All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

On the twenty-second of July I was still in Bradford, for I went to lunch with Mrs. Byles. She was a woman, whom if you once saw, you could never forget. Her husband was the clever editor of the Bradford Observer and I think she had been made purposely for him – brains to her finger tips, full of vivid life, a brilliant talker, a perfect hostess, not beautiful but remarkably fascinating – so fascinating that you thought her beautiful. I never saw her but on that one occasion, but she made on me such an impression that if I met her on Broadway today, I should have no hesitation in saying, “I am glad to see you, Mrs. Byles.” At this luncheon, I met also the daughter-in-law of Sir Titus Salt, the discoverer and first maker of alpaca.

On the twenty-fifth of July, I sailed from Liverpool, on the City of Rome, and on the second of August landed at New York. I love England with all my soul, but when I saw the Stars and Stripes flying off Sandy Hook, my eyes filled with happy, grateful tears, for “East or West, Home is Best;” and the land where your home is built, is another native land.

Mary met me at the pier, went out to Cornwall with me, and remained with us until the eleventh of September, when she left for Florida. The rest of the month I was busy on “Feet of Clay” which I finished on the tenth of October. Then I had my apples gathered, got in some large stoves, put up heavy curtains, and prepared the house for winter. On the twenty-seventh, I had a letter from General Sam Houston’s son, in praise of what I had done for his father’s memory, and on the twenty-eighth of October I began making notes for my story of Quakerism called “Friend Olivia.” I was at the Astor Library every day until the twenty-fifth of November when I felt my way clear enough to begin “Friend Olivia.” It was a bright lovely Sabbath, and I had a pious enthusiasm about the work, for my mother’s family were among the earliest of George Fox’s converts, and had suffered many things for the faith that was in them. I worked slowly at first, and did not finish my first chapter until the twelfth of December, nor my second until Christmas Day, when I copied it. After this I became aware of the character I called Anastasia, and every thing relating to her came easily enough, and I had a fancy she was not a bit sorry for her dislike of Olivia and her efforts to injure her. But the year closed with me happily at work on “Olivia,” and seeing my way clearly from the beginning to the end.

The first three months of 1889 I was nearly broken-hearted about Lilly’s affairs. I was writing “Friend Olivia” and found my only relief in losing myself in it. Yet I had some pleasant events in my work. Oscar Fay Adams wrote a fine criticism of my books in the Andover Review. Mr. Clark sent me seven hundred six dollars for “Feet of Clay.” I wrote special articles for the Book News and the Youth’s Companion and the latter offered me five hundred dollars for a story of one hundred pages. Their pages were large, and I could not afford to accept their terms, which were burdened also with several limitations and forbidden topics. It was very unlikely that I should ever have touched these topics, unless forbidden to do so. That temptation might have made me wish to show the censors how innocently, and indeed profitably, they might be touched.

On my fifty-eighth birthday, I had finished thirteen chapters of “Friend Olivia,” but I received on April, the first, a letter from the North American Review, asking me for an article, and I left my novel to write it. While I was thus engaged, I was requested by a minister with whom I had crossed the Atlantic once, to write for him on a certain subject, which I have not noted, and am not quite certain about. It was the request that astonished, and also pleased me, for I feared that my plain criticism on a certain occasion had deeply offended him. It happened that we had walked and talked together at intervals during the week, and that on the following Sabbath morning he preached in the saloon, and I was present. Leaning over the taffrail, that evening he came to me and asked how I liked his sermon?

“The sermon was a good sermon,” I said, “but spoiled in the delivery.”

“Why! How? What do you mean, Mrs. Barr?” he asked.

“Your sermon,” I answered, “was a series of solemn declarations and avowals of faith and belief, and after stating each with remarkable clearness, you invariably concluded with this reflection, ‘It seems to me that no logically sane mind can refuse this truth.’”

“Well,” he said, “that was right.”

“No,” I answered, “it was wrong. Those four words, ‘it seems to me,’ destroyed the whole effect of your argument. You left us at liberty to dispute it, and debate it. What seemed to you true, might not seem so to any one else, if they began to look for reasons.”

“What would you have said, if in my place?”

