1901 EDWIN MANNERS DIARY (MDP)

January 1, 1901

It is not precise to say that the nineteenth century went out wet, nor did it go dry; mild, damp, murky conditions prevailed. Today it clouds and clears, but upon the whole is pleasant and slightly cooler. Last evening as I passed the New York City Hall, it was gaily decorated and lighted, with the legend "Welcome, 20th Century," pricked out in electric lights on its front. The municipal building here looked cold and gray. I did not stay up to see the old year depart and the new one enter, but soon after I had gone to bed, the din of steam whistles, horns and church bells announced the change; so, pulling the covers over my ears to shut out the noise, I fell asleep. This evening the Rev. Frederic E. Mortimer and Judge John A. Blair called on my sisters. I was at home feeling a bit dumpy from dinner and a stuffy cold, but between the Divine and the Judge, they made a bright occasion.

January 7, 1901

An amusing patron of amusements, I muse amused when patronizing amusements.

January 10, 1901

Once I thought myself superior to subhuman things. Comparatively independent, I came and went as I pleased. I flew, but, I fear, my wings were Icarian. Proudly sensitive and intellectual, I kept aloof, indifferent to woman and the world, regarding the one as frivolous, while the other seemed to be a mountebank dealing in crude coin, bubble estimates and nothing finely. Now I find the world upon the whole, no great fool, though foolish enough in spots, and the agreeable and tonic surprises it has in store for those who rightly tackle it. It does tend to crush down the weak and idle, but rewards effort and is reasonably just and clear, for it is bent on the main chance, and can not be turned aside for subsidiary issues. And indeed it bears many burdens in its progress. Like a prisoner impeded by ball and chain, it moves slowly up-hill, giving back at times a furtive sour-sweet grimace. And I feel more and more, to echo St. Paul, that I am of passion with the rest of mankind; that, however much it may be disguised, man's chief business is his natural union and issue, with woman; that I should take to myself some pretty girl to wive and project myself into the next generation or indefinitely. Not that I am at all fooled or deceived by the force of nature and its illusions, but surely it is sweeter, better, to obey than to stack up against the Almighty who knows best, in whose will, as Dante says, is peace, though He graciously vouchsafes to the children of his image a certain freedom of will.

January 14, 1901

Attending this evening the formal opening of the new home of the Free Public Library, in Jersey Avenue between Montgomery and Mercer Streets. It is a fine substantial house of books. The Rev. Cornelius Brett, Dr. Leonard Gordon and Father Robert Seton* made some cursory remarks. I was pleased with Father Seton's praise of Fenimore Cooper. Cooper may be tedious at times, his style boring, but he was a man of large proportions intellectually and held a virgin continent in his grasp. The sea too was his. He commanded (he and Irving) the respect of Europe for American Letters. Now perhaps we fancy the respect of the whole world, but it doesn't matter much: we are grown up and have our own status social and intellectual. *Later resident in Rome and titular Archbishop of Heliopolis. (E.M.)

January 17, 1901

If you want an admirable wife, leave the fretted town and go out among the quiet farm-steads, say, of New Jersey, and there pick a darling of the green fields and rolling hill-sides, fresh and native of the finest American soil. Wooing her there is romance most naturally sweet. She is a picture, a poem, in the dream of eternal nature, that changes not as cities change and carries within her loins and brooding soul the makings of great men, the burden of beautiful women.

January 23, 1901

Queen Victoria died yesterday and today her son Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, ascends the throne, as Edward VII., King of England, Emperor of India, Defender of the Faith, and all that. It sounds and seems out of tune or out of joint with the times, but has its interest, its glamour and practical advantage. And aristocracy has its claims over plutocracy. There must be culminations of some sort, if not always meritorious, then conventional. There should be in government a social head as well as a political head - a king and a Prime Minister. Society after all is so large a part of life, that democracies or republics, better politically in form at least, feel the need of a social leadership less chanceful than that which they have: it too often now is not indigenous but foreign- more's the pity. Queen Vic is dead and Prince Albert Ed A king is he, no less than she, An ornament or figurehead Of monarchy!

January 25, 1901

Young Mills, Mr. Weymer Jay Mills, called this afternoon. He is taking notes for a proposed book on some historic houses of New Jersey. I placed at his disposal or freedom my room of books and some data I had at hand. What his fitness for the task is I do not know: he has a literary bent and it appreciative, qualifications that carry better than heavy learning, especially of the German type, not that I undervalue the German, the modern school-master, but one may be just as profound in sunshine as in fog and generally see better and go farther.

