S T E E P L E J A C K J AM E S G IBBON S HU N E K E R w I fi nd no water fat than sti ck: to my own bones. - ' mn Wu .r a . VOLU M E II N EW Y ORK C H A R L E S S C R IB N E R ’ S S O N S 1918 , JAMES GIBBONS HUN EK ER mment 1920 B Y Co . ’ CHARLE S SCRIBNE R S SONS mber 19 20 Pubhshed Septe , CONTENTS P ART III N E W Y OR K ( 1 877- 19 1 7) CHAP TE R PA GE I A RE IH E CITY . I C P TU I L I . MU S I CAL J OU RNA ISM EL I I I . IN TH E MA STROM V TH E DE RE S ZK E S AND PADE REWSK I NORDI CA AND FREMSTAD OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN ANTONIN DVORA K STEINWAY HALL ’ A PRIMA DONNA S FAMI LY N EWS P A P E R E! P ERIENC ES MONTS A LVAT XI . AM A FR E E -LA N C E XI I . I CRI I CI M XI I I . T S I WITH J OS E P H CO RAD ! V. N A E IN N E Y K ! V. BR ND S W OR L ! VI. TH E COL ONE D MA C CR ITI CS XVI I . RA TI EARL Y B S E N XVI I I . I P C XIX . I TU RES CONTENTS NEW YORK IN FICTION A VOCAL ABE LARD “ ’ M LLE NE W YORK MY DRE AM-BARN MY ZOO MY BE S T FRI EN D AUTOGRA P H LE TTE RS MID-VICTORIAN MA! G . B . S . HIS LE TT E RS A HAL F -HAMLET I NDE! I LLUSTRATIONS mes ibbo ns Huneke 1 8 0 J a G r , 9 Adelina Patti at Sixteen Hele n a vo n Sheviteh Marce lla S embrich Edo uard de Reszke J e a n de Reszke I gn ace Pade rewski Olive Fre mst ad Elea no ra D use M t r n k M . ae e li c Aug ust St rin dberg Theo do re Ro o seve lt J ulia Marlo we Anto n Se idl J mes Gibbo ns H neke 1 0 a u r , 9 0 G eo rge M o o re My Maiden Flight I CAPTURE THE CITY M I was forced to drain my dree . y sudden little enthusiasms were beginning to pall . Stung by the gad fl : y of necessity, I had to follow my market all news paper men must . I was to learn that versatility is not - h . eaven sent, but is largely a matter of elbow grease Some one has written that genius is mainly an affair of energy, which puts the blacksmith , Theodore Roosevelt , an d the baseball player in the same category . If it were only so , then the man of genius would rub elbows with mediocrity . I have always had the courage of my friendships . Not to envy some particular person for his accomplishments is to proclaim yourself hopelessly ’ -satisfied e self ; nevertheless , I v never met anyone with whom I would change places , except a dead man . You may have the desire of the moth for the star and remain a happy insect . It demands something more than tech n ic l a heroism to write your autobiography . The life of Samuel Johnson , that ranks its author among the greatest ’ of the world s biographers , canny James Boswell , a por - trait painter Without parallel, has also presented us with a self-portrait that matches his masterly delineation of the great Cham . Who reads Rasselas nowadays , or consults the once celebrated dictionary ? I confess to liking the Tour to the Hebrides by this most perfect of ’ ll . ! a John Bulls But Boswell s Johnson After , auto biography is superior fiction . Nietzsche has warned us 4 STEEPLEJACK against accepting the confessions of great men— meaning ’ Wagner . Writing one s history is a transposition of the ’ embalmer s art to the printed page . Like the Egyp tians we seek to preserve our personality . The Egyptian way has lasted longer . We think of the mighty Milton “ : a when he modestly confessed For although poet, soar ing in the high reason of his fancies , with his garland and singing robes about him , might, without apology, speak more of himself than I mean to do ; yet for me a sitting here below in the cool element of prose, mortal among many readers of no empyreal conceit, to venture shall and divulge unusual things of myself, I petition to the gentler sort, it may not be envy to me . And all leaning heavily on the illustrious John , as must soul shall s spillers , I proceed with the e avowals of a personal pronoun . Did you ever hear the story of the man who proposed remarriage to his divorced wife ? She was one of the irl old guard who sighs but never surrenders . A skinny g a with