CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES From a photograph by his friend, Dr. S. J . Mixter. PHILLIPS BROOKS IN His STUDY. CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES Sketches from Life BY CHARLES LEWIS SLATTERY NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 68 1 FIFTH AVENUE c c Copyright, 1918 BY E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America PREFACE IN England there have been many collec- tions of short sketches of notable char- acters in the intellectual and spiritual realm, all the way from the great classic, Walton's Lives, to Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson's Leaves of the Tree, written in our own time. As I was reading with intense pleasure Mr. Benson's book, it came over me that we had in America men not only of equal interior power, but also of equal personal charm, worthy of a similar chron- icle; and I wondered if we were going to allow their unique traits to be forgotten. In spite of an impression to the contrary, we in America are far more reticent than our brave English allies: it is painfully difficult vi PREFACE for us to speak of the ideals and the heroes about whom we care most. We are possibly a little too sensitive to ridicule. We imagine the smiling critic as he takes up our im- aginary volume we think we hear him murmur, "All very well, this book; but it ought to be called, 'Great Men Who have Known Me.' " And forthwith, though we have reverently touched the hem of the gar- ments of the saints, we allow the fragrant memory of them to fade from the earth. Most of the names commemorated in this book are well known. Two or three will be strange to almost every reader: I have in- cluded them because they represent a group of striking personalities of such real power that they would stand among the renowned of the earth if the appeal of a conspicuous opportunity had come to them, and also be- cause they are the sort of people who inspire others to attainment and to action, while they themselves prefer a dimmer light. One of the heroes is a boy, his life here finished PREFACE vii before its promise had been tested: these are days when we know the greatness of youth, and exalt the glory of the unfinished. We suspect to what famous tasks the Master of All the Worlds has assigned them in the blessed Country to which they have gone. As one generation passes and another be- gins, we, who have known the old leaders, lament that those who are to lead the future did not know face to face the men who in- spired us. I remember that once in a college class-room the lecturer broke off from his subject with the remark that, when he was a young man, he and his friends were con- stantly looking forward to a new poem by Browning or Tennyson or Matthew Arnold, a new essay by Carlyle, or a new novel by Thackeray; and he wondered how we of a duller age could have any courage or spirit without the incentive which had been his. There is a benevolent motive, therefore, in the attempt to prolong the lives of our heroes and saints. We would have them flash, if viii PREFACE only for an instant, their radiant faces upon the oncoming generation. C. L. S. GRACE CHURCH RECTORY, NEW YORK, 12 October, 1918. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS UNDER the name of Romney Reynolds the chapter in this book on Josiah Royce was published in The Outlook and several of the other sketches were printed in The Churchman. To the Editors of these magazines grateful acknowledgment is made. Thanks are due also to those who have allowed the reproduction of photographs and paintings for the illustrations, especially to Dr. Mixter, the friend of Bishop Brooks, who took the intimate photograph which is the frontispiece, and to Mrs. Rieber, who has just completed for Harvard University the remarkable painting of The Three Harvard Philosophers. CONTENTS I. PHILLIPS BROOKS 3 II. ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY . . . .19 III. WILLIAM JAMES . 7 . . . . 33 IV. JOSIAH ROYCE ........ 51 V. ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD ALLEN . 67 VI. HENRY SYLVESTER NASH 85 VII. BISHOP WHIPPLE 101 VIII. Two COUSINS BY MARRIAGE . . . .117 IX. A BOY I KNEW 131 X. A MINNESOTA DOCTOR 147 XI. SAMUEL HART 161 XII. HENRY VAUGHAN 175 XIII. A PENNSYLVANIA HOME 187 XIV. BISHOP HARE 207 XV. WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON . 225 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE PHILLIPS BROOKS in his Study. From a Photograph by Dr. S. J. Mixter . . Frontispiece ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY. From a Pho- tograph by Pach 22 WILLIAM JAMES, JOSIAH ROYCE, and PROFES- SOR PALMER. From a Painting by Winifred Rieber 40 ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD ALLEN in his Study. From a Photograph 74 HENRY SYLVESTER NASH. From a Painting by Wilton Lockwood 88 BISHOP WHIPPLE. From a Photograph .... 