All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

How well do I remember you, as I used to meet you at the Astor Library more than twenty years ago; and your steady and triumphant march toward literary success since then, it has been a real delight to witness. With sincere congratulations,

Yours faithfully,Moses Coit Tyler.

26, Oct., 1895.

The Independent114 Nassau Street,New YorkAug. 12, 1892.

My dear Mrs. Barr:

I return to you by mail “The Beads of Tasmer” which I have read through with great interest; in fact nearly all before I reached New York, after my delightful visit at your home. It is a capital story. After my return I called on my Newark neighbor, Reverend Dr. Waters, a Scotchman, and I found that he knew the book well, and said it was a good Scotch, and he has read nearly all your stories with great pleasure.

I had a delightful time in your pleasant home. Give my love to the two daughters, and perhaps I ought to say especially, to the one who enjoyed my story of the man who died, and went to Hell, but got out of it again. But you are all in Heaven.

Ever sincerely yours,William Hayes Ward.Crescent Hill,Springfield, Massachusetts,Nov. 13, 1909.

My dear Mrs. Barr:

I saw your friendly expressions of me in your letter to the G. & C. Merriam Co. And I was pleased to receive the Bookman with the excellent portrait of you. Be sure that I cordially reciprocate your sentiments of regard. Your always welcome visits to the Christian Union office are fresh in my memory so that I well remember the thorough, patient, workmanlike beginnings of your literary career.

Then before long you found your wings, and began that course of admirable imaginative fiction, in which you have had so long and enviable success. It is a great thing to have carried entertainment, stimulus, hope to thousands upon thousands, as you have done.

I am sure that in the essential things, life has dealt kindly by you, or I should perhaps say rather, that you and life have met in the right way; but I hope in the externals and incidentals your path has been pleasant to the feet.

With kind remembrances and best wishes,

Yours sincerely,George Merriam.The Marble Collegiate Church5th Avenue and 29th StreetNovember 26, 1901.

My dear Mrs. Barr:

I have been prevented by sickness in my family from getting at “The Lion’s Whelp” until now, and I am in the middle of things. I love a good book, and I love Cromwell, so I am twice blessed in your gift. Everything you do with your pen is well done. I wish all writers were like you.

With thanks and sincere regards,

I am yours,David J. T. Burrell.Avalon,Princeton,New Jersey.

My dear Mrs. Barr:

Thank you for your very kind and cordial letter, and for the gift of “The Lion’s Whelp”; which I shall read with great pleasure. We have already put something about Cromwell’s Time into the Historic Scenes. I was anxious to get a bit about Dutch New York, and for this reason am particularly glad at the prospect of having a scene from “The Bow of Orange Ribbon.” I read “Jan Vedder’s Wife” over again last summer, and enjoyed it more than ever. It is straight, strong work.

Faithfully yours,Henry van Dyke.

Oct. 30, 1901.

Cornell University,Ithaca, New York.

My dear Mrs. Barr:

I greatly enjoyed your lovely letter of about a month ago, and likewise even the winsome book of your story of Shetland; for as to the latter, the pleasure of reading, will have to remain among the joys of the next summer vacation. You see it is term time, and I am usually driven by its tasks as well as by some outside affairs just now.

You are right about our Professor Wheeler; he has a very attractive personality, and the charm of brilliant gifts and attainments. Nor do I wonder at the impression you formed of President White, although it might be modified by better acquaintance. His bodily strength is not exuberant, he holds himself in reserve; he is also a little deaf, and he does not come out so easily as does Wheeler. After so many years, there is a risk in asking about dear ones, but I well remember your two daughters, and should be glad to hear their history.

Sincerely,M. Coit Tyler.

1, May, 1897.

Mrs. Amelia E. Barr.

Dear Madam:

Pardon this intrusion from one who has just finished reading with intense enjoyment “A Maid of Old New York” and who has been fascinated with its deeper meanings – its words of wisdom, written between the printed lines. On reading to my wife your post word, we both felt that you surely intended us to recognize, as you have, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt as the present name of the courageous and dominating soul, known to the day of which you write, as Peter Stuyvesant. I cannot think we are mistaken in this. We were also keenly interested in a sketch which appeared recently in the Hearst papers, of an autobiography shortly to appear from your pen, giving your beliefs and knowledge as to reincarnation and spiritualistic phenomena. We are very desirous of reading this crowning synopsis of your life’s rich experience and unfoldment, and will be very grateful if we may know when it is off the press and from what publisher to obtain it.

Let me close by thanking you personally and heartily for the pleasure and the profit this book has brought to my wife and myself.

