Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

AS IT APPEARS TO AN AMERICAN GIRL IN CONSTANTINOPLE

Constantinople, December 12, 1921.

D

or

EAR SAM: It must have been the day of the Standard Oil dinner when I wrote you last. That evening left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It was a jolly dinner-in the apartment of Jack Byrne, a young Standard Oil man. Eight of us, all Americans. Afterward we went on to Maxim's, to dance. There was a special celebration of something other (nearly every night is). The White Lyres (an American orchestra that used to be in Paris) were at their best, and the Cossack dancers shouted and stamped and did particularly wonderfu! things with their swords. Then there was a silly sort of beauty contest, and the winner of the prize was asked to step forward. I felt shocked and sick when I saw who it was. LittleDid I tell you about this girl? I had heard things, but only seeing is believing. - is young, not over twenty, I should think. When I first saw her, two or three months ago, she was a pretty, soft-eyed little Turkish doll, modest in her black dress and charchaf, laughing at herself as she said her few stumbling words of English and French to me. Now she looked years older, in a low-cut European evening dress, with paradise plumes drooping over her shoulder, half silly with champagne. She is the first Turkish woman ever to act in the movies, and that alone will cost her her life if ever the Turks come back into power in Constantinople.

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

I have ever heard of who has taken advantage of her husband's absence with Mustapha Kemal to tread primrose paths. Poor little thing! She is a bad advertisement for Western chivalry. Turks-neither men nor women-go to the restaurants at night. And no good Turkish woman is seen on the street, even in the daytime, with any other man than her husband. Even the husband could not walk with her until recently.

But can you imagine a Turkish princess with blond bobbed hair and a permanent wave? I know one, Princess

Sabaiheddin. Her father was a political exile under Abdul Hamid, and she was brought up in Paris.

Sometimes she leaves off the charchaf-but she looks much prettier in it. She often comes to tea-dances at our Embassy. By the way, the United States Embassy is the first place where Turkish women have ever danced with men. It has only happened since Admiral Bristol has been there.

1 A letter from this American girl, the sister of a naval officer, appeared in The Outlook for betober 23.

They love it, are as eager as children, and a little shy. The husbands and brothers stand around and glare, mostly. Fearfully jealous. Mustapha Kemal said in a despatch from Angora: "Constantinople is becoming degenerate under the Christians. Our women are dancing in public places." But the younger ones realize that the old order must go-that iron lattices are no longer strong enough to shut women away from the world.

The Sultan is a weak-looking old man. I have been to the palace at Yildiz, on Friday at noon, to watch him go to prayer, escorted by horsemen in gorgeous uniforms, with pennants flying. While he is in the mosque no Christian may enter; so we were taken into the palace and served with Turkish coffee in gold cups and long gold-tipped cigarettes, while he prayed.

The Crown Prince is a quiet, middleaged man. His aide, Ekrim Bey, never misses one of our dances. He is absurdly German looking-cropped head, round face is always making polite, stiff speeches and clicking his heels together in stiff bows.

There is a Turk of English descent who, they say, expects to be Turkey's next Ambassador to America. You see him everywhere. Black Bey is his name. He has an American wife. He looks like the villain in a melodramaa great tall man, very dark, heavybrowed, wears a monocle as if born with it; always stands in the doorways at a ball, just glowering at the dancers.

The only Turkish parties that I have been at are teas. Women, I think, never appear at evening parties. But men are asked to the teas. Clee often goes with me. Those at Madame Hassib Bey's are the most interesting. She is a very brilliant and modern woman of fifty or so, and has several talented daughters and friends of every nationality. She wishes that the daughters might go back to America with me. I do, toowhat fun it would be to show them Fifth Avenue and Broadway! They ask all sorts of questions. Most of the Turkish women whom I have met speak better English-book English-than I do, and of course perfect French. They are musicians, artistic, read a great deal; but of real life are as ignorant as babies.

