Day blue Man, his heart is burning,
Clothed in white mountain robes shining brightly;
His trees stretch up, grow, and release in leafy spires;
With eyes wide open to lush visions,
We caress his thick forest and vale;
His strong, armored chest breathes out,
Showering the land and sea with dark wet gifts,
Before rainbows of promise;
The circumambient air is ablaze of winged praise;
He is the power over the whole Earth;
Wisdom and freedom he always gives,
and the living call him 'Father'....
Night black Womyn, her heart keeps changing,
Ever revealing and hiding in intimate cycles;
The vast ocean waters dance, in and out, to her song;
With eyes closed, we may enter her sacred castle,
The rounded hills and gardens, bathed in star light;
Waxing or waning, new or full,
Her beautiful breast, barely covered by a thin dark dress,
Points of light peak through, wink, blink, and twinkle;
Little children of the night, she holds near her heart,
Guardian Spirits of the past, present and future;
Love and mystery she always gives,
and the living call her 'Mother'....
adapted from a Pueblo poem by Hartley Alexander 1927
Monday, July 13, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Hamlet, Julia Marlowe, Golden West
June 8, 1909
The Rev. F. E. Mortimer called last evening. He sails on the Lusitania Wednesday and will be away during the summer.
My nephew Harold Beekman was in town this afternoon and looked in for a while.
I have decided to take a trip to the Golden West and am shaping things to that End. I leave next Saturday at noon by way of the Newyork Central Railroad.
June 9, 1909
Blanche and I braved a heavy, misting night to see Hamlet at the old Academy of Music. E. H. Sothern was the Prince and Julia Marlowe, his somewhat large feminine foil, played Ophelia. It is not needful to make differing degrees and kinds in comparison, in order to say that it was a refined, excellent presentation and highly appreciated. How Shakespeare's free, firm and felicitous handling of incident and character carries through the severest test and strain! It is fortunate to have so great a tradition and standard as a bulwark for the stage.
The Rev. F. E. Mortimer called last evening. He sails on the Lusitania Wednesday and will be away during the summer.
My nephew Harold Beekman was in town this afternoon and looked in for a while.
I have decided to take a trip to the Golden West and am shaping things to that End. I leave next Saturday at noon by way of the Newyork Central Railroad.
June 9, 1909
Blanche and I braved a heavy, misting night to see Hamlet at the old Academy of Music. E. H. Sothern was the Prince and Julia Marlowe, his somewhat large feminine foil, played Ophelia. It is not needful to make differing degrees and kinds in comparison, in order to say that it was a refined, excellent presentation and highly appreciated. How Shakespeare's free, firm and felicitous handling of incident and character carries through the severest test and strain! It is fortunate to have so great a tradition and standard as a bulwark for the stage.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Music...and fancies
June 3, 1909
Music sets all my fancies flying and suspends my soul amid the fathomless eternities.
Monday, June 1, 2009
March 11, 1909
At times certain tones in music, certain sounds heard at night and whistling winds, particularly at sea have put me in a disturbed but reflective mood, when all else seemed stilled, and I looked into the depths of being with unusual clarity, and felt with an emotion as though my heart would fail the surge and mystery of the universal life: yet tossing as I seemed in a frail shallop far out on treacherous, darkling, unsheltered seas, I remained undismayed. I had a poise in this elemental feeling, a sense of security -I knew I carried with me an isle of safety in my very soul -something that nothing could daunt, that no hazards of fortune or misadventures amongst men or perils of nature could render nugatory. My breath might stop or quicken, my heart beat intensely or quit, the corporeal envelope disappear, but my soul was self-centered and serene, stablished as on a rock, unconquered and indestructible.
March 16, 1909
My most congenial companion is my own mind or soul, with which I am on familiar terms, and can commune intimately as with an alter ego, or alterum rue (L. altera).
I should like to marry a comprehensive mind as well as an attractive body, but can not find that particular combination that fills my intent. In earlier days love may be collish, illusive or confused, it may strike fire aright and fulfil, or dissipate itself, but later it should have some raison d'etre*, some congeniality of soul and ethical consideration or sanctions.
*
March 18, 1909
Club night, Princeton Club, Manhattan
March 22, 1909
Sunday morning I attended the services at St. Mark's with Marie and Blanche. Again I felt as by discovery the wonderfully rich deposit of truth found here, accumulated, whipped, worn into beautiful shapes and forms through the ages -a noble growth and structure. With all its defects and shortcomings, the man who would lay rude hands on the Church -I care not what cold intellect or ruffling force he has -is no artist or philosopher or well-wisher of his kind, but peradventure a barbarian.
March 23, 1909
Annual Dinner and Re-union of the Old Boys of Mount Pleasant Academy, at the Hotel Manhattan.
March 25, 1909
This evening I attended a meeting of the local Historical Society in the Public Library building. Mr. John C. Payne went over some maps and records pertaining to the Hudson County waterfront. He detailed facts and statistics, giving here and there a more vitalizing point, but the treatment for the most part was dry and limited, when it might readily have been made enlarging and progressive. It showed industry and research, but in this it was by no means thorough. I might take exception to his negative view about farming out the ripa for revenue, to the proceedings and very existences of the Riparian Commission, yet again these have their defences. Mr. Payne is secretary of the commission and commended its acts, perhaps naturally enough; yet it is decidedly questionable whether a commission that has conveyed away from the people to monopolizing corporations some of the choicest, most valuable shore property in this country or abroad, for a meager or inadequate consideration, and has permitted the City on its Eastern front to be hedged in as by a veritable Chinese wall -it is a question, I say, whether such a commission is entitled to much credit or praise.
March 29, 1909
A special meeting of the Hudson County Bar Association, at the Chancery Chambers.
April 1, 1909
After a busy morning, I felt the call of spring and this afternoon strolled through Westside Park, resting by the lake and pool to see the children play and the boys at baseball on the wide playing grounds. The air was cool with a liquid softness and slightly hazed, not so much by nature as by the smoke of manufacture that blew across the park. The prevailing dun of the sward was faintly mottled and yielding to the beginnings of the oncoming green. From one of the Italian-like pergolas or shelter houses that abut the parkway I got a goodly view. The dwelling houses nestled snugly on either hand: a fair church tower looked up, the dark lines of the still leafless trees fretted the sky; there was little animation from foot or wheel, but the graying atmosphere was shot through with old gold and in the distance the sparkling waters of the Hackensack added spirit to the scene.
April 5, 1909
Yesterday -Palm Sunday -I went to St. Mark's, the morning service. Dr. Roper preached an excellent sermon about Christ the conqueror of pain: it was vital and sympathetic. I came away with palms in my hand.
Mrs. Flavel McGee dined with us. Later M., B. and I supped at the McGees' house, Fairmont Avenue and Hudson Boulevard and confabulated a while with this branch of the Flavian gens.
April 8, 1909
Engaged a man to work on the farm and sent him out there. I rambled around Manhattan the rest of the afternoon and dined there. Part of the evening I indulged in a Music Hall Melange, and part along the brilliantly lighted streets, in the folds of the protecting buildings and various night, seeing the unfamiliar in the familiar, and noting with attractive interest the movement, the surge, the personal idiom and denotement of those sensuous units or figures, made up in the inimitable fashion of men and women, and caressed by the circumambient fingers of the sentient air. The show inside was arousing, brightening, but the one outside, incomparably superior.
April 10, 1909
Algernon Charles Swinburne, the last of the greater Victorian poets, died this morning in England. I was always charmed with his flute-like voice, his swift spirit and the magic splendor of his words. He was perhaps unsurpassed as a lyric or metrist, and I treasure some of his jewels; yet in a larger sense, he diffused and flattened, is too adjectival, too slightly substantive. He sang of the flashing or darkening sea but sounded not the spiritual deeps. You remark the rare manipulation, the dexterity of the word-jugglers, brilliant, but not deeply or naturally melodic, and the impression is faint, apt to fade, the thought fails to provoke, stimulate, the feeling is engaged but not aroused as by a Miltonic sonnet it is aroused. He wrote frames and with some force, but lacked the concentration, point, informing mood and culminating power of great tragedy.
April 12, 1909
Easter was blessed with a bright day. The weather was unusually fine with golden light and cool, crisp air. Marie, Helen and I attended the main morning service at St. Mark's and made our Easter offerings. Otherwise, with the exception of a short walk in the afternoon, I remained at home and read.
April 13, 1909
Sent a photograph of my father and his autograph to the Free Public Library, with a note to President Stowe, at whose request they were sent.
The Rev. Frederic E. Mortimer, Rector of St. Mark's, called in the evening and we had a pleasant chattery. He graciously sent a note of thanks yesterday for my Easter offering. He is wise in this world as well as the other, and that is just to both and becoming.
