Horace E. Scudder: An Appreciation

THE beneficent influence exerted by Horace E. Scudder upon American life and literature during a period of more than thirty years would have been impossible without the possession of rare gifts, and these in a peculiarly harmonious combination. He occupied a conspicuous position, unique and of his own creating, from whence issued a force of generous impulse and inspiration, wide and deep in its extent, hidden however in some of its finest effects, so that its full scope cannot be adequately measured. The man in himself was greater than his work, and must be taken in connection with it in order to discern or understand his influence. From the time that he saw the empty niche which he regarded as most desirable and honorable to fill, he devoted himself with single-mindedness and with extraordinary energy to the qualification for the duties and privileges it involved. The largeness of his aim, which marks also his own character, entered into his work, and became the badge of his presence and of his power.

But to accomplish this task called for the sacrifice of ambitions early cherished, and of possibilities in other lines wherein he might have won distinction. He was so intensely a religious man by nature that he might have risen to honor and influence in the church, and have left his direct impression on Christian thought and life. He might have gained a foremost place in the ranks of exact scholarship, for which he had aptitude and capacity, or he might have chosen some special branch of learning wherein to be known as a master. He might have carried much farther than he did his achievements in literary criticism, although what he accomplished in this direction entitles him to a place among the few best literary critics whom America has produced. His beautiful essays only filled up the interstices of his more continuous labor. This attempt to study a man’s career by speculating on what it might have been is not wholly idle, if it serves to impress the imagination with the character and worth of the actual achievement. There were vistas where he is seen for a moment as he passes, paths in which he did not choose to linger, whence he finally emerges in the broad thoroughfare of his choice with all his powers in harmonious coöperation. There was one grace of his nature, dominating the others, almost standing in their way, the zeal of disinterested benevolence, which would not allow him to work for reputation in any selfish manner. We can discern in him an inward need for literary occupation, a balance of powers, active energies to be appeased. From this combination resulted the man as we knew him, with an equipoise of endowments whose healthy maintenance demanded satisfaction for each and all the forces of his nature.

Horace Scudder was of New England and Puritan descent, his family having settled on Cape Cod some two hundred years ago. His father was a well-known merchant in Boston, a man of high integrity, a deacon in what is now called the “ Union Church, ” who exerted a strong religious influence. His mother was Sarah Lathrop Coit, daughter of a rigid “old school ” Presbyterian elder, whence was bequeathed to him the New England conscience. The family remained on the conservative side in the schism among the Massachusetts churches, but the home training was genial, somewhat softened perhaps by the sharp protest against the ancient Puritan doctrine and discipline. There were six sons, of whom Horace Elisha Scudder was the youngest, and one daughter. One of the sons was Rev. David Coit Scudder, a missionary in India, who died young and much lamented. Another son, Samuel Hubbard Scudder, is a leading authority in entomology, distinguished also for other scientific acquirements, and the recipient of the highest scientific honors. Horace Scudder was born in Boston in 1838. He made his preparatory studies in the Roxbury and Boston Latin schools, afterwards going to Williams College, whence he was graduated in 1858 at the age of twenty. In college he gave his attention chiefly to classical studies, with a preference for Greek; to the end of his life he continued to read the Greek poets, and he opened each day with the Greek Testament, making notes and critical comments on the text and its interpretation. He was only seventeen when he became editor of the Williams Quarterly. The articles that he wrote for it show a wide range of subjects, and indicate the bent of his mind: Francis Quarles; George Herbert; The First Discovery of America; Nature—the Study of the Architect; Knights of the Round Table ; The Old Romance ; England and Englishmen; Art among Us.

After graduating from college he went to New York, and took private pupils. Here he remained for several years, making his first ventures in literature in short stories for children. Published at first in the newspapers and afterwards in book form with the titles Seven Little People and their Friends, Stories from my Attic, and Dream Children, they made him widely known, and gave him a distinctive reputation. He also contributed articles to the North American Review, which indicate that he was studying closely and reading in wide directions. Among them is one on William Blake, whose Life by Gilchrist had then recently appeared. The mystic vein in his nature is most characteristic. Although it was kept in reserve and never received any direct development, it was apparent in his writings, where the sense of mysticity haunts his imagination, as in his Dream Children and other stories, giving them a peculiar charm. He felt the influence of the socalled pre-Raphaelite school both in its art and literature. He was interested in artistic and musical criticism, showing in his comments on such themes delicate fancy and subtle perception, and could clothe his conceptions with a graceful style and a rich vocabulary. Prominence should be given to another product of these earlier years, The Life and Letters of David Coit Scudder, undertaken at the request of the father, most delightful as a biography, and an exquisite tribute to a brother’s character and worth.