Well-so am I! "Befo' de wah," back in New York, I used to think myself rather sophisticated. Clee would come home from school for holidays and he would be fearfully impressed because certain head waiters, a playwright and an artist or two, and leading lights of Greenwich Village bowed to me. "Why, sis, you're a regular 'girl about town,' he would say, and I'd try to look blasé. But heavens! I'm a mere babe, and always will be, in comparison with the European women out here. And the men! They just can't believe that my

"

[blocks in formation]

Constantinople, December 20, 1921. My dear:

Yesterday I disobeyed orders, and went to Stamboul-to the Grand Bazaar -alone. (Of course you understand that we live in Pera, the European part of the city? All of the Embassies are here, except the Persian. Many Turks also live in Pera, but the most in Stamboul, across the Golden Horn.) Clee said that I was never to go out alone after dark; and never alone in Stamboul at any time. But I love prowling around among the little dark booths of the Bazaar, and other people are always in a hurry. The Grand Bazaar is very old; covers acres of ground. It is honeycombed with tiny shops, along dark little alleys, where you can buy anything, from priceless Oriental rugs and jewels to the commonest Manchester cloth. I love the "Bezesten" best. That is the oldest part, in the very center, where old bearded Turks sit crosslegged and don't care whether you buy or not. Here lovely old carved ivories, strings of amber, beautifully wrought brasses, are heaped up with useless junk. And in the "Bit Bazaar" (translated, Louse Market)-an open road back of the Grand Bazaar-I picked up some of the quaintest old Venetian china for almost nothing. In the main part some of the shopkeepers (mostly Armenian or Jewish) fairly drag you into their places, shouting the merits of their wares. The Turks would not be so undignified. But one never pays the price asked, even in the great rug houses. It is part of the game to bazelik (bargain). First, coffee is brought you on a little tray. You have a chat; then, very delicately, the subject is led up to. A price mentioned. It is too much. "Alas! I shal! be ruined my children starve but I love the Americans!" and a reduction is made. No-you are firm. Leave the shop. A few steps down the street"Ah, mademoiselle!" and he plucks at your sleeve. You go back, and get your rug for two-thirds of his first price. He is delighted, and blesses you. The favorite felicitation is, "May you live a thousand years, and have only male children!"

I have done all the usual sightseeing. St. Sophia and the other mosques; the howling and whirling dervishes (I felt sick and had to leave when the howlers stuck stilettos through their cheeks and tongues); the beautiful carved sarcophagus of Alexander the Great, in the Seraglio Museum. Seraglio Point, at the entrance of the Golden Horn, is where,

they say, old or troublesome royal wives used to be tied in a bag with a cat and a snake and dropped in.

By day Stamboul streets are full of a howling mob, but at night as still as the grave.

Pera's streets are never still. Some of the poor Russians have no other place to go. When I first came, their faces haunted me. I could not bear to be so comfortable in the midst of such suffering. Just then (the first of October) the American Red Cross had stopped helping them. But Major Davis, head of the Red Cross here, is keeping on just the same, backed by all the Americans in Constantinople. Major Davis is a wonder; a big, stout man from Boston, with a gay taste in socks, a sleepy smile, a heart as big as he is, and the keenest sort of a mind. He has taken me to see the refugee camps. In one-a dark old palace barn-some twelve thousand sleep on the ground. They are just building little raised platforms for beds, so it will not be so bad now. There aren't many children. They must have died. The lucky ones have work, but so many were just sitting around, looking dully into space. Do you know, the first thing they did in that place was to make one corner of it into a church. They hung up cheap little pictures, and their icons, that they never part with; and decorated it all with pitiful paper flow

ers.

The Muscovite is the famous Russian restaurant where a general checks your coat and helps you on with your rubbers; and a princess, very likely, brings your soup-wonderful bortsch, with sour cream floating on bits of sausage and cabbage, and little hot biscuits with meat stuffing served with it. I dined there my very first night in Constantinople. I was delighted to see a haughty beauty, dressed in black, with a tiny white apron, draw a jeweled lorgnette out of her dress and coolly eye a singer up and down. Imagine how you would feel if your waitress lorgnetted you! And when they are not too busy they will sit down and dine or talk with the patrons who are their friends.

