that I have most despaired of making other people see him and know him as he was. His interests were wide and varied, and only a writer as many-sided could do full justice to all his intellectual adventures. There were so many subjects he mastered of which my knowledge if I have any is slight, that I can only hope to show what they were to him and how he was influenced by them. One other explanation I ought to make. If I have less knowledge than my task demands, on the other hand, no such fault can be found EARLY YEARS 5 with the sympathy and affection I bring to it. I had a friend in my uncle, or in " The Rye," as I must be allowed to call him. For it was the name by which I knew him best, not knowing him really until he had become " The Rye " for every Gypsy on the English roads and every Gypsy scholar the world over. It was the name by which most of his friends knew him, a large part of the let ters in my possession begin " My dear Rye." Besides, I am sure he held very dear his own consciousness that he was always " The Rye " to so many people, even while he was busying himself with matters as far as the poles apart from the Romany, whether re forms in education or problems in psychology. It supplied that element of " the mysterious " without which life for him would have lost its savour. I do not think many things in Charles Godfrey Leland's life gave him greater sat isfaction than the date of his coming into it. For he was born on the i5th of August, and, as he would often remind me when sum mer brought it round again, on the isth the Blessed Virgin and Buddha ascended into 6 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND heaven, and so, according to Catholics and Buddhists, it is the luckiest birthday in the year. It was like him to take hardly less satisfaction in knowing that the ceremonies performed over him, before he was many days old, were those of all others he would have chosen for himself had choice then been pos sible. In both the " Memoirs " and the " Memo randa " he tells how he was carried up to the garret by his old Dutch nurse, who was said to be a sorceress, and left there with a Bible, a key, and a knife on his breast, lighted can dles, money, and a plate of salt at his head : rites that were to make luck doubly certain by helping him to rise in life, and become a scholar and a wizard. Even if this meant less to him than I suppose, it has the value of appropriateness. It is what might be ex pected, as a baby, of the man who was called Master by witches and Gypsies, whose pock ets were always full of charms and amulets, who owned the Black Stone of the Voodoos, who could not see a bit of red string at his feet and not pick it up, or find a pebble with a hole in it and not add it to his store, who, in a word, not only studied witchcraft with the impersonal curiosity of the scholar, EARLY YEARS 7 but practised it with the zest of the initiated. Had it occurred to him, he might have seen a sign in the year 1824 as well as the day of his birth. For it was at least one of the "strange coincidences " he loved, that this should have happened to be the year when Philadelphia, his native town, founded both the Franklin Institute, devoted to the cause of education for which he was later to work, and the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the collector, as he was to become, of the facts, legends, and relics of the past. But, magic and coincidence apart, nothing counted for more in the influences that made him what he was, than the town in which he was born, where his youth and childhood were spent. Philadelphia is still apt to strike the stran ger as the one big American city fortunate enough never to be in a hurry. But if the peace Penn brought with him has survived, as every Philadelphian hopes it always will survive, at no time has it been a synonym for inaction. Throughout Colonial days, Phila delphia never rested from its labours ; it was stirred to its depths by the Revolution ; and after its brilliant interval as capital, though the quiet that followed may suggest by contrast a 8 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND period of depression, it was all the while grow ing into the great manufacturing and artis tic centre of to-day. But this growth, during the first half of the last century, brought little external change. The town remained much as the Revolution had found it : everywhere the Colonial picturesqueness, everywhere the old landmarks with their associations and tra ditions ; everywhere, among the people, the old Quaker repose, mistaken by the ignorant for somnolence. To the boy whose life was in dreams, there was inspiration in the Friendly calm; the past that fascinated him was the more real because he saw it all about him. How deeply the old-fashioned beauty and tranquillity of the Quaker City coloured his thoughts and feelings, as he wandered through its drowsy streets and squares, is shown in the tenderness with which, when far away, he always looked back to it. Dur ing the latter part of his life, the Rye may not have lived there. He found certain things that suited him better in London, others more to his purpose in Florence. But his memories were ever vivid of the " well-shaded peaceful city " of his childhood, of its streets lined with stately Colonial mansions or little EARLY YEARS 9 red and black brick houses, and the gardens sweet in summer with magnolias and honey suckle and roses, where hummingbirds and scarlet tanagers and orioles and blue and yellow birds, not yet banished by the sparrow, flitted here and there among the flowers, and swallows darted away and across the broad streets. He returns to the description again and again in his " Memoirs : " " As it recurs to me, the spirit which was over Philadelphia in my boyhood, houses, gardens, people, and their life, was strangely quiet, sunny, and quaint, a dream of olden time drawn into mod ern days. The Quaker predominated, and his memories were mostly in the past ; ours, as I have often said, was a city of great trees, which seemed to me to be ever repeating their old poetic legends to the wind, of Swedes, witches, and Indians." And a little further on, " The characteristics of old Philadelphia were so marked, and are, withal, so sweet in the memory, that I cannot help lingering on them." He remembered everything: the green shade before each house ; the fireflies of summer nights; the goldfish he caught in the Schuylkill ; the whales seen by old people of his acquaintance in the Delaware ; the Peale io CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Museum, with its dark galleries, its stuffed lions and tigers, its skeletons of still more awful beasts and birds, a place of delicious fears ; the flowers and fragrance of Bartram's garden, loved by many other Philadelphians no less well ; the wild luxuriance of the valley of the Wissahickon ; all old Philadelphia is in these memories. And he could not keep them out of his letters to me while his " Memoirs " were going through the press. From the Bagni di Lucca, he wrote in the summer of 1893: " I wish I had thought of it I would have made more of old Phila delphia. Should I ever return there, I will put all my heart into a book on the subject and write it all in flowers, perfumes reeds in the rivers quaint old golden brown even ings the scent of buckwheat cakes baking in the early morning magnolia fragrance mingled with roasting coffee ghosts of by gone Cadwaladers and Whartons and mem ories of pretty Quaker girls in the sunset light on Arch Street. There are not many living now who can do it." And he liked to think that these memories carried him back to a time when elderly men wore queues and sat over their Madeira after EARLY YEARS 11 dinner, the Madeira for which Philadelphia was as famed as for its West India turtles; when " fifty thousand dollars entitled a man to keep a carnage and be classed as ' quality' by the negroes : " when Fredrika Bremer's novels were popular, and her " Count Bruno " apt to be discovered in the Swedish count who strayed by chance to Philadelphia ; when young ladies worked their samplers, warbled Tom Moore's melodies, and fainted on the slightest provocation. He could never for get how a famous belle who lived next door swooned the first time N. P. Willis came to call upon her. The postman still blew his horn, the watchman still called the hour and the weather all night long. The song of the hominy man " De hominy man is on his way, Frum de Navy-Yard ! Wid his harmony ! " mingled with the bell of the muffin man, the cries of " Hot corn ! " " Pepper-Pot ! " " Beau tiful clams!" " Sweep-oh ! " and the loud " Tra-la-la, la-la-la-loo ! " of the darkey with lemon ice-cream " an' waniila too ! " Steam boats were very new, his father had been in the first that was a success on the Dela- 12 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ware ; he himself made the first journey on the first railroad out of Philadelphia. And people were still to be seen, and met, and talked with, who brought the boy very close to the Revolution. As soon as he could un derstand, he was told how, a mere baby, he had been held up at the window to look at Lafayette, then on the second visit, " as a veteran," to the " great and beautiful town of Philadelphia," where he had first been wel comed " as a recruit." Many friends of the boy's father had known Washington and Jef ferson; one could talk as intimately of the heroes of the French Revolution; and when the boy was old enough he was allowed to sit and listen to their stories after dinner. There were two nieces of Benjamin Franklin's who often dropped in to tea with his mother, and another lady who had been educated in France and had actually seen Napoleon. Even the porter in his father's store his father then was a commission merchant seemed to move in the same wonderful past, for he had spoken to Talleyrand -when Talleyrand lived in Philadelphia. Once, too, a moment never to be forgotten, the boy shook hands with G. R. T. Hewes, the last of the " Boston ^tf Xc { FROM OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES EARLY YEARS 13 Tea-Party ; " once he saw with his own eyes Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the last of the signers of the Declaration of .Independence. Nor was it less strange to think that Bishop White, whom he sometimes met, had known and talked with Dr. Johnson in far London. The past was with the boy everywhere, in doors as well as out. There was not a house of the many into which his father moved, one after the other, without its romance. He was born in the " Dolly Madison house " on Chestnut Street below Third, where the President's wife had lived in her girlhood. He was hardly more than a baby when the family went to Mrs. Shinn's in Second Street, but, when he wrote his " Memoirs " almost seventy years after, he still remembered its garden full of flowers, and the parlour fire place with the old Dutch tiles from which he learned the story of Joseph and his breth ren and ^sop's Fables. Then came the house in Fifth Street, with windows looking, almost directly opposite, to the Old State House and, a little further, to the Library, where there was the statue of Franklin which, as all Philadelphia knew, came down from its pedestal when it heard the clock strike mid- I 4 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND night, it was Penn's statue in front of the Pennsylvania Hospital, and the hour was six, for the children of my generation. And then the house in Washington Square, where he had the McClellans for neighbours, the youngest, George, figuring in the " Memo randa " as " a very jolly, very average sort of boy, giving no promise of his great future, or his great failure," and where the windows commanded the square, of old a potter's field, haunted by the spirits of the victims of yellow fever buried there. So each house, for the boy, was a new link with the past. Nor was the marvellous ever very far away. Not only did statues walk, but there were great marble dogs in Race Street by which the small boy who was wise ran quickly, for they howled when anybody in the neighbour hood died ; a dreadful sound, surely, even for grown-up people to hear. Then, there were Indians who came from their graves to hold their weekly market in Independence Square, and, had he only waked at the midnight hour, he might (who knows ?) have seen, from the Fifth Street windows, the statue of Franklin stalking among their shadows. There was the Quaker girl, too, whose ghost on summer EARLY YEARS 15 nights wandered among the flowers in the garden of the old Pennington House, a ghost no one need have been afraid of. These and other pleasant terrors lurked at every corner, in every open place of the town. In the quiet parlour at home he heard of worse than ghosts. For often the gossip of his mother and her friends, over their tea, went back to the days before Penn, when there was no Quaker City on the banks of the Delaware, but a little colony of Swedes, and the women were mostly witches who would go flying off on broomsticks to join in the revels on the Hudson. No one knew this gossip better, or had more awful tales to tell, than Miss Eliza Leslie, who wrote the most practical cook book ever published, and one of the most popular, too, as I have learned to my cost, the first edition being beyond reach. If an authoress of such strong common-sense could believe in these things, what was to be ex pected of the small boy who, tremblingly, hung on her every word ? And when he invested in the Dime Novels of the day, half the time it was to read some horror of the Salem witches ; when he wandered into the kitchen, Irish servants whispered of fairies, or old col- 16 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND oured women muttered " Voodoo incanta tions." One there was, a cook, who had gone so far as to put " a spell of death " on all who dared to take her place. But, had there been no ghosts, no witches, no devil-lore, the boy's instinctive love of the supernatural and the mysterious must still have been strengthened in the atmosphere of Philadelphia. The town had been founded by Penn that he and his people might follow undisturbed the inward light, and one truth this light had revealed to them was the right of freedom of belief even for those who did not happen to believe as they did. Therefore, to Philadelphia and all Penn's country, seers and mystics, whose visions and creeds were not tolerated in their own countries, had hur ried. Quietism, swept from Europe, took root afresh and flourished there. Dunker monas teries rose at Ephrata. Moravian colonies were established at Nazareth and Bethlehem. Pastorius and his people went their contem plative ways in near Germantown. In the for ests there were hermits like the monks of old in the desert. On the hills above the Wissa- hickon men sought the Woman of the Wilder ness while preparing for the Millennium her EARLY YEARS 17 coming would announce. Rumours remain of astrologers and magicians practising no one could say what mysterious rites. If most of these fanatics, to whom Penn gave shelter, managed somehow to live the life of the flesh extremely well, their chief concern was always the life of the spirit; and though freedom proved more destructive to their faith than persecution, even in the early part of the last century their influence had by no means .died away. Certainly, in no other State would the boy have found the doors of mysticism so wide open, just as in few other cities would the past have been so ever present. Not that he became morbid in this atmos phere. He may have cared for some things most boys are indifferent to, if he had not, he would never have grown into the man we know. But he cared also for many of the things that every right-minded boy does care for. Philadelphia was small in those days, and outdoor amusements, the best part of boyhood, were to be enjoyed without, as now, making an elaborate business of them. In winter, adventure awaited the adventurous lad who braved the long walk across the frozen Delaware to Camden. In summer, there was i8 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND rare sport for the young fisherman along the Schuylkill. In the fall, there were reed birds to shoot in the marshes below the town. And always, at all times of the year, there were near woods to wander in, a beautiful wild coun try, where the boy's love of nature strength ened with his love of the past and the Un known. Perhaps he owed the feeling for Nature, that played so large a part in his develop ment, even more to the many summers he spent in the North. Both his father and mother, though living in Philadelphia, were of old New England stock. His father was descended from Henry Leland, one of the Puritans who came to America in 1636 and settled in Massachusetts, though some say Henry had been preceded by a still earlier emigrant, Hopestill Leland, whose name tells the story of his coming, and who was the first white settler in New England : as noble an cestors these as the De Bussli who, if tra dition may be trusted, crossed to England from Normandy with the Conqueror, and for his services was given the manor of Leland, from which the family took their name. John Leland, the antiquary, Charles Leland, the EARLY YEARS 19 Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries in Charles I's time, were other ancestors* the Rye delighted to claim. His mother was a Miss Godfrey. The Godfrey family belonged originally to Rhode Island, where the Puritan received an inter mixture of French Huguenot blood, by no means to its disadvantage, while one ances tress, it pleased the Rye to remember, mar ried a " High German," a doctor with a rep utation for sorcery, " my mother's opinion was that this was a very strong case of ata vism, and that the mysterious ancestor had through the ages cropped out in me." He was, the Rye always fancied, Washington Irving's " High German doctor " who laid the mystic spell on Sleepy Hollow, and I, for one, have no desire to question what ought to have been, if it were not. The Godfreys moved to Massachusetts, where the grandfather, Colo nel Godfrey, after fighting in the War of the Revolution, was for a while aide-de-camp to the governor, and where an aunt and uncle Godfrey still lived in Milford, not far from Holliston, Oliver Leland's farm. Scarcely a summer passed that the Phila delphia family did not divide a visit of several 20 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND months among the different relatives in Dedham and Milford, Mendon and Holliston. The journey by stage-coach, nights spent on the way at Princeton, Perth- Amboy, and Providence was in itself a holiday. And once arrived at the journey's end, nothing but pleasure was in store for the boy, in whom a taste for adventure mingled with his love of mysticism. All the Lelands had been fighters in their time. " All our family, without a break in the record, have successively taken turns at fighting, and earned our pay as soldiers since time lost in oblivion." Holliston had been once a guard-post against the Indians, "where all the men were soldiers, ever at war." The great-grandfather had served in the French War, and had been kept prisoner an entire winter among the Indians, from whom he had learned the Algonkin tongue, as the great- grandson was to learn it under more comfort able conditions. The grandfather, Oliver, " great, grim, and taciturn to behold, yet with a good heart, and not devoid of humour," had fought in the War of the Revolution, and had been at Princeton, and at Saratoga for Bur- goyne's surrender. Others of the family had figured at Lexington and Bunker Hill ; and EARLY YEARS 21 the grandfather's friends were almost all vet erans, as full of tales of battles as himself. In the very air the boy breathed was the romance of war. And the stories of the great-grand father among the Algonkins were all the more real to him, because on his uncle Seth Daveii- port's large, old-fashioned farm at Mendon near by there were Indians among the labour ers, one, Rufus Pease, he could recall in his " Memoirs " as " a very dark, ruddy gypsy with a pleasant smile." Probably this was the beginning of the friendship with the In dians that led in the end to his initiation into the tribe of the wild Kaws of the Western plains, and his close alliance with the peace ful Passamaquoddies weaving their baskets in the pine woods of Bar Harbor and Campo- bello. Of the home life on the New England farms, also, he retained many happy memo ries, memories of simple old homesteads " delightfully comfortable, old-fashioned, and in a way beautiful; " of halls hung with family portraits in antique dress ; of cool dairies and large gardens ; of quiet summer evenings in the parlour with his cousins at the piano ; of visits to neighbours with his mother ; of old 22 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND sporting uncles who took " Bell's Life," of other uncles who wore scarlet waistcoats, or who seemed altogether to belong to the time of Cromwell ; of cousins so gentle that the wild birds came to feed from their hands, memories that ever had to him " something of the chiaroscuro and Rembrandt colour and charm of the * Mahrchen ' or fairy tale." But best of all were the days when he wandered by himself, fishing, strolling in the beautiful wild places among rocks and fields, or in the forests by the river Charles. " I was always given," he says in the " Memoirs," " to loneliness in gardens and woods when I could get into them, and to hearing words in birds' songs and running or falling water." He, anyway, would have understood Miss Peabody, destined to become more famous as Mrs. Hawthorne, when, about the same time, she described Dedham as " holy country," where one could be " alone with the trees and birds." It was this loneliness that made the long summers on the New England farms so dear to him, not only in his boyhood but forever after. " During more than one third of a life which began in 1824," he wrote in his Preface to " Kuldskap," his last book, " I EARLY YEARS 23 have passed almost annually over the conti nent of Europe. I have lived for the past fifteen years in Florence, in touch with the Apennines, or opposite Bellosguardo v sung by many a poet, and the Alps and castled crags of the Rhine come to me often in my dreams ; yet I never found in it all that strange and sweet charm like a song without words which haunts the hills and valleys of rural New England." Throughout the " Memoranda," it seems as if he were trying to analyse and define this charm in order to understand it the better himself, so full are they of descrip tions of the land that for him lay under " the mystic spell of Sleepy Hollow," so full of legends of elves and spirits and the strange things that, in his fancy, ever haunted it. For it was the unseen that drew him to Nature, just as it was the extraordinary that fascinated him in every-day life. It is characteristic that in the midst of these stories he should break off, of a sudden as it appears to the reader, but as though to him there were no abrupt transition, to tell of his own strange experience in the full daylight of his uncle's store. Wher ever he went, he could not get away, did not want to get away, from the supernatural. 24 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND " Once, when seated, studying an Italian grammar on a box, an iron counterpoise, long and narrow, weighing nearly fifty pounds, fell from the highest loft, touching my hair as it fell shattered the box on which I sat, and rebounding thirty feet broke through the plaster of the wall. I escaped death by half an inch. . . . Close escape from death, you say. Yet if we knew all the secrets of our mechanism, of physiology, of what goes on unseen around us it may be that we make as narrow escapes daily." The unseen, the strange, the extraordinary, that was what reconciled him to life, from boyhood when this incident occurred, to old age when the lines recording it were written. It was thus, whether in Philadelphia, or in New England, the boy grew up: living much in the past and with Nature, ever con scious of supernatural influences, seeking the strange by preference, and from the mo ment he could read at all, he learned his letters in the melancholy little New England Primer that would not let the youngest for get how " In Adam's fall Wesin-nMall," EARLY YEARS 25 reading every book that fell in his way. Of the usual schooling he received his fair share. In after life he remembered the schools to which he went as clearly as the houses in which he lived : the first, the Misses Donald son's, on Walnut Street above Eighth, where the elder Miss Donaldson, with a long rod in her hand, sitting "prim and perpendicular" at her desk, left an awful impression not to be effaced by time ; and the many that suc ceeded, some kept by Friends of gentle ways and soothing " thee " and " thou," some by "coarse brutal fiends," in whose class-rooms, from morning till night, boys were heard screaming under the rattan ("coarse brutal fiends," alas ! were then the rule, most little American boys being well flogged into learn ing), until at last Princeton was reached. All these schools were in Philadelphia, ex cept one at Jamaica Plain, directed by a Mr. Greene, " an old-fashioned gentlemanly person," whose "academy" was patronized by New England boys. Motley had been a pupil, and the Rye had for schoolmates, be sides his brother Henry, G. W. Curtis and Frank Goodrich, son of " Peter Parley," the " S. G. G." of whom Hawthorne wrote, " a gen- 26 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND tleman of many excellent qualities, although a publisher." The one letter surviving from his school days is dated "Jamaica Plain, Oct. 22nd 1835." He was only in his twelfth year, but what was to be his lifelong study of lan guages and drawing had begun. As the first record of the dawning in him of a preference, or a passion, from which much was to come, or as the first record from him of any kind, these few lines, in big, round, schoolboy writ ing, deserve a place. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES LELAND DEAR MOTHER, Since I was at Dedham last, I have begun to study French, Latin, and drawing, and will next begin Spanish. My French is very easy. It is the same that I used to study at Mrs. Dorr's school. I wish that when you go to Philadelphia you would send me all my French books. We have the scarlet fever very bad here, three children have died of it in the village, and it is in six houses. I remain your affectionate son, CHARLES G. LELAND. To this was added by some one, most EARLY YEARS 27 likely by Mr. Greene, his long experience hav ing taught him to understand mothers and their fears, "All well in the house. None of the day scholars sick." One other glimpse of his school-life there remains in a letter from his father, dated in the November of the following year ; a plea sant glimpse, for the father tells him, " I will try to be with you in time to go to Holliston for the Thanksgiving Supper we promised to take with Grandfather." The importance of that we, any schoolboy would appreciate. The happiness of school-days has passed into a proverb, but it is only for the children of rude health and average mind. The Rye, as a child and youth, was delicate, growing too fast into the man of great height and huge frame that Philadelphia will not soon forget. " A tall and yet weak boy is the ame damnee of any school, and the best of boys are inhuman," is his comment in writing of his school-days, and in the " Memoranda " he recalls how, " between the doctor and my schoolmates, I wished myself dead a thou sand times in a week." Moreover, he had any thing but an average mind. Many things he knew and understood beyond his years : but 28 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND the things for which good boys at school got good marks he did not know, and, what was worse, could not learn. To the master, whose business was to drill the multiplication table into his head, "twice two" recited correctly was worth all the old English ballads in the world. But " twice two " was just what the boy, who had most of English literature at his fingers' ends, could not grasp. " I could never learn the multiplication table. There are things which the mind, like the stomach, rejects without the least perceptible cause or reason." The things his mind digested with phe nomenal ease helped him in some classes, were terribly against him in others, and he paid bitterly for what his masters considered his stupidity. They were not all cruel like Eastburn, who was the " coarse brutal fiend," and Hurlbut, whose school was known as " Hurlbut's Purgatory ; " of the Friends among them he spoke only with praise for their kind ness. Walker, too, was " a good kind man." But kindness is not always sympathy, and sympathy, or its substitute, was given him only by Hunt and by Bronson Alcott. Hunt, afterwards editor of " Littell's," long the Amer- EARLY YEARS 29 ican short cut to contemporary literature, was, as might have been expected, "an extensive, desultory reader : " a schoolmaster who forced his pupils to think, who explained Alduses and Elzevirs to at least one of their number and introduced him to Cornelius Agrippa, a strange acquaintance to make in a Philadel phia school three quarters of a century ago. Alcott the mystic, the transcendentalist, was " the most eccentric man who ever took it on himself to train and form the youthful mind." He believed in teaching by u moral influence " and "sympathetic intellectual communion," and by talking " and oh, heaven ! what a talker he was ! " The child, nine at the time, loved the talk, but lived to question its excel lence as an educational method. " He was the worst or best teacher I ever had " I quote from the " Memoirs." " He encouraged me to read everything and to learn almost nothing. . . . Such a training as his would develop in any boy certain weaknesses and I had mine which were very repulsive to my father, who carried plain common-sense to extremes and sometimes into its opposite of unconscious eccentricity, though there was no word which he so much hated." 3 o CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Children at school are never at ease with a companion whose love of books is greater than their own. The boy was nearly as alone among his schoolmates as among his school masters. Friends he had my own father, Charles Macalester, and many others whose names are cherished in Philadelphia. There were also certain little Swedish and Span ish boys to be cultivated, for the sake of the strange tongues they spoke, the strange songs they sang, the guitars they could play. And then there was the one friend nearer and dearer than all, George Boker, whose father was his father's partner, who shared the same tastes, who was his comrade out of school as in it. " George Boker owned and lent me ' Don Quixote,' " I read in the " Memoranda;" " between that and Scott, we became very chivalric, romantic, and used to pass hours in improvising to one another adventures of knights, which were neither better nor worse than those of Palamon of England and Ar thur of Little Britain." But it was inevitable, in his misery over the lessons his friends seemed to take to as naturally as ducks to water, that he should fall back more and more upon himself. In other schools, or in EARLY YEARS 31 the Philadelphia schools of the present, the whole manner of his intellectual development might have been different. As it was, lessons were a tedious duty to be got through somehow ; the only learning of use to him, because pleasure was to be had in it, came from books, and to books he turned with an ever-increasing passion. He did not read like a youthful prig parading his precocity: he read because it amused him to read, because, like Charles Lamb, he loved every book that really was a book though he loved it all the more if it dealt with " the mysterious." Luckily for him, his most impres sionable years belong to a period when young people were not yet supplied to any great extent with a literature of their own, and, if instinctively they cared for reading, had to read what their elders read or what chance threw in their way. Chance, in charge of the reading of this one young person in particu lar, directed it into the most varied channels. One day he was deep in Shakespeare and "Percy's Reliques," the next in "Jack the Giant-Killer " and " Hop-o'-my-Thumb." He divided his pocket money between comic almanacs and black letter folios. He read 32 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND the Bible everywhere, and reserved Cellini for church. He revelled in " Gil Bias " and the " Arabian Nights " and Irving, whom he adored, and Chaucer and Sterne and Swift ; but he also knew by heart the little cheap books to be had for a penny, and what would not the collector give for the copies of " Marmaduke Multiply," " Chrononho- tonthologos," " The World turned Upside Down," for all Mr. Newberry's gilt-cover toy- books that he probably thumbed out of exist ence? There were books in his own home ; his mother had been "from her earliest years devoted to literature to a degree which was unusual at that time in the United States," among those old papers, ghosts from out the past, I have seen a copy of verses by her, writ ten in a letter, gay, graceful, and touched with a humour that accounts for much in the author of " Breitmann." There were friends with more books to lend. When he was four teen, his father gave him a share in the Philadelphia Library. It is hard to say which, nowadays, would be the more unexpected in a schoolboy, the quantity or the quality of his reading. He was still a child when he man- EARLY YEARS 33 aged to dip into Rabelais, who was to him "as the light which flashed upon Saul journeying to Damascus." At fifteen, he was studying Proven9al, getting the old French poets by heart, translating Villon. At sixteen, he was busy with a poetic version of the Death Song of Regner Lodbrog. But "occult literature had the upper hand," and from his eighteenth year there has come down to me a little old manuscript copy of the " Pemander of Tris- megistus:" "Transcribed by Charles Leland, 1842" on the title-page. Then he plunged into Transcendentalism, of which reports had reached Philadelphia from Boston, and sub stantial information had been brought to him straight from headquarters by his mother, who had visited Brook Farm. He was prepared, in a way, having had his first metaphysical experience, his first consciousness of the Ego "I am I : I am myself : I myself I " already as a mere child at one of the old Friends' schools. The " Orphic Alcott " had helped him still further. And now Channing and Furness were preaching in Philadelphia (one occasionally, the other regularly), and they and their sermons which kept him faithful to the Unitarian creed after his par- 34 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ents had abandoned it for Episcopalianism were his guides through the transcendental maze. So also were the books of Carlyle, upon which he first chanced somewhere between 1838 and 1840, and the study they introduced him to of Spinoza and Schelling, Kant and Fichte. It was the reading upon which most think ers of his generation were reared, but not the reading by which students were trained for Princeton, his college. Worse, it carried him far from the practical world in which his father wanted to see him shine. And worst of all, it made him appear " peculiar," " eccen tric," in the Philadelphia of the thirties and forties. It was a good thing for his mental balance, that the extraordinary in life kindled in him no less enthusiasm than the extraor dinary in thought, and that he could find it even in every-day occupations. Out in the open air, on horseback, he could move through mystery as naturally as at his desk with the " Critique of Pure Reason " open before him. If there was magic in the theory of the phi losopher, so there might be in the unaccount able intelligence and actions of mere animals, and his list of the books he read. does not EARLY YEARS 35 reveal more of the youth, than his account of his long rides on the horse that " was a per fect devil, but also a perfect gentleman," and of the understanding between horse and rider. Had there been a Gypsy to watch those rides, he would have recognised in the rider a Master, even as the Romany, in the green lanes of England, bowed before Borrow, the Sapengro. That the Rye, as a boy, was not always deep in metaphysics, that he was not always in pursuit of adventure, but could take a healthy, boyish interest in everything about him, there is curious evidence in a little old journal, his " Notes of an excursion to Ston- ington, Conn.," in July, 1840, towards the end, that is, of his schooldays. It shows him using his eyes to such good purpose that many of the " notes " have their value as a record of manners and customs some sixty or seventy years ago. For he was a young observer and had a talent for comparisons. He could see that the cars on the New Jer sey, Camden, and Bordentown Railroad were " very poorly built," and the road " kept in bad repair, being inferior to either the Boston and Providence or Columbia." He could see 36 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND that the " ten or fifteen recruits for the U. S. military service bound for Florida, who came on with us in the same line of cars, were miserable looking fellows who seemed to have been driven to the army by being excluded from every other honourable employment or profession. They had a fight coming over the face of one was cut in a terrible man ner." The first thing that reminded him he "was quitting Philadelphia for New York, was the use of the words shilling and sixpence for levy andy^," and " the men wearing white frocks over their clothes, who came on board and endeavoured to obtain from each passenger the job of carrying his luggage for him. They were much more respectable looking men than our draymen, from the circumstance that they appeared mostly to be * Americans ' and not Irish. ... I would observe that the drays in N. York are not as large as ours in Philadelphia nor as well suited to carry heavy burdens? Arrived in New York, " I walked into the city with Henry and Father to look around a little and hear the news. . . . We walked up Pearl Street. I saw on the signs names which I had before heard of, either in the news- EARLY YEARS 37 papers or by report, such, for instance, as John Haggerty, the man so much hated by the ' Herald,' Arthur Tappan, the well- known Abolitionist, who may be said to be at the head of that body of fanatics who, if they were able, would willingly subvert the constitution and the laws both of nature and their country [a view he was quickly to out grow]. I noticed also the office of J. Syl vester, who has become famous or infamous, as you will have it, by his extensive lottery operation, and also the offices of the editors Major Nock and Colonel Webb. . . . We went up as far as the Astor House, which has been built since I was last in New York." He saw too the Custom House, not then finished but now superseded, and stores which struck his Philadelphia eyes as " much superior " to any at home. He found it a "certainly beauti ful sight " to sail past New York, " with the spires of the numerous churches standing above the roofs of the houses below, as giants among men" the spires which have dwin dled into men, or pigmies, among the giants. Next follows the journey by boat, the chief things here to be "noted" being first, the " string of prisoners, black and white, going 38 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND from their day labour to the prison " on Black- well's Island, but not looking as miserable as if " under lock and key in a close cell, although a guard with a gun was escorting them;" and then the amusements of the passengers, who, darkness coming on, "betook themselves, some to Juleps, some to bed." At Stonington he had his own amusements to observe, and they were characteristic. He was already getting pleasure out of the Indian names of places, and these were supplied even by the hotels. He was provided besides with the books he never weaned of: " Mr. W. or, to give his full name, Mr. Woodbridge mentioned to me that he had many old books and papers in his garret. I obtained leave to search them over and found many curious papers, etc., among which were an original letter of Roger Shermin in his own handwriting, an original letter of Gov. Hutchinson, so well known in Mass, at the beginning of the revolution, and an old edi tion of a sermon of Dr. Increase Mather dated 1683." More to the point for a school boy in the month of July, ha " found Ston ington a very interesting place for fishing and boating. . . . Captain Palmer who dis- EARLY YEARS 39 covered the well-known Palmers land had, while I was here, an excellent boat in which I was when it raced against Capt. Vander- bilt's, who was the quondam captain of the Lexington ; " in which, too, there was a suc cessful picnic one day to Watch-hill : " We had a fine trip in about half an hour, which was fast considering that we had about twenty ladies on board. We reached Watch-hill, bathed in the surf, dined on blackfish and lobster, and returned to Stonington, having enjoyed ourselves very much." He recalled, in passing, a short outing to Providence which " served to convince " him of that city's " mean ness ; " he collected much information as to boats and fish, more especially " a remarkable puff-fish, about six inches long, with large green eyes and large teeth and head, covered with short prickles and swelling into a per fect sphere when tickled." The " notes " end with the return to Phila delphia on August 6, after " a tolerably pleas ant trip." Altogether, the little journal, had he never written his " Memoirs," would give a very fair idea of the kind of boy he was, both in his lighter and his more serious moods and moments. CHAPTER II PRINCETON AT the age of seventeen (1841), the young Leland went to Princeton, where many Phila- delphians studied, the University of Penn sylvania then hardly holding out to students the inducements it now offers. George Boker was already there, at the end of his Sopho more year, a youth of some importance who could introduce the timid Freshman to col lege life and college ways. But beyond this advantage, the Freshman found little at Princeton to make up for its drawbacks. As his Mala Mater it is described in the " Memoranda." It was, the " Memoirs " say, " in the hands of the strictest of Old School Presbyterian theologians. . . . Piety and mathematics rated extravagantly high in the course. . . . The college was simply a math ematical school run on Old School Presbyte rian principles, and to all my teachers save Professor Dodd, and to my fellow students, my reading was rubbish and my philosophy athe- PRINCETON 41 ism, while as I utterly neglected mathematics, I was regarded as being deficient in what chiefly constitutes intellect." At college, con sequently, the experience of his school days was repeated, though he never posed as the Great Misunderstood. He worked with his fellow students, played as hard as Princeton allowed, smoked harder, wrote for the college journal, " The Nassau Monthly," even joined in a rebellion against what was thought an infringement of the students' rights, and was rusticated for his trouble. The letter to his father, containing an account of the affair, is interesting for the glimpse it gives both of the old Princeton and of his relations to his fellow students their neglect of him and his sense, notwithstanding, of loyalty to his class. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO CHARLES LELAND Aug. 17, 1842. DEAR FATHER, It becomes my painful duty to inform you that our class is all dis missed to a man. Allow me to begin and give the whole history. The day before yesterday a paper was circulated in college in which every student engaged to be absent from recitation 42 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND the next day, and every student in the Fresh man class except myself signed it they had not thought of asking me. The next morn ing, Craven came into my room and told me that the College was out in rebellion and that the Freshman class would not attend recitation. When n o'clock came on the students gathered on the Campus and de clared that they would not go. But, observ ing that some of them wavered, I exerted myself and persuaded them not to hold out, and was either the first or second to enter. But in the afternoon I went unprepared and, to tell the truth, more dead than alive, I was so excited and unwell. All the others were unprepared and said so, and we were all sum moned to-day before the Faculty and dismissed there was a great disposition evident to excuse me as I had not agreed with the others to stump at recitation. But I told them that I should not have dared to refuse when the class had refused. So they told me that they admired the honesty of my confession, but although I had not entered into any conspir acy, yet that it was as bad, and that I must go to Philadelphia to-day or to-morrow. Let me say that, although I disapproved of the PRINCETON 43 conduct of the class from the beginning, yet I was obliged to go with them, for it is a dread ful thing to have the students incensed against one. There was one only of our class who told the Faculty a lie to get off he said that he had been asleep all the afternoon and had come unprepared, thereby he was excused, but he had agreed with the rest of the class not only not to recite but to stay away from recitation that afternoon. All the college, Juniors, Sophomores and all, have been at him this morning, swearing at and shaming him. He is half crazy with terror and has been crying. He intends to go before the Faculty and recall his old excuse and be dis missed with the rest. The Faculty have told us to leave town because the other classes would certainly rebel if we were in town, for they want us back. Dr. Carnahan told us that we had done nothing morally [wrong ?] o'r shameful, but that they had special in structions from the trustees to keep order. I believe that in their own hearts they approve of what we have done. My conscience does not reprove me and I feel glad that I per suaded the class to recite, and although I was fearful of being put to shame among the 44 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND students, I find that I have been regarded quite the other way. We shall not be sent away entirely, for they will no doubt send for us or recall us in a week or two their col lege is now in debt and they will not be able to spare us. It is a pity, for I was getting along so well in my studies. I had forgot to state that the rebellion was all about our Senior graduation day. I do not think that you will blame my conduct. The Faculty seemed disposed to excuse me as I had not signed any paper or entered into any agree ment not to recite, but as I admitted that I had been influenced by a fear of the class, I was dismissed. Write and tell me what to do. I have serious thoughts of studying to enter the next Junior class. Craven told me that I could do it. Do not blame me, give my love to Mother, sisters, and all. Henry is well. Give my love to all. Your affectionate son, CHARLES G. LELAND. I have been to see Professor Dodd and he tells me that we are not actually dismissed but sent home^ and says that if we do not rebel any more we shall come back to College in a week or two. PRINCETON 45 P. S. I had been elected Valedictorium f or the next Freshman commencement. This is the highest honour in College to which I am eligible. I was elected by the whole class, which consisted of members of both soci eties. In two other of his college letters I find amusing proofs that, notwithstanding " Old School Presbyterian principles," the students of Princeton were much like all students everywhere, as ready for a free fight and for a frank expression of opinion as for rebel lion, when they felt the occasion demanded it. One is dated July, 1842, only a month before the Freshman rebellion, so that the summer of that year at Princeton must have been a particularly lively one for professors and students both. I print the entire letter, for the last part of it presents a curious con trast, and is more characteristic of college life according to Princeton " principles : " CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO CHARLES LELAND DEAR FATHER, I have resolved to write you a few lines although there is a wondrous dearth of news. All the talk here to-day is 46 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND about a great battle which came very near being fought last night down at the aque duct between some railroad men, Jerseymen, etc., and the Students. In fact, some blows did pass, and one or two men were knocked down on both sides, but a re-inforcement of about 50 students with the President, Dodd, and one or two tutors restored order and compelled the Jerseymen to seek safety in flight. Let me state that the attack was a most cowardly affair the students were in sulted and struck without the slightest pro vocation. Our examination is now over and in fact our last examination took place on Sat urday. I confidently anticipate a higher grade. I find, however, that I have made a sad mis take, this Session, in not attending morning prayers. I had thought that those who boarded out in town were excused, and I believe so yet, but the tutor says no ! and tells me to ask a professor, which I intend to do. I doubt not but that I can get excused for the past omissions. I should have said that the tutor told me that the exemption held good only in the winter term. Your affectionate son, CARL G. LELAND. PRINCETON 47 The second of the two letters was written the following year, and throws its little side-light on the history not only of the college, but of the country. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO CHARLES LELAND PRINCETON, Sunday, 1843. DEAR FATHER, I received Henry's letter yesterday morning and must beg you to excuse my writing so often. Old Mr. Phillips wished to know yesterday if I could pay some of my board he was not urgent, however. Will you be so kind as to get me a copy of yesterday's " Saturday Evening Post"? There is in it an account of the President's arrival in Prince ton which abuses the Students very much. It is exaggerated. It is true that they did hiss Tyler, but not much. The way it went was this. After Dodd had delivered his address, the President responded (by the way, I stood within a yard of him), and when he had con cluded, one or two tried to hurrah. Then a partial hiss arose and some one then cried out, " Three cheers for Professor Dodd " which were given. Then the soldiers gave three for Tyler. The " N. York Herald " told an outra- 48 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND geous lie when it said that Horner incited the students to hiss. There was a great blowout at Capt. Stockton's that evening. Many peo ple (including students) went up and were in troduced to Tyler. I might have been if I had gone. A great many people got quite drunk while there, and Stockton himself was not quite sober, so they say. We are to hold a Sophomore Commencement at the end of this Session. I have been elected Valedictorium. Give my best love to Mother, sisters, and Henry, and believe me to be Your affectionate son, CHARLES G. LELAND. P. S. I will send you up to-morrow a copy of the "Princeton Whig" containing Dodd's speech and Tyler's reply. If the other letters from Princeton have nothing again as exciting as rebellion to chronicle, they are all suggestive of Princeton life, and Princeton expenses, and the occupa tions and anxieties, some prophetic in a way, of the student who eventually was to rank as one of Princeton's most distinguished gradu ates. PRINCETON 49 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO CHARLES LELAND PRINCETON, March 20, '43. DEAR FATHER, I have not received any letter from home for more than a week and have delayed writing myself, hoping to get something by each successive post. I am very well, and await examination, as usual a little afraid but with no guilty feelings. Mr. Phillips intends moving in two or three days I must consequently go to Mrs. Passage's and board, the last week of this session. I only found out on Saturday that Mr. Phillips intended moving so soon. My books, etc. I shall leave in a friend's room in College, or at Mrs. Passage's under Fonte's care. The next and greatest question is, what shall I do next session for board the only way to get a room in College is to take a room and buy the furniture, for every room in College is now occupied and will be still more so next session. Fonte, however, intends going out of College and will give his room (one of the very best) to any one who will buy his furni ture (which, with the exception of the carpet, is the same that George Boker had) for 30 or 40 dollars which is very cheap. I have 50 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND promised him that I would let him know by the end of this week whether I would take his room or not. So please to let me know as soon as convenient what you think about it. We can get board out in town equal to what Mrs. Burroughs used to give (or better) for the College price. So I hope that I may board out anyhow. Mr. Phillips is in some trouble about his taxes, and wants to know if you will be so kind as to let him have a little money. I have tried to get other rooms in College, but the students say that I cannot. There are one or two other applicants for Fonte's room, but he will let me have it in prefer ence. As my removal of my things (bureau, car pet, etc.) will cost something and as I must buy a box to put the books in, and spend divers moneys to get all fixed for departure, and as I am very poor just now, will you be so kind as to send me five dollars ? I am very sorry to be obliged to ask for it, for I have not been wasteful this session. Give my love to Mother, Henry and sisters, and believe me to be Your affectionate son, CHARLES G. LELAND. PRINCETON 51 P. S. I forgot to say that I must pay Mrs. Passage 4 dollars for a week's board i. e. the next. We have had several noted New York ministers preaching in our Episcopal Church, which I now attend regularly. They were all more or less Puseyites, for Bishop Doane sends them on here to preach every Sunday, as we have no regular clergyman here they were all first-class preachers too. I heard Dr. Wainwright (the Dr. Wain wright) preach here lately also Messrs. Seabury and Higham, of whom you have doubtless heard. I am getting to be a little of a regular secessionist Tractarian myself, in other words a Puseyite. Their only object seems to be to establish an universal Church after Dr. Channing's plan. The leaders, to be sure, are a little too Romish. But there must be some form of religion to rule the vulgar, otherwise we will be run down soon with Millerism, Mormons, etc. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO CHARLES LELAND PRINCETON, May 8, 1844. DEAR FATHER, It is so long since I have written to you that I doubt not you think me very neglectful. But knowing your weak 52 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND state of health I have thought that any exer tion such as writing a regular letter might prove far from beneficial. I received a letter and paper from Henry last night, and was very sorry to hear of the riots. What is your opinion of the Native Am. party ? . . . What do you think of Frelinghuysen as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency ? He will certainly do a great deal towards attaching the religious and literary influence to the Whig party. I am trying to leave off smoking [unsuccessfully, in the end, I am afraid] I have smoked very little this ses sion, and have only had one cigar (and no pipe) for two days tell this to Henry I am in earnest. Mrs. Passage gave me some advice on the subject. The Mathematics are still keeping me behindhand. I shall however begin the Senior Year splendidly, for I shall then have a clear field. It is impossible to do much now except study Latin and Locke. Prof. McLean (Greek Professor) has gone to Kentucky to defend the Princeton party in the Presbyterian party in the General As sembly. I like Mrs. Passage's better than ever* I sit often with them in the evening. They re- PRINCETON 53 member you all, and want to see Henry very much. If it were possible for me to come down and pass some Sunday with you I should like it very much I have to speak a Junior speech at commencement and want some book help that I cannot get here. Please to send me the Philadelphia papers containing a full ac count of all the riots. They have not as yet terminated, I believe. Give my best love to Mother, Henry, and Sisters, and believe me to be Your affectionate son, CHARLES G. LELAND. I may as well say, if it be worth saying, that I have the advantage of talking as much French now as I choose, and have improved in it very much. There is a Mr. De Voil here teaching in Mr. Vine's school with whom I am well acquainted. I talk it with him and Senakerim the Armenian. Shall I get my summer hat done up here ? CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES LELAND PRINCETON, May 26, 1845. DEAR MOTHER, Father has doubtless by this time seen Mr. Bond, who went through 54 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND here last night on his way to Philadelphia. I have been in very good health so much for your fears. Our examination was a mere trifle. I did well on the Latin, and as for the Greek, only myself and another student attended it the rest all staid away, and no account will be taken of them. I received the cigars, and you may tell Henry that those who have smoked them here, think them equal to anything so much for his judgment. I am well fixed at Mrs. Phillips' and I hope to stay here I have got number 1 7 and have my carpet laid down in the same. I told her the next day after I came that I would sooner go in College than take her other room, and behaved on the whole considerably like the P. of O. when he said " advance " or " retire " to the servants which dignified and gentlemanly deportment got me everything that I wanted. There is a book which I may want when we get a little further in Cicero, viz., " Henry's History of Philosophy," 2 vols, price one dollar. I find that it is much the best course for me to take to send for books to Philadelphia those which I received from you would have cost $2.00 or more here. If Henry can pick those books up cheap, let him try they are Har- PRINCETON 55 per's fam. library edition. Give my best love to Father, Sisters, and Henry, and believe me Your affectionate son. P. S. How is Mary? She was quite ill when I came away. Tell Henry to keep ahead in his Spanish. Were the French books all right ? Mind and cover the " Amis des en- fants," for it is a valuable book. Yours affectionately, CHARLES G. LELAND. I print no more of the Princeton letters, be cause the rest are mainly taken up with the same subject of lodging, entering into minute details in connection with it that would seem pathetic to any steam-heated, electric-lighted student of to-day. " I have paid Voorhees 4.75 for y of a cord of wood ; " "I have got half a cord of wood ; " "I have about three barrels of coal left and plenty of candles ; " are notes I find in letter after letter. I fancy, however, that all the relations between father and son, as they were then, would seem bar barous to a modern student with his own tailor and his own bank account. The son might rise to the dignity of Freshman, Sopho more, Junior, Senior, he might already be an 56 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND adept in Neo-Platonism and a Master of German philosophy, but he still had to go, like a child, to the father for his clothes and the money to pay for them. " I do not want any clothes at present. I may perhaps want a pair of pants next vacation but not before," one letter says. And the next : " I wish that you would get my boots made with high heels not through any motive of foppery, but I really want them made so to wear with these summer pants. If you would bring me also a pair of leather straps and y 2 a doz. steel pens you would oblige me very much." Curiously it is for his mother all talk about the books he reads, and the " pieces " he writes, is reserved. " I have been reading lately in the different Platonic commentators," he tells her ; " Cudworth, Taylor, etc. ... I was very much troubled by Henry's old news papers this morning, change not being handy, but the * Legend of Albertus Magnus ' simply atoned for all that. I hope that he will send me everything of the kind that he can find." His "pieces," as early as 1842, were appear ing in the college and other magazines. " Mind and look out for the c Magazine for the PRINCETON 57 Million,' and send it to me if my piece is in," he asks, and from the following passage I gather that Philadelphia or the very small part of Philadelphia with literary aspirations began to talk of his " pieces " in that same year. Miss Leslie is, of course, the Miss Leslie of cookery fame, his mother's old friend, whom he had known since his child hood. " I am extremely flattered by Miss Leslie's commendation, the more so as it agrees with the opinion of our Jersey news papers in this and other towns, all of which have spoken of my piece, as well as the others, in a flattering manner." Some of these " pieces " are in my posses sion, and they have such themes as " Pro gress of the Soul," "Later Mystics in the Middle Ages," " The Dream Angel," this last dated " Nov. 30 and Dec. ist, 1844. That is I began it on the night of Nov. 3Oth and fin ished it on the afternoon of Dec. ist. I sat up till two or 3 o'clock last night, writing it, and got a most inconveniently cold breakfast at a late hour this morning." Then, below, in different ink : " It has since appeared in the 'Knickerbocker' of Jan. 1845." He was tak ing things at Princeton seriously, as every 58 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND healthy, right-minded young student should, but he had the gift then, as throughout life, 4 of taking them humorously as well, and in these letters to his mother he could some times throw off his graver responsibilities for the sake of a laugh. " I have just come from Greek Testament recitation," he could go out of his way to write to her, " where I heard the following translation Matthew 8. 