E.P. Roe: Reminiscences of his Life Part 11

Authors are, as it were, abstractions; they are heard and not seen.

They are heard through their books, which are the concrete essence of themselves; yet the author is, after all, an extremely concrete personage, who strives as hard as anyone for his living, and whose reward is seldom commensurate with his efforts. It is the exceptional great man of literature--the great author being a better ill.u.s.tration than the small one--who is lucky enough to enjoy felicity during his lifetime.

"But I did not start out here to make the old argument--which has been so often a fanciful and sentimental argument--against literature as a remunerative profession. My idea was a simple one: To a.s.sume that authors are more generally hidden from public view than almost any other cla.s.s of men, and that, for this reason especially, the least important bit of gossip touching the private doings, goings, and sayings of authors interests, without question, a very large number of people. The writer of a famous novel or poem may walk the length of Broadway, yet remain absolutely a stranger to the crowd among whom he walks. A n.o.body of a politician pa.s.sing over the same s.p.a.ce would, I am sure, be liberally recognized as a somebody, and not the least sort of a somebody by any means. The stranger to the crowd, however, the author derives practical benefit from the 'charm of mystery.' To be at once celebrated and unknown is for him a desirable condition. His books are read. He piques curiosity. What more could he ask for?

"The Authors' Club, being merely an a.s.sociation of authors, is therefore somewhat outside of public view. Its peculiar distinction is that it brings together various men whom the world honors, and a few more whom the world may or may not learn to honor. It is a very modest little Club, possibly with a very large future before it. If I should praise it for one thing heartily, that would be the good fellowship which animates it and which has permitted it to thrive.

Among the older members of the club--the members who actually possess reputation--are Stoddard, Stedman, Curtis, Edward Eggleston, John Hay, M. U. Conway, Mark Twain, George H. Boker, Henry Drisler, E. P. Roe, Andrew Carnegie, Henry James, E. L.

G.o.dkin, Parke G.o.dwin, S. Weir Mitch.e.l.l, Noah Brooks, and (in an honorary sense) J. R. Lowell, Holmes, Whittier, R. L. Stevenson, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The younger members count such names as Gilder, Lathrop, Bunner, Boyesen, Bishop, Luska, Will Carleton, Rutton, Matthews, McMaster, Miller, Bronson Howard, Mabie, DeKay, Boyle O'Reilly, Thorndike Rice, and others hardly less well known.

Of all the men whom I just mentioned none has a wider reading public than Edward P. Roe, some of whose books have pa.s.sed through twenty or more editions.

"Mr. Roe is one of those authors 'who make money,' whose writing is not thrown on the barren soil of neglect. His income from books is much ampler, I believe, than the income of any other man of letters, obtained from the same source, in America. Because he is so popular he does not necessarily possess the elements of greatness. True greatness seldom 'makes money.' Even brilliant originality in literature has a comparatively small audience. This is the line of logic, since the finest writing appeals only to the finest minds, and the latter are stray blossomings in an oasis of respectability. It is not, in the circ.u.mstances, difficult to explain Mr. Roe's popularity. He tells a pleasant story with unaffected simplicity; he is always on the side of conservative feeling; he is eager to help men and women, as well as to amuse them; he is, in short, the most earnest and effective representative of a numerous 'home gathering' that is now writing in this country. Why, then, should he not be popular? The bold or merely erratic genius of distinctly literary writers might not be appreciated or comprehended by Mr. Roe's public. Even so aggressive a person as that turbulent and pyrotechnic Frenchman, Guy de Maupa.s.sant, attacks criticism in a way which should be a lesson to Mr. Roe's least generous critics. Without any kind of preconception or theory M. Maupa.s.sant says: 'A critic should understand, distinguish, and explain the most opposite tendencies, the most contrary temperaments, and admit the most adverse researches of art.' On such a broad basis of criticism every admissible popularity may be fairly accounted for.

"Mr. Roe, the man, is an exact counterpart, one may say, of Mr.