He had apparently determined upon a literary career of some kind, though exactly what kind may not have been yet quite clear to him. In an essay in Men and Letters, written several years later on Emerson’s Self, he says that Emerson’s career had rendered it possible for a later generation to make " the profession of letters earlier in life without that long experimental process which took place in Emerson’s case.” Yet even so, he could not escape the experience of searching and groping after a vocation, meaning perhaps to do one thing and preparing for it, but only to find that his call was in another direction. He became sensitive to the fact of a change in the outlook of his own age as compared with the age that had preceded. All ages are times of transition, and the generations that come and go are so gradually interwoven with each other that it is hard to draw the lines that separate or distinguish them. However this may be, the man who was young in the sixties, and seeking for the best investment of his activities, must have seen that there was a difference in the situation, that the motives which had inspired the great writers of the previous generation were somehow diminished in their power of appeal. Emerson and Longfellow, Hawthorne, Holmes, and Whittier were still in their prime, at the height of their creative strength, and in England, Carlyle and Tennyson and Ruskin, Browning and others. Mr. Scudder was absorbing their thought and purpose, and yet must have begun to feel, however dimly at first, that his own generation was looking out upon a changing world. It was possible of course to imitate, to follow not unworthily in their steps, but for a young man sensitive to the exigent moods of the hour, some new opening was demanded.

The change which was taking place was, to put it briefly and somewhat crudely, away from what is called individualism to the varied forms of collectivism, solidarity, socialism, phases of altruism, institutionalism, nationalism, by whatever name the tendency is known which no longer finds an adequate impulse in the aspiration for individual expression. In both church and state, institutionalism was discounting the importance of individual initiative or activity. The age which was coming in sought more directly the consolidation of social movements, the reconstruction of educational methods, the development of universities, the uplifting of the masses of the people by organic ways toward organic and institutional ends. Notably in this process came the rise or the expansion of great publishing houses with increased facilities for the wider diffusion of literature, or for the stimulation of forms of literary activity suited to the needs of the time and even contributing to the development of those needs.

We may trace some of the steps in the process of Mr. Scudder’s advance in this institutional direction. Identified by descent, as he was, with Puritanism, which was individualistic in its outlook, he abandoned it for the more organic, institutional habits of the Anglican Church. The transition was aided by the teaching of the late F. D. Maurice, who from this point of view was one of the most representative and potent of influences after the middle of the century. Maurice had become widely known as the founder of Christian Socialism and of the Workingmen’s College in London, while as a theologian he had the peculiar fortune, not without its appeal to Mr. Scudder, of an affiliation with poetry and art, Tennyson addressing to him a poem, and Madox Brown, the pre-Raphaelite, introducing his portrait in a painting called The Highway. Mr. Scudder had for Maurice the devotion of a disciple, and was spoken of among his friends as a Maurician.

He followed the fortunes of the civil war with a deep interest, although prevented from enlisting in its service as he would like to have done. But that which most impressed him as the purpose and attainment of the awful struggle was not so much the individual emancipation from slavery as the consolidation of the nationality, the assertion of the personality, the sanctity of the organic state. Hence he was prepared to give most eager welcome to the work of his friend the late Dr. Elisha Mulford, who after profound study and long reverie in retirement emerged with his book The Nation, a book which coincides with a great epoch in American life. From this time, if not earlier, Mr. Scudder became what we call a pronounced “American” in his attitude and sympathies. His Americanism was not based upon comparison with other countries, although a visit to Europe in 1865 had enabled him for some comparative estimate, but rather upon a principle — that America had been called to the privilege of nationality, had vindicated its call anew in the civil war, and was ever henceforth more and more to assert and maintain its place as foremost among the nations, that primacy being involved in the divine conditions of its history. Evidences of this characteristic patriotism may be found in his writings. Thus in speaking of Emerson’s lack of the passion of nationality, he says, “The glimpses which we get of the poet on his travels in his own country serve to deepen the impression which we form of the purely spectacular shape of the country in his vision. He was not indifferent to the struggles going on, and yet they were rather disturbances to his spirit than signs of a life which quickened his pulse. To some minds this may seem to lift Emerson above other men. In my judgment it separates him from them to his loss.”