April 14, 1909
Concert at Grand View Auditorium, for the benefit of Christ Hospital.
Rain all day, pouring for the most part.
April 15, 1909
Meeting of the University Club at the Club Rooms, Hasbrouck Institute.
The morning was flecked, recovering from yesterday's storm. Mid-afternoon it brightened spring-like with a clean atmosphere. I rode about Central Park on horseback, and enjoyed the baby spring as seen in tender grass, and bud-tipped trees, and in the feel of the air. What an oasis amid the pity-less streets! After dinner I went to the theatre and later attended a variegated ball.
April 16, 1909
Marie and I sat out a concert tonight. It was not inspiriting: the minor key prevailed. The music put me in a reflective but somber mood. It lacked luster. There are those, usually the young and tyros in art, who think that a depressive seriousness is correspondingly deep. The subdued and melancholy have a sweetness of their own, yet they are secluded eddies of life. The great currents express themselves in strong music and forms: they command and uplift, they compensate, fulfil supremely and make whole.
April 20, 1909
The Shubert Glee Club concert, in the Auditorium of the High School.
Dinner to Mayor McClellan at the Waldorf-Astoria, given under the auspices of the Princeton Club. -The night was wet, rainy, but I put over river to the big hostelry, where after a brief reception we dined in the large ball-room, which was artistically decorated with the national and university colors, and suggested the spaciousness, hight, and broad relief, of some royal banqueting hall. I was pleased to meet the Mayor, who has managed municipal affairs under trying difficulties with marked success. He is short, stockily built, with a direct, manly bearing and countenance. Back in the seventies I met his father, Gen. McClellan, who was then running for Governor of New-Jersey. The General was affectionately called by the veterans, his companions in arms, ?the little idol that we love?. President Woodrow Wilson made a fine address, brilliant at times, in tribute to the Mayor and on university topics. The Mayor spoke in a straight-forward manner, in fitting terms, about his administration and Princeton. His utterance, well informed, came out of experience with the added weight or prestiges of office. I sat at a round table with some dear old fellows of '77.
April 23, 1909
America should become richer in memoirs. Besides their own peculiar interest, they give depth, relief to the personal, the social perspective and enliven the dry annals of history. We do not find ourselves sufficiently surrounded by sentient and speaking figures of the past, and wish for the enrichment of our society by their spiritual presence and voices. The barest record may have its force and suggestion, but the most accurate statement is only a segment of the truth, a skeleton of a historical presentment. Intimate pictures, richly or slightly made, if moved by insight and vision, have a friendly, revealing power that helps more nearly and subtly to complete the body, air and fashion of the times moment considered or in view, and give a wholeness and traditional solidity to life.
April 26, 1909
My acquaintance with Newyork might be regarded as familiar; we have been on more than speaking terms; along with some frowns, we have been at times really friendly and intimate, nor has this familiarity bred contempt, thought I keep my critical sense alive to form and betterments. Newyork is too great and diversified for that, it is built on too many factors, too many lives and spirits have gone into its make-up and uplift. Not only the larger unit or municipal personality, but each separate being has added its peculiar human note or dropped some encircling human trace in the bed and current of the city's structure and life. It has arisen out of much that is unaccountable when all the faces are recounted and histories rendered. I find it perennially interesting and absorbing. Its very noise is sea-like as befits its fluviatile setting. Every casual jaunt into Manhattan and its supporting environs yield surprising rescues from the shadows of the past or puts things seen into unforeseen attitudes, and at different points or angles of incidence and reflections. Infinite is the variety of types, yet even the same face or scene wears a changed light and aspect at each recurrence, whether actual or through medial refraction and altered vision. One constantly meets with such evocations, such strange revealments! To the warm imagination this is true to some extent everywhere, but where more intensely than where multitudes of human beings of mingled and contrasted cosmopolitan diversity have settled, mixed massed, built and swarmed for long generations? Here history thickens, deepens, society becomes richer, more complex and such huge centers of popular pressure electrically attract and stimulate, and about them hover, despite economic reasons, a local spirit, some indefinable glamour and divine mystery.
April 29, 1909
This morning I awoke to a snow shower -the whitened streets and tops of things presented a wintry scene. Ah, the poor spring child is cold today! The child spring is weeping in sleet and rain all thinly clad in its sea-green cape.
April 30, 1909
At the High School on the hill-top, I listened this evening to a discursive talk on ?How Music Began?, by Prof. John D. Prince, of Columbia University. He illustrated his remarks with snatches from folk-songs, of varying degrees of merit, and concluded with a composition of his own, set to the words of Kipling's ?Mandalay?, which he sang and played with marked spirit and abandon. Prof. Prince is a New-Jersey legislator -he was speaker of the last session, a teacher of languages, and manifestly practices with credit the agreeable art of music.
May 3, 1909
Miss Stewart, who has been visiting us for several days, left for home this afternoon. She is a sister, the only surviving sister of the late Judge Stewart of Trenton.
Hired a farm-hand at a West street office to work on the farm; he goes out to-morrow morning.
May 4, 1909
At a benefit concert tonight at Elks' Hall, Marie and I enjoyed some musical moments, especially the virtuoso playing of a young violinist -((Kotlarsky)).
May 6, 1909
Meeting of the local Princeton Alumni Association, at Hasbrouck Hall.
------------------------------
One's ink-pot may not always follow his think-pot, so many things are coming and going between, yet there is a charm in intermediary thoughts, and yet a special fascination in re-envisaging recollected things, seen through the haze of distance in time or space, or musing expressively on moods and memories. Here is a fly upon my window pane -the season's first: it gives a droning buzz or sound, like unto the season's last -an autumn's afternoon. It spint the circuit of contrasts and unites in a general symbol or a complexity. A creature with its uses and purposeful, a fine denizen of the natural world, looked upon more engagingly by eye than microscope, or a baleful little scavenger, good and bad, or what you will. It matters not -it matters. A trifling somewhat, but, oh, how important a trifle, perplexed or clear, is -is everything! Its interesting self apart, this dozing bug has turned my mood, my mind in several channels, and the current flows, not momently or intermittently, but continues crescendo or diminuendo to the end. Ah, the comedy of the fly, the pinnatile tragedy of the insect! It may carry you far out and on, inscrutably faring, only to defeat you of your apparent due or make the barren waste-place bloom or gold and give you fortune in desired kinds. Is it not all in the fashioning of a man, the law of being, the nemesis of fitness, the soul's protasis, to ultimate good, whether here or hereafter? Yes, it is, all that, all that and something more.
May 10, 1909
Memories of Constantinople were revived today by the official investiture of Sultan Mehmed V. with the Turkish sovereignty. He succeeds the wily Abdul Hamid who was recently deposed by the Young Turks. The latter are seeking to secure some degree of constitutional government and social emancipation. They are evidently in earnest, and in league with the time-spirit are bringing about a transformation that is epochal and far reaching. And they seem to be doing this in a preconsidered masterful way, with not more than the necessary spectacle and ado, and with less sacrifice than is usual in such a revolution. Indeed, it would appear that the army were simply executing an act of evolution, and naturally the few who stood resisting in its path were brushed aside or out of existence by this subtle but invincible power. And this fluid force finds in Mahmond Chefket Pasha a fit instrument of its progressive purposes.
May 13, 1909
Late in the afternoon I went over the river for something, and dined simply at one of those ?shining halls?, as Howells calls them. Later I went slumming.
I should like to make an illuminating remark or two about my dark trip through the Ghetto and Chinatown. These black swarms of humans, scarcely relieved against the night, have a stubborn interest, but weigh down my thoughts. They cast somber shadows, but less sinistre than those in other quarters of the city. In a lumpish, sordid way they manage to tread it out and serve. Incidentally some animal spirit awakens and leads out of it, and it has its own bargain and sale sufficiency. But alas! So little light!
The slippered, stealthy pigtails, blinking in their dingy, circuitous alleys, entries and underground passages, gave a more exotic sense. The joss-house had some interesting souvenirs, in particular some carved scenes in the life of Confucius; the restaurants looked bright and clean, the theatre bare of stage but prettily costumed, took on an endless mimetic, yet ludicrous jangle; here and around they were all to be seen -the merchant, the doctor, the porter, laundrymen -brown, slant-eyed, bloused, hand-pocketed, furtive-slippered -, opium and its den or joint, known to the initiate, the devious dance-hall, a sorry mission, gambling holes, ginger, confections, chop-suey, chinaware, punk, lanterns, fire-crackers, toys, red -yes red seemed to be the color of redemption in this swart scheme. It was all so far from the Flowery Kingdom, you know, and yet I saw my old friend the mandarin with his familiar Chinese characters on a tea-caddy, and lo! he kindly conducted me there again as in my long-ago childhood.