“If I believed, as you do, I would have said, ‘Friends, I have told you the truth. There is no other truth on this subject. If you believe it, and live up to it, you will be saved. If you do not believe it, and live up to it, there is no salvation for you.’”

“A minister can but give his opinion.”

“He ought to give God’s opinion, that is what he stands up to do, and there is no ‘seems to me’ in that. Excuse me,” I said, “I am a daughter of Levi, and have been used to talking as I feel to ministers all my life. I meant no harm. I was only sorry you took all the salt and strength out of a really good sermon.”

“I thank you!” he said, but he was quiet afterwards, and I soon went away, fearing I had everlastingly offended him. But here was the kindest of letters, with a request that I would write him a short article for a paper in which he was interested. I did so cheerfully, but I put my price on it; for I had discovered by this time, that newspapers value articles according to what they have to pay for them.

I may mention that among the trials of this spring, my big English mastiff was so ill, that we had to send him away for treatment. It was almost like sending one of the family away. He was a noble, loving creature with far more intelligence than is credible.

On the twenty-second of May, I finished all the creative work on “Friend Olivia,” and on the twenty-fourth, having gone carefully over it, I took it to Dodd, Mead and Company, and they sent it to the Century Company, thinking it might suit Mr. Gilder for a serial. Until the third of June I rested, for my eyes and right hand were weary and aching, then I wrote an article for the Book News for which I received thirty dollars. Until the second of July, I wrote articles for the Advance, North American Review, et cetera, and copied some short stories for the Kendal Syndicate, and the Christian World. On the second of July, I began a story of the Cheviot Hills but on the ninth received a letter from Dodd, Mead saying Mr. Gilder liked “Friend Olivia” very much, and wished to see me. The following day I went to see Mr. Gilder, and agreed to rewrite the story suitably for a serial for three thousand dollars; and from this time forward until the sixteenth of September, I was going over “Friend Olivia,” and while arranging it suitably for a serial, was also trying how much richer and better I could make it.

I was abundantly repaid by the following letter from Mr. Gilder, under date of September, 1889.

Editorial Department,The Century Magazine.

My dear Mrs. Barr:

I have finished the story. It closes like music, beautifully. There might be some points that I could wish different, but I do not press them, the whole story is so charming.

In this revisal of “Friend Olivia,” I followed in all matters Mr. Gilder’s advice and suggestions, and so learned much of the best technicalities of fiction. I could not have had a finer teacher. I could not have had a more kind, just and generous one. He rejoiced in good work, and gave it unstinted praise, no matter who was its author. To a soul who had been hardly used by the world in general, it was a kind of salvation to meet such a man.

I owed a great deal of my success with the Century, to Mrs. Grover Cleveland’s praise of “Friend Olivia.” She read the story in manuscript, and spoke so highly of it to Mr. Gilder, that he was induced by her report to read it himself. So one of the first printed copies of the novel was sent to Mrs. Cleveland, who wrote me the following note:

December 2nd.

Dear Mrs. Barr:

Pray do not think that my long delay in replying to your note indicates any lack of appreciation of its kind words, or your thoughtfulness in sending me “Friend Olivia.” I feel a peculiar attachment to the book, because I knew the story when it was so very young. I liked it, and surely need not tell you that your sending it to me yourself, gives me very great pleasure.

I have been away from home ever since your letter came to me, or I should have told you this before.

Pray do not over estimate the effect my interest in “Friend Olivia” has had. The story itself brought you, as you say, “the recognition and success you had patiently worked and waited for during twenty years,” and as I say, which you richly deserved.

May I assure you that I never forget my young friend who loves my picture, and that her mother is often in my thoughts.

Very sincerely,Frances F. Cleveland.

I will only give the letter received from Moses Coit Tyler, regarding “Friend Olivia.” Others of interest will be found in the Appendix if any desire to read them.

Cornell University,Ithaca, New York.Feb. 21, 1891.