Roe, the author. As an author, in the first place, he is remarkably candid. He has been so candid, indeed, that the tendency of certain critics to treat him disingenuously is rather absurd. These critics want him to write books, apparently, which he does not propose to write; they overlook the fact that Mr. Roe has stated very clearly just what he desires to write. In a preface to one of his novels he says, in effect, that if his books are not beautiful works of art they are at least books which tender peace and resignation to many lives. (I am not quoting, by the way, but am presenting the idea which must have been in Mr. Roe's mind when he wrote that preface.) There are so many clever books published nowadays which pervert the young and sensitive conscience--a word not included in the vocabulary of our 'disagreeably' artistic novelists--that it may be wise to accept Mr. Roe's novels as good morality, if not as the best literature.

"It is not every author who puts himself into his books. Drunkards have written temperance tracts. Blackguards have written treatises on ideal existence. Posing fops have railed against the hardships which beset n.o.ble ambition. Mr. Roe has written the best that is in him for the best that is in thousands of men and women. I have tried to indicate briefly what he is as an author. As a man, he is not less genial, sincere, and agreeable than his books. The cleverest authors are, as a rule, far more entertaining and astonishing in their books than in themselves. In themselves, to speak the truth, they are not likely to be either entertaining or astonishing. I should look to few of them as acceptable hosts. Mr.

Roe proved himself, and proved how good a host he was, on a recent Sat.u.r.day afternoon, when some thirty or forty members of the Authors' Club accepted his invitation to spend a day at his house and grounds on the historic heights of Cornwall.

"Nearly all those who accepted Mr. Roe's invitation travelled to Cornwall by water. And they were not a bad lot, taking them together. There was E. C. Stedman, for example, the most popular writer among writers, the youngest man, by all odds, for his age--fuller of the exhilaration of youth than most of his juniors by twenty years; C. C. Buel, a.s.sociate editor of the _Century_, who will soon marry Miss Snow, an adopted daughter (if I am not mistaken) of 'John Paul,' otherwise known as Mr. Webb; Mr. Webb himself, wearing that contentedly placid air which he never seems to shake off, and always on time with a good story or joke; A. J.

Conant, whose yarns are famous, and whose tall form swayed benignly under a huge slouch hat; Hamilton W. Mabie, the youthful and smiling editor of the _Christian Union_; W. L. Keese, one of the few men who can speak with authority on the acting of Burton; Theodore L. De Vinne, recently returned from Europe, where he had vast trouble in keeping warm; W. H. Bishop, who has got beyond the 'promising' stage in novel writing and who will spend his summer in France; Henry Harland ('Sidney Luska'), as cheerful as his stories are sombre--just the sort of personality that does not repeat itself in literature; Raymond S. Perrin, who is kind enough to save some of his friends from disaster by presenting his first published book--price $5--to them; W. S. Walsh, close shaven as a priest, and editor of _Lippincott's_; Noah Brooks, once upon a time presiding genius of the Lotus Club, and the author of several charming books for boys; Edward Carey, a.s.sociate editor of the New York _Times_; Leonard Kip, Albert Matthews, John H. b.o.n.e.r, R. R. Bowker, and several representatives of the _Century's_ staff.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TABLET ON BOULDER IN "ROE PARK."]

"When this crowd of writers--numbering about thirty in all--reached Mr. Roe's home, they found Richard Henry Stoddard and Julian Hawthorne installed there. Mr. Stoddard may now be cla.s.sed properly among our 'venerable' poets, although he enjoys excellent health and gets through an immense amount of work. Hawthorne, in a flannel shirt, with a soft red tennis cap on his handsome head, was by far the most picturesque figure of the group. As to the host, Mr. Roe, he is a man of somewhat striking presence. He is of medium height, strongly built, with a gravely pleasant and intelligent face; his dark hair is brushed off a high forehead, his beard and mustache are long and black; he has kindly gray eyes, and his manner is that of a man who has spent the greater part of his life in the atmosphere of home. To do good, to help others--that appears to be his earnest ambition. The notes of religion and morality dominate the note of literature in him. In fact, he is much less an author than a teacher. Once he preached from the church pulpit, now he preaches through his books, and he finds the latter method far more profitable, at least, than the former.

