CO CO g]<OU_1 68336 g Gift of YALE UNIVERSITY With the aid of the ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION 1949 THE LATE GEORGE APLEY THE MODERN LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S BEST BOOKS The will be to publishers pleased send, upon request, an illustrated' the folder setting forth purpose and scope of L i THE MODERN BRARY, and listing each volume in the series. Every reader ofbooks willfind titles he has been in looking for, handsomely printed, unabridged at an low editions, and unusually price. THE LATE GEORGE APLEY V v f f A NOVEL IN THE FORM OF A MEMOIR BY JOHN P. MARQUA^D WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR THE MODERN LIBRARY NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, I Q 3 6, 1937, BY JOHN P. MARQUAND INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT, I 9 4 O, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC. HOUS is THE PUBLISHER OF THE MODERN LIBRARY BENNETT A. CBBF DONALD S. KLOPFER ROBERT K. HAAS Manufactured in the United States of America Piinted by Parkway Printing Company Bound by H. Wolff INTRODUCTION The Late George Afley is sub-titled "A Novel in the Form of a Memoir," because it is the life and letters of a man who never lived in Boston and who never died there. These letters were compiled and the life was written by Mr. Apley's intimate friend, a Mr, Horatio Willing, who like. Mr. Apley is a figment of the imagina- tion. same is true of all the lesser characters in the book. Mr The t Apley's family, friends and enemies are in no sense individuals who have walked the streets of Boston or elsewhere in the flesh, and they are all concerned in adventures which never happened. This is as it should be, for there is nothing more glaringly inartistic than the sketch of an actual person or the narration of an actual event in the pages of a novel, since neither can fit properly into the limited medium of print. The truth is, if fiction is to give a sense of reality, the writer must create characters and circumstances which would assume unbelievable distortions if they appeared outside the covers of a book. In short, it is my humble opinion that fiction, to give an illusion of fact, can neVer employ fact successfully. The roman a clef, I believe, is a species of literature that exists only in the critic's imagination. Yet though there is nothing factual about the characters and I should be events, pleased if, when added together, they became the INTRODUCTION single reality of an attitude of mind. The mental approach of the late George Apley, which is in no sense confined to such a limited sphere as Boston, seems to me worthy of notice in a rapidly changing world. It is an attitude bred of security, the familiar viewpoint of generations of the rentier class. It is a phenomenon, observable in every civilization, and one which must exist whenever society assumes a stable pattern. I have tried to present a picture without analyzing my own reactions, but in conducting Mr. Apley through the trivialities of his years I confess I was startled to discover when I left him that he amounted to more than I had intended. Indeed, in many respects he seemed to approach the status of an apology for his class. I hope that other readers will agree with me in this and will share a little of my own surprise that Mr. Apley, as a human not have done differ- being, did the best he could; that he could an ently; that it was not his fault that he was Apley. the reader that the effusions of Finally, it may be fair to warn Mr. Willing and the letters of Mr. Apley must not be considered all his and as literary models. In spite of pedantry pretensions and be pride at being called a purist, I have intended Mr. Willing to a very unsound writer. It often amused me to make him rise to the heights of verbose elaboration, only to fall down hard on grammar and good usage. This habit of Mr. Willing's has been an annoyance to many readers, but I hope the device reveals his character. As for Mr. Apley and other members of his family, I had them write their letters hastily and informally, and so they exhibit many glaring faults. Mr. Apley was never a purist. There are many Bostonians like him in that respect. ^T. P. MARQUAND December^ 1939 CONTENTS I A FOREWORD AND APOLOGY .... 3 // THE FAMILY BACKGROUND 9 /// THE PARENTS ai IV THE BOYHOOD SCENE 28 V BEACON STREET AND SCHOOL DAYS . 