In a striking passage in his essay on the Future of Shakespeare, Mr. Scudder has called attention to “the ever widening gulf between Englishmen and Americans, ” which is begotten by the essential distinction of nationality: “The Atlantic Ocean, which separates the two countries, has been contracting its space ever since the first Virginians rowed across its waters. The inventions of men, the exactions of human intercourse, have reduced a three months’ dreary voyage to a six days’ trip in a movable hotel, and yet all this while a myriad forces have been at work on either side of the ocean moulding national consciousness, and producing those distinctions which are hard to express but perfectly patent. The manifestations of character in literature and art afford the clearest indications of this national distinction, and although London and Boston can almost speak to each other through the telephone, the accent of Boston in literature is more sharply discriminated from the accent of London than it was a hundred years ago.”

These illustrations of the growth of the institutional tendency in Mr. Scudder’s experience may help to explain the transition in his literary career. It was certainly a critical moment when in 1866 he met for the first time the late Mr. Henry O. Houghton, founder of the Riverside Press, and soon after to become the head of the publishing house of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. From the time that they met till Mr. Houghton’s death there was between these men, not only the strong tie of friendship, of profound mutual respect and unwavering confidence, but they worked together for the same end with rare harmony and success. So intertwined was their work that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the contribution of each. The business capacity of the one was infused with the literary ambition of the other, but this literary talent of the other discerned openings which only the capacity for affairs could have made feasible. In this institutional direction, then, Mr. Scudder took his work, at first timidly and vaguely, but afterward with clearer consciousness and full unswerving determination. One of the opportunities which first opened before him in his new relationship was some better educational method for children. With Mr. Houghton’s energetic approval, and the Riverside Press at his disposal, Mr. Scudder projected the wellremembered Riverside Magazine for Young People. In its brief existence of four years it was a model of beauty and excellence, winning the highest approbation of those most competent to judge. Speaking of the subject at a later time, Mr. Scudder recalled the difficulties he encountered in getting the desired illustrations for its pages: “I did my best to obtain pictures of child life from painters who were not mere professional book-illustrators. . . . It was only now and then that I was able to obtain any simple, unaffected design, showing an understanding of a child’s figure and face.” And although he admits the progress made since then, he laments that artists still fail to “seek in the life of children for subjects upon which to expend thought and power.”

In 1872 Mr. Scudder was admitted into partnership, binding himself to the arrangement for three years. He now married, and fixed his home in Old Cambridge. It had been, however, with grave misgivings that he had signed the articles of partnership, and when the three years had expired he resigned from a position for whose routine he was not fitted. It may have been also that he had not yet abandoned the visions of his youth to do work of another kind. He has alluded to those earlier years, when he writes in 1887 to his friend Henry M. Alden of “that former state of existence when we were poets, ” and “I woke to find myself at the desk of a literary workman.” He speaks of himself and his friend as “two young poets, who walked Broadway, and haunted little back rooms in Fourth Avenue and Eleventh Street,” who had schemes for executing some “epical work, which required a continuity of time not easily had under customary conditions. . . . I am credulous enough to think that the verses you wrote have resung themselves in that sympathetic, patient, discriminating life which you have led as a literary judge, for I find myself curiously susceptible in my own work to certain influences which once shaped my thought into more creative form.”

In 1875 Mr. Scudder exchanged his place of partner in the firm for that of its literary adviser. It was his plan at first to give half of his time to the duties of this office, the other half to be left free to his own devices. He now betook himself with enthusiasm to the study of American history, to which an impetus had been given by the centennial of 1876. The fruits of these years were numerous articles and books, prepared rapidly, but with unfailing skill for the illumination of his theme: The Recollections of Samuel Breck, with Passages from his Note Books; Men and Manners in America One Hundred Years Ago; Public Libraries One Hundred Years Ago; The Battle of Bunker Hill; The Siege of Boston; A Patriotic Schoolmaster; A Puritan Gentleman in New England; An Old Gentleman’s Recollections. In his post of literary adviser he was for several years editor of the Riverside Bulletin, which, in addition to notices of new books, contained each month an editorial article, remarkable for its distinction of style in combination with literary comment and suggestion. These essays are still remembered, and the Riverside Bulletin may be regarded as the pioneer of much more elaborate periodicals of a similar type. The habit which Mr. Scudder had early formed of keeping an eye on current publications continued to his latest years. After the discontinuance of the Riverside Bulletin, he transferred his notices of books to other publications, for a short time to Every Saturday, and finally to the Atlantic Monthly. His criticisms were unsigned, for he preferred to work, as he says, “behind the screen of anonymity ; ” but his work in this line never degenerated into formality; his comment was always direct and pointed, yet also kindly and genial. No one had a larger knowledge than he of contemporary literature.