January 30, 1901

Tonight the Hudson Bar Association, for a change, crossed the river and held its annual banquet at the Hotel St. Denis, Broadway and Eleventh Street. It was a goodly gathering of judges and lawyers. Chancellor William J. Magie was the guest of honor, and we had with us Gen. Stewart L. Woodford and Joe E. Hedges, of the New York Bar. They and several others, including Gov. Voorhees, Justice Dixon, Collins, Fort, Judge Blaire and Ex. Senator Edwards, made bright speeches. It all gave me only a medium appetite and joy, for my thoughts were somewhat yellow. I am feeling my way with increasing purpose apart from the law. The bar is a fine body of men, possessed of more human knowledge than falls to the lot of most men; but the system of law they practice and are dyed in is only tentative and none too fine: it is a fiction upheld by fictions, and I can not give to it unqualified allegiance, no more than to archaic theology. The whole body or philosophy of the law should be recast in more instinctive and natural ways and its practice refined.

February 1, 1901

You may say this, that and the other thing about this, that and the other person. It may or may not matter. You may draw an inditement against language as an expressive medium, especially words untouched with time, and prefer music as a vehicle or expression of the soul. As for myself, I am so constitute that I seldom see or hear anything done, said or sung that fills completely my fancy or the conditions of proportion, harmony, beauty, strength, or greatness. The clergyman and physician come short of it; the lawyer is nearer, his range wider, but he too, in less degree, is professionalized - limited. Perhaps, other things being equal, the unclassed man, widely traveled and read, is our first man. Surely his utterance is more full, rounded and mature of the world's truth and wisdom. As for its spirit, it is not so much the preacher as the poet who reflects that, and a singer or maker of much significance embodies both worlds with a kind of universal mastery.

February 7, 1901

Perhaps there is a plenty of people who beat time to the habit of the world and fail to win or do much, measured by conventional estimates, but they have their value and exceeding joy. Contrarily viewed, there appear to be many enough strenuously striving to get money, love or a high place, and losing so much by the wayside in their scramble, undignified and selfish. I neither praise the one nor deprecate the other. Each to his kind, and here's to greatness in any kind! Only I sometimes look on and laugh at the comedy or loosen my soul over the tragedy or that mingling of both with the all most usual in real life, and say to myself, what strange force or folly possesses these poor devils, pathetic in any aspect of waiting or struggling for what they wot* not of. But be assured, it is not all in vain; for we count, minimize as you may, in the universal scheme and are appointed by the moving Being, God or Force, each for his place and in turn to other spheres perpetual. Is this proved, you ask? No, not in your customary sense, but it is evidenced and felt, and by finer processes could be demonstrated. Yet why fret about the future? it will take good care of itself and of you. The present should be our chief concern and sufficient occupation. Benefit it, beautify it, enjoy it.

*are aware

February 15, 1901

The Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution met to dine this evening at the Aldine Association, 111 Fifth Avenue. It was their Eleventh annual banquet. I sat down to the feast, which was less extended than the usual public dinner but good. Mr. Robert B. Roosevelt presided and the speaker discussed in an erratic way "What the Twentieth Century has Inherited from the Founders of the Republic." Perhaps the two best considered addresses were those of Mr. Wheeler H. Peckham and the Rev. Henry Elliott Mott. The former took a decidedly pessimistic view of present day patriotism in reference to municipal affairs; the latter was equally optimistic, speaking more generally of the nation at large and drawing in somewhat too heightened eulogy a contrast between Washing and Lincoln.

February 19, 1901

The University Club of this city and county had its annual dinner to-night at the Union League on York Street. It was slow in getting under way, but I enjoyed the speaking end and wind-up. The Rev. Cornelius Brett made an excellent toastmaster. Before the dinner I had been introduced to President Arthur J. Hadley, of Yale. I mentioned a letter I had received from his father, the Greek grammarian and professor concerning some Greek words, in response to an inquiry of mine when I was preparing for Princeton. He said it must have been near the close of his father's life, as he died in 1872, and seemed pleased. Not prepossessing in appearance and manner, there was something attractive about him when he spoke and in what he said. After him Chancellor MacCracken of New York University, referred to the Hall of Fame and certain inscribed tablets therein to Washington and Lincoln. He gave the preference to Washington for broadmindedness. President Raymond of Wesleyan, was effective and patriotic in commenting on schools and the state. Others kept words flowing until a late hour.

February 22, 1901

These days, these months, while I am sparing my eyes as much as possible from reading and writing, especially of nights, I have been indulging my actor instincts by dropping in at the theatres and that not seldom. The burlesque houses act as a foil to seriousness: they do amuse, unless one is irredeemably unamusable - a bad sign. Every man needs a foil to his gravity, especially woman. Every American is a king's jester - 'tis the comic or variety performer, the burlesquer. At the other play-houses, said to be more respectable, what fun is to had is less fast and furious. The pieces are of an average goodness and, I think, instructive. In the main, however, they are neither one thing nor another, but only a lukewarm mixture, a sort of mild romantic or crude realistic melodrama, and the best parts of these, are the comic or burlesque parts. Farces have great go, as do sparkling operas. When it is to laugh, it is apt to come off pat and we naturally laugh. Serious matters or tragedy must be of an exceptionally high order to placate and the actors must fill deftly, supremely, the situations, or idealism is jarred out of countenance and suffers. There is little high tragedy on the present stage outside of Shakespeare; but it appears in occasional odd corners, where I have seen passion erect itself with the impulse of nature and tower sublimely.