20. * The birds have their holes, and the foxes of the air their nests. " When I remember Tom Brown and the "lion's provider," I have my suspicion that the Rye had reasons of his own for letting Henry write home of a still gayer jest. Neither of the brothers often permitted him self the least flippancy in writing to the fa ther, but Henry, plainly, was too bubbling over with the fun of it to resist telling him, " There is a menagerie in Princeton, and there is a man here with it who will bring out a wild denizen of the forest, that is, a lion. It is a queer name for this animal, to be sure, but yet this name goes down very well here, and I suppose will serve to gull some few poor fellows." The Princetonian may explain, if he can, the relations between the " wild deni- PRINCETON 59 zen of the forest " and his own song of Van Ambergh and the marvellous menagerie, upon such important matters in college his tory I would not venture to speak with a pre tence of authority. I often wondered, though I always forgot to ask the Rye, whether it was he who wrote that song. If the Rye's letters to his father were sel dom gay, they were always cheerful. He kept up as brave a front as he could, though he never found Princeton congenial. He had his friends, and friends help to lighten the heaviest burden. How well they entered into his interests and fancies, I know from the little pile of their letters which he carefully preserved. " I shall call and see you and hear you relate the adventures you have had since I saw you," one friend writes to " Princeton, i. e. land of smoke," from Pitts- burg, in the midst of the holiday labour of " learning to play the flute and clarionet so I can entertain the ladies." " I have heard of your writings," a second tells him, in 1842 : " your grand entree has been the talk about town for weeks past." " My dear Behmenite," a third begins, and goes on to beseech him to throw Behmen into the Delaware and Para- 60 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND celsus to the winds, to let lamblicus and the whole host of Neo-Platonists perish together, and to try Boccaccio instead. Other friends regret that they have not been reading some interesting work on mental philosophy that they might converse with him upon it, or they upbraid him for his heartlessness in sending them Kant to translate, while the Fonte who appears for a moment in the family corre spondence finds it "devilish lonely "in Prince ton without the young " Transcendentalist," detained at home by illness. He longs " for a real intellectual talk once more, I care not how Gothic or spiritual," and is much obliged for the pipes the convalescent has not forgotten to procure for him. Of long talks late into the night, over these and other pipes, there are many hints; there is also much light and cheerful banter; and the impression the letters have left with me is that the friends the Rye made at Princeton were one of the few compensations it offered for its heartlessness as Mala Mater. Another compensation was in the pleasant ness of his relations with two or three of the professors who proved sympathetic : Joseph Henry, " the first natural philosopher and PRINCETON 61 lecturer on science then in America ; " James Alexander, clear-headed, but with the stern ness of a Covenanter in his glance ; and, above all, Albert Dodd, a man in whom " an Italian witch, or red Indian, or a gypsy would at once have recognised a sorcerer," and who, as professor, lectured on architecture, a subject this one of his students had already studied " passionately," and moreover from the same standpoint. But these men were then exceptions, and, as at school, the youth was forced back upon his own resources. He continued to read voluminously, uncontrolled save by personal inclination. " I did not read for a purpose, but to gratify an intense passion," is the reason jotted down in the " Memoranda." He knew too much of Kant, had listened too often to Dr. Furness, to be guided in his reading by pro fessors who shrunk from Voltaire and Tom Paine and other " exploded dangers," and who prescribed Paley's " Evidences of Christian ity." It was like inviting Carlyle's young lion to a feast of chickweed, he thought. Left to direct his own reading, he chanced upon vast measures of strange matter in the library of the Princeton Theological Seminary. Out 62 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND of a cob-webbed dusty pile of books in a corner of a waste-room, he raked a black- letter Lyly's " Euphues," an " Erra Pater," and other marvels so little esteemed in Princeton that one of the professors, seeing him " daft with delight over his finds," told him he was welcome to keep them, which he was too honest to do, and they may be now some where on the library shelves of a more en lightened Faculty. Of his unhappiness at Princeton I shall say no more. His " Memoirs " give details interest ing to the historian of the college. But the years there leave a blank in the history of his own development. He did graduate at the end of four years, but he agreed with an unknown writer who, a quarter of a century later in " The Nas sau Monthly," declared that if Charles God frey Leland had become known in literature, it was in spite of his college. Because he fell so short in mathematics, he was rated the lowest except one of his class. The authori ties, apparently, were conscious of some in congruity between the brilliant talents of the student and the lowness of his grade. For, of the two great honours, the Valedictory PRINCETON 63 Oration and the Valedictory Poem, the sec ond was awarded to him. But his youth ful pride had been hurt to the quick. He declined the honour, though he wrote the poem and submitted the manuscript to the Faculty to show them that they were not mistaken and that he was not unworthy of the distinction. From Princeton he returned to Philadel phia, much as he had left it : as unversed in the ways of the world as " most boys in the United States are at twelve or thirteen," an insatiate reader of books, a dreamer to whom the past was more real than the present, and the mysteries of nature and philosophy as important as the practical problems of exist ence ; a youth as little fitted to face the busi ness of life as the student had been prepared to face the business of college. He often re gretted it, he often thought what he might have been, what he might have done, brought up in another town and trained in the stimu lating atmosphere of " liberal " Harvard. It is true that Boston, or even New York, com bined with Harvard, might have turned him out a literary man, a professor, of the regula tion pattern. But Philadelphia and Princeton 64 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND did better. They left him to develop himself on his own lines, a fact, much as he was in clined to deplore it, that helped to make of him one of the most picturesque figures and strongest individualities in American litera ture. CHAPTER III HEIDELBERG FORTUNATELY for the Rye, the problem of a career was postponed for a little. His father suggested that he should go to Europe, partly for his health, which continued delicate, partly for study. Half a century later, he could not write without something of the old joy in everything the three years that followed (1845-1848) had been to him. What "going to Europe " meant to any American sixty years ago is not easy to understand to-day, when it has become a national habit. Still less easy is it to realize all it represented to this special young American, who had, " as indeed for many years before, such a desire to visit Europe that I might almost have died of it." Passage was engaged in a sailing ship bound for Marseilles. With him was his cousin, Samuel Godfrey, then threatened with consumption, for whom the journey was a last but unsuccessful bid for strength ; and among his fellow-passengers was Fanny 66 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Kemble, already too famous, however, to condescend to speak to any one on board. I doubt if life ever held for the Rye another moment as fair as the moment of sailing, unless, indeed, it was when, weeks later, on that slow, that deliciously slow sailing vessel, "a fishing smack came clipping under her lees " I can fancy his joy in the nautical sound of it and, at the captain's request, he flung down a question in Spanish to the fish erman : " Adonde venga V. ? " where do you come from ? The cynical may see in this only a phrase that any child or bungler could borrow from a phrase-book. But to the young Philadelphian it was the miracle of miracles, for it was his first word in a European lan guage to a European in Europe ! What is now the commonplace of travel was to him an endless marvel. Every person he saw seemed a figure out of romance, every word he heard was music in his ears. The first landing was at Gibraltar, " like a fancy ball" he thought its streets, remembering sober Philadelphia. When his ship set sail again, it was to skirt a coast where there were ruins to sketch all day long ; when he came into the harbour of Marseilles, it was to see HEIDELBERG 67 the sails he had never as yet seen except on old Phenician coins, to hear the boatmen crying aloud in the tongue of the trouba dours, strange to him hitherto except on the printed page. And scarcely had he set foot upon Proven9al shores before he was deep in adventures of a kind that always had for him a curious fascination, the adventures with strange people that he was to seek eventually in the Gypsy camp and among the witches of Tuscany. A fellow-passenger, an actor, got into difficulties, and the young Leland, called to the rescue, found himself in a den of Spanish smugglers, and his story of how he sang their own smuggling songs not learned at Princeton " with a crowd of dark, fierce, astonished faces round" him, reads like the description of many a visit to a Romany tent in the years to come. Then the captain of the ship had taken a fancy to the Philadel phia boy, he was really little more, in many ways so ignorant, in many ways so full of the knowledge least to be looked for from him, and in Marseilles introduced him to an old slaver and pirate, company that would have startled the family at home, living the respectable life of Walnut Street 68 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND But the picturesqueness of place was call ing, and Provence overflowed with it. Mont- pellier, Aries, Nimes, Avignon were towns study had made as familiar to him as Phila delphia and Princeton, Dedham and Milford. It was like having old dreams come true to stand in front of their " antiquities," to pass between the olive gardens and vineyards of this "sunburnt-land," to live for a day or a night where troubadours long since sang the songs that, reechoing across the centuries and the seas, had reached him in the still songless town on the Delaware. He found it natural to be there, that was the strangest part of it all. He used to laugh when he re membered the youthful assurance with which he had talked of Proven9al art and song to Saint-Rene Taillandier, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction. After Provence, it was Italy ; the journey by sea from Marseilles to Naples, with one day at Leghorn on the way, another at Genoa. In his " Memoirs " he congratulates his read ers on their escape because the journal he kept at the time was not then at hand to quote from. But whoever cares for Italy, or the study of character in its development, must regret HEIDELBERG 69 that this journal is not yet, and therefore probably never will be, " at hand," never can be quoted from. For the Italy he saw was the wonderful old Italy, vanished as completely as his daily notes of it, while the travels of those impressionable years rounded out the work begun by Philadelphia and Princeton, bringing what he calls his " buds of strange kind and promise " to their flowering. He stayed "a long beautiful month" in Naples; then, by vettura, and the word to him was so full of romance, I have not the heart to use the plain English carriage, he jour neyed on to Rome, to Florence, to Venice. The landmarks these of the regulation Cook's Tour, it may be objected. But in 1846 Cook did not exist, the regulation tour had not been invented, and the journey appeared one of some hazard to the least imaginative traveller. To the youth who had almost died of his desire for Europe, it was a much more emo tional, much more wonderful undertaking. The hope of " strange " adventures gave zest to every stage of it. In Naples things went tamely, but there was the delightful conscious ness that, had he not joined company with Mr. James Temple Bowdoin of Boston and 70 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Mr. Mosely, editor of the "Richmond Whig," friends made on the boat from Marseilles, he might already have been " the beloved chief of a band of Gypsies, or brigands, or witches, or careering the wild sea-wave as a daring smuggler." He really would could never have been anything so lawless. But he had a literary sense of the value of the situation that turned the possibility into an enormous adventure in itself. In Rome, he spent days of "glorious scampering and investigating, rooting and rummaging" in "galleries and gardens, ruins and palaces ; " he shared in the splendour and the gaiety of the Carni val, " the last real one which Italy ever beheld " the Carnival of 1 846 ; he was a guest at the famous Torlonia entertainments. But the crowning pleasure was the chance that made him the lodger, and promptly the friend, of Giuseppe Navone, the head of the Roman police, to whom the pirate of Marseilles was as " a lamb and an angel of light." Here was the substance of adventure, not the shadow, and Rome dwindled into a background for this " rum couple of friends." The journey to Florence was by vettura and boat, but if won ders were passed by the way, they were lost HEIDELBERG 71 in the amazement of the traveller at finding himself a " pet child of the Roman police " and learning that " the great and good Navone had done it all." In Florence there were pictures to be seen, Proven9al and Italian poetry in illuminated MSS. to be read, Hiram Powers and other popular artists to be vis ited, ices to be eaten at Doni's; but there were also lovely Polish countesses with extraordi nary "table manners" and more extraordinary political views, and Polish anarchists in red dressing-gowns and looking the "sorcerer just out of a Sabbat." In Venice well, " There had been a time in America when, if I could have truthfully declared that I had ever been in a gondola, I should have felt as if I held a diploma of nobility in the Grand Order of Cosmopolites." And " so we passed through beautiful Lombardy and came to Domo d' Ossola." And the Simplon was the road, by way of Switzerland, to Germany, the home of Kant and Fichte and Hegel, the home by study and sympathy of this " strange duckling " in the Princeton brood, known with a thoroughness that won for him, before he crossed the frontier, the nickname of " Germanicus." 72 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND From letters written to him at the time by his father and mother, and, above all, by his brother, Henry Leland, I gather that he sent home glowing accounts of this journey. But in my collection of his papers there is nothing relating to it, except a fragment of a letter, never finished, to his friend William Tiffany. This may be because the descriptions he wrote for his family were passed on by them to 11 Godey's Lady's Book," " Neal's Gazette," and, eventually, the " North American," which was strongly and rightly recommended to him by his mother as a paper of more weight and im portance. She, anyway, saw how things were drifting -and was quick to encourage him in publishing all he could, for she had heard, so she wrote him, .that, as a rule, literary men of eminence began by contributing to the press. His letters, before they got into print, must naturally have been somewhat edited, in the process losing the personal note which was their great charm ; for this reason I prefer to quote the gay little fragment preserved by chance in the Rye's letter files, rather than to resurrect letters transformed into news paper articles. HEIDELBERG 73 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO WILLIAM TIFFANY BERNE, May 2d, 1846. DEAR TIFFANY, A very pretty madchen has just brought me up my allowance of beer for the evening I have a terrible! atrocious! meerschaum in my mouth. In the next room (separated by a wall four feet thick) a company of officers are making merry. By me is a SHORT bed, about four feet deep with mat tresses ; on top lies an eider down quilt almost as thick. Where am I ? In the German Schweitz in the ancient city Berne in the Pfistern-Zunft ! or the Abbaye des Bou- langers. All is Dutch and of the Middle Ages ! The very house is of an awful anti quity. I find that the hochehrende Gesell- schaft occupied it in 1573. ... Well, now you know the circumstances 1 11 begin. Henry must have informed you of my travels in dif ferent countries and of my visiting several small towns in Frankreich and Welshland how I honoured the Pope by going to mass when he was there, etc. Since which time I have floated in gondolas, lounged in cafes and seen operas at La Scala in Milan. Then I 74 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND went " ober de mountain " in the Alps, an ad venture which several tough Swiss have since wondered at, and under the circumstances it was deemed dangerous only 20 feet of snow at the time, " with more coming." Well, at last I arrived at Geneva dull town and only relieved by the cigars, which were the first real Havanas I have found abroad in shops. Being an American, I was considered as un- cheatable and got good ones. Then I went to Lausanne beautiful exceedingly ! Gothic church, etc., view of the Lake, and from Lau sanne to Berne and now you see ! ! I am travelling all alone, and have not spoken a word of English for five or six days. While in Geneva I became acquainted with a certain Rosenmund a Waff enschimdt who did some small work for me. He naturally liked me as American and said solemnly to me, " When you go to Berne go to the Pfistern- Zunftr I did so. Do you know what a Zunft is ? In the Middle Ages there were certain guilds or corporations formed which received all strangers of a similar trade for instance, the Baker Guild received travelling bakers. As the bourgeois got the upper hand, these institutions became aristocratic and noblemen HEIDELBERG 75 joined them. In Berne they still exist, but have so far changed as to receive anybody. Still, they are very different from hotels. The next room to mine is the Hall, a most antique apartment where the Guild, or Zunft, has held its sittings for several centuries. There is a tremendous smell of stale tobacco smoke pervading said room, as you may imagine. On one side hangs a noble, cavalier-looking por trait of an old burgher, which is as old as the society, and a curious clock, etc., make me feel as if I were reading Washington Irving's accounts of the Old Dutch burgmeisters. I always lounge in it (the room), and amuse myself by imagining the speeches and pala vers which have been going on. Berne is a noble old town. Every house, like Bologna, has an arcade where our front parlour would be, or a sort of portico, over which the upper stories project, which consequently forms a covered walk. But such immense massy pil lars as support them ! so squat and stumpy looking, as if they all said, " Hier bin ich und hierwillich bleiben? The whole town is built " jiss so." Around are very fine walks com manding such scenes as you see in annuals. The houses have immense projecting roofs. 76 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND At every turn you find a fountain very an cient and everywhere, on post, pillar, foun tain and house you see painted, sculptured, or moulded the Bear of Berne. The Bear is a great man here. He is on the money the butter. The famed town clock, manufactured A. D. 13 , is a perfect complication of bears, which ride in at one hole and out at the " t' other." A fountain represents Bear armed like a knight while I amused myself this afternoon by watching two live Bruins kept in a " Baargraben " just near the " Aarburg Thor." As a curious fact, I will mention that the natives here think that I speak beautiful pure German, and well they may, as far as pronunciation is concerned. They do pro nounce German here in the worst manner imaginable. I have had this evening a long talk with the Herr Wirth's tochterlein she calls " allein " " allene," etc. As long as I am not out for a word, they do not know but what I am talking as good German as themselves. I find it to be true, what I have often sus pected, that if a man talks German at all, he will always find some Germans who talk it worse, and they talk it ten times better here HEIDELBERG 77 than in some other districts. I have heard a patois (half Italian) in which German words ending like Italian occurred ! This was in Simplon. In Italy the Rye had had no more definite object than to see all there was to be seen. In Germany he meant to work. For the Ameri can student to take a post graduate course on the Continent was not uncommon. Motley at Gottingen and Berlin, Holmes at Paris, Long fellow at Heidelberg, were no mere excep tions. The young Princeton graduate wanted not to follow any special course, but to profit by the atmosphere and influence of a college more liberal than his own, and, his father leaving him free to make his plans, he decided upon Heidelberg. Howitt's " Student Life in Germany," he says, helped him to this decision. Heidelberg was then probably the best known of all the German universities, thanks to its popularity in romance, and the town was one of the most picturesque in the country, though another young enthusiast fresh to Europe, W. W. Story, was to be bit terly disappointed in this picturesqueness only three years later. To the Rye, the seeker 78 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND after the marvellous, everything was a sepa rate marvel town and university both ; his own blunders ; the Herr Gottsdonnerwetter of the beadle ; the welcome given him by the American students, and the fact that there were Americans to welcome him ; the beer he drank after his first dinner, twelve sctioppen without a tremor, as if already seized with the terrible thirst the brave Von Rodenstein be queathed to the students of Heidelberg; the Grand Duke of Baden knocking at his door ; anything and everything in the first be wildering excitement of it all. And, more marvellous, he never got over his astonish ment at himself and his sudden transforma tion. This was ; the real secret of his genius, that he should be able to see what was strange, or queer, , or " rum " in a situation, and not be ashamed to say he saw it, even if he was the hero. Triumph rings in his con fession, at this point, that people who entered into his daily life were tempted to believe his guardian angel, if he had one, must be Poe's Angel of the Odd. The great thing Heidelberg did for him was to teach him how to play. He worked hard enough to satisfy the strictest. It may HEIDELBERG 79 be a comfort to those to whom a foreign language is a puzzle without a clue, to know that the man who was to rival Borrow as La- vengro learned German only by " incredible labour." Once it was mastered, he attended Mittermaier's lectures on history, Gmelin's and Posselt's on chemistry, and he read the literature of the country with his usual im petuosity until he gained the familiarity re vealed as plainly in his original work as in his translations. He would have studied and read anywhere, however, and under any con ditions. Whether he would have played, if left to himself, is another question : there was more Puritan in his blood than Huguenot or " High German." But Heidelberg put him in the right way, and his promptness to follow it surprised himself. " And here I may say once for all," he writes in the " Memoirs," the surprise not yet outlived, " having discovered that, if I had no gift for mathematics, I had a great natural talent for Rheinwein and lager, I did not bury that talent in a napkin, but like the rest of my friends, made the most of it during two semesters in Heidelberg . . . the result of which ' dire deboshing ' was that, having come to Europe with a soul lit- 8o CHARLES GODFREY LELAND erally attenuated and starved for want of the ordinary gaiety and amusement which all youth requires, my life in Princeton having been one continued strain of a sobriety which continually sank into subdued melancholy, and a. body just ready to yield to consump tion, I grew vigorous and healthy, or, as the saying is, * hearty as a buck. ' : At its worst, this terrible " debauchery " meant the consumption of beer, "whole butts of beer," without which play or study or existence is an impossibility to any Ger man, no debauchery at all, some students might protest in scorn. But accustomed to a sterner standard, as he was, the simplest events of Heidelberg daily life savoured of dissipa tion. He found it in the table cChbte, first at the Court of Holland, the inn all the world at least all the student world knows in the song of Scheffel, and then at the Black Ea gle, unsung but as deserving of fame in his eyes. There was adventure in the mere talk with people dining there: for one, the old German poetess to whom Heine had ad dressed his epigrams ; for another, " an elderly and very pleasant Englishman," who turned out to be Captain Medwin, telling stories, HEIDELBERG 8l not yet everybody's property, of Byron, and Shelley, and Trelawney. He found it again in the evenings at the Bremer-Eck, in com pany with none so well remembered as a young Englishman, Ewen P. Colquhoun, who was to remain his friend for life, and Scheffel, whose " Gaudeamus " and " Heidel berg Days," when written, he was to trans late. Gayer still were the more occasional events, the masked balls, ceremonious in Heidelberg, and anything else "over the river," the great university functions, the of ficial receptions, and reunions. But gayest and best of all were the holidays, when, a few necessities thrust into a knapsack, with a few chosen companions he tramped through the pleasant land of vine and song, to Johannis- berg, to Mainz, to Baden, to Frankfurt to hear Jenny Lind sing, perhaps, and a few miles further to Homburg, to get the money to pay for it. " Now there is no more gam bling, and no loose fish (to speak of), and all is very proper and decent," he wrote to Miss Owen from Homburg in 1890, "but when I looked at that same old roulette wheel yes terday in the Museum, I sighed and wished for the dear, good, bad, horrid, awful old 82 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND times. Anyhow, it was jollier then if not quite so moral." And there were other tramps up the Neckar to the Weibertreue. " Who can tell me where Weinsberg lies ? " his mother had recited to him in his boy hood. And now, forever after, he was to re member it for its new associations, for the meeting with Korner, the mystic, the poet, the man of all men he then wished to meet. He could never make up his mind whether Kor ner, seen in the flesh, was most stupendous and unbelievable when he was " drawing airs of exquisite beauty from the jew's-harp," or when, up in the ruins of the castle, he was pointing out David Strauss, " the very incarnation of all that was sober, rational, and undream- like, walking along the road below." It is provoking that, though the Rye kept the letters written to him at this time, so many of his from Heidelberg have disappeared, pro bably in newspaper offices. They were " all that one could wish," they were " Howitt all over, through and through," Henry assured him in answering them. But, while I have enough letters from Henry Leland to make a small book, from the Rye at Heidelberg I can give only two or three. These few, how- HEIDELBERG 83 ever, are full of the spirit of the German uni versity and his own joy in it. There are hints too of his increasing perplexity over the choice of a profession. At Heidelberg he actually thought of turning chemist, as at Munich he was to have some idea of the church: it never seemed to occur to him or his family that literature or journalism might be a profession in itself. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO CHARLES LELAND HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY, July 5, 1846. DEAR FATHER, I have just received yours of the seventh ult, after finishing a letter to Henry. With it, I also received Henry's and Mother's of the i4th. Dear Father how can I ever sufficiently thank you for your kindness? You are indeed a good Father, your letter brought tears to my eyes. My health is perfect. I consider it as thoroughly established. Since I have been in Europe, I have only been sick three days; said sickness was brought on by travelling from Naples to Rome, resulting entirely from over exer tion. You would hardly know me now, I am so strong. I have walked twenty miles a day 84 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND recently with a knapsack weighing twenty pounds, and can eat or drink anything. My companions, five strong young men, all de clined wrestling with me ! I exercise a great deal and at this instant have just come from a long walk. The German plan is to drink weak beer and exercise ; the beer, they say, all turns to nutriment, and is about as strong as spruce beer in America. I used to think it not so, but am convinced that the Germans are right, so long as they limit the beer and do not limit the exercise. One has to keep good hours in a country where, at 9 o'clock, every shop is closed, and by 10 the streets almost empty. Dinner always at one, which is the fashionable hour ; among the lower classes at 12. I hope to hear good accounts of your health. Now that I am abroad, I hate to lose a minute by sickness. Here in Europe there is no occa sion to be unemployed. Every little place is filled with attractions. Even here, in Heidel berg, there are curiosities enough to employ one for a week. I am getting along grandly in German, and do not neglect my Italian ; as for French it seemed in Italy my proper language, not but that I speak it ungram matically. But that, I shall never be cured of. HEIDELBERG 85 I board in a good, common-sense German professor's family, where we get roast meat (with cherry sauce), pancakes, cutlets, and salad all together, eat soup without salt, and Rhine wine on raspberries. Every country has its ways, and a man shews his head by conforming to them, and not, like many trav ellers, making a fuss because things are not as they want them. I can put up with any thing, but like to get things good when I can. After fleas and garlic in Italy, everything seems good in Germany. Remember me to all our friends. If you could give me any hints about studying things which would be useful to me when I go into business, I would be very grateful. With many thanks I remain, Your affectionate son, CHARLES G. LELAND. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO WILLIAM TIFFANY HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY, July 24, 1846. DEAR TIFFANY, I 'm down on you ! Out of your chair, you venerable reprobate start run bolt ! Here is a letter for you from Germany out of the very heart and core of it. And, at last, I am a German student. 86 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND [The curious reader may consult the Heidel berg catalogue for the year 1846, p. 18, where it appears that Carl Leland of America is a studiosus philosophiae, in said University.] There 's schwein for you, or luck. A German university is very much such a place as one supposes it to be. Here, in a small town, are 932 students, differently arrayed in different coloured caps, short coats, long hair (not so common as formerly), pipes and corps bands. These young men fight about four duels, more or less, daily, and average each from 1 8 to 30 schoppens of beer daily. But, since I wrote you last, I have seen not a little of Ger many and Germanism. I had my first taste of it in Switzerland, and, while in Berne, wrote you a long letter which I did not have time to finish, and travelling afterwards put it quite out of my head. Well, my dear fellow, I sleep on short beds or, rather, in little boxes. I wear a student's costume, and drink beer, smoke pipes, eat one o'clock dinners and heavy suppers. I visit old castles and read awful stones of bloody daggers and all man ner of hexerey. I have fully got hold of the idea of Germany. But never let me say Idea again. BEGRIFF, Begriff, that is the word. HEIDELBERG 87 I have been all along the Rhine. I first made the tramp in company with students, on foot, with pipe and knapsack, and returned in steamer. I visited every old ruin. I went all through the Rhine towns. I drank all the Rhine wines. Since then I have visited Baden Baden, and have been into the heart of the Suabian Land ! I made an excursion from Heidelberg to Heilbronn in company with a German student, and from there went to Weinsberg and Lowenberg. Oh ! What have I not seen what adventures ! What times ! What men! What tobacco! What beer! Here, in Heidelberg, I have seen divers duels clash and smash ! But, my dear man, you have no earthly conception of what a people the Dutch are for kneipen. The way they do smoke and drink beer is atrocious! When I get on this subject, sir, I want to write in large very large capitals. I know of one student who drinks forty schoppens of beer in an evening, and a Heidelberg schoppen holds exactly two American table tumblers ! This is a fact. To drink half a dozen large bottles is a mere trifle. As for smoking fudge, the thing is absurd. I could never be gin to tell how much a high pressure Bursch 88 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND could not smoke. In this matter I modestly hint that / am not small. But where the mischief shall I begin? . . . You know what a Kirchweihe is? In some beastly little dorf, the poor and happy peas antry collect of a Sunday to buy things at the fair which, on such occasions, is established. Then " the poor and happy " go and dance in the next Wirthshaus to the music which they find there. Occasionally, the " proud and vi cious nobles" (I mean students) intrude on those scenes of festive mirth, on which occa sions " the poor and happy " behave in a very vulgar and rustic manner unless the " proud and vicious " should happen to be in the majority. I patronise everything of the kind myself, although in America these things would be shocking vulgar. However, as I have seen princes, dukes, barons, earls, counts, etc., dancing there, I presume that an Ameri can might. How well these Dutch waltz every dirty blackguard and servant girl in Germany can dance well. . . . Well, it is something to be a student here. You need not know even French to become one. All you have to do is to pay down five dollars, and sign your name, and attend lee- HEIDELBERG 89 tures. Then you are a student, and of all the glorious, starry lives, that of a German Bursch is the fastest. A good-hearted, hard-headed, thirsty, bullet-proof, loud-singing sort of a fel low is the Bursch. I was meant to go to a German university, I believe, because I find myself so exactly "set " here. Just right A man, to be a real German student, need not be a rowdy. He finds all sorts of people, and he gets the Begriff 'of student life just as well in a quiet, gentleman-like way, as I flatter myself that I do, as if he got drunk and held a Scandal every day. I find good, quiet, nice fellows here. I live quietly, read, write, smoke my pipe, and drink a little beer. You ask if I have got Minnesangers. A grand collection have I of the old Deutsch poetry. One singular thing in the German stu dents is the singular way in which they con trive to combine deep reading and extensive information, with their student ways. The fact is, that the fun does not always stick to the man. He has months together of hard study, and during his long vacations he al ways travels. I have known students to go to Arabia, Egypt, and Asia Minor, and come back to their studies!! One went lately to 9 o CHARLES GODFREY LELAND America during vacation ! And they visit every part of the Continent. I think that I have never met a German student who had not travelled. I know two personally who are going to Italy, and as for Switzerland, 'tis nothing. One told me yesterday that if he had 200 thalers (about $75), he would go all over Switzerland and the north of Italy ! He wants me to walk with him. I don't think I shall. Real good fellows with knowledge of every sort, and who contrive to throw some thing intellectual into all their hurrahings, are common in German universities. . . . CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES LELAND HEIDELBERG, Oct. 27, 1846. DEAR MOTHER, I am still in the German University of Heidelberg, and studying chem istry, even as you advised me in a previous letter. I still enjoy good health, and still await with as much eagerness as ever the arrival of certain letters from America, from Messrs. Greene and Co., Paris, directed to Monsieur Charles Leland, Poste Restante, Heidelberg. And I am sure if you knew how gladly I pounce upon them, you would think I deserved as long ones as I send. I HEIDELBERG 91 am much pleased with your letters, although I think that, generally, all of my letters from home, Mcllvaine's and Wm. Tiffany's ex- cepted, are very deficient in that personal and verbal description of friends which is highly interesting. I like the girls' letters, for I think that they will write well in time. But nothing so convinces me that the long time I have been away is making you forget me, as the letters I receive. Now, here am I, with a great deal to do, writing long letters to each one. Now, certainly, each one ought to write to me, and this is an affair which, cer tainly, admits of no excuse. I never heard of any lover who could not find tiirfe to pen his billets doux, even if he was busy 26 hours in the 24, and brothers and sisters ought cer tainly to do as much, for I can find many a lady love in this life, but only one brother and three sisters. The only earthly excuse is the postage, and that is easily remedied. Paper a little lighter writing a little closer and the affair is arranged. This is principally for Henry. His last letter was pretty long, and desperate hard work he had, I imagine. Well, how are all our friends ? Poor Sam ! [Godfrey]. Henry merely mentioned his 92 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND death ! But I really cannot speak of it. So Mary Laurence is to be married ? I suppose that everybody will be matched and paired off before I get home. Remember me to her, and her mother, and Mrs. Hale and daugh ter, and Mrs. Stewart, and Mrs. Newman, and everybody, very particularly, that I ever de sired to be remembered to. If you can get a chance, tell Mr. Furness that I remained the first six months in a German university as a student of philosophy, and have turned off into the " exact sciences," or natural phi losophy i. e. chemistry. How Professor Henry's heart will dance with joy when he hears it! That ever it should have happened ! Get me letters for Berlin, for I must go there before I leave Germany. You must read my letter to Father. I had a talk with a great German poetess a day or two ago named, I think, Chezy. She had been very intimate with Mad. de Stael and told me about her. It is said that she has been well acquainted with most of the great people in Europe, as she is highly talented, and was lady of honour to the Queen or Princess of Wurtemburg. Through her I was introduced to the Baron Hohenhausen,a real old aristocrat, who passes HEIDELBERG 93 his life in raking up things relating to his family, which I believe dates from Noah. Also to an old German professor of antiquities, on whose heart I made such a strong impression by my knowledge of Middle Age things, that he kept calling me the Herr Baron, conclud ing of course that none but a nobleman of at least twenty quarterings could know so much about such things. And he concluded by begging me to come and see him, so things go. But for all this, I want some letters of introduction to somebody, for a young man who depends solely upon " run ning his face" has after all no real claim upon anybody. It is strange, but I have uniformly found most attention from those I least expected it from. As in Florence, where a Mr. Reynolds was very kind to me, while some, such as Waller, hardly noticed me. I find that it is a good way to do the honours of Heidelberg, as much as I can, to all Americans. The great difference between Americans and English travelling abroad lies in this (I ought to confine it to the young men), that the Americans all get together and keep the run of one another in such a manner that, when they do meet, they are 94 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND acquainted at once. For example, there is one in Berlin, G , whom I have never seen, yet we have heard of one another. And so with many others. y* past 12. I am just from laboratory and lecture, and think that chemistry would be a nicer study if all its unpleasant fumes could be taken away. The weather here is settled, cool and cloudy, if it can interest you to know anything about the weather in a place 4000 miles off. I regret extremely that the steamer now sails only once a month, and, as I before remarked, I trust that you will make it up by extra letters. It has always struck me as strange that the industrious ones in Phila delphia seldom or never write and never know any news, while I, with no particular claims to industry, write letters long enough to satisfy the most rapacious. But my pa tience will not last for ever, although I must say that I feel ashamed of the thought of sending a short, dull, flat letter across Ger many, France, England, and the Atlantic ! . . . Give my best love to Father, Henry and Sisters, and believe me to be Your affectionate son, CHARLES. CHAPTER IV MUNICH THE longest tramp from Heidelberg took the Rye to Munich. This was in 1847. Munich was a town he had greatly desired to visit " in order to study art and to investigate funda mentally the wonderful and mysterious science of aesthetics, of which I had heard so much." He settled down there. The life was the same as at Heidelberg, full of the same hard work and the same hard play ; only the back ground had shifted. The lectures on aes thetics were by Professor Friedrich Thiersch Heine's " dear and noble-hearted friend Thiersch" and he supplemented them by study in the Pinacothek and Glyptothek. He attended also the lectures on modern history by Professor Karl Friedrich Neu mann, whose work on the visit of Chinese monks to Fusang, or Mexico, in the fifth century the student translated into Eng lish ; and Professor Beckers 's on Schelling, and it was in the course of these that he was 96 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND overtaken by the greatest surprise yet. For as he listened to Beckers, he began to realise that his old gods were tumbling. He began to see that the psychological systems and theories he had evolved from his reading at home and Princeton " were all only very ingenious shufflings and combinations and phases of the same old cards of Pantheism, which could be made into Theism, Pietism, Atheism, or Materialism, to suit any taste. I was advancing rapidly to pure science, though Evolution was as yet unknown by the name, albeit the Okenites and others with their Natur-Philosophie were coming closely to it." Disillusion was inevitable, sooner or later, to him as to so many young thinkers in the forties. At Princeton, it might have led to despair. But there was no despair in the free air of Munich. Marvels fill his description of student life at Munich as at Heidelberg, and, again, inter esting people figure in his reminiscences : a son-in-law of Jean Paul Richter with whom he often dined ; Taglioni, who danced on the Munich stage ; Lola Montez, the king's favourite of the day, cordially hated by all Munich for an interference in public affairs MUNICH 97 hardly to be expected from the " very small, pale, and thin or frele little person, with beau tiful blue eyes and curly black hair," who flits across the pages of the " Memoirs." " And so, with study and art and friends, and much terrible drinking of beer and smoking of Varinas-Kanaster, and roaming at times in gay greenwoods with pretty maids alway, and music and dancing, the Munich semester came to an end." The remaining documents of his student life in Munich are an amusing little silhouette of himself in student's cap, with long hair, and the beginning of the later great beard, and also several letters. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES LELAND MUNICH, April i, 1847. DEAR, DEAR MOTHER, I beg any amount of pardons for neglecting you so much, but I really feel when I have written home that I have sent a letter to everybody. My health is still good and I am as happy as ever. How foolish it is to think that there is no real enjoyment in this world ! With health, enthu siasm, and youth, and some information, one can be really content. In Heidelberg I was 98 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND never weary ; what between reading, and chem istry, and waltzing, smoking and the thousand peculiarities of German studentism, I passed my time very pleasantly. I am more attached to Germany than ever. I really believe I am a German, although my French and Italian experiences have left their traces on me. For two weeks I have only spoken English two or three times. I live at present in a very delightful city, filled with picture galleries and beautiful buildings. As a student, I have acquaintances everywhere for German stu dents are almost like Freemasons, and are always together I arrived here a perfect stranger, with one letter of introduction, to a gentleman who desired me, through his ser vant, to call the next day, which polite request I neglected of course. I looked round town, found students, and before two days had plenty of acquaintances. . . . This city is Catholic to the last degree and much more bigoted than Rome. Lent is now drawing to a close and it is really painful to see the effects of the fasting upon some of the poor creatures. I saw yesterday a young girl who waits on us in the cafe, unable to do anything, nearly in a faint. I asked her if MUNICH 99 she was sick. " Oh, nein" (no), she said but it was so hard to go so long without eating. To-day is a regular fast nobody eats any thing except beer (a blunder !). Now as the Germans generally eat enough for three ploughboys, women, ladies, and all, and as there is none of our sham delicacy on the subject of eating as much as one wants, you can imagine how hard it is for them. A young German lady will eat as much before com pany as she wants and that is no small quantity and here in Bavaria will drink a quart of beer after it. I was at a ball this winter (and a fine one it was) ; there were some of the greatest literary and political men in Germany, with their wives and daughters* There was Welcker and Gervinus^vb.vs\ whom you will find very highly praised in Howitt, and who, at this present political crisis, are considered two of the very first men in Ger many, with many others. Mrs. Gervinus is one of those wonderful women, uniting beauty, talent, and a great education. There were the family of Roscoe, the great English writer, etc. Well, the supper for this fine ball con sisted principally of cold meat and potato salad, with " trimmings." There were many ioo CHARLES GODFREY LELAND other good things, but the gentlemen and ladies stuck to that principally (and if they eat one ounce, they eat two pounds). There was good white wine, which the young studenten gentlemen patronised largely. After we had all waltzed ourselves to pieces, at a late hour, rum and hot water, for the gentlemen, was in troduced, and they drank, the ladies looking on. Some of the students did drink a little. Well, notwithstanding all this, I can assure you that a more refined, respectable, decent assembly I never saw, and a man not accus tomed to a high tone of respectability would certainly not have found himself at home there. The Germans are a very natural peo ple, more so in Munich than in any other place. Everybody drinks beer here terribly. I heard a beautiful young lady, the daughter of a King's secretary, say to-day that she had had nothing all day long to eat or drink ex cept a quart of it. Beer is better than nothing, I suppose. Well, I don't know how it is to be done, but I would like to make you under stand how all this can be united to true re finement. As for me, I smoke, eat, drink, and waltz, just like any German. My health is good but how I dread to return to our MUNICH ioi American summers and winters! I am con fident, that, had I remained in America, I should not have lived long. When I think of some of my sicknesses and contrast them with my present splendid healthiness, I think, " Oh, you poor fellow ! " Do you find my letter badly written ? I really find some difficulty in writing English, not having had lately much practice. Let a person not speak English more than twice in two weeks, and it is astonishing how hard it comes to speak it as he should. I did so lately, and an English friend came to Munich, then I always kept speaking German to him ! He was a friend in Heidelberg. There are some magnificent buildings here. Although I have seen Italy all through, and much of France and Germany, I still can admire the beautiful wherever I find it. Such magnificent churches are not to be seen in America. Almost everything here is quite new. All has been done by King Ludwig, who spends all his money in buying fine pictures and building splendid edifices. It is here the great source of German Art! Here in this city are three thousand young artists ! Nearly all devoted to the revival of the Middle Ages. 102 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Good Friday. Everybody is getting ready the churches are full of lamps and ever greens. Nobody would do any work to-day, or to-morrow, on any account. I told a tailor this morning that the Miinchen people were more pious than the Romans. The shops are full of pieces of meat, every piece ornamented with religious symbols. I saw the Lamb, done in sugar, on a ham with a banner of the Church sticking out from it I wonder the poor creatures can stand this starvation. I like to go into the Catholic churches. You can have no idea of the sublime magnifi cence of a Catholic cathedral. One really feels overcome by these beautiful, melan choly, old Gothic piles. And then, it is beautiful to see highborn, beautiful ladies kneeling down by poor beggar women, all in enthusiastic prayer. You can see a rough, savage fellow often kneeling in tears before the Virgin. If they are wrong, they are at least sincere. The Catholics in my humble opinion are much abused. I never saw in Rome anything to disgust me with them. It may be, that in my passionate admiration of the Arts I only see in the Catholic Church a protector of the Fine Arts. In our Ger- MUNICH 103 man philosophy the Beautiful is one of the forms of God. The German students are all a pack of young heathens as far as prayer goes. One who is subject to external influences from companions (I am not) had better not go abroad. But they are very friendly indeed. It is astonishing how much they know. I verily believe that, in all Heidelberg, there is not a rowdy, beer-drinking Bursch who is not better qualified to be a professor of Greek, or Latin, in Princeton, than either of the respected gentlemen who occupy those places. I was in company with five the other day, each one of whom understood four languages and had each fought about as many duels. I have just received a visit from a young Bursch in long hair, short black coat covered with braid, and broad Byron collar. He was very friendly, inquired if I had fought duels in Heidelberg, and seemed to be astonished when I told him that I did not go loo with swords. He politely invited me to join his fighting club ; this is the second invitation I have had here. I don't care particularly about having my face scarred. The duels are not generally for anything except to try their skill. Be easy as to my 104 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND duelling nothing can induce me to do any such thing. I am to be introduced by him in a few days to a man whom I almost worshipped in America, the great German philosopher Schubert. Henry and Geo. Boker may re member how I used to adore his philosophy. He is a high-pressure transcendentalist, of course. I copied off much of his writings when we lived in Cong. Hall. He is said to be a very friendly man. It is amusing to find how entirely different these great German philoso phers are from what we imagine. They write works too refined, too delicate for mere mor tals, in which there is nothing of this Earth, high-pressure, transcendental, and they may be found, any of them at any time, in a kneip, drinking beer, smoking pipes, and play ing billiards. All of which proves to me their sincerity in their theories. If Henry will read " Hyperion " over, he will find Schubert's name there. N. B. The Frau Himmelauen, whom Long fellow abuses in his novel, was his landlady! in that place. He has not even changed her name. She is a shocking old creature. I wonder if that would be called a poetical revenge. MUNICH 105 There is an American here, a studiosus. I am doing my best to keep out of his way. It is shocking to think how much one must lose on account of this stupid clannish spirit which influences men so much. If I had never met an American or Englishman in Heidelberg, I should have saved money and learnt more. I am sorry to say that the Americans one meets abroad are not, generally speaking, the most creditable representatives of our country. They are decent men, but seldom come abroad with any intention of informing themselves, and are all fearfully extravagant. Well, my wild days are over, I am living quietly and nicely here. I wish you were here to see to my linen my clothes are pretty well up. My American shirts, which have been washed in the Rhone and the Rhine, the yellow Tiber, and the Brenta, and Neckar, and forty other streams more or less clean, are beginning to give way. So, dear Mother, give my love to all. Kiss Sisters and Father and Henry for me, and believe me to be your affectionate son, CHARLES G. LELAND 106 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO HENRY PERRY LELAND MUNICH, April 23, 1847. DEAR HENRY, I 've just received your letter of March 23 and never felt in all my life so completely pleased or satisfied with a human being as with you. Dear brave fel low that you are ! I am, by Heavens, lucky to have a brother whom I see will, when I return, be my most intimate friend, a thing which happens seldom enough among gentle men so allied ! I am touched ! grieved to hear that you have been sick and I mean it ! All my letters, say you, have the appearance of having been opened, and you fervently hope that the individuals who performed that duty may be very essentially damned ! Caro mio, don't suspect any American of it. It 's those rascally, low-lived, never-to-be-aroused-to-a- sense-of-decency police officials in Paris. Greene has twice sent me my letters cut open(^) and resealed with a short inscrip tion, " The letter opened by mistake^ but not read." . . . Well, I've been dining for 12 cents; con found it, why can't I keep money ? Just when I want to be economical, I have a thousand MUNICH 107 demands on my purse. I determined to live cheap till the middle of June, and must pay out a lot for lectures. After dinner, went to the University and fixed my matriculation. There, thank God, the first secretary had a brother in America, and that saved me $1.20! I'll tell the whole story. When you go from one German university to another you must take a departure-testimonial. This I did not do when I left, for I intended to go to Berlin, where I meant to study with out enrolling myself as a student. But one can't live with any comfort in Munich un less he is a real student, so I went to the Uni versity Secretary, told him I had no friends in Heidelberg to take out an Abgangs Zeich- niss for me (dep. test.), so he said, " I '11 be your friend we are half related I 've got a brother in America, so I '11 write to the University and get it for you gratis!" It's something for an American to come here. Mighty few ever do, into this nest of despot ism and Roman Catholicism, beer and aesthet- icism. Don't let yourself be troubled about anything. As the German students say, " I don't disturb my great soul for that." . . . I am amused to think that you have read io8 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND over my early compositions. How do they look ? Poor boy that I was, who would ever have thought, three or four years ago, that you, bright little active devil that you were, would ever have turned out the reader, and I the Dreamer have become the Chevalier. My general beer name is " the Chevalier " in Heidelberg. And yet, after all, I prophesy that you will ultimately become the man of the world, and I, once more, the recluse the student. Now I'll open a depth of my own soul to you. Wherever I go, in all sorts of gaiety, I am always oppressed with a dim, mysterious feeling that this is, after all, but for a time. There are times when I am rolled back, as if by a retreating surge, into the depths of that mysterious Pantheistic philo sophy which, when it has once touched the soul, influences it for ever and ever ! Voices seem to say, Thou art ours thou art ours ; and ever and anon I fall back on the philo sophy of the Absolute stronger than ever! Now if I hope to give my life to literature and philosophy, I must go into Divinity. The first impressions are not readily worn away, and I believe with Schiller, " Keep true to the dream of thy Youth ! " . . . MUNICH 109 Really, I am pleased to hear good news about the war. There is a German who keeps a coffee house here. He was five years in America. I am certain he has been there, for when he speaks English, every fifth word is hell and every tenth damn. The English don't swear much. I have shaken off my prejudices against every nation on the face of the earth, except Jews and English. N. B. I did a Jew twice in Heidelberg, and he did me twice. Sum total, I won. I bought the meerschaum of him, and he afterwards offered me the same sum for it. Read Longfellow's "Poets of Europe" smack through. If you can, read "Rabelais " it did me more good than almost any book I ever read. Read, at least twice, every line that Sterne ever wrote. I am told that a French book called " Le Moyen de parvenir," is worth reading. If you can read Spanish as well as I believe you can, you will have pleasure probably in reading " Queveda" Read all you can get hold of of J. P. Richter. You '11 find " A Dream " of Rich- ter's in an old English magazine at home which, if you read very carefully, will repay reading! ... If you expect to rise, you must understand the combination of Plato, Dante, i io CHARLES GODFREY LELAND and Schelling ! You need n't wait for me to talk to. I can talk across the Atlantic. I had nobody to assist me or enlighten me when, in my sixteenth year, I dug into Spinoza and Kant and Jacob Bohme. Now I recommend you to read carefully all you can of Cousin. Begin with Henry's " Hist, of Phil." And when you have got up a little enthusiasm, thank Heaven for it. I never met a man who was up to Transcendentalism who was n't up to almost anything literary ! . . . I read my letter over, and find much ad vice and very little description.