He was now working with a fierce energy and strain of his powers, which must have been exhausting. Among other of his publications is a collection of Stories and Romances, and he wrote one novel, called The Dwellers in FiveSisters Court, — an expansion of an earlier short story, with the same title, published in the Atlantic in 1865. The novel betrays the influence of Dickens, from which at that time it was hard for any one to escape. The characters are distinctly drawn, the scene being laid in the Court behind the old Province House in Boston, and as a picture of life in New England at the time, with a strong transcendental touch, mixed with pre-Raphaelite fancies, it is not without its interest still. In addition to all this, Mr. Scudder was a constant contributor of editorial and other articles to various publications. He was writing on subjects of current interest, religious and secular. He warmly espoused the cause of international copyright, and probably contributed as much as any one to its success. But after some two years or more, during which the agreement held that he was to have half of his working hours for himself, he abandoned the arrangement, and gave his whole time for nearly twenty years to the duties attaching to the position of literary adviser to a great publishing house. How important he regarded this work henceforth may be inferred from an article, The Function of a Publishing House in the Distribution of Literature.

To this position, then, of a literary adviser, Mr. Scudder summoned the aid of all his forces, and gave to the office a new dignity and significance. His great capacity for work, — he seemed to be able to do the work of several men, — his tireless energy, his very genius for devising new schemes and discerning new openings for literary ventures, his learning, his accomplishments as a literary critic, his finely balanced judgment, his enthusiasm and devotion to his tasks, his conscientiousness and painstaking solicitude for accuracy and thoroughness, these and other qualities made him a power and authority among his contemporaries. It used to be thought that almost any man with moderate literary ability could satisfactorily perform the elementary duties of furnishing text-books for schools, or of editing the works of others with preface, appendix, and notes. Now we have learned that these things call for masters in their respective departments, that specialists and experts, those who have written the larger books, are the best fitted to make compendiums and elementary treatises ; that the man who has devoted his life to the study of literature is the one most wanted to comment on the literary productions of others. To this principle Mr. Scudder adhered, and he thus helped to raise the standard of literary activity in every department of its application.

Attention can here be called only to the leading features of Mr. Scudder’s achievement in his important position. To reduce the work of quarter of a century into such brief form is an injustice of course, but there are phases of life and human effort, as it flows on quietly in appointed ways, which can never be adequately described ; only hints and suggestions can be given, and for the rest the imagination of the experienced reader must suffice. There are several lines wherein Mr. Scudder revealed his highest efficiency. One of these, already alluded to, was the study of American history. The number of books bearing on this subject in the Catalogue of the Publications of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. shows at a glance what importance was attached to it. Of the four series, entitled American Statesmen, American Men of Letters, American Commonwealths, and American Religious Leaders, Mr. Scudder projected the last two and was their editor, contributing also the Life of Noah Webster to the series of American Men of Letters. In the same department are his Life of Washington, and his History of the United States, where he followed another leading inclination and adapted himself to the needs of children. His strength lay in the biographical side of history, where the work he did was not only large in amount, but maintained at a high standard of excellence. When he was interested in a man, no one could surpass him in direct approach to inmost motives and characteristics. This power is shown in his sketches of Longfellow and Emerson. He coöperated in the biographies of Bayard Taylor, of Asa Gray, and of Agassiz. He revised the Life of Longfellow, working over the supplemental third volume, and thoroughly arranging the separated material in three consecutive volumes. He recognized the importance of the index, and had devised a method for himself in making an index, in order to insure thoroughness. One of his best biographical studies was the Memoir of Justin Winsor, prepared for the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which Mr. Scudder had become a member in 1881. In the writing of history or biography, he was in sympathy with the modern method of research, “the faithful collation of obscure authorities, the hunt for the beginning of things, the laying bare of foundations.” Yet he also was convinced that there was a literary art in the presentation of facts or events, which “made the writing and the reading of history akin to the writing and reading of poetry, the creation and enjoyment of all forms of art. ”