May 15, 1909
This afternoon Blanche and I witnessed from the McGees' house a Marathon race on the Hudson Boulevard. In the evening I amused myself at an entertainment in Manhattan.
May 17, 1909
Sunday M., B., and I attended services at St. Mark's. Mr. Mortimer preached. We came home with Mrs. Bryan and Mrs. McGill. I might descant on the beauty of going to church, but almost any one who goes must perceive its virtues and fulfillments.
I rested at home the remainder of the day, or scribbled a few notes and read.
May 18, 1909
George Meredith, the English novelist, died early this morning. The other day there died a poet with comparatively little substance or spiritual depth but of matchless, mellifluous or metrical song. With Meredith the conditions seemed to be measurably reversed: a keen wit, essentially poetic, a human analyst of rare insight, with more, however, of brittle intellect than elasticity and pervasive, humorous, comprehending soul, his sententious fragments of expression, instinct with epigram weighted, abrupt, had a strained if not affected look or gave forth a jangled music. Yet the content was originally visioned and conceived, singularly but not completely. The reading of him and Browning is a good exercise in mental gymnastics. It will stiffen your fibre if it does not please your sense of form. Still it was their several mode of getting out what was in them and should be gratefully accepted. The union of the essential and expressive marks the greatest writers. It can not be said that certain authors were less subtle and deep, whose style, nevertheless, carried their images and message with unimpeded claritude.
May 20, 1909
It is unusually cool; the sky is overcast with a slaty spread which lightens at times and lets through some tempered or subdued sunshine.
The Circus has come to town, and great is the joy of the youngster large or small.
May 21, 1909
Is the book type-written and manufactured or hand-made and heart-felt?
I like different styles, various modes of expression, provided they are good of their several kinds; nor would it seem that a composite of all were best -that might be indifferent, neither one thing nor another, confused and unindicated, a pale polished surface. What seems to be best is a rich, flexible, glancing style, informed with temper and imagination and wrought with a high simplicity.
May 24, 1909
Sometimes I wonder if the stage is not less effective than it used to be. It certainly has not the charm, the roseate hues, the indefinable beckonings that held one's morning eyes. And actually I think it is less strong and salient, if in some degree more reserved and artistic than formerly. I speak of the better sorts. In general it makes but a trifling appeal to the man of fifty. Perhaps he has seen enough, read and experienced enough to account for that. Of the higher drama, I like to read my Sophocles, and Shakespeare better than to see them enacted. Yet the theatre has its sufficient moments that compensate and count. It remains an amusing picture-book of life.
May 28, 1909
Mrs. Muirheid (Clara Pearsall) and her daughter Julia lunched with us.
May 29, 1909
The city is putting on color for Memorial day.
I dined in Newyork, and after a street stroll went to Daly's and saw ?The Climax?, a nationally acted and moving phase of artistic Bohemia, such as it is in a subdued apartment-house retreat. Music is the art this time and a lost and recovered voice the pathos and triumph of the theme with its love accompaniment. In some respects an unusually good little play, depending on itself more than on accessories. And still only a minor current. Of some intimate merit, it was as a public exhibition somewhat dull.
May 31, 1909
We had at Sunday supper Mrs. McGee (Julia Randolph). She was charmingly gowned and made an attractive picture as she toyed with her tea-cup and languidly talked.
Today is fine, and the city is bright with bunting and animated. The gayer features prevail over the grave in commemoration of the day. The parade of military and civic organizations was unusually large -about 25000 in line -and made a stirring pageant. Some of the veterans marched and others were borne in carriages. Amid a degree of dull looking-on, these crumbling remnants of war and time were regarded with lively feelings of gratitude and given becoming attention and applause. What is needed is some signal and adequate expression of the day's significance, some Lincolnian or Periclesian tribute!
At times certain tones in music, certain sounds heard at night and whistling winds, particularly at sea have put me in a disturbed but reflective mood, when all else seemed stilled, and I looked into the depths of being with unusual clarity, and felt with an emotion as though my heart would fail the surge and mystery of the universal life: yet tossing as I seemed in a frail shallop far out on treacherous, darkling, unsheltered seas, I remained undismayed. I had a poise in this elemental feeling, a sense of security -I knew I carried with me an isle of safety in my very soul -something that nothing could daunt, that no hazards of fortune or misadventures amongst men or perils of nature could render nugatory. My breath might stop or quicken, my heart beat intensely or quit, the corporeal envelope disappear, but my soul was self-centered and serene, stablished as on a rock, unconquered and indestructible.
March 16, 1909
My most congenial companion is my own mind or soul, with which I am on familiar terms, and can commune intimately as with an alter ego, or alterum rue (L. altera).
I should like to marry a comprehensive mind as well as an attractive body, but can not find that particular combination that fills my intent. In earlier days love may be collish, illusive or confused, it may strike fire aright and fulfil, or dissipate itself, but later it should have some raison d'etre*, some congeniality of soul and ethical consideration or sanctions.
*
March 18, 1909
Club night, Princeton Club, Manhattan
March 22, 1909
Sunday morning I attended the services at St. Mark's with Marie and Blanche. Again I felt as by discovery the wonderfully rich deposit of truth found here, accumulated, whipped, worn into beautiful shapes and forms through the ages -a noble growth and structure. With all its defects and shortcomings, the man who would lay rude hands on the Church -I care not what cold intellect or ruffling force he has -is no artist or philosopher or well-wisher of his kind, but peradventure a barbarian.
March 23, 1909
Annual Dinner and Re-union of the Old Boys of Mount Pleasant Academy, at the Hotel Manhattan.
March 25, 1909
This evening I attended a meeting of the local Historical Society in the Public Library building. Mr. John C. Payne went over some maps and records pertaining to the Hudson County waterfront. He detailed facts and statistics, giving here and there a more vitalizing point, but the treatment for the most part was dry and limited, when it might readily have been made enlarging and progressive. It showed industry and research, but in this it was by no means thorough. I might take exception to his negative view about farming out the ripa for revenue, to the proceedings and very existences of the Riparian Commission, yet again these have their defences. Mr. Payne is secretary of the commission and commended its acts, perhaps naturally enough; yet it is decidedly questionable whether a commission that has conveyed away from the people to monopolizing corporations some of the choicest, most valuable shore property in this country or abroad, for a meager or inadequate consideration, and has permitted the City on its Eastern front to be hedged in as by a veritable Chinese wall -it is a question, I say, whether such a commission is entitled to much credit or praise.
March 29, 1909
A special meeting of the Hudson County Bar Association, at the Chancery Chambers.
April 1, 1909
After a busy morning, I felt the call of spring and this afternoon strolled through Westside Park, resting by the lake and pool to see the children play and the boys at baseball on the wide playing grounds. The air was cool with a liquid softness and slightly hazed, not so much by nature as by the smoke of manufacture that blew across the park. The prevailing dun of the sward was faintly mottled and yielding to the beginnings of the oncoming green. From one of the Italian-like pergolas or shelter houses that abut the parkway I got a goodly view. The dwelling houses nestled snugly on either hand: a fair church tower looked up, the dark lines of the still leafless trees fretted the sky; there was little animation from foot or wheel, but the graying atmosphere was shot through with old gold and in the distance the sparkling waters of the Hackensack added spirit to the scene.
April 5, 1909
Yesterday -Palm Sunday -I went to St. Mark's, the morning service. Dr. Roper preached an excellent sermon about Christ the conqueror of pain: it was vital and sympathetic. I came away with palms in my hand.
Mrs. Flavel McGee dined with us. Later M., B. and I supped at the McGees' house, Fairmont Avenue and Hudson Boulevard and confabulated a while with this branch of the Flavian gens.
April 8, 1909
Engaged a man to work on the farm and sent him out there. I rambled around Manhattan the rest of the afternoon and dined there. Part of the evening I indulged in a Music Hall Melange, and part along the brilliantly lighted streets, in the folds of the protecting buildings and various night, seeing the unfamiliar in the familiar, and noting with attractive interest the movement, the surge, the personal idiom and denotement of those sensuous units or figures, made up in the inimitable fashion of men and women, and caressed by the circumambient fingers of the sentient air. The show inside was arousing, brightening, but the one outside, incomparably superior.
April 10, 1909
Algernon Charles Swinburne, the last of the greater Victorian poets, died this morning in England. I was always charmed with his flute-like voice, his swift spirit and the magic splendor of his words. He was perhaps unsurpassed as a lyric or metrist, and I treasure some of his jewels; yet in a larger sense, he diffused and flattened, is too adjectival, too slightly substantive. He sang of the flashing or darkening sea but sounded not the spiritual deeps. You remark the rare manipulation, the dexterity of the word-jugglers, brilliant, but not deeply or naturally melodic, and the impression is faint, apt to fade, the thought fails to provoke, stimulate, the feeling is engaged but not aroused as by a Miltonic sonnet it is aroused. He wrote frames and with some force, but lacked the concentration, point, informing mood and culminating power of great tragedy.