"Mr. Roe does not confine himself, however, to the making of such books as please the great Philistine cla.s.s. He is an authority on the cultivation of small fruits and flowers. What he has written upon this interesting subject possesses scientific value. Upon his grounds at Cornwall he raises some beautiful specimens of the rose, and strawberries as large and luscious as any found in New Jersey soil during June. The day selected for the authors' visit to Cornwall happened to be at the height of the strawberry season, and the manner in which these usually sedate persons made their way to Mr. Roe's strawberry bushes immediately after greeting their host reminded one of the skirmishing of boys in a melon patch. The berries, many of them with the circ.u.mference of a young tomato, were dug remorselessly from their cool shadows, while a particularly hot sun poured down upon the backs of thirty perspiring authors. But the fruit was worthy of the effort used in plucking it, for Mr. Roe has brought strawberry culture to a rare state of perfection. His berries, whether large or small, have a singularly sweet and delicate flavor; they are richly colored, and their meat is as firm as that of a ripe peach.

"Mr. Roe's grounds are quite s.p.a.cious, and lie directly under the shade of Storm King. They are included in the plateau of a hill, and the scenery round about--especially in the direction of the Hudson--is wonderfully varied and picturesque. Mr. Roe's father and grandfather resided at Cornwall, and now a fourth generation of the family is identified with this lovely bit of country. The house occupied by the novelist is not the one built by his ancestors. It is a plain, old-fashioned structure, built as every similar structure should be--with a broad, breezy hall running from end to end, thus dividing the lower part of the house into two comfortable compartments. The various rooms--and there are plenty of them--are neatly but not pretentiously furnished, books and pictures being their chief ornaments. On the top floor Mr. Roe has his workshop--a long, narrow, uncarpeted room, under a slanting roof, well ventilated, and filled with lazy lounges and chairs, common book-shelves, a large writing-desk, and a cabinet containing specimens of Hudson River birds. Mr. Roe's latest hobby is to collect birds and to study their songs. He stuffs the birds and jots down in a note-book brief comments upon their songs. He is endeavoring, especially, to make an exact list of the time--to the fraction of a second--at which each bird begins to sing in the early dawn. 'I like to get my facts from nature,' he said to me, 'not from other men's books.'

"Mr. Roe is one of the most hospitable of men, a fact which his thirty author-friends would have discovered if they had not known that it was a fact. A day seldom goes by that does not bring him a visitor who receives a royal welcome; a night seldom pa.s.ses that does not find occupants for his spare rooms. Whoever takes the trouble to call upon him he is glad enough to see. If his half-million readers could call upon him simultaneously they would be led cheerfully to the strawberry patch. Authors may thrive on the stones of a city because they must; but the ideal home for an author is that of E. P. Roe at Cornwall.

"GEORGE EDGAR MONTGOMERY."

"It was on one of the most delightful days of last month that Mr.

Roe received in an informal way at his hillside home his fellow-craftsmen of the Authors' Club of New York.

"A rambling old house placed back from the road and perched upon one of the many hilltops that rise from the river in that most picturesque section known as the Highlands of the Hudson, Mr. Roe's home had about it that air of comfort and serenity that one would naturally imagine as the most appropriate surroundings for the author of 'Nature's Serial Story.'

"Mr. Roe was so peculiarly a companionable man that his friends were legion, and among the busy workers who const.i.tute the Authors'

Club none were more popular than he--the busiest worker of them all.