^ What shall I describe ? A student kneip a lot of rowdy young gentlemen swilling beer and smoking pipes a coffee house with a fine band of music playing in an atmosphere so confoundedly dense that you 'd faint in it (I mean smoke). I staid till twelve o'clock last night in such a place. My last hour was spent in listening to a student friend's description of the beautiful way he 'd arrange matters if I should happen to have a pistol duel. He 's a nice youth, has a fight about once a week, challenged a man in a coffee house three days ago, got thrashed like the devil in a row with some Frenchmen, and broke his stick MUNICH in over a Philister's back about a week since. As he was acquainted with a friend of the next gendarme, the Philister was arrested! Eh bien, il faut finir. Read read. Keep up your spirits, and, for the fiftieth time, don't disturb yourself. . . . Write a great deal of poetry. It won't hurt you. I never like to see affectation of any sort ! So drive on. God bless you to all time. Write finer in your next. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES LELAND MUNCHEN, May 8. LIEBE FRAU GUTTER! MY OWN DEAR MOTHER, You have long before this received some letters from me, and I have taken the resolution to write regularly to you and hope that the police, or the old Harry, whoever it is, will allow my letters to get safely to America ; I don't mind their be ing opened and read, but it is really aggravat ing to have them stopped, and then to have the sweet satisfaction of knowing that I am to be blamed for not writing. I am a little lazy, that 's a fact. . . . You will have read in my letter to Mary how annoyed I was at not seeing Mr. Bliss 112 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND and family, who passed through here. To-day I am to meet Professor Beck, from Cambridge, at dinner. The German professors are queer fishes. The other evening a professor of mathematics, a very nice man and generally very quiet man, got as drunk as a fiddler in a coffee house on about twenty tumblers of beer. He was rather proud of it. I congratulated him afterwards on his abilities. In a German university the principle of equality is well developed, and the professors are much more respected by the students than in America, although they are not in the least subject to them. The police part of the university is entirely separated from the Faculty and, for aught I know, the professors may be ar rested as well as the young gentlemen. There is a feeling of real respect for the professors, particularly when they are liberal in their political views. You see how / write, and I think I hear you say, " Fine places your German universities where the professors get drunk ! " Yes, they are fine places for study, and for learning the world, and everything else. They are the best places for education in the whole world, and if some of our Amer ican students could acquire as honourable, MUNICH 113 gentleman-like a tone as I find among the Germans, it would be better for them. I am busy this semester studying everything that pleases me and I must say that I am per fectly contented. I am not yet so old that I need consider the loss of one year as much, since I am acquiring a fund of knowledge worth more than two fortunes. I seem to myself to be ten years older than I was when I left my native land. I mean internally, for I have not changed much outwardly not in the least, I think. Well, dear Mother, I must close. Give my love to everybody, particularly Father, and make him a thousand excuses that I have not written to him this time, as I intended. I hope that he has good health. Kiss the girls all for me. How I want to see Emily my dear little Em.! Your affectionate son, CHARLES G. LELAND. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO HENRY PERRY LELAND MUNCHEN, May, 1847. DEAR HENRY, For once I sit in cold blood resolving to write you a short letter. You deserve a long one, but, without affectation Ii 4 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND and upon my word, I have no time to write one, and if you expect me to write more fre quently you can't of course get as much. Just at present I am very much occupied. Morn ing lectures on history, aesthetik, philos., then study for five hours. I get up at half past five, but just at present am bedeviled with forty small matters which must be attended to. The hard pull is lectures from seven to ten. I get coffee before I go, and when they are out feel just exactly in the humour for a big glass of Bavarian beer and a roll of bread. Since my last, nothing very particular has happened. I had the pleasure of seeing Tag- lioni again night before last in the Sylphide ; cost, 48 cents, third tier there are six alto gether. Taglioni did not seem to me to dance as well as she did in Rome ; in fact I was a little astonished when I recollected the fas cination with which I first beheld her. But, ten to one, I have changed more than Taglioni in that time. Cerito comes here before long. How people talk about these things ! One would suppose that Ellsler and Taglioni were longpassees don't believe it. The Germans are all yet of the opinion that Fanny Ellsler is the first living danseuse, and certainly Fanny MUNICH 115 Ell., Taglioni, and Cerito the three first living. Include Grisi (not the singer). My health is good, and I can really say that I never enjoyed myself so much in Ger many (except perhaps that glorious last se mester in Heidelberg). I am studying now exactly what I like, and none of that infernal chemistry to try soul and body with. What a little stinking Hell our laboratory used to be ! You see that I am not very choice in my expressions, and to tell the truth, as I never swear in English avec la langue, I must blow a few on paper. I can't begin to tell, of course, how my offer in my last letter was received. For fear that the letter was n't received, I '11 repeat it; namely, that I will return home as soon as this semester 's over, if father will send you out to Europe, or anywhere, to show you the world. I really am beginning to for get English. I never talk it and wish never to hear it spoken, confound the ling no, I must not swear at my native tongue ! I have observed nothing particularly new of late. My duelling pistols are loaned out for a rencontre. A Burschenschaft friend of mine was essentially thrashed in a row lately and challenged the aggressor. I hope he will ii6 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND shoot him. Here one sees the real unwashed Bursch in perfection. In Heidelberg the stu dents all dressed very well. I do not recollect ever to have seen a shabby one there, while in Munich some students show themselves so lost to decency as to affect the Tyrolese pea sant's dress, i. e. a coat like a sack with green collar ; and others wear the gendarme pan taloons, i. e. leather from the knee down. Any student who will make himself like a Philister of the lower order is a disgrace to the name. I wear a hat now, a real Paris one with a look ing glass inside, a magnifying mirror it cost $2.80. I would have seconded in that row, but I have not the remotest idea of be ing obligated to leave before the session is over. One must go to France, or Switzerland, directly. I am deep in books now. I would recommend you by all means to go at Italian. If you know Spanish, you will learn Italian in three months, and then read the principal authors through. An interesting topic at present here is the Bock bier. During the month of May, in a certain brewery here a strong beer is brewed called the Bock or goat beer. It is the best beer in the whole world and has for several centuries been annually MUNICH 117 given out. It costs twice as much as common beer, that is, four cents a double tumbler full. During the time a Bock newspaper is pub lished and the whole population talk all the time about Bock. . . . Your affectionate brother, CHARLES G. LELAND. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO HENRY PERRY LELAND MUNICH, June 3, 1847. DEAR HARRY, To-day is ^festa, a regu lar lump of laziness. All the principal streets are lined with green branches, every house has three or four young trees before it, and red and yellow flags, cloths, and carpets hang before all the houses. I have n't seen any thing to compare with it since the Carnival in Rome. A magnificent procession, includ ing the rascal " Louis the Kind," and the Archbishop, and all sorts of banners, incense, and priests, soldiers, virgins with palms, etc., went through the said streets this morning. r I saw it before the Cafe Hildebrand in the Kaufinger Gasse, and was much pleased. Then I saw it again in the Schrannen Platz, and, finally for a last time, in the Ludwig- n8 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND strasse. In each place an altar was erected and mass, I believe (I am not au fait in the Catholic manoeuvres), performed. And the crowd, oh, mein lieber Himmel ! Kots blitz, donnerwetter, parapleu, Himmels sapper lot / / Bauers and Philisters, students and the Devil (who could n't have been overpleased with so much holy water and incense) only knows what all ! All of the people who felt inclined went down on their knees in the streets and prayed, old women loafed around with little garlands for sale, and Roman Catholic Mu nich had a real good holiday after its own way. Out of Naples I know of no city where vice, bigotry and superstition are so much at home. Oh, how jolly one does live here ! The beer must have been awfully punished, to judge from the crowds standing around the Bockgarten, for this is the last day of the famous Bock bier, and they were waiting for it to open. Then I dined and went home to my fourth storey in the Neuhausen Gasse. Night before last I went to the Volkstheater, where only the real genuine German of the middle and lower classes is to be seen. Here the parterre costs from 4 to 8 cents, but, as I was rather shy of the canaille^ I took a place MUNICH 119 in the very first box alongside of the stage, quite private and aristocratic, which cost 75 cents, as the location is separate. The play was Die Todtenglocke auf Hollenstein, or " The Death Bell on the Hellstone," or " The White Lady and the Black Man." Awful hor rors and gloomy phantoms formed its sub stance; the principal objects were knights, spectres, ghosts, phantoms, a burial vault, moonlight ruin (I mean lightning lit), nymphs, genii, a demon monk, considerable blue and red fire, and a combat between the Ritter Wendelin and Walluf von Hollenstein. . . . Ann RadclifTe romances, boiled down and concentrated, were quite tame to it. Hurrah for Germany ! the literary ones and the de cent ones have all eschewed the horrific in literature, but the real old-fashioned solid German of the lower order holds on to it like grim death, and will hold on for the next hundred years, at least in jolly, German, beer-drinking Bavaria. Ask Schmitz what sort of people the Bavarians are. Tell him I say that Prussia is a curse to Germany, and I 'm sorry he 's a Prussian ! ! Your meerschaum, black, chocolate, brown, and yellow and white, hangs up before me oh 120 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND it is a delicious pipe ! never, never have I seen a better. . . . Now for a word over the MSS. [Fusang] I propose sending with this. Don't delay and fiddle with it, but take it to Belcher after reading it over and correcting it. Show him what the German professor says in a note of his book, and get him to sell it for us. I give you all you can get for it, and that certainly ought to be ten dollars. A work on such a subject, and at such a time, written by a celebrated German professor and translated under his revision, ought to be worth pub lishing. If Belcher don't live in Philadelphia, take it to Chandler, get it printed without delay, and get as much money as you can. I had no English geography by me ; wher ever you see a word lead-pencilled, correct its spelling, for I am rather slim in geography. Some such words as Ochtosk puzzle me, but you can easily correct them, and if you can't, let them go, don t give it as an excuse for not getting it published, let it rather go, faults and all. Tell me what you think of the work in your next. I think it is very good. Neumann is a man who seems to know everything under the sun. He speaks and writes more languages MUNICH 121 than I should suppose possible, and has gone to the bottom of metaphysics, history, mathematics, and other matters, and has trav elled the whole world over. Well, how does everything go with thee, dear brother ? Wait- est thou for me ? Well, I 'm a-coming. Some fine day you 11 see me coming up Walnut Street in a cab, with three or four carpet bags, looking as jolly as a German before the Kneip shuts up. Did you ever hear of a book called " Les malheurs de Werther ? " ( Werther was a fool, celebrated in Germany.) Don't play his role. I am summoned I must appear before the police to-morrow I don't know what for. Maybe I 'm to be ordered home as a sus picious subject because I can't eat liverwurst. As for cheap living, I get, in a nice room with good attendance, every day, soup, boiled beef with sauce or salad, vegetables, with a sausage or two, roast meat and pie, for twelve cents, or eighteen kreutzers. I got last night a beefsteak and salad, bread, and two mass, or eight tumblers, of beer for thirty kreutzers. I heard a man say yesterday to another that he went away early " the fact is," said he, 122 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND " I can't stand beer." "Nor /, either? replied Herr Braam, the landlord ; " when I have drunk six mass I am satisfied." Now a Bava rian mass holds four good-sized tumblers. You are not by any means to suppose that a man gets drunk on less than six m. My favourite feat in Heidelberg was to drink a mass without stopping to breathe, but a Ba- disch mass is smaller than a Bavarian. Talking of waltzing, you ought to have seen me waltzing in the Prater the other Sunday. The Prater is to Munich what La Grande Chaumure is to Paris, with the trifling distinction that it is considerably too Philis- trisch for the students, and, to tell the truth, is pretty d d low. I inveigled a young Bursch, with long hair and braided coat, into showing me there. In Heidelberg, where the students are a thousand times more noble and decent than the Bavar., a student dances in the lowest Kirchweihe and is still decent, but the men here never seek such places and so lose lots of fun. I only went, indeed, out of curiosity. N. B. Without too much vanity I must say that my waltzing is not con sidered by any means bad, even in Germany. MUNICH 123 The picture accompanying this is, beyond all doubt, an authentic Albert Diirer, and if money can be made by selling such pictures at any price above 75 cents, tell me, for I have got an opportunity of purchasing a great number of real Albert Diirers and Rem- brandts here ; I mean, of course, only engrav ings by those great artists, for you know that they engraved as well as painted. Don't sell that for less than $1.50 or $2.00, but, if you can, do it and keep the tin. Talking of drinking, the only time I ever had beer get into my head, since I have been in Munich, was one evening when I held with five pro fessors a grand beer celebration in the Hil- debrand in honour of the arrival of an old professor of theology from Tubingen, and, upon my honour, my very good friend the professor of mathematics was pretty consid erably drunk ! This was an extraordinary oc casion, understand now. I hope I can make you feel the truth. When a man drinks in America he 's a rowdy he belongs to the caste of the dissipated ; in quiet, slow, solemn Deutschland, everybody drinks beer, no body gets drunk. . . . The prof, of theology drank like a Christian. Ah, you can't under- 124 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND stand how very different Germany is from our Amerique f I must say a word about studying. I propose theology, and I want to know if a man can study in- Germany and then enter upon his duties immediately in America ? My money- spending days I hope are over, and if you were only here I 'd show you a few things. I don't believe that man can lead a happier life than I can here. I had almost forgotten to say that I went before the police this morning, and was in formed that I was to pay 36 kreutzers for my month's residence and for neglect in not fork ing over sooner. But, Mein Herr, quoth I, " I am a student, and students don't pay it." Then I showed my card of matriculat. " Ja,ja? said he, "you are not obliged then to pay for resi dence, but you must pay nine kreutzers for not having paid for it before." At this awful, dreadful piece of stupidity, I almost fainted. The idea of not being liable to a fine, and yet be fined for not paying it when it came due, is too rich for endurance. As it 's very unprofitable work arguing with a police com- MUNICH 125 missionaire on such subjects, I passed out the fippeny bit (exactly six cents), and travelled. The fines in Germany are very light. One sees about Heidelberg stuck up: 36 Kr. (25 cts.) fine for stealing fruit,! and 40 cents for riding fast over a bridge, which costs five dol lars in America. I once saw on the Neckar, by an old ruined castle, boards stating that it was punishable by a fine of eight cents to enter the court, and, I think, six cents for smoking when once in. I met the prof. math, in the street. He said that the police functionaries were unverschamt in pumping money on any pretence whatever. In Italy, they'll cheat you out of your change in the Post Office, and a Roman douanier once tried it over me to steal my hair brush when he searched my carpet-bag and yet I had given the blackguard some change not to search too deep. I did n't know what the mischief the police could want with me when I went, for the Government here works things, as they were worked in France, by spies and persec. You dare not speak openly here as on the Rhine I mean in Baden, where all is very free. Hurrah ! I have raised a couple of tickets 126 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND to a concert and a ball gratis so we shall have some good music and waltz after it. Well, my brother, keep up a brave heart, and come out here in the fall, or before if you can. Your truly and really affectionate CHARLES. MUNICH, July 7, 1847. DEAR HENRY, I 've already written you one letter, and, not feeling satisfied with it and not considering it as an adequate return for your mammoth, have begun another which I trust to make an improved edition of. I am as well pleased with the style of your last as its size. So you 're in a store, but don't call yourself a Philister. No man is a Philister, unless he has a miserable small soul, which, as the Germans say, " makes small great and great small." Lola Montez was near being assassinated three days ago don't know the particulars. A. ghost has been busy in a house not very far from here, and about a thousand Dutch were lying in wait for it two nights ago ; to-morrow is the Queen's birthday, and we have n't got any lectures, and I 'm going MUNICH 127 to draw fifty dollars from that old Jew banker, Hirsch and now you Ve got all the news. I Ve made fifty dollars last for exactly one month. Owing to a mistake of that fool of a banker's clerk, I told Father in my letter that it was almost two. Please to correct. The clerk dated the letter of credit wrongly, and I fol lowed him. In addition to the items men tioned in my letter to Father, I did all the beer requisite and stood divers suppers, an excursion, etc. There 's economy for you. I hope soon to live on a penny a day, and, if possible, save on it. Also, I include two bot tles of Medoc at sixty cents per bottle. You don't get such Medoc, at such a price, in Philadelphia. I saw M. S. here the other day. He 's friz up like an icicle, and as cold and polished as a diamond. He '11 do in Philadelphia, and may come it over the natives, but not over me. I can't stand such cursed half affected cold ness, which puts external polish and sangfroid over everything. He did n't keep it up in my room, and even got half through a meer schaum. He did n't know the first thing about student life, and I believe has seen devilish little of Germany in the way I 've seen it. 128 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND I Ve been pretty considerably deep into the Dutch, old fellow, and can expatiate. His pre valent idea is " gentleman, gentleman, gentle man." So is mine, but not in his way. I 'm convinced, after all my European experiences, that no man can do the nil admirari, unless he 's born to do it, and he must be born partly fool then. I could give you examples which would make your blood run cold. Oh, what puppies I have seen on the Continent! I verily think that many of them have no idea of a future state or of anything beyond horse and mistress. . . . The more I see of Munich the more I admire it. CHAPTER V PARIS IN '48 APPRENTICESHIP was not at an end when Munich was deserted. I count as part of it the Rye's wanderings to Vienna, then " all bril liant foam and sunshine and laughing sirens, where what new thing Strauss would play in the evening was the great event of the day," to Prague, and Nuremberg, and Dresden, and Berlin, to the towns of Holland and Bel gium ; I count, too, the start for Cracow, the encounter with Russian customs officials on the frontier, the necktie concealing suspicious papers, how like a student's necktie ; and what were those papers, I wonder ? and the experiences at the Leipzig yearly fair, and, above all, the gaiety and good comradeship that was the best part of the journey. Over its every incident, big or little, was the gla mour of youth, and its climax was Paris. In Paris he returned to the more serious business of the student. His chief end was to make what he could of the lectures at the Col- 130 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND lege Louis le Grand and the Sorbonne. One course was the " very dull series on German Literature by Philarete Chasles," and I do not wonder he found it dull, if I can judge by the " Memoirs " of the lecturer, and my own amazement to discover that a Frenchman of letters, who had lived through the stirring days of the Romantic Revolt, could write the dullest autobiography it has ever been my misfortune to read. But towards the end of 1847 and begin ning of 1848, there was more for the wide awake youth to learn from Paris itself than from the most accomplished lecturer. Shortly after his arrival, the young student took rooms in the old Hotel du Luxembourg in the Rue de la Harpe, described by Washing ton Irving in that story of the girl with the black ribbon round her throat, brought home by the youth, before whose horrified eyes her head fell, once the ribbon was removed. Hers would have been an appropriate ghost to meet on the fine old Renaissance stairway, the glory of- the house, for she had been the victim of the first Revolution, and the men of flesh and blood now hurrying up and down the same stairs, were busy plotters of a second. PARIS IN '48 131 The Rye, watched over by his Guardian An gel of the Odd, had had the luck to tumble into the headquarters of the growing discon tent. "All over the Latin Quarter, on our side of the river, in cafes and balls, and in shops, and talking to everybody, went the mysterious dwellers of the Hotel du Luxem bourg, sounding public opinion and gathering signs and omens, and making recruits, and laying trains which, when fired, caused explo sions all over Europe, and sounds which still live in history. The great secret of the suc cess of the Revolution was that it was in the hands of so few persons, who were all abso lutely secret and trustworthy. If there had been a few more, the police would have found us out to a certainty. One who was suspected was * squared.' " In the first half of the last century " the younger men " were quick to answer to the call of revolution. Byron had made it the fashion in England. Even Tennyson, as a youth, had hurried, with money and his ap proval, to the rebels in Spain, just as Mrs. Browning was to challenge the Italian despots from " Casa Guidi Windows," and Swinburne, in London, was to sing his " Songs before 132 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Sunrise." From America, too, knight-errants of liberty set forth on similar adventures, the young Poe bent upon fighting the heathen in Turkey, and now the young Leland help ing to uncrown kings in France. The blood of his fighting ancestors and of his own youth ran in his veins, and, throwing in his lot with thje Revolutionists, he became one of the inner circle at the Hotel du Luxembourg. Revolution does not break out in a day, and Paris was delightful even in its discon tent. The duty of students was to be gay at all seasons, under all circumstances. The Vie de Boheme had not become petrified into a legend ; Murger, its prophet, was just be ginning to be heard of. The Rye was never reduced to the expedients of Rodolphe and the others, for he was not without money. But a student's money is sure to fall short sometime. When his did, he dined for a franc in the little places of the Rive Gauche, or outside the Barrier, finishing the evening at Bobino's. When money was plentiful, he dined at Magny's and went to the Theatre Fran^ais. There came a time, after years as a dramatic critic, when he lost interest in the theatre. But in Paris, in 1848, the stage was PARIS IN '48 133 a marvellous part of the marvellous new life he was living. A letter, written as recently as 1900, to his nephew my brother Edward Robins, who had just published " Twelve Great Actresses," shows how seriously he had, in his student days, studied the drama as an art. He had begun his letter by praising my brother, saying the kind things he knew so well how to say, that a young author likes to hear, and he went on, drawing largely upon the old memories, to question whether suffi cient distinction had been made in the book between " mere art and pure sympathetic ge nius. Sometimes there is so much art that the multitude believe it is genius. Both Rachel and Bernhardt were, like all Jews, immensely talented and quick to feel what took with the public; but though great as actresses, they belonged to the second class. Read what Heine says of Rachel, how severely he blames her want of all soul, and yet 33 a Jew he would fain praise her. "I saw Rachel for the first time in 1847. I was then twenty-four, and I never shall forget how, while I appreciated her mere skill and cleverness, I was, I may say, dis gusted at her tricks of the stage and utter 134 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND want of souL Her great dodge was to work herself into a spasm of passion and excite ment, and then in a second cast herself into a statuesque attitude of utter calm and ex claim in an icy voice, ' Monsieur,' or * Mon Seigneur.' And then all Paris, from Dumas down, went mad with applause ; but it was so transparently tricky that I could only laugh. " Rachel was so illiterate that she did not understand her characters; she only had a marvellous intuition as to what would be a great hit or coup. So she served them all up in the same sauce, unlike Janauschek, who caught the true character of every separate heroine. " The story is true of Rachel that, having to die at the end of the fourth act of a play, she never read the fifth act. Sarah Bernhardt is of her type. If acting be only imitating and carrying out conventional tricks, they are both great. If it be expressing higher truth and nature by genius, then they were or are merely second-rate elevens ts. The vast ma jority of mankind do not rise above admiring mere acting." :W: As time went on, that memorable year of PARIS IN '48 135 1848 once fairly begun, the drama on the other side of the river the Rive Gauche quickened until not Lemaitre nor Rachel could present anything on the stage as thrill ing. "At last the ball opened." The day came when in the little street, a mere alley running down to the Seine, in which it is said that every Paris revolution has broken out, he heard shots fired, and saw General Changarnier charge. All the night following he listened to the great storm-bell of Notre Dame. And the next morning, the morning of the famous 24th of February, he marched forth to share the fighting : a striking figure, with his rakish student cap set on one side of his long hair, a monocle in one eye, a red sash about his waist, a dirk and pistol for arms, so tall that he towered high above the mob. He wrote afterwards that Dumas had helped to bring about the revolution by set ting up the swaggering swashbuckler as the romantic type of hero. I think love of ro mance had everything to do with his own share in the exploit. Anyway, fight he did, always in the thick of it, leading the insur gents, when asked to be their leader, as a student of his commanding presence was 136 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND bound to be asked, charging the soldiers, building barricades in the Rue de la Harpe, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, distributing ammunition, going and coming through the day's drama. He saw it all, saw the stones pulled up in the streets and built into barricades, " in grim earnest, without talking ; " saw soldiers suddenly flinging down their arms and falling into the arms of the people ; saw the Tuileries in smoke and flame, he one of the first to rush to the rescue and write the notices " Respect Property " in the rooms the fire had not reached, touching (how like him !) the inkstand for luck as he wrote ; saw the mob pouring out from the royal kitchens and cel lars, fowls and joints borne aloft on the point of the bayonet, wine drunk by the pailful; saw the descent upon the Hotel Cluny and the sortie, knights in mediaeval armour bear ing down upon the Parisian crowd ; saw bon fires kindled with the royal carriages along the quays ; saw men dying like dogs at street corners; saw, for all the horror of it, the drollery too, when a fellow-student set to building barricades in white kid gloves, or a pretty girl took a kiss as answer to her chal- PARIS IN '48 137 lenge ; in a word, saw all the tragedy and comedy, all the tears and laughter, that go to the making of a revolution. I have been content to give this bare outline of his life, from the time he left Munich until the Revolution in Paris, for the simple reason that the details are so well filled in by the few of his letters relating to the period now in my possession. How few they are, in proportion to the many he wrote, I know. It was his habit to number those to his brother; "thirty" is written at the top of the last I have to quote; and of these thirty, not a third have so far been discovered. The loss would have been" greater had he not sent long and full accounts of himself to other members of his family. Passages in his letters to his father and mother often strike me as a trifle stilted and self-conscious, but this was because he knew they would eventually make their way to " Aunty Hale," Mrs. Sarah Hale of " Godey's Lady's Book," and other editors. " Last Thurs day night I sat up till two in the morning," Henry reports in April, 1848, "copying your Revolutionary letter in order to have it in serted in the Saturday ' North American ' and ' United States Gazette : ' it appeared and was 138 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND liked by every one, Miss Leslie adding her mite of laudation." When writing to his brother, the Rye was troubled by no fear of the editorial blue pencil. Moreover, he did his best to let the younger brother he had left behind profit by his experiences and see the world through his eyes. The letters to HenryLeland are a mirror of student life in Paris during the forties, seen entirely from the student's standpoint, and they have a freshness and spontaneity that could not be looked for in the " Memoirs," written after such a long interval without their help. There is not more local colour in Murger than in the description of the students on the Hill of Sainte Genevieve, with all their absurd fash ions and gay follies, their cafes and balls, their studies and songs, their would-be cynicisms. To Henry, also, the Rye wrote more freely of the "adventures " and " strange coincidences," for which, already, he had developed " an ex traordinary talent;" to Henry he was lavish with advice on the subject both of study and conduct ; advice that, Henry assured him in answers so amusing I wish I could include them, had been " the formation and salvation of myself, your younger brother therefore just PARIS IN '48 139 listen. I, Henry P. Leland, do hereby declare to you, my own dear Charles, that, with a truth-telling tongue, I do owe unto you an in fernal quantity of good advice, and when I 've followed it, found it to succeed, wherefore I shall persevere in the course taken of following your good precepts, and may the devil fly away with me if I don't profit by such a mode." I print the Rye's letters in order, according to date. They are written on the large sheets of very thin paper which expensive postage then made not so much the fashion as indis pensable ; the lines too close together for the comfort of modern eyes, and even the luxury of a new paragraph avoided as long as possible. The " dear Frank " of the last letter is his cousin, Frank Fisher, who had been study ing medicine in Paris when he first arrived. Many of the allusions I cannot explain, but the letters are so gay, so young, so spirited, there is really no need of explanation. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES LELAND PARIS, Oct. 30, 1847. DEAR MOTHER, Since I last wrote to you I have travelled (as my last letter to Father 140 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND has by this time doubtless informed you) over a very respectable portion of Europe, and I now sit down with the firm determination of depicturing some of the scenes through which I have passed. My unfortunate attempt to enter Poland has doubtless awakened all your liveliest sympathies if I had succeeded I might have been there during the cholera, which made its appearance about a week after I left. After the Polish business I went to Vienna. If I could describe that city, or give you any idea of its attractions, you would wonder that I could leave it. I have now been two weeks in Paris, but must say that, as far as an agreeable life is concerned, I infinitely prefer Vienna. Imagine a people whose every emotion seems to spring from good nature and innate politeness, not the artificial, cold- hearted polish of the French, a people devoted to pleasure, inhabiting a beautiful city where every attraction presented by music and the other fine arts is perpetually brought before you. Music is the life of the Viennese. You go in the evening to a beautiful garden and hear Strauss's band, the finest in the world, playing like one man. In all Paris I cannot persuade myself that I have as yet heard good PARIS IN '48 141 music. They want the exquisite harmony and unity of execution which characterises the meanest little band in Germany. On the way to Vienna from Prague, at every station where the cars stopped stood a band of mu sicians, who played until we started ! But Vienna! its beautiful streets, gardens, pal aces, the fine picture galleries and dancing saloons, the varied crowds in the streets, the gay Hungarian costume which you meet with at every corner, and the opera, all remain in my mind like a bright dream. In Vienna everything is gay, no word expresses it so well. All of the principal stores have beauti fully painted signs, such as " the Bride," " the Suabian peasant girl," " the Queen of Naples," " the Magyar," and some of them historical pictures, which form a distinctive feature in the city. At the hotels there is no table d'hote, every one dines a la carte, that is, pays piece by piece for everything. In Vienna you pay extra for mustard and of course for bread. I am often amused at travellers who have to pay as much again as I do at the hotels, etc., not knowing the language or the people. Vienna is one of the cheapest cities in Eu rope, and yet travellers say that it is as dear I 4 2 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND as London! We I and my English friend had a very beautifully furnished, handsome room for 45 cents a day, with two beds, at a decent hotel. All our furniture was new and red-velveted. Curtains first class. But we made a bargain for it. Eating is cheap and good (when you know where to look for it). In Paris you can almost always get a theatre ticket for half price, when there is no extra attraction, at a store ! In Vienna I called on Mr. Norris, and afterwards on Mr. Stiles, our Charge. At the latter's, I had an opportunity of verifying an eccentric hypothesis of my Englishman's. He asserts that he never in his life called once on an Ambassador or Charge without seeing a pretty girl. At Mr. Stiles' I saw two, one the servant or some poor rela tion the other I took to be his daughter. Vienna is the place for a man with the blues. All is gaiety and all is open-hearted sincerity ! At some of the public balls, however, the good-natured young gentlemen and ladies carry this want of reserve a fraction too far, but, to their praise be it said, not a thousandth part of the excess to which it would be car ried in England or America in similar places. In Germany, the most improper characters PARIS IN '48 143 never commit any impropriety publicly, un less waltzing be improper and this they do carry to a fearful extent ! But a German never presumes upon waltzing. Well, I should have said that before I got to Vienna I was in Prague or in Dresden, Leipzig, etc., etc. Prague is an old Bohemian city, perhaps one of the most picturesque and beautiful in Europe. It looks at a distance like an en chanted city there is something so wizard- like, so strange and unworldly, and yet so beautiful in its appearance. . . . Dresden I have described. If I were to choose any city in Germany for a residence, I should perhaps give it the preference, though I should almost balance Vienna or Berlin with it. Eh bien / ou faut-il alter ? I Ve been over the Rhine with knapsack, with carpet-bag, and once on a part of it without either. I Ve been in Bres- lau, that meanest of Jew towns, and seen the fair in Leipzig. I Ve drunk wine in Auer- bach's cellar there, where Doctor Faust and the Devil played such queer tricks. A Ger man fair is really something very interesting, something you never saw the like of in Amer ica. Imagine a mile of improvised streets, with booths and tents for houses. All sorts 144 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND of wares for sale, from horses and cows down to a penny pipe, including silk, velvets, and gingerbread. Behind many of the stands sit pretty Tyrolese girls, with hats such as their ancestresses wore in the 9th century, of green felt, or handsome Tyrolese men looking with the girls as if they had just walked off the stage of a theatre. I feel, for my part, in such scenes as if a play were really being per formed, and always entertain a half convic tion that I am a supernumerary " gent " hired to walk up and down. Then the fancy dresses of various German peasants ! Students stroll ing along with that indescribable gait which is the same in Princeton, in Rome, in Heidel berg, or Paris. Why are students alike the whole world over? Then there is one part of the fair where much is to be seen gratis, and much more for money. Elephants and mon keys cannot of course fail, any more than fried buns or sugar-plums, but the great at traction is Hans Wurst. Do you ask who Hans Wurst is ? His name being translated means Jack Pudding or Jack Sausage. He figures everywhere. He danceth on a rope and throweth summersaults. He preaches to the people on patent blacking, lectures to PARIS IN '48 145 them on wax figures, and gravely reproves them for not going to see the celebrated me chanical figures. Anon, he rides the elephant or is seen under another form dealing out patent silver wash. Hans Wurst is the Pun chinello of Germany. Punch is here too, as in Naples, and still preserves all his ancient popularity. I really believe that Punch will outlast any government on the face of the world. Well, I fly about in my letter as if I had wings. How do you fancy a taste of Hol land ? I have visited Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and been through Schie-dam Holland is the country of dams, you know. I have been in the Hague, and Haarlem, have visited Ant werp and seen its cathedral and pictures by Rubens, have climbed to the top of the bel fry of Bruges and was there while the bells rung (my ears ache when I think of it). In Brussels I saw the wonders ; in Ghent, do. In Mechlin I only ate dinner. Really when I run over this catalogue and think of the things to be described, I turn frightened such a lot of curiosities ! Well, here in Paris one has very remarkably fine opportunities of writing up travels, for, at every ten steps, you see something which reminds you of 146 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND something you have seen or heard of before. Bless me, with all my list of cities I forgot Halle, Magdeburg, Nuremberg, and Augs burg. With which shall I begin ? Nurem berg is the finest in the number, and he who has not felt himself in another world in it (I should say in another age) has no poetry in his soul or reading in his head. In Nurem berg I met with some Norwegian artists who took me to a celebrated German stu dents' beer kneip called the Jammerthal, or Vale of Misery, which has been a students' kneip for 400 years and always had good beer. . . . Berlin remains undescribed, with its palaces and gardens, and the American friends I met there, and the Italian opera oh, man Dieu ! In Paris I have discovered an old German University friend. Yesterday was a great Paris festival, the fete of all the dead, and all Paris turned out and went to Pere la Chaise to throw garlands on the tombs of their loved friends. So we went together, and talked German, and talked about old times in the University, and agreed that there was after all no land in the world like old Germany for comfort or agreeableness. He was an ffl 2*r \/i ou fl C* *^-^*^ //-e-M^*. // ^ c^*^^<*sC^ ^^^ PARIS IN '48 147 Englishman, however. I don't like my own countrymen much. I must say that they quarrel too much among one another, those abroad, and are fearfully extravagant. Mr. P. was informing me, in a good-natured way, that I could live very cheap in Paris. " A good quiet single room," quoth he, " such a one as you 'd want for you need n't be extravagant can be got for a hundred francs a month in the Quartier Latin ! " /pay 35 francs, and that is five too much. Last night I saw Mademoi selle Rachel act in Phaedra. Such acting and such a proud deep voice the very sound of it moved your soul ! Sometimes that voice rolled like distant thunder, and then changed into soft music. Fanny Kemble, in her best days, might give some idea of her. Poor wo man ! I came on with her from Marseilles, and from the little I saw of her, was very much pleased. I am sure that I should have been good friends with her if I had an op portunity of knowing her. But Mile. Rachel, though rather too French in her style, is a striking illustration of my theory that women have naturally as much talent as men, but circumstances, alas, repress it. I know of no spectacle really so sublime as a woman who 148 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND has, by force of talent, overcome even the obstacle of circumstances. Poor ladies ! We " lords of creation," in my humble opinion, have usurped altogether too much authority. N. B. This is not a German notion " on the contrary"' A gentleman once fell down in the street ; a lady asked him if he had hurt himself ; he, aching with pain and smiling with politeness, hurriedly replied, " Oh, no, not at all, on the contrary? Nov. ^d. Do you want news? The cholera has arrived. May God preserve us from it ! I hardly know what to write. Yesterday and to-day we have had a fog such a fog one degree thicker and we must have all been drowned. And under this curtain Paris went on as lively as ever, and skipped, and cur vetted, and made bows, and lorgnetted the ladies, and went to the spectacle and drank coffee, etc., etc. What an animal a French man is, half politesse (not politeness) and half insolence, and altogether interested. Oh, my poor Germans ! I wonder how they get along since I left them. A consolation for my vain soul, in my cafe, is to have the garcon always bring me journals in three or four languages. No Frenchman (unless he be from Alsatia) PARIS IN '48 149 ever speaks anything except French. In Germany no shop girl, or grocer's apprentice, or hotel waiter hesitates to pay half of his or her day's wages for a lesson in French or English at night. I have been in Germany in balls and music gardens where society was one grade above vulgarity and always found that the majority could speak French. I have always been with and among the natives, and not among Americans, and have benefited by it. Americans hate more than English to suit themselves to the people they are among and then grumble because in the country they find no opportunity for speaking the language. ... I live in the Latin Quarter, very unfashionable, among the students, where you can venture into the streets with a pipe in your mouth as if you were in Ger many. Everything is new and fine on the other side of the Seine, everything is old and rusty here. This is the Paris of the Thir teenth Century, that on the contrary seems to be striving to get ahead of to-morrow in the latest fashions. Our streets (I say it with pride) are narrow and dirty, and the houses rise up to the very heavens. A day or two ago a fiacre came driving down on me ; I ISO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND escaped, but it hit a glazier's boy just behind me, who was carrying a great pane of glass in a box on his back. He jumped backwards to avoid the collision, and in so doing drove his pane of glass into a shop window, break ing both. Out jumped the shopman and raised a lovely row. I, Carlos, walked off, fervently blessing my lucky sjtar. Street col lisions are frequent here. Night before last, walking home with my Anglais, we saw two carriages lock wheel and hub, and drive on together to the imminent danger of the lives of all concerned. Finally they stopped and a great swearing ensued. " How they do talk," said I to my Englishman. " Yes, but," added he with a feeling of real amazement, " where the mischief did all those soldiers come from ? " For, upon my word, the wheels had hardly touched before I distinctly saw three mounted cuirassiers, besides some gen darmes, and a man with a long pole and a lantern about them. So it goes in Paris as in Germany : You cannot eat you cannot drink, Nor have a row nor hardly think, For fear you should create a charm To conjure up the fiend John Darm ! ! ! PARIS IN '48 151 One of the great complaints of strangers in Paris is the way the pretty girls in the stores humbug them into buying anything and everything. They will get a gentleman, old or young, into a corner, and causer and com pliment him, and show this and that, and flatter till the poor man, like Dr. Franklin at Whitefield's preaching, fairly empties his pockets. Now / (I say it modestly) am rather proof against this sort of thing, quite a barbarian in fact. Well, Mamma, I was going along the other day, and, wanting a pair of suspenders, entered a shop. Well, Mademoiselle led me into a snug little room, and after selling the suspenders, began to causer to talk. I let her run on, and at the first pause gravely asked, " Can you talk German ? " " Non, monsieur'" " Or any thing except French ? " " Non, monsieur! 1 And I replied, " I dislike speaking French very much." With this piece of studied incivility, I escaped. How I hate to have shop people try to make you buy things you don't want! A pretty face is no safe guard against me, for in damp weather my German phlegm aggravates itself into Rus sian bearishness against any sort of humbug, 152 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND feminine or otherwise. I rather admire Rus sians myself. I wonder how you will like this letter. I have tried to make it interest ing, and really not attained my mark (with out fishing for compl.). My last story will displease you but even an angel can't be without blemish, let alone a poor devil of a student who has no earthly check on his humours and caprices. . . . Italy, oh Italy ! This is the weather to think of Naples, or Heidelberg. In the first, I should have sun shine and oranges in the second, a hot stove and beer! How delightful it was in Italy ; life glided by like a dream, a summer dream. German life was a solemn, sombre twilight meditation among gray ruins and under the rustling boughs. Oh thou my soul, say whither art thou fleeting ! To fields of light where fairy brooklets flow. What a queer thing it is to live alone in Paris ! Last night I met with two Americans at Frank's. One of them rather pleased me, he did not seem, like almost every American traveller, to be divided solely between feverish mad dening dissipation and contempt for every thing foreign. I forget his name. I wish that everybody who comes abroad were like PARIS IN '48 153 my friend Ward of Boston, now probably on his way home. My English friend said to me, a day or two ago, I wonder that you ever could leave Munich. I was really as happy there as could be, and always am happy when I can live in quiet. I only hate dis turbance, and Munich is the quietest, gentlest place in the world. But its winters are Cana dian 1 700 feet high ! What a location for a pulmonary ! . . . What a queer place a French cafe is ! Mine is a remarkably strange one, for it is frequented almost exclusively by foreigners, the great proportion of them German, with plenty of Danes, Poles, or Greek, English, etc. At least^ 30 or 40 newspapers in all languages are taken there. When you enter, you must touch your hat to the Madame, who sits enthroned behind a sort of desk, or counter, on which are piles innumerable of little silver plates, each containing four large lumps of sugar ; of these, two are enough for your coffee, and the other two are put into one tumbler of water, or by a Frenchman, into his pocket. After coffee, you give the waiter two sous, which he puts into a vase on the counter. At the end of the month the 154 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND contents are shared among the waiters. I have read that the landlord takes the lion's share. All around, at little tables, sit people, reading, smoking, drinking coffee, and play ing different games, of which dominoes in a real French nest is the principal. Yesterday I sat listening to two Germans talking and finally joined them, when the conversation turned on Munich and beer. One had studied two years in Heidelberg. Sometimes I meet with a good-natured Danish friend who has two other very gentleman-like countrymen, and we exchange our views on Paris and Paris ways and manners. How differently different things appear to an American, a German, or a Dane! As for my English man, he is perfectly happy. He has a jovial mercurial disposition, and thinks that, after Germany (nothing of course can be equal to Germany), France is the finest land in the world. He likes to do an occasional odd thing, and gave away his theatre check the other evening to a man who offered him a franc and a half for it, because the man asked in German. What a mighty fascination Ger manism has over one who has once been under its influence! It is the opium of the PARIS IN '48 155 mind. I have been reading an Italian paper this morning, and have got some new ideas. Italy is making wonderful progress ; the Ital ians, poor devils, want nothing but good gov ernment. Pius the Ninth is a glorious char acter, that fearless cool energy of his, his common sense and stern resolution to do what is right, fairly awe me. Eviva il Pio Nono! . . . When I left Bruges, I joined on the way a worthy German gentleman from Bremen, who was on a trip to Paris. We went to gether all day, and at night were startled by the announcement " We are in Paris." I really felt a shudder of awe steal over me. PARIS ! And now, I run about the town, go into the Palais Royal and Louvre, live in the Quartier des Etudiants, and feel as much at home as if I were in Heidelberg. And so, Mamma, my little note is nearly finished. Give my best love to Father, Henry, and the girls. My next letter to you shall be more studied and reserved, more cold if you like, and, if any ideas come into my brain, more interesting. Tell me what you like to have me write about and I '11 spin you as long a letter as you like. If Henry wants a letter, 156 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND he must help himself to a piece of this. He can warm it up himself. I shall call Henry the Admiral in future. I read of a Chinese admiral a day or two ago who flew at his enemy and tore his hair out, and to judge from the explosion with which his last letter concluded, I fear that your furniture must have been smashed. Such a burst of indig nation against the world and fate was never heard. I would have loved dearly to have written him a ten-page letter. My wishy- washy epistle might have cooled him. Well, forgive all slips of imagination, and remem ber with love your dear son CHARLEY. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO HENRY PERRY LELAND PARIS, LATIN QUARTER (cheap and fly ! ) le 1 8 Nov. cold and clear. MY OWN BRAVE HARRY, God bless you a thousand times for your letter, dated no thing at all, which came by the last steamer. I feel warmed to the soul to think what a good friend I have at-home in thee. Oh, a thousand blessings on thy warm, true heart ! . . . As for my Polish business, it was a wild, adventurous, nightmare piece of busi- PARIS IN '48 157 ness which makes me shudder when I think of it. Oh, that silent, dead, ghastly land, with its long dead levels and moaning pine forests and mud mud ! It was dreary and witch- like and wild. But that delicious rainy morn ing, at four o'clock, at the mercy of a pack of Russians in a wilderness ! How jolly Vienna was! Oh, the theatre and cafes, etc., etc. Won't I talk when I return ! And the whole journey, helter skelter, pipe in mouth, and devil take the odds. Did n't we go it ! I was the individ. as enjoyed myself. Sometimes half dead with fatigue, cold and hunger, and then, plump, slap into the fat of the land. And such a companion ! Did n't he travel into the tobacco and wine and beer! We took Europe like a pie between us and helped our selves. Then came Berlin, and the American students, and a public ball, and all sorts of fun, and the glorious gallery, and then Han over and an adventure, and then Westphalia, and Cologne, and Rotterdam, and Amster dam. Holland is a mean sort of a snobbish land, devilish dear, and I travelled through it to say I 'd been there, for it is terribly defi cient in all attractions or curious articles. It 's 4. I 'm off to dinner, cheap and common, 158 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND and then Don Giovanni with Lablache and Grisi. Don't you (and don't /) wish you were with me ? Paris, Nov. 20, 1847. I once read a piece taken from an English magazine I for get how they called it but it was a sort of Petites miseres de la vie humaine. Well, the concluding misfortune the climax, in fact was that, after going to the Opera in order to forget the troubles of the day, he found a notice on the door, " Madame Grisi is sick and won't sing." Such was precisely my case yesterday, with the addition of La blache, who was also sick ! ! ! And we had La Sonnambula and Persiani. Was n't it a do? Fiacre to and fro 2fr. 1 8 sous. Ticket (pit) 4 francs. And is n't the whole thing a queer coincidence ? Even the truth won't go down unless you draw it mild, and though we can't see without sunlight, yet a man may be blinded with it. Moderation Moderation MODERATION. I will give you an instance : Yesterday I was talking with my invaluable Englishman, who always turns up wherever I want him, in Heidelberg, Munich, or Paris. He is not Pottinger. Well, he was telling the following story. " When in Brussels I was in PARIS IN '48 159 the church, a commissionnaire came bother ing me ; I told him to go to the Devil ! He was really shocked at the awful profanity, and said, * Sir, you are in a church.'" " Now," said I, " I had nearly the same thing happen to me in Padua ; when there a fellow came troubling us, and /told him, ' Go to the Devil,' when he replied, ' What ! go to the Devil, and that in the Holy Week 1 ' " Now my Eng lishman knows me, but if some man had trumped your story with such a card, would n't you have doubted ? By Jupiter, if one half of the travellers I meet had told me so, I would have believed that the Holy Week story was a pure fabrication. Some of the sentences in your letter are really beautiful one or two thrill me like a church bell heard far, far away in the summer woods. I will not tell you which they are, or you '11 try to reproduce and imitate. Men often kill themselves in writing by doing a good thing and then overdoing it. I wrote a fantasie lately, and then four like it, but only the first was worth a damn. Unless we work and study and play the devil with Blair and Campbell, and make years' hard work on Belles Lettres (hardly worth the time) we can't make a style. Better take Nature as 160 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND she comes. ... A melancholy remark of yours, " Oh, if I had your advantages of travel, how I 'd surpass you." Beware, my friend, of such thoughts. If you can't become a man in America, you never would anywhere. Of all the young men that I have met abroad, I do not think that I have seen one who could not have got as much savoir faire anywhere if he had taken the same pains. Here are young men, learning hard to fence, to dance, passing brilliant evenings in spirituel conver sation with lorettes and milliners over cheap wine punch, looking at the Cancan at the Salle Valentino or Prado. Why, man, you can do all this sort of thing in NewYork. But here, in Paris, the consciousness that they must take something home with them impels them to take all these noble exertions. A fool al ways remains a fool. The Continent 's a hum bug in some things. If you don't work here, you '11 go to the ground ! Oh, don't believe that you 're always .the innocent one, that if destiny had only done this or that, everything would have gone so smooth. Va fen! I often begin to think, " Oh, if " and bring it up with a short turn. How many a man of lesser talent with fewer advantages has done PARIS IN '48 161 more ! Why, the fellow had ingenuity (i. e. some tact and more industry) and so he went it. And when the current of luck once comes, and belief in its durance, it will endure. Don't think that this abstract speculation and thinking of mine is in vain. If a man cannot, with Chesterfield, Rochefoucauld, and such writings, become a man of the world, he can at least do the very best half of it. With the mere bare objective practice he may qual ify himself for a dandy, a police agent, or per haps diplomat, but never perfect himself. I speak knowing, and if you don't see that my assertions are grounded on unexaggerated experience, you had better put on your cap, take up your cane, and leave my lecture- room ! . . . I live in the Quartier Latin, near the Sorbonne. Two houses further on, and the Rue d'Enfer begins for I live on an open place, " Place St. Michel." To the right of the triangle " Place " (I live on the base) is a cafe, cigar-shop, etc. I am smack among the studios here, young men in red handkerchiefs who smoke penny pipes and play billiards, and have, every living soul, a mistress. There is an air of rakish fastness about them, and 162 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND I verily believe that they enjoy life as no human beings do. The great amusement of the students is to go to the balls, Valentino or Prado, etc., etc., in summer, Mabille and Chateau Rouge in winter. Here you have splendid saloons, and everybody keeps on his hat and smokes, and picks up partners for the evening. Here the Cancan is in all its glory. I have danced at Chateau Rouge, and went once to the Valentino. Prefer looking other ways for adventures. Money is the great thing in Paris, but in Germany people only regard the man himself. And in Paris common sense will help as much as money. One can do more here with money and com mon sense than anywhere else. It is Sunday but if any human being could find it out by what the people are at, he would be a keen one. Here comes my English friend singing " Es war einmals ein Madchen " (There was once a maiden), an affecting German ballad, how the devil came riding on a snow-white horse, and carried her off. Monday. I went to the Hotel Cluny yes terday, a Gothic building of the Middle Ages, filled with arms and mediaeval antiquities. A part of the same building is the ruins of a PARIS IN '48 163 Roman Thermae, or bathing establishment. Very recently they have discovered, just be fore the door of Notre Dame, Roman ruins only a few feet below the level of the earth. I have seen them. As the paper says, twelve workmen are employed in disinterring that which four and twenty savans will dispute over. Roman coins and lots of " os" have been discovered, among the latter a crooked backbone, sagely supposed to be that of Quasimodo. The theatres and operas do not much frighten me by their size and richness (I have been in Italy), and as for their instru mental music, though good, it wants the soul of the Germans' music. One bad little Ger man band always seems to me better than a large French one, just as a little violet is worth more than a shopful of artificial flowers to a true lover of the beautiful. That strange feeling of God in all, of the Infinite, is every where in Germany. It works and weaves it self everywhere and among all things. Oh, my good, honest, spiritual smokers! Ger manism, that mysterious wonderful spirit, impresses itself on every one who lives un prejudiced in that country. Here am I, and my Anglais, who, as dry and unenthusiastic a 164 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND man as ever lived, is nevertheless moved to the very soul when anything German turns up, and his spirit seems vibrated with dreamy music when I speak to him of Heidelberg, the rushing Neckar, its old castles, and our Burschen life with all its lights and shadows. " Oh, were I in my Fatherland ! " What a wild, reckless, careless, cap-on-one-side sort of a life! At 22 I became a boy again, and as much again a man, and all was bright and beautiful. I counted six women in the theatre, the other day, weeping at the sorrows of a heroine ! Oh ye French ! I went into La Morgue the other morning, two drowned ones there. Frank Fisher has predicted a speedy death for me, ist, because I loaf at midnight through the Quartier St. Antoine and Quar- tier Latin; 2dly, because I drink beer; 3dly, because my room has no carpet ; 4thly, gen eral imprudence. He is, as a medecin, very careful of himself. I only feel unwell when I have the blues. Ennui would kill me in six months. As long as I can find excitement and pleasure, my health will be good. I shall, in company with you, work my few wits keenly when I return to America. Remem ber no faineant spirit none of your old PARIS IN '48 165 leaven. Adventures are for the adventurous, but can't often be worked without an accom plice. I have, according to a friend, a most extraordinary talent for getting into singular adventures. I effect it by driving in and trusting to a tact, which has never deceived me, for getting out. I speak egotistically, but truly not from imagination, but from the memory of many a wild adventure in great continental cities. I tell you that nothing which you find in the French feuilletons is to be doubted. I tell you, coolly and dispas sionately, that Paul de Kock, so far from giving overdrawn or exaggerated pictures of Paris life, has confined himself to very strict and literal truth. Gustave, etc., are so remark ably lifelike, that I suppose he has generally merely narrated incidents which have really happened. People who make no study of human nature, and who take the world as it comes, will tell you that this is all humbug. For commonplace people this world is very commonplace. It is only the collector of strange coins who ever has them passed off on him for pence. Anybody else may look over his small change daily for six months, with out finding anything as much out of the way 1 66 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND as an English ha'penny. " To him who hath shall be given " is a deep mystery, capable of infinite application. What do you think on the subject, young brother? What do you ever think about my advice at all ? " Demd foine, pawn hon'r ! " Either pride or profit (Roche foucauld, Maxim 173) is at the bottom of our actions, and in writing you these letters, though possibly vanity may inspire me more than a little, my principal object is to formu late my own thoughts, discipline my own mind, and teach myself what I know. There now, there 's a lick. Maybe you are like a woman, treat you cavalierly and you '11 begin to be more attentive. The very disagreeable thing in Paris is the brouillard, or fog. We have them here so thick that at night you are always, despite the numerous gas lights, in darkness, and for a stranger they are more than annoying, literally distressing. Streets are miserably muddy in Paris. The French are a damned dirty people. Germans very clean in their houses, much more so than Americans, and not less so, on the whole, in their persons. Dr. Waagen, whose work on Rubens you read, is Professor in the Un. of Berlin. Last semester, his lectures were only PARIS IN '48 167 paid for by six Americans, among them my gobd friend Ward, and one German. He is a very talented man. If you would like to know anything about my looks, I can tell you I have grown rather large, am still utterly incapable of always look ing dressed up, am very far from a dandy. . . . Oh, Jupiter, my boy, what can I branch off on next ? I want very much to tell about Paris and adventure, etc. Memory spreadeth not her broad wing over my soul ; Fantasie, the silver-winged, swims not from her home, in the gold and purple East, to breathe into the spirit of her adorer that inspiration which he longs for to please his little brother Henry with. I wrote the last sentence to the tune of a hand-organ under my window. See if there be music in it. There, that 's a witty, overstrained fantasie in the transition style, a little in your own manner. It 's growing nebulous, about 4 p. M., and in a few seconds I ought to light my candle. Well, Henry, I want you really to be industrious. If you won't be so in books, study industriously the great volume of human life ! which is the hardest of the two, for you must do what is for you very hard control yourself. Learn 1 68 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND all my maxims, get rid of all boyish Philister- like ideas you ever had, particularly those about me, and consider me as a man, a new acquaintance, and we '11 be good friends. HOTEL DU LUXEMBOURG, Dec. 20, Vis a vis au Palais de Cluny, Rue de la Harpe, Quartier Latin. DEAR HENRY, There you have it, grand and magnificent, and every word true. But ah ! how werry deceitful is them appearances ! One would really think that your brother was the chosen one of princes from the magnifi cent heading of his letter. But princes dorit live in the Latin Quarter, and the whole thing is " calculated to deceive." Another phase in Arthur O'Leary is realized. In the Rue de la Harpe (described in the " Almanach des Grisettes " as the street of the real Paris stu dent), you see the Quartier Latin in all its glory and filth ! The houses are older, the stones rougher (for the narrowness of the street precludes trottoirs, or sidewalks, in most places), the mud deeper, the restaurants cheaper, the estaminets and cafes more fre quent than in any other part of Paris. And just exactly in that part of the street where PARIS IN '48 169 the houses are the oldest, the stones roughest, the mud deepest, and the restaurants cheap est, rises the Roman ruin of the Thermae, or Baths, on the other side of which is a beauti ful Gothic building. But the Roman side is a mere gloomy looking den. Nearly opposite, from the vile black mud, rise a lot of squalid looking houses, God knows how many stories high, dingy with age and dirt. The dirtiest of those houses, which looks outside like a sailor boarding-house of the lowest class, is the Grand Hotel du Luxembourg, No. 62, where I live. It looks most uncommon nasty, and that 's a fact, with its low, narrow porte cockere. Well, enter. Get up to the premier etage, open the first door and an ordinary small bedroom presents itself, habitable enough, but nothing extra. Then open an other door, and you are in my den, the most comfortable looking, loafer looking, large, handsome bedroom I ever had. It is real out and out bachelor, as nice as be damned. I have three arm chairs in red velvet, four common chairs in red something, a fine sofa in red velvet, a fine clock, etc., etc. My pipes ornament one side of the room, my duellers hang on each side of my glass, I Ve got a car- 1 70 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND pet, and a bed which looks like the marquee of a major. Well now, I 'm down to write, and I'll begin! I've got much, and yet very little, to relate or spin out. I 'm hard on the ^Esthetic studies, and amusing myself blessed little. I have ceased amusing myself, and am now desperately determined to get up a good work on Esthetics. As for writ ing, you have lost two letters from me. You speak of my letters giving me entree into so ciety. I would like to know what letters you mean. I had one to a M. Morlot from a M. Bujac. Well, I called on him, delivered it, and, after talking with him, went, and have never heard of him. That is genuine French they never care a curse for a man who does n't come the grande figure. I have one left to Prof. Pouillet, a great man here, from Prof. Henry. A great deal of fuss was made about this letter. Well, Henry introduces me as a young gentleman who intends attending his lectures. I 'd see him damned first. Now there remain two to Mr. , a sneak who insults people gratuitously, expects you to bow before him, and prove your aristocracy. I '11 rest in the society of students and mil liners first. All the Americans abroad are PARIS IN '48 171 busied with "getting into society," getting " presented to the King," and raising all hell in order to do something to brag about when they get home. Before I '11 put up with the airs of a set of people I have no sympathy with, I '11 live alone. I know perfectly well that I can walk into their astonishment knee deep when I try, for if ever man had brass and experience the Chevalier has, and no fear in any society. The only evening party I 've been to in Paris consisted of six kept mistresses and two men, where they played vingt-et-un for sous, and I went to sleep on the sofa, and afterwards waltzed to the piano forte, and tried to learn that foolish dance, the cancan. Just now I 'm living quiet. I 'm blase, without affectation. I 'm hard up for tin also. I like to meet with an American who has never travelled. I don't care who or what he is. If I can't put my thumb on him, then I 'm an idle boaster. Shall I describe ? The lorettes in Paris at present wear their hair down over their eyes. They all smoke cigars. In a great ball you see many pretty, but still as many interest ing, or piquant looking girls. Let me intro duce you to my English friend, Mr. Field. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND He is sitting by me. We have studied to gether in Heidelberg, drunk beer in Munich, and "gone it" in Paris. He studies " droit" or law, speaks German like a native, etc. What days we have seen together ! I must close abruptly. A long letter from Germany and the arrival of Pottinger, with divers business, hinder me from continuing. But I must first narrate a little incident. I am much loved by dogs. Last night, as I was coming home at about 12.30, over the Pont Neuf, up the Rue Dauphine, a beauti ful little terrier dog followed me. He came after me up into my room, and when I took a good look at him, went down on his knees, or rather up on his legs, in a good attitude. So I gave him a room and a bed, and this morning, after paying his respects to me on his hind legs, bolted. All well, write soon. CHARLES. PARIS, Jan. 2, 1848. DEAR HENRY, The red wine punch is on the fire, Pottinger is blowing away with the bellows and quoting from Ausonius. . . . Your letter was received yesterday evening. Many hearty thanks. If I have anything to PARIS IN '48 173 console me in going to VAm'erique, it is the reflection that you are there. Pottinger is here to spend Christmas; the old stager is no stranger, however, in Paris. He is the man who really never read one of Scott's novels. But what an abyss of erudition and talent, common sense and savoirfaire ! Well, the ponche au vin is ready. One bottle Bur gundy (one franc), sugar, lemons, eau-de-vie, and cigarettes at five sous a dozen ! My only real weakness now is a petit verre and cafe. No fear of the cholera. Paris is just now full of mud and, as the masked balls have just begun, is as blackguard as the Coal Hole ! You can have no idea of real, pure, unmiti gated rowdyism until you have been to a bal masque in the Prado. After beginning this letter I went to one in the Odeon I mean a masked ball. One thing at a time the fly thing just now in Paris is to wear a white paletot, bottes vernies (patent leather shiny), the great test of dress aristocracy, a really good hat, a common black eye-glass with a finger-broad ribbon, and black gloves full gaiters are allowed and a very long waistcoat. The two reines de bal now are named Frisette and 174 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Rigolette. They are not pretty, but dance well. The Odeon ball began at 12 o'clock, and an immense crowd, masked and un masked, surrounded the theatre. The men are generally dressed as Pierrots, in full white cotton trousers, and a sort of blouse do. with red ribbons, and buttons as large as an or ange. The women, with full velvet trousers, man's shirt and neckcloth, and a sash round the waist. I 'm very quiet now, working on Esthetics. Paris is not half as jolly as Germany, al though it produces wonderful impressions on freshly arrived Americans. What I told you long ago in a letter about the superiority of the quiet German cities to Paris is true. Ex perience confirms me in it. ... The great song in Paris now is the chorus of the " Gi- rondins," a play which has had 139 repre sentations. The Latin Quarter rings with it, and when I awoke at five this morning, a drunken crowd of students passed my house singing it. ... I wish I could take you into my cafe de la Rotonde, corner of the Rue de 1'ficole de Medecine and the Rue de Haute- feuille. There you see the world, and if you drop in at six p. M., may behold ME drinking PARIS IN '48 175 coffee and eau sucree, and reading the " Cor- saire," " Charivari," " Deutsche Zeitung," "Daily News." The " Corsaire " is the fly, spicy paper of Paris. The cafe de Mille Colonnes in the Palais Royal is all very well, but there are no cafes in Paris to be com pared with those I have seen elsewhere. The Cafe de Danemark is a favourite hole of " ours." In the second storey of my cafe (Rotonde) is a billiard room frequented by students and their girls. Students' women all smoke. I like to see a regular dragon fini puffing away. C'est ma Nini, c'est ma Nini, Dieu ! qu'elle est gentille. C'est ma Nini dragon fini, Dieu, quelle bonne fille ! Au soir au bal vous la voyez Chahutant, le poing sur la hanche, Les cotillons, tous voltigeans, Elle est encore la plus char-man-te ! The tune of this chansonette is really very fine. Students are very different boys from thejeunesse doree, who promenade the Boule vards. Germany, thank God, has a very small proportion of the latter article out of Austria. The Seine is a very mean little river, and 1 76 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND only has the good quality of having good water. And now I have seen many rivers, the Rhone, the Rhine, the Oder, the Weser, the Elbe, the Moselle, the Main, the Neckar, the Danube, the Iser rolling rapidly, the Inn, the Meuse, the " lazy Skelt," or Escault (French), the Somme, the Oise. In the Schweiz, the Rhine and Rhone again ! In Italy, the Po, the Adige, the Brenta, the Piave, the Arno, the Tiber. There is a string for you, and yet I forgot the Moldau by Prague. And I would fain be by the Iser strand Bei der Isar strand, dort ist mein Vater- land. Pottinger thinks that Munich is " the finest old nest in Europe," and I coincide. There is a wholesale heartiness in Bavarian life in Munich, in Fine Arts and Beer and Tobacco. It seems rather queer that you said nothing to me about George Boker's poems beyond putting, or pasting, in the advertisement. You do hate to take pains in writing a letter. Tell me at least the titles of his poems and if they are good. Don't try so awfully hard to be brilliant in your letters, and do stop punning. I like to find amusement in quaint- ness, in fantaisie, but hate any attempt at PARIS IN '48 177 fly, spicy, N. P. Willis sort of writing. It looks so very " gentish," and savours to me of cheap shooting jackets and glass-headed canes "out for the day on Sunday." I am convinced that nobody can make poetry. I am very glad indeed that the little Berner song pleases you so much. I wrote it quite naturally, merely putting a few real feelings into rhyme! I was all alone. I had a hard time of it when I came from Geneva to Berne. I was sick all night in the diligence, and felt as if I was going to be "sicker of being sicker." Well, I got into Berne all alone, and stayed a day or two lonelier than ever. I 'm used to that sort of thing now, but then it was new to me. I felt rather glad at finding an old German gentleman in Bale whom I had met in Florence. One meets people everywhere in Europe. I met Harry Smith of Philadelphia a few days ago in the Champs-Elysees. . . . CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES LELAND PARIS, le 4 Janvier, 1848. MY DEAR MOTHER, If anything would in duce a man to answer a letter promptly, it 1 78 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND would be the receipt of such a one as your last, which really comforted and warmed my heart for two entire frosty days. I am glad that I gave you some account of the beautiful Elbe that truly enchanted river with its wild cliffs, green forests, and robber castles. And still more comforting is the idea that I can never write again as well as I did in those wretched letters of mine, which Aunty Hale has been publishing for the benefit and in struction of mankind. If I dorit write better break my meerschaum that 's all ! The cholera, I suppose, will give me the go-by. Don't be alarmed about it ; nobody is here. We have just heard that in Poland and Silesia it is extremely mild. As for the rest, the only cases of cholera that have appeared in Paris were in reality nothing but cholera morbus, or something of the sort. Paris is a pleasant town enough, but not to be named in the same day with Vienna or Berlin as a pleasant place of residence. I shall never recover Ger many, nor do I know a single person who has lived in Germany who does not prefer it to any other country. There is the most singu lar unaccountable fascination about Germany that man can imagine, and my English travel- PARIS IN '48 179 ling friend, who had come to Paris to spend his Christmas vacation, wants to go to Ger many instead. The weather in Paris, from being foggy, has become clear and cold, very cold sometimes. My health continues very good indeed, and I am quite comfortable. All Paris is crazy now with the masked balls. I have seen them in Italy and Germany, and prefer the German to the French. The Paris masked balls are altogether too blackguard, whereas the Germans, though bad enough, always behave quietly and decently. I am glad also to hear so much about sisters in your present letters. Poor little Charlotte seems to keep quite in the background, but never mind, I shall soon see them, and it will be delightful. If you want to entice me home, you can do it best by telling me about Henry and the girls. When I take to letter writing in Paris, I always feel more like going over some of the scenes of my past travels than describing the lions here. The Tuileries, and Luxembourg, and Place Vendome, and so on, are all sur passed by other buildings in other places, just as the men who dwell around them are by almost any other civilized people. i8o CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Whether a Frenchman be more monkey or devil is a problem as difficult as ever to solve. The most astonishing thing in their charac ter is the fondness for rushing into cafes and spending the whole day in drinking sugar water, reading papers, playing chess and dominoes, etc. It is strange enough when we consider, after all, how much a man's na ture depends upon the society he is brought up in, and how very happy people would be in this world if they did not trouble them selves about the little mean restrictions of society and fear of ridicule and so on. The great advantage of travelling is, that it teaches a man, better than anything, the true value of people's notions on different subjects, and keeps him from attaching undue importance to anything (except indeed MONEY). It is terribly apt, indeed, to induce a sort of good- humoured Epicureanism not indeed by making him fond of pleasure rather the other way but in making him feel the re ality of this world more than ever. The most disgusting thing in France (in a small way) is the way you are obliged to dress. The poorest here must and will be wretched without fine clothes, and we Americans are not one whit PARIS IN '48 181 better. New hats and new bonnets, new coats and new boots ! ! Now, in Germany, there is not one city, Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Hanover, Dresden, where I would not go into the streets with an old shooting jacket on and a pipe in my mouth. In Munich, I was no more uneasy in the street than in my own room. Now I verily believe that the secret of German happiness consists in the fact that there is no land in the world where people trouble themselves so little about appearances. Here, in Paris, if you haven't a fine room in a fine quarter you are nobody. In Germany, people felt rather in clined to laugh me out, if I had a fine room. The Germans are all poor, and consequently are more charitable to the poor. But I must really stop talking about Germany. There is a crowd here, my three friends, all ex-German students, who assemble in my room round the fire, each with a long pipe, and praise Germany ! I wish I could make a good pic ture of them, with a great German beer schoppen in the middle. Well, I must really get to talking about something worth hear ing. One of the most agreeable places in Paris is the gallery of the Louvre, there are 182 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND such splendid pictures. I have seen the greater part of all the fine pictures in the world, and have studied and read much on the subject so as not to speak ignorantly. If you want to know the finest picture in the world, it is the Madonna del Sisto in Dres den, and not the Transfiguration in Rome ; both are by Raphael. [How the standards have changed since '48 ! ] I remember of old your liking for pictures, and wish you could visit the Louvre and Luxembourg galleries here. I don't like the pictures of David and the French school. After the Italian beauty and German soul, they come like ice and stone. But some of the Raphaels here are superb. I saw in Holland and Belgium some very fine pictures. When I undertake to write a letter, my mind seems always changed into a sort of panorama. All the scenes and cities that I have passed through run through my mind, and produce an effect strikingly like that of trying to remember a melodrama the day after. I can always recall the de lightful impressions myself, but can never transfer them. Then there is always such a delicious blending, such a fusion of recollec tions and ideas, such an embrace of memory PARIS IN '48 183 and imagination, that I really sometimes be gin to believe that I have been in Turkey or China, and asked Pottinger the other day if we had n't touched on the river Vistula some where in our wanderings. Now, for instance, I can imagine myself high up in the old cathedral of Strasburg, looking down on the strange old city, with its high gable roofs and quaint chimneys, with hundreds of storks flying over them. In all old German towns the storks build their nests in the chimney. The people believe that they bring good luck (and the young German children all believe that it was the good stork who tried to pull the nails out of Christ's hands and feet, when crucified). Well, I never for get that view, any more than I can the blue Alsatian hills which stretch far away beyond. You can see this cathedral for at least sixty or seventy miles. I have seen it from Baden, and from its summit you can count hundreds of cities, towns and villages. It is the tallest, and, to my taste, the finest Gothic church in the world. Then I think . of Venice, of the canals, moonlight and gondolas, Paolo Ver onese, and the St. Mark's Church, and Doge's Palace, with its semi-oriental splendour. Of 1 84 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND all my travels, no one part seems so thor oughly dreamlike fairylike or beautiful, as the two weeks I spent in Venice. I should never have tired of it, and even now I can hardly realize that I have dwelt in the " City of the Sea." The never-ceasing " wash " of the water in the canals, the delightful slide of the gondola through the water, the palaces and galleries and the delightful fun of walk ing about the St. Mark's place, were all as peculiar as pleasant. I remember once (pro fane Yankee that I was) being shown the stone chair of St. Mark and sitting down in it, in order to find if its holiness would have any effect. Alas, it just didn't! And then there were the smugglers who sold Maltese cigars, etc. Now my mind jumps to Bologna, with its sausages, and portico houses, all joining one another, and its Sta. Cecilia of Raphael, and Ferrara, as solitary and forlorn as an empty stable, and Rome, the desolate Queen of Cities, the proud, the imperial, the beautiful, and Florence the delightful, for I certainly was there, what I always have been everywhere in Europe, happy, contented and satisfied. When I was alone I reflected, and when in company I ran round and talked. PARIS IN '48 185 Oh my! Italy and Switzerland, Mont Blanc and Prussia, Poland and Paris, Munich and Gibraltar, what a phantasmagoria ! Well, do excuse this very stupid letter ; my next shall be as long, and, if the fairy who guards me will, it shall be a little more interesting. My very best love to Father, assure him of my love and kindest feeling, he knows well how I feel towards him. Love to the girls, especially to dear little Emmy (do tell me if she is very pretty), and love to Henry. Love to all who enquire after me. Write soon, as you did in your last, and believe me to be Your affectionate son CHARLEY. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO CHARLES LELAND H6TEL DU LUXEMBOURG, PARIS, Feb. 29, 1848. DEAR FATHER, When I wrote last our Revolution was just beginning. The day be fore, popular demonstrations had taken place and everything portended that, whether the Liberals held their banquet or not, and whether the ministers interfered or not, a great riot at least was to be apprehended; when my letter went to post, however, con- 1 86 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND flicts were just taking place and sharp firing going on in the Faubourg St. Antoine. On the 22d, gunsmiths' shops had been plun dered, a few individuals killed and wounded by the cavalry, and several barricades begun. After sending my letter, I went to the Faub. St. Antoine, saw the people, who were very indifferently armed, sang and cried Vive la reforme! with them. Just as we turned a corner, several platoons were fired by the troops into the street we left, and many people were killed. We had to run twice into houses to escape a charge of cavalry. Fusillades were going on everywhere, and the people seemed to gather fresh determination and energy every minute. Everywhere we heard and joined in the deeply exciting cho ruses of " La Marseillaise " and " Girondins." Very few of the National Guards were as yet to be seen. At this time (noon), people were killed in different parts of the city by the Municipal Guards, who were always very much hated. As the people were at this hour almost literally unarmed, these discharges were nothing more nor less than murder. Several individuals in upper stories of houses were singled out and shot by the Municipaux. PARIS IN '48 187 At two o'clock the Nat. Guards (who are citizen soldiers) began to interfere with and prevent this unreasonable slaughter, and cried with the people A bas Guizot! and Vive la reforme! At five o'clock some police prisons were broken open, and those who had been arrested for " rioting " delivered. About this hour I witnessed, with Rosengar- ten, the fusillade of the Rue St. Denis by the bridge. At this instant the bridges were closed, and I supposed, as the soldiers told us, that it would not be possible to cross the river. We went, however, to the Pont Neuf. Already we had heard a rumour that the min istry was to be changed, and, on entering the Rue de la Monnaye, saw an officer on horse back who announced to the very great joy of the people that Guizot had resigned. The bridge was free and every one imagined that order would be restored as soon as the retiral of the hated minister should be generally known. Such might indeed have been the case, had not precisely at this time an event taken place which, trifling as it seems, was in reality the turning point of the entire Revolution and the French government. It was at nine o'clock in the evening, while the i88 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND streets were being illuminated in honour of the change in the cabinet, at an instant when all Paris was becoming joyful and happy, that the soldiers stationed to guard the house of M. Guizot fired on the people in the street and killed or wounded sixty persons. . . . From one end of the city to the other the cry of Aux armes was heard, the tocsin was sounded at several churches. An American, who has only heard bells of a smaller calibre, can have no idea of the awful unearthly effect which the sound of these " storm bells," as the Germans call them, produces. As they are only sounded for fire (which is of very rare occurrence in Paris) and insurrection, you may well imagine that the rarity of the alarm roar adds greatly to its effect. Suppose it mingled with discharges of musketry, the galloping of cavalry, the shouts of the infu riated crowd and the screams of the wounded, and you can form some idea of the " street music " of Paris on that eventful night. Every one slept lightly and anxiously, for the King had 100,000 troops in the city, and the people were hardly armed at all. Next morning, when I rose, I found the en tire Quarter in an uproar. Bands of students PARIS IN '48 189 and labourers hurried from house to house, fiercely demanding arms. Everything was converted into a weapon, knives and forks, crowbars, bayonets on broom-handles ; I saw many curious and beautiful weapons of the Middle Ages which had been snatched from the dust of garrets or museums to lend aid, in their old age, to a modern battle. One street loafer in rags trundled along with an immense two-handed rapier of the i4th century, at least six feet long, hanging at his back. Another brandished a Morgenstern or Morningstar a spiked mace. The neighbourhood of the Museum Cluny explained the source of these curiosities. As fast as arms were obtained from a house, they wrote on the door, Armes donnees. On one house I saw, " No weapons left, Caporal has gone away with the gun." As for myself, I breakfasted in a hurry, made a detour, for the side street was being filled with broken bottles for the benefit of the cav alry, and, hurrying home, loaded my "duel lers" and, equipped with dirk and pistol, went forth and worked with a hearty good will at the barricades. My English friend, Field, caught the excitement, and rushed to work without stopping even to change his white i 9 o CHARLES GODFREY LELAND gloves. I remember perfectly well once, when a boy at school in America, wondering how the French people contrived to get up these mysterious barricades. As L'artde construire les barricades remains as yet unwritten, I will go a little into detail. Paris is paved with large square stones, varying from six to twelve inches in length. One man roots them up with a crowbar, and six or eight form a line and pass them along. I started one barricade in a side street with some half a dozen " ac complices," and I verily believe that in six minutes it was nearly six feet high. Never did I see human beings work with such desperate energy. A great many well-dressed gentlemen were mingled with the others. One large bar rier on the other side was constructed almost exclusively by young gentlemen. On the Boulevards and Quais, trees were cut down to form barricades. Near the Bourse they employed its spiked railings to form chevaux de frise. In the Faubourg St. Antoine I saw barricades constructed exclusively of chairs, beds, tables, etc. Generally speaking, a cart, diligence, omnibus, or fiacre was taken to form a nucleus, around which the stones were piled. The barricade once formed, nothing remained PARIS IN '48 191 to be done but stand by and guard it, for no one knew in what quarter, or from what side, we might be first attacked. Twice, at our large barrier, the cry of Les Municipaux was raised, and while the women rushed into the houses (all of which were left expressly open in com pliance with a placard posted on all the walls), we ran with our arms to the barricade. Our quarter, however, remained safe. While I was at our barricades, matters were progressing with fearful rapidity in other parts of the city. Early in the morning, another cabinet had been formed. . . . The hotel of M. Guizot was taken, on one side the people immediately wrote Hotel du Peuple, on the other Propriete Nationale, also two placards bearing the inscriptions " Shop to let," and " A large apartment to let." Immediately after, the prison in the Rue de Clichy was broken open, and the prisoners (confined for debt) liberated. At the same time (10 A.M.), severe firing took place in the Place de la Concorde, and also in the Rue Anjou St. Honore, where many were killed. At half past twelve a very brisk engagement took place between the Nat. Guards and citizens on the one side, and the troops of the line on the other, in the 192 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Place du Palais Royal. As a curious fact, I would mention that I have heard it stated that a son of Mehemet Ali's, now being educated here in Paris, armed with a musket, fought in this place with great bravery on the side of the people. ... In our University Quarter, I remained at a barricade until a tremendous up roar heard near the bridges, shouting mingled with numerous discharges of guns, induced us for an instant to believe that an attack was taking place. It was, however, only a regi ment of the line come to render up their arms to the people ; in token of amity and joy they kept continually discharging their pieces in the air and exchanged with the crowd, who were fairly crazy with joy, cordial grasps of the hand, embraces, and kind salutations. The uproar was deafening, and had I not wit nessed, immediately after, at the Tuileries, a scene which infinitely surpassed it, should say that the excitement was as intense as any that I had ever seen. From this scene, I hurried to the Tuileries and arrived there just after the struggle had ceased. Our first intimation of the event was seeing a Royal carriage on fire, which a crowd of delighted gamins were rolling along the PARIS IN '48 193 Quai. As we entered the Place, we saw, to the left, hundreds busily engaged in distrib uting military bread to the hungry people from a waggon. Great numbers of those who were engaged in the taking of this Place were workmen out of employment, who, ill-fed at best, had been, in many instances, all night building barricades and had eaten nothing for 24 hours. Great quantities of bread, infe rior wine, and salted meat were distributed. The poor devils ate like hungry wolves, yet without quarrelling about quantity or pos session, and partook in the most amicable manner imaginable of the remarkably coarse brown bread (I have seen horses fed with as good). The surplus bread and meat they carried away on the points of their swords, bayonets, pikes, etc. But the maddening ex citement of the multitude who filled the Place des Tuileries, half-crazy with the con sciousness of complete victory, was literally indescribable. Shouting, hurrahing, and screaming with delight, firing their guns and pistols in the air, some of them caracolling about on splendid horses from the royal sta bles, and displaying their newly acquired arms with all the pride of a gentleman cava- 194 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Her who has " steed to ride and weapon to wear," they formed a spectacle which no city save Paris could present. On entering the Tuileries I was even more struck. A great deal of small pilfering of course at once took place, but it struck me, even at the time, that it was rather for the sake of retaining some small souvenir of their visit than to actually benefit themselves. Jewelry, to the amount of 3,000,000 fr., was spared, and all the works of art, with the exception of the King's por trait (which was torn in pieces) and his bust (which was hung up by the neck), left un touched. Placards were at once placed on every valuable object declaring it to be " Na tional property/' and others, proclaiming " Death to thieves " and friendship to Poland and Italy, were placed here and there. The extraordinary assertions of the French papers with regard to the extreme moderation and honesty of the captors are to be taken with a certain degree of allowance, yet I am still quite inclined to believe it to be almost un precedented. With the taking of the Tuileries the Revolution was accomplished. . . . Very little of the slang and machinery of the old French Revolution has been brought PARIS IN '48 195 into play. To be sure, we all call one another citoyen and citoyenne, but, as has been justly remarked, it is more in joke than other wise. The red flag and cockade has given place to the less Jacobinical tri-color, and the old cry of " Vive les sans-culottes," which a few voices raised on the Boulevards, has been universally reechoed by the more respect able and popular shout of "No more sans* culottes? In short, this revolution is doing its best to be honest and decent. One effect which it had in a small way was to make all Paris acquainted, intimate even, and ten times as lively and affable as ever. Introductions were voted bores, and the gamin in the street walked along with the well- dressed gentleman, exchanging with him information and theory with regard to the Republique. The streets have been very hand somely illuminated for several nights. . . . It is really delightful to be an American here in Paris at present ; they consider us as, in fact, doubly distilled Republicans. Eh bien, I must close. I have left hundreds of things untold, which you must get at either in the papers or from my future letters. ... 196 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND It is amusing to insert, after this letter to his father, a little printed circular, yellow and stained, addressed to " Monsieur C. G. Le- land, 62 Rue de la Harpe," which, without exaggeration, may be described as an historical document : SIR, A meeting of citizens of the United States of America will take place at No. 9 Rue Richer to-morrow, March 2d, at 12 o'clock, to make arrangements for a proper expression of feeling to the Provisional Gov ernment of France in respect of the recent revolution. You are respectfully invited to attend, and particularly requested to notify your Ameri can friends of said meeting. PARIS, ist March, 1848. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO HENRY PERRY LELAND PARIS, March 20, 1848. CARO ENRICO, Punch's account of M. Alex. Dumas' two letters from Spain shall apply to mine from Paris. The first was all roses and gas light, champagne foam and hurrahs, but the second, which went, not to PARIS IN '48 197 a journal but to a friend, was all curses and vin ordinary and bad roads. The hangman carry this spring weather for me ! Au reste, times are dull, the masqued balls over, money scarce, the lorettes frightened to death, and all the canaille busy in discussing rorgani- zation du Travail. . . . You want a description of one of my days in Paris. Eh bien ! I wake at 8 or 9, and read perhaps half an hour. Then I get up. Then a little girl comes and brings milk and eggs. Then the concierge comes and rakes out some hot coals, and with the gridiron cooks a beefsteak or cotelettes. Then Field comes. Then the table is spread, Field hav ing a re-inforcement of sardines. Then all is over. The dishes are washed. Pipes or ciga rettes are lighted. The eau-de-vie is pro duced, and I get hold of a book. Since the Revolution our lectures have gone to the Devil, so I read and write or loaf until 6 o'clock. Then the great question: where shall we dine? And we dine at Janodet's very well indeed from two to three francs, or in the Palais Royal nearly as well from one and a half to two, or at John Bull's for the same, or at Viot's once a fortnight for one. 198 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND After dinner, cafe, billiards (not very often), or loaf, or a visit, or a spectacle, or home to read and write and smoke, or anything you please. That is my present life, and it is, at all events, agreeable. The mail ! Oh donner- wetter kreutz-million / I 'm afraid that this is too late. Thy true friend and ever dear brother, CARL. P. S. Don't know Grammont. Did you ever hear of Abraham a Santa Clara see if his works are in Philadelphia. I want them awfully. Is Wincklemann, or Winkelmann, in the Bibliotheca? Stick it into the library box to subscribe to " Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance." CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO FRANK FISHER PARIS, April 28, 1848. DEAR FRANK, Accuse me of negligence in writing, if you will, but of all negligence with regard to attending to your affairs I am innocent. Oui, tres cher amy et cousin. Ev erything in Paris has gone a tort et a travers from the affairs of Louis Filente or Louis Filon and the Government Provisoire down PARIS IN '48 199 to mine and thine. The fall of the oak kills the squirrels, and the Revolution of 1848 has played " enfer" with our personal arrange ments. I have already written a longish letter to you it " went lost," and now I hit him again. I Ve been in all sorts of adventures, and all sorts of luck since I saw you. I turned out in the Grande Revolution, armed like a smuggler with dirk and pistols, saw some fu sillades, helped build several barricades, was capitaine at one nice little one in our Quar- tier, and distributed percussion caps and con solation to the heroic canaille, not to mention being at the plunder of the Tuileries not that I plundered anything. It was great fun while it lasted was that said same Revolu tion. Whack, hurrah, guns and drums, fusil lades and barricades ! We dined under a Mon archy, supped under a Regency, went to sleep under a Provisional Government, and woke under a Republic not to mention about two hours when we had just no Government at all. Well, ami cousin, I 'm coming home soon. The Boulevards look forlorn without trees Dejazet is playing in " Mile, de Choisy " at the Varietes a very pretty little comedy. We had a Review with nearly 350,000 soldiers the 200 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND other day, and all Paris is overrun with penny papers, newsboys, and newswomen, who make such a row night and day that the city has become insufferable. Field is in England. As for me, I made a speech in German the other night to the audience at Bobino's little The atre, at the top of my voice. It went down like Greek at Tammany Hall nobody under stood a word, the audience were completely mystified, but still very much delighted. Whenever a man who looks a little more re spectable than common goes to Bobino's, he is sure to be called out to by some student, more oratorical than the rest, and must either display his talent at repartee and slang ing, or else sit still and be slanged. Well / was the selected one the other night, and as I did not understand half their argot though by this time I speak French decently enough I gave it back to them in a regu lar stump speech in German not caring to speak English and be called a'" Goddem " and a " biftek." All of these things have come on since the Revolution now the entire populace has become acquainted, nobody is gene: every night at all the theatres the en tire audience sing the songs of the revolu- FROM CHARLES G. LELAND PARIS IN '48 201 tion and amuse themselves in a free and easy way which would do honour to the Bowery so that even I quiet and sober citizen have been inspired with their enthusiasm. I really begin to think of addressing the opera audience on the American Constitution the price of provisions electromagnetism and matters and things in general. You will find the report of the speech the next day after never in the columns of the " Constitu- tionnel " Vive la bagatelle don't shew this epistle to anybody and believe me to be, Yours truly, . . . I meant to have given you another treat. Remember me particularly to Mary Lizzie, I owe her a letter, and very kindly to your Father and Mother and all. You will prob ably see me this summer. H'elas! les beaux jours de la vie! I have eaten at Janodet's ever since you left do you know the place? White's compliments to you, etc., and so on. The result of the Revolution King Stork coming to replace King Log, as he described it the Rye did not wait to see. His time abroad was almost up, and he set out on the 202 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND journey homeward almost immediately. But his pulse always beat faster at the thought of those momentous days. In the " Memoranda," under the date 24th of February, 1890, 1 find a reference to them, sad enough in the con trast suggested : " On Feb. 24th, 1848, 42 years ago, at this hour, I was in the thick of the French Rev olution at the Tuileries. Even now the memory inspires me. What a day it was for me ! I felt and knew its greatness at the time. I felt that everything in which I took part was history. 'Shot and smoke and sabre stroke and death shots followed fast/ . . . Now I am high and dry on the beach. But I remember when I rolled in the wave." There is an old, battered, little Journal be longing to 1848, where, from blurred, rubbed, and faded pages of impressions in picture galleries, extracts copied from books, odds and ends of rhyme, all written in pencil, a few entries stand out in the legibility of pen-and- ink; these cover the journey from Paris and the arrival in London. Were they of to-day, or even yesterday, no one would think of quoting them. But the date 1848 what a difference ! PARIS IN '48 203 June 1 6th. Left Paris at 7 P. M. 4 young Frenchmen in the car. Arrived at Rouen, ii p. M. Hotel du Midi. June 1 7th. Saw churches, Johanna of the fountain. Left, evening, at 7.28 p. M. Arrived at Havre n. Hotel de Normandie. June 1 8th. Got on board boat. 203. Ger man-Swiss Captain pilot etc. very plea sant passage. June i Qth. Arrived at St. Katherine Docks. Very severe search. Got cab and went to German Hotel, Leicester St., Leicester Square. Colquhoun called on me. Field. Went to Cremorne Gardens and Evans Cellar. June 2Oth. Went to Westminster School and Abbey with Colquhoun. Then, in pencil, isolated, dozens of pages left blank on either side for the inspiration that failed : " Reflections written in the Ball of St. Paul's July 2nd, 1848." I gather from the " Memoirs " how little time there was for reflection : so much was to be done. He went to the opera to hear Grisi and Lablache sing together, as they sang so sweetly in the tales of Willis and other fashionable authors of the day. He went 204 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND to see Taglioni dance, as he had already in Munich. He was carried off to Thames re gattas, he was asked to eat Soyer's dinners at the Reform Club. He had ceased to be the student, he was the young man about town. At the end of the summer, he sailed from Portsmouth for New York, on the ship Medi ator as I make out from the same little note book. Mr. and Mrs. John Gilbert were fellow passengers, and they were not, like Fanny Kemble, too great to be friendly. The famous Ravel family were rescued in mid-ocean from a famine of fuel on a ship of their own char tering ; whales and water-spouts and icebergs were encountered by the way ; and not one of the thirty-five days of a crossing we think un endurable if prolonged beyond six, was for him troubled by a more depressing consideration than that, whatever problems the immediate future was to torment him with, youth at the passing moment was not without amusement. From the time of his leaving New York, three years before, until his landing there one au tumn day in 1848, his lines had been cast in pleasant places pleasant because of his own choosing. CHAPTER VI YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS THE young traveller coming home found Philadelphia unchanged. If he no longer felt its charm in the old fashion, the difference was in him. The spirit of the place, ever in memory so " strangely quiet, sunny, and quaint," had helped him to lose in dreams the unpleasant reality of school and college. But it was now a time for action, and in this " pro vincial valley of self-sufficientness and con tentment," to borrow Lowell's description of Philadelphia in the Forties, he missed the brisker, more liberal atmosphere of Heidel berg and Munich and Paris. When, in the " Memoirs," he wrote of the years following his return, his native town lay under the shadow of his disappointment. It seemed as if there could not then have been another city "of which so little evil was to be said, or so much good, yet of which so few ever spoke with enthusiasm," though he managed eventually to speak of it with enthusiasm him- 206 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND self, as, for that matter, most Philadelphians do, Philadelphia somehow inspiring the loyalty it is seldom at pains to return. Its people, " all well bathed, well clad, well behaved," appeared, in his scornful young eyes, to have all " exactly the same ideas and the same ideals," peo ple who loved flowers more than books, who, when they gave their always excellent dinners, prized what was on the table above what was around it; people, in fact, not likely to interest a young man with a fancy for the so ciety of smugglers and slavers, with standards borrowed from German student-life, and with the music of the Marseillaise still tingling in his veins. I am afraid the Rye must often have said what he thought of Philadelphia in those days, to say what he thought, and to say it emphatically and picturesquely, was a way he had; I know Philadelphia never alto gether forgave him for it. But his impatience was due to nothing more serious than the intolerance of youth. In Boston, even in New York, he might have fallen straight into more congenial surroundings and so have lost what ever was most original in him. Indeed, any where save in Philadelphia, he might, like YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 207 Gautier in Paris, have gathered a group of other impatient young souls about him. In Philadelphia, he was practically alone, so that his contempt was not tempered by the humour of companionship. George Boker was there a man he loved. But George Boker, he says, in writing of this period, had trained him self from boyhood to self-restraint and calm ness. In this respect, at least, they had little in common. To be in revolt all by one's self was to have none of the fun of defiance. The contrast between Philadelphia and Munich, or Heidelberg, or Paris, might have been endured by the Rye, but for the more appalling contrast between the profession now chosen for him and the pursuits he had chosen for himself in France and Germany. For the law was decided upon, and he was hardly home again before he was entered as a student in the office of John Cadwalader in Fourth Street. To be exact, October 25,1 848, was the date of his registration, as I learn from an account of "John Cadwalader's Office" written for the " Law Association " of Phila delphia by Mr. John Samuel, a fellow student. " Afterwards," Mr. Samuel says, in giving a list of the men who studied with him, "came 208 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Charles G. Leland, just back from Germany, full of German life, and German mysticism, and European ideas of life. He was not cut out for a lawyer." And Mr. Samuel adds, as if to praise the strength of this German in fluence, " It was Mr. Leland who first intro duced to his fellow students, and I think I may say to the Philadelphia public, the use of lager beer in place of the strong malt po tations to which we had been accustomed." The decorations of the office Mr. Samuel re calls : with its anthracite stove, one long table, and hard wooden or straw-seated chairs for furniture, and for company, its group of young men struggling with Blackstone, copying deeds and leases, it must have been a trifle de pressing after the lecture halls and bierkellars of Munich and Heidelberg. And it may be that the German mysticism and German ways were not precisely calculated to make the new student popular in the office. For there seems to have been a prejudice in those days against the American who showed signs of being " Germanized." It was one of Poe's grievances that a charge of " Germanism " had been brought against him by his critics, a charge which he protested was in " bad YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 209 taste," and the Rye often declared to me that his knowledge of German in his youth had been treated as if it were a weakness in him, or a vice. Business could have been scarcely less to his liking than the law. But he made the best of things for his father's sake. He worked hard ; though the harder he worked the fur ther he was driven for his real life into his own dreams and the romance of art and philosophy. I cannot think of him at Mr. Cadwalader's, poring over musty law books, lost in legal fogs, without seeing as a com panion figure in misery the young Borrow shut up in the Norwich office, while outside the road was calling. However, the Romany Rye in Philadelphia persevered so well that, at the end of three years (1851), he passed his examination, took an office in Third Street, and hung up his sign as Attorney-at-Law. He had done all in his power to satisfy his father ; the rest lay with the people of Phila delphia. In the meanwhile, for his own amusement, he had been writing. He had long had the habit. At Princeton, he had contributed to the college magazine ; from abroad, he had 210 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND sent occasional letters to the newspapers at home. And now, by a piece of luck, he fell in with Richard B. Kimball, a New York lawyer, who, as the author of several forgotten novels, probably understood how irritating it was to want to give the world literature, and to be asked instead for law. And Kimball who " in 1849 bade me, in a letter, to go down on rny knees and thank Rabelais for having preserved me from Longfellow" "opened the door " of the " Knickerbocker Magazine," and of happiness, to the young Philadelphian oppressed with the emptiness of a legal life without clients ; only two, at a profit of fifteen dollars, had Philadelphia found for him in the first six months. The " Knickerbocker," to the youth with literary aspirations, as to the literary man who had arrived, was what the " Atlantic " became in later years. " By all means, cultivate the ' Knickerbocker,' " Haw thorne's friend, Horace Bridge, wrote to him when Hawthorne was first trying to make a position in print, and he and Longfellow and Lowell and all distinguished and popular American authors, as well as many English, were among its contributors. For one's name to appear in its table of contents was an in- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 211 troduction. Before long, the Rye's work was accepted also for John Sartain's art maga zine, published in Philadelphia. I doubt if many Philadelphians realize the number of experiments in periodical literature that have seen the light in Philadelphia. Longfellow, in his "Journal," refers to one that was to build up " a national literature worthy of the country of Niagara ! " Hardly as much could be said of the pretensions of the " Drawing-Room Journal," another Philadelphia publication for which the Rye was allowed, as a favour, to write the musical and dramatic criticism, Manuel Cooke, its proprietor, seeing in the atre and opera tickets the munificent pay ment which the advertisement of having one's work printed at all seems to some eco nomical editors of to-day ; but to the appren tice in journalism, it was all so much grist to his mill in the way of practice and experience. Besides, some proprietors and editors did pay him in more substantial coin, and when at the end of those legally profitless six months, he had to move out of his Third Street office, instead of taking another, he washed his hands of the law and made journalism his profession. And so Philadelphia lost a poor 212 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND lawyer and the world gained Hans Breit- mann. I do not want to give the impression that the Rye, all this time, was steeping himself in sorrow like a melodramatic young Werther, or shocking the Philistine like a self-conscious young Romanticist. If there was no chance to build barricades or to fall in with smugglers, he got what pleasure he could out of the social life of Philadelphia. He was young, he was handsome, a trifle over six feet two, straight, with a complexion so pink and white that the Philadelphia girls whispered of rouge and powder, is his own description a few years earlier, and to be young and handsome is a pleasure in itself. He was clever too, and clever young men were then, as always, socially in demand. It was the period when Mrs. James Rush was holding the weekly receptions to which everybody flocked ; not only everybody who was anybody in Philadelphia, but every dis tinguished stranger who visited or passed through the town, and a varied assortment of celebrities was the result; for instance, Sontag and Prince Jerome Buonaparte were two lions the Rye remembered having met YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 213 there on the same evening. Her invitations on horrible shiny cards to balls and on legal-like paper