1896 EDWIN MANNERS DIARY PROJECT (MDP)

January 1, 1896

An ideal day for the opening of another year; the atmosphere is glorious in winter claritude. The newyear brought us a new poet-laureate in the shape of Alfred Austin, who is perhaps less of a poet and more of a conservative laureate. It is not pleasant tobe disappointed in poets nor wise tobe too absolute with them. In the region of art - is it not true, that all are equal? Certainly they are both Alfred, only one is Alfred Major and the other, Alfred Minor! I find that several of Austin's pieces have crept into my scrap-books, so that I must have fancied him somewhat; but then one may do that without recognizing the magic, the supreme touch, that might reasonably be required or looked for in Tennyson's successor. Swinburne's, no doubt, is the most flute-like voice now singing, but his words, words, endless words blow into musical bubbles without a sufficient body of substance and character. Besides for this particular favor Swinburne has run himself out of court. At present it seems that the premier might have gone farther and done worse than to have appointed Rudyard Kipling. Of Kipling's verse, tobe sure, the eternal "conundrum of the workshops" persists in asking, Is it art? is it poetry? It is in its kind, in what it deals, a burly and unique criticism of life, a fresh, virile, imaginative putting of the life and mystery of the world, on a large and interesting scale. This is well worth doing, and is well worth honoring. I believe in the laureateship, and not much in the not very discriminating adverse comments of the press, comments equally applicable to almost any position. Because a man is elected or appointed to a certain office, it does not follow that there are not others equally able, if not better equipped to fulfil its functions. Yes, the intelligence of the public knows that there are others, and if need be could name several in this instance. But with what significance? I believe in the poet-laureateship, and if I quarreled about anything, it would be the manner of selecting the incumbent. In this the French Academy could give Lord Salisbury points to his and England's advantage. The function itself, however, should be preserved: it is an important institution - an official recognition of the weight and authority of literature in its highest form, and in the person of the poet gives dignity and sets a kind of standard of excellence, if not always, as in this case, the highest standard, in the literary world. It is here in respect of relative excellence that disappointment is felt, and because the tests applicable to the poet are now more severe than formerly. The collation in anthologies of the best poetry has spoiled us for anything less good than the best. Yet as I have already suggested, this tendency may not, in its entirety, be wise. Aware of the longing and demand of strenuous souls, the select scholar or aristocrat of art, for perfection of form - not only this, but for a perfect union of thought, feeling and form, marked by a subtle, interior music of its own that proves it whole; -aware of this, I still think that, carried to an extreme, there is some narrowness, some rigidity in all this, a certain limitation of the poet's sphere and influence, and I find in it what perhaps has made poetry to-day less democratic and popular than it once was and should be to serve some of its noblest purposes. What I might call this superior poetic canon, if enforced, would bar out much acceptable verse, much good poetry, marred, it may be, here and there, by banality and lack of charm, less starting in measure by reason of the rhetoric, the theatric, but still dear to the people at large, loved in some degree for its very faults, and containing along with these much that is uplifting and beautiful and in which the people find their account and find it, I believe, to this eternal betterment! Personally I think literary men the brightest beings on this planet, notwithstanding the present vogue of science, and in the long run or the short run, literature, which in a high aspect is another name of the almighty, will always prevail. But men of letters are not sufficiently organized as a body and as it were instituted by authority of the state, like the splendid profession of law that virtually rules mankind. It would be a sorry performance or omission, then, to let lapse from desuetude or otherwise the poet-laureateship, which is among the very few positive links that bind literature officially to the state and confer on it the sovereign's powerful sanction and prestige. The temporary injunction is dissolved; let the poet proceed!

January 10, 1896

Mr. Gilbert Collins* called in reference to placing his son Walter with me to prepare for the Bar, or rather to have me coach him in his final preparations thereto. *Ex-Mayor Collins. Later Justice of the New-Jersey Supreme Court. (E.M.)

January 11, 1896

Played whist to-night at the Black's. I played with Miss Christine Bowen, a pretty creature to look at. She paints. Her complexion is brilliant enough tobe painted, but the coloring is natural, indeed surpasses paint. I mean that she paints pictures - very amateurish as yet.

January 13, 1896

Young Walter Collins called on me yesterday afternoon, and I gave him a line of study to pursue. In the short talk we had, I was pleased with him. He has a good equipment, being a graduate of Williams; has ability, I think, and exceptional advantages with his father, for marked success in the law or cognate spheres. At present, however, he is ((Cotos-eating*)), as he suggested, and I fancy with indefinite ideals and a predilection for literature; with his I can sympathise but success does not come in this way. It exacts singleness of aim and concentration. *

January 15, 1896

Sent a written claim for $5,000 against the Pennsylvania R. R. Company, for injuries done our (Manners) property on Railroad Avenue, to Mr. F. Wolcott Jackson, general superintendent.

Paid the remaining tax-bills for 1895-6.

January 16, 1896

Attended the Princeton Club dinner at the Hotel Brunswick, to-night. The dinner was good and the speeches were good, especially those of President Patton and James C. Carter, Esquire. I sat with Prof. Henry F. Osborn, the other members of my class (1877) present being M. Taylor Pyne, a trustee, and admirable fellow, the Rev. Wilton Merle Smith, who made a speech, enthusiastic, in sympathetic tone of voice, but with a balance of sentences or manner that gave it a sing-song effect, Francis E. Parker, a lawyer, and Prof. W. B. Scott, who dropped in at a late hour. We formed a little circle about the head of table E, in pleasant talk and comradeship. We drank excellent champagne and smoked dreamy fragrant cigars.

January 18, 1896

At the Condict's this evening. Played whist with Mrs. Bowen against my sister Marie and Mr. Will Gilmore; we won. A new dish there was, a Miss Eddy, of Connecticut, a daughter of the late Rev. Hiram Eddy, of this city. Though of a somewhat dusky and Indian type, she had subtlety of expression and certain alluring ways, with an aptness at repartee.

January 20, 1896

Warrant against Kane. Order in attachment for Tierney. Affidavit and order in attachment for Kelly.

January 21, 1896

(newsprint blurb and comment) (blurb) Jersey City should now follow the advice of Messrs Jones, Hardenbergh, Ward, Voorhees, Manners, Condict, Quimby, Dear, Pangborn, Lewis, Banks, Jarvis, Corcoran, Wheelihan, Brinkerhoff, Vanreipen, Cole and Furst. (Comment) John W. Griggs was inaugurated to-day as Governor of New-Jersey. Later (he became) Attorney General of the United States. Avent the vexed water question. Entered rule for M. Kelly to-day, in the Circuit Court.

January 22, 1896

The Rev. Frederic E. Mortimer, Rector of St. Mark's, spent part of last evening with us. He has an agreeable voice and easy way of speech, and is at times interesting, although his interests are limited mainly to the Church, and his church phases more particularly the mediaeval and gothic sentiment. There is a beauty and poetry in all this, but it ignores too much, while yielding as time need somewhat, but not sufficiently, to the evolutionary in religion. To-night Mr. Lebbens Ward called with his water-bill for me to revise, and later Mr. Flavel McGee burst in upon us with some clients to procure from me an order of discontinuance in an action of attachment and make settlement therefore.

January 23, 1896

The Supreme Court to-day set aside the contract made by Jersey City with the Jersey City Water Company for a new supply of potable water - a very proper decision under the circumstances and in line with the contention of the citizens who have given the subject of a new or improved water-supply serious consideration.

Our local Board of Trade held its eighth annual banquet at the Hotel Washington to-night, and I was present. There was a mixed crowd present, and this if less exclusive was more cosmopolitan and hence more various in interest. The speeches too were of all kinds, good, bad and indifferent, and to certain senses, chiefly the ludicrous sense, the bad ones provoked or elicited almost as much joy as, and more sympathy than, the good ones, and joy and sympathy are among the great things! Maj. Pangborn, the Rev. Mr. Hathaway, W. R. Wilder, Esq. And Job Hedges, Secretary to Mayor Strong of New-York, talked entertainingly. Mr. Wilder was at Princeton while I was there, and made the "presentation address" on class-day, 1879.

January 27, 1896

Our Ambassador to Germany, Theodore Runyon, is reported to have died early this morning in Berlin. He was Chancellor of this State for two terms, preceding our present Chancellor in office. He took part in our Civil war, being among the first at the front. He was the first American Ambassador to Germany. I recall his heavy mustache, almost king Emmanuel-like, and my smiling in the old Chancery Chambers at Newark at the alertness and aptness of his remarks, while the counselors around looked grave. His signature was an indescribable scrawl, a little whirlwind of ink, understanded by the profession but not by the people. Statement of D'Elisa + Co.

January 29, 1896

Interest on Husted bonds. Walter Collins, tomorrow at 11 o'clock a.m. - our law seance off to-day.