April 12, 1909
Easter was blessed with a bright day. The weather was unusually fine with golden light and cool, crisp air. Marie, Helen and I attended the main morning service at St. Mark's and made our Easter offerings. Otherwise, with the exception of a short walk in the afternoon, I remained at home and read.
April 13, 1909
Sent a photograph of my father and his autograph to the Free Public Library, with a note to President Stowe, at whose request they were sent.
The Rev. Frederic E. Mortimer, Rector of St. Mark's, called in the evening and we had a pleasant chattery. He graciously sent a note of thanks yesterday for my Easter offering. He is wise in this world as well as the other, and that is just to both and becoming.
April 14, 1909
Concert at Grand View Auditorium, for the benefit of Christ Hospital.
Rain all day, pouring for the most part.
April 15, 1909
Meeting of the University Club at the Club Rooms, Hasbrouck Institute.
The morning was flecked, recovering from yesterday's storm. Mid-afternoon it brightened spring-like with a clean atmosphere. I rode about Central Park on horseback, and enjoyed the baby spring as seen in tender grass, and bud-tipped trees, and in the feel of the air. What an oasis amid the pity-less streets! After dinner I went to the theatre and later attended a variegated ball.
April 16, 1909
Marie and I sat out a concert tonight. It was not inspiriting: the minor key prevailed. The music put me in a reflective but somber mood. It lacked luster. There are those, usually the young and tyros in art, who think that a depressive seriousness is correspondingly deep. The subdued and melancholy have a sweetness of their own, yet they are secluded eddies of life. The great currents express themselves in strong music and forms: they command and uplift, they compensate, fulfil supremely and make whole.
April 20, 1909
The Shubert Glee Club concert, in the Auditorium of the High School.
Dinner to Mayor McClellan at the Waldorf-Astoria, given under the auspices of the Princeton Club. -The night was wet, rainy, but I put over river to the big hostelry, where after a brief reception we dined in the large ball-room, which was artistically decorated with the national and university colors, and suggested the spaciousness, hight, and broad relief, of some royal banqueting hall. I was pleased to meet the Mayor, who has managed municipal affairs under trying difficulties with marked success. He is short, stockily built, with a direct, manly bearing and countenance. Back in the seventies I met his father, Gen. McClellan, who was then running for Governor of New-Jersey. The General was affectionately called by the veterans, his companions in arms, ?the little idol that we love?. President Woodrow Wilson made a fine address, brilliant at times, in tribute to the Mayor and on university topics. The Mayor spoke in a straight-forward manner, in fitting terms, about his administration and Princeton. His utterance, well informed, came out of experience with the added weight or prestiges of office. I sat at a round table with some dear old fellows of '77.
April 23, 1909
America should become richer in memoirs. Besides their own peculiar interest, they give depth, relief to the personal, the social perspective and enliven the dry annals of history. We do not find ourselves sufficiently surrounded by sentient and speaking figures of the past, and wish for the enrichment of our society by their spiritual presence and voices. The barest record may have its force and suggestion, but the most accurate statement is only a segment of the truth, a skeleton of a historical presentment. Intimate pictures, richly or slightly made, if moved by insight and vision, have a friendly, revealing power that helps more nearly and subtly to complete the body, air and fashion of the times moment considered or in view, and give a wholeness and traditional solidity to life.
April 26, 1909
My acquaintance with Newyork might be regarded as familiar; we have been on more than speaking terms; along with some frowns, we have been at times really friendly and intimate, nor has this familiarity bred contempt, thought I keep my critical sense alive to form and betterments. Newyork is too great and diversified for that, it is built on too many factors, too many lives and spirits have gone into its make-up and uplift. Not only the larger unit or municipal personality, but each separate being has added its peculiar human note or dropped some encircling human trace in the bed and current of the city's structure and life. It has arisen out of much that is unaccountable when all the faces are recounted and histories rendered. I find it perennially interesting and absorbing. Its very noise is sea-like as befits its fluviatile setting. Every casual jaunt into Manhattan and its supporting environs yield surprising rescues from the shadows of the past or puts things seen into unforeseen attitudes, and at different points or angles of incidence and reflections. Infinite is the variety of types, yet even the same face or scene wears a changed light and aspect at each recurrence, whether actual or through medial refraction and altered vision. One constantly meets with such evocations, such strange revealments! To the warm imagination this is true to some extent everywhere, but where more intensely than where multitudes of human beings of mingled and contrasted cosmopolitan diversity have settled, mixed massed, built and swarmed for long generations? Here history thickens, deepens, society becomes richer, more complex and such huge centers of popular pressure electrically attract and stimulate, and about them hover, despite economic reasons, a local spirit, some indefinable glamour and divine mystery.
April 29, 1909
This morning I awoke to a snow shower -the whitened streets and tops of things presented a wintry scene. Ah, the poor spring child is cold today! The child spring is weeping in sleet and rain all thinly clad in its sea-green cape.
April 30, 1909
At the High School on the hill-top, I listened this evening to a discursive talk on ?How Music Began?, by Prof. John D. Prince, of Columbia University. He illustrated his remarks with snatches from folk-songs, of varying degrees of merit, and concluded with a composition of his own, set to the words of Kipling's ?Mandalay?, which he sang and played with marked spirit and abandon. Prof. Prince is a New-Jersey legislator -he was speaker of the last session, a teacher of languages, and manifestly practices with credit the agreeable art of music.
May 3, 1909
Miss Stewart, who has been visiting us for several days, left for home this afternoon. She is a sister, the only surviving sister of the late Judge Stewart of Trenton.
Hired a farm-hand at a West street office to work on the farm; he goes out to-morrow morning.
May 4, 1909
At a benefit concert tonight at Elks' Hall, Marie and I enjoyed some musical moments, especially the virtuoso playing of a young violinist -((Kotlarsky)).
May 6, 1909
Meeting of the local Princeton Alumni Association, at Hasbrouck Hall.
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One's ink-pot may not always follow his think-pot, so many things are coming and going between, yet there is a charm in intermediary thoughts, and yet a special fascination in re-envisaging recollected things, seen through the haze of distance in time or space, or musing expressively on moods and memories. Here is a fly upon my window pane -the season's first: it gives a droning buzz or sound, like unto the season's last -an autumn's afternoon. It spint the circuit of contrasts and unites in a general symbol or a complexity. A creature with its uses and purposeful, a fine denizen of the natural world, looked upon more engagingly by eye than microscope, or a baleful little scavenger, good and bad, or what you will. It matters not -it matters. A trifling somewhat, but, oh, how important a trifle, perplexed or clear, is -is everything! Its interesting self apart, this dozing bug has turned my mood, my mind in several channels, and the current flows, not momently or intermittently, but continues crescendo or diminuendo to the end. Ah, the comedy of the fly, the pinnatile tragedy of the insect! It may carry you far out and on, inscrutably faring, only to defeat you of your apparent due or make the barren waste-place bloom or gold and give you fortune in desired kinds. Is it not all in the fashioning of a man, the law of being, the nemesis of fitness, the soul's protasis, to ultimate good, whether here or hereafter? Yes, it is, all that, all that and something more.
May 10, 1909
Memories of Constantinople were revived today by the official investiture of Sultan Mehmed V. with the Turkish sovereignty. He succeeds the wily Abdul Hamid who was recently deposed by the Young Turks. The latter are seeking to secure some degree of constitutional government and social emancipation. They are evidently in earnest, and in league with the time-spirit are bringing about a transformation that is epochal and far reaching. And they seem to be doing this in a preconsidered masterful way, with not more than the necessary spectacle and ado, and with less sacrifice than is usual in such a revolution. Indeed, it would appear that the army were simply executing an act of evolution, and naturally the few who stood resisting in its path were brushed aside or out of existence by this subtle but invincible power. And this fluid force finds in Mahmond Chefket Pasha a fit instrument of its progressive purposes.
May 13, 1909
Late in the afternoon I went over the river for something, and dined simply at one of those ?shining halls?, as Howells calls them. Later I went slumming.
I should like to make an illuminating remark or two about my dark trip through the Ghetto and Chinatown. These black swarms of humans, scarcely relieved against the night, have a stubborn interest, but weigh down my thoughts. They cast somber shadows, but less sinistre than those in other quarters of the city. In a lumpish, sordid way they manage to tread it out and serve. Incidentally some animal spirit awakens and leads out of it, and it has its own bargain and sale sufficiency. But alas! So little light!