Although almost anything is tolerated in the way of picture of spectacle, artistically or morally considered, there has been an advance in the average acting touching refinement and simplicity. Nature and art are nearer now. There is less gairishness. The better performers affect the quiet manner and subtle change of feelings, none the less expressive and finer form than the broad and swaggering effects of the old stage.

February 28, 1901

Marriage.

Marriage is a fair haven for the middle-aged man; but there is one thing better, and that is being a young bachelor. His life is so free and full. To him all women are fair women, dream-women, touched with color, warmth, bloom, mystery. He is unmarred by the chain and responsibility of marriage. A bird of rare personality, he continues of questioning interest to maidens, widows, and reflective men. He lives in the flowery Southland, open-souled, unfettered as the sea. So much of the investiture of idealism is lost, where he selects one fair woman and captures her in the cage of matrimony. He has joy of the present venture until the novelty wears off, which it must necessarily do; for he is unripe for settlement and sees his pet momently, at close range, examines her particularly, minutely, for points of excellence or the reverse, as the tout ensemble* of love recedes, and illusion fades and finally she is a fact, classed scientifically and labeled for occasional reference. The world is too wide and women too many for the young man's undue confinement - that suits better the natural predisposition of woman, young or old. Yet as things pertain, it is best for older men, when they become cool, collected and know permanent values, say, between thirty and sixty, but seldom later, to take a desirable mate, a happy companion of the voyage, as they steer their barques due North. Ah, si la jeunesse savait, si la virillessie pouvait!* The time may come, however, when men will so love one another, that custom houses will be leveled as barriers to free trade, and the artificial institution of marriage likewise fall as a bar sinister to healthful instincts and natural selection. Pregnant and suggestive leanings these, wherein I see the working of many changes and moral ideas readjusted for their own better sanction and the best interests of the human race; for, as Herbert Spencer truly and nobly says, "No one can be happy till all are happy" and "no one can be free till all are free."

*
*roughly: If the young knew, then to make more manly in power

March 6, 1901

Today I am forty-six.

My motto is, know the limits, yet conceive in the large.
I am a Neo-Caesarean Greek Christian mei generis*.

Privately my ill-health has become something of a joke with me, something that I keep up my sleeve and pull down to laugh at, for I feel remarkably well - fresh and alert for song or maid or any engaging proposition, indeed, in the plenitude of strength, and my fingers fight like points of steel. How my health can be improved, barring my eyesight, is a question. But then there is a serious question; for, unless the failed vision of that eye was caused by violence or drugging or some malignant touch, for my business takes me in and amongst all sorts of places and people, together with the eye-trying hay-fever that has recurrently annoyed me for several summers, as I sometimes suspect, it indicates some form or measure of degeneration. So I must still be skeptical and hold up the interrogation point to my inquiring spirit. I good-naturedly accept or pass almost any opinion, good, bad or misconceived, about myself. It is hardly worthwhile or possible to correct people in this respect; even presumed friends will not be set aright, and one can never expect to be so cock-sure of himself as others are. 'Tis hard to live down a reputation of any kind, false or true. If we only knew the truth, history would have to be rewritten; but then, as it is, history and people are amusing puzzles. Perhaps they instruct and entertain in one light quite as well as in another.

So here's to the best in those who blink,

"And let me the canakin* clink, clink."
* *

March 14, 1901

Sometime ago I told a somewhat strong story, good-humoredly however, at the expense of the Scotch, in the presence of a canny Scot, and watched his granitic features to see how he would take it. His face took on a gleaming look as it searched mine. He simply said, "Mr. Manners, you are a monstrous man!"

March 16, 1901

Blanche and I attended the Merchants' Fair or Industrial Exhibit at Pohlmann's Hall. It was not very attractive, less ornamental than utilitarian, and no doubt designedly so; yet the music, lucky stones, chances for trinkets and palmistry were evidently most appreciated by the visitors. We drew several silly prizes. B. would have a ring set with a lucky Isis stone, and we both had our hands read by a dark gypsy-looking woman, though Romany only in resemblance, whose reading was surprisingly acute.

March 21, 1901

The most human man is the most divine as he most nearly embodies the divine idea. It is presumed that God meant man to be man, for He could have made him what he willed, and by his very being willed him what he is.

Religion is the preservation in the human individual of the image of God. It is the likeness of God in the soul that saves.

March 23, 1901

My cousin William H. Manners came in from the country this morning and made a short call. An engagement hurried me to the City Hall and he went with me. We talked over intimate matters. He is getting a fund for the care of the graveyard near Wertsville in Hunterdon County, this state, where Grandfather and Great-grandfather Manners are buried. I contributed twenty-five dollars. He got away about noon.