January 30, 1896

Replied to T. B. Jackson's claim. Bar dinner, to-night. The lawyer's annual spree or "spread" came off at the Hotel Washington this evening. Mr. Gilbert Collins presided becomingly, and the toasts were of average merit; if in an instance or two they seemed to be a bit more serious than the somewhat buffoon requirements of the accepted after-dinner-speech prescribe, they gained in dignity and were of a more scholarly order. Yet the thing that lingers in my mind most of the remarks made by Mr. S. C. T. Dodd, one of the counsel of the Standard Oil Company, was his grim reference to the cemetery on the Schuylkill river, whereby the Philadelphians imbibed the liquids if not the virtues of their ancestors! Corporation Counsel Blair was witty as usual, but his speech had a literary flavor that appealed to me. He advocated a better acquaintance with literature and a higher literary standard in the profession - a fine antidote I might add to its mere business and money-grubbing aspect and tendency. Mr. William H. Corbin added some well-informed but entertaining views on legislative investigations and was followed by Mr. Charles D. Thompson on the judiciary and Mr. James S. Erwin on the lawyer as a politician.

February 1, 1896

As I lay on a lounge this afternoon, my mind began perceptibly to brighten and I was soon haranguing as to listening senates. I felt the light and movement of my words, their persuasive force and eloquence. Surely, thought I, it is worth while to get up and transfer to paper such noble speech; surely there is a wholeness and beauty about it that should be caught and preserved, if possible. Much misgiving lest I should lose some of its evanescent quality or charm. I made a motion to rise, but something weighed me down. I tried in vain to get up. Thinking of my art, I had not seen, or did I dream? A black man stood at my shoulder; stranger held my hand!

February 4, 1896

It is not so much success, so-called, if success at all, that should be the aim, as perfection in whatever is undertaken, and not only perfection of the specific thing sought, but greater still and along with it perfection of conduct, of the whole life. And then how glorious it would be if we could go, in this office of beauty and well-ordered wholeness, from the one to the many, from the individual to the harmony of society, the true music of the future!

(Note: there is a notation of "x" or "o" after many of the printed date entries in the journal: this should be investigated: it appears that it is only sporadic and in certain parts of the year-jdm)

February 6, 1896

A great rain and wind storm prevails - a very hurricane, with sheets of flying water. It is no exaggeration to say that it rages: floods and much damage must result. I stayed within doors and read for the most part. After luncheon Walter Collins called and we held one of our usual conferences on law. Walter is appreciative and so gentlemanly and considerate that I like him very much, I suspect, however, that the law is still with him but a half-god; and in law and love, it is only when the half-gods go that the true divinity appears. I think Emerson has said this of love or something to this effect.

February 7, 1896

Yesterday afternoon my sister Marie went around to Miss Edge's house on Wayne street, to hear Miss Rose Kingsley lecture on French art and artists. Miss K. is a daughter of the late Charles Kingsley, English clergyman, but better known at large for his novels and a few lyrics or songs. After the lecture or reading Marie was introduced to Miss K., who said that Manners was a familiar name to her, as she knew well the present Lord Manners and his sweet little wife. This kindly reference seemed intimate and cast a momentary light on the family over-sea, and in the lecturer's person one fancied a living connection as it were between the American and English branches of the Manners family separated by that great but lessening divide, the Atlantic ocean, for a period of two centuries!

February 11, 1896

Received from L. B. Vredenburgh, Esq., a communication respecting the M. claim for damages against the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and replied to the same.

February 12, 1896

A fine day; the air, cold and crisp. It is the anniversary of Lincoln's birth, and it is observed for the first time as a legal holiday, but only partially and quietly by the people, who have not fully waked up to the occasion or whose practical sense demurs at another added to our growing list of dies non. Our local Lincoln association, the original of its kind in America, holds its annual dinner with speeches, this evening, at Taylor's Hotel.

February 13, 1896

May everything I do or say Be fashioned in some perfect way; For deed ill-done or word miswrit Irketh my soul, untunes my wit.

February 14, 1896

Let me write of everybody and everything on earth, and still my soul pants unsatisfied; it longs for a dip across the moon and a look into that silent place of many dreams.

February 15, 1896

I looked in at the Olympia, Hammerstein's Olympia, this afternoon. I was somehow bored in the theatre, but found in the music-hall a gorgeous spectacle. "Marguerite" was the piece or opera - ridiculous in some aspects, but beautiful in others. Certainly there were bevies of good-looking girls with shapely 'understandings', elegant costumes and a brilliant massing of light and color. I smiled at some of the incongruities; the studio scene, for instance, and the living picture of the "injured lady" - tragi-comedy, indeed! The numbers were indifferent.

February 17, 1896

A very cold day, yet this evening, more bitter still, my sister Blanche and I trapsed over to Abbey's Theatre to see Sarah Bernhardt. She played Gismonda in Sardon's striking drama of that name, and played the part skilfully and with fine effect, forliter in re*. She is subtle, and displays an excellent command of the actor's art, its technique, so that even in the most forceful and intense essays or moments she holds herself well and seems not to over-step the modesty of nature; although at times, I fear, she does, as does likewise the play itself - a not unusual fault of French plays, however well they are usually constructed. They show too plainly the artifice and are more effective than poetic and great. This may be a just criticism also of the "divine Sarah", who acts and talks indeed like a very Parisian and no doubt reflects therefore the qualities of its drama - good and bad. Her name, however, sounds to me Teutonic and she looks in fact like a blond or semi-blond edition of the German Jewess - a source I should say of some portion of her power.
*

February 18, 1896:

Newsprint article loose on this page: A well-known local physician who is familiar with this treatment says it is just as efficient in the home of the patient as it is in the pine woods. It has a peculiar healing power over affections of the throat, lungs, and bronchial tubes, will break up a cold in twenty-four hours, and will cure any cough that is curable. The treatment is very simple, consisting of the Pure Virgin Oil of Pine mixed with Whisky and Glycerine in the following proportions: Virgin Oil of Pine (Pure): % ounce, Glycerine: 2 ounces, Good Whisky: 8 ounces. Shake well and use in teaspoonful doses every four hours. The ingredients can be secured from any good prescription druggist at small cost. Inquiry at the prescription department of one of the leading druggists elicited the information that the Pure Virgin Oil of Pine is put up only in half-ounce vials for dispensing. Each vial is securely sealed in a round wooden case, with engraved wrappers showing the name - "Virgin Oil of Pine (Pure)" - plainly printed thereon. There are many rank imitations of Virgin Oil of Pine (Pure), which are put out under various names, such as Concentrated Oil of Pine, Pine Balsam, etc. Never accept these as a substitute for the Pure Virgin Oil of Pine, as they will invariably produce nausea and never effect the desired result.

February 19, 1896

Last night, Shrove Tuesday night, my sister Helen and I played whist with Mrs. Mary Bowen and Ex-Judge John A. Blair. The "silent game" was evidently enjoyed, but not altogether in silence. Silence was meant for slaves and gamesters, not for men and woman in a social game. The fine freedom of the latter will brook no ungracious restriction!

February 20, 1896

Liberty! Equality! 'Tis curious, if not very strange, that they who shout these shibboleths in the same breath do not seem to perceive their inconsistency. Given liberty, inequality naturally springs up. There is no equality in nature, but only difference, inherent inequality, the glory and wonder of creation. This is presumably admitted; but in respect of governmental, municipal and private matters, peculiarly subject and amenable to legislation and the social code, think you that liberty and equality agree? In order to bring about even a temporary equality in these relations and functions of life, it is necessary to bid liberty good-by and set up over us some great trampling fellow with autocratic powers, whose hand of iron and tyranny may measurably if not completely, smooth out the inequalities and uniform the leveled people. And then the people, oh, the poor people! With that sad expression of wisdom learned from experience and the monotony of existence will go about, downcast in look and mien, lamenting their loss of the golden age of inequality that their ancestors enjoyed! Yet they need not despair. If they only live long enough or dethrone oppression and restore liberty, inequality by selection, by the evolution of difference and variety, will surely reassert and establish itself as a leading, a vital principle; for it is the life, and can never be more than seemingly and for brief periods suppressed. With its entire extinguishments, if that were possible, life itself would go out. Liberty and fraternity should be the humanitarian cries. They make for patriotism, truth, righteousness, differentiation, individuality, reverence, beauty and love.

February 25, 1896

Sent Virginia a statement of our estate accounts for last year, with a check in payment of the balance due to her.

Together with his fine characterization, Shakespere, by subtle suggestion and felicitous phrase, so steeps his plays in an atmosphere of life, poesy and romance, that one feels the plainness and mechanics of the other dramas, feels spoiled for even the French technical finish and correct dramatization, and perhaps can endure in his company, with any depth of satisfaction, only the stately grave tragedians of Greece, whose severe simplicity, dignity and constructive beauty, o'er-hung by fate, impress deeply, cease never to charm.