"He met us at the landing, his genial face speaking a welcome even before his voice was heard, and 'Roe! Roe! Roe!' came the greeting from his expectant guests ere they filed off the boat. He saw that we were all comfortably bestowed in the numerous carriages that he had in waiting, led the procession up the steep road that climbed the Cornwall hills, and standing at the foot of his veranda steps, welcomed each visitor who 'lighted down' with his cheery smile and his cordial hand-clasp. He turned us loose in his strawberry bed--that pet domain of one who had so practically shown how it was possible to achieve 'Success with Small Fruits;' he loaded us with roses--dear also to one who lived as he did 'Near to Nature's Heart;' and then with brief words of hospitality that were alive, hearty and inspiring, he bade us make free with his house and home for the day. That we enjoyed it, every action testified. Released from care and labor for a day, surrounded by all the attractions that make a June day among the Highlands doubly delightful, and made so cordially to feel ourselves at home, enjoyment was easy, and the day was one to be marked with a red letter by all whose good fortune it was to have been one of that merry party.

"Mr. Roe's Cornwall home showed the lover of Nature and of his chosen profession. 'This has been your inspiration here, has it not?' I asked. 'Yes,' he replied, with a loving glance at the quiet country landscape that we overlooked from the broad veranda; 'here and hereabouts I have got very much of my material. I love it all.'

"The comfortable rooms of that quaint, old-fashioned house had many a touch that showed the affection for his surroundings.

"'Well, Roe,' said Stedman, ever ready with his apt quotations, 'this castle hath a pleasant seat,' and he said truly. The homelike house, the thrifty farm-lands, the verdant patches filled with fruits and flowers, and the green growths of the kitchen garden bespoke the man who added to the gentleman-farmer the practical student of the helpful products of the earth.

"'Down there,' he said, indicating one portion of his land, 'I have planted twenty-five varieties of peas. I wish to test them, to study their quality and discover which are the best for the producer to raise and which have the best flavor. I like to make these experiments.'

"A bountiful spread for the sharpened appet.i.tes of those who found in that flower-laden air an increase of desire awaited us in the cool dining and reception-rooms--thrown into one to comfortably seat so large a company--and it was a question who enjoyed it most, guests or host, for his kindly attentions and his invitation to eat and spare not gave an extra sauce to the good things offered us. An after-dinner ride through the charming country thereabout, so many sections of which had been written into his characteristic stories; a siesta-like reunion beneath the shade of the trees that dotted his ample lawn and almost embowered his home; an oft-repeated desire that we should not go city-ward until 'the last train;' a quiet chat as this most delightful of hosts pa.s.sed from group to group; the zest with which the pleasant-faced wife and the son and daughter of our host seemed to enter into his and our enjoyment of the day--these, and the many minor details of a June day's outing among the historic Highlands that may not find expression here, gave to us all an experience that no one among us would have missed, and which each one of us will recall with peculiar and tender memories now that the good man who made them possible to us has dropped his unfinished work and left us so suddenly and so unexpectedly.

"ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS."

Of the many tributes to my brother's memory I shall here quote but two.

The first is from Julian Hawthorne and is addressed to the Editors of the _Critic_; the second is the resolution of sympathy sent to Mrs. Roe by the members of the Authors' Club.

"You will probably be asked to find room in your columns for many letters from the friends of E. P. Roe. I apply for admission with the others, on the ground that none of them could have loved him more than I did. The telegram which to-day told me of his death has made my own life less interesting to me. He was so good a man that no one can take his place with those who knew him. It is the simple truth that he cared for his friends more than for himself; that his greatest happiness was to see others happy; that he would have more rejoiced in the literary fame of one of his friends than in any such fame of his own winning. All his leisure was spent in making plans for the pleasure and profit of other people. I have seen him laugh with delight at the success of these plans. As I write, so many generous, sweet, n.o.ble deeds of his throng in my memory,--deeds done so un.o.btrusively, delicately and heartily,--that I feel the uselessness of trying to express his value and our loss. He was at once manly and childlike: manly in honor, truth, and tenderness; childlike in the simplicity that suspects no guile and practises none. He had in him that rare quality of loving sympathy that prompted sinners to bring their confessions to him, and ask help and counsel of him,--which he gave, and human love into thebargain. Among his million readers, thousands wrote to thank him for the good that his books had awakened in their souls and stimulated in their lives. He knew the human heart, his own was so human and so great; and the vast success of his stories, however technical critics may have questioned it, was within his deserts, because it was based on this fact. No one could have had a humbler opinion of Roe's 'art' than he had: but an author who believes that good is stronger than evil, and that a sinner may turn from his wickedness and live, and who embodies these convictions in his stories, without a trace of cant or taint of insincerity,--such an author and man deserves a success infinitely wider and more permanent than that of the skilfulest literary mechanic: and it is to the credit of our nation that he has it."