108 MARY JOANNA WHIPPLE. From a Photo- graph 120 MARY WEBSTER WHIPPLE. From a Photo- graph 126 A BOY I KNEW. From a Photograph by C. N. Peterson 134 CHARLES NATHANIEL HEWITT. From a Painting by his Son 150 SAMUEL HART. From a Photograph 166 HENRY VAUGHAN. From a Photograph 178 xiii xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PACING PAGE FELIX REVILLE BRUNOT. From a Photo- graph by F. Gutekunst 190 MARY BRUNOT. From a Photograph by H. Bower 200 BISHOP HARE. From a Photograph by Elmer Chickering, Boston 210 WILLIAM REED HUNTINGTON. From a Pho- tograph by Henry Havelock Pierce, Bos- ton and New York 230 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES PHILLIPS BROOKS PHILLIPS BROOKS I CANNOT remember when first I heard the name of Phillips Brooks. As a boy I recognized that his name stood for distinction. When I decided to go to Har- vard College an affectionate old bishop shook his head, saying that he wished I wouldn't for he thought it quite likely that my boyish faith would shrivel and die in a rationalistic atmosphere. It wasn't my father's college, but I had made up my mind that I was meant to go to Harvard. I was thousands of miles away from Cambridge when I was pushing my decision through. I wanted reinforcement. It suddenly oc- curred to me that Phillips Brooks would tell me the whole truth about the matter, and, though I had never seen him, I wrote him a letter. 4 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES I suppose it was a crude, boyish letter. I have often wondered what I said and how I said it. But I cannot recall a single line. Doubtless the letter lay one morning on Mr. Brooks's table in Clarendon Street with a score or two of other morning letters. The other letters were probably from English bishops, or American poets, or important vestrymen, or statesmen, or writers. They probably said grateful words about some ser- mon, or sought counsel on serious problems of life. But, if one may judge from the quickness with which the answer came, the strange boy's letter must have been answered that very morning with the first. It was no brief conventional reference to a cata- logue or a college tract; it was the simple, straight assurance that one must expect to find in Harvard College what one would find in the world scoffing, perhaps blas- pheming, but also earnest Christian faith and effort; and he advised the boy to come with the hope of being a better Christian PHILLIPS BROOKS 5 man for having gone through Harvard Col- lege. And then he added, "Come and see me when you are settled in Cambridge." I showed the letter to a beloved teacher. "Do you know," he said, "what that letter means? Do you know how busy that man is? Do you know that he has given you his best?" I didn't then know what the best of Phillips Brooks was, but I knew that the letter was wonderful. I read it over and over, and I was sure that Harvard College was for me. From that time till he died Phillips Brooks was my revered master though, kind as he was whenever I spoke with him face to face, I never dared to follow him except from afar. Whenever I could, I went to hear him preach, or speak in less formal ways; and I stood off in some ob- scure corner to look at him when he plunged through the college yard, or rose above a crowd of listeners at a public meeting, or strode down a Boston street. He instantly 6 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES seemed the one man I had known who could take a legitimate place with Plato and Dante and other greatest men of all time. The first Sunday morning of the term I made my way to Trinity Church in Boston. The church was thronged, and I was given a seat back of the pulpit somewhere in the depths of the chancel. I saw Phillips Brooks for the first time; I heard him read swiftly and reverently the familiar service. I felt the thrill of the vast responding con- gregation. But when the preacher mounted the pulpit and preached his sermon, I couldn't hear a word. I knew that a torrent of words was going forth from him, and I knew that hundreds of people who were in front of him were being stirred to the bottom of their souls. But, bitterly disap- pointed, I was as one outside the sound of his voice. That night he came to Apple- ton Chapel with Edward Everett Hale, Dr. George Gordon, and others, making one of the short addresses. I heard him then; but PHILLIPS BROOKS 7 the address, though earnest, was slight; and I still felt that I had not heard Phillips Brooks preach. There was no lack of opportunity as the years passed. How many of his sermons and addresses I heard, I cannot tell; but I know that he fed my spirit as no other. I felt the goodness and the love of God as I never expected to know them. Through him I seemed to know intimately