Memoirs by Charles Godfrey Leland Part 13

I remember an amusing incident in the office. Mr. Cadwallader asked me one day to call, returning from my lunch, on a certain Mr. Dimpfel, one of his clients, leave a certain message and his request as follows:--"I want you, Mr. Leland, to be _very careful_. I have observed that you are sometimes inaccurate in such matters, therefore be sure that you give me Mr. Dimpfel's _very words_." Mr. Cadwallader knew French and Spanish perfectly, but not German, and was not aware that I always conversed with Mr. Dimpfel in the latter language. When I returned my teacher said--

"Now, Mr. Leland, can you repeat accurately _word for word_ what Mr.

Dimpfel said?" I replied:

"Yes. _Der Herr Dimpfel la.s.st sich grussen und meldet das er Montag kommen wird um halb drei_. _Und er sagt weiter_ . . . "

"That will do," cried Mr. Cadwallader; "you must give it in English."

"I beg your pardon," was my grave reply, "but you asked for his very words."

I began to write for publication in 1849. Mr. John Sartain, a great engraver, established a magazine, to which I contributed several articles on art subjects, subsequently many more on all subjects, and finally every month a certain number of pages of humorous matter. A man named Manuel Cooke established in Philadelphia a _Drawing-Room Journal_. For this I wrote a great deal for a year or two. It paid me no money, but gave me free admission to theatres, operas, etc., and I learned a great deal as to the practical management of a newspaper.

The first summer after my return we went to Stonington, and thence to visit our friends in New England, as of yore. At Dedham I had an attack of cholera; my uncle, Dr. Stimson, gave me during the night two doses of laudanum of fifty drops each, which cured me. Father Matthew came to Dedham. I went with a very pretty young cousin of mine named Marie Lizzie Fisher, since deceased, to hear him preach. After the address, meeting the Father, I went boldly up and introduced myself to him, and then Miss Fisher. I think that his address must have deeply affected me, since I was obliged to stop on my way home to take a drink to steady my nerves. It was against the law at that time to sell such "poison," so the hotel-keeper took me and my paternal uncle, George, who treated, down into the cellar, where he had concealed some Hollands. I can remember that that pleasant summer in Dedham I, one Sunday morning in the church during service, composed a poem, which in after years even found its way into "The Poets and Poetry of America." It began with the words--

"O'er an old ruined doorway Philosophus hung, And madly his bell-cap And bauble he swung."

It was a wild mixture of cosmopolitanism and Hamletism, and it indicates accurately the true state of my _cor cordium_ at that time. Earnest thought, or a yearning for truth, and worldly folly, were playing a game of battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k, and I was the feathered cork. There is a song without words by Mendelssohn, which sets forth as clearly as Shakespeare or Heine could have done in words, deep melancholy or unavoidable suffering expressing itself merrily and gaily in a manner which is both touching and beautiful, or sweet and sad. Without any self- consciousness or display of sentimentalism, I find deep traces of this in many little poems or sketches which I wrote at that time, and which have now been forgotten. I had been in Arcadia; I was now in a very pleasant sunny Philistia; but I could not forget the past. And I never forgot it.

Once in Paris, in the opera, I used in jest emphatically the Russian word _harrascho_, "good," when a Russian stranger in the next box smiled joyously, and rising, waved his glove to me. Once in a brilliant soiree in Philadelphia there was a Hungarian Count, an exile, and talking with him in English, I let fall for a joke "_Ba.s.sama terem-tete_!" He grasped my hand, and, forgetting all around, entered into a long conversation. It was like the American who, on finding an American cent in the streets in Paris, burst into tears. So from time to time something recalled Europe to me.

I went now and then to New York, which I liked better than Philadelphia.

I was often a guest of Mr. Kimball. He introduced me to Dr. Rufus Griswold, a strange character and a noted man of letters. He was to his death so uniformly a friend to me, and so untiring in his efforts to aid me, that I cannot find words to express his kindness nor the grat.i.tude which I feel. He became the editor of a literary magazine which was really far in advance of the time. It did not last long; while it endured I supplied for it monthly reviews of foreign literature.