The captain of one of our destroyers is engaged to the prettiest and sweetest girl at the Muscovite. He gave a tea on his ship one Sunday afternoon. There were eight Russian girls and I; the captains of several other destroy. ers; a much-traveled Englishman; Mr. Thomas, of the Standard Oil, then staying with Admiral and Mrs. Bristol; and my brother. It was a birthday party, and great fun. After the birthday cake and tea we danced. You would never guess, from their manner, that these girls had ever known any more trouble than I. They are really well bred, "gentle, brave, and gay."

I can't say so much for the men. They don't stand up so well. They only know how to wear uniforms. There was one who fired my imagination at first. An ex-colonel in Wrangel's army. Big, handsome, shabby, but very neat in his

old uniform. He kissed one's hand so reverently, and told of his life in Petrograd and his despair here in a way to stir a stone. Well, Clee brought him home to dinner, to tea. He was charming, and so grateful. Clee gave him a job. He worked like a fiend for a few days. We wished that he might go to America, where he would have a chance; and I told Cleveland that if it could be arranged I would gladly give up the trip to Egypt that I'm longing for to pay this man's passage. But we found that he had been given money and passports for America some time before. He had given a farewell party to all his friends at the Muscovite the night before the sailing date and paid for the very good champagne with the passage money. Clee gave him money for passage on a freighter, and it went the same way. But, knowing all this, he was a lovable rascal. They are great impulsive children-all emotion and no sense. The Relief workers never give them money; just work, food, or clothes.

No, not all are children! General Wrangel is a real, grown man! He has been one of my heroes for ever so longand imagine how thrilled I was to meet him! The first time I saw him was at an Embassy dance in October. It was soon after the sinking of his yacht by Bolshevists. The American women had sent clothes to Baroness Wrangel; and he-at a ball-was dressed in an ordinary Red Cross khaki shirt, worn outside as a tunic! It might have been the most gorgeous uniform in the world, the way he carried it. He looks more royal than almost any pictures of royalty that I've ever seen. And worn, spiritual with suffering for his people. The Baroness is a bright, cheerful soul, awfully sweet and friendly. Of course they do not dance-in Russia's trouble-but they are nearly always at our balls. I did not want to meet General Wrangel until my French had improved; he does not speak English. So I asked my French teacher (a Russian widow) what to say to him when I met him. We used to laugh over it, and I had quite a beautiful conversation all learned. Then when the actual moment came, in the middle of a crowded ballroom floor, I forgot it all, and only shook his hand, stammered, "H-how do you do?" and gazed at him!

He is going soon to Serbia, with several thousand of his troops, who are being taken into the Serbian army.

Some one downstairs is playing the Volga song. That thing will haunt me to the end of my days. There are half a dozen Russian folk-songs that you hear every night, somewhere. We do get wonderful music here. So much fire -oh, other music will seem pale and tame, after these Russians! There is Vertinsky, the singer at the Ermitage, who used to appear before the Czar. He sang at a dinner at our Embassy the other night, and I could see the Cossacks marching-going away-away-faint in the distance, never, never to march again. Everybody cried. Vertinsky is a

drug fiend, and will die soon; but how he can sing!

Last night we had dinner with a family of rich Armenians. Heavens, the food they expected us to eat! I don't wonder these people look oily. Perfectly wonderful dishes, beginning with a creamed shrimp soup, and winding up with real Oriental sweet dates stuffed with kaimak (clotted buffalo cream) with syrup over them. Afterward the men played bridge, while the three other women and I lounged on a great low divan. With the men's whisky-sodas the maid brought tea for us!

Oh, it's a good thing I'm not here for always. Awfully demoralizing. Everybody is either starving or gorging. Everything is extreme. How anybody ever works in such a place is beyond me!

But the return to sanity is going to be hard. Your FRANCES.