My dear Mrs. Barr:

I was much touched by your kind remembrance of me in causing your novel, “Friend Olivia,” to be sent to me; and as my days here are heavily burdened with work, and my reading is almost exclusively on certain professional lines, it was only lately that I have had the opportunity of reading the book as I wanted to do it. We read it aloud in the family evenings, as the leisure came to me, my wife, my daughter, and myself. We were charmed and held from the beginning, but it was not till we had gone through perhaps the first seventy-five pages, that the story grasped us with enthralling power. After that, it was a nightly trial to us all, that I had to cut short the reading, when we were all so absorbed in the story, and the development of the characters; and I want to give you my thanks for the great pleasure, nay for the good cheer, the strong spiritual refreshment and stimulation which the book gave us. I could say much of the power with which the several characters are delineated, of the vivid truth, of the historic elements of the story, and of the masterly handling of the plot. Better than any satisfaction in mere literary success, must be the privilege of portraying, in a fascinating form like that, the beauty, the mighty helpfulness, the calming and sweet power of faith in God, and in the spiritual life. That book of yours will go on helping and cheering people, long after you have passed from this world. If all your literary labors had resulted only in that piece of work, your life would have been lived not in vain.

The reading of this book has given me a new desire to meet you again, and to talk over persons and things with you, and perhaps some day when I have a few hours or days in New York, I may be able to find you with half-an-hour to spare for a chat.

With deep gratitude for your book, and a thousand good wishes for the continuance of your literary successes, I remain

Faithfully yours,Moses Coit Tyler.

For nearly a month after finishing my second copy of “Friend Olivia” I was too tired to do much. Mr. Mead had urged on me the Arcadian background and I saw at once its possibilities, if I might make it historically true. But this would be in direct opposition to what Longfellow and others had done. However as I had the fiction in my own control, I thought it would be possible to make the background, and general atmosphere inoffensive. I made great preparations for this work. I was in New York at the library most of October, and was in communication with the Officer’s Club at Halifax who sent me a great deal of material, also with a Miss Caldwell of Louisiana, whose home was on the great Bayou, where the Arcadians settled after leaving Canada; and she sent me the true history of Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” and much interesting material as to the country, and the descendants of the Arcadians. But not all the work I did, nor yet all the help I received, could create in me the slightest enthusiasm about the story. The people disgusted me. They were so double-tongued and false-hearted, I could have turned their bigotry into intense faith, as I had often done with Calvinism; but their cowardice and unreliability I could not handle, unless I was to show it rightfully punished. And to tell the last truth, I did not see anything romantic in a girl, traipsing the length of the United States seeking her lover. If I could have shown the lover in all sorts of adventures seeking Evangeline, that would have been all right; but the fact was he had speedily married, and was comfortably bringing up a family in the Teche country. I could not bear to think of making a beautiful and innocent girl die for so unworthy a lover, and I did not really pity the woman who could and did deliberately die for him. Her grave at the Poste des Attakapas could not impress me. She ought to have thrown off her false unworthy lover, and if she could love no good man, she could at least have lived to comfort and help the old woman, who had taken her when a friendless babe, and cherished her as her own daughter.

As late as the sixteenth of November, I note being in New York at the library getting the proper patois for Arcadia, and add with an emphasis of under-crossing, “I hate the story.” Until the eleventh of January, 1890, I was writing an article on divorce for the North American Review, in favor of it under proper conditions. Bishop Potter wrote the one on the absolute inviolability of the marriage tie. I think they were in the same number but have forgotten surely. I wrote also many other articles suitable for Christmas and New Year’s. During December, Clark paid me two hundred pounds for “Friend Olivia,” and seventy-five pounds for the book rights of “The Last of the McAllisters.” I also wrote a short story for the McClure Syndicate, being busy on it from the twenty-second to the twenty-eighth of December. I liked to write for McClure’s Syndicate; he always both paid, and praised me well. I can say the same of the Bacheller Syndicate, and though I never see either Mr. McClure, or Irving Bacheller now, I remember them both with the utmost kindness.