guilty eyes , her soul had become slumbering forest . But she was faithful to her alimony . There S he fore, when her husband became imprudent, calmly “ ” answered : Yo u always were so imp etuo us l He was “ ” one of those men to whom Go d has given a forehead -u as Russian peasants say of the bald . Her pent p cas cades of tenderness not freely flowing he went away in a huff and remarried his other divorced wife . But the ’ - re first lady s bank account knew no husband . She was mained single and an alimo nist in perpetuity . It ral certainly the end of an imperfect day . The mo is not afar to seek . I had been unfaithful to my birth - l . p ace . I had hankered after the flesh pots of Paris These failing, I had returned to my lawful first love , I CAPTURE THE CITY 5 f and discovered that she was indi ferent to me . I deter mined o n another alliance . A third attack of that brief epilepsy called love had begun . I was in the doldrums of despair . I might have reproached Philadelphia as De Quincey did stony-hearted step-mother Oxford ” . w . Street Any here, anywhere out of the town I had not even the consolation of those new cults , unscientific , unchristian , and absurd , that elevate religion to the dig nit . a y of a sport I dreamed of becoming writer , but I realised that splendour of style without spiritual elevation ’ n is like a gewgaw in a pawnbroker s window . A d the sacrifices one must make are enormous . A leading “ ” shalt ! motive in Faust, Renounce thou shalt ; renounce f sounded for the irst time in the symphony of my ego . Suddenly one night I sat up in bed and thought : To morrow ! New York ! In the morning I packed my bag and slipped away on an afternoon train without a godspeed save from one faithful soul . I was to take another bath of multitude . The month was February, the year 1886 . It was nearing dusk when from the ferry-boat I saw ’ Rasti nac my new home, but unlike g in Balzac s fiction , I did not shake my fist at the imposing city nor mutter A nous deux maintenant I never even thought of that duel with Paris in which no man was ever victor . I only wondered where I should sleep . I soon decided . I - a landed at Twenty third Street ferry, caught crosstown car, alighted at Broadway and walked down to Four t eenth Street ; there to get a lodging for the night in the l o d . Morton House The room cost one dollar, the win dow was on the square , and from it I could see the Ever ett House, the Union Square Hotel, and the statue of Lincoln . That section of the town was to become my 6 STEEPLEJACK - -five happy hunting ground for over twenty years , and exce New York my home for three decades , with the p tion of excursions to Europe . A new Avatar ! My brother, Paul , had warned that if I became a resident of Gotham then I should have no place to go to : an epigram that has since been appropriated without due credit . “ J ’ ’ ” y suis , j y reste , said I in the immortal phrase of M acM aho n . Maréchal Besides, after Paris, the modu — e lation to New York was simpl and no city, not even ’ Philadelphia , is so unlike Paris as New York . I didn t feel in the least provincial . Paris had lent me aplomb , had rubbed o ff my salad greenness . Thirty years ago the sky-line from Jersey City was - not so inspiring as it is to day, but from the heights of the Hudson the view was then , as now, magnificent . Wall Above Street , on Broadway, and east of it, was a congested business district . A few spires , Trinity Church , the Tribune Building, the Times Building, were conspicuous objects from the bay . Now you search for f i Trinity between cli fs of marble, wh le in New Jersey you ’ catch the golden gleam of the World s dome . The Wool worth Building, among many, has distanced it in the f S . race kyward What a di ference , too , there was lower down . The Battery , a clot of green , was surrounded - by a few imposing buildings , to day mere impediments ’ for their loftier neighbours .