Sam, dear:

Constantinople, January 4, 1922.

You have heard me speak of Elizabeth Baker? The pretty Navy wife who is so very popular with the British? She gave such a jolly dinner last night, a farewell for our naval attaché, who is leaving for Japan. Sir Horace Rumbold, British High Commissioner, was there; Lady Rumbold; Baron Uchida, the jolly little Japanese High Commissioner; General Marden; and some other British army and navy people. Elizabeth put me beside Sir Horace. I was petrified at first. He is the typical book-Englishman, to look at. Absolutely impassive, bored face, monocle and all. But after five minutes we were talking away as if he were a sophomore. He is as simple and easily amused as any boy of twenty, and says that he finds Ameri cans refreshing. Lady Rumbold is a trifle more formal at first, but I thought her very sweet.

Lady Harington (wife of Sir Charles Harington, Commander-in-Chief of British Forces in Turkey) is such a differ ent type from Lady Rumbold. She is Irish, I believe; is big, bobbed-haired, carelessly dressed, unconventional. She is always dancing at Tokatlian's at tea time with a crowd of young officers.

The British large parties are too formal to be much fun. Even the great fancy-dress ball at Harbié, on New Year's Eve, hadn't the right go to it. On Armistice Day I went to a British tea-dance. It was a "shriek," as one of my little friends here would say. Old English dowagers with hats of the Spanish War period resting on two hairs, younger women with all sorts of beads and lace and what-not hung on them, and carrying off these atrocities with such an air that you almost think maybe that is the way to dress, after all! They wear just what suits their fancy. Straw hats in winter, and a girl at the dancing club last night had a little gold-lace nightcap affair on her head (weren't there such things back

1914?). After all, why be slaves to fashion?

Ah, but their dinners are delightful! And the British officers' red mess-jackets are beautiful! And their wearers appear to find American women amusing. It is mutual. When I first came, I could not get the British army accent. One young subaltern had been telling me the greatest lot at a dance-I couldn't understand a word. Finally I stopped him, and said he'd have to excuse me, but I had only been over a little while, and couldn't understand English yet!

There is an old dear of a British major who is forever giving AngloAmerican parties at the Muscovite.

Our dinners are not so good, but our big parties are perfect. We are better at romping than at conversation.

One of the aides at our Embassy advised a pretty Georgian princess: "If you want a good time, go with the American Navy; but if you want to get married, cultivate the British." Our Navy isn't marrying out here to any extent. They are just having a glorious time-in between hard, cold trips into Russia or down to forsaken holes like Mersina or Samsoun.

There was a great deal of entertaining done for the Utah. She was here for three weeks in November, with Admiral Niblack, Commander of our European Squadron, on board. The town was turned upside down to entertain them. Our Embassy gave dinners, dances, and teas. The Italians gave them a ball at their beautiful place that was once the Austrian Embassy. The Utah reciprocated with two big tea-dances on board and any number of luncheons and dinners. Admiral Niblack was greatly intrigued by the spectacle of Turkish ladies dancing at our Embassy. wired to Mrs. Niblack: "Turkish women very beautiful. Come at once!" And she did come, on the next train from the Riviera. Then the Embassy gave another set of parties for her.

He

Coming home from these parties late at night, I have seen and heard dreadful things on the street. I just get as far back in the araba as I can and shut my eyes sometimes. Of course the Allied police keep some sort of order in the main streets, but Colonel Ballard, their chief, says, "If you want to be murdered, you can be murdered-just wander around in dark alleys!" The Turkish night watchman is a joke. He carries a big stick and goes “tap, tap, tap," on the pavement, so that thieves will hear him coming and run away. It is creepy to hear him calling out where there is a fire in the middle of the night. And every night there are fires.