41 VI REVEALING MEMORIES 59 VII HARVARD DAYS 68 VIII INTERLUDE 84 IX- EUROPE 93 X LAW SCHOOL 105 XI MARRIAGE u 9 XII ACHIEVEMENT 131 XIII PROBLEMS 141 XIV ADDED BURDENS 158 XV PEQUOD ISLAND DAYS 169 XVI PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN . 180 XVII PARENTHOOD AND BIRD LORE .... 193 XVIII SOLITUDE 204 XIX HARVARD AGAIN, AND ENGLAND ... 215 XX WAR DAYS 221 XXI THE WAR STRIKES HOME 234 XXII WILLIAM APLEY 248 vi CONTENTS XXIII - A PARENT'S VIGIL 258 XXIV A SON AT THE FRONT 166 XXV BROKEN BARRIERS 176 XXVI NEW IMPACTS iS6 XXVII - THE TURBULENT TWENTIES .... 199 XXVIII CRISIS 31* XXIX RING IN THE NEW 314 XXX - LAST PILGRIMAGE 336 XXXI - A HOUSE IN ORDER 347 THE LATE GEORGE APLEY CHAPTER I A FOREWORD AND APOLOGY A Necessary Exposition of Circumstances Permitting a Certain Incorrect Liberty in the Penning of This Memoir EORGE WILLIAM APLEY was born in the house of his maternal grandfather, William Leeds Hancock, on the steeper part of Mount Vernon Street, on Beacon Hill, on January 25, 1866. He died in his own house, which over- looks the Charles River Basin and the Esplanade, on the water side of Beacon Street, on December 13, 1933. This was the frame in which his life moved, and the frame which will surround his portrait as a man. He once said of himself: "I am the sort of man I am, because environment prevented my be- ing anything else." It is now my task, to which I have agreed under somewhat unusual circumstances, to depict the life of this valued friend of mine through his own writings. I can think of no more suitable way of beginning than by resorting to an explanation in It has been which is, a measure, personal. my privilege many times in the past to edit the notes and letters of other prominent Bostonians under the advice of the family. In this 4 THE LATE GEORGE APLEY case, as is usual in such matters, the advice of the family stands first. In this case, however, the advice is not usual. Shortly after I read the obituary notice of George William Apley at the annual meeting of the Berkley Club, when our departed members for the year are customarily remembered, a work which was welcome to me because of our friend- ship, 1 was surprised by the following comment frpm his son, John Apley: Dear Mr. Willing: I did not have time to thank you the other night -for the appreciation which you read of my father at the Berkley Club. As I might have expected, you did yourself and the old man proud. I only had this one criticism to offer: As I sat back in the dim part of the room watching you stand on the stage beside the secretary with your papers, I could not avoid thinking of all the other lives which I had heard read out from that platform in sonorous, periodic sentences. Per- haps I had had a touch too much of champagne at the din- ner downstairs, but if so I think it only sharpened my per- ceptions, or did it make me see more than double? At any rate, I seemed to see, through the passage of the years, a string of members with their medals and their colored senior- ity waistcoats rising from the darkness on the floor and pos- sibly stumbling over somebody's glass, as they walked one by one up to the platform with their papers in their hands. I seemed to hear the lives of all our fellow members read out with the usual comments, and those comments were always similar. You made Father seem like all the others, Mr. Will- ing. You shaded over the affair of Attorney O'Reilly and some other things we know. You talked about the Historical Society and about the fight against the electric signs around A FOREWORD AND APOLOGY 5 the Common, but you did not mention his feud with Moore and Fields told what he had for the j you done Art Museum, but you did not tell how the New York dealer gypped him on the pre-Han bronzes. You mentioned his graciousness as a host at those Sunday luncheons at Milton and when the Mon- day Club had its meetings at our place on Beacon Street. Do you remember the gold chaiis in the two upper rooms and the creamed oysters and coffee waiting in the dining-room downstairs when the speaker for the evening was finished? You mentioned all these things, but not a word of how Eleanor and 1 disappointed him and Mother. Perhaps you were right, given the time and place, but I wonder if Father would have liked it? You can answer that better than I can, because you knew him better. Personally, I chink he would like the truth for once. I hope so because I was rather fond of him.