February 27, 1896

Removed this afternoon to office or room No. 58, fourth floor, Weldon Building - a desirable change. The Weldon Building from an architectural point of view is too factory-like in appearance, but still continues tobe the most convenient office-house for lawyers in the city. By the way it was on Washington street, just around the corner, that I was born, on the very block in which I am now enofficed. I seem to affect my native heath.

February 28, 1896

The world is about half right and about half wrong. It is doubtful if the encroachment of either half on the other avails much. There is now a certain action and reaction of good and evil so-called, a certain balance and equilibrium of the parts that makes the world what it is and keeps it sane. It is perhaps fortunate tobe on the presumed right side, but not very unfortunate tobe on the other side. One may be rendering essential service there. Everyone counts. Collected dividends, N. Y. National Exchange Bank, Chambers street.

February 29, 1896

Dropped Flavel McGee, Esq., word anent the balance of my fee in attachment against the Scott Ice and Coal Company. It appears that the check mailed to me somehow miscarried or was lost.

March 2, 1896

I am lucky in sisterly letters this morning. Virginia writes from Perth Amboy and Marie, from Harlingen - Rutland Farm, where she is staying for a few days.

March 3, 1896

Whenever I cross a river by boat or bridge, I have joy of the river. I feel its affinity and joy. It refreshes my soul: my soul sings and seems tobe washed by the river clean and sweet. Is it not a spirit? I fancy, the river is.

March 5, 1896

The last few days have been cold and windy, and I have felt somewhat indisposed. I suppose if we keep our bodies and tempers fit, the weather matters not or all kinds of weather are enjoyable. Certainly the weather about here is not monotonous, and at times acts like a variegated jester. Picking up an Evening Journal, lying at hand, though of the other evening, I noticed an account of the Colt case tried recently. The reporter likened it to the "Sorrows of Werther" and attributed Goethe's famous book to the poet Heine. Of course, one seldom notices or corrects Newspaper errors: he would be a busy man who did; but it sometimes satisfies to set a matter right. Accordingly I despatched a letter to the Journal. Anything in this way perhaps makes for a better work.

March 6, 1896

To-day I am concerned to celebrate myself. From the apex of my forty-first birthday -

I behold the ages past decline,
And proceed the glorious future line!

I am to me the fact of first importance. Whatever is is in respect of myself. If I contemplate the history of man, it is my interpretation. If I cast away into the universal life, it is the eye of the Ego that sees. This is the modesty and greatness of man; for though he speak universal truth, he speaks it, not dogmatically for others, but reticently, becomingly, as his opinion or view, as it appears to the Ego.

March 7, 1896

Mr. Lebbeus Ward called to have me examine a bill, a legislative bill, concerning potable water, of course, and suggest any corrections and amendments, which I accordingly did. I then took the bill in its amended shape to John W. Queen, Esq., the minority leader in the House, to enlist his interest in it and support.

March 9, 1896

Mr. Frank Stevens and Mr. James Young called to arrange, if possible, for the purchase of certain lots of ours on Gilchrist and Putnam streets. Wrote to Marie to consult, with S. about this and other matters. Collected rents, and half-yearly dividend, American Coal Company, Washington Building, No. 1 Broadway.

March 10, 1896

Virginia took luncheon with us. Sent Joseph Brauer, a farm-hand, out to Harlingen, to work on our farm. Called in Mr. Samuel Marsh, in the Vanderbilt Building, No. 132 Nassau street. Quizzed Walter Collins on the constitution of the United States and New-Jersey. Conferred with several persons on their several concerns.

March 11, 1896

Received word from Marie that her consultation with S. amounted to nil. A wintry day for March, if indeed March may not now be considered a winter month: it is, prithee, as much so as December. Fine flying snow whirls through the streets and drifts from the house-tops - a pretty scene, but not fully appreciated, I fear, by cranky humanity.

March 13, 1896

Although at the office this morning, I am not feeling well. A severe cold apparently has indisposed me, and seems tobe settling with soreness and pain in the same old place - the calcum and appendix, those inflammable mischief-makers in the bowels of compassion. I stayed within doors this afternoon.

March14, 1896

Remained a-bed all day. In the evening Blanche read to me a few short stories and prose poems.

March 16, 1896

Snow fell during Sunday and is still falling. It must be twelve or fourteen inches deep - the heaviest snow-storm, I think, since the blizzard of March, 1888. I wisely kept under cover.

March 17, 1896

A beautiful day with indications of Spring in the air, and consequently a great thaw. The streets are almost impassible with the mass of melting snow. It proved no barrier, however, to the sons of Erin or some of them, who deemed it indispensable to honor Saint Patrick by tramping through slush and dirt, ankle-deep, in one of their usual characteristic parades, loyal, good-natured, but almost pathetic in awkwardness and inelegance. Marie returned home from Rutland farm.

March 20, 1896

Ex-U. S. District Attorney Henry S. White looked in on me for a few moments this morning.

March 23, 1896

More snow fell to-day - a light spread of white.

March 24, 1896

Real cases of presumption are bad indeed; but be not too ready to say, Ah, what presumption! The right of private judgment must be preserved, ay, encouraged, especially in one's peculiar or own field. Whether he be a great Known or a great Unknown, it matters not to the discerning. It is by his fruit, it is by his utterance, ye shall judge him. That contains within itself the warrant of its being or want of it. I felt somewhat in this wise in reading Howell's "Literary Passions". Holding firmly my own right of private judgment, which differed not a little from his, I felt at times in him the internal mandate of the free nobleman of nature speaking with authority and not as one of the scribes. To venture a criticism, he seems to have set up for himself a theory that is not universal, and hence only relatively true - a false measure of all literature. He had a deft humor and gentle caressing, some one has said lady-like, use of words, to a manner; but with all his feeling for fairness and the large, one sees plainly his prejudices and limitations, amused at his pick and hack here and there, the skilful way of his grudge.

March 26, 1896

It is not becoming to lay down rules of conduct for others. Each must be guided by his own individual charter and by-laws. Any general precept can be but approximately fitting. But with my present look at a certain angle and my mind playing to it, I throw out a danger signal, especially to the young, to the warm-blooded and imaginative, calling upon them to study well the philosophy of passion and pleasure, to denote seriously their province, the limitations set, and cultivate the patience to endure, the ability to withstand occasionally the seeming, but not real dullness and monotony of life, and the consequent restlessness to escape to pasture new - an impulse for good and better things, if intelligently directed, but otherwise dangerous for evil. Resist manfully the untoward tendency, lest it fasten on you. Resist and it will prove only a passing phase; for if we only bring the right spirit and unclouded eyes to it, the ordinary life is a series of perpetual delights; indeed, everyday existence in the common or usual ways contains the most part of power and beauty, at least, the most natural and intimate power and beauty. Action is the remedy for ennui. Character is built and strengthened, not by shunning always, but by meeting face to face and overcoming difficulties and temptations. The joy of the inevitable, with acquiescence in the universal will, is the guard and wisdom of life.

March 30, 1896

As I walked up to luncheon just after noon, I met on Montgomery street a young man I knew and we strolled along together. He was evidently struggling in the storm and stress period. I liked him and felt some misgivings for his safety. I did not want to preach or more truthfully I did want to preach, but thought it inappropriate or unwise to do so. After a few words on politics and the world of affairs and his answers falling short of much experience, I discovered that what little interest he had left was centered on the front rows of theatres and concert halls. I remarked upon the value of taking interest in the many things of life, that a man's sanity and roundedness might almost be measured by the keenness and number of his interests. This seemed pertinent; for I saw that by rapid courses he was losing, though but turned of age, his freshness of spirit and had blunted badly the sensitive antennae of delight. There comes to one, said I, a certain fluctuating and uncertain epoch when he sails compass-less or giving up the reins rides no whither: then he is in a condition of perfect looseness for good or bad results, open to every air of subtle impression, fit to catch the evanescent, learn many fine turns or do something great, if sufficiently balanced, but then some slightest thing may throw him hard on the land or shipwreck him at sea. It is well for him at these times if he can lay hold of some safe principle or stand firmly upon some rock of truth till the storm be overpast. The young man's pale face flushed for an instant as he made the effort to say, that I had described his difficulties and state and opened for him some secrets of living.