There were not many linguists on the American press in those days, and my reviews of works in half-a-dozen languages induced some one to pay a high compliment to the editor. It was Bayard Taylor, I believe, who, hearing this, declared honestly, and as a friend, that I alone deserved the credit. This was repeated by some one to Dr. Griswold in such a form that he thought _I_ had been talking against him, though I had never spoken to a soul about it. The result was that the Doctor promptly dismissed me, and I felt hurt. Mr. Kimball met me and laughed, saying, "The next time you meet the Doctor just go resolutely at him and _replace yourself_. Don't allow him a word." So, meeting Dr. Griswold a few days after in Philadelphia, I went boldly up and said, "You must come at once with me and take a drink--immediately!" The Doctor went like a lamb--not to the slaughter, but to its milk--and when he had drunk a comforting grog, I attacked him boldly, and declared that I had never spoken a word to a living soul as to the authorship of the reviews--which was perfectly true, for I never broke the golden rule of "contributorial anonymity." So the Doctor put me on the staff again. But to the end of his life I was always with him a privileged character, and could take, if I chose, the most extraordinary liberties, though he was one of the most irritable and vindictive men I ever met, if he fancied that he was in any way too familiarly treated.

Kossuth came to America, and I was almost squeezed to death--right against a pretty German girl--in the crowd at his reception in Philadelphia. At the dinner in New York I met at Kimball's house Franz Pulszky, and sat by his wife. I have since seen him many times in Buda- Pest.

There lived in Philadelphia a gentleman named Rodney Fisher. He had been for many years a partner in an English house in Canton, and also lived in England. He had long been an intimate friend of Russel Sturgis, subsequently of "Baring Brothers." He was a grand-nephew of Caesar Rodney, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a son of Judge Fisher, of Delaware. He was a man of refined and agreeable manners and an admirable relater of his innumerable experiences in Europe and the East. His wife had been celebrated for her beauty. When I first met her in her own house she seemed to me to be hardly thirty years of age, and I believed at first she was one of her own daughters. She was without exception the most amiable, I may say lovable person whom I ever met, and I never had a _nuance_ or shade of difference of opinion with her, or know an instant during which I was not devoted to her. I visited his house and fell in love with his daughter Belle, to whom I became, after about a year, engaged. We were not, however, married till five years after. Thackeray, whom I knew well, said to a Mr. Curtis Raymond, of Boston, not long before leaving for England, that she was the most beautiful woman whom he had seen in America. I cannot help recording this.

I need not say that, notwithstanding my terrible anxiety as to my future, from this time I led a very happy life. There was in Philadelphia a very wealthy lady called its Queen. This was Mrs. James Rush. She had built the finest house in our city, and placed in it sixty thousand dollars'

worth of furniture. "_E un bel palazzo_!" said an Italian tenor one evening to me at a reception there. This lady, who had read much, had lived long in Europe and "knew cities and men." To say that she was kind to me would feebly express her kindness. It is true that we were by much mutual knowledge rendered congenial. She invited me to attend her weekly receptions, &c., with Miss Fisher. There we met and were introduced to all the celebrated people who pa.s.sed through Philadelphia. One evening I had there, for instance, a conversation in German with Mme. Sontag, the great singer, as with Jerome Bonaparte, the nephew.

When the summer came I joined Mr. Fisher and his two daughters--the second was named Mary--in a tour. We went to New York, thence up the Hudson, and eastward to Boston. After a day's travel we came to a town on the frontier line, where we had to stop for two hours. Mr. Fisher and I, being very thirsty and fatigued, went into a saloon in which were two bars or counters. Advancing to the second of these, I asked for brandy.

"We don't sell no brandy here," replied the man. "This is in Ma.s.sachusetts: go to the other bar--that is in New York." In an instant we left New England for the Middle States, and refreshed ourselves.

Thence we went to Springfield and saw the armoury, where guns are made.

Thence to Boston, where we stopped at a hotel. I went with Miss Belle Fisher for a day's excursion to Dedham, where my mother and sisters were on a visit. It was very pleasant.

From Boston we went to Newport, and stayed at the Ocean House. There I found Milton Sanford, a connection of mine and a noted character. He had lived in Florence and known Browning and his wife. He was, I believe, uncle of Miss Kate Field. He introduced me to Colonel Colt, the celebrated inventor or re-discoverer of the revolver; to Alf. Jaell, a very great pianist; and Edward Marshall, a brother of Humphrey Marshall.

Sanford, Colt, Marshall, and I patronised the pistol-gallery every day, nor did we abstain from mint-juleps. I found that, in shooting, Colonel Colt could beat me _at the word_, but that I always had the best of it at a deliberate "take-your-time" shot. There, too, were the two brothers Burnett, whom I had met long before in Heidelberg. What with drives and b.a.l.l.s and other gaiety, the time pa.s.sed pleasantly enough.

