All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography Part 48

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 finis.h.i.+ng "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 _Ill.u.s.trated 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?"

"Yes," I answered. "He is pliant, yet resistant. I dare say he keeps his heart within his head, and so makes an even balance between business keenness and moral emotions."

"I do not see that, Mamma."

"It is plain enough, Lilly. The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions. So is the heart. We may often trust the latter most safely. I do. Mr. Dodd would consult both."

"Is he a religious man?"

"How can I tell? I think so, but I am quite sure he is a straight, clean-living man."

"Is he nice looking?"

"Quite as nice as there is any necessity to be. The spirit of his face is attractive--that is enough."

"Is he anything like A----?"

"Walking majestically, and radiating awe and temper. No, Lilly, not in the least."

"Or like B----?"

"Self-conscious to the finger tips. No, not in the least."

"Then like F----?"

"A Philistine, proud of his cla.s.s, and cheerfully living in Ascalon.

No, you are far wrong yet."

"Then like Dr. D----?"

"When his conscience is taking its usual six days' sleep. No, you have not guessed at any resemblance. Publishers are as distinct a type of manhood as schoolmasters. They are even different from press men and editors. The latter are often compelled by their duties to waste their moral strength in politics, and their intellect in party journalism.

Publishers can mind their own business, and are in no way injured by doing so."

Thus we talked, as we eat and drank, but without any ill-nature. With the kindly race of editors I had, and have, the strongest sympathies.

All that I have known have been kind and helpful to me, and if at times they showed a trifle of the petty unreasonableness of men dressed in a little brief authority, it did not hurt me. I said to myself--how true and striking that phrase is--I said to myself, "It is not you that offends, Amelia. It is something at his home, or down in the office--an unpleasant breakfast, or a disagreeable letter." So I bore no rancor, and at the next interview all was right. G.o.d was very kind and thoughtful for me, when he set me my work among such a kindly, clever, gentlemanly cla.s.s of workers as editors.

And I confess that I like people with tidal fluctuations of mood and temper. They are full of surprises; you always feel an interest in them. You think about them, and talk of them, and feel that they are as human as yourself. They are far more pleasant than men always cold, businesslike, reticent, polite. These latter are the men you desire to see in bronze, or marble, or even in encyclopedias, rather than in editorial chairs. Even if they are religiously perfect, they are unpleasant in a newspaper sanctum. For it is a trial to our faith in creeds, to find that in business matters, the justified are as selfish and unlovely as the reprobate. So though it is quite correct, that two and two make four, I have a liking for the man with whom the sum of two and two is variable. It is often five and six with me, and it may be ten or twenty, but when it is so, I trust humanity and love G.o.d best of all.

If I now copy the closing entry in my diary for the year 1884, it most truly describes my condition at that time.

_Dec. 31st._ A day of great suffering. I am still very far from well. I have been seven months ill. How my heart would have quailed at the _prospect_ but G.o.d has been sufficient. My throat is very bad, my foot, also, and I am generally weary and worn out--and very feeble. Only, thank G.o.d, my mind never fails, nor my heart--often. I know in Whom I have trusted for fifty-three years, and I can trust Him for all the rest. I have been copying the "Preacher's Daughter," but twenty-four pages wearied me. Mary is in Florida. All the rest as usual. G.o.d of my Fathers, accept my grat.i.tude for all Thy great mercies to me.

AMELIA E. BARR.

1507 PARK AVENUE, N.Y.

I open 1885 with the following lines:

Commit Thy ways unto the Lord.

Thy Bread shall be given, and thy water sure.

Let thy widows trust in me.

The first and the last of these directions, were given to me in answer to prayer; the center one was my father's promise to me, when I bid him farewell forever in this life. I notice, nevertheless, that I am anxious about money matters, that I have six hundred dollars owing me, and cannot collect a dollar, and that I fear the _Ledger_ is not in good circ.u.mstances; nothing has been said, I write, and all appears the same, but I _feel_ a change of some kind. I was copying the "Preacher's Daughter," but was weak, and it was hard work.

On the fifth of January I note that Dodd, Mead and Company paid me three hundred dollars for "Jan Vedder's Wife," and that I had a letter from London promising me money for my work soon, and that I also received a small check from _The Advance_. So once more I found out how good it is to commit my way unto the Lord, and that He brings things to pa.s.s, I cannot move. On the eleventh I see that Lilly was out all day among the shanties with Father B----, a Catholic priest "in the world," a man of great mercy and piety, with an intellect keen and well cultivated. There were many shanties on the rocks in our vicinity, and Lilly's missionary spirit had led her to make friends in all of them. She found them Roman Catholics in theory, but altogether negligent in practice. So she took Father B---- to stir up their faith, which he did with an authority they feared and obeyed.

I was ill and nervous at the time, and it did not please me. I asked her what her Grandmother Barr would say, and I a.s.sured her she would never leave her a s.h.i.+lling.

"I don't care either for her s.h.i.+llings or her pounds," Lilly answered.

"I don't want them. If I have helped one soul back to its faith in G.o.d, or even to its faith in good angels to help it to G.o.d, that is better than all the gold in Scotland."

"Angels!" I said. "Do you call Father B---- an angel? and what kind of a way will he lead them?"

"A good way. The way of prayer. And also he will see that they take it. Now that he has found these few sheep in the wilderness, they will have to go back to the fold. That will be good for them everyway."

"Well, Lilly, I hope you will not take his way."

"Mamma, dear, we are all going to G.o.d, and some like the Roman Catholic way. My own forefathers for eight hundred years did so. They could not all be wrong--abbotts and priors and priests and nuns, all of them. They could not all be wrong."

"Nor right."

"Well none of us can deny that while the Huddlestons were of the old profession, they were famous and prosperous. They turned Protestant when that little German body that couldn't speak a word of English, came to govern us. The idea!"

"Are you going to turn Catholic after all?"

"I am going to be just what my Bible makes me."

For I may as well state here that Lilly, though born in the very citadel of Calvinism, was a natural Catholic. She loved its ritual, and frequently went to confession. At one time it took all my pleading and influence, and all Dr. Tyng's eloquence to keep her out of a convent, and I had a year or two of constant fear and watchfulness.

This was the year we lived on Lexington Avenue opposite the Dominican Church. There was at that time a priest there called Father McKenna, a holy man entirely separate from the world, night and day either before the altar, or among the most miserable of the living and the dying; and I think he was her inspiration.

For long centuries Lilly's ancestors had been priests in the old profession, and Furness Abbey is full of their memorial stones as Abbotts of that rich and powerful brotherhood. Catholicism was in her heart and her blood, and she was animated by all the pa.s.sionate missionary spirit of the old faith. I had much suffering and long months of miserable anxiety on this subject, and doubtless Lilly was just as unhappy, but this is one of those domestic tragedies not for the public ear, and I do not know how I came to write so much about it.

I will, however, let it stand, for I would not be astonished if she yet went back to the Roman Church. Her soul has evidently belonged to it in all its incarnations, and I know that whenever she is in trouble or perplexity she goes to a Catholic priest for advice. One day I asked her, "Why?"

"Because," she answered, "they never snub or ask me 'whose daughter art thou.' They know immediately that I am a Protestant, but they never turn me away. Kindly, and without prejudice they give me the best advice. It never comes out wrong."

"But why not go to G.o.d for advice?"