April 2, 1896

At the Hedding M. E. Church this afternoon, I attended the funeral of the late Judge Roderick B. Seymour. The weather was bleak and windy and death seemed bleak and pitiless. There were many present. After the church services, there were Grand Army and Masonic ceremonies, effective in their manly simplicity, if not very smoothly performed. Dr. Leonard Gordon was with the Van Houten Post and his figure struck me as being very commanding and handsome. I had on a strong pair of glasses and some of the people that filed by looked indeed like curiosities, but none failed of some special interest. As I passed the deceased and noted his features comely still in ashen pallor. I turned and caught the roseate glow on the rounded countenance of a woman who sang in the quartet or choir: the contrast was of the sharpest.

April 7, 1896

By all means, if you can, fly in the highest heaven and hobnob with the stars; but always remember that there is a firm earth to fall back upon, that you live here among men at present and agreeably to your use of this abode will be your fitness for the starlit spaces above.

April 9, 1896

As applied to poetry art for art's sake has been in the vogue for sometime, yet has produced nothing distinctly great. By their fruits ye shall know them, and the fruitage of art for art's sake is thin, colorless and of small import. N'importe: it is right enough, rightly limited and construed. The veriest trifle, the pretty cameo, well-done, has its own beauty and excuse for being. Yes, the cherry-pit carvers are enjoyed, especially in calm and pleasant weather; but for the most part, for age-wear, in the main and travelled roads of life, in all weathers, stormy or halcyon, I find best, ay, utterly superior, the criticism, substance, moral purpose, strength, burden, human and divine, along with the exquisite art, of Sophocles and Shakespere! How full of awe they are and fateful. The weight and burden of humanity seem theirs; theirs too the show of upper things. They may or may not preach, as befits; but their practice is the practice of the universe.

April 11, 1896

Last Saturday my old malady, typhlitis or appendicitis, put me to bed, and it and my physician have kept me there ever since. I determined to get up to-day. I felt like falling down, and hung around the room very much like one of the rag-order; but the only way to gain strength and live is to will against life's enemies.

April 16, 1896

An extremely warm day - a record-breaker for heat at this time of the season.

April 17, 1896

Another hot day, the thermometer's silver streak bobbing up in the eighties. Yesterday Mr. L. B. Ward called and talked particularly about the pollution of the Passaic River. We drew up together the following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted last night by the Board of Finance: (clipping follows, glued in) Whereas, Under the act of 1852, entitled "an act to authorize the construction of works for supplying Jersey City and places adjacent with pure and wholesome water," Jersey City has acquired a franchise and vested rights in the waters of the Passaic River, between Belleville and Aquackanonck, and is authorized to take from the Passaic River as aforesaid a sufficient quantity of pure and wholesome water for the domestic and other uses of its own inhabitants, and those of adjacent places; and Wheras, The said water has been unlawfully polluted, to the great injury of Jersey City, by certain municipal and other corporations and individuals, contrary to the provisons of the twenty-first section of said act; therefore Resolved, That the corporation counsel be and hereby is directed to take such immediate legal action as may be necessary to maintain the city's vested rights aforesaid, and to enforce the provisions of the said act for the preservation of the Passaic River, in a state of purity, and to enjoin all persons or corporations from the present or future contamination of said water in violation of said act or otherwise. Resolved, That the corporation counsel be instructed to report at the next regular meeting of this board what steps he has taken in the premises. Resolved, That a certified copy hereof be furnished the board of street and water commissioners by the clerk of this board.

April 24, 1896

Dined this evening agreeably at Ex-Mayor Collins's, No. 312 York Street. I met his daughter Blanche for the first time. She is a slight pretty girl and was prettily dressed - a symphony in white and grey. After dinner she played accompaniments and her brother Walter sang. We had also a game of whist, Mrs. C. and I being of a side. I must not fail to mention little Marjorie, a sweet child, who showed me scores in her music-book while I read the music in her face.

April 27, 1896

Last night I attended Grace Church, corner of Erie and Second Streets, for the first time in a long while; yet it is the church to which I still belong, never having been transferred to St. Mark's, Jersey Avenue, where I now go in the rare occasions when I do go. It was the opening of Grace's jubilee year, and the services aptly called after the Jewish festival "the blowing of the trumpets". The human trumpets, some of them interesting, if not finely sounded, were blown so often and long that almost every one grew tired and wanted to get away. As it is, Grace is a beautiful substantial structure. It is further proposed to mark the jubilee year by erecting a detached tower over the baptistery - a tower with chimes.

May 7, 1896

There is a choice corner in my heart occupied by Edgar Poe. I believe with Andrew Lang that his esthetic will not hold water; but I feel - who can help but feel? -the ineffable charm of his genius. In short measures he found and gave glory. Take the short story. It requires art and time and if very good (it should only be very good) somewhat else to write and warrant its existence. This does not seem tobe the case with the novel, especially the three volume variety. The novel is quickly done, verbosely written and the art of its put together nothing worth. The late - ah, the Poesque tale is the thing! It is merum sal* and never tires one to read. Take the poem: it too should be short, tobe commensurate with the emotion that created it and that it excites; brief, I mean, unless it be or may be a Paradise Lost or Odyssey. In these short things Poe proved himself tobe a peculiarly fit master. He turned his eye on the clear or dark phase and fixed its fleeting beauty and mystery in forms that fascinate. Many are the narratives and verses put forth, yet Poe has served a few in either kind that remain and are likely to remain unexcelled. Much as I admire the beautiful way and psychological subtilty of Hawthorne, I hold the art of Poe to be more complete and on the whole greater. Some plain people, happily diminishing, think to parry his effect or brilliancy by dwelling on his character and imputing to it grave faults. Poe was not at fault: his spirit was too fine! The fault lay in the ill-adjustment and hardness of his times. He was the angel Israfel* come down among boors.

(Insert: 300 words listed for change (old and new spellings listed), from the Aug. 26, 1906 New York Times, entitled "THE 300 WORDS SELECTED FOR CHANGE") Article is not complete due to decay of paper and may be better sourced from NYT.

May 14, 1896

Looking for the moment at my sporadic mental notes or the scattered children of my heart and brain, I feel regretfully and with no small sense of guilt that they might have been, with finer care, angelical and informed with divine beauty. Yet I offer no apology. If I have sincerely done or written anything that is interesting, with some degree of lucidity and grace, especially if I have made anyone feel, I have added a measure, however small, to the world's spiritual worth, and this I deem better than a measure, however large, of material commodity and convenience. If I have told truly in impression, color and thought, in measure and tone, the story of a soul, however briefly, that is significant; it is of eternal significance!

May 15, 1896

Last night the sale of books of the Fortnightly Book Club took place at our house. Mr. Richard C. Fessenten conducted the sale. Among those present, other than the Manners contingent, were the Bowens (Madam and Miss), Miss Harkness, of Mercer Street, whom I saw home, Corporation Counsel John A. Blair and Mr. John Wahl Queen.

May 21, 1896

I don't care much for a certain Vice-Chancellor: he knows too much for the average lawyer, but not enough for fine minds. The former he abuses or abruptly tries to frustrate; the latter he talks short of; but talk he must, in place or out of place, generally out of place unless the positions of judge and counsel are tobe reversed. He hits generally a fair conclusion, but that's not the whole matter, and he seems to fail to see it.

May 28, 1896

I sometimes think, if I did not have a high courage of some kind, I might not now be living, and yet that may not be so much, although I recognize the boon of an hour's life and the ability required to sustain it. A strenuous man should do better than that. I fancy that for a little while I should walk away from mankind, alone, upon some stern and rock-bound coast, and contemplate austerely there, and then come back to tell of it - tell what I saw and what I felt and what I dreamed.

June 4, 1896

The other day some one recalled to mind the horse case I had some years back - that original horse case. It was an action of tort for injuries inflicted by a horse-trainer on several of our horses. The names of the horses were Flirtilla, Madge and Aurora. I started off before the jury by calling attention to these names and remarking that they were both classical and romantic. This seemed to tickle the reporters. They gave the cause more public notice than it deserved, yet it evidently interested the local public, and Judge Knapp said in his charge, somewhat captiously, that "horse cases seemed to excite more interest than any other class of cases".

June 9, 1896

I wonder whether by and by men and women will attain, by process of evolution or otherwise, that Garden of Eden frankness that prevailed before fig-leaves and petticrats were brought into requisition for shame. And yet I am fond of dress: it is so sensuous and at times beautiful. Granting the variety yet noble simplicity of nature, may there not be an art superior? May not dress, though artificial, be like happy marriage an improvement on nature? In truth, are not the rightful and progressive institutions of man but divine continuations of the evolutionary process of God? Only the nude and original simplicity seems to be the divine way and is perennially beautiful.