As I spoke German, I became intimate with Jaell. He could not sing at all. Once I suggested to him that he should compose variations on an air, a German popular song. For a day or two he hummed it as well as he could. On the third morning he took me into a room where there was a piano, and asked me to sing while he played accompaniments. All at once he said, "Stop! I have got it!" and then he played the air with marvellously beautiful variations. He was a great genius, but I never heard him play in public as he played then. He was in a "high hour." It was wonderful. I may here say that in after years, while living at a hotel, I became well acquainted with Thalberg, and especially with Ole Bull, the violinist, who told me much about Heine.

So time rolled on for three years. I pa.s.sed my examination and took an office in Third Street, with a sign proclaiming that I was attorney-at- law and _Avokat_. During six months I had two clients and made exactly three pounds. Then, the house being wanted, I left and gave up law. This was a very disheartening time for me. I had a great many friends who could easily have put collecting and other business in my hands, but none of them did it. I felt this very keenly. Quite apart from a young man's pushing himself, despite every obstacle, there is the great truth that sometimes the obstacles or bad luck become insuperable. Mine did at this time.

The author of "Gossip of the Century" has well remarked that "it has been said that however quickly a clever lad may have run up the ladder, whether of fame or fortune, it will always be found that he was lucky enough to find some one who put his foot on the first rung." Which is perfectly true, as I soon found, if not in law, at least in literature.

I went more than once to New York, hoping to obtain literary employment.

One day Dr. Rufus Griswold came to me in great excitement. Mr.

Barnum--the great showman--and the Brothers Beech were about to establish a great ill.u.s.trated weekly newspaper, and he was to be the editor and I the a.s.sistant. It is quite true that he had actually taken the post, for which he did not care twopence, only to provide a place for me, and he had tramped all over New York for hours in a fearful storm to find me and to announce the good news.

Then work began for me in tremendous earnest. Let the reader imagine such a paper as the London _Ill.u.s.trated News_ with one editor and one a.s.sistant! Three men could not have read our exchanges, and I was expected to do that and all the minor casual writing for cuts, or cutting down and occasional outside work. And yet even Mr. Barnum, who should have had more sense, one day, on coming in, expressed his amazement on seeing about a cartload of country exchanges which I had not opened. But there was something in Philadelphia which made all work seem play to me, and I long laboured from ten in the morning till midnight. My a.s.siduity attracted attention.

Dr. Griswold was always a little "queer," and I used to scold and reprove him for it. He had got himself into great trouble by his remarks on Edgar A. Poe. Mr. Kimball and others, who knew the Doctor, believed, as I do, that there was no deliberate evil or envy in those remarks. Poe's best friends told severe stories of him in those days--_me ipso teste_--and Griswold, naught extenuating and setting down naught in malice, wrote incautiously more than he should. These are the words of another than I. But when Griswold was attacked, then he became savage.

One day I found in his desk, which he had committed to me, a great number of further material collected to Poe's discredit. I burnt it all up at once, and told the Doctor what I had done, and scolded him well into the bargain. He took it all very amiably. There was also much more matter to other men's discredit--_ascensionem expectans_--awaiting publication, all of which I burned. It was the result of long research, and evidently formed the material for a book. Had it ever been published, it would have made Rome howl! But, as I said, I was angry, and I knew it would injure Dr. Griswold more than anybody. It is a pity that I had not always had the Doctor in hand--though I must here again repeat that, as regards Poe, he is, in my opinion, not so much to blame as a score of writers have made out. The tales, which were certainly most authentic, or at least apparently so, during the life of the latter, among his best friends regarding him, were, to say the least, discreditable, albeit that is no excuse whatever for publishing them. I have always much disliked the popular principle of judging men's works entirely by their lives, and deciding against the literary merit of _Sartor Resartus_ because Carlyle put his wife's money to his own account _in banco_.

And it is, moreover, cruel that a man, because he has been a poet or genius or artist, must needs have every weakness (real or conjectured) in his life served up and grinned at and chatted over, as if he forsooth were a clergyman or some kind of make-believe saint. However, the more vulgar a nature is the more it will gloat on gossip; and herein the most pretentious of the higher cla.s.ses show themselves no better than the basest.

