fe-*~ %UAiNn-i^ .itfE-UNIVERS/A ^clOS-ANCEl^ E-UBRARYQc, f/Dr-l ^|3 V %-*^ NSI iv^i tvTii ^SBAINfl^^ %HircHO^ %OJI1V3-JO^ ^OF-CAIIFOM< i-OF-CAUFO/?^ i y0jUJvaaiH^ >&Aavaain^ |-^J^Saiwaff^ |^-^QtaAHMP 1 1 jygli ^pO 1 | ^ p HUAiNivw^ ^man^ ^UBRA!?Y^ A^E-UNIVERS) JU^i ftsC CANDACE WHEELER YESTERDAYS In a Busy Life BY CANDACE WHEELER ILLUSTRATED HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON YESTERDAYS IN A BUSY LIFE Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published October. 1918 CONTENTS CHAP. I. "WlNTERGREEN" ............ I II. IN THE BEGINNING ........... 28 III. MARRIAGE AND BROOKLYN ......... 65 IV. "NESTLEDOWN" ............ i9 V. MY NEW YORK YEARS .......... 134 VI. THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD ......... 154 VII. GERMANY, ITALY, AND FRANCE ....... 175 VIII. THE SOCIETY OF DECORATIVE ART ...... 209 IX. "THE ASSOCIATED ARTISTS" ........ 231 X. ONTEORA ............... 268 XL MARK TWAIN ............. 324 XII. THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION ........ 34 XIII. ANDERS ZORN ............. 358 XIV. A SEASON IN LONDON .......... 37 1 XV. A SUMMER IN "BROADWAY" ........ 399 XVI. POSTLUDE .............. 416 550G01 ILLUSTRATIONS CANDACE WHEELER Frontispiece WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT Pacing p. 122 " ELIZABETH B. CUSTER 172 " GENERAL GEORGE ARMSTRONG CUSTER .... 172 " WILLIAM M. CHASE 244 MRS. CLEMENS AND THE CHILDREN, HARTFORD, " CONNECTICUT, 1884 326 " MARK TWAIN AT FIFTY 336 " JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AT FORTY 372 " ROBERT BROWNING 392 YESTERDAYS IN A BUSY LIFE YESTERDAYS IN A BUSY LIFE WINTERGREEN TN writing the story ot one's life the instinct is * to begin where one stands, at the quiet resting- place where all the issues of life are finally gathered. To the present years, which are almost un- believably good to me, and to the future, I have given a new setting a winter home in Georgia where everything I plant grows into beauty with almost audible joy, where everything I plan falls into a delightful whole, and where the friendships I have made are like a new blossoming of life. All this came to me with an air of whim, quite unbecoming to my years. I saw its unbecoming- ness in the faces of my old friends, whose ex- clamations of surprise sounded in my ears like remonstrances. They spelled, "At your age!" i i YESTERDAYS At my age it becomes increasingly difficult to deal with the new position in which one finds one- self so much behind and so little before; and certainly, if a certain degree of usefulness and dignity has been maintained throughout life, one would like to plan a graceful exit. We are told that when a bird's wings grow old and its body too weak for happy migration it looks for and creeps into some small, inclosed solitude. There it remains, and no one knows when its little spark of life goes out into the great force of animate intelligence, to be finally re- fashioned and repartitioned and launched, in new shape, into life again. This final seclusion and secrecy is a part of the bird-wisdom which air- dwelling and sky-flights have taught them; and, since we are learning to fly like birds, perhaps we shall yet learn to die comfortably, decently, and confidently, without offense or anguish to our friends or to the world. But if I unconsciously planned for seclusion in my Georgia home, I reckoned without my host; for during the nine years of my occupation I have been constantly contriving and building new bed- rooms and adding to kitchen and dining-room, until now my retreat houses three generations. Nevertheless, in spite of its being an individual venture, planned for myself alone, I was greatly encouraged and abetted by a friend still in the hey- day of life, who tempted me with a joint forty "WINTERGREEN" acres of pine and magnolia woods, sweet with flower growths of various delightsomeness. ' ' " Wintergreen is a great success, and, like all things of virtue, a constantly increasing one. And so, just now and here, I am beginning the story which my children and friends are always urging me to write the story of my life. I fancy that every soul of us could write a book which the world would read, if only we dared to tell the exact truth about ourselves and our hap- penings, and so give a perfect reflection of one human life. But who of us does dare to do that ? Our ideas about ourselves, our very standards of good or evil, inevitably make us hypocrites. The traits which would be interesting in a life-story, we keep in shadow, or carefully cover