June 11, 1896

With the highest respect for the virtuous and good, and earnest to promote every means of morals and tendency that makes for righteousness, I should limit the universal will, did I not recognize some raison d'entre* in all things, did I not find exempli gratia* something sacred even in the courtesan, poor, unvoiced reviled creature - but still an angel in disguise.
*basis of admission *unwarranted examples (of)

June 12, 1896

What a deal of hypocrisy, cant and dishonesty is displayed by the world in its dealings with the sexual relation, the sexual passion? What harm is done thereby and how much good would result from a natural unfettered discussion of the matter! Yet I confess the subject is risky and seems to defy sane healthy treatment.

June 15, 1896

As I entered my office this morning I noticed a painter putting another name on the door of the Ransom brother's office across the hall-way and opposite to mine. It was that of Miss Mary Philbrook, the first woman to be admitted to the New-Jersey Bar. My attention was attracted but indifferently. My prinicipal objection to woman's going into man's occupations is that she thereby becomes less charming. No doubt she is tobe praised or pitied for her efforts. She has minded me lately to take down even my ideal woman from the cloistral niche and look her over. I find her less interesting than I once did, less reasonable, less poetic than man, in fine, I am regretfully compelled to say, a palpably tame creature. I remarked one evening recently to a bright society lady that men's pursuits wore off the bloom of woman. Yes, she replied, if the kind that go into men's work have any bloom to wear off. And there is as much truth as wit in her words. There may be exceptions, loopholes for escape, but as a general rule, it takes a hard and cheapened kind of woman to stand the habits and pressure of the business world. Its ways were not meant for the children of bloom.

June 18, 1896

Although the weather has been cool and pleasant, the people who go out of town for the summer are fast getting away. Several of my friends have gone to Europe, to the mountains or the seaside. If I did not get a little stale by staying so long in town, I might continue my stay indefinitely, and not venture out to the farm or elsewhere in the country, even in midsummer. It is not that my love of nature fails. I think not. I can still find an approximate paradise in the country, when the city ways are infernal enough. But even in the dull season there are more of those interesting beings called men and women and children flirting about urban streets and stones than can be expected for enjoyment in the wide green fields. It might perhaps be too strong to say that I like the city more, but I am forsooth more of an Athenian than a Dorian. Now if I were a vegetable, as I trust I am not, I could bask content in the fields all day long and furl my leaves at set of sun; but being, as I trust I am, a spirit erect, I find my peculiar habitat among spirits erect, in the place of the better congenial souls, or at least where they most gather who seem to have survived the clods. And the pity of this annual pilgrimage to nature is that the bright urban minds that go out on it go out in a double sense: they cease to burn, they reassume the clods!

June 24, 1896

The weather is wet and showery. Took Philip Amend over to the railway station and directed him to Rutland farm. He is engaged to attend C. and aid in the work.

June 25, 1896

As to-day's "Evening Journal" has it (near enough for a society note):--Clipping is glued in:

The Misses Marie, Helen and Blanche Manners, of Barrow Street, popular young society women, have gone to their picturesque home in the country for the summer. The young ladies and their brother spend almost half the year at their fine old home, which is one of the prettiest portions of New Jersey. (end)

We should have been off by this, but certain considerations will keep us in town until the first of July, and I am agreeable.

June 29, 1896

Called this evening with Marie, Helen and Blanche on the Miurheids, 281 York Street. Mrs. M. is always good-humored and entertaining. Her young daughter Julia has a fine head of hair and complexion, but the hair was brushed flat to the scalp, with a long braid down the back and odd little locks like sickles running out from the ears, which gave her a quaint look that was very attractive. Mrs. M.'s sister, Miss Jeanne Pearsall, was interesting: she resembles a French madame of the eighteenth century, a la Pompadour, holding salons. We looked over old china, silver, clocks, pictures and other things of virtue.

Marie, Blanche and I spent the afternoon and evening at Manhattan Beach. The day was charming and we enjoyed ourselves very much and a good dinner too. The seaside is somewhat gray and sad without the fortification of a good dinner, especially this beach, which has no immediate countryside to speak of: a fine countryside gives a brighter, more variegated interest than the sea.

July 1, 1896

On this Page: Newspaper article entitled: Shopping District Value Appeals. The article reports on numerous appeals issued by property owners requesting a lowering of their assessed real estate values for the purpose of taxation.

July 2, 1896

Marie and Blanche with two maids got away to Rutland farm this afternoon on the one-thirty train. Helen stays in town with me a few days longer.

July 4, 1896

The senseless but popular celebration of the day is in progress: cannon to right of us, cannon to left of us, ears without rest. With the exception of a short walk, I remained indoors during the morning, reading the papers and a life of McCosh, just published. I liked the old doctor very much, and while at college felt the beneficial influence of his strong personality. He believed in evolution and billiards and made an up-to-date president for Princeton. After luncheon, the noises not agreeing with my nervous economy, especially the repeating pistols or revolvers, I took a sail down the bay. On my return I met Mr. Flavel McGee on the ferry boat crossing to Jersey City: he had just come from a meeting of the Society of Cincinnati. We went up to Barrow street in the trolley-car together and exchanged a few points on gold, silver, protection and free trade. We both feel the strength of the free-silver movement and predict political surprises.

July 10, 1896

When one gets to Thackeray's age of wisdom, he does not care much (only a lingering little bit) for the girls especially the buds, except as bits of light in the landscape; he prefers the smoother creature comforts - a good bath, a good dinner, a cigar after dinner, and to sit on the cool veranda or at the club window and look out at the passing show, passing in may senses, making an occasional comment.

July 13, 1896

Went this afternoon to my sister Virginia's at Perth Amboy; expect to stay there a few weeks.

August 3, 1896

In town again. Mr. Eldred Johnson called to see if he could arrange for desk-room in my office - I may accommodate him. Tenants, cranks and collectors called: the tenants and agents for me were all right, but the weather was too warm for the collectors of the other fellows and the inflammation, as Byron has it, of bills.

August 4, 1896

At the Olympia Roof Garden to-night.

August 5, 1896

Excessively warm. Sailed down the bay this evening to Coney Island chiefly for the sail.

(Four loose articles in fold, must be processed into file at later date) (not known which ones these are, JDM)

August 6, 1896

A hot night, but a night of joy, exceeding joy; but this must remain sub rosa* - a very appropriate place for love and romance.

*"privately, secretly," "under the rose," which was regarded as a symbol of secrecy.

August 7, 1896

The heat continues extreme. Renewed nearly all the annual and triennial insurance policies, with Mr. Seward, and paid the premiums, that is all expiring and due at this time.

August 8, 1896

The hot term is still on and I am off for the farm this afternoon.

August 20, 1896

As I drove through a mountain road of moving wildness and caught prospects of entrancing beauty, I felt my heart, now well seasoned, again leap for joy. I felt like seizing on it all more perfectly, as though something escaped my grasp or was too evanescent to hold. A kind of desire to possess it eternally was mingled pensively with my passing and leaving it behind, not only presently but forever, and I fain hoped that I might be permitted still to know it or yet greater beauty Eternal in the heavens.

September 1, 1896

Got back to town from Rutland Farm just after noon. Marie came on from Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, and arrived here about the same time. The day is bright and cool.

September 3, 1896

Mr. Walter Collins, just back from Europe, dropped in to tell me about his trip. He enjoyed himself and his travels greatly. Although a true American and too sensible to be an Anglomaniac, he was enthusiastic over the English, their country and their ways. London impressed him more than Paris: it has more depth, a richer life and atmosphere. He returned on the steamship St. Louis of the American line. The Chinese Viceroy Li Hung Chang was aboard, and his manner, he thought, imparted a sense of greatness.