I wanted to visit one of the Turkish public schools, but it seems that the present Minister of Education is very much afraid of Christian interference, and nobody dared take me. But I did spend a morning in the best private school in Stamboul. It is kept by Nakya Hanum, a quite emancipated woman. She takes children from five to seven

teen years old; boys and girls together, which is very unusual. It was a pleasant place, shut away from the world in the midst of a rather untidy garden. But the teaching methods were antiquated and the lack of equipment pathetic. In the kindergarten half a dozen of the cleverest children were shown off-they did complicated dances for half an hour-while the rest stood against the wall, looking wistful. One little boy was dressed as a girl; he had long curly hair tied with a red ribbon. His mother had many sons and wanted a daughter, so she just plays he is one. They say it is quite common.

Every mosque has classes of whiteturbaned boys studying the Koran. The Y. W. and Y. M. C. A. conduct classes of all kinds. Although the Turks are afraid of American education, for fear that religion will be thrown in with the rest, an American professional man is looked up to as an oracle. Dr. Hoover, of the American hospital, and Dr. Barton, the American dentist, are just kings out in this part of the world.

Last Sunday I dragged Clee to church by the ear. The first time in two years. The foreign population here has rather free and easy notions of religion. The Turks pray five times a day; they fall on their knees and turn their faces toward Mecca, wherever they happen to be, at the muezzin's cry. But there is no American minister outside of the colleges. We went to the Dutch chapel, and heard a British army chaplain.

And this morning we went againthis time to the chapel in what used to be the Russian Embassy. There are no seats in the Russian church, you know; we stood, for two hours, while more and more crowded in. They were all washed and dressed with extra care. The music was glorious; just singing, so sad and deep. Every one put something into a collection basket, and I saw a woman with tragic eyes drop in an unset diamond among the dirty five-piaster pieces.

It made me ache-I'm going for a walk out toward the "Sweet Waters," in the sunshine. Later.

We've had a glorious walk, and came back in a caique, down the Sweet Waters into the Golden Horn, past Eyoub. That is the Turkish cemetery where Pierre Loti's sweetheart is said to be buriedthe one in "Les Desenchantées." Here and there on the hills there were Turks blissfully enjoying keyeff. That's their favorite sport; it means less than doing nothing just being nothing. And we passed Baron Uchida, fishing peacefully from the bank. There are some happy people here, after all; I feel better. Good-night. FRANCES.

Constantinople, April 1, 1922. Good morning, Sam:

Since my last letter I've traveled fast and far. First there was Christmas, six weeks of it-ours, after that the Greek and Armenian, then the Russian. There were three different sets of holidays.

The restaurants kept open all night. Little boys went from door to door with colored paper lanterns and drums, singing queer Eastern Christmas chants. We were living in rooms just off the Rue du Petit Poisson Mort that week. That's a very queer street. I didn't like the look of it, but it was an experience, too. The walls of my room could have told strange stories, I'm sure. It had a latticed baywindow and smelled musty and old. When we came in late at night, Frau Fiedler, the funny old German woman who tended my fire and so on, had to let us in. We knocked on the iron outer door, and after a while it would open mysteriously. Inside, we looked up and saw her leaning out of a little window, holding the string that puiled the latch, looking like a funny old fairy in her ruffled nightcap and wishing us a "gute nacht"!

On Christmas Eve we had dinner at the Muscovite. It was very gay, but not a bit like Christmas. Then one of our men went to the piano and played "Holy Night, Silent Night." I found myself crying into the champagne. It was my first Christmas away from home. We went on to such a nice dance at the Embassy-a family party, nearly all Americans. At twelve o'clock the music stopped suddenly; the Admiral kissed Mrs. Bristol and wished her a Merry Christmas. Then he turned to me and said, "Come and kiss the old man!" And I had to weep again, and laugh; he sounded just like father, and I wasn't homesick any more. After the dance I stayed up till daylight, trimming a little tree to surprise Clee in the morning. He was so pleased with the little foolish things on it.