Authors' Club, 19 West 24th Street, New York.

January 19, 1889.

MRS. E. P. ROE,

DEAR MADAM--I am instructed by the General Meeting of the Authors'

Club to communicate to you the following minute of a resolution that was then adopted. It runs as follows:--

"On motion of Mr. E. C. Stedman it is unanimously resolved that by the death of Mr. E. P. Roe this club has lost a member who was endeared to his fellow-members by more than ordinary ties. His kindly disposition and charm of conversation and manner, his wide charity, made him an always welcome companion, and though circ.u.mstances did not admit of his frequent attendance at its meetings, his constant interest in the club was evinced by numerous attentions which showed that he was present in spirit if not in person.

"This club recalls with a sense of sorrowful satisfaction that the last act of the late Mr. Roe in connection with the club was the generous entertainment of its members by himself and his wife, a few weeks before his death, at his home at Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, an event which will ever dwell in the grateful remembrance of those who were present on the occasion, and in scarcely a less degree of those members who were unable to avail themselves of the privilege.

"At its Annual Meeting this club desires to a.s.sure Mrs. Roe and the members of her family of its sincere sympathy with her in the bereavement which she has sustained, to convey to her its grateful acknowledgment of the abundant hospitality she exercised toward the club on the occasion of its visit to her home last June, and to thank her for her generous gift of an admirable portrait of her late husband."

I have the honor to be, Madam, with great respect,

Your faithful servant,

A. B. STAREY, Secretary Authors' Club.

CHAPTER XIV

AN ACCOUNT OF E. P. ROE'S BOOKS

A few more pages will be given to an account of the circ.u.mstances under which my brother's books were written, including mention of some incidents which suggested the stories.

His first novel was "Barriers Burned Away." Speaking of this venture he said at one time:--"I did not take up the writing of fiction as a means of livelihood, nor to gratify ambition. When I heard the news of the great fire in Chicago I had a pa.s.sionate desire to see its houseless, homeless condition, and spent several days among the ruins and people, who found refuge wherever they could. I wandered around night and day, taking notes of all I saw, and there the plot of my story was vaguely formed."

When Edward had written about eight chapters of this book, as has been said, he read them to Dr. Field and his a.s.sociate editor, Mr. J. H.

Dey. He would not have been greatly surprised had they advised his throwing the ma.n.u.script into the burning grate before them, but, instead, they requested him to leave it with them for serial publication in _The Evangelist_.

In the intervals of his busy life at Highland Falls the story grew into fifty-two chapters. He wrote when and where he could,--on steamboats and trains as well as in his study,--the ma.n.u.script often being only a few pages ahead of its publication. His characters took full possession of his imagination and were very real to him.

The serial continued for a year. The next thing was to secure a publisher for the book. Mr. Dodd, senior member of the firm of Dodd, Mead, and Company, said once when questioned in reference to this subject:--"Mr. Roe brought his ma.n.u.script to us one day. We read it and made him an offer. At that time we looked upon the venture as purely experimental. Mr. Roe accepted our offer, and we announced the book. In a short time letters began to pour in upon us from people who had seen our announcement, and had also read as much of the story as had appeared in _The Evangelist_, asking when the book would be published.