The slippered, stealthy pigtails, blinking in their dingy, circuitous alleys, entries and underground passages, gave a more exotic sense. The joss-house had some interesting souvenirs, in particular some carved scenes in the life of Confucius; the restaurants looked bright and clean, the theatre bare of stage but prettily costumed, took on an endless mimetic, yet ludicrous jangle; here and around they were all to be seen -the merchant, the doctor, the porter, laundrymen -brown, slant-eyed, bloused, hand-pocketed, furtive-slippered -, opium and its den or joint, known to the initiate, the devious dance-hall, a sorry mission, gambling holes, ginger, confections, chop-suey, chinaware, punk, lanterns, fire-crackers, toys, red -yes red seemed to be the color of redemption in this swart scheme. It was all so far from the Flowery Kingdom, you know, and yet I saw my old friend the mandarin with his familiar Chinese characters on a tea-caddy, and lo! he kindly conducted me there again as in my long-ago childhood.
May 15, 1909
This afternoon Blanche and I witnessed from the McGees' house a Marathon race on the Hudson Boulevard. In the evening I amused myself at an entertainment in Manhattan.
May 17, 1909
Sunday M., B., and I attended services at St. Mark's. Mr. Mortimer preached. We came home with Mrs. Bryan and Mrs. McGill. I might descant on the beauty of going to church, but almost any one who goes must perceive its virtues and fulfillments.
I rested at home the remainder of the day, or scribbled a few notes and read.
May 18, 1909
George Meredith, the English novelist, died early this morning. The other day there died a poet with comparatively little substance or spiritual depth but of matchless, mellifluous or metrical song. With Meredith the conditions seemed to be measurably reversed: a keen wit, essentially poetic, a human analyst of rare insight, with more, however, of brittle intellect than elasticity and pervasive, humorous, comprehending soul, his sententious fragments of expression, instinct with epigram weighted, abrupt, had a strained if not affected look or gave forth a jangled music. Yet the content was originally visioned and conceived, singularly but not completely. The reading of him and Browning is a good exercise in mental gymnastics. It will stiffen your fibre if it does not please your sense of form. Still it was their several mode of getting out what was in them and should be gratefully accepted. The union of the essential and expressive marks the greatest writers. It can not be said that certain authors were less subtle and deep, whose style, nevertheless, carried their images and message with unimpeded claritude.
May 20, 1909
It is unusually cool; the sky is overcast with a slaty spread which lightens at times and lets through some tempered or subdued sunshine.
The Circus has come to town, and great is the joy of the youngster large or small.
May 21, 1909
Is the book type-written and manufactured or hand-made and heart-felt?
I like different styles, various modes of expression, provided they are good of their several kinds; nor would it seem that a composite of all were best -that might be indifferent, neither one thing nor another, confused and unindicated, a pale polished surface. What seems to be best is a rich, flexible, glancing style, informed with temper and imagination and wrought with a high simplicity.
May 24, 1909
Sometimes I wonder if the stage is not less effective than it used to be. It certainly has not the charm, the roseate hues, the indefinable beckonings that held one's morning eyes. And actually I think it is less strong and salient, if in some degree more reserved and artistic than formerly. I speak of the better sorts. In general it makes but a trifling appeal to the man of fifty. Perhaps he has seen enough, read and experienced enough to account for that. Of the higher drama, I like to read my Sophocles, and Shakespeare better than to see them enacted. Yet the theatre has its sufficient moments that compensate and count. It remains an amusing picture-book of life.
May 28, 1909
Mrs. Muirheid (Clara Pearsall) and her daughter Julia lunched with us.
May 29, 1909
The city is putting on color for Memorial day.
I dined in Newyork, and after a street stroll went to Daly's and saw ?The Climax?, a nationally acted and moving phase of artistic Bohemia, such as it is in a subdued apartment-house retreat. Music is the art this time and a lost and recovered voice the pathos and triumph of the theme with its love accompaniment. In some respects an unusually good little play, depending on itself more than on accessories. And still only a minor current. Of some intimate merit, it was as a public exhibition somewhat dull.
May 31, 1909
We had at Sunday supper Mrs. McGee (Julia Randolph). She was charmingly gowned and made an attractive picture as she toyed with her tea-cup and languidly talked.
Today is fine, and the city is bright with bunting and animated. The gayer features prevail over the grave in commemoration of the day. The parade of military and civic organizations was unusually large -about 25000 in line -and made a stirring pageant. Some of the veterans marched and others were borne in carriages. Amid a degree of dull looking-on, these crumbling remnants of war and time were regarded with lively feelings of gratitude and given becoming attention and applause. What is needed is some signal and adequate expression of the day's significance, some Lincolnian or Periclesian tribute!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
1909 February 25-March 6
February 25, 1909
Dr. Rudolph. Next treatment put over till next June.
Meeting of the Historical Society at the Public Library. Mr. Edgar J. Fisher, of Columbia University, speaks on the “Colonial Land Troubles in New Jersey”.
Mr. Mortimer called in the evening. He seemed to be in good spirits after his recent trip to Florida, and gave some interesting particulars of it. The climate was helpful, but I fancied from what he said that his romance conceptions of the south were somewhat pricked by the reality.
March 1, 1909
There was a ceaseless throng of matters today, mostly business interviews, with the preparation of some legal papers, letters and accounts. As luck would have it, my thoughts kept preferably wandering far afield, gathering up interesting sorts the world over and in the heavens of conception. With the intermittent ringing of the front door and telephone bells, I constantly dropped into the prose of the present, which had its attractive side and lended to nimbleness of mind, but interrupted the syren strain and broke the maturing of ideas. This would seem to be too generally the case, yet active life has its sufficient, redeeming compensations. Who does not know its healthfulness, its zest of doing, of accomplishment, its constancy yet variableness of interest, its disappointments, it’s failures to be overcome, its triumphs, satisfactions and joys? Even its aspects of everydayness have a friendly look for those who keep themselves in tune.
March 3, 1909
Yesterday was rainy, but they needed a workman at the farm, so I trudged over to Manhattan, after turning aside some not very engaging applicants here, and went through the polyglot employment offices on lower Greenwich Street. Most of the subjects stood like inarticulate sticks under cross-examination. At last I secured a reasonably articulate Pole – measurably better than a speechless stick; he was hired and went out to the farm this morning.
March 4, 1909
After the picturesque, impulsive Roosevelt, a roughrider in a double sense, a knight-errant in peace and war, the placid bovine Taft appears to be somewhat lame domesticated, yet he is an able and especially well-trained man for the presidency. He is sensible of the responsibilities of his great office and will hold a knowledge and grasp of its powers, not too curious, original and passion-provoking, yet informed, save commanding and wide-looking. His inauguration took place today in the Senate Chamber, the snow-stormy, inclement weather preventing the open-air ceremony in front of the Capitol.
March 6, 1909
My last birthday was spent in Jerusalem. How blue, how deeply blue the sky appeared that night, as I trod the sepulchral streets far over there in the east. How I watched the crystal stars, how intently I searched for the star, as it were, dipping, prudent in the heavens, that led the wise men to Bethlehem, where I too as a wise man went. The hushed, rich, mysterious night, amidst such arresting associations, seemed fraught with crucial significance. I momently paused unaffrighted but surprised. The shadows projected memorable shapes, historic figures. I assisted at a conclave of the invisibles, and felt thronging presences. I heard overhead unwonted strains of music – I was listening to a symphony of the Eternities.
Afterward
I.
After the worry and the fret,
After the darkness and the wet,
After the stress and storm, -
So am I fashioned to a form,
Fin for home.
II.
I have traveled a little way
Into the world, through the long day.
Seeing the murk and light –
Now I have come to my right,
Anchored at home.
III.
O, I thought life was so fine!
O, I had love and my rhyme!
Thank God, less of tine than joy –
Over here I’m as bright as a boy,
In my new home!
Dr. Rudolph. Next treatment put over till next June.
Meeting of the Historical Society at the Public Library. Mr. Edgar J. Fisher, of Columbia University, speaks on the “Colonial Land Troubles in New Jersey”.
Mr. Mortimer called in the evening. He seemed to be in good spirits after his recent trip to Florida, and gave some interesting particulars of it. The climate was helpful, but I fancied from what he said that his romance conceptions of the south were somewhat pricked by the reality.
March 1, 1909
There was a ceaseless throng of matters today, mostly business interviews, with the preparation of some legal papers, letters and accounts. As luck would have it, my thoughts kept preferably wandering far afield, gathering up interesting sorts the world over and in the heavens of conception. With the intermittent ringing of the front door and telephone bells, I constantly dropped into the prose of the present, which had its attractive side and lended to nimbleness of mind, but interrupted the syren strain and broke the maturing of ideas. This would seem to be too generally the case, yet active life has its sufficient, redeeming compensations. Who does not know its healthfulness, its zest of doing, of accomplishment, its constancy yet variableness of interest, its disappointments, it’s failures to be overcome, its triumphs, satisfactions and joys? Even its aspects of everydayness have a friendly look for those who keep themselves in tune.