Toward the last of January it began to get rainy and horrid. Everybody looked fagged out with the prolonged celebration. So a party of us went to Egypt and the Holy Land for six weeks. We came back in March, to find the sky all blue for the summer (the sun shines here for six months of the year), the street flower markets gay with sweet violets, yellow mimosa, scarlet anemones, almond blossom-oh, so lovely! Every Sunday there's a picnic somewhere. We go to Prinkipo or Halki, in the sea of Marmora; or up the Bosphorus toward the Black Sea. One evening we had supper in a ruined palace garden, over on the Asiatic side. A harem, it used to be one of Abdul Hamid's. All open now to the four winds; gilt chairs with brocade hanging in tatters, great mirror-lined halls. All along the shore are places falling in ruins like that-Turkey is so poor. Have you read "Stamboul Nights," by a man named Dwight, who lived out here for years? He will make you feel what I feel in these places but can't express.

Soon the gay summer season will begin. The Embassies will move to Therapia, and there will be more picnics, more moonlight on the Golden Horn. Pray for me, or I may never come home! FRANCES.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][graphic]

From Albert B. Herrman, Santa Cruz, California

HAULING TIMBER FROM THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS Ox-teams are less common in the Central West now than in pioneer days; Chicago recently had difficulty in procuring such a team for the transportation parade, it is said. But in the region near Santa Cruz, California, our correspondent says, oxen are in constant use for bringing timber and firewood out of the canyons and gulches where horses or mules would be useless

[graphic][merged small]

CANOEING DURING A VACATION IN THE ONTARIO WOODS "The picture preserves for me," our contributor writes, "one of the most thrilling moments of a memorable vacation. The canoeists are shown running a rapid well named "The Needle's Eye,' on the Maguetawan River. The entire river here narrows from a stream a hundred yards wide to twenty or thirty feet, plunging through a miniature gorge. The innocent-looking wave on the side of the birch canoe almost stopped her voyage by dropping a couple of barrels of water aboard"

T

racy,

A GREAT AMBASSADOR

A PERSONAL IMPRESSION BY EDWIN A. ALDERMAN

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

HE Life and Letters of Walter H. Page" is a book of great distinction. As a document of democas the unfolding of a career constituting a complete and inspiring definition of Americanism, this book must appeal to thoughtful people all over the world, and as a colorful, graphic picture of men, atmosphere, events, and social conditions in the two great English-speaking democracies under the strain of war it is an invaluable contribution to history. Mr. Hendrick has wisely let Walter Page tell the story in his glowing, pungent letters and memoranda; but he has done the work of compilation and comment with skill and restraint, combined with a certain ardor in the portrayal of his subject that stirs the sympathy and interest of the reader. This is not a book that one skips about in or dips into here and there. If you begin it, you finish it with a rush of pride in the story, with the sensation of having met an unforgetable man, with a gasp of sympathy for the sheer courage and tragedy of his career.

My qualifications for reviewing this notable work rest upon an acquaintance and an association with Walter Page of forty-three years. We were born in the same old Southern State of North Carolina and in essentially the same era, though he was my senior by six years. Our section was struggling on under the paralysis of war and seeking grimly and bravely to find its place in modern industrial democracy. There was everywhere then in the homes of good people in the South an atmosphere of seriousness and unselfishness. Most of us felt, even in the full tide of buoyant youth, that we must make ourselves fit to be helpful in the rebuilding so plainly before us and that we must stay where we were and use our fitness in bettering conditions right at our doors. This feeling was an obsession with Page, and, though he actually spent only a few years in his home State, and those turbulent and unsatisfactory, his heart and his dreams were always there. He became a cosmopolitan in the highest sense-a true citizen of the world; but his day dreams forever played about the sand-hills of North Carolina and the prosperity of the South. Indeed, perhaps the most poignant scene set forth in these volumes is the scene of the wasted, broken man on the Scottish moors planning to return "home," fancying that health would come back to him

The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page. Edited by Burton Hendrick. 2 vols. Doubleday, Lige & Co., New York. $10.

in that old air, smiling wistfully at his son a few days before his death as he was lifted from the train at Pinehurst, and exclaiming: "Well, Frank, I did get here after all, didn't I?"