to concerts are preserved in the Rye's archives. I cannot resist point ing out, though Mrs. Rush is a celebrity probably only in Philadelphia, that she had risen above the Philadelphia social standard and interested herself in interesting peo ple even when they could give no satis factory answer to the Philadelphia question : " Who was your grandfather ? " The Rye's mother wrote to him, while he was still in Paris, " Mrs. Rush has returned from Europe with quite democratic feelings invites all who are genteel and respectable to her evening parties, says she wishes to do away with the foolish exclusiveness of Phila- delphians ; " a wish that to me seems more revolutionary than the Declaration of 1776. Not merely Mrs. Rush, but all Philadelphia could wake up to its social responsibilities when the moment required it. The Rye also remembered having seen Kossuth at a pub lic reception, Kossuth being then on the tri umphal journey through the country that other good Americans were to remember no less vividly: among them Longfellow, who, 214 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND from a balcony in Beacon Street, saw the "great Magyar," a " handsome bearded Hun, with a black plume in his hat, and clad in black velvet," and also Hawthorne, to whom and his family the glimpse of the train, with gaily decorated locomotive carrying the pa triot to Boston, was the great event of their life at West Newton. At John Sartain's house, the pupil of Thiersch could count upon a talk with the rare artist who came or belonged to Philadelphia. At the Unitarian church, the student of Beckers could be sure, as of old, of a sermon from Dr. Furness that was a challenge to thought. And it was during the fifties, I believe, that Mr. Carey, who was always glad to welcome the Rye, started the Sunday afternoons, long famous in Philadelphia as the " Carey Vespers," " where everything was discussed and nothing de cided." Then there were the few closer friends his brother Henry, George Boker, Joseph Paxton; there were the few houses with a more intimate charm. To one above all, Rod ney Fisher's, he was to look back with special tenderness. Rodney Fisher was the grand-nephew of Caesar Rodney, who signed the Declaration YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 215 of Independence, and the son of Judge Fisher of Delaware. He had come to live in Phila delphia ; he was a prosperous merchant, for long partner in an English firm at Canton. Small child as I was when he died, many years later on, I have never forgotten his house and the awe with which it filled me. I think I could only have gone there in the summer time, when the shutters, in Philadel phia fashion, were bowed, for it has remained in my memory a place of darkness, with huge Oriental jars gleaming from shadowy corners^ strange gods and beasts frowning and grin ning down upon me from dim walls, and a sudden glow of colour coming from mantels covered with rare porcelain. Probably already in the fifties, Rodney Fisher had begun to collect these things, and they first drew the Rye to the house. But there were greater attractions. Mrs. Rodney Fisher had been a Miss Callender, and the reputation of the Callenders for beauty was national, had even crossed the Atlantic. She herself kept up the family tradition, and had passed it on, as an inheritance, to the eldest of her three daugh ters ; the most beautiful woman he had seen in America, Thackeray said when he was 216 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND there in the sixties, and the Rye never lost his pleasure in the compliment. For, to quote his own -simply told story of these visits to Rodney Fisher's house : " I fell in love with his daughter Belle, to whom I became, after about a year, engaged." Journalism, paid for largely in theatre tickets, did not mean as much as the mod est competency upon which young Philadel- phians were then not afraid to marry. An engagement was one thing, marriage quite another, and, as it turned out, marriage in his case was to be postponed for five years. In waiting, work, profitable work, was more eagerly sought than ever. It is in keeping with Philadelphia's policy that, while only shortly before it had provided the literary inducement to bring Lowell from Boston and Poe from New York, both of whom were writing for a living, it left its own clever young citizen to go and seek a profitable post elsewhere. No Philadelphian ever yet was a genius in Philadelphia. The first pro mising offer came from New York, and from the most unexpected quarter. For it was Barnum who made it, as it always pleased the Rye, with his love of the " queer," to re- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 217 member. Of Barnum's extraordinary per formances, surely the most extraordinary was the launching of Hans Breitmann as an inde pendent journalist. There are odds and ends of the Rye's cor respondence, during the four years between his return from Europe and his departure for New York, to supplement the account of this period in the " Memoirs." They consist, with one exception, of letters to him, and they are the best possible evidence of the astonishing rapidity with which he gained his reputation as a writer. I gather from them that, before the first year (1849) was at an end, he was contributing to every leading magazine in New York and Philadelphia ; that as promi nent a man as Charles A. Dana of the " Tri bune " was writing to him for work from New York, and his services were being begged for by the forgotten editors of forgotten papers all over the country; that he was made a member of the Art Union in Philadelphia and was being complimented, right and left, for his articles on art. " If you should really succeed in domesticating art in America," his Heidelberg friend, George Ward, wrote from Boston (January, 1849), "you would do what 2i8 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND thousands are at this moment striving after, and it is a career which, honestly pursued, opens the road to the highest fame : I think, after a long European experience, one gets a position and consideration at home superior to that which home-bred merit can aspire to." I gather, with equal certainty, that he was in active correspondence with literary men then as influential as Kimball, Gaylord Clark, R. H. Stoddard, Dr. Griswold. " Come to New York," Kimball kept urging ; " sev eral amateurs, dilettanti, etc. etc., are ready to show you the * elephants,' the things which you Germanized fellows ought to know." An " elephant " of which Kimball himself was prepared to do the honours was the Century Club. It is amusing to read his description of that now very successful institution when it was in its early infancy : " We have a Club here not quite two years old, to which I belong, called ' The Century.' It is composed solely of authors, artists, and (real) amateurs. It consists, as the name indicates, of one hundred members, and it is limited to that number. The Club embraces the leading authors and artists of our city, and through its members I shall be able to give you very YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 219 full information in relation to all your enqui ries about art and artists in New York and Boston. I shall take pleasure in putting you in correspondence with some of our Club who are more familiar with the subject than I am." If, as Kimball suggests in other letters, the Rye was passing through " a purgatory " in Philadelphia, after Heidelberg and Munich and Paris, it was a purgatory very close to the heaven of success. Every letter from Kimball carries with it new compliments. " It does me good to read such well-written and such critical, really critical, articles in an American magazine," he writes of very early papers in " Sartain's." The Rye's personal letters were to him " like water to a thirst ing spirit;" and, forthwith, he introduces the young journalist to promising proprietors as "a literary giant, a perfect Polyphemus in learning, a man who having graduated here and learned everything that America could teach, spent five years trying to find some body skilled enough to teach him more, and returned after an unsuccessful search." The " terrible " Griswold, whom, according to Kimball, it was the fashion in Philadelphia 220 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND " to abuse and call names," accepts an article for the " International " from the new author with the pleasant assurance that he " will be pleased to have as many such as your leisure will permit," and proceeds to pronounce the Rye, in that periodical, " by all odds the most promising young literary man in Philadel phia, the most finished scholar." Gaylord Clark at once invites the young Philadel- phian to his place on the Hudson, his in ducement being the fact that " Mr. Irving is directly opposite; I can send to him three times a day." There were discouragements to counter act the success. " Meister Karl," after going through the " Knickerbocker," was making the rounds of the publishers and being persis tently refused. Too many editors, clamorous for the Rye's articles, had to regret with Cole, of the " Musical Times " in New York, that "the income of the paper will not warrant paying for communications ; " others offered no better terms than Sartain, who could give only fifty dollars a month for a story, a " Sum mary" six pages long of the month's art, literature, and music, and the editing of a special department called " Puck's Portfolio." YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 221 Gossip, at times, bred trouble between the Rye and Griswold, and Bayard Taylor, and Boker, and Kimball; trouble which, in the disjointed condition of the correspondence, it would be more than useless to try to under stand. However, I do not think the discour agements were very serious for a beginner with all life before him, and in the one let ter I have of the Rye's written during this period, his account of himself is far from melancholy. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO E. P. COLQUHOUN 306 WALNUT ST., PHILADELPHIA. (No Date.) DEAR DOCTOR, I received your inspiring and old-time-recalling document by the last steamer. As it did me good in the fullest sense of the word, I should be an ungrateful outsider, not to return due thanks. As for your letter of last summer, /0z de Chevalier, I never so much as heard of it ; not a line have I ever received from you before this last. Great improvements have taken place in our rascally Quakerdelphia since I last wrote. So many kneips a la Heidelberg have been 222 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND established that you might fancy yourself (where you now probably are) in Deutschland. German has become popular and fashionable among the elite and times are improving. I am still hammering away at law, and still recall ing old times, old pleasures, and old familiar faces. Europe seems still only like yester day, and I would give ten years of life to bring back Heidelberg, London, and you. I have been doing much small potato litera ture, and am just now speculating in my own mind whether I shall give a volume of sketches of " Continental Life and Litera ture " to the" Knickerbocker," our first Ameri can magazine. Many old scenes familiar to us both are described in them. A propos de votre frere, I shall be only too happy to use my small influence in making his work known. If newspaper notices, etc., can do any good, I am thine. ... I called this morning on an eminent Yankee Opersangerinn and did my amiablest, but the reception was cool. Mademoiselle had recently sung a song of mine at a New York theatre and, as she in formed me, " had not received a single hand of applause." To which I replied that I thought the affair myself to be very poor YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 223 trash. To which most truthful and candid bit of honesty she put in no demurrer, which raised us, I believe, highly in each other's opinions. So we go, Morgen wird es besser sein. As to what you say about success in America. If I consulted my own desires I would tell you to come to America and try. But in sober truth you hardly know this country. Commerce mercantile pursuits in a word, business, form the only career fairly open to those who would carve out fortunes, living, or even mere subsistence among us. I speak more particularly of Philadelphia. As regards ^profession, if a man will study and obstinately excel, there is little doubt of his getting along. I don't like to give a decided answer on the subject. I shall very probably turn into a Rtdacteur myself and move to New York next fall, where I can in form you over said point to greater advan tage. The genuine American will always rise whenever he can, in consequence of which I am perfectly qualified to assert that, in no country under Heaven, are the profes sions so overstocked as among us. Wait, however, for a decision until I get to New 224 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND York alors nous verrons. If I were in Europe now, it strikes me that a Bohemien sort of a life would be just the thing, such as you have recently tried a sort of respect able courier. En passant, let me remark that my work purports to be written by a Courier who takes his people over Earth, and through Heaven and Fairyland, including Vienna. As for love, I have been captivated with about 176 beautiful-faced, languid, young Americaines. Doctor, there is no country in the world which can begin to compete with ours for female beauty, as far as face goes. I shall visit one this evening who, in this respect, is almost peerless in beauty. But but at 30, alles ist weg / Phila. bears the palm among cities in this respect, for New York can make no great show in belles. Dec. n, 1850. DEAR DOCTOR, It is now several months since the above was penned and mislaid. I often intended writing you, and as often re solved to postpone it, until I should be settled in New York, and find something for you. Since then, I have determined to remain in my native city of Penn. We Americans are YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 225 notoriously unpunctual and but indifferent correspondents, while the bold Britons, to their credit be it said, have the reputation of failing in neither respect. Know, oh my friend, that since writing I too have become be trothed, to one unanimously admitted to be the belle des belles of our city. How pretty she is ! ... I am getting up a literary name and pushing at law. The publishers give me five dollars a page [not invariably, he was soon to find] when they want me, and I am still studying law. I am director in an Art Union, and co-editor of a weekly. Am to deliver a lecture on the 7th of January. I saw Porter of Heidelberg a few evenings since at Jenny Lind's concert, but have had no opportunity as yet of speaking with him. . . . This is about the most unsatisfactory coun try to travel in I ever met with. Railroads and new cities, tearing table d ' holes, brandy cock-tails, mint smashes, and prime Havan- nahs, form about the sum total of the agre- mens a fearful contrast to the quiet, com fortable, old-fashioned travel in the cities of Europe, with their churches of the Middle Ages, and silent familiar-looking auberges. Well would that we were both in Germany 226 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND once more (with our ladies). Would that we were walking on the terrace of the old Castle in Heidelberg by moonlight ! Old Castle ! How long it is since I have seen an old castle, or an old church, or an old tower ! In this country of bran-newness, it is almost a com fort to see even an old woman, of which there are very few, save among the darkies, for the white American is by no means a long-lived animal. Our infernal red-hot summers, which last from the beginning of May to the end of October, with their iced-brandy drinks, and our killing cold winters, which occupy the rest of the year, are perfect " death to long- living." I saw an article lately in a paper say ing that we were the palest and most melan choly race of men in the world, and I believe that we are (with the exception of the sallow Bohemian gipsies). Do you know that, as far as taste and education go, I do most atro ciously envy an European. I could like, by Jove, myself to live within the sound of old Cathedral bells and lead my life for the sake of enjoying it and not for the mere sake of work and progress. A distant relative of ours, who recently made a large fortune, in one year, as an editor in California, was so YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 227 much admired for this effort of genius as to have his portrait and biography published in a Boston paper, as a creditable example to the rising generation. That is a spirit which I hate. Damn the Gelt as gelt. For which rea son I hope that some day, should fortune ever favour me, I may while away long years on the Continent in the autumn of life in com pany with those I love. [Would that hope have been as strong, I wonder, could he have foreseen its perfect fulfilment when the win ter of life found him in Florence ?] Have you ever heard of a play (a tragedy) called " Cal- aynos," which was brought out at London some time ago? written by an American. The author, named G. H. Boker, has been my intimate friend from childhood. He has writ ten several better plays, one or two of which will be acted in London, before long. I be lieve that it was at Sadler's Wells, but am not certain. It was a year ago, however, at the only theatre in London where Shakespeare is ever played, which may give you some clue. How do you get along on the river ? Did you row much during the past two summers ? I shall never forget the Regatta, or, for that matter, your kindness and hospitality gener- 228 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ally to me while in London. . . . My nom de plume is the Chevalier. Your friend, CHARLES G. LELAND. It will be seen from this letter that, as early as 1850, before his law studies were finished, the Rye had some idea of trying his fortunes in New York. It was natural that he should, for Kimball, the indefatigable, never stopped urging it. " You are, in Philadelphia, get ting too much mixed up in petty cliqueism," or " would that you were here with me in Go tham, we would certainly perfect some plan for setting the Hudson on fire ; " is the refrain to all his letters. There was the drawback, however, that something definite in the form of paying work very seldom turned up. Kim- ball usually had to add that he might have to work there " a year absolutely for nothing," and to assure him that " it is better, if you are young and energetic, to have the influence with a periodical which gratuitous contribu tions will bring, rather than the money which you might receive for them." These passages I quote as suggestive documents in the history not merely of the Rye's career, but of that of YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 229 almost all American men of letters sixty years ago. Kimball grew more and more insistent, not realising, perhaps, how indispensable it was that the Rye should earn money. Finally, in the late autumn of 1852, he returned to the charge. " You know I have but one opinion," he wrote on November 13, " it is that you should come to New York now, put down your stakes, and go to work. Live economically, be indus trious and determined, and leave the rest to Providence. I know you cant fail if you fol low this advice. You know I will do all / can. But you must come here and be here in order to bring anything to pass. Do you remember the fable where the foolish one declared he never would go in the water till he had learned to swim ? I leave you to apply it." Whether it was on the strength of this argument or not, I cannot say, but I learn from the dates of Henry Leland's letters that, by the 2oth of the same month, the Rye was in New York, and, very shortly after, installed in the office of Barnum's paper at the not very munificent salary of $500 a year. I could present, to any one whom it might concern, the note, dated January 6, 1853, and signed Rufus W. Gris- wold, certifying that " the bearer, Mr. Charles 230 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND G. Leland, is Associate Editor of ' The Illus trated News,' " and desiring that he " may be admitted to all places open to the representa tives of this Journal." Barnum was then in the first flush of no toriety, prepared to run all creation when necessary, and, in the meanwhile and in part nership with the brothers Beech, to run a big illustrated weekly. Barnum had asked Dr. Rufus Griswold to be the editor of the " Il lustrated News," and Griswold "journalist, literary critic, discoverer, and monitor of poets and poetesses " had accepted, partly in order to propose the post of assistant to the "young Leland," who had been introduced to him by Kimball, and in whom he foresaw large possibilities. " Irritable and vindictive" as Griswold was, the "young Leland " was with him a privileged character to the end of his life. Successful men are not, as a rule, troubled with gratitude to those who first helped them toward success. But the Rye never forgot that it was Griswold who placed his foot on the first rung of the ladder, and to the end he spoke with genuine affection of Barnum. Some of his friends might be shocked at the very idea of even speaking to >^ ^ ' * -r^" ^^^^ FROM CHARLES G. LELAND TO MRS. PENNELL Written in Paris YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 231 " the Showman," to say nothing of working for him. The Rye appreciated Barnum's kindness. " Uncle Barnum," he says in one place, " was always good as gold to me." Moreover, in Barnum there was the oddness, the picturesqueness, that- never failed to at tract him in people, as in art and literature. His recollections of this first New York period are dominated by the flamboyant personality of the great showman, though most people would have thought that, in dominating any thing in American journalism, Griswold could have had no rival. A man of " a general presence rather the reverse of prepossessing, yet strangely dis tinct," is the impression Mr. Henry James, from vague meetings in early boyhood, has carried of Griswold through the years; a man "with a lurid complexion, long, lank, damp-looking hair, and the tone of concilia tion, unless I do him wrong," but, however unprepossessing, a man who, by dint of much compiling and editing of collections of liter ary specimens, rarer half a century ago, be came a power among the men and women the young Philadelphian now began to meet. New York, as well as Boston, had its " literary 232 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND set," and into this " set " the Rye was intro duced by Griswold, and by it was well re ceived, for he had, as further credentials, good looks, a striking individuality, and various articles in the " Knickerbocker." In the hotel at the corner of Park Place and Broadway, where he lived, he met many literary people, for it was kept by a certain Dan Bixby, who had been a publisher, and who now, as hotel- keeper, was apt to gather authors about him : Nathaniel Hawthorne, for one, remembered as " a moody man who sat by the stove and spoke to no one." N. P. Willis, pointed out to the boy years before as a celebrity, "a young gentleman then with curly hair and very foppish air," was still a shining light in New York, still by sheer swagger and dan gerous " Hurry-Graphs " forcing the public to accept him at his own estimation, even while the few laughed at " Niminy-Piminy Willis " and his own sister slanged him as " Jenny Jessamy." Bryant, the popular poet he will never be again ; the Misses Warner, scarcely known by name now, but classics to the generations brought up on "Queechy" and " The Wide, Wide World ; " Alice and Phoebe Gary, gentle and ladylike as their YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 233 verses; John Godfrey Saxe, another of the neglected; Henry Ward Beecher, his no toriety yet some distance ahead of him, these and many more made a literary group as important to themselves, if not to the world, as the Boston Club or the Brook Farm philo sophers. Now and then, a greater still appeared in their midst. Once, at a dinner, the " young Leland " talked, actually talked with Washing ton Irving. " I remember him as a man of very winsome manner, which showed itself sweetly and unaffectedly at his first word," is the pic ture of Irving in the " Memoranda." " Thus when I first met him he was surrounded by great men, Bryant, Willis, Bancroft, but when I was introduced he suddenly exclaimed, 4 Oh !' or * What ! Mr. Leland ! ' in a manner which thrilled me with pleasure and astonish ment. I often wish that I were a distinguished person so that I could confer pleasure on young people by thus noticing them. That is the best of being somebody : it makes your friends somebodies, reflects light on minor planets." Once, too, the "young Leland" rendered Edgar Poe, who could never know of it, the kindest service by burning some 234 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND of the gossip Griswold had collected, or in vented, and so saved the world a little, any way, of the unsavoury scandal the scavengers of literature love to rake up about the names of the great. It is to Griswold's credit that he took this high-handed interference "very amiably," and it should also be remembered in his favour that the man who worked so long with and under him as his assistant held that, as regards Poe, " he was not so much to blame as a score of writers have made out." Entertaining as this " literary set " was, most of the people in it pass as shadows across the pages of the " Memoirs " that are filled with Barnum's substantial presence. For them the Rye had the sympathy inter ests in common create ; Barnum stirred his imagination in New York, as the slaver had in Marseilles and Navone in Rome ; Bar num's " fifty million unparalleled moral won ders " appealed to the passion for the mar vellous of the overworked journalist, even as the book of " Curiosities for the Ingenious " had enraptured the schoolboy at Jamaica Plain. What he found in Barnum shows really what there was in himself. Barnum passed for an unusually clever Yankee, and YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 235 nothing more, to the majority of men. To the Rye, the Lover of the Odd, he was " a genius like Rabelais, but one who employed business and humanity for material, instead of literature, just as Abraham Lincoln, who was a brother of the same band, employed patriotism and politics. All three of them expressed vast problems, financial, intellec tual, or natural, by the brief arithmetic of a joke." This was a sort of " arithmetic " his sense of humour helped him to tackle. He has left a pleasant picture of proprietor and assistant editor preparing together the hu morous column which was a feature of the paper, the proprietor deferring to the assist ant " as a small schoolboy defers to an elder on the question of a game of marbles or hop scotch," the two editing their puns, reading their good things to each other, as happy as boys at play. A book of jokes " By Bar- num and Hans Breitmann " would, the Rye adds, " have been a very nice book indeed." One humorous column could not make the fortunes of the paper. Whatever Barnum may have wanted, the Rye refused to use it as an advertisement for freaks or shows, even if they were the biggest on earth, and 236 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND even if American journalism, out of his office, was the slough of corruption it had seemed to Poe; and unless the paper was run as an advertising medium, no man, single-handed, could have ensured its success. From the first, everything had been done solely by the editor and his assistant in the Literary Department, with Frank Leslie as chief en graver. After a while, Griswold, busy about many things, a divorce among others, left the office altogether. The pay of the assistant was doubled by " Uncle Barnum," but the work was hard, the proprietors were not in accord, and he wearied of struggling against the impossible. He resigned, to be replaced by a clergyman, which may have been part of Barnum's fun. It was a joke, however, that did not pay, and the weekly promptly perished. The Rye went back to Philadelphia, not much better off, except in knowledge of edit ing, than when he had left. There was no temptation to return to the law ; he could not live on literature alone ; he could not look to his father for an income. Journalism was still his one resource, a resource, let me say at once, that he never held lightly. At its worst, it amused him with its endless YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 237 occasions of seeing odd people and hearing odd things ; at its best, it inspired him with its opportunities for good work and wide in fluence. But a post on a newspaper was not always to be had for the asking. Magazines were open to everybody, but magazines paid little, if at all. There was an interval of de pression : his marriage indefinitely postponed, inactivity forced upon him. He was so discouraged that, in the year of his return (1854), he had some thought of seeking a government office, the salvation of many literary men of his generation. His friend Simon Stevens, from Washington, urged him to apply without delay for a foreign consulate, first at Rome, where the office hap pened to be vacant, and then at Constanti nople ; " it does n't pay," Stevens added. The Rye must have begun to think that nothing he undertook could pay. In the fall his mo ther died, a severe loss to him, for he had always been devoted to her. Probably never, throughout his long life, did his prospects look so black. It was the more incompre hensible because success of another kind had come rapidly. He could get no regular em ployment, and yet in his six years of work he 238 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND had so well established his literary reputation that, just as things were at their blackest in that unfortunate year of 1854, he found him self included among Griswold's Prose Writ ers. He kept up his courage, however ; he tried his luck with articles, he collected poems of dreams for an anthology, and, at last, in the spring of 1855, the outlook suddenly bright ened with an offer that came to him through his old friend, George Boker. The letter bringing it lies before me. GEORGE H. BOKER TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND May 17, 1853. MY DEAR CHARLEY, Would you like to assume the duties of first Assistant Editor of the " Evening Bulletin " ? If you would, answer at once ; but say nothing about the matter to any one else, for the present at least. Thine, GEO. H. BOKER. Naturally, the Rye did like to assume the duties. Alexander Cummings was the pro prietor of the " Bulletin," and Gibson Ban nister Peacock the editor. Peacock was going away for a holiday, and the new assistant had YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 239 to act as his understudy. His work was a column leader every day, book reviews, and paragraphs. That the Rye enjoyed this new life to the utmost, as he says in his " Memoirs," I can well believe, though it was anything but play. To learn to write leaders for a weekly he had found a dreadful ordeal, which is hard for me to realise, remembering as I do the facil ity with which he wrote everything in the last part of his life. On a daily, the ordeal was more severe, though, at least, there was not the difficulty of " rattling up a good subject," as he calls it. Motives for editorials were only too plentiful. There were, to begin with, plenty of evils at home to be fought. In the city founded by Penn that people might be free to go to Heaven their own way, religious intolerance just then raged until, more than once, its sky was as blood-red, as Fanny Kemble described it, with the light of burn ing churches. And this was the period when volunteer fire companies, the " brigand fire men " of Mr. Sidney Fisher's phrase, were as deadly enemies as the rival factions of a mediaeval town, and every fire alarm was the signal for a fight in streets made for peace. 2 4 o CHARLES GODFREY LELAND A state of terrorism prevailed, the necessity for strong action was great, and the risk to any one who ventured to take it was serious. But the danger was an incentive to a struggle as fierce, though there were no barricades to be built, though it was the people, not the rulers, who must be overthrown, as that in which le citoyen Charles had led in Paris. Now an editor, armed with other weapons, he threw himself, heart and soul, into the revolt against disorder. He wrote editorial after editorial. In print, that all might see, he urged the mayor Richard Vaux held the office to immediate and severe measures. He did all that could be done through a newspaper, and the reform that followed owed much to his initiative. More absorbing still were the national problems fast approaching a crisis. These were the years immediately preceding the Civil War, when the question of abolition had kindled national emotion to white heat. That it was one over which Penn's city should hesitate, would seem impossible, if it were not true. Years before, there had been anti- abolition riots, one ever memorable from which Whittier had escaped, disguised in YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 241 wig and white overcoat, and the sympathy of a large proportion of Philadelphians re mained with the South. Many, like my own grandfathers, came from Virginia and Mary land ; many, who would not have been slave holders themselves, did not see their right to prevent the Southerner from holding slaves if he chose. Probably few towns in the Union were so divided on the burning problem : the reason that certainly in few towns was the battle, before the war broke out, fought so passionately. The Rye, however, knew no hesitation. He was an abolitionist from the moment the question of abolition became ur gent, and his faith was staunch in the Union. He hated slavery, he loved the negro, as later he was to love the Indian and the Gypsy. He had no patience with compromise; always, after that historic first great Republican meet ing held in the La Pierre House in Philadel phia, he was at the front. And though his battle-ground was the newspaper, this, in every way, was a more responsible business than tying a red sash round his waist, setting the student's jaunty cap on his head, and swaggering forth, a Dumas hero, to fight other people's battles in a strange town. All that 242 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND had come down to him from the old sorcerer and the many antiquaries among his ances tors lay quiescent for the time, and the grim- ness of the grandfather Leland was upper most, as he wrote the articles which he hoped would help to save his country from disaster. He wrote what he thought the truth, boldly, with an eloquence his opponents mistook for bitterness, and some Southern editors pro testing, and the war not yet being proclaimed, the proprietor was frightened and put a stop to them. His work for the " Bulletin " would have exhausted most journalists. But it was not enough for him. He was also editing " Gra ham's Magazine," which, like the " Knicker bocker," had a great tradition to keep up. Poe had edited it, almost all the literary men of America had contributed to it. He was trans lating Heine the " Pictures of Travel " and the " Book of Songs." He was writing articles and books of his own. All this, of course, brought him a larger income than he had ever yet earned for himself, even if " Graham's " only paid him fifty dollars a month, his Heine translations only seventy-five cents a page. His father added a liberal allowance. It was YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 243 when he was making most, it seemed to him afterwards in looking back, that his father suddenly grew liberal, just as it was when his own bank account dwindled that a check was put upon his father's liberality. How ever, he was quick to profit by the first com bination between his own financial success and his father's generosity, and in 1856, after five long years of waiting, he was married. The marriage took place on the iyth of Jan uary at the Tenth Street house, where the Rodney Fishers were then living, and I like to think that the idols and the strange beasts were looking on from the dim walls, that the great jars and the rare porcelain were filling the quiet Philadelphia parlour with the colour and the mystery of the East, for there could not have been a more appropriate background. And I wonder if another American of this generation would have remembered across the years, as the two chief incidents of his wedding, a private explanation given before hand of the symbolism of the wedding ring by Bishop Wilbur, who performed the cere mony, with his own happy consciousness of knowing a good deal more about it than the Bishop ; and his friends' prediction of good 244 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND luck because only one clergyman was present, with his own joyful proving that they were wrong, because there was a second among the coloured waiters ! After his marriage, he went to live at the La Pierre House. It was then the centre of a good deal of social life. Most people of note who came to Philadelphia stopped there, and he found time how, only he could say to see many of them, Ole Bull, Thalberg, Thackeray the most notable in his memory. Time he found, too, for the adventure of speech so dear to him, as when he astounded the passing Magyar almost to tears with an unexpected Bassama Teremtete ; or for joy in one of the " strange coincidences " he loved, as when an Unknown, playing Berserker in Philadelphia taverns, asked for his name, shouted " Charles Leland," and then vanished into the Ewigkeit. Here was a ray of romance of mystery in the daily routine of hard work. But " I began to weary of Philadelphia," the Rye says in his " Memoirs." Probably it was not so much weariness, as a sudden re volt when the hour of disenchantment came, and he, as Poe before him, learned that news- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 245 papers are not run from disinterested motives. He left the " Bulletin," and Philadelphia with it, and tried New York for the second time. His name now was far better known, and he had not long to wait. He contributed to Appleton's " Cyclopaedia," then edited by George Ripley and Charles A. Dana. He worked for the " New York Times," taking Hurlbut's place as foreign editor. He gave his mornings to Frank Leslie, then launch ing a dozen magazines and newspapers. He edited "Vanity Fair," Stoddard, Aldrich, Artemus Ward his collaborators ; that is, he lived the life of the journalist about town, except that he held aloof from " the Bohemi ans " who used to meet at PfafF s tavern and who thought themselves the rivals of Mur- ger's heroes. Of all the events of this second sojourn in New York, however, perhaps he remembered best one dwelt upon at length in the " Memo randa." " I saw Washington Irving in his coffin," I read in the volume for 1893, when the Rye's thoughts were busy with the old days, and 1859 was but as yesterday to him. " Irving's face," he goes on, " seemed to have become 30 years younger, very beautiful, with 246 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND an expression in it suggestive of a smile. . . . When the coffin was laid in the grave on the hillside overlooking the Hudson, the sky was suddenly illumined by the most magnificent and marvellous sunset which I can remem ber. It inspired me with a deep awe as if the heavens would illuminate the scene, and as if it were indeed true that, when the body is first committed to earth, the soul is first ad mitted to the Land of Light above." When he was busiest, the storm broke. Lincoln was elected. Fort Sumter was fired on. The war was begun. It was a moment of financial depression in the North, and many journalists felt it, though already journalism was beginning to thrive on war. One by one, the Rye's engagements failed. He left the " Times " owing to Hurlbut's return ; " Vanity Fair" came to an end; Frank Leslie no longer needed his services. There remained only the " Knickerbocker," which had been taken over by Gilmore, who was trying his best to give it a new lease of life. Of a sudden, as the quiet gray cover blazed into orange, the tone of the articles became violently political, and the Rye, who had accepted the post of editor, with half-ownership as pay, turned it YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 247 into a strong Republican monthly. He worked for it, as he had for the " Bulletin," with fer vour, almost with exaltation. He strove, as so many others were striving, to stem the tide of pessimism sweeping over the North; he predicted such a period of prosperity, close at hand, " as no one ever dreamt of ; " he wrote article after article in " a wild enthusiastic style of triumph." To " the outpourings of a fanatical Puritan in the time of Cromwell," they were compared. But it was a crisis that called for fanaticism, and the articles had their effect. Unfortunately, before this change in its programme, the " Knickerbocker " had lost its hold upon the public. To use it as a mouthpiece for the Rye's plea of " Emanci pation for the sake of the white man," was to pour "the wildest of new wine into the weakest of old bottles." Gilmore decided to establish an entirely new political monthly with a new name, "The Continental," vir tually the only political magazine devoted to the Republican cause issued during the war. It was published in Boston, and to that town, early in December, 1861, the Rye fol lowed it. Those were the great days of literary 248 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Boston, the greatest, perhaps, of the Club, and the young editor, with a fine record of work, and many letters, was introduced to "all that brilliant circle which shone when Boston was at its brightest in 1862." He met every one, Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, Agassiz. He was asked to the Club. He figured at the Saturday dinner. After Philadelphia and New York, he seemed living again in the atmosphere of Heidelberg and Munich. And he had not outgrown the age of hero-worship, for which his capacity was unlimited. Even when he wrote his " Me moirs," he had not recovered from the old surprise to find that he could pass success fully " the grand ordeal " of the famous Sat urdays ; that he was given the place of honour between Emerson and Holmes ; that Holmes approved of him, commending his modesty, which he had not known to be among his virtues ; that Lowell asked him to supper in Cambridge in order to consult him about the new " Biglow Papers," then going through the press, though that there should have been any new " Biglow Papers " at all was against the " critical judgment of Lowell, who did n't believe in ' resuscitations.' " " We hear no good YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 249 of the posthumous Lazarus," he had written to Mr. Norton several months before. I have searched again, and yet again, through my files of yellowing papers and through the " Memoranda," but I can discover only a very few letters and a few chance pas sages that refer to the year in Boston. From Dr. Holmes, there is a letter of many years later that will be quoted in its place, and the length at which Holmes gives in it the news of members of the Club explains how well the Rye had got to know them. What he thought of no less distinguished a member than Em erson, one of the chance passages in the " Memoranda" reveals. Emerson was so accus tomed to unqualified deference, that the im pression he was making on the young Phila- delphian would probably have come as a shock to him : " Emerson dabbled with mys ticism and paddled in metempsychosis, and shirked pantheism, as did Carlyle, while using it as a garment, and made beautiful talkee-talkee with free thought, and posed as a liberal mind, and exalted Goethe ; but would have died of blushes and sunk into his boots before Greek fleshliness. So he once said to me, and that rather rudely and 250 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND uncalled for, that ' Heine was a quack and charlatan in literature,' which, considering that I had translated the two principal works of Heine, I thought very unkind. And this was at an ' Atlantic ' Saturday dinner before Holmes and Lowell and Palfrey and many more, in 1862, and it hurts me to this day." The one note that is, the only one be longing to this period from Lowell reveals as much of another kind, and in another way, slight though it be compared to the endless pages Lowell wrote to his intimate friends. In its careful preservation, enclosed in the little old-fashioned envelope, with the long superseded stamp, and securely fastened in a volume of " Poems," the literary relic in its shrine, I can see how it was prized by the Rye, and his attitude towards Lowell was doubtless that of the younger men of his gen eration. It is pleasant to add, as a sort of par enthesis, that this attitude in his case was not weakened by years. When Lowell was sent from Madrid to London in 1881, Dr. Holmes wrote to him : " Leland (Hans Breitmann), who has been living in London some years, says you will be the most popular American minister we have ever sent," a prophecy ad- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 251 mirably fulfilled. " Our Club," referred to in Lowell's letter, is, of course, the Saturday Club ; the society he met there, on the whole better than any England provided, was his estimate of it even in 1883, when he had had a fair chance for comparison. The " notice," whether of the " Poems " or of " The Biglow Papers " it is impossible now to tell, has van ished, as the most flattering notices will, once they have served their turn in review or paper. The letter is dated 1861, and is from Elmwood, " the place I love best," Lowell described it to his old friend, Charles F. Briggs, that very same year. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND It is only too flattering [is the abrupt beginning]. I thought our Club did not meet Christmas week, or I should have been there and claimed you as my guest. Let me engage you now for the last Saturday in the month. I shall call upon you the first time I come to Boston, which will be next Saturday. I have a vacation before long, and then I shall hope to see more of you. I was infinitely diverted by your extracts 252 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND from the Ballad and shall be greatly obliged for a copy of the whole. With many thanks, Cordially yours, J. R. LOWELL. P. S. I mean it is the notice of J. R. L. that is too flattering. I know not what else to say, except that I am pleased for all that. I send my beso la mano to the author with many thanks. Another note from Lowell is preserved with equal care in the same volume, where both have lain undisturbed now almost half a century. The second is not to the Rye, however, but to give his address to Professor Child, a business-like, hasty little scribble of a few lines, the one personal touch the "dear Ciarli? with which it opens. This would mean a great deal, I fancy, to all who are left of a certain group of Boston scholars. These were the pleasures Boston provided, great pleasures, intense pleasures. But over them, as over everything in those days, hung the war cloud. The battlefield was far away, but men marched from Boston, and the news YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 253 sent back blackened many a doorbell in Boston streets. There were quiet social gath erings small friendly or literary dinners and informal receptions ; but no dances, no "grand dinners or grand parties." At the sewing-circle, women worked, not to get into society,' but for the soldiers. " It was hardly decent," so the " Memoirs " record, " for a man to dress up and appear as a swell any where at all." In the " Continental " office, as the " Memoirs " also record, things were active, and there was real righting, if of a kind against which the grandson of Oliver Leland sometimes chafed. He wanted to be " down there," fighting as the men of the family had fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill. But at that early stage of the Civil War it had not entered into the mind of any one to conceive the number of men under arms who would be needed before the end. The family in Philadelphia had already contributed one Leland in the person of his brother Henry ; from his wife's family, too, had gone a brother, Rodney Fisher, who was never to return, and there was an urgent call for just the sort of attack and defence that the " Continental " was leading. 254 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND This work the "Continental" did well. But Gilmore eventually shared the ownership with Robert J. Walker, and the conditions were no longer the same. Financially, the returns were not satisfactory, the circulation of the magazine slowly went down until its end was inevitable, and by the autumn of 1862, the Rye, who had never received a cent from it, was back in Philadelphia. Here his work did not cease, though now he was a free lance. He wrote a pamphlet on "Centralisation versus State Rights" (1863), a plea for the still greater power to be given to the central government. He wrote, with his brother, " The Book of Copperheads," and illustrated it, and was always pleased to know that it had been found, well thumbed and used, on the table by President Lincoln's bed after the assassination. The amount of purely literary work he accomplished also was extraordinary, but of this I shall wait to speak in another chapter. I have passed somewhat lightly over the journalistic work of these years, for many other men have been good journalists, while there are some things which he alone has done, which he alone could do, and I prefer YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 255 to devote more space to his original work. But during the war days, no one rendered stronger newspaper support than he to the cause of the North. To the bold course of the " Continental," many attributed the hasten ing by several months of the emancipation, and it was entirely " for literary service ren dered to the country during the War " that he was given the degree of A. M. by Harvard. Business fills almost entirely what little correspondence of these seven full years of work remains to be consulted. George Rip- ley writes about the " Cyclopaedia," Gilmore about the " Continental," Saxe and Stoddard about poems they have consented, after much persuasion, to contribute to " Vanity Fair," various publishers about various books either in preparation or in the press. There is not much else, except here and there an amusing reference to the literary events and the lit erary excitements of the day. This day seems very far away as I read an unknown corre spondent, who fills pages with praise of Fitz- Hugh Ludlow, " formerly a very peculiar young pedagogue at Watertown and Pough- keepsie," and now author of " The Hasheesh- Eater," a book forgotten, but of great vogue 256 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND within my memory; or, as I chance upon Griswold, in an expansive humour, pronoun cing Alice Gary's new book of poems (1855) to be " incomparably the best volume of verse any woman has ever published, here or any where. Taylor and Stoddard do not think so ; Halleck and Herbert do." After this, I can take more interest than ever in a letter, in delicate, ladylike writing, of course un dated, beginning " My most missed, mourned and married Friend," signed " Phoebe Gary," and reporting that " our firm friend Dr. Gris wold is very low now indeed ; I do not think it possible he will live but a few days." How the literary lights of the fifties have flickered and burnt out altogether! Another letter from a very different correspondent is to be quoted as it is, for reasons that it will explain better than I could. GEORGE H. BOKER TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND B AXEMAN'S POINT, July 28, 1855. MY DEAR CHARLEY, I deferred writing to you until after a dinner to which Long fellow invited me ; so that I might be able to give you his opinion of Heine. That event YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 257 has passed. Longfellow spoke in the highest terms of your translation, both of the poetry and the prose, saying that it was a work which, in his opinion, would do you great honour. He further said that when he had completed his examination, with the care that it de served, he would write you his views in full. [If he did, the letter has gone.] I was fully impressed with the idea that Longfellow regards your translation with the greatest respect. If I could have opinions made to order for works of mine, I should choose just such as Longfellow expressed of your Heine. As you well know, my own faith in the suc cess of the translation did not need the sup port of another's opinion. I am a thousand times obliged to you and to Weik for your efforts with Triibner. As yet I have heard nothing from Parry & Mc Millan concerning their arrangement with Trubner, but I feel no anxiety on this ac count, as there is no immediate necessity for their communicating it to me. I receive the " Bulletin " regularly. So far I see no falling off in the paper from that style which I commended at the outset of your editorial duties. There is one thing, 258 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND however, for which you should blow up the "foreman/' the paper abounds in typo graphical errors ; and I am sorry to say that there seems to me to be a daily increase in the quantity of cases. I think that it would be well for you to look after this with a severe eye. My eyes are still in a bad way. I have no hope of redeeming my half promise to cor respond with the paper during my absence. Even the notes which duty compels me to write, try me more than is well for me. With the exception of Heine, I have not opened a book since my arrival here, and my whole time has been past in the apostolic pursuit of fishing. At the " gentle art " I have become an adept, much to the wonder of the literati, who are amazed at my waste of time and en ergy, and also at the blackness of my hands. I shall get back to Philadelphia as soon as possible, for I am tired of the desolation of this place and long to resume our Sundays. When a man is separated from his usual pur suits, he looks back upon them as the only goods of his life. It is so with me, at least the common has risen into the sublime. Thine ever, GEO. H. BOKER. YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 259 The " efforts with Triibner," alluded to by Boker, were fruitful enough in notices and announcements to please him, and they were not the only efforts. The Rye had been in correspondence since 1855 with Nicholas Triibner, who was to become his intimate friend, the translation of Heine having been the beginning of it. All of Triibner's letters of this period have something in them about Boker. So also have the Rye's. In one of his I find also a reference to himself that should be preserved as additional proof of the way his own reputation was spreading. " I am really at a loss for words to express my sense of your great kindness and many courtesies to me," he writes on March 26, 1859. "Before I have recovered from the feeling of obligation for the one, I am over whelmed by another. The last comes in the form of that very handsome slice of European reputation conferred upon me in your ' Guide to American Literature.' I was never so much gratified before by any event in my literary career and no wonder. Such a mention in such a book is indeed an Eu ropean reputation of itself, and a handsome one. . . . Excuse me if I recur to my friend 2<5o CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Boker's poem. If you could get it into the 1 Athenaeum ' faute de mieux we would all be grateful." The few other letters in this bundle are to his wife, written on the rare occasions when they were separated. It is clear that he usually wrote in a hurry, as he did everything else at the time. But the letters are charm ing in their tenderness, and they are not too hurried to have for us now a value as clues, if slight, to the literary life of that remote period. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND NEW YORK, April 14, 1860. . . . I wish I could see you to-day and have a real good talk, for it really seems as if it were quite time to just tell you everything about all the New York folks and have you going about. Last night I got a carriage and went to Dana's and found that Mr. and Mrs. D. were not going to the Opera, so I took Betty, who declaimed against the extrava gance of driving. We had the choice of the two opera companies, and chose the Acad- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 261 emy with Patti and Brignoli. Patti has im proved wonderfully. When we came out, we saw the Aurora. Betty Bowie told me in great glee that Mrs. H. had told her that I was left in her charge, whereupon Miss Betty told her that they had had me for two even ings and were going to have me again last night. I am going to Colgate's to-night. My conscience quite reproaches me for being so jolly while you are away, but then I suffered dreadfulivr three days with neuralgia. . . . Generally speaking, this is all the news. I do so hope that you are having a nice time at home and that all are well. I am going to write a little biography of N. P. Willis for our paper, to go with a portrait. Everybody enquires after you, especially Betty Bowie and Mrs. (Bayard) Taylor. . . . NEW YORK, April 17, 1860. ... I got your dear letter yesterday, and should have gone to see Mrs. Dunlap last night, but caught cold in head and throat. I feel better to-day, but am still annoyed with it. How I long for warm weather, and I am wild to get out of doors. A letter in the " Bos- 262 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ton Transcript," describing the N Gallery opening the other evening, says that " scat tered among the company were Bryant, Wil lis, Bayard Taylor, Bancroft, Boker, Leland, and Stoddard." You see that I 'm one above tail in that class though I don't deserve it. Give my love to everybody. . . . NEW YORK, April 12, 1862. ... I am really ashamed of not writing sooner, but could n't help it. Sunday, Mon day and Tuesday I suffered awfully with neuralgia. Yesterday I was better and re-ap peared at the Cyclopaedia. Last night I went round to Mrs. Dana's and was received with great joy. Mrs. Dana wanted to go round to the opening night of the National Academy pictures and had no beau. She and Betty had thought of sending me a note as Betty proposed, but Mrs. D. was afraid to. It was like a reception, crowded with fashionable people and literary, and you might have seen, conversing together at the end of one room, Bayard Taylor, N. P. Willis, Geo. Boker and Chisel [a name for him as famil iar to the family as Le Chevalier was to the YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 263 public] and, I forgot, Stoddard. I saw Mrs. Hicks, who inquired, as everybody did, anxiously about you. Bryant was there, Dick Willis, and heaps of people. I am going to the opera with either Betty or Mrs. Dana to morrow. I do miss you, and only wish you could have been at the Exhibition last night. All are well. I am in an awful hurry. . . . Thine ever very hungry (and bound to Delmonico's) CHARLEY. NEW YORK, Monday Afternoon, Jan. 13, 1863. ... I may stay a little longer since Mary seems desirous of having me. I have a great mind to apply for a Custom House place myself, and certainly have strong influence to aid me. I hear that Dana is Assistant Secretary of War! and Stanton's close friend strange the family told me nothing of it. He is the right man in the right place. I must see Simon [Stevens] to find out what Custom House offices are within my narrow capacity. I 'm not sure that I should decline being tide-waiter. I want work so badly. 