After the firm of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. acquired the right to the publication of the works of the great school of New England writers, Mr. Scudder turned to their study with a new interest in order to prepare more complete editions. It was in this connection that he projected a scheme for popular editions of the best poets, known as the Cambridge Edition, where all the works of a poet should be collected in one convenient volume, with preface and appended notes. Of this series, Mr. Scudder edited several volumes himself, including Browning, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, Keats, Scott, and Whittier. The prefaces to these volumes are among his best literary productions, and show his characteristics as a learned, appreciative, and skillful workman. His name indeed had now become a guarantee that all such tasks would be performed with conscientious, painstaking care, and also with genuine enthusiasm. Although he was working quietly and impersonally through the institution, he had satisfaction in the consciousness of doing honest and thorough work, and was content even though his name were merged in the beneficence of the product. But he had also other rewards. He had risen to public recognition and distinction, was known as a valuable literary adviser not only to his publishing house, but to hundreds of authors, and beginners in literature, and was consulted in the certainty of getting from him what could be got nowhere else. He combined the qualifications of publisher and author, which gave to his judgments a certain practical and final character.

But if we ask the question, in what more specific way he exercised his strength, or by what special contribution he deserves most highly, the answer is easily at hand. When he was invited in 1882 to deliver a course of Lowell lectures, there was no hesitation in his mind what subject he should take, his lectures were published under the title Childhood in Literature and Art. For this small treatise his life seems to have been passed in preparation. Memories of his own childhood, his first attempts as an author, his experience as editor of a children’s magazine, were supplemented by his familiarity with the whole range of children’s books, which for a generation had been issuing from the press with astonishing ratio of increase. He too had taken a prominent part in the service of children, in the eight volumes of the Bodley Books, a sort of modern counterpart to the Rollo Books. They were his most profitable works, from a commercial point of view, but thrown off rapidly, often it would seem for his amusement or recreation, laughing as it were to himself while he wrote. This preparation, this confinement of his abilities to the visual angle of childhood, had its serious side. He looked at his subject in a scientific way. He had studied the writings of Andersen and Grimm in order to catch their secret, and had edited their books for American readers. He translated anew the Fables of Æsop. In one sumptuous volume he had gathered together the masterpieces of children’s literature. But his greatest monument was none of these. He had come to the significant conclusion that the best reading for children was not necessarily or exclusively that which was prepared expressly for their use, but rather the masterpieces of the world’s literature. To this end he planned the Riverside Literature Series for young people, which from small beginnings grew almost by its own momentum till it includes a large library, testifying by its wide circulation throughout the land that he had not been mistaken in his purpose.

In his book Childhood in Literature and Art there are traces of wide reading and of deeper reflection. It begins with Homeric times, and with such clear appreciation of allusions that, as the reader moves onward, the successive ages stand revealed in the light of their estimate of the child. The art of the Renaissance is treated with peculiar beauty and delicate sympathy. English literature and French and German are reviewed with the same keenness and consistency of purpose, with special comment on Wordsworth and on those writers of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth who first began to work directly in the interest of children. Of the Puritan conception of childhood, it is remarked that it reversed the familiar injunction, so as to read, “Unless ye become as men and are converted, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Most pertinent is the criticism of Hawthorne and Dickens. Throughout the book there runs the enthusiasm of one who feels as if he had discovered for himself “the new continent of childhood,” of one who writes con amore, as is indicated by the dedication to his daughter, “who was a child when this book was written. ” The book becomes a manual for parents bewildered with the complexity of the great problem. If it is deficient when judged by the later methods of psychological research, it has this distinctive value that it keeps in the open, avoiding the morbid and the recondite, adhering solely to the objective estimate, the conscious rather than the subconscious life, true always to its title, childhood as revealed in those two most powerful modes of presentation, literature and art. It is therefore a book for the few. Those with the highest opportunity for cultured reflection will most deeply appreciate its beauty and worth.