I saw Walter Page for the first time forty-two years ago. He was then a young man twenty-four years of age, and I a lad at college. He was standing on a platform at the summer session of the University of North Carolina, talking to a group of teachers with fierce eagerness and a kind of defiant intellectual confidence about the value to them to be got out of studying the Greek language and literature. It did not strike me as a very live thesis at the time, but he was putting life into it, and to spare. I recall that I rejoiced in the fact that he seemed to be flouting the oratorical pomposities current at the time in all American, and especially Southern, speaking.

I

He wore no black frock coat, and did not even thrust his right hand into the lapels of the coat which he did wear, which was of rough tweed. His hands were in his pockets, in fact, and, though he "bawled out" his company every now and then, his gestures were few and his manner conversational. saw him for the last time in October, 1914, standing in the doorway of the old American Embassy, on Victoria Street in London, bidding me good-by on my homeward voyage.. He was then preparing to move the Embassy to worthier quarters in Grosvenor Place, but the staff was still there. In many ways he was the same man who was urging Greek discipline upon the Carolina teachers a generation before, with the same unconventionality (he was shouting gentle insults at me for remaining in London so long after the beginning of the war instead of going "on home"), the same vigor and charm. Marks of care and toil were plainly upon him, but also evidences of high pride and purpose, as he undertook the duties of a mission destined to mark a new era in the story of Anglo-American understanding.

The record of Walter Page's life and achievements during the thirty-five years between these two memories is fully and faithfully set forth in Mr. Hendrick's book, and constitutes a splendid proof of what talents and purposes and labor can bring forth in American life, even if the Ambassadorship to Great Britain during a World War had not fallen to his lot. Walter Hines Page was born in the little village of Cary, near Raleigh, North Carolina, August 15, 1855. His racial stock was pure English, with a

Huguenot strain. His parents were vigorous, forceful people of pioneer breed. He was well educated in the best schools of his region, and came to manhood just in time to be captivated by the fame of the great scholars Daniel C. Gilman had called around him at Johns Hopkins University. I have never understood why he fell upon Greek as his mistress there unless it was the dominating personality and style of Gildersleeve that caught his fancy. He was happy enough in the task of interpreting Eschylus and the comedies of Aristophanes, but he balked at philologica! grinding in the deep marshes of Greek syntax and Byzantine writers, "fulminated against the grammarians" and fought toward his life's job of studying social conditions, describing the scene of life as he saw it, discovering excellence, shouting at shams, and fighting like a trooper for the things that seemed to him good and durable. The cloister tugged hard at Page. He even considered the ministry as a calling in his youth, his mind doubtless dwelling upon its obvious opportunities for expression, but the world rather than the cloister, won for the world's good. "I am sure that I have mistaken my life-work, if I consider Greek my life-work. In truth, at times I am tempted to throw the whole thing away. . . . But without a home feeling in Greek literature no man can lay claim to high culture." So he would keep at it for three or four years and "then leave it as a man's work." Despite these despairing words, Page acquired a living knowledge of Greek that was one of his choicest possessions through life. That he made a greater success than his self-depreciation would imply is evident from the fact that his fellowship was renewed for the next year.

At the age of twenty-three Page grappled with life in earnest, and for the next twenty years he may be seen roving from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Boston, Massachusetts, in ever-increasing posts of difficulty, but with perfect unity of purpose, striving to comprehend the currents of American life, to interpret them to various sections, and to express them vividly and fairly. He was in turn teacher, lecturer, reporter, editor, student of sociological problems, from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Utah, and finally found himself in the managership of the "Forum," a moribund magazine which he quickly restored to vigor and prosperity. At forty Page achieved the top of his profession by becoming editor of the "Atlantic Monthly." His final progress to the partnership of Doubleday, Page & Co. and the founding of the "World's Work," with which his name will always be associated, followed naturally out of the talents displayed in this field and out of his desire for independ ence economically and spiritually.

I first came into intimate contact with

« AnteriorContinuar »