All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

“Have you read or heard anything of Mr. Booth?”

“Ow, ay, he is just a parfect Goliath o’ conceit, but he isna the man to hold the deil, for a’ his talk.”

“Is there a deil to hold? You know some ministers have given up the idea of personal devil,” I said; and I quite anticipated the look I got in reply,

“Have they? Ay weel, getting rid o’ the Wicked One, hasna got us rid o’ the wicked. Good day to you, ma’am. I’ll be requiring to go ben.”

These scenes were in the early days of the Salvation Army. A short time afterward, I saw Glasgow ministers of the strictest sect of the Calvinistic Pharisees, with their congregations at their heels, following the music of the Moody and Sankey evangelical movement, and I met their leaders as guests in the most exclusive religious families. After my return home Dr. Talmage, then editor of the Christian At Work, asked me to tell him frankly, which side the paper ought to take.

“The popular side,” I answered.

“Is that for, or against them?”

“For them, decidedly. Sankey’s voice draws the crowd, and then they listen to Moody’s speaking, and so the singing may lead to prayer.”

“You think it will be a success?”

“It is a success,” I answered, “and is going to a very great one.”

Then Dr. Talmage turning to Mr. B – the active editor said, “The Christian At Work, will stand with Moody and Sankey, Mr. B – . It is the proper thing to do, I suppose?”

“Yes,” I answered, and he then asked if I had “seen anything of General Booth.”

“I have seen him several times,” I replied.

“What kind of a man is Booth?” Dr. Talmage asked.

“A big man, every way. He is the Cromwell of Dissent.” I heard that he was a passionate little Chartist when he was thirteen years old. I will tell you something, a good name is a good fortune, and the name of the Salvation Army was a kind of inspiration. One day a secretary drawing up a paper wrote, “We are a Volunteer Army,” and Mr. Booth took the pen from his hand, crossed out the word “Volunteer” and wrote in its place “Salvation.” He saw in a moment the splendid capabilities of the word, it fitted itself to the work, as promptly as the stuttering out of the word “tee-to-tal” inaugurated the grand successes of the temperance cause.

They are burying William Booth today, and no one can deny that he has fought a good fight; for he, and only he and his army, reach down to that strata of humanity which has fallen below the churches; and which are emphatically “ready to perish.” And if the Salvation Army only succeeds in facing a man around, or in making him take one step upward, instead of downward, there is hope for his next reincarnation.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LATEST GOSPEL: KNOW THY WORK AND DO IT

“What is our Life? A strange mixture of good and evil; of ill-assorted fates and pathetic acquiescences; and of the overpowering certainty of daily needs, against the world of thoughts, and Shadows.”

…

“The object of Life is to gain wisdom through experience, even one life forces us to this conclusion.”

In this year, 1883, I went to England alone, staying most of the time with Mr. Sam Wilson, who had been my friend and playmate when I was six years old. He was then a very tall fine-looking man of fifty-two years of age, with a beautiful and clever wife, and a son studying medicine in Edinburgh University. His handsome residence, with its wealth of flowers, was in the suburbs of Bradford, Yorkshire, and I remained there for many happy weeks; paying a short visit to London in the interval, and loitering some time around Glasgow, from which port I sailed to New York.

But I had a heartache all the time I was away about Mary, who I feared was going to marry, and I did not wish her to do so. I could not find one objection to the young man she intended to espouse. They had been friends for three years, and were truly attached to each other. He was a clever writer, especially for boys, and the first editor of Harper’s Young People. He was fine-looking, gentlemanly, and quite sufficiently good-hearted for the world he was living in, fond of outdoor sports of all kinds, both on land and water, and a traveler who loved ways unknown and adventurous. I believe he was the first white man who penetrated the recesses of the Everglades. Incidentally it may be noticed, that he was a great friend of the Seminole Indians, who lived in the Everglades, and that to this day, he is regarded by them as their true comrade.

So what chance had I against a lover of such manifold attractions? I knew I must lose, and I thought I could bear it better at a distance. In the middle of the Atlantic one night, I dreamed that Robert came to me and said, “This morning, Mary was married to Kirk Munroe.” He said other things, but they were entirely personal, and may not be repeated; but when I awoke I was consoled and reconciled. And it has always been my way to accept the inevitable as cheerfully as possible, so I told myself “I will now forget.” If Mary was happier with a stranger, than with the mother who had cherished and loved her, and worked for her for thirty-three years, well I must be content to shave my own pleasure to increase hers. Had I not done it all the years of her life? It was no new sacrifice. But I said all such things with a swelling heart, and eyes full of unshed tears. Yet the marriage has been a singularly happy and sympathetic one, and though her home is in southern Florida, she comes every year to spend a month with me. And I am now content in her happiness.