Very sincerely yours,Charles Stacey Dunning.The Los Angeles Evening Express,Los Angeles, CaliforniaJuly 14th, 1912540 Washington Avenue,Brooklyn, N.Y.

My dear Mrs. Barr:

Perhaps you do not recall me, as I was but a mite in your busy life, and among so many friends and strangers – Mrs. Terry. I used to call upon you at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and you perhaps remember my daughter and son-in-law, Colonel Allen, whom you met at Fort Monroe. You surely remember you were made an honorary member of the Officer’s Club at the Fort; the only woman ever so honored. I have just finished reading your latest – “Sheila Vedder,” having long ago read “Jan Vedder’s Wife.”

With much love for you, and your stories,

Your admirer,Frances A. M. Terry.

June eleventh, 1911.

Devore, California,June 26th, 1912.

My dear Lady:

Because I must, I am taking this liberty of writing you; and because I am a woman of sixty, I am not stopping to choose words, nor to apologize.

I have been reading of some strange supernatural experiences of yours. I, too, have been favored in that way, also with the gift of prophecy – involuntarily exercised.

The story of the terrific impact of the great hand on the wooden shutter in your home in Galveston, was almost exactly paralleled in my experience.

If your acquaintance with other people has brought you in contact with many who have similar stories to tell, of course you will not be especially interested in mine, but judging from my own life-long investigations, these manifestations are comparatively rare.

Last year before an aviation meet fifty miles away in which a considerable number of entries were made, I announced the name of one who was to fall to his death. I had never seen him, heard no more of him than of any one of the others, but knew he was to die. I even wrote his mother of whom I knew nothing whatever, begging her not to consent to his flight. And at the moment of his fall to death, I fell with him, and told all the particulars to my family, long before the news came over the wire – but I am not trying to convince any one – against his will.

Yours,Emma J. C. Davis.

1

Kendal wig, a very fine tea cake raised with yeast. It is baked and allowed to cool, then cut apart, toasted and buttered.

2

Judging Chartists by their own words we should not now think they merited exile, hard labor, and life imprisonment. I do not suppose I ever understood their claims, but I have looked up their record and I find they were fighting for five not very wicked points: first, universal suffrage, excluding women, which was the great mistake of Chartism; second, the division of England into equal electoral districts; third, votes by ballot; fourth, annual Parliaments and no property qualifications for members; fifth, payments to every member for his legislative services. For advocating these demands, I saw in 1843, at Liverpool Railway Station, a long row of these Chartists chained together on their way to a convict ship which was to carry them to Botany Bay, or Norfolk Island.

3

A Serape Saltillero, is an exceedingly fine blanket in which is interwoven gold or silver threads. It is so soft and fine that it can be carried in the coat pocket. It has an aperture in the centre which goes over the head. Made only in Saltillero, Mexico.

4

An English gentleman who lost his reason on spiritual matters. He lived alone, no one knew just how; but he always came to us for Christmas breakfast.

5

Blue Williams, Confederate paper money.

6

Beowulf, A.D. 600.

7

Mr. Cochran’s opinion has been overwhelmingly refuted by the vast number of Women’s Clubs scattered all over the civilized and semi-civilized world; and more especially so by the suffragist movement of the present day. In this effort for their enfranchisement, the cultured woman and the ignorant woman, the nobly born, and the lowly born, the wealthy woman, clothed in purple, and the poor girl in her clean cotton waist, stand shoulder to shoulder, and plan and work together. Neither are they indifferent to their weak sisters, or afraid of their strong ones. The very clubs for helping the weak, the sick, the poor, and the ignorant, are numberless. Tired mothers are succored by them, deficient and neglected children are their care. The strong ones are demanding clean cities, and healthy food, and are looking after defiled waterways, and the savagely abused forests of the country. Indeed if Mr. Cochran could revisit earth at this day the thing that would amaze him more than all other changes would be the condition of women – their work, their aims, their already vast success, embodying as it does the sure fulfilment of the promise that she should “bruise the serpent’s head” which will be done when woman has put down drunkenness, and cleansed the Augean stables of civil government of its vile methods of bribery, graft, and injustice.

8

It is worth noting that the Manx, a very primitive religious people, restore to a wife as soon as she dies her maiden name. Death instantly absolves her from her thraldom to her husband. She regains her individuality, and with it her birth name, which is put both upon her coffin and her tombstone. It is likely that this custom has its source in the words of Christ – Luke, 20:27, Mark, 12:13, and Matthew, 22:23.

9

To William Libbey, Senior, My First Friend in New York. Mr. Libbey, Senior, was then dead, but he knew.