September 4, 1896

Divertisement. It was a fine balmy night, last night was, and George Manton felt as liberal as the air in thought and action. He strolled leisurely through the Tenderloin district of New-York - a very interesting district by the way - and his eyes were wide-open. Certainly he was not seeking evil - that fell in his path too often for a good sportsman; there was no zest of search; nor in particular was he looking at every woman as possible material for sin, yet here appeared his fatality. In certain moods, perhaps generally, he was revolted by a class of courtesans; they bred in him a qualified disgust, not too positive, however - he was too fond of humanity for that, and a gentleman-like sense of the proprieties kept him with few digressions, in a Strait course. Yet nature is greater than so-called respectability, and doubtless, as Renan frankly says, takes no note of continence. Juvenal has it to this effect, "Never does nature say one thing, wisdom another." In truth, if need be, the artificial systems of law and morals, clumsy compromises at best, yet the best tentative means at command for a modus vivendi* should yield to it without giving way or losing their rightful sanctions. Interested as George was in everything - he had a very free and docile mind, and fascinated by the mystery of the night, its subtle effects and moving figures, still his sensibilities at times recoiled or shivered a little at the hard brazen faces that too frequently flaunted by speculating a moment on the degradation of vice, its foot-ship hold and look of hell, or considering whether there was not about it as much of physical disease as moral turpitude, he began to turn from Broadway into Forty-second street, on his way home, when there suddenly loomed before him a delightful apparition, that because no less delightful in the shape of a comely-figured young woman, surmounted by a fetching head. Her witching smile George could not well deny and covertly returned. He should not ordinarily have done so; but this daughter of joy, while in some senses not positively beautiful, had a most fascinating expression, complexion of a neutral tint just done to a turn, luxurious chestnut hair and an eye that drew in depth of meaning - an eye well-like, or like a little lake when darkling enough to give a piquant charm. He managed a little French too, academic French, but it stood him in poor stead in live talk, beyond the usual civilities. Of course he hardly looked for sincerity, but her nationality dissembles with finesse, which is a fine art, and an unexpected delicacy prevented the too patent obtrusion of the business in hand. Poor George or happy, fortunate George, as you will, soon found himself so pleased that he was taking Suzette home or being seduced as a matter of course. Under the circumstances who could forbear? Alack, no Saint Anthony this time! So into her parlor went the fly: and there was for spoil also a lovely flaxen-haired girl, just turned of seventeen summers, and looking still younger, indeed not more than a mere child, a real dream-angel child, whose soft chubby cheeks dumpling in smiles and innocent (!) blue eyes made up a cradled and infantile effect too sweet and white to be marred. Was it an emotional phantasy? Surely a shining vision then he held, and moved by beauty to the blissful height, the glories of the world grew dim and vanished into nothingness. The secret, aye, the mystery of the universe lay here! He stayed until the small hours in the full enjoyment of that Elysium out of which come pain and virtue. Did he regret it? Regret love's joys! He was too honest a knave for that. Now George, though of a vital temperament, had a refined, sensitive nature, slightly over-drawn and fine. This plunge into the flesh-pots of the Tenderloin not only refreshed him, but gave him, as it were, a gum-coating, a kind of enamel resistance against the petty irritations of life. He went home feeling like a lark and scarcely restraining the merry song within. With waning night and dawn came sober, even thought. But it was not in condemnation of his acts. George Manton was a candid man and able when so-minded to declare his independence of cant and those sad conventions that weigh down the many like a pall. He had been in the weeping valley, and felt the awful loneliness of each one in fulfilling the law of his own being. Others may or may not do what he did, at their peril. He only knew that in his case he was keeping the terms and conditions of his individual charter.
*

September 14, 1896

Attended a meeting this evening at the Hotel Washington to form a league of honest money Democrats. Mr. Otto Crouse occupied the chair. The attendance was small but respectable. The talk was somewhat rambling and little to the point, yet its intent, honorable and patriotic. The most effective way to defeat the Bryan electors is to vote with the Republicans: a vote for McKinley and Hobart is the right remedy for the Chicago platform disease. The crisis is too grave to take any chances, by voting for Palmer and Buckner, representative candidates indeed and standing on an excellent platform. The League is designed mainly to propagate sound money ideas, and does not bind the voter in his choice of electors.

September 22, 1896

A vast audience gathered in the Madison Square Garden to-night to see and hear General Palmer and Buckner, the candidates for President and Vice-President, of the National Democratic Party. The scene was inspiring, and the entry and hand-shaking of the veteran standard-bearers reached a dramatic effect. The speeches, however, sound enough in substance, were poorly put together and loosely delivered. (article on event glued in as follows:) Secretary R. J. Wortendyke, of the Palmer and Buckner County Committee; President Otto Crouse, of the Hudson County Sound Money League; Chairman H. D. Winton, of the Palmer and Buckner Jerseymen, went to Madison Square Garden last night and listened to the speeches of Congressman Bynum, ex-Gov. Flower, Gen. John M. Palmer and Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner. Most of those who called after 7:30 o'clock found all the seats occupied. There was standing room only. The Jerseyman cheered as lustily as the New Yorkers and all who went from this city enjoyed the spectacle, when Gen. Palmer and Gen. Buckner, arm-in-arm, representing the Blue and the Gray, were escorted to the platform amid the strains of "My Country 'Tis of The" and "Dixey," and the plaudits of 8,000 sound money men.

September 29, 1896

Presidential Candidate William J. Bryan was in Jersey City this afternoon. He spoke at the academy of Music. His voice was husky, naturally enough after so many campaign utterances, and his face pallid, yet withal a handsome face with a kindly penetrating look. He seemed to me tobe a man of much force of character and his words were happily phrased and effective: I agreed and disagreed as I listened. I felt a certain charm in his personality. Although he is a young man of no great experience, of no great knowledge, and at present, perhaps, a power for more harm than good, yet in natural abilities he overtops the other candidates in the field, and there is in his personal economy something of that unacquired distinction that indicates genius.

October 1, 1896

Removed to-day from the Weldon Building to rooms or offices 67 and 68 Fuller Building, No. 1 Montgomery Street. My windows look out on Hudson Street. The Bay may be seen to the right. The outlook form my private office is an engaging view down Exchange Place and over the river to New-York City. At the foot of the street ferry-boats shuttle across and various other craft slip up and down the Hudson, while above the house-tops dance the masts of harbored ships, ready to take wing and mysterious with adventure. The Fuller building is the old Darcy house cut up and rearranged for offices and retains its oldish air. With its court-like air-shaft, making a balcony of every landing, and around which the rooms are grouped without too evident a regularity, it possesses some attractive features, and the service so far as I can see is good.

October 5, 1896

There are not a few men within view, of good parts, who fail of being marked for any thing in particular: they are interesting to those who are interested, but seem to lack that quiet distinction that makes one notably attractive.

October 6, 1896

If society and the law permitted me to speak and act plainly, openly, in certain tabooed matters, I might do something valuable to increase the ages on tombstones, lessen suicide and depopulate hospitals for the insane. But as yet there are not enough broad-gauge minds to warrant this - only hints may be given. Progress is gradual, and much suffering must still be endured before we come out on the breezy uplands of natural and noble living.

October 9, 1896

Every man his own Boswell. - A demagogue was airing his ideas in extenso* and prating about everyone's being entitled to his own opinion. Sir, said I, as to your right I may or may not dispute, but opinions are true or false, good or bad - yours are decidedly bad!
*

October 10, 1896

The great difficulty or danger in uttering anything very fine or deep, indeed of any utterance upon those matters of subtlest human interest concerning which convention dictates reticence or silence, is that many may misapprehend and be misled: a wise man walks safely where the fool falls!

October 13, 1896

The virtuous or wise only look with tolerance and interest on the vagaries of vice: the vicious like virtue!

October 15, 1896

Unless we consider it relatively, there is a kind of untruth in speaking of sin and vanity. Nothing is really vain; nothing, absolutely sinful. Yet it may not be well to confuse distinctions imbedded in the language and understanding of the people, although they may not be essentially true.

October 17, 1896

After getting up this morning I attempted to read my Bible, as is my wont, but felt restrained. I soon discovered that I was in my shirt sleeves, and my unconscious sense of the discourtesy implied had checked me. Putting on my coat as became, I read with respect and all went well. I gained hence in spiritual insight and joy.

October 21, 1896

This morning I went to Princeton to attend the Sesquicentennial celebration. It was a fine academic festival. The serious old town disported. Learning from far and near in picturesque costume distinguished the place and participated in its spirit. From color and throng I slipped aside for a moment into the university library. There were few there, and its cloistral quiet held me charmed. I read with scholarly interest the salutations, the congratulatory words, of colleges and universities the world over - some of them brightened in missal beauty. But soon I stood still, gazing blankly, but moved: the classic and the nourishing mother fed me. Rejoining my classmates, we dined together in the Biological hall, given by our class (1877), and at night in cap and gown marched in the lighted parade - certes illuminati*. Historic old North or Nassau Hall was brilliantly outlined with electric lights, and the campus scene wrought a high impression of beauty and enchantment. On this occasion the old college assumed the name and dignity of Princeton University. Over ten years ago, in a letter to Prof. Cameron, I suggested this change, and, so far as I know, was the first one to do so. He expressed some doubts and difficulties, but I assured him that they could be overcome and legislative consent and amendments to the charter obtained.
*

October 24, 1896

Witnessed from a ferry-boat on the river, the marine parade and demonstration in favor of sound-money. Night and day pictures of the river are ever present with me. There was to-night only a little more brilliance, with search-lights darting about, fireworks, Greek fire or the like burning on the water, and strings of illuminated boats. The parade was to me disappointing. It needs the discipline of the service: it takes warships to make an effective water pageant.