With the main events of my business life, Mary’s marriage made no difference. I wrote constantly, and spent my days mostly in the Astor Library and Lilly or I attended to the office work, as was most convenient. The year 1884 found me writing a story called “Sandiland’s Siller” which I finished on the sixteenth of January, noting in my diary, that I was tired, having composed the last six pages, and copied the last thirty-five pages that day. On the following day I took “Sandiland’s” to Dr. Stevenson of the Illustrated Christian Weekly. I mailed a poem called “He That Is Washed” to Mr. Mabie of the Christian Union, “Three Wishes” to The Advance, two little verses to Puck, and wrote “The Household Thrush” for Mr. Bonner. The first three poems had been written at intervals, while I was working on “Sandiland’s Siller;” “The Household Thrush,” only, was written on the seventeenth. About this latter poem the following incident occurred. It contained five verses, the length Mr. Bonner preferred, and the first three verses referred to the thrush. Mr. Bonner read it, and then turning to Lilly said,

“Too much bird, before you come to the girl.”

“Take some of the bird away, Mr. Bonner,” answered Lilly; and he smiled, cut out one verse, and handed her ten dollars. There were things about Mr. Bonner writers did not like, but all appreciated his clever criticisms, and his prompt payment. When Lilly came home and laughingly told me this story I was much amused. We had a merry little lunch together, and then I made three pencil drawings to illustrate an article called “The Fishers of Fife” which I intended to begin the following day.

The list of work done by me from this time to the twenty-sixth of May is hardly credible. On that day I fell from the library steps while sitting on them reading, and hurt my foot and my neck very much. The next day I had a high fever, and was suffering severely from nervous shock. For nine days I was unable to do anything, and by that time the swollen condition of my throat was alarming, and I sent for Dr. Fleuhrer, a very clever surgeon. For fourteen more days I was under his care, then I began to improve, so that on

June 24th. I began an article on the Scotch Highlands for Mr. Mabie.

June 25th. I was writing on the same. Still in bed but mending slowly.

June 26th. Finished and copied the Highland article.

June 27th. I began “Jan Vedder’s Wife,” and on this day also received fifty-five pounds from London for work done for The Leisure Hour and the Sunday Magazine. Lilly was down at Bonner’s when the checks came, but as soon as I showed them to her, she said,

“Mamma, we have now plenty of money to furnish comfortably. Don’t you want your own home, Mamma?”

“O Lilly!” I cried, “there is nothing on earth I want so much. Dear, dear child, go and look for what will suit us. Go tomorrow! Go this afternoon!”

So that afternoon Lilly went home hunting, and I wrote happily on “Jan Vedder’s Wife” and Alice sat sewing beside me, touching my hand every now and then and smiling. On the twenty-eighth the flat suitable was found, and on the thirtieth I managed to get into a cab and go home. All was in confusion, but such happy confusion, that we did not think of sleeping until midnight.

In a week the new home was in perfect order, and I was able to be on the sofa, and to write “Jan Vedder’s Wife” more swiftly and comfortably. So sweet was home! So good was home, that I now felt all things possible, and really I had not been as happy, since Robert and I went into the wood cottage with its domestic ceilings, in Austin, and turned it into the prettiest and happiest of dwellings. Lilly and Alice furnished the rooms as they desired, and I was quite pleased and full of content.

And it was a great joy when the eleventh of July came round to find that my wedding anniversary was not now to be forgotten. In hotels it had seemed out of place to keep it. I do not know why, but it had always slipped past with a kiss and a word or two. But on this happy day, Lilly set a fine dinner, and Mary sent a wedding cake; we had a bottle of sparkling Moselle, and drank silently but lovingly to the memory of those of our household dwelling in the City Celestial; and our tears of love and hope made the wine sacramental – a pledge and token of our remembrance and our thanksgiving.

There does not seem much to write about in the life of a woman lame and sick, and confined to a flat in an upper Park Avenue. But our existence is always a story, for the fruit of life is experience, not happiness. And every experience that helps us in our ultimate aim of becoming a Spiritual Being, though it be as trite as suffering, is worthy of being considered. Chesterton calls Christ’s counsel to “take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” an amazing command. To the majority it is an amazing command, but writers who love their work understand it. I was busy on “Jan Vedder’s Wife,” and so interested in the story that I forgot I was sick, and the processes of convalescence went right on without my regarding them. When the story was finished I read it to Lilly. It was then complete in four chapters, and she listened to them with critical interest, and when I laid down the manuscript said,

“It is too good for a short story, Mamma; make it into a novel. You have sufficient material and characters, and if the latter are more fully drawn out, the material will be better.”

“But,” I asked, “can we afford it? I shall get one hundred and fifty for it from the Christian Union just as it is, and we need the money.”