I lived at Dan Bixby's, at the corner of Park Place and Broadway, where I came very near being shot one night by a man who mistook me, or rather my room, for that of the one below, in which his wife was, or had been, with another person. Being very tipsy, the injured individual went one storey too high, and tried to burst in to shoot me with a revolver, but I repelled him after a severe struggle, in which I had sharp work to avoid being shot. I would much rather fight a decent duel any time than have such a "hog-fight." I only had a loaded cane. The worst of it was that the injured husband, having traced his wife, as he erroneously thought, to my room, went to Bixby and the clerk, and asked who lived in it. But as they were my friends, they dismissed him gruffly, yet believed all the same that _I_ had "a petticoat in my wardrobe." Hence for a week all my friends kept making cruel allusions in my presence to gay deceivers and Don Juan _et cetera_, until in a rage I asked what the devil it all meant, when there was an explanation by a clergyman, and I swore myself clear. But I thought it was hard lines to have to stand the revolver, endure all the scandal for a week, and be _innocent_ all the time withal!

That was indeed bitter in the cup!

Apropos of this small affair, I can recall a droll scene, _de eodem genere_, which I witnessed within a week of the other. There was a rather first-cla.s.s saloon, bar, and restaurant on Broadway, kept by a good-looking pugilistic-a.s.sociated individual named George Shurragar. As he had black eyes, and was a shoulder-hitter, and as the name in Romany means "a captain," I daresay he was partly gypsy. And, when weary with editorial work, I sometimes dropped in there for refreshment. One night an elderly, vulgar individual, greatly exalted by many brandies, became disorderly, and drawing a knife, made a grand Malay charge on all present, _a la mok_. George Shurragar promptly settled him with a blow, disarmed him, and "fired him out" into outer darkness. Then George exhibited the knife. It was such a dirty, disreputable-looking "pig-sticker," that we were all disgusted, and George cast it with contempt into the street. Does the reader remember the scene in "The Bohemian Girl" in which the dandy Count examines the nasty knife left behind by the gypsy Devilshoof? It was the very counterpart of this, the difference being that in this case it was the gypsy who despised the instrument.

Such trivial amusing incidents and rencontres as these were matters of almost daily occurrence to me in those days, and I fear that I incur the reproach of padding by narrating these. Yet, as I write this, I have just read in the "Life of Benvenuto Cellini" that he too omits the description of a lot of exactly such adventures, as being, like the darkey's imprisonments for stealing, "not worf mentionin'"--and confess I felt great regret that he did so; for there is always a great deal of local and temporal colour in anything whose proper _finale_ should be in a police-court.

Hawthorne used to stay at Bixby's. He was a moody man, who sat by the stove and spoke to no one. Bixby had been a publisher, and was proud that he had first issued Hayward's "Faust" in America. He was also proud that his hotel was much frequented by literary men and naval officers. He was very kind to me. Once when I complained to the clerk that the price of my rooms was too high, he replied, "Mr. Leland, the prices of all the rooms in the house, excepting yours, were raised long ago, and Mr. Bixby charged me strictly _not to let you know it_." Uncle Daniel was a gentleman, and belonged to my club--the Century. When he grew older he lived on an annuity, and was a great and privileged favourite among actresses and singers. Thirty years later I called with him in New York on Ada Cavendish.

After a fortnight or so, Dr. Griswold began to be very erratic. He had a divorce case going on in Philadelphia. He went off, a.s.suring me that everything was in order, and never returned. The foreman came to me saying that there was no copy, and nothing ready, and everything needed.

Here was indeed a pretty kettle of fish! For I at that time absolutely distrusted my own ability to do all the work. I flew to Kimball, who said, "Just put it through by strong will, and you'll succeed."

Then I went to Mr. Barnum--Uncle Barnum--who was always "as good as gold"

to me. I burst out into a statement of my griefs, mentioning incidentally that I really could not go on as full editor, and do such fearful work on the salary of an office-boy. He listened to it all, I am sure with amus.e.m.e.nt, and placing his hand kindly on my shoulder as we walked up and down the hall of the Museum, said, "You _sha'n't_ go. Don't get into a funk. I know that you can do the work, and do it _well_. And the salary shall be doubled--certainly!"