264 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Diew sail that office-begging is my last re sort, and that I have tried hard enough tor get something else to do. I certainly deserve as much as Clark, Stoddard, Ludlow, or any other of the literati there and Lincoln knows it. In haste, and very anxious to see you, CHARLEY. Please tell Henry I got him half a dozen cutty (English) pipes, just the thing, the nicest ones I ever saw, meerschaum washed, at six cents apiece. There is a new kind " all the fashion " here. CHAPTER VII YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS (CONTINUED) IT was now when the Rye was at home again, that news came of General Lee's march into Pennsylvania. Philadelphia was threat ened; it looked as if the Confederates were to have it their own way ; every man fit for fighting was needed at the front. This was the moment of the Emergency. An artillery company, known as Chapman Biddle's, though commanded by Mr. Landis, was formed in Philadelphia. Both the Le- lands, Henry having just recovered from the second illness brought on in active service, joined as privates, and with them went many men with names well known in Philadelphia, Theodore Fassitt, Edward Penington, James Biddle, Stewart Patterson, and one, the youngest of the regiment, known since as editor of " The Century Magazine," Richard Watson Gilder. They went through many a serious skirmish, they suffered every misery, and hardship, and strain. They marched and 266 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND countermarched, they starved and foraged, they worked like navvies. They were at Get tysburg, but, being raw recruits, were kept as reserves. And there was one of the number to whom, through this campaign as through life, the picturesque, the strange, the odd, was the most engrossing part of it all. Hard work and genuine suffering could not make him indifferent to the Gypsy, the mysterious side of the adventure. The incidents upon which he lingers in the " Memoirs " are those with a touch of the extraordinary be yond even what there was of extraordinary for the civilian in soldiering, the perform ance of the young lieutenant of his regiment who, blown into the air by the explosion of a caisson and coming down whole by some miracle, at once asked his commander, " The caisson 's blown to hell ; what am I to do now? " the looting, and swearing, and drink ing of the " bummer " who stood as model for Breitmann ; the sword blade he saw fly thirty feet in the air, when one of the men in his battery had four fingers cut off ; the camp- fires studding " the vast landscapes like count less reflections of the lights above," on the night before Gettysburg; the sudden meet- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 267 ing with friends of his brother, in a lonely farmhouse in the forest, summoned there, as if by magic, to provide him with a meal on one desperately hungry day, his brother, the Rye adds, " never sought for mysteries, and he despised dramatic effects, but his life was full of them." The extraordinary passed into tragedy that dreadful moment when, the two on duty, side by side, Henry received the wound from the effects of which he was to die in a very few years. For the Rye the u picnic " of the Emergency thenceforward had its horrors, the strange vagaries of his brother tormenting him by day and night until the mystery, the drama of war lost for him its charm. A fragmentary, but eloquent, story of the war days is told in about a dozen letters of a more personal nature than the great bulk of the correspondence of the sixties. I can only wish the exceptions were more numerous. First come the letters written by Henry Leland, while the Rye was still in Boston, giving an account of his progress as soldier and, incidentally, chronicling many little in cidents that seemed trifling at the time, but that few Philadelphians now can recall un- 268 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND moved. The earliest is dated June 16, 1861. Henry had been fishing through the last days in New Jersey, but, he wrote, " the * solger ' has duties, and I have hurried back to drill and parade. A caricature of the Home Guard Regimental Hat that I made met with an embarrassment of success, and now hangs up framed (size 12x8 inches) in the armoury. Yesterday, the Cappen desired me to oblige the company by a design for a flag, so my petits talents are on hand. I made another caricature of the H. Guard Hat for ' Vanity Fair ' as long ago as you were editor, and it was published in June 8th number. Every copy of that edition sold in Philadelphia. The Home Guards were in ecstasies about it. ... I begin dancing like a skinned injun in the squad drills to-morrow, having to make up for lost time. We have our muskets and have taken some horrible oath about 'em, as we probably shall at them when we go out target-shooting and have them hang fire ; yes, for they are 1825 guns altered from flint locks." Three weeks later: "I have been Target-Shooting, Drilling, and through a Six Hours' Parade on the 4th of July. And am fast working myself into a first-rate sol- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 269 dier, being popular with the Co. because I write flattering notices of the Co. in the * Bul letin ; ' and may write more." Ten days later, " Our gallzant Captain Charles M. Prevost, who is really a gentleman at heart and in action, called me aside from squad drill and said that, as our company had been ordered out for field duty with the Regiment next Tuesday, and believing that I would like to experience camp life aufond, he had detailed me and one other private to repair to our camp ground, six miles out of the city, the night before (that is Monday), when we would stand duty, sleep in tent, and so on ; and be ready in the morning to join in the regi mental evolution, etc. So you see I am in for it and shall see something practical in the bold 'solger's' life." Another day, and "I have just received Simon Stevens' very kind offer of his services to obtain for me a situa tion on General Fremont's staff " an offer declined at once because Henry Leland knew himself totally unfitted for the post. " When I have been under fire once, I may deserve such encouragement ; not until then ! " The chance did not come as promptly as he would have liked. " While absent from the city " 270 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND September i is the date of his writing " our company of the Grey Reserves, to the tune of about 50, volunteered for 3 months for the war, but were refused. The Lieutenant put me down as one of the 50, swearing that Pri vate Leland, he knew, wanted to fight some body ! (There 's a amiable character for you.) I am now trying to get enough men out of the company to go in for the 3 years' business, and hope to succeed." The more cheerful side to all this was "in the tribute Philadelphia paid' to its defenders. " On Saturday afternoon, at 3 P. M., we have a company drill at Mr. Lam bert's place near Girard College, by special invitation, and we will have a jolly good time there, as he gives us punch, etc. etc. So you see fortune favours the brave militia man and the Company Scribe is doing well" And again, " Our Company went to Atlantic last Friday by invitation of Jno. Broadhead we presented arms to Mrs. Broadhead, then a bouquet, then an air from the band, and so squared the account." The letters are interrupted here because, by the 6th of September, the Rye, in Phila delphia for a short visit, was in his turn taking up the story, and sending news to his wife, YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 271 not solely of Henry Leland as soldier, but of Rodney Fisher, her only brother, who was killed not very long afterwards. The letter is gay too tenderly gay in places to be printed at length. There was so much at stake for both of them that " soldiering " had to be faced with all the gaiety at his com mand. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND . . . Yesterday afternoon, went first to the Concert Hall Armoury and then over the Vine St. ferry to the parade ground, and saw the whole regiment drill. On the way I met Mr. Bell, I suppose he was coming from Atlan tic, and had a talk with him. Henry is a fine- looking soldier. I thought, of course, the most soldierly-looking in his company. They fired very well indeed. While I was standing on the edge, there came by a guard, a fierce zoovy man in fatigue uniform, and lobyhold! it was brother Rodney. I had a long talk with him. He looks like a regular recruit and has got it in him. Bimeby it began to rain, and I put up my umbrella, and Rodney and two other guards got under it. One of 272 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND them wounded me dreadful with his gun, and made a triangular hole in my umbrella with his bayonet. Two of the guards had little bottles with brandy in them and I had sum- sen to drink. Emily is well, and the baby. . . . Yesterday, too, I went to see George Boker. He has got little Georgey an appointment to enter West Point. George was at Wash ington during the Bull Run defeat. Julia is staying with Mrs. Butler in Germantown. They are going soon to pass a fortnight at Colgate's on the North River. I don't think I shall return before Monday. It is very nice and quiet here, and Father is very glad to have me at home. To-day John and Henry have gone gunning. I never knew even Phila delphia to be so quiet as it is now, up town you hardly see a soul. . . . After this there is nothing until June, 1863, when the Rye had also become soldier, and the letter then is from his publisher, Carleton. " It appears you are off taking care of your country," Carleton writes, but, all the same, pursues him with proof sheets. Another docu ment of the time is a letter from Peacock of the " Bulletin " to a Mr. Worrell of Harris- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 273 burg to introduce " My friend Mr. Charles G. Leland, whom you know by reputation, and who goes to Harrisburg as a volunteer." How many letters the Rye wrote from camp I cannot say, but only one, scribbled roughly in pencil, is at my service. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND (No date.) . . . We are right in the thickest of the toughening process, and old hands say very thoroughly. Thursday night I mounted guard all night, three times 2 hours each, in a heavy rain, slept in a shelter tent (ask Henry) and was packed with 5 men in another small tent. For 2 days we have been soaked to the skin, but somehow I have no cold. Yesterday after noon I worked hard pitching and striking tents, and last night, from 8 to n, in the entrenchments with pick and shovel very hard work indeed. They give me lots of crackers, strong coffee and good ham. This morning we had butter, beefsteaks (I had a tenderloin) and soft bread. The trenches are a shame to the State. With yonder town full of great loafing farm- 274 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ers, boys like little delicate Fassitt and Biddle have to dig for hours with pickaxes. How ever, we are not required to work hard or, in fact, the officers make it very easy. I am in tent with Hazeltine, Lamb (a Boston boy), Walton and Letchworth, all nice men. The life is the very severest kind no washing except from canteens no change of clothes, but very exciting. I have a thousand things to tell you of the camp here everything is brought down to first principles. It is very hard to write and to find time. To-day we drill cannons. . . . My muscle seems to be coming out very well, and I bid fair to become one of the heavy lifters. I wish Father would send me a very large black india rubber blanket. Mine is too small for guard duty in the rain. Wait a day or two and I will tell you where to send it. ... With the retreat of Lee across the Poto mac, the Emergency was ended. Officers and privates returned to their homes. " At last we were marched and railroaded back to Philadelphia. I need not say that we were welcome, or that I enjoyed baths, clean clothes, and the blest sensation of feeling decent once YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 275 more. Everything in life seemed to be luxu rious as it had never been before. . . . For years after, I had but to think of the Emer gency to realise that I was actually in all the chief conditions of happiness." There was a short rest ; just time to pull himself together physically, just time to do what he could for his country in more peaceful fashion at the Sanitary Fair, for which he helped to pro duce the paper which was called " Our Daily Fare." Some of the correspondence in connection with it has drifted down through the years into my hands. It is rich in the names of men and women prominent in Philadelphia, names as familiar as George W. Childs, Mrs. Gillespie, writing in despair over some mis adventure in the post-office of which she had charge; Horace Howard Furness, secre tary of the executive committee ; Mrs. Lucy H. Hooper, one of the first Philadelphia women to make a name as journalist ; Miss Anna M. Lea, now Mrs. Merritt. The mere list of their names is crowded with memories Philadelphians would not want to lose. There are as many letters from sympathisers in other towns: Buchanan Read, a personage in his 276 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND day, who writes to say he cannot get at his pictures, but offers the gift of verses in their place ; Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, not yet Mrs. Ward, who sends a story and is honoured by the request for it ; Messrs. Roberts Broth ers, who announce Miss Ingelow's donation of twenty-five of her poems ; Mrs. M. E. W. Sherwood, just emerging from the rush and worry of the Metropolitan Fair in New York, who fears that it will be surpassed in Phila delphia, but who has the generosity to present Garibaldi's dagger, his personal contribution, which eventually, I think it worth noting, be came, by well-paid-for votes, the property of General Grant. Most important of my relics of the Sanitary Fair, however rare or charged with sentiment they all may be, is one of the fifty duplicate copies of the Proclama tion of Emancipation, which, at the request of George Boker, Lincoln and Seward both signed. " I perfectly knew and understood at the time," the Rye says in his " Memoirs," " as did all concerned, that this was a recognition and a very graceful and appropriate one of what I had done for Emancipation. . . . The copies I presented to the Sanitary Fair to be sold for its benefit, but there was not YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 277 much demand for them ; what were left over I divided with George Boker." The Sanitary Fair was scarcely at an end when the Rye was off to Tennessee, pro specting for oil. The oil fever was then at its height. Two friends of his, Colton by name, officers in the Federal army, while campaign ing in Tennessee, had come upon signs of oil in the road not far from Murfreesboro and told him of it. The matter was taken up by capitalists in Philadelphia, money was sup plied, and to the Rye was entrusted the jour ney of investigation. In his whole career, there was no more adventurous episode that is, in the usual sense of adventure. Much as he loved the people of the road, to play the tramp would have been no less abhorrent to him than to pose as " Bohemian " in New York. Later, when he went gypsying, it was from his own comfortable quarters. He never lived with the Indians, as Gushing did. He might walk a mile to meet a tinker, but nothing would have induced him to set up a tin ker's forge, like Borrow. Definite business was the reason of his going to Tennessee, not a fancy for vagabondising. But the life 278 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND was rougher and freer than any he had ever known or was to know. The country through which he had to travel was wild, the people were unruly, the vendetta was an institution, brigandage a profession, and, to make matters worse, the State was now overrun with Fed eral soldiers and Southern guerillas. Of all these facts he was perfectly aware. But, on the other hand, " after so many years of work I was as poor as ever, and the seven years of harvest which I had prophesied had come, and I was not gathering a single golden grain. My father regarded me as a failure in life, or as a literary ne'er-do-weel, destined never to achieve fortune or gain an etat, and he was quite right. My war experience had made me reckless of life, and speculation was firing every heart." And so, buying a pair of long, strong, over-all boots and blanket, borrowing a re volver, providing himself with military passes and introductions from his friends C. A. Dana, then Assistant Secretary of War, and Colonel Henry Olcott, upon whom theo- sophic fame had not dawned, the Rye packed his carpet-bag, started for Venango County, Pennsylvania, "where, until the past few c *' I V el 1 *f * V x v, .Vv-V YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 279 months, there had been many more bears and deer than human beings," and, hiring a sleigh, began his adventures with, " in some respects, the most remarkable day " he ever spent anywhere. Remarkable indeed it was, and so also were the many days that followed. His route led through a marvellous land of fountains flowing at the rate of a dollar a second, or tanks " running three thousand dollars a day in clear greenbacks," of great derricks and scaffoldings, black and forbidding against the sky, of men making fortunes in an hour and gambling in millions ; but a land, too, of bleak wretchedness and poverty and miserable shanties, of great loneliness, of dismal dark pine forests covered with snow. Millionaires were everywhere, and the life was that of the backwoods. He travelled in primitive sleighs, he slept in chance beds, with chance acquaint ances, under chance covering. Nor when, at Oil City, he exchanged sleighs for the train, was comfort much greater. From Cincin nati to Nashville, the country crossed by the railroad was half the time in the hands of guerillas, who, only the day before, had stopped the same train and captured the 280 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Federal soldiers on their way to the front, and who still held Mammoth Cave, past which the engineer thought it at least a useful strategy to put on full speed. As to Nash ville, the Federal troops had marched in not long before, and it was no better than a huge camp. It was dismal and dirty, and, at the hotel, so cold that water froze two inches thick in the pitchers. These things the Rye could have borne he had come out to bear them. But it was less easy to face the disappointment of not finding his two friends, the young officers who had seen oil on the road near Murfreesboro. They were to have met him there, but had been unex pectedly despatched to Alabama. However, he fell in by chance with another Philadelphia friend, Joseph R. Paxton, now a " Mustering- in and Disbursing officer," captain by rank, and, more important at this juncture, brother- in-law of General Whipple, who was in com mand at Nashville. With Paxton the Rye stayed during the month of waiting before his expedition could be organised ; immersed there, as everywhere, in the marvellous. For that he should be in Tennessee at this special moment in itself was a " strange coincidence," YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 281 he having " specified " Tennessee as the State of all others he would like to watch through its transition from Confederacy to Union ism. Again, it was a " strange coincidence " that he should be quartered with Paxton in a house where there was " a very good, old- fashioned library," and, strangest of all, that the darkies should give him the freedom of a church, to which no other whites were ad mitted during certain secret rites, as if they divined in him " the mystery " of the future Master of the Black Stone of the Voodoo. Upon " strange coincidences " he could al ways thrive, and these were worth to him all the oil he did not find. For when, at the end of the month, he went with Paxton to Murfreesboro and was at last joined by his two friends, and given an escort of four or five men, and got to work prospect ing in earnest, there was no oil. The only wealth the journey yielded was adventure, and evermore adventure, alarms of "bushwhack ers," dinners in isolated farmhouses with guer illa murderers concealed in the cellar, rides across dismal cedar barrens, where the only living creatures visible were " swarms of ill- omened turkey-buzzards," adventures wild 282 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND and grim for Breitmann to pass through in his turn. Then the Rye went on the same mission to Indiana, a military escort no longer re quired, the journey, now by stage and wagon, and on horseback, across vast marshy fields and through endless mud. Again there was no oil; again there were marvels, stories of mysterious lights wandering on lonely In diana hills, only to mislead the seeker of the treasure buried there during the Revolution; a hurried glimpse at St. Louis of the tomb of the Kentucky Giant who might have fig ured in the beloved book of " Curiosities," or with Barn urn's freaks : ample payment, these things, for a second expedition as profitless, otherwise, as the first. From St. Louis he jour neyed on to Cincinnati, and from Cincinnati, now in company with Mr. Joseph Lea of Philadelphia, to the coal country of West Vir ginia in the interest of some syndicate in Providence. All the while, he says, he was " developing rapidly a wild reckless spirit. . . . Literature was dead in me. Only once did I, in a railway train, compose the * Maiden with Nodings on.' I bore it in my memory for years before I wrote it out," a richer return that YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 283 for his wanderings than any fountain of golden oil. There was one rapid flight to Providence, to consult the heads of the syndicate, which I mention because, on the way back to West Virginia, he made a hurried visit to Philadel phia that was never to be forgotten. For, be fore he was out of bed the morning after his arrival but also of his departure, news was brought to him of President Lincoln's assas sination. He saw men weeping as he went through the streets to the station ; the towns he passed that day were draped with black. The business in West Virginia, with head quarters in Charleston, was to renew the leases of coal and oil lands. These lands were mostly in a very wild country along the Elk River. " West Virginia and oil experiences ! " an old friend wrote to him, after reading the " Memoirs ; " " I bored the third well put down in the State for oil. It was Virginia in 1860! and civilisation was as non-existent as electric lights in the Crusades ! " I confess, I hardly recognise the Rye going and coming, with papers to be signed, with whiskey and blue beads for the clinching of bargains, with re ports to be sent to the head office. But if the 284 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND duties were prosaic, the methods of perform ing them were far from it. His business took him into districts where " a Union man's life was worth about a chinquapin," but where he went free because of his liking "for Indians, Gypsies, and all such folk," which the half- wild people felt and so liked him in return. Business took him on horseback across deso late regions, with narrow escapes for the rider; one narrower than most, when his horse fall ing backward, he made the tremendous flying leap off its back which was " good as an In jun, by God," his friend Robert Hunt swore. Business took him in his dug-out, far up the Elk River, through storms, over rapids ; and there was one awful night when death stared him in the face, and all the time the danger threatened, he lay smoking, singing incanta tions to himself, his paddle at his side, his blanket round him, conscious only of his " dull confidence in fate " because, in a mo ment of inspiration, he had prophesied to his men that all would go well. " When the old Injun and my High Dutch ancestor are upon me, I reason not at all, and then I see visions and dream dreams, and it always comes true without the least self-deception or delusion." YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 285 It was a land of excitement, great and small. There were bears in the swamps, game in the woods, freshets in the spring when the river rose fifty feet above its ordinary level. And there was poker-playing in Goshorn's hotel where he had put up, and revolver shots were everyday occurrences, and, altogether, I am as astonished as Hunt professed himself, to find how naturally the Rye took to it all. In but one place do I see the Rye I knew, and that is in his own room at the primitive little hotel, where he had put up crossed canoe paddles, and hunches of locust thorn, and deer's horns on the walls. He never had a room anywhere, if only for a day, that he did not promptly decorate it. Before the end of 1865, ^ e was back in Philadelphia. There was another year of dis couragement. However, he was too good a worker not to be wanted somewhere, and in the autumn of 1866, learning through George Boker that a managing editor was needed on the " Philadelphia Press " he applied for the post and obtained it. The proprietor, Colonel John Forney, was a prominent and influen tial politician in his day, though, like most politicians and newspaper proprietors, he was 286 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND forgotten outside of his own town, as soon as his public career came to an end. Politics were almost as exciting as before the war, and for a managing editor there was not much peace. In addition to his political work, the Rye was long dramatic and musical critic, and altogether must have been about as hard- worked a man as could be found in Philadel phia. " He was ready for anything, a news para graph, a sketch of some foreign celebrity, or a ponderous leader on the political questions then agitating the public mind," is the ac count Mr. John E. Norcross, then also on the staff of the " Press " gives of the Rye as journalist. " Those nights in the editorial rooms of the * Press ' are an enduring memory. Mr. Leland was of an imposing physical presence ; he was six feet four inches in height, but so well pro portioned that his stature did not seem so great save when he stood by a man of ordinary size. He always was kind in manner the everything that a gentleman should be. One night, never to be forgotten, or rather it was in the small hours of the morning, after the last proof had been read, and the turtles had YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 287 been sent down, and the presses had begun to thunder, he recited for us the ballad of * Hans Breitmann's Barty.' It was new to every man on the staff but one, and he, to the amaze ment of Mr. Leland, declared that he had set it up at the case several years before, when a student at the Central High School, in Joel Cook's ' Times,' a school newspaper, and he proved his assertion by producing a copy of the * Times,' containing the ballad. It pleased Mr. Leland not a little to find that he had thus been appreciated by schoolboys, and he and the younger man were better friends ever after that. There was many a symposium, and Mr. Leland read for the office force other of his poems. It is not improper to say now that it was at our instance, and because of our insistence, that the first collected edi tion of the ballads was printed, dedicated to Carl Benson, the pen name of Charles Astor Bristed. That edition is now rare and valu able." In 1867, both Colonel Forney and his son went to Paris for the Exhibition of that year. The Rye was left in general charge of the paper, and work was harder than ever. Oc casionally, however, there were lighter duties. 288 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Those were the days of great railroad enter prise, and when railroad men went on a tour of inspection, they did it in style, and were careful to have journalists with them who would let the public know it. To report one of these tours the Rye went to Fort Riley and Leavenworth ; another journalistic journey was to Duluth on Lake Superior. The result of the first was a pamphlet, " Three Thou sand Miles in a Railroad Car" (1867). At Leavenworth he was initiated into the tribe of the Raws, with mad singing of the mad ' song of the Muscolgee Hoo ! hoo ! hoo, the Muscolgee ! Wah, wah, wah, the blasted tree ! with mad dancing and mad drumming. " Now you good Kaw Good Injun you be all same me," the Chief told him at the end of it all. And there were buffalo hunts on the plains, and meetings with Apaches, and a visit to General and Mrs. Custer at Fort Marker, "there was a bright and joyous chivalry in that man, and a noble refinement mingled with constant gaiety in the wife, such as I fear is passing from the earth." The jour ney to Lake Superior led to more Indians YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 289 and to more excursions, "all through the grene wode wilds, and I enjoyed it. I had Indian society, and learned Indian talk, and bathed in rushing waters, and saw enormous pine trees 300 feet high, and slept al fresco and ate ad libitum. To this day its remem brance inspires in me a feeling of deep, true poetry." And so, little as he then knew it, his wild adventures in the open came to an end. Many and more marvellous adventures were to follow, but they were of a very different kind. Another pleasure, greater if less wild, that 1867 brought him was the honour bestowed upon him by Harvard. The first intimation had come as far back as the October of 1866 in a letter from Lowell. It is a charming letter, and I give it now because of this inti mation, though the reference to the " Breit- mann Ballads," equally long, might make it seem more appropriate to the chapter on Breitmann. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ELMWOOD, i6th Oct., 1866. MY DEAR SIR, I am heartily ashamed of myself for not answering your letter sooner. 290 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND I am always committing the same sin and feeling the same remorse, till at last letters have become as unanswerable to me as if they were bad conundrums. It was not that I forgot you on the contrary, Mr. Child and I are resolved to get you made a Master of Arts here, so that you may be one of us and that we may have the chance, now and then, of seeing you at our college festivals. We have very (great) fun at them sometimes, a better kind of fun than the common civic feast affords. Mr. Bristed was good enough to send me your " Breitmann's." I do not know when I have enjoyed anything more highly. The parody on the " Hildebrandlied " was wonder fully good, and in all of them the ingenuity with which you have managed the German pronunciation (especially in choosing words where the transposition of p and b, d and t, is comic) adds a new chord to the lyre of hu mour. The one in which he is taken prisoner and rejoins Sherman thoroughly tickled me. I read it aloud at breakfast, so well as laugh ing would let me for I would not trust the accent to less skilful lips, and it made us all laugh till we cried. Why do you not collect S * S %T & w . /. FROM JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 4 '4 : V 1 ^ .i ^ N ; 4 ^ v < ^ ^ 4 ^ q ^ ^ v ^ /JcS f^H^f tfafa ft *-2 ff"rf x& JL *^ tiLJP v s> w r'4-4*:^ 7 '-'' ^ JL-S / ' ses**.&~. * SfreA ' ffnrOk*_ YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 291 them ? If you do, I will give them a hearty lift in the " North American." As to the " Wunderhorn," I know of no English translation thereof. I suppose by your question that you are meditating one. If so, I think you should rather make a selec tion than a complete version there are so many that are like each other. Moreover, the book would be too large. I think if you boiled down the four volumes into one, it would make a very acceptable book and fill a gap in our English ballads and folk-songs. Some of them are very charming, but as a collection there is too much of the German sin of exhaustiveness, don't you think so? We English-speaking Teutons are not such Titans in our power of digestion. By the way, could n't you carry Breitmann to Mexico (which I suppose we must call Maxico now) as a member of the Foreign Legion and make some good sport with the new Sheriff's process of an Empire ? or have him join the Fenians? His German-Irish brogue would be capital fun in your hands. With very cordial regards, Yours truly, J. R. LOWELL. 292 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Having given Lowell's letter, I might as well add to it one from Dr. Holmes, only three months later in date, which is as sincere a tribute to Breitmann, and as disinterested testimony to the position to which the Phila delphia journalist had climbed in the world of letters. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND BOSTON, Jan. 26, 1867. MY DEAR MR. LELAND, I received and read with huge delectation the travels and adventures of Hans Breitmann and his goodly company. The whole is good as it can be, but " Hans Breitmann went to Kansas," like all I have seen of Hans, is too good. I hope that is yours too, for the fun of it is deli cious. You write in such spirits I know you are well and happy, which pleases me to think upon. We put poor Willis to bed in Mount Auburn on Thursday and tucked him up in as fleecy a white blanket as the careful old mother would weave for him with her loom of cloud and wind. It was on his sixty-first birthday that he died, and it is as it were this YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 293 morning that I was reading those lines of his, just out: I 'm twenty-two, I 'm twenty-two, They idly give me joy, As if I should be glad to know That I was but a boy. Whether I first read them this morning, or almost forty years ago, they have been always in my memory since the time. I am busy as usual at this season, lecturing, and in addition writing a serial for the " At lantic." We have our Saturday Club to-day, and I wish we were going to have you with us. Very truly yours, O. W. HOLMES. This is a digression. More to the point is the closing paragraph in a second letter from Lowell, which is too good to cut. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ELMWOOD, 9th July, 1867. MY DEAR SIR, The kind of collection you think of making, apart from its interest, will have a real value. I think it would be 294 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND very curious to see how far and in what re spects the original German legends have been modified by transplantation, for that most of them will be found to have been imported I have no doubt. To my mind this faculty of adaptation in man is almost as interesting as that of invention, and it is always touching to see how soon the settlers of our wilderness felt the bleakness at their backs and tried to get up a screen of legend and tradition behind them. They would have Indian ones if they could get no better, and at any rate would have our bare landscape draped with some kind of memory. If I were you, I would pick up everything, no matter how trifling, and invent nothing. I have always supposed that Irving transferred his legendary stones from the Old World to the New ; if not, then Rip Van Winkle is vastly more interesting to me as a New World vulgarisation of Kaiser Rothbort. Any kind of rhymes, nursery or other, would also be worth having, and you could give your own fancy a loose in the set ting, as in the specimen you sent me, which I found very interesting. I think Souvestre's " Foyer Breton " and the others, models in that kind of writing. YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 295 About " Mother Goose," I have a notion that Mr. Whale's story has been shown to be a mere invention without evidence to support it. At any rate, as you know, the name was older in French, and unless I am much mis taken, in English also. The College Library is just now closed, so that I cannot answer the special question you ask me. A few years ago a nursery rhyme was sent me from Maine, evi dently old and evidently from the old country, for St. Paul's was alluded to in it, yet it is in no English collection that I am acquainted with. You may, in like manner, find some what that has escaped Grimm and the rest. Mr. Child, I believe, has written you that we hope to make you a Master of Arts at the coming Commencement. Of course the mat ter is a secret as yet, for it has to pass the Overseers, who sometimes take a fancy to show their authority by disagreeing with the Fellows, with whom resides the right of nom ination. I may without indiscretion say to you that the Fellows have sent in your name with that of Mr. Howells, whose company I am sure you will like. Now all this long prologue is to introduce my egg and butter. Whether or no, I want you to come on at 296 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Commencement (the i7th), for on the eigh teenth Emerson is to deliver an oration be fore the <. B. K. Society, whereof I am presi dent, and we wish to make the occasion as brilliant as we can. At the dinner (to which no reporters are admitted) we have songs, speeches, etc. If Hans Breitmann would give us a few of his verses, he would find a most congenial audience. I am very sorry that I cannot ask you to stay with me, as I had hoped to do, but my house is and will be full. Mr. Child, however, will more than make up for that. Your Mastership will make you to all in tents and purposes an alumnus with right of voting at elections of Overseers, eating Com mencement dinners and the like. Hoping you will take pains to come, I remain, my dear Sir, Cordially yours, J. R. LOWELL. The invitation from Mr. Child came by the same mail, and it lacked nothing in warmth and heartiness. " I want you to come here, to this house of mine." I have no documents to explain why, but the Rye did not go, and, YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 297 on the 23d of July, Mr. Child was writing again, " You have probably seen in the news papers that you and Howells were made M. A.'s on Wednesday." I should like to keep on quoting the let ters he received in the late sixties, but there are far too many. Kimball and Stoddard, and Mr. Child too, continued for long to be his cor respondents. William H. Herndon, Lincoln's " old law-partner " in Indiana, was contributing assiduously to a collection of stories of Lin coln which the Rye had begun, but which he never published. Of Charles Astor Bristed's letters alone a big book might be made ; and an amusing book it would be, with vivid little pictures of New York literary life. I cannot resist referring to just one, of an " afternoon " at which Lowell produced a tremendous sen sation by appearing in " straw-colored kids." Editors were asking the Rye for work, none from whom it was more of a compliment than E. L. Godkin, who would be "glad to have anything from Mr. Leland, whether prose or verse," but preferably prose, for " The Na tion," recently launched on its distinguished career. Younger men, whose names were all in the future, were turning to him for advice, 298 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND one of the later letters of this decade coming from Dr. B. E. Martin, at the time a mere youth starting out in life. It would be an invaluable collection to any one writing the history of literary America in the second half of the nineteenth century, but there is no space for it in the life of one man, one who did so much to give that history its distinction. In November, 1867, the Rye's father died. It was some comfort to the son that, at the end, the father, who had so often regretted his want of a fixed career or position, had the satisfaction of seeing him well established on the paper of a man who, however audacious according to Puritan standards, could be re spected for his power and success. Shortly after his father's death, on the ist of January, 1868, the Rye began the first systematic journal that has outlived the chances of time. It is an almost daily record of his work and occupations during four months. Many entries refer solely to per sonal matters, for it was in the course of these months that his father's estate was settled, and that his brother Henry died, after a long and cruel illness. Other entries are the barest YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 299 notes of engagements. But there is still much of a less personal nature and of greater elab oration, and a faithful picture, if slight, is to be had of him as the busy journalist, and of American journalism in the sixties; with a sketch here and there of people whose fame survives, Dickens, Ole Bull, Agassiz, Gaz- zaniga, Hauck ; and for Philadelphians, such a suggestive impression of the Philadelphia of the time, as, to my knowledge, has never yet been given the Philadelphia when " Emily Schaumberg " was the belle and Penington's "store" was the haunt of the book-lover, when snow fell with old-fashioned violence, and Third Street was convulsed by old-fashioned panics, when everybody went mad over Offenbach, when one started for New York from the Walnut Street Ferry, when George Boker was writing his dramas and George Childs was beginning to play the public Maecenas. I wish there was more of it, but much of what there is I quote, with the exception of the entirely personal notes and the brief memoranda. i January. Guns all night snow and slops in the morning a remarkable spec tacle. Received a call from a Mr. Hill. Par- 300 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND turitus mons the Hill brought forth a pair of India soles, and solicited an extended no tice. At eleven o'clock called on Mrs. Forney and encountered D. D. ( [Dan] Docherty) and Mr. E., premier intriguant at the Arch. At night suffered till 2 A. M. with a horrible neuralgia. . . . 6. Monday. Schott gave me a curiously carved cherry stone with a portrait of Johannes Bishop of Mayence on it and coat of arms and inscription. Dickens' agent in the office Great excitement, Dickens' tickets. 7. Tuesday. Nothing very remarkable. Office work as usual. Scene. Elderly dame with MSS: " This is for Mr. Forney." Self: " Well, ma'am, if you leave it I will give it to him." E. Lady : " It 's quite right to leave it here for him, is it ? " Self: " Quite right." Elderly Lady disappears but raps again, and puts her head in at the door, inquiring : " There was nothing improper in my coming up here, was there ? " An old maid, I '11 bet a fip. In the evening I went to the Opera, " Don Giovanni." Ronconi was as good as of old when I heard him in Europe. Miss Hauck acted and sang with spirit and exuberant gaiety. Supper at Green's. YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 301 8. Wednesday. Evening, took Mrs. Forney and Mary Forney to the Opera " La Favorita." Gazzaniga had the same face not sympa thetic to me and the same tolerable sort of voice as of old. Balthazar scolding Fernan while La Favorita knelt ; " He is down on his nephew, ivhile she is down on her knees? [The Rye was just then writing burlesque librettos of the more popular operas, and this probably was a hint for one of them.] The cross on Balthazar's breast exactly resembled four large red Euphorbia leaves, or a great flower. Miss Mary Forney said he must be an Englishman he wore such a large flower at his button- hole. Which concluded the entertainment. 9. Thursday. Blitz in the office ven triloquising at the door. [How many gen erations of Philadelphia children thrilled to the ventriloquising of " Signor Blitz," and hung breathless on those wonderful talks of his with the incomparable, squeaky-voiced Bobby !] Evening, with M. R. Fisher to the Opera. The house was splendid. First, one act of " II Barbiere," then a concert then more Barber. In the middle of the second act, at 1 1 o'clock, the whole house was yawn ing and we went home. Of course, Mme. 302 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Rosa was taken sick and withdrew, and my notice of the op. which was in type before it had operated, contained no elusion to that omission. Which is my third blissful blunder. 10. Friday. Inquired where I could take lessons in chasing silver. In the evening to the "Carnival of Venice"; very light music, very little, apparently, in it to remember, but pretty ; the plot is old-fashioned Italian, the humbugging a watchful father by two gal lants, a stupid servant, a Carnival scene, and a reconciliation very much like a thousand other things of the kind, but made very funny by Ronconi and excellent by Miss Hauck. Like a chapter from Casanova with souvenirs of Canaletto. 11. Saturday. Went to Penington's book store. Mr. B. P. Hunt [his old schoolmaster] and Ed. Buckley there. Gossip, that Miss Hauck of the Opera was originally a girl in a lager beer saloon in New York, and that the rich Jerome had her educated. Wonder ful genius. If she ever goes to Europe she will be a second Patti. In the evening, there was a grand concert at the Academy. Selec tions from Rossini's "Stabat Mater," etc., with Baragli, Mmes. Behrens and Testa, Anton- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 303 ucci, etc. I went with Dr. Schott and re mained half through. " De " Meyer [a pianist and leader of orchestra, if I am not mistaken] is a perfect specimen of an old petit maitre, a curiosity. Moustache, hat, gloves, poses, and smile are all as rococo as possible. Je voyais revivre le beau de 1837. 14. Tuesday. Saw Miss Colton, who gave an account of Charles Dickens' reading. People generally disappointed in Dickens. Went to Anna Halsted's wedding reception. A very lively and pretty Miss Pettit kept me laughing for some time. Bought india-rubber shoes, $1.50. Snow. Opera, " Lucretia Bor gia," very well sung, with Mme. Gazzaniga as Lucretia, Mme. Testa as Orsini, Baragli as Gennaro, and Antonucci as the Duke. Numerous pretty girls and other subjects for comment, not forgetting my collection of old opera bills. Pineapple water-ice : a com bination of the pine and the palm, of ice and tropical luxury. Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam. Pineapple water-ice is like eating Heine's poetry with a spoon. Dropped into Penington's and looked over a curious old French book on the Knights Templars. 15. Wednesday. Evening, went with Dr. 30 4 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Schott to Academy of Music. The opera was " Linda." After the opera I went down to the office. Great excitement among the brokers in consequence of Grant and Stanton. Gold at 4 1 . Supper at Green's and heard that Black Charley, who used to open oysters there, had died very suddenly the night be fore of heart complaint caused by grief for the loss of his wife. 1 6. Thursday. In the afternoon to Sentz's concert. Felix Bernhert played the piano. Felix is a name of happy omen since it con tains the letters IXL. And as I-XL may mean 40 save i, these may apply to the " lix " which those got who were whipped according to the law of Moses. Blitz was in the office yesterday and told a good story, how once in a New England town, he had no place to sleep, and was courteously invited by an old fellow to a bed, and received the next morn ing a good breakfast. On asking what he had to pay, he was told " nothing." " But I must pay you," answered Blitz, " I cannot think of taxing your hospitality gratis." " There ain't nothin' to pay here," was the reply. " This is the town poorhouse, and we never charge nobody a cent." YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 305 19. Sunday. In the afternoon I went to see G. H. Boker; talked on literary appre ciation by the public and the more cultivated classes. George read me several MSS. sonnets which he had recently written; two or three on this very subject. He seemed disposed to take a melancholy view of the subject, and dwelt en passant on the very slender amount of sympathy or applause generally extended to poets not absolutely of the first class, as regards popularity. Men look at nothing but the very first. It is shoulder-straps or nichts. I remarked that a vast change had taken place during the past three centuries. In those days, poetry, like embroidered garments, fine dwellings, great jewelry (vide Cellini's Life), or pictures, was a matter of public and general interest. Nowadays there are more " educated " people, but the main interest and admiration of life is turned towards the results of genius as shown in "practical" matters and industrial achievements. George seems in clined to bear down on this practical, soulless, Gradgrind age. Mr. Young of the " Albion " has spoken of him sincerely and warmly as one of the first poets in America. It seems to me that it is a great thing to be even 3 o6 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND only one of the first among some thirty-five millions of people. Dr. O. W. Holmes once, in conversation or in a letter, said that Boker's " Dirge " was the best poem of the kind ever written. I believe he meant during the war. In his article on H. H. Brownell's poems, he declared these latter to be the only lyrics of value which the war had brought forth. R. W. Emerson, in Boston in 1862, told me he thought that " Let us alone " was the best bit of humour the war had produced. He did not know the name of the author, and I only knew the initials and address. I wrote to Mr. Brownell and informed him of what Em erson had said, thinking it would gratify him, and sent a note to Emerson informing him as to Brownell's name, hoping it might ben efit the latter. There are times when such meddling is not out of place. In the evening I read the " Life of Benvenuto Cellini." He was the Ulrich von Hutten of art. What as tonishes me is the enormous vitality of the man and his restless desire to acquire know ledge and excel. He had the faculty of taking interest to a great degree, as had also Leo nardo da Vinci. It is delightful to catch in Cellini's work so many " living glimpses " of YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 307 great men such as Da Vinci and Michael Angelo. I have been trying to get a teacher to give me lessons in chasing silver and metal, and this reading of this book came in quite apropos. 21. Tuesday. . . . Ideas for a travestie of " Faust." First scene, Faust, an Apothecary, summons spirits by medium of a bottle of brandy. Rappings, in response, table dances, and a pair of tongs suddenly assumes a head and walks and talks. Mephistopheles appears and makes Faust a printer and editor gives him free passes to all the theatres, and dead heads him to " life " generally, on condition that he will at the end of the year go to hell and vote the Democratic ticket ! The Blocksberg a lager-beer cellar. 26. Sunday. Afternoon, G. H. Boker. He read to me aloud the whole of Swinburne's poem of " Dolores," and pointed out with great accuracy the passages in it which indicated the influence of De Sade. It possesses won derful subtlety of thought and is full of latent lasciviousness. . . . Swinburne and De Sade both persist in clothing their ideal with agony, tears, and blood, and see at the end only ashes and desolation. I have always thought that 308 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND De Sade, reduced to facts and logic, is as moral as Paley. All his arguments in favour of atheism and unnatural crime amount to the destruction of all social harmony and the right of strength and accident to subdue weakness and settled organisation. As for Swinburne's melancholy Pleasure should be joyous. 30. Thursday. In the evening I went with Belle to hear Chas. Dickens, at Concert Hall, read " Doctor Marigold " and " Bob Sawyer's Party." His hair is gray and scanty, but is brushed up on either side in expansive locks in a very " swell " manner which has proved an irresistible temptation to the negro min strels. He had on rather large shirt studs, a large showy ring, sleeve buttons, and a heavy gold chain fastened by a locket in the middle and leading in double festoons to either watch pocket, as if he wore two watches. In his coat button-hole were two flowers of different colours, according to his invariable custom. There was not a youth in the whole house who was " got up so loudly." It gave me fre quently a very melancholy and disagreeable feeling to see an author of so much ability, who has touched the tenderest feelings of hundreds of thousands, grimacing and play- YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 309 ing the mime as Dickens did last night, and " acting funny." His gold chain bore a large locket, and at intervals of three inches on it were red coral balls. His ring was a large dia mond, and between the readings he changed the flowers at his button-hole. 31. Friday. Evening, went to Dickens again with Belle. Geo. W. Childs on the stairway as usual, showing himself. Dickens read his abridgement of " David Copper- field " and " Boots at the Holly Tree Inn." February i, Saturday. Went to E. Robins to buy U. S. bond. Philadelphia Library. Saw Mrs. Hooper and Mr. Hart. Inquired of Mr. Smith for a writer for some locals. Pening- ton's bookstore. Looked over divers old books, such as Anne Marie Schurmann's "Opuscula," Salmasius and Milton's De fences, Selden's " De Diis Syriis," " Pathelin," the " Ars Conservandi," etc. ("Schola Saler- nitana"), and Scaliger's " De Subtilitate ad Hier. Cardan." Saw Charles Stille and Mr. B. P. Hunt. Evening, took tea at Mr. Colton's. Had fried scallops for supper, which are like fried oysters. Went over " Meister Karl " with Miss D. to select chapters for publica tion. Not an easy business. Trop de veau 3io CHARLES GODFREY LELAND too much self-consciousness in the book, and not freshness and vigour. 2. Sunday. Morning, office translated from French journals. Afternoon, G. H. Boker's. He read aloud Swinburne's new poem to Baudelaire, which suggests Mil ton's " Lycidas." This poem is characteristic of Swinburne and shows more of the strength of poison than of muscle. He also read Tennyson's last poem, a very light little thing, ending without point, though there is a verse in it which would have made a capital ending. For this little poem Tennyson received ,500 (no shillings or pence). George told a story how the day before, seeing a big fellow among others strike a boy, he interposed. Where upon one cried, "D it, if the old man hasn't got his fists doubled!" He had been to hear Dickens, liked his reading, and com mented on the pure objectivity of all his characters. Said Dickens wrote without self- consciousness. 4. Tuesday. Worked on the new edition of " Meister Karl." Evening, went to Acad emy of Music. Lewis's Gymnastic Exhibi tion. Colton boys sat by me, and were much pleased. When the sparring began, the YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 311 youths in the gallery shouted for the police : " Go for his right eye ! " " Bang him on the neck ! " " Po-lice ! " " Close up his other eye ! " I myself went for a dozen oysters, cum cerevisia, when it was all over, and then home. John " off " all day. Disappeared with Martini Monday forenoon. Curious customer named F , a N. O. French Creole, sup plied us by Smith of the Library [Lloyd Smith of the Philadelphia Library, evidently], was in the office. He had collaborated some thing with Etienne Arago, and known Dumas and Louis Blanc, and others "particularly much," etc. 5. Wednesday. F. looked in to know if he could have a further advance for the article on Amusements which is as yet unwritten. Cela sent un pen de la Boheme. He has already received $10 for "expenses." Saw Miss Lydia Mason yesterday in the street. Also Emily Schaumberg. Evening, Agassiz at Horticultural Hall. Went with Dr. Schott on the platform, or stage, where were H. C. Carey, Dr. Leconte, and many other savans. Professor A. lectured in a plain, common- sensible, but not peculiarly original or vigor ous style, on teaching, urging the " object " 312 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND method, which he did not, however, indicate by that name. I was introduced to him in Boston, in the winter of 1861-62. 10. Monday. Clear and slippery. Got my hair cut at Gray's. Wrote to Mr. Pooley in New York as to " Meister Karl." His address is No. 331 Pearl St. Went round to Colton's to go to Professor Rogers' lecture, but found it was to be to-morrow. Evening, Dr. Schott in our room. Made some Gluhwein of claret. 11. Tuesday. Fine day, very cold. SawT. B. Peterson and Ringwalt as to publishing the "Breitmann Ballads." Sent Colonel Forney a statement as to " Weekly Press," showing a clear profit of $135 for the past week. Story of the crows which, during the winter, fly in large numbers from New Jersey to Pennsylvania every morning and return in the afternoon. A Jersey man being asked why they did this, replied that the food in N. J. was too rich for them. In the evening I went with Miss Julia Colton to see " La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein " at the opera. It was extremely amusing, bouffe, riante,folle.. Went down to the office afterward and wrote an article on the opera. 12. Wednesday. Morning papers all full of YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 313 " La Grande Duchesse." Nothing particular during the day. In the evening, I went again to see the " Grande D e " with Belle, who en joyed it very much. The performers entered with great spirit into the play. Saw Edward Robins and wife there. 15. Saturday. " Duchesse " matinee. Old French stage associations rise like many ghosts from the Latin Quarter days, and I could write a book out of them. 1 8. Tuesday. In at tailor's. Zacchy told some Hungarian stories with good effect. 21. Friday. News of Stan ton's difficulty with the President. Trouble at Washington. 24. Monday. Evening, I went alone to the Chestnut St. Theatre. Bateman's French Dramatic Company. They played " La Joie fait Peur." After this they played " Les Amours de Cleopatre," a very lively and jolly comedy in three acts, in which Mile. Reillez played a part which seemed like old times and the Quartier Latin. " My daughter," says the father, " when you shall have been thirty years in the cork business, you will not be astonished at anything dans la nature." I am almost certain this old fellow used to play twenty years ago at Bobino's. 314 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND 28. Friday. First clear day since Monday Governor Curtin came up into the office to secure the nomination for Vice-Presidency. Evening went with Belle to see " Les Diables Rouges" music by Offenbach. 8 March, Sunday. Morning, office, " Press." Afternoon, John Harrison's. Evening, staid at home. Illuminated my copy of Swinburne's poems. Singular fascination in all such small fancy work. Perhaps women find it in sew ing. 13. Friday. At Penington's, where I or dered some books. Evening at Ole Bull's again with Belle. Pollak sang and Ole Bull played immediately after a Polac-ca. Where is Pollak mentioned in Shakespeare ? " I smote the sledded Polak on the ice " (eyes?) The audience made asses of themselves as before with noisy and excessive encoring. 14. Saturday. Met Miss Sally Pettit and walked with her. A charming and beautiful petite. Went to Ole Bull's matinee. Went behind the scenes and had a short but very interesting conversation with the great vio linist. He said that he had so much improved his method of playing since ten years, that it YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 315 was no longer the same. He said that the bow should be thick so as to produce great elasticity, and showed me his ; that violinists should play freely from the chest, and drew himself up. He has a magnificent chest. Then he urged the necessity of mastering equally the art of playing on every part of the violin, neck and all. Also that he intended to write a book and should experiment this summer with different violins. I spoke of Chladni's "Traite sur les Sons," or "L'Acoustique," and experiments with sound on glass, and com mended him to consult Prof. Henry of the Smithsonian Institution. He said he should. Also told me that the effort to make violins on the vibratory principle had failed. 15. Sunday. Col. Forney at office. Im peachment progressing. Could not see George Boker again, owing to Mrs. Boker's illness. Evening, read in Creuzer's "Sym- bolik." I met Creuzer once in Heidelberg where he persisted in calling me Herr Baron, and was pleased at my knowing the style of Merovingian swords. 