the Christ who was to him evidently the most real of Masters. I knew that he was yearning to win the people, known and unknown, before him, to a discipleship like his own. I did not feel at once the need of going to see him, though he was easily approached, and he had definitely invited me to come; I sus- pect that I found in his public utterance the unconscious telling of his own experi- ence. I looked up to his big eyes and caught their friendliness for humanity, and was con- tent to be lost in a sort of anonymous friend- ship. 8 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES No doubt the physical presence had much to do with the impression which he was then forcing upon young men. It was not only because he was big, though that had its effect. When he stood alone in a pulpit he did not seem uncommonly tall, because he was big in every way. Every feature of his face and person was proportionally big, so that, unless one compared him with others, he seemed quite normal. The power came from a beauty, a sweetness, a light, which radiated from his face whether in repose or in appeal. It was the fineness and integrity of character which found in his huge form scope for interpretation: that is what made Phillips Brooks a joy to earnest youth seek- ing a guide for life at its best. The day came at length when I gathered courage to go to see him, when he kept office hours in the preacher's room at Harvard. I waited my turn on a bench in the hall of Wadsworth House, feeling more and more wretchedly aware that I hadn't anything to PHILLIPS BROOKS 9 say to the great man. But the caller before me came out of the preacher's room to tell me that Mr. Brooks was ready for the next visitor. And in I tumbled, to find an enormous hand closed over mine, and a mountain of a man smiling down into my timid face. As soon as I sat down I thanked him for the letter he had written me; he remembered all about it, and gradually pried open the shy speech that clung somewhere in my throat. He asked about a building in a distant city which we both knew. I ventured to say that it was a copy from something in Canada. Then he put his head back and laughed. I said they might tear it down. Whereupon he pointed out the expense, and told me of a window by La Farge in Trinity Church. Mr. and Mrs. La Farge came to see it. Said Mrs. La Farge, "My dear, you can't afford to leave it." Then Mr. La Farge answered with a groan, "That's just it, my dear; I can't afford to take it out." Whereupon Mr. 10 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES Brooks's big head went back again, and we laughed together. I don't believe there was anything important said; only I carried away an impression of kindness, and I was sure that if I really needed him, I could go to Phillips Brooks and find him aware of me, and caring. I heard and saw this spacious person henceforth with a sense of ownership. He knew me just a little; and every day I was getting deeper and deeper into him. The years passed, and I decided definitely to prepare for the Ministry. I spoke to him about a theological seminary quite far from Harvard in place and spirit. I said I thought it might be wise to let myself be broadened by a new atmosphere. Where- upon he jumped up, and glaring down at me, said sharply, "Don't you think you'd better get the truth?" It was a flash from the magnificent rage which was always burn- ing beneath his kindness and cheer. I saw it once at a college dinner when a suave PHILLIPS BROOKS 11 toastmaster said that there was one man present whom he had promised not to ask to speak, but the other guests were under no promise and could do as they liked his name was Phillips Brooks. Whereupon Colonel Lee and other very old alumni leaped to their feet; instantly all the rest rose to join them in applause, which con- tinued till Mr. Brooks was compelled to stand up. In the hush that followed he cast such a look upon the toastmaster as I think I never saw on any face before or since. "You told me you wouldn't," he said in a husky voice and I think we all grew pale, not quite knowing what the giant might do with the culprit who sat across the room at the head of the speakers' table. Then, pulling himself together, he said calmly, "Well, I must say something;" and went on to re- count the impression made on him by the fine speeches which had gone before. It was the memorable speech of a memorable occa- sion. He was a volcano in perfect control; 12 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES occasionally he let the fiery lava have its way. Once again I was to see him in such a humour, with the revelation of its meaning. In due time he became & bishop, and I was one of his candidates for the Ministry. He took us all very seriously, insisting that we write him four letters a year, telling him about