So the paper was brought out after all. I had great trouble for some time to learn to write editorials. I used to go to the office of a Sunday morn, and sit sometimes from ten till two turning over the exchanges, and seeking for ideas. It was a dreadful ordeal. In fact, in after times it was several years before I could seize a pen, rattle up a subject and dash off a leader. _Now_ I can write far more easily than I can talk. And it is a curious fact that soon after I became really skilled at such extempore work in the opinion of the best judges, such as Raymond, I no longer had any opportunity to practice it.

I had worked only a week or two when a rather queer, tall, roughish Yankee was brought into the office. He worked for a while, and in a day or two took possession of my desk and rudely informed me that he was my superior editor and master there. He had, as many men do, mistaken amiable politeness for humility. I replied, knowing that Mr. Beech, out of sight, was listening to every word, that there was no master there but Mr. Beech, and that I should keep my desk. We became affable; but I abode my time, for I found that he was utterly incompetent to do the work. Very soon he told me that he had an invitation to lecture in Philadelphia. I told him that if he wished to go I would do all his work for him. So he went, and Mr. Beech coming in, asked where Mr. --- was. I replied that he had gone away to lecture, and that I was to do his work during his absence. This was really too much, and the Yankee was dismissed "in short order," the Beeches being men who made up their minds promptly and acted vigorously. As for me, I never, shirked work of any kind. A gentleman on a newspaper never does. The more of a sn.o.b a man is, the more afraid he is of damaging his dignity, and the more desirous of being "boss" and captain. But though I have terribly scandalised my chief or proprietor by reporting a fire, I never found that I was less respected by the typos, reporters, and subs.

I had before leaving Philadelphia published two books. One was "The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams," which I dedicated to my fiancee, Miss Belle Fisher. The other was an odd melange, which had appeared in chapters in the _Knickerbocker Magazine_. It was t.i.tled _Meister Karl's Sketch-Book_. It had no great success beyond attaining to a second edition long after; yet Washington Irving praised it to everybody, and wrote to me that he liked it so much that he kept it by him to nibble ever and anon, like a Stilton cheese or a _pate de foie gras_; and here and there I have known men, like the late Nicolas Trubner or E. L.

Bulwer, who found a strange attraction in it, but it was emphatically caviare to the general reader. It had at least a _style_ of its own, which found a few imitators. It ranks, I think, about _pari pa.s.su_ with Coryatt's "Crudities," or lower.

There were two or three salons in New York where there were weekly literary receptions, and where one could meet the princ.i.p.al writers of the time. I often saw at Kimball's and other places the Misses Wetherell, who wrote the "Wide, Wide World" and "Queechy." They were elderly, and had so very little of the "world" in their ways, that they occurred to me as an example of the fact that people generally write most on what they know least about. Thus a Lowell factory-girl likes to write a tale of ducal society in England; and when a Scotchman has less intelligence of "jocks" and "wut" than any of his countrymen, he compiles, and comments on, American humorists.

Once there was a grand publishers' dinner to authors where I went with Alice and Phoebe Carey, who were great friends of mine. There I met and talked with Washington Irving; I remember Bryant and N. P. Willis, _et tous les autres_. Just at that time wine, &c., could only be sold in New York "in the original packages as imported." Alice or Phoebe Carey lamented that we were to have none at the banquet. There was a large dish of grapes before her, and I said, "Why, there you have plenty of it in the original packages!"

At that time very hospitable or genial hosts used to place a bottle of brandy and gla.s.s in the gentlemen's dressing-room at an evening's reception, and I remember it was considered a scandalous thing when a certain old retired naval officer once emptied the whole bottle single- handed.

Of course I was very intimate with Clark of the _Knickerbocker_, Fred Cozzens, John G.o.dfrey Saxe, and all the company of gay and festive humorists who circled about that merry magazine. There was never anything quite like the _Knickerbocker_, and there never will be again.

It required a sunny, genial social atmosphere, such as we had before the war, and never after; an easy writing of gay and cultivated men for one another, and not painfully elaborating jocosities or seriosities for the million as in--But never mind. It sparkled through its summer-time, and oh! how its readers loved it! I sometimes think that I would like to hunt up the old t.i.tle-plate with Diedrich Knickerbocker and his pipe, and issue it again every month to a few dozen subscribers who loved quaint odds and ends, till I too should pa.s.s away!

It was easy enough to foresee that a great ill.u.s.trated weekly, with actually one young man, and generally no more, to do all the literary work could not last long. And yet the _New York Times_, or some such journal, said that the work was very well done, and that the paper did well until I left. Heaven knows that I worked hard enough on it, and, what was a great deal to boast of in those days, never profited one farthing beyond free tickets to plays, which I had little time to use.