March 3, 1909
Yesterday was rainy, but they needed a workman at the farm, so I trudged over to Manhattan, after turning aside some not very engaging applicants here, and went through the polyglot employment offices on lower Greenwich Street. Most of the subjects stood like inarticulate sticks under cross-examination. At last I secured a reasonably articulate Pole – measurably better than a speechless stick; he was hired and went out to the farm this morning.
March 4, 1909
After the picturesque, impulsive Roosevelt, a roughrider in a double sense, a knight-errant in peace and war, the placid bovine Taft appears to be somewhat lame domesticated, yet he is an able and especially well-trained man for the presidency. He is sensible of the responsibilities of his great office and will hold a knowledge and grasp of its powers, not too curious, original and passion-provoking, yet informed, save commanding and wide-looking. His inauguration took place today in the Senate Chamber, the snow-stormy, inclement weather preventing the open-air ceremony in front of the Capitol.
March 6, 1909
My last birthday was spent in Jerusalem. How blue, how deeply blue the sky appeared that night, as I trod the sepulchral streets far over there in the east. How I watched the crystal stars, how intently I searched for the star, as it were, dipping, prudent in the heavens, that led the wise men to Bethlehem, where I too as a wise man went. The hushed, rich, mysterious night, amidst such arresting associations, seemed fraught with crucial significance. I momently paused unaffrighted but surprised. The shadows projected memorable shapes, historic figures. I assisted at a conclave of the invisibles, and felt thronging presences. I heard overhead unwonted strains of music – I was listening to a symphony of the Eternities.
Afterward
I.
After the worry and the fret,
After the darkness and the wet,
After the stress and storm, -
So am I fashioned to a form,
Fin for home.
II.
I have traveled a little way
Into the world, through the long day.
Seeing the murk and light –
Now I have come to my right,
Anchored at home.
III.
O, I thought life was so fine!
O, I had love and my rhyme!
Thank God, less of tine than joy –
Over here I’m as bright as a boy,
In my new home!
Sunday, February 22, 2009
1909 January-February 22
1909 Edwin Manners Diary
(On page before entries)
Edwin Manners: His Journal
Personal Denotements
January 4, 1909
The papers still teem with accounts of the disastrous earthquake that occurred last week in Sicily and Calabria, Southern Italy. Messina and Reggio were practically destroyed. The loss of life and property is appalling. It is considered one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest of recorded calamities. It rivets one’s attention anew to the beauty, the history and absorbing interest of the scene. It brings back so vividly my passage last March of the Strait of Messina. With what fascination I viewed Mount Aetna and later Stromboli and Vesuvius, those ominous vents of Earth’s passion. Intermittingly lost to reality I became another Ulysses strapped to the mast and saw with subduing dread and pity six of my best sailors, who to avoid the whirling Charybdis, had steered too near the opposing rock, seized from their faithful tasks to the summit by the rapacious heads of Scylla, their helpless cries and struggles being soon smothered in the black cavern. The subtle charm of the sea and landscape so impressed me, imbued as it is with the magnetism of related age, history and legend, that I spontaneously exclaimed, O God, am I to see this actuated dream no more forever! I felt deep down in my soul the tears of travel, the mordant sorrow of evanescence.
January 7, 1909
Even Achilles has a vulnerable heel.
At the theatre last night; a spotty piece, “The Queen of the Moulin Rouge”; reminiscences of my Paris nights! – ha, ha, ha! The Red Mill has been clipped into familiar comic opera, but it’s tradition remains and is still practiced in Montmartre. The Bal Tabarin seemed to be the cheese when I was there.
January 8, 1909
No doubt modesty when properly modulated is a virtue, but it should be kept to its right accent and proportion. The other day I was reading a memoir that should have been an interesting memoir, but the author was so afraid of projecting himself that the result was positively lame and disappointing. It reminded me of Goethe’s saying, that merit and modesty had nothing in common between them excepting the initial letter. If you would autobiographing go, do not burden yourself with too many reserves or take too much reticence with you; then your hand will be freer to find self-expression and pick by the way the flowers of self-revealment.
January 11, 1909
When all are obstinate and disagreeable, the obstinacy of the better trained is apt to prevail. Where minds are open and agreeable wisdom is justified of her children.
January 12, 1909
The main matter is to cultivate yourself, and all the rest will be added unto you. Not only do you best serve yourself thereby, but the public too and most beneficially. Production and progress attend individualism.
A great obstacle to socialism is its restrictions of individual liberty. Moreover, it would seem to require a radical change in human nature. This may be modified and refined, to some degree regulated and adjusted to its environment, but it persists in remaining essentially human nature. To press out of it any more of its juice, flavor, vitality and distinction is to make a dull world and do worse for a doubtful advantage. I do not think the average man cares to have the lights turned down, and certes great spirits would hardly submit to be reduced to the muck at the hands of vulgarians. The higher the individual development is, the less need there is of law and government. Progressively we should tear down the custom houses and the court houses too; government should be reduced gradually to the vanishing point. The foolish attempt to statutize everything is bred of a distrust of the people and is an underbred reaction to narrowness and restraint – not social enlightenment, but exterior interference. The tendency is not authentic; it cheapens legislation, lessens respect for what may still be necessary in government and law and conflicts with a rational simplicity and the Divine order.
January 15, 1909
Paid the taxes.
Dined at “Little Hungary” – the Café Liberty.
Later I went to a reception at the “Columbia” and enjoyed a few fleeting hours.
Sport’s not a casual party fine,
But parties galore and plenty of wine,
With a girl who dances with grace divine,
And looks in your eye as though she were thine!
January 19, 1909
After luncheon I went up to the Bronx and visited Poe’s Fordham Cottage, where he lived for a while and composed some of his detached, haunting poems. This plain little house reflected the inadequacy of the poetic setting and the res augusta domi* that so often condition the birth or inspiration of genius. It gave an additional pang to the cruelly rendered story of his life, pathetic, misunderstood, and as Burns would say, shot – over by the awkward squad. But sad and glad the moods succeeded, for seeming only may be the aspect hard, while joy dwells in the creative heart. A more cheerful look in may better interpret and be more adequate. The particular suffering and strife in lives peculiarly lived are apt to produce fine results, save up-springings in their particular kind. The one and the other are interwoven, inseparable, yet the achievement should receive an independent judgment. A flower might grow out of an unsavory soil, perhaps by reason of that: it is beautiful nevertheless. – Pure indeed were the reaches of his spirit. – This is only to be lucid and discriminating – a simple, just process one should say, yet not commonly applied. Strangely, we erect monuments and shout fat praises to coarse men, especially of the soldier and statesman type, whose lives were far from unsullied, and condemn unsparingly one of finest quality because of some personal irregularity that had its aspects, a good and at worst harmed chiefly himself: the rest is speculation. Still Poe has a wide fame and a competent body of admirers, though I fancy it is not relatively very numerous. A bust of the poet was unveiled in the park directly opposite, this being the centenary of his birth.
Last spring I saw Shakespeare’s birthplace at Stratford at the time of the festival and was moved as at a solemn music. The master poets quarters were much quainter than the frail Poe’s, but scarcely less contracted and unequal – a rude timbered lodge for the emperor of the mind.
Later in the afternoon I attended the memorial meeting in the auditorium of New York University where appropriate words were spoken and recited. Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie’s address was especially excellent and delivered with a critical confidence.
Each man’s idiom is precious: why ask that it should be different or another. Poe’s output was not characterized by abounding vitality. The more ordinary human interests and meaty effects, such as some intellectual but materialistic critics would have. Slight as it was, it had a delicacy, a distinction of form and essence, and Elfin magic of its own and a genuine potency that may be traced in a numerous progeny of literary children and descendants, whose paternity or original ancestor is too often slight or unrecognized.
*
January 27, 1909
This afternoon in the lower tunnel between Jersey City and Manhattan the last link was made, the last separating obstruction broken through, giving a continuous passage-way between the two cities. It will be several months before the twin tubes are completed and opened for public traffic. The upper tunnels under-running the Hudson river have been in operation about a year. This has been a momentous undertaking and its successful completion will result in many important changes and conveniences of transit and in improved property values. Thus is brought about the land union of Manhattan with the great hinterlands.