On the eleventh of January, 1890, I notice that I threw all the Arcadia matter into a drawer in my study, where it would be out of sight and memory, adding, “I can’t feel that story, so I can’t, and won’t write it!” This neglected, despised Arcadian matter is still occupying the drawer, and I have not looked at it since I put it away, until this morning, when I took from the pile “the true story of Evangeline,” to be sure of the name of the country, to which the Arcadians went after leaving Canada. It was on the Teche Bayou they settled, and Evangeline’s real name was Emmeline Labiche, and her body rests, as I have already said, at the Poste des Attakapas. Probably the Poste is now a town or city, though the Arcadians were by no means an energetic or progressive people.

As soon as I put the Arcadian matter in that drawer, I began a New York story called “She Loved a Sailor.” It contained a vivid picture of New York city life in General Jackson’s time, and is probably the last of the New York series of tales. I have had fewer letters about it, than I usually have about a New York novel, and I wondered at that, because it is within the memories and traditions of many living families. So I have taken it for granted that its localities and data are correct, for if I had made an error some one would have told me of it.

While I was writing this book, on the eleventh of February, Mr. and Mrs. Van Siclen gave me a “Bow of Orange Ribbon” dinner at the Lawyer’s Club. It was a very fine affair, and I kept its artistic menu and bow of ribbon for many years. The guests were mostly Dutch, but I had the great honor and pleasure of having Henry Van Dyke at my right hand. Two things I remember about this dinner. I tasted crabs à la Newburgh for the first time; and then while I was as happy as I could be talking to Dr. Van Dyke, Mr. Van Siclen shocked me by asserting, “Mrs. Barr will now make us a little speech, and tell us how she came to write ‘The Bow of Orange Ribbon.’” I do not believe I had ever heard of a woman speaking at a dinner table before. I had an idea it was absolutely a man’s function. It would then have been as easy to imagine myself doing my athletics in public, as making a speech at a dinner table. I turned to Dr. Van Dyke in a kind of stupefaction, and said only one word “Please!” and he understood, and rose immediately, and made a speech for me that charmed and delighted every one present. Indeed I am inclined to think it was the best speech he ever made. It was so spontaneous that it was not Henry Van Dyke’s speech, it was Henry Van Dyke his very self.

After I had finished “She Loved a Sailor” I took Alice and went to England, leaving in the Bothenia July the second, and returning about September in the Aurania. And after I had finished my business, I gave myself entirely to Alice. She learns best through her eyes, and I took her to everything I thought would interest her. We were fortunate enough to hear Handel’s fine oratorio of “Samson” at the Crystal Palace, with a thousand male and female voices in the chorus; and Sims Reeves in the solos. Ada Rehan was playing “As You Like It” and she went three times to see her, before she was tired. But I think the service at St. Paul’s Cathedral pleased her most of all. Dr. Vaughan preached from “There remaineth a rest,” an eloquent sermon, and the music was heavenly. She was curiously pleased also with the little rush chairs, she thought it seemed “more like sitting with God, than if you were shut up in a pew.” We had a happy happy time. It is the only holiday I have had since Robert died. I gave it to Alice, and she gave it back to me a hundred-fold. It seems like a dream of heaven to remember it.

CHAPTER XXIV

BUSY, HAPPY DAYS

“Days of happy work amid the silence of the everlasting hills, days like drops that fall from the honeycomb.”

…

“Slow, sweet busy hours that brought me all things good.”

After my return we had to consider the winter. During the previous winter we had suffered much from the severe cold, it being impossible to warm the house, when the thermometer sank to twenty, or to even thirty below zero. After some efforts to find suitable winter quarters in the neighborhood we closed the house, and went for a week or two to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I had a business contract pending with Mr. Edwin Bonner, and we knew that a suitable house somewhere near New York would be the best for me. There was one great trouble connected with this arrangement: we had to send our English mastiff to the kennels, and Sultan was really a very much beloved member of the family. He had been given to me by my friend Dr. Bermingham when we first went up the mountain. “It is a lonely place,” said the good doctor, “and you ladies will need a protector.” He was sent from the kennels with a pedigree as long as an English duke’s, and he was positively described as a Saint Bernard. I knew he was an English mastiff of pure breed, as soon as I saw him, and I loved him all the better for it.