This was always a characteristic of Mr. Scudder’s work, that when he gave loose rein to his inclination he wrote for the few, — a feature pointing to a certain idiosyncrasy in his make-up, on which it is worth while for a moment to dwell. He could do two things well, — he could write for children, as one of their own number, and he could write for those highly educated and advanced in culture. But for the large mass of average readers, who seek to be entertained, who need to be solicited, or are repelled by what looks dull or heavy, his personal message was not so clear. When he sat down to his higher tasks he took his own elevated attitude as the standard to be maintained, indifferent to the question of popularity; aiming only to say what ought to be said, what people ought to read, whether they would read or whether they would forbear. That malady of the ideal, his own ideal, dominated him, till he almost lost vision of the practical, the commercial side of literary work. Such was the character of his constitution that his bow was always drawn at the strongest tension ; and when he relaxed, it was to turn to work for children, often in a vein of trifling humor.

An evidence of this peculiarity may be seen in his Men and Letters, where he appears indifferent whether or no he gains the attention of many readers. It opens with an essay on Mulford, an almost unknown name, in whom the many could never be expected to take an interest, whose thought and personality moved on the mounts of vision almost out of range of the common sight. This essay was followed by one on Longfellow, which should have stood first, the longest as it is the most charming of his essays, one of the best studies of the poet which have yet been made. Next comes The Modern Prophet, a tribute to Maurice, the so-called “obscure ” theologian. From this he turns to Landor as a Classic, a gem of literary appreciation, to be followed by a sketch of Dr. Muhlenberg, a once famous Episcopal divine with whose attitude he was in close sympathy. The casual reader might well infer that the author was a propagandist, introducing literary articles for the purpose of securing a reading for theological studies. And in truth he would not be so far wrong, for Mr. Scudder’s interest in the larger bearings of theology quite rivaled his interest in pure literature. This illustration may serve to show how his judgment was at fault about his own work in a matter of technical arrangement, yet it also indicates how he could defy the literary proprieties when his conscience dictated another mode of procedure. It would have been better form to have put the literary essays by themselves, as Mr. Hutton did, who was a kindred spirit, and have reserved to the theological a separate place.

But we cannot dismiss this important book, small though it be, with only an adverse criticism on its internal arrangement. It best demonstrates, what has been said before, that Mr. Scudder’s strength lay in the direction of historical and literary criticism. Each essay is read with the painful feeling that it is by far too short, and one closes the book with a sigh that there is not more to follow. Nor should we fail to call attention to its dedication to his friend Mr. H. M. Alden, where Mr. Scudder lifts the veil of his reserve to tell why he dropped the anonymous and the impersonal to speak under his own name. A few of its words may be quoted: “My occupation has compelled me to print much comment upon contemporaneous literature; fortunately I have been able for the most part to work out of the glare of publicity. But there is always that something in us which whispers ' I, ’ and after a while the anonymous critic becomes a little tired of listening to the whisper in his solitary cave, and is disposed to escape from it by coming out into the light, even at the risk of blinking a little, and by suffering the ghostly voice to become articulate, though the sound startles him. One craves company for his thought, and is not quite content always to sit in the dark with his guests.”

In 1890 Mr. Scudder assumed the editorship of the Atlantic Monthly in succession to Lowell, J. T. Fields, Howells, and Aldrich. There was a certain common element in the aim of those who had preceded him, and this, what he called the “tradition” of the magazine, he proposed to follow. The higher aspects of political life, education, art, classical literature, American and particularly New England history, were in a general way the directions in which he tended. He sought also after presentations of the best English culture. Under his administration each issue of the Atlantic contained solid articles of permanent value. Perhaps his aim was too high for the popular taste. He made no bid however for the popular approval, but strove to maintain a periodical which should lead rather than follow, whose pages should be open to the best thought and criticism, on condition only of some qualification in literary skill and expression. “America needed,” he said, “ as never before, an insistence on the high ideals of literature and life.” He sought to make the Atlantic an “ organism ” rather than “an aggressive or polemical organ; ” to preserve “ the repose which belongs to high literature.”