January 29, 1909
If you are well educated and refined, particularly if you have a delicate ((diathesis)), it is well occasionally to seek the society of those whom Walt Whitman designated as “powerful uneducated persons”. They supply what you want or lack, and sometimes more than you want. Still it is wonderful how much good you may derive from them. If you are of their kind, reverse the conditions: find in cultivated circles some polish for your rough facets. Naturally in the existing state some repugnance must be (Jan30) overcome, and a comparatively high degree of moral and physical courage is required. But these things are adjusting themselves with the trend of democracy.
February 1, 1909
Return-day: Manners vs. Frankel,
“ “ McCarthy.
Appeared and took judgment in each case.
Leased the store, No. 75 Newark Avenue, for three years and a one month, the term beginning April 1, 1909, at $125 a month.
February 4, 1909
Bar Dinner at the Hotel Astor. Mr. Wall presided. Mr. John S. Wise, Chancellor Pitney, Justice Swayze, Mr. Sullivan (Mark A.), Judge Blair, Judge Carrick and Judge Carey made remarks of a rambling sort. Some of the youngest lawyers sang popular airs. Justice Swayze’s talk was perhaps most considered and appreciated, but Judge Blair’s less serious words came nearer the after dinner – art. One likes more and more what is not endeavored but the efflorescence of a seasoned spirit. Mr. Wise reflected this to some extent and happily.
February 5, 1909
Yesterday I subscribed for fifty shares of the Great Lakes Radio Telephone Company’s Stock, and paid for the same forthwith.
February 8, 1909
The current push of nature that overbears our fine calculations for its own ends, though perfectly natural, is looked askance at and little studied or understood. A frank and honest discussion of the whole matter, with its varied, implications, would give it direction and control, largely insure against frightful dangers and make potently for the health, perpetuity and advancing strength of the race. What pretenses and subterfuges we scuttle under where things the most vital are concerned! Why not let in the light of truth, come out in the open and ride full-panoplied on the plain?
February 12, 1909
The centenary of Lincoln’s birth is being celebrated today throughout the country. A number of men are chronicled to speak and will probably speak in the moderate way, after the fashion of the ((chonicle)) rather than in the voice of talent or the great utterance of genius. I see that Booker T. Washington is to say something. He will probably do as well as any, perhaps better, and it would be only poetic or compensating justice that he should. Father Abraham is entitled to good words from his children.
February 15, 1909
Paid the last instalment of my subscriptions for twenty-five shares of the preferred capital stock of the Colorado Slate Company.
I like to balance the tangible against the intangible in stock transactions; then with proper consideration one can not go far astray.
February 16, 1909
Dinner of the University Club at the Hotel Lafayette, Manhattan. Homer Davenport, the cartoonist, entertained us agreeably with pictures and incidents of his journey into the Arabian desert and of his Arabian horses – some fine specimens. He had with him a Bedouin boy in native costume. Mr. Wortendyke presided and made a few preliminary remarks. The dinner was well served and enjoyed. It was a dark, rainy night, and I took the under-river tubes going and coming back.
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February 18, 1909
Princeton Club, Gramercy Park – Club Night.
Mr. George W. Crickfield, of this city has recently brought out a work on Latin America, somewhat vaingloriously styled “American Supremacy”. Glancing over its pages, I got the impression that it took an unsympathetic and too disparaging view of Spanish America. I incline to agree with him on the inexpediency of the Monroe doctrine – a dog in the manger policy. He praises justly the statesmanlike qualities of President Diaz of Mexico and the late Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil. I recall distinctly the latter on his visit to this country – the centennial year. I attended a special meeting of the American Geographical Society, held I believe in Chickering Hall, to receive him. The late Chief Justice Daly presided with charming ease and urbanity, but otherwise the striking notes of the occasion were lapses and forgettings. Bayard Taylor loomed up ponderously in a set speech and after rolling along awhile forgot his piece and came to a sudden halt. I see the obfuscated figure standing with hand to forehead trying to remember. An unconscionably long period of silence seemed to ensue, almost as embarrassing to the audience as the speaker, before he could take the track again or shunt on a siding for refuge and slow down to a fitting stop. Dom Pedro had a broad placid face, brushily bewhiskered, and came forward with a bland smile. He directly began to fumble in his pockets for the manuscript of his address, but it could not be found. It had apparently been mislaid. Its failure to come forth caused a serious, perplexed look to succeed the pleasure of his ovation. I do not think, however, that he showed much concern or was over-much disturbed, but on the contrary enough self-possessed for an arranged part. He turned back and consulted an attendant, who in turn went out in search of the missing document, which was finally recovered and duly read by the emperor. He had a courtly presence and a refined scholarly air, which seemed disassociated from the exigencies of rulers and practical administration, especially in the turbulent countries to the south of us. With the fall of the Brazilian Empire I felt some recession of romance.
February 22, 1909
Colonial Reception at the Woman’s Club, East Orange. It was a Washington reception given to raise funds for a Lincoln memorial in the locality. Many of those present were in the Eighteenth century costumes, and at the march and salute to the flag the assembled effect was indeed attractive and striking. I had a brief talk with Elwell, the sculptor; he showed me a picture of a Lincoln statue he had designed. There were some fine people there, and others indifferent enough. Mrs. Merrill was captivating and gave me several dances. Her husband – John Lenord – is an agreeable fellow, if I may so predicate from a touch and go acquaintance. I found a piece of jewelry which a lady had dropped and handed it to Mr. Merrill to discover the owner. Some of the young girls favored me with dances, even the barn dance, which is now the popular rage, and they naturally diffused the return-to-fairyland atmosphere. Mrs. Donald McLean was one of the patronesses. While she is not so engaging at first glimpse, one becomes aware with her of an interesting personality and some force of character that has kept her well up in patriotic clubs and circles.
(On page before entries)
Edwin Manners: His Journal
Personal Denotements
January 4, 1909
The papers still teem with accounts of the disastrous earthquake that occurred last week in Sicily and Calabria, Southern Italy. Messina and Reggio were practically destroyed. The loss of life and property is appalling. It is considered one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest of recorded calamities. It rivets one’s attention anew to the beauty, the history and absorbing interest of the scene. It brings back so vividly my passage last March of the Strait of Messina. With what fascination I viewed Mount Aetna and later Stromboli and Vesuvius, those ominous vents of Earth’s passion. Intermittingly lost to reality I became another Ulysses strapped to the mast and saw with subduing dread and pity six of my best sailors, who to avoid the whirling Charybdis, had steered too near the opposing rock, seized from their faithful tasks to the summit by the rapacious heads of Scylla, their helpless cries and struggles being soon smothered in the black cavern. The subtle charm of the sea and landscape so impressed me, imbued as it is with the magnetism of related age, history and legend, that I spontaneously exclaimed, O God, am I to see this actuated dream no more forever! I felt deep down in my soul the tears of travel, the mordant sorrow of evanescence.
January 7, 1909
Even Achilles has a vulnerable heel.
At the theatre last night; a spotty piece, “The Queen of the Moulin Rouge”; reminiscences of my Paris nights! – ha, ha, ha! The Red Mill has been clipped into familiar comic opera, but it’s tradition remains and is still practiced in Montmartre. The Bal Tabarin seemed to be the cheese when I was there.
January 8, 1909
No doubt modesty when properly modulated is a virtue, but it should be kept to its right accent and proportion. The other day I was reading a memoir that should have been an interesting memoir, but the author was so afraid of projecting himself that the result was positively lame and disappointing. It reminded me of Goethe’s saying, that merit and modesty had nothing in common between them excepting the initial letter. If you would autobiographing go, do not burden yourself with too many reserves or take too much reticence with you; then your hand will be freer to find self-expression and pick by the way the flowers of self-revealment.
January 11, 1909
When all are obstinate and disagreeable, the obstinacy of the better trained is apt to prevail. Where minds are open and agreeable wisdom is justified of her children.
January 12, 1909
The main matter is to cultivate yourself, and all the rest will be added unto you. Not only do you best serve yourself thereby, but the public too and most beneficially. Production and progress attend individualism.
A great obstacle to socialism is its restrictions of individual liberty. Moreover, it would seem to require a radical change in human nature. This may be modified and refined, to some degree regulated and adjusted to its environment, but it persists in remaining essentially human nature. To press out of it any more of its juice, flavor, vitality and distinction is to make a dull world and do worse for a doubtful advantage. I do not think the average man cares to have the lights turned down, and certes great spirits would hardly submit to be reduced to the muck at the hands of vulgarians. The higher the individual development is, the less need there is of law and government. Progressively we should tear down the custom houses and the court houses too; government should be reduced gradually to the vanishing point. The foolish attempt to statutize everything is bred of a distrust of the people and is an underbred reaction to narrowness and restraint – not social enlightenment, but exterior interference. The tendency is not authentic; it cheapens legislation, lessens respect for what may still be necessary in government and law and conflicts with a rational simplicity and the Divine order.
January 15, 1909
Paid the taxes.