up. I am conscious of it in every page I write, and I would no more tell of my own mistakes and tempers than I would parade them as belonging to my dearest friend, not half as soon, indeed, for we find various ex- cuses for relating little accidents of behavior in our friends. We even pride ourselves, to our- selves, upon the cleverness of our own conclu- sions. Every human being is new in some of his per- sonal idiosyncrasies to every other human being, and if this difference is brought out with absolute fidelity it is of interest. If we should say what we really thought and tell what we really did in 3 YESTERDAYS the different befallings of life, we should be con- sidered original, to say the least. If I tell a pathetic or laughable or interesting tale of something I have seen or experienced in my ninety years of travel along the highways of life some one is sure to say, "You must write that!" Or, if it is an intimate story of some well-known man or woman long since dead, or an absurd recollection of childhood, or if I recall some of my experiences in the Old World of meeting Browning at Lady Jeune's in London, and taking mental notes of him as he ate and talked, and thinking that on the surface it was a common- place personality some one always says: "You should write that down! You ought to write your life! You have seen so many interesting people, and done so many interesting things!" "But we have all lived," I protest, "and if we all wrote, why, the world would be full of personal stories, most of them dull." "But these modern days are so commonplace," some one objects, "and we all see, and know, and live them. You remember things which are dif- ferent, and which happened before we were born." Truly so, and I do realize that the old times are different from this present generation and con- sequently of peculiar interest. I remember that once when we visited Lowell in Cambridge I admired a tall mahogany desk in his library, with 4 "WINTERGREEN" closed-in book-shelves above. It was a beautiful thing, with shining panels in which the experiences of tree life were to be seen in free-running branches of crimson lights, sienna darks, and delightful shadings of mahogany red; at the top it was finished with urn-shaped finials of shining brass. "It was my grandfather's," said he. And as we still exclaimed at its beauty, he comforted us by saying, "You can all have relics if you live long enough." So it seems the beauty and value of the old mahogany desk were in the story of its life, written all along its veins in color, mellowing with the years. If the life of a man or woman could be half so beautiful as that which the tree writes then it might well be worth preserving. Now that it is taken for granted that I shall write this book, I get much and various advice a? to how it shall be done. "Tell the truth about everybody!" charges my delightfully frank and honest and withal successful woman-of-the-world friend, Mary Hewitt. "Don't start with the idea of a book write the story of your life; make it a real human document; tell just what you think about everybody; tell of all the great people you have met, and just what you thought of them; relate their vanities and weak- nesses, as well as their greatnesses; make the story real, and it will be interesting!" 5 YESTERDAYS Now no one else has said just that to me; they have taken it for granted that I should tell the truth, but, of course, in a genteel and consider- ate way. My friend, however, will not have any human incidents polished; she wants them in the rough, and she tempts me with success if I tell the naked truth. "But the truth is sometimes disagreeable," I say. "Moreover, you are not obliged to tell it all; you can leave it out." "Not if you want your book to be read. Tell the truth about everybody and it will take; will to read it the everybody want ; truth about people is always interesting." I wonder if I shall ? A friend who came in the other day, just after a visit to a many-millioned owner of one of the princely plantations hereabout, remarked, pen- sively : "It takes a lot of courage to tell the truth to a man worth eighty millions." And it may take courage to tell the truth to a prospective audience of readers ! Who knows? I shall certainly try to be truthful, but I confess to a sort of passion for picturesque language and a somewhat eager desire to impress people. I re- member hearing one of my cousins, who could tell an exceedingly good story,' admonishing a child of mine who had been repeating one of them with variations.