1 6. Monday. Went with Belle to hear Mrs. Butler, or Fanny Kemble, read I saw Mrs. Butler, then Fanny Kemble, as Beatrice in 3i6 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND " Much Ado about Nothing" some 34 years ago, and can remember distinctly her impet uous manner and " fiery eyes." I heard her read also it seems to me in 1849 or 1850. She did not, as I thought, excel in the lighter and characteristically humorous parts, and, with the best will in the world to admire, I thought her talents extremely exaggerated. Last night in reading "Antony and Cleo patra," she cut out a great part of the play, and, in fact, confined herself principally to the two chief characters. I suppose she did this from a consciousness of her inability to do justice to the other parts. In plainer, humorous reading she has a disagreeable Yankee-like, almost nasal twang. Her voice is good, but her natural style is " sensational," and old-fashioned intense inclining to rant, and as she is conscious of this and endeavours to subdue it, we are conscious in turn of something unnatural. It is the art which, like Gazzaniga's singing, is much admired by fashionable and dilletanti people who think themselves highly cultivated and think a great deal about it. I once went from Marseilles to Civita Vecchia on the same boat as Mrs. Butler, 1845. YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 317 20. Friday. Bought little fans, and three books at Penington's, " De la Caricature dans I'Antiquite," " Caresme-Prenant et Gau< tier-Garguille," and a charming old black-let* ter tract reprint. Evening went with Belle to Opera " Ernani." States, the new singer, has a fine figure and a good voice. 21. Saturday. A tremendous snowstorm last night and this morning nothing like it since 1856. I went to the Matinee at the Academy ; " II Barbiere." Ronconi very good. Evening, opera again ; " Faust." Miss Hauck sang in German, Italian, and French, Habel- mann in German, and Antonucci and the rest in Italian. After 2d act went round to Harrisons', where I saw the Wight girls. Curious and mossy loads of snow on every tree and on the slightest objects. I saw it at least 14 inches high on the top of a garden fence. 22. Sunday. Called at G. H. Boker's, Mrs. Boker better. Hopes entertained of her re covery. Illuminated from the work on old Merovingian graves. Evening, Colton's. Neu ralgia and sore throat. 24. Tuesday. Afternoon, Levi, Janau- schek's agent, came in and gave a glowing 3i8 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND recital of her success in the West. He seemed rather astonished when I told him he would have a great success in Boston, saying there were not many Germans there. Evening went with Belle and Miss Colton to the Gazzaniga Concert at Concert Hall. De Meyer played on the piano, Ardavani the baritone, very good. 30. Monday. Worked at " Meister Karl " slow work. 31. Tuesday. Evening at Laura Hooper's. Three gentlemen there, three-card monte, and stories. i April. Janauschek in " Marie Stuart " Schiller's very fine performance. 3. Friday. Evening at Janauschek's, Acad emy. " Leah the Forsaken." A poor house as usual and magnificent acting. Crelinger was more than Jew in his part. 5. Sunday. Morning, office. Afternoon, G. H. Boker's. Evening, Colton's. 8. Wednesday. Started at 8 o'clock from Walnut St. Ferry [for New York] ; saw Mr. Horace Greeley absorbed in a mass of news papers in a corner of the cabin. Re-introduced myself. He said very little at first, read his papers, asked me if I lived in Boston, and YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 319 then commented on some new mean trick of Governor 's to save money. I said that 's cotton transactions during the war were extremely disreputable, as I knew from the agent he had employed, who told me all about them. I added that it was strange that had not, at his point of wealth, found it of more advantage to be honest than dishonest ; to which Mr. Greeley replied that he always found the more a man had, the more he wanted, and that a man with more than a million was a nuisance. Then in the cars he read proofs and newspapers, talked of building material such as concrete, commented on the Hackensack cut and re deeming marshland, and when I asked him to write a book on Republicanism, said he intended to write one some day on Political Economy. I suggested to him that Republi canism correctly viewed was really nothing but an Industrial Policy to which he assented. Also admitted that Carey was right but too diffuse to be of practical advantage. Spoke of the " Herald " and much of Mr. Charles Dana and the " Sun." I left him in Broadway. 16. Thursday. Sent " Meister Karl" to W. I. Pooley. Worked on Breitmann. 320 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND 1 8. Saturday. Finished Breitmann saw Mr. Lindy Smith of the Union League and agreed to let him have the " Weekly Press " as a campaign paper at 2 cents apiece. 19. Sunday. Office in the morning. Occu pied with Hans Breitmann placard. G. H. Boker gone to New York, Mrs. Harrison's. The entries were getting shorter and shorter a mere jotting down of operas seen and noticed, sometimes the notice it self cut out and pasted in the journal, for future reference no doubt. By the second of May, they ceased altogether: "2. Saturday * Cinderella ' Matinee English opera Evening at Colton's " is the last, abruptly completing the diary for that and many years to come. April had been a dreadful month for him, for it was in April that Henry Leland's illness reached its crisis. Not long after this concluding entry he died, at an age when much good work, the com plete fulfilment of the great promise he had given, might still be hoped to lie before him. The Rye kept on with his journalism for a year longer. He guided the policy of the " Press " through the Presidential campaign. YEARS OF STORM AND STRESS 321 But he was tired. He had worked without ceasing for twenty-one years. The illness of his father and of the brother whom he loved as a friend had meant a severe strain; the frequent notes of neuralgia in the journal are warnings to the reader of the nervous break down he had every reason to fear. And now, if he wanted, he could be independent of newspapers forevermore. His father had left him ample means, to which had been added the fourth part of his brother's share in the estate. In the spring of 1869 he was induced to resign his position on the " Press," tem porarily, anyway, he may have thought, let the house he had just bought and fur nished in Locust Street, pack his trunks, and start the second time for Europe. CHAPTER VIII HANS BREITMANN THE first time the Rye sailed for Europe, all his work lay before him. But now, the second time, an important part of it was done : the " Breitmann Ballads " had been written, his reputation was made. I could only wonder how he managed to publish any books during his years of active journalism, if I had not seen for myself, later on, the great facility he had in writing, and his unlimited talent for industry. " I hope that you and Joe are well," he wrote to me once in his later life. " That you are always busy like me means that the chief condition for earthly happiness is fulfilled, for though many other things are needed, all are as no thing if we do not work." There were times, indeed, when, to restore my own self-respect, I should have welcomed a shadow of idleness in him as a virtue. Any one else in his posi tion would have left of the fifties and sixties merely a record of journalism, more or less HANS BREITMANN 323 well done, for the American newspaper office then supplied no pleasant sinecures to any body no easy ways of gaining the steady income that odd literary commissions were to supplement. And, at the best, these odd lit erary commissions could barely keep a man from starving, unless he happened to be N. P. Willis, who anticipated the, modern purveyor of " actualities " and gossip, or Rufus Gris- wold, with \iisflair for sensation. The more common experience was that of the young Hawthorne, thankful if he received anything at all in payment of his work ; or Longfellow, regretting that " nobody pays nowadays ; " or Poe, paid at a price that accounts for the poverty of that tragic little cottage on the Hudson. This was why, for so long in America, to the young man of letters without the inde pendent fortune he is so seldom blessed with anywhere, literature was a side issue, a pastime for the rare leisure left over from the serious money-making hours of life. Hawthorne in the Custom House, Bret Harte in the Glasgow Consulate, Howells as official representative of his country in Venice, this has been the rule. It was for an income the Rye turned 3 2 4 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND to journalism, to oil-prospecting, to rent-col lecting in the wilds. I do not say he got no pleasure out of these things he got a great deal. He would not have done them so well, if he had not. And besides, to one who could imagine romance where most people only see commonplace, the newspaper office reeked with it ; to the lover of the odd, there was a Gypsy side to the horrors of the camp in Civil War time ; to a man of his fine physical development in his prime, " the wild joys of living " not to speak of the joys of adven ture with Indians and strange people were the reward for months of roughing it in the backwoods of Tennessee and West Virginia. There is an undercurrent of savage exultation throughout his account of these experiences ; as if they ran always to the refrain of that mad Indian song: Hoo ! hoo ! hoo ! the Muscolgee ! Wah ! wah ! wah ! the blasted tree ! But, though he enjoyed them at the time, though he was thankful for them afterwards, they were not the experiences he would have chosen, had he been free to choose ; and the proof is that when he was free, when he was master of an independent income, he did not HANS BREITMANN 325 attempt to repeat or rival them. He devoted himself to literature: in literature he really lived ; in literature he sought and found his romance, his adventure, his mystery. As with every dreamer, it was the idea, the sen timent of a thing, rather than the thing itself, that inspired him. One of Borrow's worship pers, once, had his moment of disillusion, when he saw his hero armed with a big green umbrella for a country walk on a gray day. But Borrow's feeling for Nature was no less because he sometimes objected to risk her discomforts : he could hear the wind on the heath in the respectable Brompton Square, as well as on the open moorland. And so, the Rye is a splendidly picturesque figure as he sits in his canoe, chanting incantations in the face of death, on Southern waters ; or astride his horse, riding boldly through a guerilla-swept land ; or dancing a war dance with Red Indians on Western plains. But he is no less picturesque, and far more what he meant and wanted to make of himself, in his writings. His books are the true record of his life. By diligent searching, I might unearth many articles, long forgotten, from old files 326 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND of the " Bulletin " and the " Press," of " Gra ham's," the " Knickerbocker," and the " Con tinental." And I probably should recognise the slightest he wrote as his work, for neither journalistic haste nor uncongenial subjects could destroy or suppress his individuality as a writer. He had his tricks of style, as some men have their tricks of speech or man ner by which you may know them. He could not keep out of his manuscripts the rhymes and proverbs, the old legends and traditions, the quotations and allusions, with which his memory was stored, and they could have come from no other literary man or journal ist of his generation. But the fate of authors like Thackeray, at the zealous hands of the modern literary ghoul, makes it seem kinder to let forgotten articles lie forgotten. The man who writes to time, for a living, occasionally turns out " copy " he would as lief forget himself. Besides, the Rye did what most literary men in his position do ; he collected many of his magazine articles into books, he expanded many of his newspaper articles into pamphlets, and it may be taken for granted that he preserved all he wished preserved, and passed over all he wished passed over. HANS BREITMANN 327 Of one of his first books, I know nothing save the title, but it tells me a great deal : " The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams." He refers to this work in the " Memoirs," without mentioning the name of the publisher or the date of publication. But it was dedicated to " Miss Belle Fisher," and therefore belongs to the years preceding his marriage. For the opening of his literary career it was, in its subject anyway, as appropriate as the rites of his nurse had been for his initiation into life. 1 Another of his earlier ventures, " Meister Karl's Sketch-Book," was made up of ar ticles from the " Knickerbocker Magazine," and published by Parry and McMillan in Philadelphia, in 1855. An "odd melange," he calls it. Odd it may be, but I cannot read it now without realising how writing it must have helped him through the dark years when he tried to believe himself absorbed in the law. For the greater portion belongs to this period, though it was practically begun as early as his sixteenth year. The spirit of 1 A copy of this rare book is now in my possession, kindly sent to me by Mr. Norcross, but I did not receive it until after my MS. had gone to the printer. I find that Butler & Co. of Philadelphia were the publishers, and 1856 the date. 328 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND youth breathes through every line. The open ing paragraph alone would betray the age of the author: "Well, my friends! are we all in our places? Is the last packet thrown in ? are your hats tied up ? your travelling caps on ? coat and gown settled down? Is the baggage snugly stowed away? have the trunks gone to sleep in loving unison with the band-boxes upon the carpet-bags ? Major, is your flask within reach ? you may wish to refer to it. And are they all there, the gentle ones, in cluding the pretty waiting-maid outside ? (Are you comfortable, mamselle?) And lo! here am I, your courier, your friend, your guide that is to be, with my everlasting green bag, portfolio, and pipe. What 's all that row with the horses ? Lay on the leather, driver ! All right dem that beggar! go a-head hey up there g'lang ! Clic, clac, petit pos tilion!" And then away goes the courier, " Meister Karl," rambling as only a very young man could, through the books he has read and the countries he has visited : jotting down his im pressions of anything and everything as they occurred to him, spring in his heart, the HANS BREITMANN 329 Carnival in Rome, the picturesqueness of Nuremberg, the charm of the " beautiful cities of the Past ; " telling again the old stories of Flemish Art, Miraculous Madon nas, Ghosts, Fairies, whatever came into his head ; as much at home meeting the devil on a church steeple at midnight as calling for beer in the breweries of Munich ; always ready for a laugh, never afraid of a quotation. The personal appeals to the reader and the rhe torical flights were literary fashions then in vogue. But the quotations and allusions and the use he made of them, the excursions into the grotesque and the mystical, were all his own, and, in his phrase, " caviare to the pub lic." It might be as natural for " Meister Karl " to meet fairies and spirits in his travels as for Mr. Howells to meet men and women of solid flesh, as natural to lose himself in legend as for Baedeker to hold fast to fact. It was anything but natural, however, to the public, and the book had no special success. One pleasure it brought the author was a letter from Washington Irving, to whom he had sent a copy. A letter from Washington Irving was to the young American author of 330 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND the fifties much what the post-cards of Glad stone became to the young English author at the end of the century, I am afraid, with no better reason. " I trust your work has met with a wide circulation," Irving wrote from Sunnyside, on May 31, 1856, "for such it merits by its raciness, its quaint erudition, its graphic delineations, its veins of genuine poetry and true Rabelais humour. To me it is a choice book to have at hand for a relish ing morsel occasionally, like a Stilton cheese or a pate de foie gras? But he had written the same pretty compliment to George Tick- nor a few years before about Ticknor's book on Spain, so that he must also have liked to keep by him a stock of ready-made phrases for distribution among admiring correspond ents. Fortunately, the Rye, who never got over the youthful hero-worship for the great man of the older generation, was spared the disenchantment of discovery, and cherished the illusion that the compliment was personal until the end. Seventeen years after his first appearance, " Meister Karl " suddenly found himself fa mous in the reflected light of Hans Breitmann, and a second edition of the " Sketch-Book " HANS BREITMANN 331 was called for. The American publishers now were Peterson Brothers of Philadelphia; who the " Pooley " of the journal was, I cannot say. The Petersons seem to have had a rooted objection to dates. None appears on their issue nor, as they sent the sheets over to Trlibner, the English publisher, in the Eng lish edition. It is only from the journal for 1868 and from his correspondence that I con clude the date of publication to have been late in 1869 or early in 1870 for America, and 1872 for England. Three new chapters were added, under the title " The Morning Land," and the pleasure to the author this time was the praise of Professor Palmer, probably none the less sincere because Palmer did not bother to make a phrase of it. He found " all the East " in the new chapters, and said so in so many words. When the " Sketch-Book " was published, some critics objected to it as an imitation of Heine, though the Rye had not read a word of Heine until the greater part of it was writ ten. By the time it was finished, however, he had not only read but translated the " Pictures of Travel " and the " Songs," and the transla tion was published in the same year, 1855. 332 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND A translation could not better preserve the spirit of the original. There is none of the hurry of the professional translator, measur ing his time and care by the price paid. Had the work not been done for something besides payment in money, it would have led to no thing but disappointment, since the meagre seventy-five cents a page agreed upon, the Rye says in his " Memoirs," was never paid him in full. " I was obliged to take part of the money in engravings and books, and the publisher failed. The book passed into other hands, and many thousands of copies were sold, from all of which I, of course, got no thing," nothing except his pleasure in a congenial task. And it was congenial, for he had in himself something of the same com bination of seriousness and humour, of ten derness and " drollery," that attracted him to Heine; he was as familiar with German as with English, as entirely master of its " fine shades," having been " Germanised " to his fellow-citizens' disgust, even before he set foot in Heidelberg or Munich ; and he had the deep respect for the original text that prevented his altering or omitting a line or an incident, though, at a more mature period, PROFESSOR E. li. PALMER HANS BREITMANN 333 for Mr. Heinemann's edition (iSgi), 1 he thought it wiser to make certain omissions. Whether Heine ever saw the translation, I am not sure, but he heard of it before a year had passed ; for he announced its appearance as " a piece of good news," in a letter to Calmann- Levy, written on the 4th of October, 1855, crediting New York instead of Philadelphia with the honour of having produced it. 1 1 " has met with an enormous success," he goes on, " according to a correspondence in the ' Augs- burger Zeitung ' (which does not love me enough to invent successes for me)." He was right as to the success. The few enjoyed the excellence of the translation. Thackeray, who was lecturing in America the year it was published, kept the book to read in the train between Philadelphia and New York, and roared over it all the way, according to Bayard Taylor, his companion on the occasion. The many, whatever pleased them in it, liked it so well that it went into edition after edition. The eighth had already been reached in 1879, the date of the first copy the Rye ever 1 Mr. Heinemann's was, of course, an entirely new ven ture, and the financial conditions had nothing to do with those made by the American publishers of the fifties. 334 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND gave me, when Schaefer and Koradi of Phil adelphia were the publishers. After " Meister Karl " and the " Pictures of Travel," for some few years there were no books. Rumours of war, and, finally, war itself, left him less leisure than ever. But all the while he was full of schemes that gradu ally took definite shape. One was to publish to the world the " Gospel of Joyousness," as he called it, in which his faith was strong. At no period of his life would he permit the luxury of woe to himself or to anybody else, and the moment when things looked blackest during the Civil War seemed to him the one, of all others, when a protest against pessimism needed to be made. But it was a moment of hurry and interruption, and this one of his schemes suffered from the haste with which it was carried out. His protest, with the title " Sunshine in Thought," was published in book form by the Putnams in New York, 1863. " It was all directed," is the explanation in the " Memoirs," " against tire namby-pamby pessimism, * lost Edens and buried Lenores,' and similar weak rubbish, which had then begun to manifest itself in literature, and which I foresaw was in future to become HANS BREITMANN 335 a great curse, as it has indeed done." His argument was based on his belief, that grew with the years, in science and the future of greater happiness to come with its develop ment. But in waiting, the present evils of despair demanded heroic remedies, and he allowed no compromise, including even Poe in his sweeping denunciation. In calmer mo ments he would have seen reason to qualify many of his criticisms. The book, however, never went into a second edition, though the first was limited to five hundred copies. To me it is the least satisfactory of his works. The indefiniteness of plan weakens the argu ment. He was too eager to say what he had to say, to consider how he said it. But no body interested in the literature of the Civil War should pass it over. To this literature he made more direct political contributions, ^two pamphlets of widespread influence in their day : " Central ization versus State Rights" (1863), and the same year, in collaboration with his brother Henry, " The Book of Copperheads," found in Lincoln's desk after his assassination, to gether with the "Letters of Petroleum V. Nasby," by D. R. Locke. Lincoln's copy of 336 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND the " Book of Copperheads," the Rye writes, in the " Memoirs," " was sent to me to see and return. It was much thumbed, showing that it had been thoroughly read by Father Abra ham." Then, literature leading the American who looked to it for support into all sorts of queer by-paths, he wrote for Carleton, a New York publisher, a little volume on " The Art of Con versation" (1863), which might have a place on the collector's shelves, as a literary curios ity, alongside of Poe's " Manual of Conchol- ogy" and Hawthorne's "Universal History." I have a copy, a thin green-bound book, as uninviting in its get-up as if it were a pill that needed no sugar-coating, but abounding in advice by which, let it be hoped, the nervous youth of half a century ago profited. He trans lated from the German of Baron J. Von Eich- endorff the " Memoirs of a Good-for-Nothing" (1866), and the "German Mother Goose." He made a volume, partially illustrating it, of his own nursery rhymes, " Mother Pitcher " (Philadelphia, Frederick Leypoldt, 1864). The verses, written for the amusement of his youngest sister, Emily, now Mrs. John Har rison, have a very personal touch in his se- HANS BREITMANN 337 lection as hero, not of the Slovenly Peters or Naughty Fredericks of the western nursery, but of a picturesque, pig-tailed little Ping- Wing, the Pieman's Son, and this before the Chino-Californian had dawned upon American fiction. There was also a book of " Legends of the Birds " (1864). I remember the joy it gave in one household, and I can still recall the thin quarto, with the little bird in the middle of a gold and white cover, though it was read out of existence years ago, and I have never seen another copy since. The verses, however, were eventually re printed in the " Music Lesson of Confucius." These books, except "Mother Pitcher," were undertaken and written deliberately for publication. But, all the while, the work des tined to bring him fame was being dashed off at odd hours, anyhow, just for fun, to fill up a letter to a friend, or a corner in a paper or magazine just as it was going to press. For this was the origin of the " Breit- mann Ballads." I have heard it said that the "younger generation" does not read the " Breitmann Ballads." But, for all that, Breitmann has in him the stuff that endures, the stuff that 338 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ensured his success from the start, though to us, looking back, the moment of his appear ance seems one when Americans could have had least time or inclination to try what Dr. Holmes once described as the " Breitmann cure." For the first Ballad was written in 1856, the first complete collection was pub lished in 1870. Therefore, the earliest and gayest verses cover the period when the national self-consciousness, always alert, had reached its most acute stage, when the coun try was engrossed in its own affairs as it had never been before, as pray Heaven it may never be again. Hans Breitmann reflected nothing American, he satirised nothing Amer ican. Anything more unlike that long, thin, lank, nervous, almost ascetic Uncle Sam Amer ica has evolved as its national type, could not well be imagined than the big, fat, easy-going, beer-drinking, pleasure-loving German who was the hero of the " Ballads." He was not of the soil, as were Parson Wilbur, and Hosea Biglow, and the others who roused the laugh ter of over-wrought patriotism* He was not even Pennsylvania Dutch, as critics who had never set foot in Pennsylvania were so ready to assert. He was in every sense an alien ; by HANS BREITMANN 339 birth, in his language, which was not Penn sylvania Dutch either, whatever the critics might call it, in his thoughts, his habits, his ideals. No figure could have been more unlocked for in American literature, up till then so intensely national in character or "provincial," I can fancy Mr. Henry James correcting me. Only now and then had a rare poet like Poe evaded this national respon sibility, and concerned himself with beauty alone. But Poe had been the exception. The typical American of letters if genius can be typical was Hawthorne, in whose prose, as in Lowell's verse, the American, the New England inspiration cannot be forgotten for a minute. Were it known of the author of the " Bal lads " only that he was a Philadelphian who, during those eventful years, worked as hard for his country as a man whose business it was to write could, the fact of his having created Breitmann then, or indeed at any other period, might seem as extraordinary. But a great deal more is known, and in this knowledge lies the explanation. To be told what a man laughs at is to be told what that man is, according to an old saying, almost 340 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND too hackneyed to quote, certainly more hack neyed than it deserves to be. For it is quite as true that to be told what a man is, is to be told what he will laugh at. Charles Godfrey Leland being what he was, Hans Breitmann follows as a matter of course. Really, if for no better reason, I might recommend the study of Breitmann to the " younger gener ation " as a human document of uncommon interest. As I have shown, when his country needed him, the Rye was entirely at his country's ser vice, though all the time his real life was in a world of thought far removed from the practical affairs of America. It was his ambi tion to climb the heights of mysticism and romance. Certainly, no sooner did freedom come with his later years than he started straight away adventuring with Gypsies and witches, studying sorcery, wrestling with prob lems of will and sex. But for the time, Fate had drawn him deep down into the whirlpool of fact. To make up for it, however, Fate had endowed him with a sense of humour, and he was the first to laugh at the absurd contrast between the philosopher that would be and the man of practical affairs that was. When HANS BREITMANN 341 he shaped this laughter into words, the result was, naturally, Breitmann ; that is, the Ger man, with his head in the heavens of philoso phy and his feet in the ditch of necessity, spouting pure reason over his beer-mug, drop ping the tears of sentiment on his sausage and sauerkraut. Breitmann " flashed into being," as Hen ley says of Panurge. How spontaneous was the laugh from which he sprang, the history of the early " Ballads " and the character of Breitmann himself go far to prove. The his tory I am able to give with details never before published. It was partly told in the author's prefaces to the editions of 1871 and 1889. But further facts are supplied by the author's marginal notes in his copies of these two editions, now in my possession. I read chance throughout the chance there is in any laugh that rings true. To begin with, it was the language that made Breit mann and not Breitmann who made the lan guage. For Breitmann did not appear until one at least of the " Ballads " that now go by his name had got to the point of being printed. " * Der Freischlitz ' was written before ' Hans Breitmann's Barty,' " is the note on a slip of 342 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND paper inserted in the copy of the 1871 edition open before me, " one season when a German troupe was playing at the Opera House in Philadelphia. It was first published in the * Philadelphia Evening Bulletin,' of which paper I was one of the editors. I subsequently republished it in ' Graham's Magazine,' with a small wood-cut, not larger than an English shilling, before each verse. These cuts were very clear and were executed by an engraver named Scattergood. * Der Freischiitz ' was one of several burlesque opera librettos which I wrote. They all had a great run through the newspapers. * Der Freischiitz ' was espe cially popular, but when published in a work with the rest of the * Breitmann Ballads,' the reviews declared it to be much inferior to any of the others." And yet of all these burlesques, "Der Freischiitz " alone has lived. Only one be sides have I found even among my uncle's papers, "La Sonnambula," a little pamphlet with a title designed by him. Of the re maining numbers in the series, I doubt if a trace could be discovered by the most ardent collector. " Der Freischiitz " would probably have gone with the rest, if, to add to the HANS BREITMANN 343 parody, it had not been put into the English of the German unfamiliar with the grammar and construction of the language. To the hard-worked journalist, subject and language both must have brought some charm of the old Heidelberg and Munich days, for once tried, it pleased him so well that he tried it again before that same year had come to an end. Hans Breitmann gife a barty ; Vhere ish dot barty now ? I do not believe aay lines by an Ameri can not the sayings of "John P. Robin son, he " nor the " Excelsior " of Longfellow's model youth, nor the catchwords of the " Heathen Chinee " and " Little Breeches " were ever so bandied about from mouth to mouth, so quoted, so used, so abused. In all likelihood, the "younger generation" that never heard of Breitmann has been loudest in asking, "Vhere ish dot barty now?" And yet, no lines were ever less premeditated, ever more wholly the result of chance. "While editing ' Graham's Magazine ' I had one day a space to fill," their author says in his " Me moirs," as he had already written in his copy of the 1871 edition. " In a hurry I knocked 344 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND off ' Hans Breitmann's Barty ' (1856). I gave it no thought whatever. Soon after, Clark republished it in the ' Knickerbocker,' saying that it was evidently by me. I little dreamed that in days to come I should be asked in Egypt, and on the blue Mediterranean, and in every country in Europe, if I was its author." " It was written only to fill up a page," the note in the 1889 edition says, "and I never expected that any one would notice it." He thought so little of it that in the " Ballads " immediately following the " Barty," Breitmann was left out as often as not The real link at first was the language, though nothing was further from his intention than that there should be any link of any kind. For, to quote again from the unpublished notes, " The Love Song, ' O, vere mine lofe a sugar-powl,' was composed, the first two verses, one night in Philadelphia after going to bed. It was with a great effort that I rose and wrote them down. I lived at the time at Mrs. Sandgren's in Spruce Street." The ballad of " De Maiden mit Nodings on " was "composed while sitting in a railway carriage, I think in Ohio, in 1864. I carried it for a year or more in my memory before I wrote it HANS BREITMANN 345 down." " Wein Geist " was written in a letter to Miss D. L. Colton to show " that it was easier to write such rhymes than prose," just as a few years later " Breitmann in Rome " was written in that city for Miss Edith Story ; " Schnitzerl's Philosopede " was " the result of a suggestion of John Forney, Jun." The story of Fritzerl Schnall " was told to me by General Schenck, American Minister in Lon don. When I first met him he avoided con versation more than once, but when he was at leisure he came to me and said : ' I did n't speak because I wanted to talk to you at leisure. I Ve got a first-rate story which I 've tbeen saving up for you these three weeks ; I expected to meet you in London.' Then we had a long conversation." " With the excep tion of the * Barty,' most of the poems in the first edition were written merely to fill up letters to Charles Astor Bristed," a fellow journalist living in New York. But if Breitmann was an accident, it was an accident that could have happened to no other man. As the picture painted in a few days represents the knowledge of a lifetime, so the " Ballads," apparently knocked off anyhow, were the outcome of a long apprenticeship of 346 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND study and travel and experience. Otherwise they would never have developed into a great Breitmann myth. The language alone could not have ensured their survival. It was clever uncouth in itself, but pliant and rhythmical as he wrote it. And it was real, not an inven tion. He had the sense to realise that not only would no two Germans, new to English, speak it alike, but that " no one individual is invariably consistent in his errors or inaccu racies. Every reader who knows any foreign language imperfectly is aware that he speaks it better at one time than another, and it would consequently have been a grave error to re duce the broken and irregular jargon of the book to a fixed and regular language." To the picturesqueness of Breitmann's English, his experiments in other tongues contributed so flamboyantly that Octave Delapier, the authority who had defined macaronics as "the extravagance of poetry," pronounced Breitmann's " Interview with the Pope " to be one of the finest examples. If extrava gance depends on recklessness or first-rate badness, then, "from this point of view," the author honestly admits, "it is possible that Breitmann's Latin lyric is not devoid of HANS BREITMANN 347 merit, since assuredly nobody ever wrote a worse." But macaronics are for the few. For the many, the cleverness of the German-English would have been no attraction, would, on the contrary, have been a drawback, the many finding it quite hard enough work to read at all, without the additional labour of consult ing a glossary. Even the down-east Yankee dialect would have made Hosea Biglow im possible, if Hosea Biglow had not had some thing to say that people wanted to hear. Breit- mann, too, had something to say, something that neither he nor his author could have said as expressively in any other way. For the language was absolutely a part of Breit- mann. He did not talk his broken English just because it was funny and to raise a laugh, but because only the man who talked it could have been what he was. Moreover, like all popular types, from Macchus, through the innumerable Pulcinellos and Pierrots, Harle quins and Pantaloons of centuries, Breitmann had in him the elements of human nature. Broad caricature there might be ; never was there a popular type without it. But he was a man, and a very real man - if with an un- 348 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND usual thirst and " the heroic manner." He lived in the " Ballads ; " that is why the " Bal lads " have lived. What the author saw in him, as he grad ually grew into a definite, substantial person ality, is plainly stated in the author's Preface to the English edition, 1871. " Breitmann is one of the battered types of the men of '48 - a person whose education more than his heart has in every way led him to entire scepticism or indifference, and one whose Lutheranism does not go beyond Wein, Weib und Gesang. Beneath his unlimited faith in pleasure lie natural shrewdness, an excellent early educa tion, and certain principles of honesty and good fellowship, which are all the more clearly defined from his moral looseness in details identified in the Anglo-Saxon mind with total depravity." But the rest of that description is in the Preface for any one to read. I would rather give, instead, an extract from a letter to me, that no one else has read, and that sums up the character not only of Breitmann, but of the whole Breitmann myth. The letter was written from Brighton in 1885, when the Rye was very keen to bring out an illustrated edition and have my husband do the illustra- HANS BREITMANN 349 tions. " There is an opportunity for a wide range in the book brave battles the death of Von Stossenheim a kind of heroic and romantic grandeur combined with German naivete and rowdyism. The book is really a mixture of great elements with small ones, and good illustrations would set this forth and raise it to its proper level. Breitmann is really a ferocious, tremendous old warrior an Eulenspiegel who can kill a wolf easily enough on occasion." Had the " Ballads," like the " Biglow Pa pers," been intended to convey a moral satire or preach a patriotic sermon, Breitmann would have been intolerable to Americans; they could not have stood the cynical indiffer ence with which he drank and rioted his way through scenes and events so little of a laugh ing matter to them. But the beauty of Breit mann was, that he was not an American. They could laugh at him, to relieve the strain, without the shadow of reproach could watch him play his part in the great national drama, and still laugh " the laughter which blends with tears." Besides, in no native adventurer would there have been the mixture of "philoso phy and sentiment, beer, music, and romance" 350 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND that made it possible for one American in particular, with his German training and tra ditions, to laugh a little at himself as he laughed with Breitmann. The native adven turer would have left sentiment at home when he went looting; he could not have drunk his beer to the murmur of metaphysics, nor searched for contraband whiskey to the sym phonies of Beethoven, nor played the game of politics on the romantic stage. He might, I do not deny, have got " troonk ash bigs " at his own or any other man's Barty. But only the German could have moralized at the end of the orgy, Hans Breitmann gif e a barty Vhere ish dot barty now ? Vhere ish de lofely golden cloud Dat float on de moundain's prow ? Vhere ish de himmelstrahlende stern De shtar of de shpirit's light ? All goned afay mit de lager beer Afay in de ewigkeit ! An American in the role of " Bummer " may not be inconceivable, but no one could believe in the American " Bummer " who read Fichte, and speculated as to whether De human souls of beoples Exisdt in deir idees HANS BREITMANN 351 or argued .... if dis couldt, shouldt hafe peen Dat vouldt, mighdt peen a ghosdt ; Boot if id pe nouomenon Phenomenoned indeed, Or de soobyectif objectified, and so into deeper depths. But speculation and argument were as much a habit with the German " Bummer " as his beer and his pipe that is what redeems him from animalism. There is no humour in mere brutality. Breit- mann, being a German, could drink himself drunk on the battlefield : Gotts ! vot a shpree der Breitmann had Vhile yet his hand was red, A trinkin' lager from his poots Among de repel tead, but drunk, he could touch the skies. His inspiration might be Schnaps De schmell voke oop de boetry but inspired, he could burst into lyrical song : Ash sommer pring de roses Und roses pring de dew, So Deutschland gifes de maidens Who fetch de bier for you. Komm Maidelein ! rothe Waengelein ! Mit wein-glass in your paw ! Ve '11 get troonk among de roses Und pe soper on de shtraw ! 352 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND He might be the most inveterate looter in the train of a great army, but let the organ peal out crate dings from Mozart, Beethoven und Me'hul, Mit chorals of Sebastian Bach Sooplime und peaudiful, and he was feeling " like holy saints," and the tears running down his face, while he and his men, "droonk as blitz" on contraband whiskey, singed ash if mit singin', dey Might indo Himmel win. Whatever Breitmann did, He dinked and dinked so heafy Ash only Deutschers can. Wherever he journeyed, he was sure to be A vorkin' out life's mission here Soobyectifly und grand. Some beoblesh runs de beautiful, Some vorks philosophic; Der Breitmann solfe de infinide Ash von eternal shpree. A vagabond of vagabonds, rollicking from adventure to adventure like the hero of the old picaresque novel, he was a German through it all ; the feeling of romance young in his heart, his soul susceptible to the sound HANS BREITMANN 353 of music or the summons of sentiment, the pathos lying very close to the humour, and poetry in the laughter. " When he is dream ing over the beautiful things that have touched him in the past, or at music, or giving advice to the young, in these moods, he says things which place him with the poets," one of his critics, Mr. John Masefield, writes. " I have a letter from Dr. O. W. Holmes in which he says that the death of Von Stossenheim drew two long-tailed tears from his eyes," is a note written on the mar gin of Breitmann's " Going to Church," while George Boker's admiration for a special verse in the same poem beginning " All rosen red de mornin' fair " is recorded in another marginal note. And Breitmann's thoughts were ever soaring so to the Infinite, so many tags of old verse and bits of old legend were ever running through his head, that only those familiar with German philosophy and litera ture appreciate the learning crammed into what, to the casual reader, seems mere " comic verse." Between his vagabondage and his philosophy, with his " ripe talent for events, Breitmann could never seem out of the pic ture," no matter where the chaotic times 354 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ' might send him, whether to fight the battles of the North, when a certain Jost in the Penn sylvania Cavalry served as prototype, whether oil-prospecting in guerilla-swept Tennessee, or rent-collecting in the wilds of West Vir ginia, or off on a great railroad-advertising excursion to Kansas and the then furthermost frontier of civilisation, among Indians and buffaloes. Many touches of autobiography are in the " Ballads " for any one who can read between the lines. If Breitmann's " well-balanced mixture of stoicism and epicurism " was peculiarly Teu tonic, he was so human, such a good fel low, so gay in his endurance as in his excesses, that every American could understand the man himself, while his humour was of a kind that every American could enjoy, without the discomfort there sometimes was in laugh ing at Hosea Biglow. And so, though Breit mann's creator thought little of him, other people, fortunately, began to think a great deal. The public became conscious of the existence of this big, jolly German with his unquenchable thirst and irrepressible good spirits, and were on the look-out for his re appearance. Letters containing the "Bal- HANS BREITMANN 355 lads " were preserved by the friends lucky enough to have received them, especially by Bristed, who, after sending his to a sporting paper, tried to surprise the author with a pri vately printed collection. The attempt failed. The " Ballads " might never have appeared at all, their author says in his preface to the 1871 edition, "had not Ringwalt, my collab orator on the * Philadelphia Press,' and also a printer, had such faith in the work as to have it ' set up ' in his office, offering to try an edition for me. This was transferred to Peterson Brothers." In a correspondence of a much later date, I have come upon a letter, (March 10, 1896), from an old friend on the " Press," who tells an amusing story, never as yet published, of this printing. " I recall," he says, " one curious incident that might be worth putting into your second volume of ' Memoirs/ In the ' Breitmann Ballads ' the compositors frequently made mistakes in set ting up the German patois, and you would consider with respect their errors, whether or not to adopt them. I recollect your fre quently consulting me on such points, and we would weigh the merits or demerits of their slips or involuntary scholarship " very 356 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND much as the Rye had weighed the same ques tion for Artemus Ward in the old New York days. Thus Breitmann was a creature of chance in every sense. But when he achieved the dig nity of publication in book form, he took the world by storm. His success was immediate and enormous. The Petersons, uncertain, I suppose, as to his reception, had begun tim idly by issuing the " Ballads " in Parts. But the First was quickly followed by Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth. I have said that the publishers, one of the old, highly respect able firms of my native town, showed small consideration for future collectors and bib liographers. There is no date on the title- pages. But from the year of the copyright entry, contemporary letters, and the date of the first English edition, I know that the "Ballads" were published in 1869, in the little paper-covered " Parts," of which, to my sorrow, odd numbers only have survived in the somewhat chaotic Breitmann collec tion I have been able to make from the books and papers left by my uncle to my care. In 1871, the five Parts were collected into a fat, solid, substantially bound volume. HANS BREITMANN 357 Before this, the separate Parts had gone to England. The only copy I have seen of the First, as there published, is already in the " Eighth Revised Edition," though the date is still 1869, a proof that Breitmann "flashed" into popularity as into being. Triibner, who went to the trouble of writing an Introduction and extending the Glossary, was the authorised English publisher, as is distinctly stated in a note signed " Charles Godfrey Leland " and dated " Philadelphia, 1869." But this made no difference to English publishers when virtuous objection to piracy meant loss to themselves. Two pirated editions appeared in the same year. One of the pirates, in a letter now among my Breitmann. papers, suggested that the " Ballads " should be his because he was the first English publisher of the " Biglow Pa pers," though what Lowell thought of him in that capacity he did not trouble to explain. Both these editions amiably presented Breit mann with a ballad he could not have claimed had he wanted to, and both published an In troduction that almost reconciles me to-day to the piracy, for, in accounting for Breit mann, it explains that " already the English 358 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND language in America has become to some extent Germanised. Thus, all the familiar words in German speech, the questions and answers of every-day life and the names of common objects, are as well known and re cognised among all classes throughout the Union as the coins of Prussia and Austria are current and acceptable tender ; " and I have no doubt the Englishman, upon whom it had not dawned that complete ignorance of everything American might turn out a bad investment, closed the book confirmed in his disdain of a country where people talked such barbarous English. In England, then, as in America, Breit- mann went into edition after edition, in "Parts" and "Complete." When the Rye arrived in London, he was received as Hans Breitmann ; the " one thorn in his cushion," for he resented nothing so much as being identified with the disreputable' old adven turer who was no more like him than the Heathen Chinee was like Bret Harte. " Breit mann has become my autocrat who rules me with a rod of iron and has imposed his accursed name on me and thou helpest him ! " he wrote as late as 1895 to Mr. Fisher HANS BREITMANN 359 Unwin, who had published his photograph, and labelled it " Hans Breitmann," in a little volume called " Good Reading." And I re member his disgust, at much the same period, when the editors of a magazine objected to his choice of the photograph of himself for which they had asked him : " I suppose they want a Hans Breitmann with a beer-mug ! " Other lesser drawbacks there were, too, in the first days of Breitmann's English triumph. It might be a compliment to have the name ap pear on the popular stage, and the " Ballads " set to music and dedicated to popular clubs, and the name given to cigars. But it was an other matter when the flattery of imitation was carried to such a point that name, language, and all were appropriated. " I have a curious little pamphlet called ' De Gospel according to Saint Breitmann ' ( 1871 ), the first number in a series of * Ramequins ' by Cullen Morfe " of whom and his " Ramequins " I know no more, and, taking this number as a sam ple, I think it likely that more is not worth knowing. I have also the second and third numbers of a paper called " Hans Breitmann," a weekly after the pattern of " Punch," started in the same year (1871) ; poor stuff as I try to 360 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND read it now, but for the moment threatening serious consequences, critics of the time, who were too obtuse to distinguish between the real and the sham, declaring that the joke was being carried beyond patience, that the British public was not going to stand a sur feit even of Hans Breitmann, and that " Mr. Leland might as well know it ; " and to Mr. Leland, Trlibner, in a panic, sent one of these criticisms post haste. "It is written in such a nasty spirit," the letter accompanying it says, " that I think you should not pass it over in silence. As the continued identifica tion of your name with the Hans Breitmann periodical, which, in its last number, is ex ceedingly weak and shallow, could possibly damage you, will you not publicly disclaim all connection with it, perhaps in a letter to the * Athenaeum ' ? " I am not sure if the letter was written, but Triibner's panic seems the less necessary in the face of other and worse things Breitmann had to face, the indignation of Germany, for instance, and the praise of France. It was his exploit as Uhlan, included in the 1871 complete edition of the " Ballads," that roused Germany's indignation. " This poem," says HANS BREITMANN 361 one of those little marginal notes that are invaluable in the authentic history of Breit- mann, " this poem gave offence to many Germans, even to those who had been in the war. They were under far stronger discipline than in America, where they were the most outrageous plunderers and rioters of either side in the Civil War." But no offence was meant, the author's Preface in 1871 protests. " It is needless, perhaps, to say that I no more intended to ridicule or satirise the German cause or the German method of making war . . . than I did those of the American Union, when I first introduced Breitmann as a ' Bum mer ' plundering the South." However, most people, if they must be laughed at, would rather do the laughing themselves, and after 1870 the Germans, in the pride of conquest, would probably have resented their own laugh ter. As to the praise, it took the form of a translation made by Th. Bentzon, who was writing a series of articles on " Les Humo- ristes Americains " for the " Revue des Deux Mondes," and undertook to introduce Breit mann to French readers (August, 1872). In the whole course of his career, Breitmann could never have felt himself so complete 362 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND a stranger as at his own Barty transformed into a Soiree, and I quote the first and last verses to show how severe may sometimes be the penalty of praise. " Hans Breitmann a donne une soiree ; on y a joue du piano. J'y tombai amoureux d'une Americaine ; son nom etait Mathilde Yane ; Elle avait des cheveux bruns cendres comme un craquelin ; ses yeux etaient bleu de ciel ; Lorsqu'ils regardaient dans les miens 51s fen- daient mon cceur en deux." " Hans Breitmann a donne une soiree. Ou est cette soiree maintenant ? Ou est 1'aimable nuage d'or qui flottait au front de la mon- tagne? Ou est 1'etoile qui brillait au ciel, lumiere de 1'esprit ? Tous sont passes comme la bonne biere, passes dans 1'eternite." Now that I am writing the history of Breit mann, I might as well finish it, though it only comes to an end with the death of Breit- mann's creator. For Breitmann had the secret of perennial youth, and he was a true cos mopolite. That was why the Rye could send his hero everywhere he went himself without risk of repetition, why Breitmann retained his freshness in every fresh adventure found for him, whether it was in singing a Gypsy song, HANS BREITMANN 363 in going back to the Munich and Paris of 1848, or in starting on new travels through Belgium and Holland, down the Rhine, to Rome. But Breitmann's vitality never as serted itself so triumphantly as in 1882, when the Rye was back in Philadelphia, and Phila delphia was celebrating its Bicentennial, with a Big Bicycle Meet among other ceremonies. To this Meet, or its dinner, or reception, or whatever its very special function may have been, my husband (not yet my husband) in vited the Rye, as the author of the first bicycle poem, "Schnitzerl's Philosopede" of fifteen years earlier. The Rye, who socially was just then living a hermit's life, refused, but to make up for it, wrote for the occasion two new verses, practically a third poem, and made a drawing of Breitmann on his " crate philosopede." Whoever has read Breitmann remembers this " philosopede," a copy of Schnitzerl's great original : Von of de pullyest kind ; It vent mitout a vheel in front, And had n't none pehind. The " Ballad " is one of the best and gayest, one in which Breitmann surpassed even him self in philosophical flights and lyrical out- 364 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND bursts. It was therefore with delight that I chanced upon the rough copy of the two new verses, and, as they have never been printed before, I am glad to print them now. Schnit- zerl on his " philosopede," it will be recalled, had pounded onward till it vent Cans tyfelwards afay, but the new verses explain that : Joost now and den id makes a halt Und cooms to oos adown To see how poys mit pysickles On eart' are kitten on, Und if he pees mit us to-day We gifes him our abblause, De foorst crate martyr in de vorld Who berished in our cause. Dere 's lessons in de foamin' sea Und in de foamin' bier, In every dings dots in our life Und all dat is n't here. Und dis is vot der Schnitzerl taught Oopon dis eardly ball, It 's petter to be cut in dwo Dan nefer cut at all. The whole incident pleased the Rye. When, in 1885, he wrote an Introduction in verse for the account my husband and I had made of a tricycle ride from Florence to Rome, he boasted in it that he _CL, e * ' ^ -^ ^*~-> * <* ^- _* >^^* CZ f-'^O' X ^,-~ ^ ADDITIONAL VERSES TO "SCHNITZERL'S PHILOSOPEDF," WRITTEN IN 1882 DRAWING TO ILLUSTRATE THE TWO ADDITIONAL VERSES TO "SCHNITZERL'S PHILOSOPEDF. " HANS BREITMANN 365 was the first man of modern time Who on the bicycle e'er wrote a Rime. And in the 1889 edition of Breitmann, the marginal note to " Schnitzerl's Philosopede " ends by saying, " I believe it is the first bicycle poem ever written." I do not know why the success of Breitmann's prophecy should have put him in the mood to write Breitmann's " Last Ballad," but in 1885, the year of the Introduction, he wrote for Mrs. Alec Tweedie, then Miss Ethel B. Harley, what he calls " Breitmann's Allerletzes Lied," which also has never been printed before. Here it is : I dink de sonn' haf perisht in all dis winter rain, I never dink der Breitmann vould efer sing again. De sonne vant no candle nor any erdenlicht, Votyou vant mit a poem bist selber ganz Gedicht ? For like a Paar of Ballads are de augen in your head, I petter call dem bullets vot shoot de Herzen dead. And ash like a ripplin' rifer efery poem ought to pe, So all your form is flowin' in perfect harmony. I hear de epigramme in your sehr piquant replies, I hear de sonnets soundin' ven your accents fall und rise, And if I look upon you, vote'er I feel or see, De voice and form and motion is all one melody. Du bist die Ideale of efery mortal ding, Ven poets reach de perfect dey need no longer sing, Das Beste sei das Letzte de last is pest indeed ! Brich Herz und Laut ! zusammen dies ist mein letztes Lied! 3 66 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND But it was by no means the last of Breit- mann, though in his gallantry he might have liked to think so. An adventurer of his type does not go out with a compliment on his lips. There was other work to do. He went to Turkey, he tried his luck in California, and his hand at Gypsy and witch ballads, and he had five new adventures, or poems, to add to the 1 889 edition. Memories of his old " Barty " haunted him, and another verse for it is writ ten on the margin of the 1871 annotated edi tion. It should not be left unpublished, though the " Barty" may " reach de perfect " without it. Hans Breitmann gife a barty, Gott's blitz vot foon we had ! Ve blayed at Kiiss im Ringe Dill de gals vos almost mad. And ven indo de gorner Py Tilda I vos dook, Mine eyes vos boost in thranen To dink how schweet she look. And Breitmann went to the Tyrol in the more peaceful occupation of courier or guide, and wrote a whole book about it, in prose, published by Mr. Fisher Unwin in 1894. Beer flows freely in the Tyrol, and Breit- mann's spirits always flow as freely with it. But, somehow, this Breitmann book does not HANS BREITMANN 367 give the same impression of reckless enjoy ment, perhaps because it is in prose. I can almost fancy the old " Bummer " and Uhlan a little cast down by the mildness of his new adventures. Breitmann even had an eye to affairs in South Africa. For the Rye, a very old man in Florence when the Boer war broke out, in looking back to his many years in England, remembered only the pleasure they had brought him, and, as his special envoy, sent Breitmann there, with a word of sympathy that not many other Americans I know could have offered with him. These verses were published in " Flaxius " (1903), a book brought out a few months before his death. There they were called " Breitmann's Last Ballad," and they really were. Breit mann has passed through his last adventure, through his last debauch of beer and pure reason. But he still lives, and he will live as long as the American retains his sense of humour, which will be as long as America is America. NOTE. After this chapter had been set up in type, I received an interesting letter from Mr. Norcross, the Rye's old friend and 368 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND fellow-worker on the " Press," on the subject of the early editions of Breitmann. u In the January ' Atlantic ' (1905), page 79, column 2, you seem to think that the ' Ballads ' were not published until 1869," he writes. "This may be true if we take the title ' Ballads,' but I have just found my copy of the first im pression, I do not call it edition, and the title- page reads : | Hans Breitmann's | Party. | With other Ballads. | It was published by the Petersons, but on the other side of the leaf is the copyright notice by Charles G. Leland in 1868. Of this I suppose John Lu ther Ringwalt was the printer. My copy was sent to me by Mr. Leland while he was en gaged on the ' Press,' and after I had left that newspaper. My home was then in Mont gomery, Alabama. This impression has the dedication lacking in all the other editions : | Dem Herrn | "Carl Benson" | (Charles Astor Bristed) | achtungsvoll gewidmet | vom | Verfasser, | followed on the next page by the invocation: | Ad Musam | ... If Mr. Bristed's abortive attempt could be called the first edition, this is really the second, and the issue under the title of the 'Ballads,' First Part, would properly be the third edi- HANS BREITMANN 369 tion. The word edition, you know, is ex ceedingly elastic." Mr. Norcross confirms what I have said as to the difficulties the first publishers of Breitmann put in the way of collectors and bibliographers. Since my book was written, letters from Bristed to the Rye have been put into my hands, and they show me that even in 1866 Bristed was urg ing publication in book form. " Do publish," he says in one. " I will take a share of the expense for the sake of that dedication and also as being in some sense the ' worshipful begetter' of the late B.'s." In another letter of Bristed's (without date), there is a passage that shows how well he knew how to appre ciate Breitmann : " You are wrong about the Breitmanns, they will hand you down to pos terity. I recollect some remarks of Irving's which greatly impressed my (comparatively) tender mind when I was disgusted because the * Upper Ten Thousand ' had a run when my classical writings attracted little atten tion. ' Don't you despise light writing/ said he, 'it is like an elephant despising a bird for flying up in the air.' " I must at least re fer to other letters that came too late to help me with the text. They are from Trlibner. 