March 25, 1901

At present committees of five, fifteen or other multiples of five are chasing men and woman about Manhattan and its adjacent boroughs and towns in a sort of hide and seek game, called a crusade against vice or crime. However vicious the pursued, they are entitled to their lives and habitations. Their pursuers simply scatter broadcast what they would prevent or cure. Similar movements, mostly ill-advised and of doubtful resulting good, recur at intervals and are due not so much to any evil inherent in the human constitution as to the artificial and unfair conditions of society.

It reminds me of the task set for small boys to give them exercise and keep them out of mischief: a pile of sand or stones is placed in some corner of a yard and the boys are directed to shift it from one corner to another and back again. In the meantime the yard gets plentifully littered to the discomfiture of law and order.

In considering matters of this kind, there should be more fundamental thinking. Test the structure of society or government by its results. Is not the pact wrong and the individual right? How far may personal liberty go or be infringed? Reflect on the false pride and hypocrisy of opinion. Remember that natural instincts and feeling can not be suppressed nor should they be - no more can free speech. The best that can be done is to regulate or restrain from excess or abuse, and little can be done in this wise except gradually in an educational and tactful way. In order to be effective, the sources must be reached, the material, political and moral sources, and these turned into righteous channels. Still these movements have their weight or influence in the upward trend. The world does grow better; there is a better understanding abroad.

March 29, 1901

Equality is a beautiful thing, as is a desert plain in certain aspects, but it is apt to grow monotonous, and is far from being the panacea for political and social ills that theorists predicate of it. Strangely but truly, it is the recognition of the very opposite doctrine of inequality that bids fair to bear fruit, in the betterment of the world. It may be difficult, inexpedient, to make our municipal laws and political institutes other than strait-jackets for the many; yet it is only in so far as we recognize and consider the extreme difference between individuals in character and capacity, that we are enabled to arrive at just judgements and comprehend the prevailing conditions and the steps necessary to be taken, whether sanitary, educational, admonitory, expiatory, punitive, regenerative, or other and pertinent, to rescue the one and benefit all. While the general and essential likeness of the genus homo* is readily recognized and measures adopted accordingly, the inequality or differentiation of individuals, which increases with the advance and complexity of civilization, is not sufficiently appreciated and acted upon in practice and estimate.

Save the citizen and you save the state; but, remember, you can not do this, unless you treat him as your darling child, peculiarly constituted, singularly brought up, and worthy of your tender consideration and finest analysis.
*

April 3, 1901

However much good people may respect so-called civilization and it is much to be respected, it is by no means all cloth of gold.

Artificial laws and social customs create the very conditions and evils complained of and sought to be suppressed.

You cannot legislate or crusade successfully against nature, no more than against nature's God.

April 4, 1901

A young man desperately in love with a young girl, whose indifference and circumstances made him despair, said to me that if he could not marry Pauline, he would commit suicide, and I took him into my confidence and replied that I did not know which was the worse - marriage or suicide!

April 5, 1901

More about Marriage.

We sorry men are put to our choice amongst a chaotic lot of imperfect women, and the women no less are forced to accept the imperfect samples of men offered, for it is all in either kind the world provides, yet a due sense of sex covers a multitude of sins. May the dream of love continue long. Let the spirit at least be bright and make for perfection, ah, unsatisfied spirit, seeking, for the ideal, cease thy wanderings and wed.

It is so much better, manlier, more satisfying, more beautiful, deeper, greater, to love dearly a modest wife, however plain, than to adventure affection indifferently with a hundred beckoning beauties unwived, though the latter course has its sweet revenges and romance, its piquant discovery of new countries, thrilling moments and the zest of adventurous risks. There's a conquering time in man when all's fair in love and war, but it yields later to a nobler philosophy of adjustment and peace. Howells, I believe, has said that man is but "imperfectly monogamous", and this may be true of the general, though the secret is prettily kept and a brave showing made. There is in monogamous marriage something sequestered and apart, a choiceness rare, refinement, self-restraint and high-breeding: it is a dedication and consecration. Yet it is, I fear, only for the few, the elected spirits; while many unions do best for the many, were meant for the purposes of nature and the perpetuation of the race. Marriage is a chain and curse to many of the human race.

April 10, 1901

To-day I weighed one hundred and sixty-four pounds, perhaps my best weight thus far. Still lithe and comparatively slender, heaven forbid that I ever reach the point where classic curvature bunches into obesity. Avoirdupois has little weight with me; too tall to fear the flesh, however it may be with the world and the devil. Rotundity easily rolls to Avernus. Yet I fancy my mind needs better physical support and the battling force of a powerful body. The less I am mentality the more I become a man.

April 12, 1901

Much thinking causes one to assume the acute philosophical attitude of an agnostic. It is a tenable place, yet more thinking shows the barrenness of that position.

Doctrinal or professional Christianity has difficulties enough and true Christianity, even pure religion, in less degree, is similarly beset; but it accounts for more, fits better the exigencies of life, is more fruitful in hope, endeavor and enduring results than any other system of philosophy or religion.

The most comprehensive scientific explanation, the best reasoned cosmic or evolutionary philosophy is but a bald, materialistic, limited treatment of the universe and man, a treatment primarily by the reason of that which requires, for any adequate perception of its truths, not only logic, but fully as well imagination, emotion, suggestion, in fine, a subtle union or concert of the whole heart and mind of man.

April 17, 1901

This morning I got up early and went to Flemington. The day broke bright after a season of rain and the little town lay in the sparkling light like "sweet auburn, loveliest village of the plain." I went to purchase a fine old grandfather clock - a Manners heirloom that had fallen into the hands of strangers, and succeeded in my quest. It probably belonged to John Manners, my first ancestor of that name in America. He was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1678, came to America about 1700, and lived the rest of his long life in New Jersey. The earliest record of the clock, however, shows it in the possession of his son John (1782-1806); he willed it to his wife Anne Stout, who died in 1810. It then became the property of Dr. John Manners, of Clinton, and upon his death in 1853 passed to the Spangenburg family of Sunnyside. When John Spangenburg died, it was sold with his effects in 1899, to William S. Riley of Flemington, of whom today I purchased it. I prize it highly. It was a bit of rare good fortune that brought it to one and, as it were, back to its old home.

April 25, 1901

Nowadays when so much is written and read, the best service one who can write can render his fellows and the cause of letters is to write little and that artistically, laconically.

May 9, 1901

What is love?
'Tis a dream of blinded youth -
That's the truth.

'Tis a rainbow in the sky -
See its colors die!

Love is brief and beauty vain-
Ah, this pain!

'Tis not here you meet true love -
That's above.

The deepest natures do not denounce and condemn: they like or compassionate.

May 15, 1901

Attended the annual auction of the Fortnightly Book club at the Otto Crouses', on Duncan Avenue.

May 17, 1901

Settled accounts with V. for last year.

June 27, 1901

At the court house this morning, synchronously with looking up some matters in the Register's office, I saw Judge John A. Blair sentence Thomas G. Barker to five years in the state prison for murderous assault on the Rev. John Keller of Arlington. The clergyman was shot in the head and lost an eye for an alleged criminal intimacy with Mrs. Barker. The cause attracted much attention throughout the country.

July 2, 1901

Lebbeus B. Ward, a hydraulic engineer, was found dead in his room at the Hotel Washington, this city. I had many conferences with him on the water question as affecting Jersey City. He was well informed in this particular and although arbitrary and an obstructionist, added to our knowledge of the situation, and hence was a public benefactor. A more uncompromising spirit I have seldom met, and this disposition militated against his procuring the water legislation he so much desired; for legislation is to a large extent a matter of compromises. His scheme of municipal water supplied under state control and protection was indeed a broad far-reaching one, but his method of achieving it, obstinate and narrow. His rigidity of character prevented any modification or adjustment of the plan first determined upon, to suit the times and occasion. Hence he failed.

The first part of his water-bill, in reference to policing and protecting from pollution the water-sheds of the state, was suggested and mainly drawn by me. This portion of the bill met with general approval, and, put into a separate measure, could have been enacted into law, with a view to supplementary legislation. But he would have none of it unless he got the whole. And this obstinate overreaching, persisted in year after year, met signal defeat in each legislature applied to. The object he sought to accomplish, however, was the right one and foresighted. I wrote a legal brief in support of it and argued in behalf of it before a senate committee. Opposed was a strong lobby interested in private water-companies or promoting syndicates.

July 3, 1901

Closed house and went to the farm.

August 1, 1901

At the Haymarket, Manhattan.

"Denny" and I took in "Florodora" to-night at the casino and were charmed with the double sextet and particularly with the music of "Tell me, pretty maiden". Afterward we walked around a little here and there and sat down now and again in beautiful places. We rode home in the small hours. We had behaved with the utmost propriety, but could not help meeting some persons and things that were not so proper. They were all nevertheless fish to my net.

Perhaps the extreme propriety should be qualified by the fact that we deigned to look in at the "Haymarket" and spend there a curious, restful moment. We sat at a round table in the balcony, overlooking the dance of the vicious in the hall below, whilst around us streamed and flashed with inviting glances a continuing file of courtesans in strange masquerade. There were drabs enough and to spare, but not a few were stylishly dressed and decidedly attractive in figure and face. Some trouble, I fancied, seemed to accent even the most jaunty. They seemed to stare at me as out of an uncanny dream, and may hap it was this or death.

We drank mugs of picnic beer and smoked a few "perfectos", as we discussed plays, politics and the perennial interest of woman. "Den" gave some grim incidents and took the threadbare view that woman of this kind were a wholly bad lot, irredeemable, bent simply on the spoiling of men, and that the men who went with them deserved to be caught or robbed. I deprecated the corrupting influence they had on young men without much stamina, but he replied that fellows of that character would find ruin somewhere, if not in this way, then in another, and I presume it is one of the tests to weed out the weaklings in order that the fittest may better survive. There are exceptions among women and men, I said and parried too harsh a judgment of anyone, citing the more charitable consideration of all classes to-day and contrasting it with the barbarous methods of the past when prostitutes were mutilated and drowned like cats or dogs. We have advanced acceptably, but not far enough in primal understanding of the evil, in recognizing the inevitable, in sanitation, in free medical treatment, in reaching and curing the cause, in the general amelioration of life's conditions. By the way, the drifting process of fast women indicates the correct principle or method for their management. Never scatter or spread prostitution by repressive measures. Let it drift naturally along lines of least resistance into certain streets and quarters, and supervise it there with respect to disease and social protection.

Seeing "Den's" eyes fixed on an unaccompanied group of pretty girls, who sat near by, I playfully told him to take his chance and accept the good the gods provide, but he would have none of them. "If I had a wife," said he, "such a parade of crusaders would only make me more faithful to her." Noble lad! said I, but I perceive same sadness in your voice. Yes, you too have regrets no less than Joseph of the many colored coat. We both, bachelors, though we be, agreed that such women were no substitute for a good wife - and yet who knows? What is one man's meat is another's poison. "Cuckoo, cuckoo: O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear!"

Yet these birds of venture, often bright and comely, still attract the free sprit of search and adventure in men; for concupiscence is of mixed concern. They are not so bad, so abandoned; rather are they indifferently good, with many admirable qualities. They have flitted here not altogether for money, although mainly for that, and sad to relate, from want, from the stress of physically need; but also from mixed motive, inclination, seduction, the tricks and meanness of men, disease, the eyes' desire, the glitter of the gay world, monotonous or unhappy houses, to defy failure and revenge or soothe outraged feelings, to scuttle sorrow, to seek discoveries, the secrets of sin, the mystery of life. In large measure they are forced to their vocation by the harsh and artificial conditions of society. And for the most part they wear mental masks. Whether merry or sad, defiant, stolid or cross, they but faintly shadow in their faces, particularly in their eyes, the unmistakable tragic aspect and the mute but telling protest against the hardness of life and the law. I sympathize with that despairing note of protest. I heed it: it appeals powerfully to me. O Sister! I read only too well the human document: interpret finely for me your crucified heart. And I mused on the philosophy of the same and the different - 'tis the same story with its infinite interpretation, infinite as the individual is various.

At length I lifted my stein and said, O woman, wonderful creature! here's to your beauty, your bewitchment in whatever sphere, and to your eternal significance!

"Den" smiled. We arose and stepped down to the street, leaving this close bizarre scene for the kindness of the spacious night.

August 15, 1901

To-day I attended, at his late home at upper Montgomery Street, the funeral of Flavel McGee, a prominent lawyer and politician. He was a sincere friend of mine and I regret exceedingly his loss. On literary topics he was not always congenial to me. Well he considered the What but too little the How, not feeling sufficiently that the two are bound up in the best. He had an intellect of no mean power, trained for dispute at the Bar and in the political field. As a citizen his loyalty was not whole, as it seldom is with lawyers. I do not mean that he failed in good citizenship: it was as good as his legal duties allowed. When he could afford to be disinterested, when he was not specially retained by private or quasi-public corporations, his work and influence for good in the community were no small credit in the public account. He spoke gracefully at many meetings and dinners. He might be called an emergency man, fit for the event that found him.

August 24, 1901

A tornado struck Jersey City late this afternoon and cut a destructive swath through the city. Many houses and churches were unroofed and otherwise damaged. About forty trees in Van Vorst Park were overturned; the rear wall of the Bijou Theatre was blown down and the steeple off of St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church. Fortunately no life was lost and so far as known no one injured, although the air was filled with flying debris during the short duration of the storm.

September 6, 1901

President McKinley was shot this afternoon in the Temple of Music at the Pan American Exposition, Buffalo, by an anarchist named Czolgosz. Two bullets took effect; one in the stomach and the President's life is despaired of. The wretched, unreasoned act has created a profound sensation throughout the country. Deep sorrow and fierce resentment are widely expressed. Pitiful indeed is it all, yet such a swift tragedy of high mark startles and sets loose the imagination in the deep recesses of the darkened world. Its fascination cannot be denied.

While the theoretical contention of the anarchist against rule and it's chief representatives is plausible, if specious and impracticable, his method by violence can only make all the rest of mankind more firmly convinced of the value of rule and its executive incarnation. It is the saving good in the assassin's desperately bad deed that it makes us all better respecters of law and order, much more righteously inclined. In another aspect, it may lead to the enactment of repressive measures of doubtful wisdom, that may be more harmful than effective. It is difficult, if not impossible, to frame a law in this case to hit justly what is aimed at and if it misses its object, the injury falls on the innocent and society in general. The healthy evolution of liberty is checked. Freedom of speech and action should be as unlimited as possible: it is the condition and way of human progress. As civilization advances and men become more fit for liberty, crimes' acts and injunctions, which are but badges of dishonor and bar the gates to utopia, should by degrees be ameliorated and repealed section by section with the vanishing point in view. Yet this heinous blow and crimes of like character in particular curtail the area of human freedom and stop temporarily at best the slow creep of civilization. It is in this more than in moral turpitude that the enormity of the murder lies.

September 14, 1901

President McKinley died. His seriously noble attitude towards his murderer and sweet resignation at the last were truly saint-like. Unbiased by the consecration of his death, it may be said that he was, in a somewhat plain, even combination of abilities, possibly great; yet, unlike Lincoln, he did not, at least palpably, manifest certain striking individualistic traits, certain soul-minded expressions, which seem to characterize genius or greatness. His last speech at Buffalo showed marked development and was an excellent political legacy left to his followers. Happily he died at the summit of his fame.

September 23, 1901

Yesterday Marie finished reading to me Lockhart's Life of Walter Scott. Sir Walter was fortunate in his son-in-law and delightful in his home life. He seems to hold the romance of chivalry even there. His atmosphere, setting, traditions are of the better parts of feudalism without its faults. Yet Scott's big nature is more endearing to me as a man than as a writer. His ideas are too prevailingly on the surface and often clumsily expressed. His narrative hand is strong, moving freely, but not finely, over a wide field, yet it bears the marks of being too often forced by industry rather than the impulse of genius. His quantitative works are tributes to the main chance rather than to art. He should be judged in his massiveness and not piece-meal or by detail. He interests me, but I do not feel that I am getting quite at the heart of things with him. Give me ten pages of some insightitial soul, with adequate or suggestive expression, and I will leave the tomes of tournaments and trumpery, with all their undoubted glamor, for young men and maidens. For them they make excellent reading.

September 26, 1901

This morning I started for Buffalo to see the Pan-American Exposition.

October 15, 1901

Returned to the City and opened house. With occasional runs to town on business and a trip to Buffalo, I spent the summer and early autumn at "Rutland" farm. What did I do? I rested, I loafed, I read, I drove, rode, went to harvest homes, auction sales, called on the country girls, nearly fell in love with a pretty face but escaped, dreamed in sweet idleness and idyllic scenes, and did all the other acts of a well conducted person. Indeed I had an enjoyable season of little happinesses.

November 7, 1901

Poverty is a handicap, but no less is wealth a burden: that which is most readily borne goes farthest and makes most for happiness.

November 21, 1901

Attended this evening with Marie the annual Reception of the University Club at Hasbrouck Hall.

December 5, 1901

Naturally refined and given to the intellectual life, to the life of the spirit, qualified, it may be, by a love of ease and florid fondness for the sweetness of the flesh, both fairy gifts, with presumably tendencies, inherited or acquired, of right and wrong, relatively so, intuitions and impulses, I was good, because it was safe to be good; I was moral, because it was wise and politic so to be: I avoided evil, because to be bad meant pain, suffering, trouble, confusion, disease and possibly death, particularly the sterilizing process of body and soul. I would be quick. I played with fire, sometimes to my hurt, but seldom to its burning. I was a diplomatist in conduct, studied actions, made daring moves and felt a confidence in my skill. But all this was largely an exercise of the understanding, in some ways selfish and not sufficiently of the heart. It was only when I embraced goodness as a principle, because it is beautiful to be good, because it is the eternally right thing, that I grew kind, altruistic and serviceable: it was then a sweet serenity possessed me and a superior light shone, helping me more readily to master every fate that befel and live in the precept of Heaven.

December 19, 1901

Small men are easily measured; great men are seldom guessed at.

January 1, 1902

Here's to 1901! It was a good old year. And here's to 1902! May it be a better. May happiness and good fortune attend its on-going.

Cash Account. January January 2, 1901

Editor Alfred Harmsworth, of the London Daily Mail, who is on a visit to this country, was graciously given an opportunity to edit the New York World for one day. Yesterday's New Year's World was a specimen of what he called condensed or tabloid journalism; yet it contained little or nothing unfamiliar to our newspapers and lacked their enterprise and spice. Its form, however, is convenient. Mr. Harmsworth asked for opinions and with some business end in view offered a money-prize to the sender of the one he chanced to pick up first out of a pile of letters and postals received. I jocularly sent him my appreciation to this effect:

The best in brief should be the motto of twentieth century journalism in busy America. Your tabloid variety containing nothing deleterious to the human system is an excellent specific; but the dose is still too large. Instead of the thirty pages taken daily, reduce it to ten with bolder headlines.

January 12, 1901

Editor of the Journal:

It is comical, if not so strange, that civic pride or conceit seems to manifest itself in inverse ratio to the size and importance of the place considered. It is at a low ebb in New York, or perhaps more justly the people there have the comfortable unconcerned feeling that they do bulk or loom large in many ways and their very mass naturally attracts without much ado. In Jersey City the town is accounted a fairly big one and not averse to being bigger, yet its pride is anything but proper. Hoboken, the paradise of beer gardens, can see no other place in quite such a high and glowing light; but wait till West Hoboken or Weehawken is heard from, then speaks Sir Oracle and when he opes his lips, let no dog bark!

E.M.
Jersey City, Jan. 12, 1901.

manners' Printed Letter to Editor glued in following:

CIVIC PRIDE IN JERSEY CITY.

Editor of Evening Journal:

It is comical, if not so strange, that civic pride or conceit seems to manifest itself in inverse ratio to the size and importance of the place considered. It is at a low ebb in New York, or perhaps more justly the people there have the comfortable unconcerned feeling that they do* - large in many ways and their very mass naturally attracts without much aid. In Jersey City the town is accounted a fairly big one and not averse to being bigger, yet its pride is anything but proper. Hoboken, the paradise of beer gardens, can see no other place in quite such a high and glowing light; but wait till West Hoboken or Weehawken is heard from, then speaks Sir Oracle and when he opes his lips, let no dog bark.

E.M.
Jersey City, Jan. 12, 1901.

*bulk or loom (he writes in, not included in newsprint)

Cash Account. March.

Photo on newsprint with caption:
MRS. FUNSTON, Wife of the man who captured Aquinaldo.

Cash Account. April.

Printed Photo with caption:
Chief Justice Beasley, of New Jersey. "From the portrait by J. W. Alexander in the Rooms of the Supreme Court at Trenton." (E. M. writes)

Cash Account. May.

Jersey City, April 1st, 1901.

Dear Mrs. Hardenbergh:

It was a pleasant surprise to receive your recent postal card containing an interior view of St. Peter's and your happy exclamations over the city of the Caesars. I catch your enthusiasm and desire greatly to see Rome. I feel the charm of being remembered there by you amid such scenes and associations, while so many interesting objects engage your mind and cast it back through the long centuries of wonderful history.

There is another thing I could press your hand for, and that is your visit to the grave of Keats. He is one of my delights and, I think, the most artistic poet of the century just closed. I fancy a memory-picture of your own beautiful personality stooping to pick a flower from the grave of him, who, in a little while of life, wrought so much of beauty.

Kindly remember me to those with you. My sisters send love and I - I too.

Sincerely yours,
Edwin Manners.

Cash Account. June.

Loose letter: April 24, 1901

Dear Mr. Wm. S. Riley:

Your letter advising me that you had expressed the clock came to hand Monday and the clock followed Tuesday morning. It arrived in good shape, except the ratchet-piece, which had become detached. This I am having repaired. All who have seen the old time-piece express admiration and my sisters are enthusiastic over it. I have to thank you for rescuing this valuable and interesting heirloom from the hands of the Philistines and restoring it to its rightful place in the Manners fold. It is something to feel, as I look on its quaint dial, that my ancestors for so long a period counted the time thereby. Around it cluster the vicissitudes of family history and it symbolizes much of human interest.

Thanking you for kind attention while I was in Flemington, believe me

Truly yours,
Edwin Manners.

Cash Account. July. 1901

Ad Astra.

Sleeping or waking rest is never ours,
Waking or sleeping we must struggle on,
Fulfill the little roles ordained for us
And little know the play or moving cause,
Until, the icy peaks beneath, we touch
The stars and live with joy and clear-eyed truth
In harmony with God.

Memoranda. December 28, 1901.

The following response by me to an inquiry made in a recent issue of the New York Times, appears in today's literary supplement of that paper:

EDWIN MANNERS, 287 Barrow Street, Jersey City, N. J.: "W. H. Herrick inquired in 'Queries,' Dec. 21, concerning the authorship of certain humorous lines beginning:

Whereas, on sundry boughs and spray
Now divers birds are heard to sing.

He found them, entitled 'In Re Spring,' in Eugene Field's 'Little Book of Tribune Verse,' included no doubt facetiously, and also copied under a different caption in an old manuscript volume of his father. In Bryant's 'Library of Poetry and Song' they appear as 'The Lawyer's Invocation to Spring' and are attributed to H. P. H. Brownell. This is probably Henry Howard Brownell, who was born in Providence, R. I., in 1820, and died at Hartford, Conn., in 1872. He practiced law for a short time. Admiral Farragut appointed him acting Ensign on his flagship, Hartford, and he took part in the fight of Mobile Bay. He wrote several battle pieces and lyrics and was styled by Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Atlantic Monthly 'Our Battle Laureate.'"