And yet my pay was simply despicably small. I had great temptations to write up certain speculative enterprises, and never accepted one. Our circulation sometimes reached 150,000. And if the publishers (excepting Barnum) had ever shown me anything like thanks or kindness for gratuitous zeal and interest which I took, I could have greatly aided them. One day, for instance, I was asked to write a description of a new ferry. I went there, and the proprietor intimated that he would pay a large sum for an article which would point out the advantage or profit which would accrue from investing in his lots. I told him that if it were really true that such was the case, I would do it for nothing, but that I never made money behind my salary. I began to weary of the small Yankee greed and griping and "thanklessness" which I experienced. There were editors in New York who, for less work, earned ten times the salary which I received. I was not sorry when I heard that some utterly inexperienced New England clergyman had been engaged to take my place. So I returned to Philadelphia. The paper very soon came to grief. I believe that with Barnum alone I could have made it a great success. We had Frank Leslie for chief engraver, and he was very clever and ambitious. I had a knowledge of art, literature, and foreign life and affairs, which could have been turned, with Leslie's co-operation, to great advantage. I needed an office with a few books for reference, at least three or four literary aids, and other ordinary absolutely necessary facilities for work. All that I literally had was a s.p.a.ce half-portioned off from the engine-room, where a dozen blackguard boys swore and yelled as it were at my elbow, a desk, a chair, and a pair of scissors, ink, and paste. This wretched scrimping prevailed through the whole business, and thus it was expected to establish a great first-cla.s.s American ill.u.s.trated newspaper.

It is sometimes forgotten in the United States that to make a vast success, something is requisite beyond enterprise and economy, and that it is a very poor policy to screw your _employes_ down to the last cent, and overwork them, and make business needlessly irksome, when they have it in their power to very greatly advance your interests. I dwell on this because it is a common error everywhere. I have in my mind a case in which an employer, who lived "like a prince," boasted to me how little he paid his men, and how in the long-run it turned out bitterly to his loss in many ways. Those who had no principle robbed him, while the honest, who would have made his interests their own, left him. I have seen business after business broken up in this way. While the princ.i.p.al is in vigour and life, he may succeed with mere servants who are poorly paid; then, after a time, some younger partner, who has learned his morals from the master, pushes him out, or he dies, and the business is worthless, because there is not a soul in it who cares for it, or who has grown up with any common sense of interest with the heirs.

I remember one day being obliged in New York to listen to a conversation between two men of business. One owed the other a large sum, honestly enough--of that there was no question between them; but he thought that there was a legal way to escape payment, while the other differed from him. So they argued away for a long time. There was not a word of reproach; the creditor would have cheated the debtor in the same way if he could; the only point of difference was whether it could be done. An _employe_ who can remain in such surroundings and be honest must be indeed a miracle of integrity, and, if he do not over-reach them in the long-run, one of stupidity. I might have made "house and land" out of the newspaper had I been so disposed.

Of all the men whom I met in those days in the way of business, Mr.

Barnum, the great American humbug, was by far the honestest and freest from guile or deceit, or "ways that were dark, or tricks that were vain."

He was very kind-hearted and benevolent, and gifted with a sense of fun which was even stronger than his desire for dollars. I have talked very confidentially with him many times, for he was very fond of me, and always observed that to engineer some grotesque and startling paradox into tremendous notoriety, to make something _immensely_ puzzling with a stupendous _sell_ as postscript, was more of a motive with him than even the main chance. He was a genius like Rabelais, but one who employed business and humanity for material instead of literature, just as Abraham Lincoln, who was a brother of the same band, employed patriotism and politics. All three of them expressed vast problems, financial, intellectual, or natural, by the brief arithmetic of a joke. Mr. Barnum was fearfully busy in those days; what with buying elephants, wooing two- headed girls for his Grand Combination, laying out towns, chartering banks, and inventing unheard-of wonders for the unrivalled collection of one hundred and fifty million unparalleled moral marvels; but he always found time to act as unpaid contributor to a column of humorous items which I always published. I have said that I had no a.s.sistant; I forgot that I always had Mr. Barnum as a.s.sistant humorous editor for that department. All at once, when least expected, he would come smiling in with some curiosity of literature such as the "reverse"--

"Lewd did I live & evil I did dwel,"