ourselves; sometimes when he visited the theological school he would see us one by one alone. He asked me, on one of these visits, how the Ministry seemed to me, now that I was definitely pledged to it. I said, honestly, that I felt its great responsibility. I suppose I looked a bit downhearted. In any case he came over to me, as if by violence he were going to shake me out of such a mood: "But don't you see the joy of it?" he demanded. I then knew the meaning of these indignant flashes : they were the index of how much he cared. After all, however, it is not the memory of his letters and personal conversation which PHILLIPS BROOKS 13 I cherish most. The debt I owe him is from those sacred moments when I sat with hun- dreds of others and heard him preach. I went to the Convention that elected him bishop; I shared the exultation and the in- dignation which all the youth of the neigh- bourhood felt in that summer of strange op- position and misunderstanding. I saw him stand in Trinity Church to receive his com- mission as bishop. Who that saw him rise from among the seated congregation as Bishop Potter gave him the charge can for- get the glory of self-forgetfulness shining in his beautiful face! After that I went to hear him in London, in Boston, and in Mas- sachusetts villages and I saw that he was constantly weary, so weary that he would often stumble as he read his sermons. I wondered if the power were waning. And then I heard him during his last Lent, every Monday in St. Paul's, Boston; on those Monday noons he seemed to be beyond his previous best in the confidence of his Chris- U CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES tian faith, in the winning power of its pres- entation. He afterwards confessed that these addresses cost him more than anything he ever had done; yet we with the airy no- tions of youth thought he was tossing them off on the spur of the moment. He was dying, though probably not even he knew it. He was working too hard. He was, like his Master, eager that men should live, and live more abundantly. It was a consuming love which shone through his incessant preaching. It was the supreme expression of love which the Saviour praised. On a Monday in January, 1893, we of a certain theological seminary were going about our work as usual when the word came that Phillips Brooks was dead. We were stunned. We couldn't believe it. We wan- dered aimlessly from room to room to ask each other how it could be. We told each other all we could say about his sermons, his personal conversations, his character. We knew as we never had known before who PHILLIPS BROOKS 15 he was. All the impressions of the past were gathered into one massive whole, and we were aware of a stupendous personality. The machinery of the school stopped for the week. We went to his funeral; all Massa- chusetts seemed either in Trinity Church or in Copley Square; thousands upon thou- sands of people seemed to have one heart, and that was bleeding for its noble friend and counsellor. Some of us reached by ac- cident the Harvard Yard just as his body was being borne through the ranks of bare- headed students lined up to do honour to the greatest alumnus of the university. That was Thursday. On Thursday after- noons in those days there was a Vesper Service in Appleton Chapel. I happened to remember the service and went to it. Several of the college preachers were there to share the service; Dr. George Gordon went up into the pulpit. I remember still how my heart sank as I thought of his task that afternoon. "What can he say to us," 16 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES I said to myself, "what can he say to young men who feel that their chief teacher and inspiration is withdrawn from their sight?" In perfect simplicity Dr. Gordon said the best word any one could have said. "If," he concluded, "it was a great thing to have known Phillips Brooks, think what it must be to know Phillips Brooks's Master!" I am sure that is what Phillips Brooks would most have liked to have him say, for Phillips Brooks gave himself to preach Christ to men. As we went away in the darkness of that bleak January evening we were comforted, more convinced than ever that a life like that of our dear leader could not stop on any Monday in any January, that its enormous energy and affection had burst the bonds of death, and was alive for evermore in the eternal Christ for whom and in whom he lived. ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY THERE are faces so familiar to one's memory that it seems impossible to believe that one has never spoken to their owners. When I was an under- graduate at Harvard College I suppose the most revered figure who passed in and out of the college yard was Andrew Preston Peabody. I fancy that the first time we saw him we knew instinctively who he was. The smiling face in which shone rare good- ness as well as benevolence, was a stay against freshman pessimism, and I suspect it held many a youth, inclined to be wild, from his sin. He was very old. He had ceased to teach, and a sermon or lecture was an infrequent task. He continued to live in the house near the Library which was one of the perquisites of the Plummer Professor, 19 20 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES and so was seldom absent from the college precincts. The merest stroll brought him face to face with the successive generations of students of the University. He was, in a way, to all kinds of men, the embodiment of Harvard College. And yet few of us had ever spoken to him. Only a year or two before my day, "com- pulsory chapel" had ceased, and the volun- tary system (largely under the inspiration of Phillips Brooks) had begun. All sorts of anecdotes clustered around the head of our ancient hero. It was said that in the old days of compulsory prayers, if the Plum- mer Professor (who was the Chaplain and who regularly conducted Prayers and preached) was caught preaching beyond a certain fixed time, the Chapel was filled with gentle tappings, which came from hundreds of feet, accidentally touching the wood of the pews in front of them. There was also a rumour that once in a prayer he had said, "Paradoxical as it may seem to thee, O ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY 21 Lord, it is nevertheless perfectly clear to us. ... " And his courses in moral phil- osophy had been what the collegian of that day vulgarly called "snaps" that is, courses of lectures easy and pleasant to listen to; and if a man could get a good mark in any course, he was fairly sure to win it from this kindest of readers of examination blue books. There were lingering tales of the older days of Cambridge. On a very hot day Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes was making his way across the Cambridge Common. With hat in hand he was drying his wet forehead with his handkerchief. And so he met Dr. Pea- body, who, in his chronic absent-mindedness, did not recognize his friend; but he saw the hat, and, assuming a beggar, with notions of charity not then outworn, he dropped a few small coins into it, and passed on. At another time, when cows were wont to ram- ble on Cambridge streets, he one day awoke from his absent-minded dreaming to recog- 22 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES nize that he had just passed a lady to whom he had neglected to bow. "I must not be so rude again," he said to himself. In a few minutes some students saw the genial man wave his hat gallantly to a passing cow. Very absurd and trifling tales were these ; but they served as pegs on which young men could hang their affection for the venerable saint. I can remember only one time when I heard him preach. The old vigour for which he had been known was gone, but the sweet- ness was as winning as ever. I cannot re- member a word he said that evening in the forlorn old Appleton Chapel, but I can re- member the kind eyes looking out through the square gold spectacles. I can even remember that he had added something to his manuscript on a certain page. I felt sure that it was a page preached many times, with many notes, between lines, in margins, and on the back. In any case he was evi- dently looking for a sentence which viciously eluded his search. Without the least em- Photograph by Pack Bros. ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY. ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY 23 barrassment he held the leaf up to his dear old eyes, turned the paper first to one side, then to the other, and finally upside down; there he found the straying sentence, and joyfully read it, with slow emphasis, to a waiting congregation. I dare say that, even at ten o'clock that night, we could not have told much about the sermon ; but we all knew that it had done us good. Those were days when an institution known as "the College Conference" was in vogue, because the authorities wished to make sure that the rapidly growing numbers were not too seriously separating the under- graduates from the faculty. Therefore eminent men gave informal talks in " Sever Eleven" on appointed nights, and after- wards, sitting back, invited any student in the throngs who came to ask questions or talk back. It was an effort to cultivate in- timacy by wholesale. President Eliot came one night. He told of a graduate who ad- vised him not to recommend a classmate for 24 CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES a certain responsible position. "He isn't an honest man," said the complacent Pharisee; "he used to write my themes for me when we were in college." Dr. Lyman Abbott came, explaining his theological system. A weird student in the