3/0 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND One, July 17, 1868, asks that the American publishers of Breitmann send him "25 copies to begin with." Another, a year later, is full of the English pirated edition brought out by Hotten, and urges the Rye to come to London and there prepare an edition with new Ballads and a new Preface. " I trust you will not quarrel with me for having almost committed you to come to England," Triib- ner begs. This was one of the reasons, no doubt, why the Rye decided to leave home in 1869. CHAPTER IX THE FIRST HOLIDAY AT the age of forty-five, the Rye found him self for the first time free to order his life and choose his company, and, straightway, he fell among Gypsies and became the Rye in earnest. The Gypsies, however, did not fill all his life or form all his company. He would not have liked them so well if they had. Half the charm was in the sort of dual existence that came of devoting part of his time to them, part to conventional society and pur suits, the Jekyll-Hyde combination in its romantic aspect. And, indeed, the " Jekyll " side was so full, so richly coloured, that it would have sufficed for most men. Even had there been no Gypsies, the years from 1869 to 1879, with England for headquar ters, would still seem far from the least amusing of his varied career. He was in his very prime; his reputation had preceded him; he met all the people worth meeting; 372 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND he lived much in the world ; he entertained and was entertained ; he made many friends ; now and then he wandered from England to the Continent as far as Russia, to the East as far as Egypt, countries not then exploited by Cook or appropriated by Lunn ; and, all the while, he worked, it turning out that free, as in harness, he could not get on without work. Only now he was his own task-mas ter. Of this " Jekyll," or conventional, or social side there is so much to be said that I leave the Gypsies until I have said as much of it as I can. The two sides were kept as chapters apart in his life, and so they must be in my story of it. The documents papers, MSS., letters at my disposal are now plentiful. There continue to be gaps. I have not so many of his own letters as I should like. But in those he wrote to Mr. and Mrs. John Harrison, he can be accom panied step by step through almost all his travels ; those he received help further to show how his days were spent, how days could be spent by a man of letters in the seventies. When he left home in the April of 1869, he sailed for France. He landed at Brest THE FIRST HOLIDAY 373 and went at once to Paris, where he stayed a couple of months. One letter he carried with him a letter of introduction has survived, probably because it was never de livered. It marks the end of his busy days as dramatic and musical critic. For it is from Max Strakosch, who, no doubt with an eye to the main chance, but out of sheer good-nature, too, the stock-in-trade of the profession, introduced to his brother Mau rice " Mr. Leland, a very wealthy man and very highly educated, ... the defender of Miss Kellogg from the stupid attacks of Bo hemian papers," a man to be brought into " society," any favour to whom " will do me good." But the Paris society into which Maurice Strakosch could bring him was just the kind for which the Rye was no longer eager. He says in his " Memoirs " that, after his arrival in Paris, "a distaste for operas, theatres, dinners, society" suddenly came over him, which is the reason why the let ter now lies before me, the paper torn and crumpled, and the memories it awakens of opera in the sixties as faint and faded as the paper. The Rye's letters to Mrs. Harrison and 374 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND her husband did reach their destination, how ever, and were taken good care of, and the few I am able to print not only account for his movements from the time he landed in France until he settled in England, and the gradual improvement of his health, but give many a side-light into European conditions for the generation of Americans who came after Mr. Henry James's " precursors." Only one other word is necessary. Mrs. Harrison was many years younger than he, and his letters to her never altogether lost the playful tone of the grown-up brother to the small sister, a grown-up brother, it should be said, in whom many duties and much hard work could not destroy the boyish sense of fun. As much is to be learned of a man in his playful as in his serious or adventurous moods, and these letters are among the gay est he ever wrote. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. JOHN HARRISON PARIS, le vingt Mai, 1869, POINT ROUND, CHAMS ELIZA. MA SHERE SUR, Je suis in Paris and am become a Parisite, being dreadfully cheated by my landlady, and having to eat THE FIRST HOLIDAY 375 my vegetables after my meat. All the coach men and waiters call themselves poor boys and say poor boy, which means sous, which means cents. They sou you all the time and generally get judgment out of me. We had a very roly boly passage and I was pleased to observe that everybody was very sick all the way. They landed us at Brest, where a gentleman asked to see what I had in my trunk. Knowing that one must be polite in France, I opened it, but I don't think he saw anything interesting, for he simply said, "C'est assay'' from which I inferred he must have been one of the asseyors of the mint or assezsors of the revenue. Then we went past many old houses and forts to our hotel. Belle and I had each a little room and a very little narrow bed. Next morning we saw peasants in wooden shoes, John Darms, girls with white caps such as viz. [A drawing follows in. the original letter.] All these ob jects produced a very French sensation. We had breakfast a la fork twice between Brest and Paris, and one dinner. At Paris we were searched again, for wine and sausages I was told, and then went to the Grand Hotel, room 8 francs a day, as dirty as could be. 376 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND I wish John were here to enjoy the din ners. Belle and I recalled John at the Trois Freres the other day, where we had a sump tuous dinner ; they brought on one elegant thing after another, and we were overcome with the luxuries. This cost 8 francs apiece and 3 fr. for the coffee. Next day we dined for 5 francs for both, and I enjoyed it just as much. The whole town consists of rest- your-aunts and cafes. We live in a couple of gingerbread gilt bird cages in the Champs Eliza and have the greatest old villain of a landlady in Paris. But the place is very clean and lodgings are mostly dirty here. Rond Point, Champs Elysees is the spot. It is the most elite-ful place in Paris and com mands a fine view of the Palais d' Industrie and the Dome of the Invalids. The best of it is they are a mile off, leaving open space and pure air. Paris is so much improved that I have as yet seen very little unchanged. Yesterday we visited the Musee Cluny. The Leas lead a charming life and speak French like natives. They were delighted to see us and Nanny is devoted, doing every thing for Belle and me. She is progressing wonderfully as a painter and engraver. My THE FIRST HOLIDAY 377 book in England continues to be read. Even " Punch " publishes imitations of Breitmann, and there have been three or four of the Barty. Belle is getting on very well. Give a kiss for me to dear little Emmy. I miss the sweet child very much. Also Leland, and kindest remembrances to John, Betty, Fanny, William and the Elders and everybody. Your affectionate brother, CHARLEY. P. S. Laura Hooper has written to me asking us to take charge of her. I cannot do it it is out of the question. All my arrangements make it utterly impossible, and my mind will not as yet admit of any even ordinary little cares. I have written to her explaining that I cannot arrange it. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MR. JOHN HARRISON SPA, BELGIUM, July 31, 1869. DEAR JOHN, I received yesterday and ac knowledge with thanks your letter containing draft for 2629 francs 55 centimes. I am sorry that your business keeps you at home for I don't know a man in America who would en joy Europe as you would. " Them dinners " 378 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND " Those loafing places ! " The dinners, either at Paris or here, are exactly the articles which you have so long needed, they roast beef so as to make you believe it used to fly, and the vol-au-vents, all full of truffles, force meat balls, roosters'-combs, and cream sauce, would make any one weep who had not a heart of stone. To be sure, these 5 and 10 francs dinners are not such as the " likes of hus " get every day reg'lar, but still we have our cut of salmon and bit of tenderloin, a two franc bottle of Bordeaux, which the doctor orders and which is very good, and so they do not charge us much, $20 a week in gold covering our hotel board. This is not a first class house, of course, but it is very clean, and there is the " hoighth av good coom- pany," as we have frequent rows with a real Russian Prince and his company who are allowed to take their dinners after we have done. Now Spa is about 7000 feet above the level of the sea, and the Russians are hungry pups anyhow, so that we often are long eating in our private dining-room, while the Rusher wants to be eating. However, all goes ami ably enough. There are only three or four Americans here, but any quantity of all kinds THE FIRST HOLIDAY 379 of foreigners. Yesterday Belle sat teaching Democracy to a little Hungarian Count, with a Greek Count who looked like a fashion- plate opposite, and several other kinds of counts, such as Dutch, Belgian, etc., scattered around all of them d d fools except the Belgian, who is really a most sensible man, and is accordingly regarded as weak-minded by his fellow-peers. They are ungodly ig norant as to America. One fellow, Baron Dieskau, is, however, " sporty," and likes to know all about our yachts, canoeing, etc. I think you would like him very much. Spa is a sort of French Saratoga with lots of fine drives and walks. We see the Queen almost every day. Blessed privilege ! Give my love to Emily. This is the first letter I have been able to write with ease or correctly since I left America. I wish you were here. Ever truly, your brother, CHAS. G. LELAND. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. JOHN HARRISON AMSTERD-M, Sept. 23, 1869. Mijne lieve Zuster / Ik habbe so veel te zeggen dat ik niet weet waer ik beginnen zuL Why don't you send us a letter ? After leav- 38o CHARLES GODFREY LELAND ing Spa we went to Ostend, where three weeks of sea-bathing did me much good. Ostend is composed of a sea surf, a great dyke on top of which is a promenade lined with coffee houses, hotels, and pavilions, little boys clat tering dreadfully in wooden shoes (Klompers), and ten thousand German Jews and small German shop-keepers, who walk by the sea and exclaim, " Ach / wie scheen / es ist himmlisch ! sehen sie ja wie hell der Mond scheent / " From Ostend we repaired again to Spa, where we met Mr. Triibner and his wife. They were very glad to see us as also our Walloon landlady, cook, and Jeanette, who performed a wild Walloon dance of joy in the street at seeing us return. They were always very nice people and immensely jolly. Well, Mr. Triibner did everything to make us feel obejoyful, if I spoke of a book which I wanted to read, the first mail brought it for me from Liege or London. And he also paid me a thousand francs in gold or nearly for my share of profits in the " Breitmann Ballads." . . . Well, after 7 weeks of Spa, and 3 at Ostend, we went into Holland. . . . O mijn zuster, you ought to see Belle at a real Dutch THE FIRST HOLIDAY 381 tea-party where four languages were spoken among 5 or 6 folks ! Raw smoked salmon in flakes Dutchman's head-cheese, brood en boter, green pears, tongue and honey, toasted bread in slices with cinnamon on it, and waffels. (This is Dutch and English.) Well, first we exhausted 's Gravenhage or La Haye, with its museums. Here we went to see the House in the Wood, and were received with wonderful courtesy. It is the Queen's sum mer palace, but we did not know that she was there, and the splendid lackeys, &c., sup posed we had come to call on Her Majesty. When they found we only wanted to see the house, they were quite as polite. The old housekeeper woman showed us all around but oh ! it was too funny! A- perfect cordon of servants, my dear, kept telegraphing, and Belle and I were rushed from room to room to evade the Queen as she went here and there just as if she had been a great cat and we two miserable little mice. Forty cents (American) perfectly satisfied the house keeper, and four cents the stately gentle man who took care of our umbrellas. Three impious Jews who tried to get in were in dignantly repulsed. The stately gentleman 382 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND insisted on summoning our carriage and re tainers, and persisted by a polite fiction in not believing me, when I said we had none. The way I do these things is by looking at them. . . . We have seen almost every good gallery in Holland and Belgium and met with some very intelligent people. The Dutch are very rich and live very comfort ably, something in the old Philadelphia Quaker style. They are strong Orthodox Puritans, and at Haarlem we had a stiff old brimstone sermon in Low Dutch, which was divided into 3 heads, and lasted an hour and a half with hymns in between. As I was just before the preacher and a stranger, he preached right at me. Now I have stud ied Dutch this summer with a teacher, and can read it and talk it very badly indeed a little, but I did n't understand his Dutch. Belle says my conduct was perfect " and as good as could be ! " Three collections were wrung out of us, two by means of a black velvet bag on a pole and another by a stern- looking Dutch girl who would n't let us out till we paid for our seats. She was, however, sternly honest and refused a loose grab of THE FIRST HOLIDAY 383 small change because it was too much, and then sassed us some more for that for which I honoured her. The men sit in large pews and have great books provided, while the women sit in the body of the church and provide their own him and Sam bux; but I sat with Belle and I observed a party of young Englishmen from the hotel who also sat among the Dutchesses. " Secondly" used them up and they marched out, like shameless, sinful wretches. I suppose they were only Episcopalians, and not so strict as I. There is a Dutch family here named Muller who have been very polite to us, and Mynheer Muller will go with us to-morrow part way to Cologne. I wish you would get some book from the library, if only Murray's Guide Book, and trace our route. COLOGNE-ON-RHINE, Sept. 26, 1869. We left Amsterdam yesterday morning, and had a pleasant ride to Cologne. It was really a comfort to be addressed in a sen sible language, and charming to get into old Germany again, and have a glimpse of the stupendous cathedral. . . . Our room faces on the Rhine and the 384 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND view is very beautiful wonderful. To the left we see the blue outline of the Seven Hills, including the spot where Siegfried killed the dragon there are towers and churches and we are quite near the river not two rods from it it almost flows under our windows. Belle says I have grown fat and German since yesterday. We had pheasants brought on entirely in their own feathers at dinner with silver bodkins in them. Salmon mayonnaise and other daily kisses. So good-night, dear, for I am tired. Sometimes the past and the dead nearly make me ill again, but I fight against it. God give us all peace. Love to John. . . . CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. JOHN HARRISON DRESDEN, Nov. 17, 1869. MINE TEAR swiSHTER EMILY Dere ish dwo liddle togs all so plack as nefer vas, dat lifes here in dis Haus, und ven dey hears Pelle mit de sooper daple dey cooms und kratzen on de Thiire und ven I lets dem coom in dey kits soom loomps ov zlicker und denn dey wedels mit deir dales und shmiles like avery dings. [Here follows a drawing of them.] THE FIRST HOLIDAY 385 I had got so far in my letter when Belle interfered, declaring that you would really think my wits had taken leave of me which is very illiterate of her, considering that the Breitmann style was hailed so enthusiastically by so many great guns of literature. How ever, we must defer in such matters to the vulgar world (" saucy fellow," " scamp "), and though Himmel weisst what choice flowers of Anglo-German have been lost by the change, I will proceed in such English as is left me in this fair land of Sauerkraut and stewed celery roots apropos of which latter, our landlady, Miss Roelin, serves up the roots and throws away the tops ! We are very comfortably I might almost say elegantly situated here, with a parlor and bedroom in an easy third story (not etage). But our elegance is very peculiar. It is a bare painted yellow floor with a Turkey carpet loose in the middle a fashion I much admire pretty green chairs and sofa like those in your dining-room a jardiniere of course (which Belle nearly slaughtered by not watering for a week), a grand and stately iron monument of a stove, mirror, and lamp with a flat glass plate under the shade. Of course we are rele- 386 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND gated each unto a separate bed, and mine is, for a wonder, very long, it having been made for a German count who must have been just 9 feet in length, if we are to judge by the small seidlitz-box bedsteads usually allotted to mere six-footers in Deutschland. Au reste (this is French for the rest of them), we have a nice daily dinner at which I sit by Mrs. Cochrane and opposite Belle, while Belle sits by Major Cochrane and opposite me. The Major has been 25 years in India is a lively little keen Englishman who has had no end of adventures. At the other ends sit Herr and Frau Roelin. They speak no English, and the rest very little German, so that I am obliged to translate a great deal, and what with telling lots of American stories first in English and then in Dutch I have no sinecure of it. . . . I am learning to paint on porcelain and find it very interesting. This is a great city for porcelain, and the shops full of old Dresden ware are magnificent. My teacher is a very neat, gentlemanly little bit of a curly-haired German, and has lots of pupils at a thaler for two scholars for a lesson of two hours. Yesterday I etched a copper POWDER HORN In papier-mache", made and decorated by Charles G. Leland PLATE Decorated by diaries G. Leland THE FIRST HOLIDAY 387 plate, so you see that I have plenty of play things as Belle calls them when she brings me my various implements for designing. Evening. Belle has had it out with the Wascherinn and, with the help of Clara, has added up thalers, groschen, and pfennige, which last word Clara has proudly called bennies (very explanatory considering that a pfennig is about a third of a cent), and we have had Mrs. Cochrane, who explained that there is in India an enterprising American named Dave Carson who has made $100,000 by singing nigger minstrel songs in broken Hindoo English in Oriental dress. Who but an American could have done such a thing ! The other evening we called on Mrs. Irish, wife of our consul, who receives and while talking about Mrs. Govr. Ramsey, in came Mrs. R. herself. She told us that Miss Koch had been out here with her daughter and gone back to America with another young lady. Die Kochinn has really got ahead of us! We have heard through Mary that Mr. Biddle had asked you to have our house fixed up. We are very grateful, dear Emmy, for all the interest you have taken in the 388 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND house and the trouble it has entailed on you. . . . They give us dlishus pears and grapes every morning for breakfast, and it is well they do, for we get chops, chops, chops, six days in the week for that meal, which ought to be early and is n't, for we are lazy (espe cially Belle). Mutting, weal, pork, and other chops, choplets, and cotelettes. I have beer for tea, reglar, and all things considered may say with truth that I have got so that I can sit up and take a little nourishment. To-day they gave us rose-cordial with our after-dinner coffee and the major went into the kitchen and cooked a curry, which Belle and I ate thrice of with great relish, but which drew tears to the eyes of the Ger mans, who are not accustomed to such tropi cal fruit. One of your soups would scorch a Dutchman's throat out, like a red-hot poker and rusty at that ! Mrs. Roelin gazed at Belle as if she had been a fiend devouring burning sulphur seasoned with aqua fortis, and ex claimed, Konnen Sie es wirklich essen ! " Can you really eat it? " a very unnecessary question as I thought, for it was a very mild curry anyhow. If the house is not rented, THE FIRST HOLIDAY 389 Mr. Muirhead must take what he can get. Better take a reduced rate than have it un occupied. And a little more money would be very acceptable, as I want a new pair of gloves sadly. Belle has a he-dressmaker they are all men who make ladies' dresses here a pre cious Dutch looking skirt he made of it. En revanche, the women black the boots and one may see a cow, a horse, and a frau har nessed together, drawing a cart, and a man driving the anamiles. Woman has found her rights in this country and may do anything she pleases, so that it is n't too easy. The liter branches of a more aerial cast are left to us men, so that the division of labour is perfect. Great snakes ! how the women do toil here in Germany! In fact they like it and can't be kept from hard work. There is an American club here, an Amer ican church, and, in short, the natives know more about Americans than English. The cheapness of education is the cause which brings so many of us here as you have seen by my cheap porcelain-painting tuition. We are very glad to hear that sister Mary has returned safely. It was a bitter disap- 390 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND pointment to me when she returned. I think so often of your dear little girl, and expect with impatience a letter from Leland. How proud I shall be to have a letter from him, and how fine it is for a boy to be able to write letters ! Methinks I can see him now with a pen in his hand writing to deer Unkel Charles. I send you one of my photo graphs and will send one to Sister Mary in my next letter. Give my kindest regards to Betty Harrison. There is a picture here in a window, by the bankers, which I stop and look at every day it is so much like her. . . . The days are so short here now that we have almost no afternoon. And with heartfelt love, believe me ever your affectionate brother, CHARLES. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MR. JOHN HARRISON MUNICH, Feb. 21, 1870. MY DEAR JOHN, This morning, while on our way to the great picture gallery, we stopped at the Bank and got your very wel come letter, enclosing draft on Drexel and Harjis for 121 francs, which was very accept able, since every franc tells in a country where you get a cab ride for 9 cents. I also THE FIRST HOLIDAY 391 acknowledge receipt of a very satisfactory account of the estate, and rejoice to think that next year may give us a lift upwards. I have not yet got so far that we can travel when and where we please, as loose as swal lows. When we can I shall have no care. As yet, we find long rests very advantageous to purse as well as health, and have just com pleted one of three months and a half at Dres den, where, however, we were very comfort able and had many friends. From Dresden we had a very hard winter day's journey (the winter has been terribly severe all over Europe) to Prague, though it was through the heart of the most romantic scenery in Germany, called the Saxon Switzerland. In Prague, we had to go through freezing gal leries and go about town in a light, dusty snow-storm, and poor Belle had a "dread ful bad " cold all the time. Then came an other day's very severe travel from 6 A. M. till 8.30 P. M. to Munich, where we have treated ourselves to a few days' residence at the very best hotel in Germany. The place (Four Seasons Hotel) is delightfully comfortable and very nobby. Prices high for Germany, but there is a reading-room with 392 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND the " N. Y. Herald " and " London Times," for ladies. We are delighted with little Em's photo graph the best ever taken. You can have no idea, dear John, how we enjoy letters from home, and how pleasant it is to be remem bered so kindly and so often. We meet very nice people sometimes, especially English, and I may say, if it be not too vain, that we have never met with any who do not know me by name. It is really wonderful. Yesterday even ing at dinner we entered into conversation with an English family, very cultivated peo ple. The gentleman head of the party hardly believed me when I told him who I was both he and his pretty niece had my book, and told me that in England everybody knew me. We are invited to stay at Mr. Triibner's in Lon don when we go there. We are sorry that Mr. Thomson and family are coming abroad. We would like them to stay in our house for another year. If you hear of anybody else who wants it I know you will secure them. We spent this morning in the great picture gallery, but though it is one of the finest in the world it is not warmed, and the thermometers were at freezing-point. It THE FIRST HOLIDAY 393 was so curious to find all the old pictures just where they were 23 years ago, and I knew just where to look for them. Belle was quite pleased to find the originals of the engrav ings which I have at home, the Veronica, Virgin, &c. I often say to Belle that you would so much enjoy the French dinners here abroad, and to day after our little filet of beef and mushrooms, with salad, and a bottle of good plain red wine, the Roquefort cheese (which was strong enough to lift your hat), and the coffee ditto, made me think of your dinners and your own fondness for that noble cheese. But they have cheeses in France such as we never get at home, and the Dutchmen's heads in Holland are so rich and sweet that what we get is like dry bread compared to them. In Prague there are wines Melniker, Ofner, Adels- berger, &c., only 30 cents a bottle at the best hotels, which are equal to first-class claret, with rich flavor and fine quality. Going from Prague, day before yesterday, there was a very nice old lady in the car. She asked me if I had ever known Fanny Janau- schek, the actress, and when I told her she was quite a friend of mine the old dame said 394 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Frl. Janauschek was her niece. She was a real Bohemian, but talked German and treated us to wine and bread. In Prague, Belle and I went to a ladies' club-room founded by a wealthy man named Wojtech Naprstak, who was for many years an editor in America. He looked out with great pleasure articles on me in the Cyclopaedia, &c., and gave Belle photographs of all the ladies all Bohemians and many of them noble with pictures of Prague. He also was very flush with wine, &c. So that we get along pretty sociably with the aborigines, as you see. In a few days we shall be at Venice. I have been rubbing up my Italian and shall do very well. As for German, the old Munich lingo is like an old tune to my ears and I almost think in it now. ... I am in good health generally speak ing. Ever truly, CHARLES G. LELAND. I give the two following letters because the first is a delightful example of the non sense he could write when in the vein, and because the second records the manner of his reception in London, with details he might have hesitated to chronicle more seriously. THE FIRST HOLIDAY 395 One word of warning: the reader, before beginning the first letter, had better take breath as the writer did in finishing it. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. JOHN HARRISON HOTEL IMPERIAL, PARIS, May n, 1870. DEAR SISTER EMILY, O we have seen so much since I wrote to you, whereas we have been in Italy and beheld great multitudes of figs growing on the trees, also sundry oranges and many lemons, where Belle went down on her knees before the Pope, and the beggar- girls and priests with little tin boxes de manded alms, and one day a republican in the Via Condotti before our very window trod on a capucin's shoe and he howled and cursed so that the row was quite delight ful, and then sat down in the street and had his shoe blacked and kept on howling as he sat, at the top of his voice, for we lived in the Via Condotti near the Piazza di Spagna, only it was not a piazza such as you have in Amer ica, but an open place with a fountain wherein was Neptune and other idological beings, and the Romans sat on the stairs in their national dress to be hired out as models, and Spill- man's confectionery was just opposite, where 396 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND every fashionable lady went to get luncheon and they charged ten cents for a little mite of a glass of brandy and five cents for cakes such as only cost 2 in Florence ; but this ' is not the Florence on the Delaware, but in Italy, where they called it Firenze, and where the best of Cognac is only five francs a bottle at Melini's, who has the best sponge-cakes in the world, much better than the biscuite de Rheims here which cost 10 cents a package; also in Italy we went to Verona, which was called Bern in the dark ages when the Ger mans lived there, and I saw a part of the old wall and churches with a bronze door a thou sand years old, and Roland and Oliver and such beautiful poll parrots carved on the Cathedral, with other mysterious beings such as men and horses ; as also in Venice, where we went in gondolas and the gondolier begged for more money than he was entitled to, and we also went to the Carnival of Venice, which you have heard played on hand-organs, and there was a man with a mask and a long beard which looked just like me, and he car ried a 3-leg stool and sat down opposite me and Belle, and stared at me while a crowd collected around us ; it was very remarkable, THE FIRST HOLIDAY 397 while the whole Place of St. Mark's was lit up, and there were blue lights on the Campa nile, which is 400 feet high, and almost every body had masks on and music and dancing on a platform in the middle, girls and men and everybody making fun and people all around drinking coffee, which reminds me that in our hotel in Rome coffee cost 10 cents a cup and cigars 10 cents, while right on the other side of the wall in the Greco they only charged 3 cents for better coffee and 3 ba- jocchi for a cigar, and there I used to meet Mr. Montalant with other artists and talk about how bad other artists painted. . . . Well, I '11 take breath now, and say that Belle has just read your letter, and sends her best love, and mentions that she wrote to you on Sunday. Paris is pleasanter than it was last year, and we are at a very nice little hotel, rather dear, but all the table d'hote people are clever Americans, only 9 of us altogether, 3 of whom are old friends : Ida and Josephine Jones and their mother, whom we met in Belgium, also in Dresden. Ida is a perfect imp. One always finds plenty of acquaint ances in Paris. It was all nonsense about sickness in Rome. It would be wonderful if 398 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND among 10,000 Americans, most of whom are quite imprudent and all worn and wearied with sight-seeing and constant gaiety, after long and trying travel, a few did not die. We kept warm and dry and at home of evenings. Belle is hard at work sewing, as I write, with the help of a pretty sewing girl who talks 4 languages, and who asked me if I did not find Heine easier to translate than Goethe or Schiller. I do have the queerest luck in meeting people. And now give my love to everybody, John, Betty, Fanny, and all. Ever your affectionate brother, CHARLES. CHARLES GODFREY LELAND TO MRS. JOHN HARRISON ABBEY GARDENS, ST. JOHN'S WOOD, LONDON, June 27, 1870. DEER EMELY, Languidge can convey no idea of the wonderful caryin ons wee hav had sense i rote my last : grate hevens ! we go to partys, and are as popular as strawbery short cake, gettin wine and ice kreem, and con- kerin prejudis by the bland plumidge of cour tesy, as for instance yesterday wen lord litten bulwer told me to go before him down stares, an insted of makin a fus i went ahed THE FIRST HOLIDAY 399 and wen we got to the botom bulwer ses : " I hed quite a spite agin you wunst ; my frend lady coraline norten would persist in crackin you up so always and a-praisin you, but ive quite got over it now." He is goin to cal on me and bel. This wus a dinner sort of a lun- shen giv to me by W. Hepporth dixen, there was only grate men there : 6 or 7, i was the seventh, i went home with Jeoffreson the noveliest and sir tomas hardy (nabers of ourn). In the evenin (sundy of corse) we went to a recepshen party late in the evenin they dansed and sung jermen student songs, bel did n't danse as she was to tired. Sater- day we were at a grand fete shampeter, given by a welthy merchent in a house bilt form- aly by Gorge the Forth for Mrs fitshurbit, the grounds were elegant and they danst in the open are, but this was meer trash to the wun we went 2 on friday at Mr Bonn's viller at twikenem grate goodness he has half a milyen dolers worth of curiosities, old armer, faenza ware, ivery carvins, pictures, silver things of the middle ages ; a little wile ago he offered 3 thousand pounds reward for a reliquary that was stole from him. Heer were many distinguished peple ; old 400 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND Georg Gruikshank, 80 years old, danced a cotillion and then, wen he was talkin to bel, danced a hilan fling Helen Faucit the grate actriss and many uthers. Peple crowded around to be interduced to me, numbers of yung ladeys looked on as if imploaring to be acquanted, so I went around and shuk hands impressively with them, one gal said thank you and severil bowed their heds with emotion, there feelins was 2 mutch for them, it was a seen never to be forgoten. Wun yung gentle men from Oxf ud, a son of my f rend Sir Charles lancaster, heerd that the orther of hans breit- mann was there and he went prowlin over the grounds asking everybody if they had seen a gentleman who looked like an Ameri- ken. He informed me that breitmann was very popular in Oxfud. The uther mornin Jane Ingelo cum to see us befoar we were drest she hed brought a grate boquait for bel we are to dine at her house tomorow. Jane is awful nice i never herd tell of an)'body so clever she thinks a grate deel of bel. She and Lady Locker the cister of the url of Elgin boath promist to cum and see bel but only jane hes cum as yet. I made thare akwaintance i day wen i called on Alf Teny- THE FIRST HOLIDAY 401 son. I dont think much of Alf as a talkist, he tried three times to talk to me but made a poor fist of it. Yesterday at lunshen a gen tleman who hed never seen bulwer before and did nt know who he wus, said " Wot a fine bulwerian hed ! " this wus about as good a thing as i got off on sir charles Dilk the grate English statesman the uther nite. i was dinen with dilk, and after dinner i was show- in some % of Blake's crazy pictures to a little Frenchman, and explanein to him. " Blake " sez i to the Frenchman, " if he hed been a grate artist would have been a Dore " or as I sed " Cetait un Dore manque? (N Bee. this is french.) He smiled out loud, i thought i had sed quite a pointed thing, i did n't see the point though till after the Frenchman had gone. It was Dore himself ! i belong for a month to the atheneum club, only very grate litery men are alowed to go inside, comon people gets druv out. i 'spose you hev seen my comin to England in the papers, the London " Fun " asks " Wen will Leland?". . . Of the meny American and English frends who have been arter us it boots not hear 2 speak. We live in a litel bit of a house but in 4 02 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND a plesent naburhood, near Mr Trubner's on purpose to be near them. They are good- natured nice people who hev a grate deel of compenny and pour out wine like water. Mrs Triibner can talk english french german and Flemish all like a native. She is a neese of lord Napier and her father is the distin guish riter Delepierre. To nite we are goin to see La Belle Sauvage. With grate afex- tion to all i am your loving deer bruther : CHARLEY G. LELAND. P.S. Bulwerhasjustsentmeannoat invitin me to cum and live with him nex weak at his howse in the country ime a goin. i go as wun of the famaly. Good bye. " Without the personal interest of some body, it is impossible to see anything in this country," Dr. Holmes declared when Eng land was still for him " a nation of sulky sui cides." He was right. Present the desired credentials in England, and every man's house is your castle; present none, and every door is slammed in your face. No people are as hospitable as the English, none as inhospita ble. But the Rye had come with the correct credentials. I do not mean only the fame of THE FIRST HOLIDAY 403 Hans Breitmann. He had also the right sort of introductions to the right sort of men, and thirty years ago the " American Invasion " had not yet been heard of and an American was still run after as a novelty, a crank, the sort of "society curiosity" men like Lord Houghton were always wanting " to bring oiit." And fairly launched, his personality could be left to do the rest as it did very successfully. I have been told by Englishmen, who were then " the younger men," how much it meant to them in those days, and how great was their excitement, when asked to meet Hans Breitmann. By this time his health had in a good measure returned, and with its return some little of that sudden distaste for society, felt in Paris, had passed. He never cared again for theatres and operas and balls, but the letters bear witness to the social pleas ures into which he entered with zest. Club life, too, as he found it at the Savile, where there was a group of literary men in sympa thy with him, he enjoyed. During the nine years he now gave to England, he made no settled home until toward the very last, when he took a house in Park Square, close to Regent's Park, 404 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND where he and Mrs. Leland had with them the two young daughters and son of friends who had recently died, and to whose children they kindly, from no other motive but sheer good nature, undertook to act for a while as guar dians. It was in the Park Square house that he and my aunt gave the brilliant Saturday evenings to which all London crowded. But until they established themselves there, when they were not staying with the Triibners, their headquarters in London were either at the Langham Hotel or in apartments in the neighbourhood. But there were winters spent at Brighton and Oatlands Park, summers here, there, and everywhere in the English and Welsh country, and those wanderings can be followed in the letters to, as well as from, him. As in all this correspondence, my pleas ure is greatest because I think his would have been in the letters from two old friends, I quote these first, though they re late less directly to his own life than many of the others. One friend was Oliver Wen dell Holmes, whom the Rye had got to know well during that year in Boston, and the other was George Boker, whom he had always THE FIRST HOLIDAY 405 known still better from the days when they were in frocks and pinafores. The Rye felt the almost universal love of the reading public for Dr. Holmes, and his respect and admiration for the doctor's work was great. I can remember how, when I started on my journalistic career, he urged me to write for advice and help to the kindly Autocrat in Boston, so that I cannot even yet rid myself of the belief that to receive a let ter from Dr. Holmes, and I did receive one, was the first step towards literary success, not so original a belief as I supposed when I wrote, five thousand among poets alone, according to Mr. Aldrich's liberal estimate, having shared it with me. I am sure the Autocrat would have liked it, could he have read the note in the "Memoranda" (1893) which dwells pleasantly on him as " far above any other man whom I can now recall, apt at illustration, marvellous in memory, quick with appropriate anecdote, judicious and sensible in his views, and genial in every thing." The doctor's letters were not of a kind to cool this admiration, once it had been inspired, and I am the more glad to quote one of them here because it is not included 406 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND in any of his published correspondence. One of the first in my packet was written early in 1872. The allusions in it explain them selves. We might wonder that so much feeling is shown about Motley, when almost two years had passed since his recall, if we did not know how much longer this feel ing lasted, not only with Dr. Holmes, but with all Motley's friends. Even in 1879, Lowell, writing from Madrid, to announce his intention of remaining there, added promptly, " if they don't Motleyize me." The reference to Sumner is just what might be expected from the Autocrat, who always " liked Sumner's talk " about things, as he told another correspondent many years later on, even while he smiled in that kindly way of his at the " exaggerated personality." OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND CHARLES ST., 1872. v. . I have for the last year lived in a house which we have built and the address of which you may see above. It is a great improvement in position, and I think you would say that my study, with its bay windows THE FIRST HOLIDAY 407 looking out over the broad* expanse of the river, was too good for any but an honest man and brother author. ... I have a great deal to tell you about your friends of the Saturday Club. Agassiz has gone off on an expedition ; he has found a fish's nest in certain masses of gulf-weed and seems to be supremely happy about it. Nobody is so rich as a naturalist. You come across something nasty and poke it with a stick and say it stinks (good English words both, are they not?), and he springs at it, calls it by a Latin name and bags it and carries it off as if it were a nugget of virgin gold. Agassiz has almost entirely recovered from his very alarming attack of a year or two ago. The rest are as you left them. We have pretty full and very pleasant meetings. I think nobody is more constant at them than I am. That and a dinner party now and then make up my dissipations. Last summer I spent a week at a country house with Charles Sumner, whom in spite of the somewhat exaggerated personality of which some complain I always find full of knowledge such as I like to listen to. Mot ley has never returned to America since his 408 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND most unexpected recall as Minister. He and his family are at the Hague, where the Queen of Holland makes much of them as I hear. I feel very sorry for his great disappoint ment, which I do not think he has deserved, but which I am disposed to attribute to in direct and not very creditable influences. I cannot believe that if Mr. Sumner and the President had not fallen out, our friend could ever have been subjected to such an indignity. The reference to the old house which you speak of was in the first number of a new series of articles I am writing for the " At lantic Monthly" under the title " The Poet at the Breakfast-Table." I have long thought that as I had spoken often of two characters besides the " Autocrat," namely the " Profes sor " and the " Poet," I would finish the series by a third volume, and my two instalments of this last have been very kindly received. I am glad to hear that you have secured your audience, for I feel sure you can keep it when it has once taken hold. Don't break your neck or your legs hunting (as poor Jerry Whipple you did n't know him ? did at Pau one of his legs, that is), for there would be mourning in two worlds for Hans THE FIRST HOLIDAY 409 Breitmann. How well I remember the first time I read one of those famous poems! Their bones are full of marrow. If the new poems are as good in their way as the others were in their own vein, your triumphant suc cess is assured. We are just trying for an International Copyright, which I hope will by and by put a good many guineas in your pocket. . . . The next letter in the packet from Dn Holmes is dated July 18, 1881, when the Rye was back in America, in Philadelphia, and it would be going ahead a trifle fast to give it just here. Into the Rye's friendship with George Boker there entered a deeper, warmer feel ing. Their intimacy, as Boker once wrote, was "almost that of brothers." "Dear old Charley," he says in one of his letters, and the " Charley " gives the measure of their friendship, " you are the only man living with whom I can play the fool through a long letter and be sure that I shall be clearly understood at the end. To say that this priv ilege is cheerful is to say little, for it is the breath of life to a man of a certain humour," 410 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND especially if that man happens to be alone in a foreign land, his daily life hedged about with the form and ceremonial of diplomacy. When I recall my uncle's friends, Boker is always the foremost figure, and a very splen did figure as I remember, still the Apollo he had been called in his youth, though I only knew him in his middle age, when his hair was already white. I can see him yet, his handsome head high above the crowd in Chestnut Street, where he, like Walt Whit man and my uncle too, was apt to take his stroll at the end of the day's work. Philadel phia is supposed to yield only commonplace, but I often wonder if three finer, more strik ing men were ever met anywhere than those three, who, in the days of which I speak, were to be passed almost every fine afternoon, as they swaggered down from Broad Street to Seventh, before Walt took the horse-car ; or still further down, past the "Ledger" office, with a smile and a shrug perhaps for the great man within dispensing cups and sau cers; or past the "Press" office, where the Rye and Boker, each in his different way, had been an influence and a power. It will be long before Philadelphia can show three such THE FIRST HOLIDAY 411 men again, though while they were alive, in true Philadelphia fashion, Philadelphia made as little of them as it conveniently could. Good looks were not George Boker's only merit. He was the truest and kindest of friends, "the good and dear Boker" even to Mr. John Morley, who knew him infinitely less well. If his letters begin only with the seventies, it is easily understood, for the two friends were always together, except during the Rye's first stay abroad. But it was early in the seventies that George Boker was sent as United States Minister to Constantinople, and what letters there are, therefore, were written during the most interesting and ac tive part of his career. The first is from Philadelphia, on Christ mas Eve, 1871, and announces the Turkish Mission, and also the progress of " Meister Karl," that Boker was seeing through the Press. GEORGE H. BOKER TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 24, 1871. MY DEAR CHARLEY, The scarcest thing with me just now is time. I might give you a shilling at a pinch, but a half hour is an 4 i2 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND article which I do not happen to have about me. I am in a whirl of preparation for my departure from America. . . . My passage is taken in the " Algeria " for the loth of January, and I shall start then, provided the State Department do not detain me for some foolish purpose of its own. I hope that you will have taken up your abode in London by the time I arrive. . . . " Meister Karl " is not yet out, which is queer, for my patchwork was finished a month ago. Long-headed Fop ! he is waiting for some thing to turn up, I suppose. By the way, your rhapsody over the East in " M. K." had something to do with my acceptance of the Turkish Mission ; and if you have been lying, I shall find you out, old boy : so it would be well for you to add a note about the fleas, and the cholera, and the plague, et id genus omne, to save your reputation, for which I tremble. The next time I address you, it will be face to face, laus Deo ! The letters from Constantinople have more than a personal interest. Boker knew none better and could himself see the sort of picturesqueness that appealed most power- THE FIRST HOLIDAY 413 fully to his friend, for whom he was always ready to make picturesque notes of it. But in his account of his own work, he was giving, without dreaming that he would ever reach a larger public, an excellent idea of the diffi culties common to all American diplomats abroad : " All alone, without a human being I had ever seen before in my life, and with unaccustomed duties, feeling as if I were beset with snares on every hand, obliged to carry on the greater part of my business in a strange tongue " Lowell wrote to Tom Hughes from Madrid. And in practically the same terms, Boker reports his initiation into diplomacy in the first letter to the Rye from the Legation at Constantinople. GEORGE H. BOKER TO CHARLES GODFREY LELAND July 2;th, 1872. . . . You must remember that I had no experience in diplomacy, no knowledge even of the routine of business, and not the small est acquaintance with the Turkish language. For these things I was wholly dependent upon , and him I was warned to distrust. I was therefore obliged to scrutinise all that he did and all that he counselled with that 414 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND sort of suspicious care which doubled the work. ... I shall not weary you with a his tory of my apprenticeship in diplomacy. You may fancy how difficult it has been, what cau tion and exhaustive inquiry it needed, and what a sea of labours I struggled through un til I reached my present position of security. Now I do not feel myself to be deficient be fore my older diplomatic colleagues ; besides possessing certain mental qualifications, which you know all about, and with which heaven has not blessed all men equally, I am Sure of this : that if you saw me transacting my business with the false, wily Orientals, at the Sublime Porte, or with the foreign ministers at one of their scheming general meetings, you would not feel ashamed of the figure cut on these occasions by the man who for many a long year has been almost your brother wholly indeed your brother in spirit if not by the ties of blood. . . . How often I think of you as I am making my way through the motley crowds of Con stantinople, or surveying the strange, wild landscape as I drive through the country ! Talk of languages ! There is not a bootblack who cannot speak half a dozen, and the at- THE FIRST HOLIDAY 415 tainments of some men, who have knocked about a little, are to me wonderful. For ex ample, we have a man in the consulate who speaks eleven languages fluently, and yet who cannot write his own name in any one of them. All the natives here, almost with out exception, speak Turkish, Greek, Italian, French, and Armenian. Some of them have a smattering of English also. You would revel in the " Grande Rue de Pera ; " you would go wild with excitement if you stood upon the bridge which crosses the Golden Horn, and saw the wonderfully costumed crowd go by you, and listened to the vari ous languages which the individuals uttered. Within a mile of me for I am now living at Therapia upon the Bosphorus there is a delicious encampment of the black tents of a tribe of Gypsies. How you would like to get among them ! Whenever one of the little black-skinned devils of children runs out to me with his or her " Cheeli, chelibi, cheeli ! " I always think of you, and give the impudent beggar a piastre for your sake. . . . By the way, the Khedive is here at present, and I like him much, and I like his prime minister, Nubar Pacha, still better. They 4i6 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND have invited me to go up the Nile next win ter, and I am going, to be sure. Would you not like to come along with me? If so, I shall be glad to make room for you in our party. On the whole, why should you not go? You ought to see the Nile before you die, and here is an excellent chance, and in such company as will open all Egypt before you. Think of this seriously. Of course, as Mrs. Boker will go, you will take Madame Belle with you, and we shall be as happy as Heaven together for two months at least. The trip up the Nile was made, and under the most favorable circumstances, the Ameri can minister's friends being the guests of the Khedive, of whom one of the party could but approve. "Extremes meet," I read in the " Memoranda." " The Khedive Ishmael was the only man I ever met in Egypt who could tell me anything about the Gypsies of that country." The chronicle of the journey the " Paradise " Boker predicted is the " Egyp tian Sketch Book " (Triibner, 1873), that curi ous medley of knowledge and fun never at any time appreciated, and now, I am afraid, neglected altogether. Innocents Abroad may THE FIRST HOLIDAY 417 be tolerated in Europe, but, apparently, the line must be drawn at gaiety in Egypt. And the book is gay. The Rye, who had written glow ingly, even a little exaltedly, of the " Morning Land " before he knew it, once he got there, could not help seeing it as it really is, with the fleas and the flies and the beggars and all the other nuisances Boker had once rallied him for ignoring. And perhaps, in the hon esty of reaction, he made a little too much of them. But he enjoyed everything with the high spirits of a schoolboy off for a holiday, describing discomforts and disappointments and absurdities, not with the traveller's usual ill-temper and pettishness, but always with a sense of their humorous aspect, combined with a keenness of observation and a com prehension of the country, its people, and its traditions that would set up a whole army of travel-writers for life. The book was dedi cated to Boker, who, back at his post in Con stantinople, wrote many more letters so many more records of hard work of which this is a fair specimen : - " For the last year my diplomatic life has been one unending and violent wrangle with the Turks. I have fought them at all points 4 i8 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND that can be raised by the Capitulations, the Treaties, or by Ottoman Law, and I have licked them at the same ; but even the victor suffers with the wear and the tear of such struggles. Besides these wordy fights, I have negotiated the treaties and signed a protocol with the circumcised ; so that, in spite of my bad health, I have done my official duty so well that my Government did that rare thing, it condescended to thank me, and to con gratulate me on my success a thing which may not happen to the hoariest diplomat once in a lifetime [and I wonder to how many of his already forgotten successors it has happened]. For all that, I am not so set up as I might be. I still bend to salute the average man, on Sundays, and altogether I am not so disagreeable as you might natu rally suppose me to be, as I still, on logical compulsion, admit my mortality and its mys terious consequences." This, truly, was " playing the fool," for George Boker, the most natural, least affected of men, with a head too strong to be turned by any triumph of his own or any praise of others which is more than can be said for the heads of many American ministers and THE FIRST HOLIDAY 419 ambassadors now-a-days. The Nile journey was in 1873. In March, 1875, thanks to the Government he had toiled for, he was " able to shake the dust of this dismal old city [Con stantinople] from my shoes, and prepare my toes for a freezing at St. Petersburg." Pic- turesqueness is not the one essential to hap piness in the place where one's tent is pitched. When years had softened the reality, he could still feel and write, " I hate the East so pro foundly that I should not return to it if there were no other land in which I could live." By October, 1875, it was from the Legation at St. Petersburg that the story of hard work and heavy responsibility was dated : " I have been so bedevilled by business in my particular line, so thoroughly engaged in putting things to rights between this coun try and our own, so forced to write, write, write, write, whether I wished to do it or not, that I rely on your ancient friendship to spare the scolding which I deserve for not having written to you before now. If you like Russia so much, why do you not pay me a visit during the coming winter, say in Janu* ary, when the season is at its height ? I can board, lodge, and take care of you generally, 420 CHARLES GODFREY LELAND and you know how glad I shall be to have you with me." Perhaps it is because the Rye accepted this invitation, spending the winter of 1876 in St. Petersburg, that two or three more let ters, or rather notes, complete the series from the Legation. But then, there are the Rye's articles on the " Russian Gypsies," more elo quent as chronicle than the " Egyptian Sketch Book ; " in them, nothing of American diplo macy, but a great deal of Russian music, the " plaintive song " of the troika bells, the mad song of the Gypsy girls. Never did he listen to music more to his liking, seldom did he give to his writing so much of the swing, so much of the sadness and the madness of it, as in these articles, first printed in " Macmillan's Magazine" (November and December, 1879), and afterwards as a chapter in " The Gypsies " (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1882). END OF VOLUME I tttoetpibe Elsctrotyped and printed by H. O. tfoughton <5^ Co. Cambridge, Mass, U.S. A. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE RECALL LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS Book Slip-70m-9,'65(F7151s4)4i N 444716 PS2243 'ennell, E.R. P4 Charles Godfrey Leland. v.l LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS