Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

can prosperity and whose intelligence, morality, and large liberality in all public measures for the welfare of society deserve and should receive from the hands of our Government some such recognition.

Is it not, also, a duty to set forth, in this quiet but effectual method, the genius of American government?which has under its fostering care people of all civilized nations, and which treats them without regard to civil, religious, or race peculiarities as common citizens? We send Danes to Denmark, Germans to Germany. We reject no man because he is a Frenchman. Why should we not make a crowning testimony to the genius of our people by sending a Hebrew to Turkey? The ignorance and superstitions of medieval Europe may account for the prejudice of that dark age. But how a Christian in our day can turn from a Jew, I cannot imagine. Christianity itself sucked at the bosom of Judaism. Our roots are in the Old Testament. We are Jews ourselves gone to blossom and fruit, Christianity is Judaism in Evolution -and it would seem strange for the seed to turn against the stock on which it was grown.

While recuperating at Atlantic City from a cold I received news of my appointment. A few days later I was taken on a department tour through the intricacies of relations with the Ottoman Empire under the guidance of the Third Assistant Secretary, John Bassett Moore, now the noted authority on international law, and Alvah A. Adee, that distinguished veteran of the State Depart ment, who has broken in diplomats to

[graphic][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

a question, I told him I would leave for my post April 9.

"That is businesslike," he said. "I like that."

He seemed to be very much pleased with the reception of my appointment by the press throughout the country.

My selection as the head of an important mission appeared to the press al! the more significant because of the Keiley trouble two years before. A. M.

-Af his fitucl Keiley, of Richmond, a Cleveland nomi General Consent

plossen & frunt, Christival, that he is personally, and

is

Jendairen in Evolution_ and it would been througe for the lead to turn agaist

the stock on while it was grown

и

[ocr errors]

&cilent.

But Jam interested in another quatily - the fact "Hiny Ward Beecher that he is a Hebrew

Facsimile of the first and last pages of Henry Ward Beecher's famous letter to President Cleveland, urging the appointment of Mr. Straus as Minister to Turkey

nee for Minister to Italy, was declared persona non grata by the Italian Government because he once publicly denounced King Victor Emmanuel for his treatment of the Pope. Cleveland then appointed him Minister to Austria-Hungary, but that nation, then a member of the Triple Alliance, preferred to present objections rather than displease her Italian ally. Austria-Hungary used as a basis for her objections the fact that Keiley's wife was a Jewess. The President and Secretary Bayard were incensed. Both rebuked this religious bigotry publicly, the President in his annual Message to Congress and the Secretary of State in the

following answer to the Austro-Hungarian Minister at Washington:

It is not within the power of the President, nor of the Congress, nor of any judicial tribunal in the United States, to take or even hear testimony, or in any mode to inquire into or decide upon the religious belief of any official; and the proposition to allow this to be done by any foreign government is necessarily and a fortiori inadmissible.

Two days later, by appointment of Colonel Lamont, the President's secretary, Mrs. Straus and I, accompanied by brother Isidor and E. G. Dunnell, New York "Times" correspondent, called on Mrs. Cleveland in the Green Room of the White House. I vividly recall this visit. Mrs. Cleveland came into the room with a sprightly and unceremonious walk, very friendly, with charm of manner and a sufficient familiarity to put us entirely at our ease. She was a very handsome woman, with remarkable sweetness of expression, and her appearance symbolized beauty and simplicity.

What most impressed me about the Clevelands, after these two visits, was the simple, unassuming manner that was so in keeping with the spirit of our laws and the democracy of our institutions. Verily, I thought, in the words of Cleveland himself, "a public office is a public trust," and while administering such office we are but for a time the servants of the people.

LONDON AND PARIS GRACIOUS TO AMERICAN ENVOY

In

Before leaving Washington we again called on the President, as agreed. his entire conversation and attitude he expressed satisfaction with my appointment. He said he understood the missionaries were doing good work, and he felt sure from what he had learned of me that they would receive impartial and just treatment at my hands. He commented on the fact that the press of the country had been so unanimously in favor of my appointment.

"I wished they would go for you a little; I have something to give them," he said. From Mr. Dunnell I learned later the meaning of this remark. He had received a letter from the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, highly approving of his appointing me as Minister to Turkey and indorsing me of their own accord in unqualified terms. This letter he was holding to give to the press should any unfavorable comment be made because a member of the He brew race was being sent to a post where the Christian mission interests were so large.

Mr. Cleveland's parting remark to me was: "I know you will do well; I have no trepidation-none at all."

On Saturday, April 9, at 6 A.M. wemy wife, Aline, the younger of our little daughters, and myself sailed out of the harbor on the S.S. Aurania. My one prayer in bidding farewell to my home

was that I might find no vacant seat round my table upon my return, and that I might discharge my high trust with credit to my beloved country and with honor to my friends and myself. For this no sacrifice would be too great.

London and Paris were hospitable and gracious to an American envoy on his way to the Orient. In London I got the Turkish view of affairs while dining with the veteran Turkish diplomat, Rusten Pasha, who represented the Sultan at the Congress of Berlin. I met many literary people, editors, authorities on constitutional government, with whom I was eager to exchange opinions.

We spent one pleasant evening with Dr. and Mrs. John Chapman, of the "Westminster Review." My article on "The Development of Religious Liberty in America" was appearing in a current number of the "Review." The Chapmans were good friends of George Eliot and Professor Lewes. In fact, the novelist and the professor first met at the Chapman home. Dr. Chapman also told me that he was the one who first em

ployed George Eliot in literary work. He became editor of the "Review" in 1851 and engaged her as associate editor.

The impetuous personality of General Boulanger, the fire-eating Teutonophobe Minister of War, dominated the thought of Paris. The idol of the revanchists and the populace in general, Boulanger was at this time about fifty years of age, but looked younger. Of pleasing appearance, with brown hair and closely trimmed beard, he seemed more AngloAmerican than French.

We were at luncheon at the beautiful residence of Count Dillon, outside of Paris. The General entertained us with an account of his experiences as the delegate of France to our Yorktown Centennial Exhibition.

"With your American officers I travel as far as the Pacific Ocean. They show me their fortifications. They ask me what I think."

Turning to Mrs. Straus, he continued, with a twinkling eye: "You know your American fortifications. What can I say? It is not for a guest and a friendly fellow-soldier to tell how antiquated and insignificant these fortifications are. No! So I say: 'Splendid! Never have I seen such protection; and why? Because no country has two such big ditches in front of their fortifications the Atlantic and the Pacific.""

When the champagne was being drunk, each made some observation. Turning to the General, I said: “May you administer the War Department so well that posterity may honor you as the great preserver of peace!"

To this he responded that for fifteen years France had pocketed insults, and the time had arrived when she must be ready for the offensive. At a subsequent meeting he asked whether I would be willing to assume charge of French interests in Turkey if war came. I said that, while I was personally willing, this

was something for my Government to decide.

The subsequent meteoric career of Boulanger is history. For two years his personality dominated French politics and became an open menace to the Republic. Then came his fall. He fled from Paris when a warrant was signed for his arrest, and was afterwards condemned for treason. In 1891 he committed suicide on the grave of his mistress in a cemetery at Brussels.

While in Paris we dined with Mr. and Mrs. William Seligman. Among the many distinguished guests was the noted Hungarian artist, Munkacsy, who painted "Milton Dictating Paradise Lost to his Daughters" and "Christ before Pilate." Mrs. Straus's face seemed to interest him very much. The dinner over, he sat beside her all evening. He admired her plain style of hair-dress, remarking it was most becoming and natural. He intimated that he wanted to paint her face in a picture, and expressed great regret when he learned that we intended to leave Paris in a few days. A heavy man, with bushy hair and beard, and with unusually small and inexpressive eyes, he looked a laborer; in fact, he was a carpenter before he became a painter.

He talked little. His wife, showy and loud, presented a strong contrast. After dinner, we were entertained by a young musical prodigy who has since become famous in his profession throughout the world, Joseph Hoffman.

At

CONSTANTINOPLE, CITY OF PICTURESQUE DIRT We left for Vienna on May 10. that time there was no railway connection with Constantinople. The Oriental Express went by way of Bucharest to Varna, on the Black Sea. From there we went by steamship to Constantinople. The view as we passed through the Bosphorus and approached Constantinople had the effect upon me of a dream. I suddenly realized how much of my Homer I had forgotten-the Homer on whom I had spent years of hard study. However, most of us meet so many new subjects that have a more direct relation to our surroundings that it is next to impossible to get that "elegant leisure" necessary for a continued interest in the classics.

My predecessor, S. S. Cox, having been given the sobriquet of "Sunset Cox" in the States, had christened the Legation steam launch Sunset. When we reached the quay at Constantinople, we were met by the Sunset, with the officials of the Legation and Consulate aboard. There being no residence at the Legation, we took an apartment at the Royal Hotel. Later, with summer approaching, we engaged the entire second floor at the hotel in Therapia, some twelve miles from Constantinople on the Bosphorus, near the entrance of the Black Sea. Several other Ministers lived at the same hotel.

Our first impression from the windows

[graphic]

of the Royal Hotel in Constantinople was of picturesque dirt. As Mrs. Straus said at the time, dirt not only on the hard earth roads and the people, but even on the dogs. In time, however, one is less impressed by the dirt than by the picturesqueness-the venders calling out their wares of fish, fruit, meat, vegetables, all carried on the edges of baskets covered with leaves; the water carriers with their urns carried on yokes; and the veiled women.

Sir Henry Drummond Wolff was in Constantinople as a special envoy to negotiate regarding the withdrawal of the British troops from Egypt. Acquaintance with him soon ripened into friendship. He was in that awkward situation which sometimes develops when special envoys are sent on missions into territory already represented by an accredited diplomat. There was an evident estrangement between Wolff and Sir William White, the British Ambassador. able men.

Both were exceptionally

Wolff, being detained longer on his mission than he had anticipated, was also compelled to seek rooms at Therapia. He was unable to find suitable accommodations, so we shared part of our suite with him. This arrangement proved to be very pleasant and diplomatically advantageous. I got the benefit of Wolff's tried experience in Orienta! diplomacy.

Frequently we all dined together in the large salon of our apartment. Our party usually included the Dutch Minister, Baron van Tets, and his wife, both very charming. Baron van Tets subsequently became Minister to Berlin, later Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Immediately after my arrival at my post I communicated with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Said Pasha, to present my credentials and arrange for

The harbor of Constantinople

an audience with the Sultan. It was one of the insidious peculiarities of the Sultan to delay audiences by making successive appointments and postpone ments. This or so the Sultan must have thought-might impress the new representatives of foreign governments with the importance of his Majesty.

At this time also Ramazan, the month of fasting, was observed, and only the most pressing official functions took place during that time.

AN AMBASSADOR'S £300 WIFE We looked forward with more than usual interest to the evening of our dinner at the Persian Embassy. The Persian Ambassador's wife had been a Circassian slave whom he bought for three hundred pounds, with a horse thrown

into the bargain. However, everything and everybody was quite

IN THE

SULTAN'S

ABD

PALACE

BDUL HAMID'S reception of an -American diplomat is faithfully described in next week's installment of "Under Four Presidents." Even the egg-shaped coffee cups resting in jewelstudded holders are depicted. The Sultan is further described at his prayers in the mosque. Mr. Straus reports a series of interesting diplomatic tangles, including his defense of the sale of the Bible in Turkey, and his reopening of the American missionary schools. He concludes the chapter with a vivid account of a journey to Cairo and a close-up of the Khedive.

European, and there was nothing extraordinary about the occasion, after all. The Ambassador's wife was of course typically Circassian; chalky white skin, soft black eyes, small features, an unattractive figure unattractively dressed, with whom conversation was almost nil because she knew only Turkish.

The streets of Pera, the European part of Constantinople, are exceedingly narrow and very hilly, for the city is built on several hills, like ancient Rome; in addition they are poorly paved and dirty. This makes driving dangerous; and, as in mediæval times, sedan chairs are quite generally in use as a means of conveyance for the ladies of the diplomatic corps and the wives of the higher Turkish officials, especially at night to dinners and other official functions. Two sinewy porters carry these chairs, one in front and the other behind, and they shuffle along with considerable rapidity. Usually the lady is carried while the gentleman, preceded by his kavass in the case of a diplomat, walks alongside, except in inclement weather, when he follows also in a chair.

I am reminded of the wife of the German Ambassador at the time, a large, heavy woman, whom the porters quite justly charged double. She, however, was entirely oblivious of her extra avoirdupois and always complained of the injustice of these porters. The Austrian and Russian Embassies were particularly difficult of approach by conveyance other than the sedan.

We certainly were living in a new sphere of life, in a strange land among strange people with customs and habits that brought to mind the age of the patriarchs. There was much to see where some thirty, nationalities lived and did business as if in their own homes-much to wonder at, much to deplore, much to praise and admir

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][subsumed][merged small][graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

THE BOOK TABLE

SUMMER NOVELS WORTH WHILE

HE midsummer novels have been unusually notable for that season as to intrinsic value or authorship, or both. There are not many single weeks even in the full flood of the fall season that bring into the Bool: Table stories by such well-esteemed writers as Mrs. Wharton in this country and Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Maxwell in England, to say nothing of half a dozen others which certainly are not "hot weather novels" in the sense of being as light and unenduring as summer butterflies.

Mrs. Wharton's "The Glimpses of the Moon" is cosmopolitan in setting and scenery, so that she now shows us New York's social "upper class" (horrid phrase) out of their habitat. It is inevitably compared with "The Age of Innocence," and by some critics with her first success, "The House of Mirth." Probably these three books have attracted more readers than any of her other novels, not because they are finer in execution or in study of social philosophy, but because they are more definite in setting and plan. In the new book, as invariably with Mrs. Wharton's work, the writing is restrained; it has no appeal to emotionalism or mere love of excitement. She creates her characters, each clearly marked with individual moral and mental traits; then she places them in certain conditions to which they must inevitably react in accordance with character. In this story, for instance, a charming and cultivated young couple, with a wide circle of society friends but without much money, deliberately marry with the idea of "carrying on" for at least one year by complaisantly accepting favors of substantial value; in a superior kind of Iway they live on their friends. But they find that this entails submergence of self-respect, and indirect payment involves disintegration of moral independence. They differ as to how far their complaisance can be carried; and on that rock their marriage nearly wrecks, to be saved by final recognition of the fact that happiness does not really depend on luxurious living and society ostentation, but on something quite dif ferent. The romance bestowed by wealth loses its glamour and the romance of life and love as they rest on independence prevails. "Oh, the blessed moral strength that wealth confers!" proves an illusory sentiment. Mrs. Wharton is too good an artist to argue the case; she lets the people and the circumstances bring the answer. The situation is held close in hand and the reader's interest is never allowed to drop. "The Glimpses of the Moon" cer

[blocks in formation]

tainly sustains its author's recognized
position among the leaders in American
fiction.