“No, we do not,” she replied, “and if we did, I would still say, write it over, Mamma. It is a shame not to write it fully, just because we might want five dollars;” and she pushed my paper and pencils towards me with an encouraging smile. Then I began it all over, and added nearly two hundred pages. When all were corrected and copied I sent it by Lilly to Mr. Bonner. For once this reticent man broke his usual custom, and commented on the work in “the straight-flung words and few,” which reflected him.

“It is a good story, a fine story,” he said. “Take it to Dodd, Mead and Company. It will suit them. It is too good for the Ledger.”

And when Lilly came home, and told me what Mr. Bonner had said, there flashed across my mind a dream I had had a week previously, in which Robert had given me the same advice. Christ said, that if one rose from the dead to inform, or direct us, we would not believe their message, and evidently I had not believed the dead, until they spoke through a mortal whose business capacities I trusted. I have often reproached myself on this score, but – Oh, there is no “but.” I have no excuse for my want of faith.

I had finished the novel of “Jan Vedder’s Wife” on the sixteenth of September, 1884, the seventeenth anniversary of Robert’s death, and on October, the twelfth, I gave up the regular use of crutches, though my foot was extremely weak and painful, and I had nearly constant headaches. But on this date, I began a story called “Janet McFarlane,” which I finished on the twenty-first and sent to the Advance. On the twenty-sixth I began a story called “Paul and Christina,” which was published in the Christian Union and afterwards enlarged to book size and published by Dodd, Mead and Company. On the twenty-eighth, I note that “Mary and Kirk Munroe took tea with us,” so I had by that time conquered my dislike to her marriage; for I do not ask people to eat with me, if I have any ill will toward them. Those who do not understand me, will perhaps live to do so, for

“… soon or late the fact grows plain,
To all through sorrow’s test,
The only folks who give us pain,
Are those we love the best.”

On the first of November I was at the Astor Library again, but did not dare to go upstairs to my alcove. On the second of November I was finishing “Paul and Christina” began on the twenty-sixth of October. On the second, third and fourth of November I was at the library, and on the fifth so ill, I had to summon Dr. Fleuhrer’s help again. I was sick for a week then reviewed and corrected “Paul and Christina” and took it in the afternoon to the Christian Union. On the same day the Sisters from a Religious Order, living near us, began to teach Alice. I say “Sisters” because they were not allowed to go anywhere alone, so one came to teach, and the other came, for what purpose I know not. On the nineteenth I wrote “Going to Church Together,” a poem for Bonner, and a New Year’s article for the Illustrated Christian Weekly; Kirk came to tea. Mary was in Boston with his father and mother. The following day I was at the library and wrote “Lacordaire Dying.” On the twenty-third I wrote “Mary,” a Christmas poem, and Kirk came to tea; we had a pleasant evening, and I wrote in my diary, “He is a nice fellow, after all.” On the twenty-fifth I arranged with the Christian Union for the first study of “Paul and Christina.” They gave me one hundred and twenty dollars, and on the twenty-seventh of November, A.D. 1884, I received a letter from Dodd, Mead and Company accepting “Jan Vedder’s Wife.” It happened to be Thanksgiving Day, and this letter made it a memorable one, for it altered the whole course of my life. I had this letter framed, and it hangs now before me in my study as I write. Time has faded the four lines it contained, but they are graven on memory’s tablet, and the yellow paper and nearly colorless ink cannot hide from me the words of Promise it contained. On the twenty-eighth I saw Mr. Frank Dodd, and arranged with him for the publication of “Jan Vedder’s Wife.” He gave me three hundred dollars for the book, promising to add to this sum if it sold well, and I may mention here, that he subsequently sent me five hundred dollars more. He sent it of his own free will. I made neither claim nor request for it.

Lilly was very proud of this sale, because, as I have related, the book was written at her request. I had not been so far as fortunate with my publishers, as with my editors. Mr. B – of Appleton’s, with whom I transacted the business relating to my volume on the “Children of Shakespeare’s Dramas,” was an unhappy, unpleasant man to deal with; but he is dead, and I think the Scotch reluctance to speak ill of the dead is at least a wise observance. The publisher of “Cluny MacPherson,” and a volume of “Scottish Tales” was hard and dry as a brush. He had some selfish ideas about the society he represented, but he had no feelings. He had ceased to live with his heart. Mr. Jack Howard was just unfortunate. He was the publisher of the Christian Union and my book, “Romances and Realities,” came out just before the house failed, so that I never received a dollar for it. But that was not Mr. Howard’s fault. He was always courteous and generous about any work I did for him.

Lilly was very proud and happy because, as I have related, the book was written by her advice. “And what do you think of Mr. Dodd, Mamma?” she asked, as we eat drinking tea together. “Is he pleasant? Will you like to write for him?”