Everyone’s dog does wonderfully, but Sultan excelled them all. He could nearly speak, and in the last agonies of death, he did really call “Lilly” as plainly as I could have done. He came to every meal with us, and had his plate and napkin laid next to Lilly, for between Lilly and himself there was the strongest affection. He permitted no other dog on the place, but he talked to all the dogs from far and near through the gate, and they brought him all the news of the mountain. Sometimes he brought it to us, and we always listened and answered, “Is that possible, Sultan?” and he would give a little bark of assent, and lie down to consider it. He liked me to be prettily dressed, and always showed his satisfaction in some unmistakable way. He was most polite to company, met them at the gate, and conducted them to the parlor, invariably lying down at the feet of the prettiest and best dressed person in the company. If I was in England he watched for the mail with Lilly, and listened attentively while she read my letter to him. When she came to the words, “Mamma and Alice send their love to Sultan,” he always answered the message with a little bark of pleasure. Oh, indeed, I could tell still more wonderful things of this affectionate creature, but they would raise a doubt. No one could believe them, unless they had lived with the splendid fellow, and known him as we did. So it was hard to part with him, even for a week or two, but he was large as a mastiff of pure blood can be, and the proprietors of the Fifth Avenue Hotel would not hear of him as a guest.

We went to the hotel on October, the seventeenth, and between that date and the twenty-seventh I made a contract with Mr. Bonner for four serials. I was to deliver two each year, and he was to pay me twenty-five hundred dollars for each, in all, ten thousand dollars. In the meantime Lilly had found a house in East Orange, which was thoroughly warmed, and we moved into it on October the twenty-fifth, and brought Sultan home with us.

We were soon comfortably settled, and on the first of January I had finished the ninth chapter of my first serial for Mr. Edwin Bonner, called “A Sister to Esau.” On the eighth of February it was finished. But the press of business, and the proposals of various publishers, seems to have really made me very unhappy. In a note on the twenty-third of February, when I had had a great deal of business to attend to, I wrote at night, “I am sad and weary with the day, and feel terribly unfit for the considerations I have to face. I have a sense of being politely bullied, and of having suffered a loss of some kind – spiritual, mental or financial – perhaps something in all respects.”

I was much interrupted by callers in East Orange, a great many of whom brought manuscripts, which they were sure I would like to read, and could easily place for them. I had a heartache for the peace and solitude of the little cottage on the mountain. Now the dream of every English man and woman is a home of their own, and I saw this to be a possibility now; and I could think of no place but Cherry Croft. I wanted it for my own. Then I could put in a proper furnace and make it habitable all the year round.

I had finished Mr. Bonner’s serial on the eighth of February; on the fifteenth of February, I began for Lippincott’s “A Rose of A Hundred Leaves.” Its heroine, Aspatria, was one of my favorites. She dwelt among the Fells in one of those large, comfortable farm or manor houses, occupied for centuries by the Sheep Lords of the North Country. I always knew what she was going to do. Sometimes I have wondered, if Amelia had once been Aspatria. Her brothers seemed so near and real to me, and she lived in just such a home, as I have had glimpses of, whenever the Past comes back to me. I finished the book on the fifteenth of March, and Mr. Mead praised the story, which pleased me, because it was the first time he had ever expressed satisfaction with my work.

On the twentieth I went to Cornwall, and bought Cherry Croft, paying for it six thousand dollars in cash. Some told me I had paid too much, others too little, but I was satisfied. The house was not worth much, but there was nearly four acres of land full of fruit and forest trees. And there were the mountains, and the river, and the wide valley view, and that general peace and quiet, that has in it a kind of sacramental efficacy.

I had at this time a great deal of trouble with English houses printing my work, without either payment or permission, and a laughable but provoking incident occurred with the proof-reading of “A Sister to Esau.” In this story, my chief character is a Scotch gentleman, of the most perfervid Calvinism, and the period of the story was the glorious ecclesiastical “departure” of the Free Kirk. Now Mr. Bonner’s proofreader happened to be a strict, strait Methodist, and he altered all the Calvinism to Methodism, which was sheer nonsense in the mouth of a Scotch Chief, and a seceding Free Kirker. However as soon as I explained the circumstances to Mr. Bonner he had the text restored as written, with many apologies for his Methodist proofreader’s conscience.