October 29, 1896

Seeing Life Whole. The child's eye is a prism and sees bright colors on every side or facet; youth lives in a mist of romance; man views the world in a white light, looking though a glass slightly clouded, but which gradually clears till the medium is lost in almost perfect vision. At first comes poetry; then, love, and finally philosophy. The first and last are happy and content; but love brings unrest, ambition, dissatisfaction and strife. It thinks to gratify itself and does to some real end; it gains mayhap glory, a glory quite worth while, and knows joy, but also somewhat of vanity, at least seeming vanity. Uncertain and groping in the shadows, it yet assumes to reform the world. It seeks to better the poor and finds that the poor multiply and persist in poverty; it imagines vain things of the rich, of the great, who forsooth, are elected so to be, as the sure sequences of certain irrepressible antecedents and causes. It fancies the times are out of joint, but the age is not disjoint: 'tis the Ego that is purblind; its sight and thought are distorted; the will is perplexed and at fault. The glass begins to clear and reflect the world a-right. There is a beautiful transformation or transfiguration - all's well with the age. Love now yields to philosophy, which discovers that the multitude are not wiser than their wisest head, their superior man; that certain irrestistible forces are working through them and by them, willy-nilly, for great purposes, no doubt, but that for the time being in any case, whatever is, fixed or experimental, is best!

Engaged Selig Ernst as office-boy.

November 3, 1896

Received Election returns to-night at the Palma Club and looked in for a short time at the Union League. I am pleased with the turn of the popular tide in favor of M'Kinley and Hobart: it is the patriotic and just thing. Yet my satisfaction is not complete; there are those annoying deductions and reservations tobe made! A political conclusion is a compromise judgment.

November 5, 1896

Remember that codes of law, political platforms, systems of morals and religious creeds were meant for slaves. Rest in them unless you are strong enough to be free, and being strong do not abandon them altogether. Hold fast to the good things they contain: they contain some verities and Eternal principles to anchor by.

November 6, 1896

Walk with a clear clean directness for the right amid a world of wrongs.

November 9, 1896

This is the way the Newark Daily Advertiser sets me forth in to-day's issue:-- (article glued in as follows) Edwin Manners. The commanding abilities brought to bear in the defense of property and personal rights by the substantial and successful lawyers of Jersey City has given to the bar there a reputation exceeded by none in the State or elsewhere. Among the better known and more successful of the members of the profession there is Mr. Edwin Manners, who was born in Jersey City, March 6, 1855, being a son of the late Hon. David S. Manners, who was in his lifetime one of the foremost citizens of Jersey City and for several terms its Mayor. Edwin Manners, after preliminary preparatory education, was graduated bachelor of arts and afterwards received the master's degree from Princeton, and his technical education was gained in the office of Collins & Corbin and at the Columbia Law School, from the degree of LL. B. in 1879. He was admitted to the bar of the State of New Jersey in 1880, and has since practiced in this State, now having his office at rooms 67 and 68, Fuller building, Jersey City. Mr. Edwin Manners devotes a large portion of his time to the management of the affairs of the estate left by his father, in addition to being engaged in general practice, and among the most prized features of his father's estate is included an excellent farm at Harlingen, N. J. Mr. Manners is well know as a man of superior attainments and abilities, and he is also very prominent in social affairs; is a member of the Hudson Democratic Society, the Club, the Sons of the American Revolution, and, in both personal and professional relations, he is widely known and highly esteemed. Mr. Manners has, among other valuable services, rendered able assistance in connection with the effort to procure an improved water supply for Jersey City. It was his father, while president of the Common Council and Mayor of Jersey City, who, with the late John D. Ward, was most influential in procuring the introduction of the Passaic water, which for a long time afterward furnished an excellent source of supply, but, the conditions having changed, as a consequence of pollutions from sewer and factory, the question of improved water supply is a most important one, and Mr. Manners is among the most active of those now trying to effect improved conditions in this regard. (end of article)

What a mask! The real life is beneath or back of it. The mask is what you get for the money, and sets awry. What a mask each man wears; what a life for a mask!

November 13, 1896

Received from the Hon. Gilbert Collins a note of appreciation for "valuable help" given his son Walter in preparing for the Bar. Walter passed the written and oral examinations last Friday and Monday respectively, and, I understand, did so creditably, or as parental pride put it "very satisfactorily". Mr. Collins is one of our leading practitioners, perhaps the keenest trial lawyer in the State, and his good opinion accordingly is highly prized.

November 16, 1896

You have heard of boarding-school poets: not a few of our American poets are boarding-school poets. But maybe you didn't know that our magazines for the most part were boarding-school magazines. Their respectable conventional writing bears in mind always readers of tender years and generally fits their case. This is not the way to get or encourage great letters. This smooth undistinguished writing obtains a certain vogue and present reputation, but in the long run the ages will have none of it, will measure by more strenuous standards; they will seek and hold whatever they find of distinctive genius, the perfect, the whole if possible, but, rather than the tomes of mass, even fragments and broken pieces chiseled or rough-hewn, that speak out, that speak sincerely. Have you considered that two of the most interesting and pregnant writers this side of Shakespere are Rousseau and Walt Whitman? The magazines fight shy of their like or those congenerous.

Entered judgment in the Circuit Court against Galtano D'Elisa for $316.65.

November 21, 1896

The great foot-ball game between Yale and Princeton came off this afternoon at Manhattan Field, New-York, and resulted happily in Princeton's favor. As a good Princetonian I expected to go, but unhappily the air was chill and a drizzling rain came down. So I stayed at home and was unique. There is sometimes a pleasure in not doing what all the world does. I am not cold; I really have some red blood. At the game I should have caught the enthusiasm and been carried out of myself, and that is well at times, even though it means temporarily being beside oneself and induces a suspicion of buffoonery. The game seems tobe still in the ascendant for interest and popularity; yet looking apart at forty or fifty thousand people, swarmed on banks, gazing intently upon trained athletes struggling fiercely within the lives bring strongly to mind suggestions of a reversion to the brutal combats of the Circus Maximus or Colosseum. Is there not a savagery in this gathering to the fight tobe in at the death? Is foot-ball a distinctive advance or retrogression in civilization? Is it not high time we got over war and the kicking habit? We should do better than that; we should shorten our feet and lengthen our heads. The virtues of the playing-field have been, I fancy, over praised. Let our universities ripen scholars. What is constantly wanted, what is becoming more and more a political necessity to safeguard the nation is trained intellect.

November 26, 1896

In the country they have their joke at the expense of the lightning-rod man. Around here the book-agent is pretty bad, but he has an interesting subject, and although he speaks parrot-like of a book, that is amusing, and one might tolerate a machine that sang the praises of a book. He is no bilious critic, the book-agent isn't: his virtue is that he always speaks well of the book in hand! Lately I have begun to think that life-insurance agents take the cake. A dozen of them have been at me for some time, but I hold them off. I say gently that I do not care for any life insurance, but I am bland to all - that is the difficulty, that is the worst of being gentlemanly, for still they come. They take me, it seems, for an easy victim: perhaps if I accepted their terms I might victimize their principals. They take me for an innocent, mayhap! Well, I am as white a soul as lives, as can live and breathe on this earth, but have within a few rocky coast lines that help me to resist, to withstand the "surge and thunder" of these agents. At last one of them made the discovery that I meant what I said in the beginning. Poor devil! he turned away with a comical look and remarked dryly, "I don't think you want any life insurance!"

November 30, 1896

One is apt to be a great writer or great man who writes clearly with light and wit. I see on every side the wrecks of quantity and diffusion. Two noble close writers are Bacon and Emerson. The former is less suggestive, but more vigorous, organic and whole; the latter is less robust, somewhat thin and wire-drawn, lacking, too, cement in the joints, but glancing and finely interpretive. 'Tis possible to write widely and write well. Witness Plato: he is the best open writer of the world. There are some things in Ruskin, another open writer, amid much tobe deplored, that are Platonic. More guardedly Goethe holds the upland open to the sun.

December 3, 1896

From my knowledge and acknowledgement of the magnificent service of lovely woman in the world's economy, I grow apace!

December 4, 1896

I know a dear good man who has habits, who divides up the day in hours for this and that, and thereby loses much of the romance and adventure in life. There is, however or in consequence, an Horatio-like quality about him and one fancies some Hamlet finding steadiness and rest with him.

December 7, 1896

Last evening I went over to the Rev. Dr. John Hall's church, Fifth Avenue and Fifty-fifth street, to hear the Rev. Dr. John Watson ("Ian MacLaren") address college men. The crowd was too great to get a seat or stand and be in comfort, so I hied me about gay new-York. It was fairy-land for fair, was Manhattan at night. Better than the artificial kaleidoscope can do, with imagination's eye, the scenes and figures dissolved in electric glimpses and recombined in prismatic colors. I wore a dark prophetic mood and with a kind of intensity or frenzy of spirit reached supreme moments that were finely enjoyed. Detached from habit and routine, I swung around loose, living in the whole, seeing and feeling the beauty of it.