Dined at “Little Hungary” – the Café Liberty.
Later I went to a reception at the “Columbia” and enjoyed a few fleeting hours.
Sport’s not a casual party fine,
But parties galore and plenty of wine,
With a girl who dances with grace divine,
And looks in your eye as though she were thine!
January 19, 1909
After luncheon I went up to the Bronx and visited Poe’s Fordham Cottage, where he lived for a while and composed some of his detached, haunting poems. This plain little house reflected the inadequacy of the poetic setting and the res augusta domi* that so often condition the birth or inspiration of genius. It gave an additional pang to the cruelly rendered story of his life, pathetic, misunderstood, and as Burns would say, shot – over by the awkward squad. But sad and glad the moods succeeded, for seeming only may be the aspect hard, while joy dwells in the creative heart. A more cheerful look in may better interpret and be more adequate. The particular suffering and strife in lives peculiarly lived are apt to produce fine results, save up-springings in their particular kind. The one and the other are interwoven, inseparable, yet the achievement should receive an independent judgment. A flower might grow out of an unsavory soil, perhaps by reason of that: it is beautiful nevertheless. – Pure indeed were the reaches of his spirit. – This is only to be lucid and discriminating – a simple, just process one should say, yet not commonly applied. Strangely, we erect monuments and shout fat praises to coarse men, especially of the soldier and statesman type, whose lives were far from unsullied, and condemn unsparingly one of finest quality because of some personal irregularity that had its aspects, a good and at worst harmed chiefly himself: the rest is speculation. Still Poe has a wide fame and a competent body of admirers, though I fancy it is not relatively very numerous. A bust of the poet was unveiled in the park directly opposite, this being the centenary of his birth.
Last spring I saw Shakespeare’s birthplace at Stratford at the time of the festival and was moved as at a solemn music. The master poets quarters were much quainter than the frail Poe’s, but scarcely less contracted and unequal – a rude timbered lodge for the emperor of the mind.
Later in the afternoon I attended the memorial meeting in the auditorium of New York University where appropriate words were spoken and recited. Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie’s address was especially excellent and delivered with a critical confidence.
Each man’s idiom is precious: why ask that it should be different or another. Poe’s output was not characterized by abounding vitality. The more ordinary human interests and meaty effects, such as some intellectual but materialistic critics would have. Slight as it was, it had a delicacy, a distinction of form and essence, and Elfin magic of its own and a genuine potency that may be traced in a numerous progeny of literary children and descendants, whose paternity or original ancestor is too often slight or unrecognized.
*
January 27, 1909
This afternoon in the lower tunnel between Jersey City and Manhattan the last link was made, the last separating obstruction broken through, giving a continuous passage-way between the two cities. It will be several months before the twin tubes are completed and opened for public traffic. The upper tunnels under-running the Hudson river have been in operation about a year. This has been a momentous undertaking and its successful completion will result in many important changes and conveniences of transit and in improved property values. Thus is brought about the land union of Manhattan with the great hinterlands.
January 29, 1909
If you are well educated and refined, particularly if you have a delicate ((diathesis)), it is well occasionally to seek the society of those whom Walt Whitman designated as “powerful uneducated persons”. They supply what you want or lack, and sometimes more than you want. Still it is wonderful how much good you may derive from them. If you are of their kind, reverse the conditions: find in cultivated circles some polish for your rough facets. Naturally in the existing state some repugnance must be (Jan30) overcome, and a comparatively high degree of moral and physical courage is required. But these things are adjusting themselves with the trend of democracy.
February 1, 1909
Return-day: Manners vs. Frankel,
“ “ McCarthy.
Appeared and took judgment in each case.
Leased the store, No. 75 Newark Avenue, for three years and a one month, the term beginning April 1, 1909, at $125 a month.
February 4, 1909
Bar Dinner at the Hotel Astor. Mr. Wall presided. Mr. John S. Wise, Chancellor Pitney, Justice Swayze, Mr. Sullivan (Mark A.), Judge Blair, Judge Carrick and Judge Carey made remarks of a rambling sort. Some of the youngest lawyers sang popular airs. Justice Swayze’s talk was perhaps most considered and appreciated, but Judge Blair’s less serious words came nearer the after dinner – art. One likes more and more what is not endeavored but the efflorescence of a seasoned spirit. Mr. Wise reflected this to some extent and happily.
February 5, 1909
Yesterday I subscribed for fifty shares of the Great Lakes Radio Telephone Company’s Stock, and paid for the same forthwith.
February 8, 1909
The current push of nature that overbears our fine calculations for its own ends, though perfectly natural, is looked askance at and little studied or understood. A frank and honest discussion of the whole matter, with its varied, implications, would give it direction and control, largely insure against frightful dangers and make potently for the health, perpetuity and advancing strength of the race. What pretenses and subterfuges we scuttle under where things the most vital are concerned! Why not let in the light of truth, come out in the open and ride full-panoplied on the plain?
February 12, 1909
The centenary of Lincoln’s birth is being celebrated today throughout the country. A number of men are chronicled to speak and will probably speak in the moderate way, after the fashion of the ((chonicle)) rather than in the voice of talent or the great utterance of genius. I see that Booker T. Washington is to say something. He will probably do as well as any, perhaps better, and it would be only poetic or compensating justice that he should. Father Abraham is entitled to good words from his children.
February 15, 1909
Paid the last instalment of my subscriptions for twenty-five shares of the preferred capital stock of the Colorado Slate Company.
I like to balance the tangible against the intangible in stock transactions; then with proper consideration one can not go far astray.
February 16, 1909
Dinner of the University Club at the Hotel Lafayette, Manhattan. Homer Davenport, the cartoonist, entertained us agreeably with pictures and incidents of his journey into the Arabian desert and of his Arabian horses – some fine specimens. He had with him a Bedouin boy in native costume. Mr. Wortendyke presided and made a few preliminary remarks. The dinner was well served and enjoyed. It was a dark, rainy night, and I took the under-river tubes going and coming back.
------------------------------------------------
February 18, 1909
Princeton Club, Gramercy Park – Club Night.
Mr. George W. Crickfield, of this city has recently brought out a work on Latin America, somewhat vaingloriously styled “American Supremacy”. Glancing over its pages, I got the impression that it took an unsympathetic and too disparaging view of Spanish America. I incline to agree with him on the inexpediency of the Monroe doctrine – a dog in the manger policy. He praises justly the statesmanlike qualities of President Diaz of Mexico and the late Dom Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil. I recall distinctly the latter on his visit to this country – the centennial year. I attended a special meeting of the American Geographical Society, held I believe in Chickering Hall, to receive him. The late Chief Justice Daly presided with charming ease and urbanity, but otherwise the striking notes of the occasion were lapses and forgettings. Bayard Taylor loomed up ponderously in a set speech and after rolling along awhile forgot his piece and came to a sudden halt. I see the obfuscated figure standing with hand to forehead trying to remember. An unconscionably long period of silence seemed to ensue, almost as embarrassing to the audience as the speaker, before he could take the track again or shunt on a siding for refuge and slow down to a fitting stop. Dom Pedro had a broad placid face, brushily bewhiskered, and came forward with a bland smile. He directly began to fumble in his pockets for the manuscript of his address, but it could not be found. It had apparently been mislaid. Its failure to come forth caused a serious, perplexed look to succeed the pleasure of his ovation. I do not think, however, that he showed much concern or was over-much disturbed, but on the contrary enough self-possessed for an arranged part. He turned back and consulted an attendant, who in turn went out in search of the missing document, which was finally recovered and duly read by the emperor. He had a courtly presence and a refined scholarly air, which seemed disassociated from the exigencies of rulers and practical administration, especially in the turbulent countries to the south of us. With the fall of the Brazilian Empire I felt some recession of romance.
February 22, 1909
Colonial Reception at the Woman’s Club, East Orange. It was a Washington reception given to raise funds for a Lincoln memorial in the locality. Many of those present were in the Eighteenth century costumes, and at the march and salute to the flag the assembled effect was indeed attractive and striking. I had a brief talk with Elwell, the sculptor; he showed me a picture of a Lincoln statue he had designed. There were some fine people there, and others indifferent enough. Mrs. Merrill was captivating and gave me several dances. Her husband – John Lenord – is an agreeable fellow, if I may so predicate from a touch and go acquaintance. I found a piece of jewelry which a lady had dropped and handed it to Mr. Merrill to discover the owner. Some of the young girls favored me with dances, even the barn dance, which is now the popular rage, and they naturally diffused the return-to-fairyland atmosphere. Mrs. Donald McLean was one of the patronesses. While she is not so engaging at first glimpse, one becomes aware with her of an interesting personality and some force of character that has kept her well up in patriotic clubs and circles.
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