So Mr. Scudder remained faithful to the “ tradition, ” aware however that its force had diminished, that “new lights ” had appeared on the horizon, and were followed with a new enthusiasm to the seeming neglect of the old masters. There is a passage in his essay on Anne Gilchrist, where he characterizes a tendency which then seemed to him ephemeral. His text was from a letter of Mrs. Gilchrist to William Rossetti after reading the poems of Walt Whitman: “Since I have read it, I can read no other book; it holds me entirely spellbound, and I go through it again and again with deepening delight and wonder.” Mr. Scudder’s comment on this outburst of admiration shows him without sympathy for a mood which was destined for a time to prevail: —

“There is, or rather was fifteen or twenty years ago, in England, a disposition among literary and artistic people of a distinct type to construct an American phantom. The men and women who were at odds with the England of their day, impatient at smug respectability, chafing not so much at the petty restrictions of conventionality as at’ the limitations imposed by institutional religion and politics, wishing to escape from the commercial conception of the universe, and met everywhere by the self - complacency of Philistinism, took refuge in two widely separate realities, mediæval romanticism and American freedom. The one inspired their art and much of their poetry, the other enkindled their thought. Both offered them an opportunity to protest against English lawful dullness. In America these spirits saw the cheerful largeness of hope, the confident step, the freedom from tradition, the frank appropriation of the world as belonging to Americans, and a general habit of mind which proclaimed law as made for man, and not man for law. With the ardor of worshipers, the more outré their idol, the more they admired it. An exaggerated type of frontier lawlessness, some sombrero-shadowed, cowhidebooted being, filled them with special ecstasy. It was not that they cared to go and live with him on the prairie, but he served as a sort of symbol to them of an expansive life, which was gone from England but was possible to humanity.”

For eight years Mr. Scudder held the responsible and trying position of an editor, the greater part of the time in addition to his other work. In 1897 he went to Europe for rest and recreation, spending a year in travel accompanied by his family. When he returned in 1898 he resigned the editorship of the Atlantic to take up what proved to be his last but in some respects his most important work, — the Life of Lowell, which appeared in the fall of 1901. This work has already been reviewed at length in these pages, and is now too well known and appreciated to call for further notice. That he should have been chosen for the task of depicting America’s foremost literary critic was one of the high honors which befell him; that he should have satisfied the expectations of those best qualified to judge is the highest praise. Despite difficulties encountered in the execution of his task, he has succeeded in giving us “the vivid presentation of Mr. Lowell’s personality, ” and we live, as we read his pages, in “the very presence of the man.”

This attempt to describe some of the leading features of Mr. Scudder’s work only makes it imperative to affirm more emphatically what has been already said, that his rôle as a man of letters was to work through the institution, rather than in individual creative ways. His distinction lay in adapting himself to his age with singular felicity. For thirty years he was associated with a prominent publishing house to whose interests he devoted his energies with most loyal enthusiasm, watchful for its welfare at every moment, jealous for its reputation, guarding it from danger, doing all that in him lay to promote its honorable growth and extension. During these years it maybe safe to say that no new book was issued which had not first received his approval; until the imprint of the firm became synonymous with what is highest and best in American literature. This was his joy in life and his reward, that each year he recorded the growing usefulness and increasing prosperity of the institution. How much he did in the direction of stimulating others to creative work cannot be measured; it is a secret buried in the experiences of those who know. But there must be many books, and some of them far reaching and permanent in their influence, which owe their origin to him. He studied other men, followed their work, estimated its value, and when the moment was ripe incited them to authorship, and this in many lines, and not in some one narrow channel. He became a good genius to young authors who were just beginning their career; he encouraged and stimulated to fresh endeavors the more mature, and there were many who felt stronger because they were aware that they existed in his consciousness, under the shield of his encouragement and protection. He lived in and for the institution, but he was too strong a man to be eclipsed by the institution or identified with it. In his personality he was greater than in his work. He was known, he was honored, revered, and loved for himself, for his disinterested pursuit and frank recognition of what was excellent. Absolute confidence was reposed in him, that he would never crush the germs of promise, but cherish them as a sacred trust, helping as far as he could to free them from crudeness or eccentricity. He became the modern substitute for the ancient patron of letters. Such books as in the eighteenth century could not have seen the light without permission to dedicate to some noble lord were carried to him for sanction. The adulation and flattery which authors once lavished on patrons assumed in his case the form of a genuine gratitude and affection. To this personal devotion, the fitting reward of unselfish and generous labor, were added other rewards in the more formal and public recognition, among them the degree of Doctor of Letters from Princeton University in 1896.