December 10, 1896

With my sisters Marie and Helen I went this evening to the Rev. Dr. Brett's Church on Bergen avenue to hear "Ian MacLaren" lecture on Scotch traits and read from his book "Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush". It was a delightful hour and a half. I warmed perceptibly toward grey old Scotia and the canny Scot; but these are more agreeable, upon consideration, in a lecture than in the life. The Caledonian may be strong in lines, but his limitations prevent him from living fully, with joy and light, and hence greatly. An occasional exhibition of tenderness, sentiment, humor, dry and ungenial, does not pay or sufficiently relieve, me judice*, the hardness, sullenness, dourness of his character and home. There is no doubt something uncanny and extra pathetic in these, especially when taken in connection with his cramped history and geography, and true art should reflect it. I should say, however, that MacLaren's art, simple and sympathetic as it is, affected too exclusively pathos, sadness, morbid conditions, and dealt not enough in other kinds to be thoroughly sound and whole. He has added to the wealth of feeling, but his figures move in a microcosm.
*

December 14, 1896

I notice by the papers that Mr. J. Howe Allen, a schoolmaster of mine, died last Thursday. His funeral took place yesterday, Sunday, afternoon. He was a principal of the Mount Pleasant Military Academy, Sing Sing on the Hudson, while I was a cadet there. How distinctly I see his form and face even now. I see him in the transfiguring light of boyhood, just stept into the classroom, or on the parade-ground, or under the old apple-trees. I look into his blue eyes. I appreciate his valuable instruction. I thank him for his kindly offices. I lay a wreath of sincere tribute upon his grave in Dale cemetery: it is fragrant with reverence and precious memories.

December 25, 1896

Read delightedly Walter Pater's exquisite "Child in the House" - perhaps as good a treat as one could have on Xmas day. Pity 'tis that Pater died so soon. He who found the magic flowers and saw the roadside flush with light of colors knew enchantment here and had no need as yet to tread the starry paths above.

December 29, 1896

Dr. David Ludlow of Easton - Cousin David - has been with us for a day or two. I took him to a Palma Club "stag" this evening. He seemed to enjoy it, at least he was courteous enough to say so; but I got a little bored toward the end and wondered why I was there. The Doctor kindly gave me a pointer on some stock in a gold mine company with golden prospects.

Cash Account. September, November 1896

Photos of Cleo De Merode, lithographed, with butterflys.

1896 (Memoranda)

The human face never fails to catch my attention and seldom escapes without a turn in my mind. I marvel at the variety and interest of it. I do not tire looking at a familiar face, and many a sidelong glance I've taken and enjoyed of a stranger's, held by the very novelty of his far-brought countenance. Fascinated by the almost ideal looks, those showy, gazelle effects of young children, I find an exquisite sweetness in woman's decay, as Percival sang, or better her twilight charm, and there are arresting qualities, picturesque possibilities of a high order, even in the old hag. But still I think, although not quite certain of my ground, that for deepest interest, one must study old men's heads, those that have traveled and weathered much in thought or action, perhaps chiefly those of intellect and spirit, yet I dislike limitations of any sort respecting man, and now recall a bad old man, bad according to prevailing standards but mayhap good by others, whose face, whose whole make-up, is so engaging and affecting that I should deeply regret to lose, the memory of it.

To-day the Ovidian Christian cries: Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. Peccari; Domine, Condona! * * * * * *

Show me an honest man and I'll show you a maiden!

There are two fools, the man who doesn't drink at all and the man who drinks too much! Two brutally frank sayings reserved for comment.

Ambo Diaboli

I play with Vice:
Vice laughs, I smile;
His red coat, cap and bells entice,
His weathered face and look beguile,
Albeit hard in deviltry.
I play with Vice but a little while -
Ah, what is this? I only feign,
Yet feel my soul slip to his gain!
I cry; he grins, grim, hideously:
I cry no more, I've lost that score -
And now Vice plays with me!

Diaboli Ambo.

Although everything an author writes is autobiographical, that is, of him and indicates in some measure his character and individuality, it may not always be directly autobiographic: he may present an incident or tell a story dramatically; he may use the first person impersonally, for artistic or other effect. Let the curious critic beware.

Editor of the Evening Journal:

An evening or two ago, I read in your paper the story of Thomas O. Colt, recently tried and convicted of shooting (Miss) Caroline Plate at Arlington. The account compared his case with that of Werther, and mistakenly attributed "The sorrows of Werther" to the poet Heine - a literary lapsus too patent almost to need correction. Certainly the authorship of "The Sorrows of Werther", a work that made the name of the great Goethe resound throughout Europe, should be well known. But the comparison suggested between the two stories is not apparently a happy one. There is no proper or real analogy between them; for, as Thackeray so neatly travestied the Gothean idyl -

"Charlotte was a married lady,
And a moral man was Werther,
And for all the wealth of Indies
Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sigh'd and pin'd and ogled,
And his passion boil'd and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more was by it troubled."

One of the difficulties of the present case is that the lover used his pistol on the wrong person!

E. M.

March 5, 1896.

Apparition.

There was enchantment in her face:
We only met by chance,
But since I've sought in vain the grace
Lone lingering in her glance.

Loose article on back page of memoranda with:

WEILAND AND NAPOLEON.

The Aged Poet Meets the Emperor at Weimer and Both Were Impressed by the Interview of Two Hours.

Amid the brilliant scenes arranged for the entertainment of Napoleon in the stately little town of Weimar, and when surrounded by that German aristocracy which he had humbled, the emperor also summoned to his presence the man who in the two periods of his career personified first the strength and then the weakness of the German folk - the aged Weiland.

Indeed, Napoleon's conversation throughout that excursion to Weimar was chiefly of learning, as if he bowed before German knowledge, German science, German letters. He had studied much, he said, in the barracks, "when I was a young lieutenant of artillery," and his cold, piercing glance seemed to search the very hearts of the proud princes and dukes who crowded around and literally stood at his chair in domestic service.

It was at the ball given by the grand duchess that he asked for Wieland.

During the evening this gentle and now temperate old man had heard the actors of the French comedy, brought among other decorative trappings from Paris, declaim the "Death of Caesar" from the stage of the ducal theatre; he had listened to Talma's significant utterance of the words, "rule without violence over a conquered universe," and then, wearied by the excitement of these strange experiences, had withdrawn from further revelry.

The Grand Duchess of Weimar, anxious to gratify her great guest, sent her carriage to fetch the author of "Oberon;" and rather than detain the illustrious dictator, the poet started as he was, in his ordinary garments, with unpowdered hair, wearing his little skull-cap and felt shoes. The meeting was therefore most dramatic. The dancing almost ceased when Napoleon advanced to meet his visitor, for the company crowded in a wide circle to lok on and catch what they might hear. But the conversation was in a low tone.

Weiland would never tell or write what was said, and we know only enough to feel that the great soldier's words were worthy both of his genius and of the occasion. He had treated the German nobility with haughtiness; this plain scholar he treated as an equal.

Speaking of the ancients, and defending the Caesars against Tacitus, he discussed the rise of Christianity and emphasized the value of all religions in observing morals. The poet replied, when needful, in broken French, but soon felt at ease, for the Emperor seemed disposed to engross the conversation. In the manner of the times he proposed questions. "Which of your works do you prefer?" Weiland disclaimed merit for any, but under urgency, confessed that he liked best his "Agathon" and "Oberon".

Then Napoleon asked the stock question which he so often put to scholars and men of letters: "Which has been the happiest age of humanity?" "Impossible to give a reply," said the poet; "good and evil, virtue and vice, continually alternate; philosophy must emphasize the good and make the evil intolerable."

"Admirable! Admirable!" said Napoleon. "It is not just to paint everything dark, like Tacitus. He certainly is a skilful artist, a bold, seductive colorist, but above all he aims at effect. History wants no illusions; it should illuminate and instruct, not merely give descriptions and narratives which impress us.

"Tacitus did not sufficiently develop the causes and inner springs of events. He did not sufficiently study the mystery of facts and thoughts, did not sufficiently investigate and scrutinize their connection, to give posterity a just and impartial opinion.

"History, as I understand it, should know how to catch men and peoples as they would appear in the midst of their epoch. It should take account of external circumstances which would necessarily exercise an important influence on their actions, and clearly see within what limits that influence wrought. The Roman emperors were not so bad as Tacitus describes them. Therefore, I am forced to prefer Montesquieu; he is more just, and his criticism is closer to the truth."

In discussing Christianity Napoleon said: "Philosophers seek in vain a better doctrine than one which has reconciled man with himself, and guaranteed the peace and public order of peoples, as well as the happiness and hope of individuals." The talk lasted two hours, and the interview ended by a movement, not of Napoleon, but of Wieland himself, who seemed weary of standing. "Go, go," said the emperor, gently, "Good night."