2

W. B. Maxwell's "Spinster of This Parish" is the story of a woman's love for a man, a love that could be restrained by no obstacles, broken by no hardships, destroyed by no conventions of society. If the lives of these two people had been actual, theirs would have been one of the few surpassing love stories of history. Legally she is his mistress. The man so honored is an explorer, a seeker of fame and danger, an erratic, boyish, self-confident figure. His wife is hopelessly insane, divorce impossible under English law. But the young, quiet, reserved girl Emmeline breaks with her parents, accompanies her beloved explorer to South America, nearly dies and suffers terrible dangers in crossing the Andes with him, for many years comforts and aids him in his efforts to reach the South Pole, cherishes belief that he is alive when every one else believes he has perished, and finally, in advanced middle age, when the insane wife dies, the "spinster of this parish" is wedded to her man. All this is saved from being ignoble by the spinster's dignity, devotion, and steadfastness.

The way in which the spinster's story is introduced to the reader is singular and arresting. When she is asked for counsel by a young girl whose marriage is opposed by her parents, the spinster advises conciliation rather than rashness and says that she "has her reasons." Then the author remarks, "Her reasons were these"-and practically the whole narrative follows. It is strong in its appeal to one's sympathy, but not given to sentimentalism. In absorbing story interest it is, in my opinion, far away ahead of most recent novels.

"This Freedom" is the title of the eagerly expected new novel by the author of "If Winter Comes." It is hardly fair to hope from any author who has just had practically every one reading one of his books that he should forthwith duplicate or exceed that success. It is enough to hope that he will turn out sound, interesting work on a level with his other literary performances. This and more can truly be said of "This Freedom." It will be widely read and justly praised, although there is in it no one single character who appeals so persistently to one's sympathy and liking as did Mark Sabre in "If Winter Comes." This new book is more of a problem novel. Its style is oddly ejaculatory; the pages abound in short, sometimes repetitive sentences that

2 Spinster of This Parish. By W. B. Maxwell. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York. $2.

3 This Freedom. By A. S. M. Hutchinson. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $2.

strike at the same point again and again. The girl Rosalie, who somewhat precociously sees that men have things all their way and that they are important even if generally "beasts," chooses to rival men in their own field, becomes an expert financier and a banker, then, with her husband's agreement, tries to be both a home-maker and a business woman, and fails lamentably in getting her children started right in life. Their tragedies convince her that "this freedom" of hers is a failure, and the book ends with a new start in making a real home influence for her grandchild. Criticism and comparison aside, this novel is sure to provoke discussion and will be read by every one who wants to keep abreast of the most important fiction work of the year.

For the lover of the robust and adventurous plot story with added literary ability I find among the midsummer books three especially entertaining and worth while. Mr. Bacheller's "In the Days of Poor Richard" not only gives us a delightful picture of Benjamin Franklin the man, but also stirring incidents of Indian fighting and historic glimpses of England and America in Revolutionary times. Mr. Warwick Deeping in "The House of Adventure" shows that a vigorous and striking novel of the Great War and the days just after can be made into spirited fiction, despite some people's prejudice against war novels. One particularly enjoys the introduction of Clemenceau at the end as informal judge of village villains. The tale is alive with incident and crises of danger and love. Mr. Sabatini's "Captain Blood" is a semi-historical story beginning with the Monmouth rebellion and then taking the hero to the West Indies as a labor-slave. His intrepidity and resource make him a captain of buccaneers, and later, like the famous pirate Morgan, he becomes commander of a British warship. The book is not quite as good as "Scaramouche," for that was singularly original in subject and treatment, but "Captain Blood" nevertheless has a good chance of being also a best seller.

In a quieter vein and both marked with sincere workmanship and sound spiritual psychology are Elsie Singmaster's "Bennett Malin" and Edith Dart's "Sareel." The first is an unsparing analysis of a would-be author of prodigious conceit whose self-magnification brings injury to all about him; the second, a surprisingly delicately wrought picture of the love and personality of a

In the Days of Poor Richard. By Irving Bacheller. The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. $2.

5 The House of Adventure. By Warwick Deeping. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2. Captain Blood. By Rafael Sabatini. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. $2. Bennett Malin. By Elsie Singmaster. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. $ Sareel. By Edith Dart. New York. $2.

$2.

Boni & Liveright,

« AnteriorContinuar »