Mr. Scudder’s published works include over a score of volumes, while his anonymous work if gathered into books would make several volumes more. In all his writings there are the marks of clear insight, often accompanied with illuminating flashes which penetrate to the inmost recess of his theme. Right sympathy, sure intelligence, the scholarly mind, conscientiousness, carefulness, thoroughness, sanity of judgment, — these are his qualities ; on the other hand, caution and conservatism, even a touch of fastidiousness. As to his literary methods, foremost, of course, was his enormous capacity for accomplishing tasks, so that those who saw him most closely were amazed at the ease and the speed with which he would do the work that ordinarily would require the labor of several men. The arrangements of his study, the classification of his papers, the numerous indexes of his writings showed at a glance his orderly nature. His manuscripts were in graceful, refined handwriting; he refused the aid in composition of the typewriter, or even of the fountain pen. He had a device of his own in blank books for composition, corresponding in shape with their prospective published form. These he preserved, sending type-written copies to the press, making his corrections in the proof because not sure of his expression till he saw it in type. He made catalogues of all his writings, with references to dates and places, collections also of his short articles and fugitive papers, which were somewhat luxuriously bound, as if to impress himself with the importance of every, even the slightest task. He seemed to have abundance of time at his disposal, and showed great gladness in receiving callers who came for advice on literary matters; he gave abundantly from his ample resources, ready at the moment with his opinions in answer to questions, and yet without rudeness it became evident when the interview was over. Although frank and open in his manners, he was also reticent beyond certain limits, as if he carried confidential deposits, which he must be on guard lest he should betray.

Among the public positions of trust which he held, one was membership of the State Board of Education for several years. Some of his most elaborate studies have gone into its annual reports. Williams College, to which he gave long service as a trustee, is noted for the intense devotion it inspires among its alumni, but by none was he surpassed in ardent affection, in earnest and constant consideration for its welfare. It was like a second home, for there also three of his brothers had been trained. Although living at a distance, he held it a sacred obligation to attend the meetings of its trustees without regard to his personal convenience. Standing in the same relation to the government of Wellesley College, he carried it close to his heart, endearing himself greatly to its trustees and faculty. When the new chapel was to be built, his knowledge of architecture and interest in ecclesiastical arrangements and decorations enabled him to make practical suggestions which were incorporated in the edifice to its improvement. He took a prominent and responsible part in the election and installation of Miss Hazard as president. So great had been his service that his death was felt as a calamity for which the college mourned. He was also a trustee of the Episcopal Theological school in Cambridge, where his services were greatly valued. For many years he served on the Cambridge school committee. In other relations, some of them but little heard of, he wrought with the same unselfish devotion to the public good. He was president of the Church Library Association, where he made it his duty to see that all unworthy books should be weeded out from its annual catalogue for Sunday-school and parish libraries. In this position he had many co-workers under him, whose respect and confidence he maintained. In all these posts, as in all his personal relations, he showed himself a man of great staying power, to whom one could tie with confidence. He had the blessing of the peacemaker, for it was his aim, it seemed to be his mission in official relationships, to reconcile differences, to study the art of making sacrifices in the interest of harmony and united action.

In his religious life he kept the traditions of regular church attendance, and of the daily family prayers. From the clerical point of view he was the ideal layman, in the many relations of the parish and its minister seeking only for the common good. His devout presence was in itself a sermon. His family life was most fortunate and most happy. His home in Cambridge became an attractive social and literary centre. He was fond of social functions, and for them was singularly fitted, inheriting from his father a happy sanguine temperament, the disposition to be pleased with little things, together with an unfailing fund of wit and humor, which made intercourse with him a truly joyous experience. Under all circumstances he maintained this cheerful, glad demeanor, or if he were downcast he never showed it. He seemed to lead the happy life of the childhood which in his books he portrayed, keeping the child’s freshness and sense of the joyousness of life.

So he came to the end, prematurely it would seem to us, in his sixty-fourth year, maintaining through a prolonged illness great serenity, and even Christian fortitude which a stoic might envy. His familiar appearance on the streets of Cambridge and Boston as he went in and out among us for thirty years made him a landmark, whose disappearance has changed the outlook of many lives. For those who knew him best he will live in memory as a man true in his relationships, a faithful friend, a genial companion with a large and hopeful, a loving and trusting heart. In the finished product of simple manhood he stood for all that was most wanted or most to be desired. He was in reality, as we now see him transfigured in the eternal light, a man who lived in the spirit of self-sacrifice for the good of others, a philanthropist and public servant in the role of a man of letters.

Alexander V. G. Allen.