Читать книгу The Hand of the Mighty, and Other Stories - Vaughan Kester - Страница 3

Vaughan Rester was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but the greater part of his boyhood was spent in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

Among our earliest and most vivid recollections were the long railway journeys which we took with our father and mother back and forth between our home in the East and my grandmother's house in Mount Vernon. It was in Mount Vernon that my brother contracted the severe cold that resulted in a hoarseness of speech from which he never entirely recovered, and that finally developed into the condition which occasioned his most untimely death.

Despite this difficulty of speech, his boyhood was a very happy one. My grandmother's house was near the edge of the town and we knew all the short cuts to the woods and the river. We played games, took long tramps, and lived healthy and delightful lives. We went barefoot, we swam and played with all the boys in the town. Indeed, my brother was an absolute democrat all his life.

We went to a little private school kept by Miss Plummer, a friend of the family. Miss Plummer had an original method of teaching, and expanded our minds and won our affection, but I doubt if we were good students. I know I had great difficulty in learning to read, and Vaughan also had his struggles.

At home our mother made a practise of reading aloud to us books of all sorts—ancient history, science, biography, the Bible—anything in which she was interested. For a long time I think it was the sound of her voice which held our attention, but soon we followed with more or less comprehension the words we heard. This formed a most valuable part of our education.

We were very fortunate, too, in our friendships as little boys. We had charming friends who exercised a lasting influence upon us.

When a little older we went to a private school kept by Mrs. Charles Curtis. Here again we had the personal care of a woman of culture. Her instruction was individual and helpful to us both. Later we attended the public school for one term.

By this time Vaughan had become a great reader. He read everything and forgot nothing. All his life he was astonishing us by the things he knew. At last it came to be a commonplace when any one in the family was in doubt upon any point in history or general knowledge, to hear some one say, “Ask Vaughan”—and almost always Vaughan knew.

When Vaughan was about twelve years old our mother, with her friend, Mrs. Kimball, and others, established the School of Design for Women—now the School of Art—in Cleveland, Ohio—and for the greater part of the next seven years we lived in that city. The school was established on original and useful lines, and its rapid growth was as interesting to Vaughan and me as it was to Mrs. Kimball and our mother.

Much of this time was spent in Mrs. Kimball's house, 1265 Euclid Avenue. If we had been at school in Mount Vernon, here in Cleveland was our university. Everything was discussed before us, and we constantly visited our mother's school, which soon grew to such proportions that it occupied half of the top floor of the vast dingy old City Hall. At that time we attended a private school kept by Mrs. Bierce, and later we had for tutor a young man to whom we recited at Adelbert College.

I think our mother wished Vaughan to enter Adelbert regularly, but he became at this time possessed of a great desire to “go west.” My uncle had recently purchased a ranch on the River Platte, near Denver, and Vaughan was not content until consent was given to his trying the life there.

I did not go west with my brother, and only know from what he wrote, and from what he told us on his return, that the plains and mountains and the Denver of those days made a deep impression upon him. Looking back now I wish that he might have spent a longer time in Colorado. The West appealed to him strongly. He had the large elements of the pioneer in his nature, and a deep and peculiar sympathy with the native American in any primitive condition. Certain chapters in The Fortunes of the Landrays are so vivid and so real that one knows how well he used his opportunities for observation and absorption in the months he spent on the ranch at the foot of the splendid mountains.

It was while we were living in Cleveland that my brother first developed a spasmodic and not very deep interest in writing. With a friend he got out an edition of a highly interesting paper called The Athlete and Quirk, devoted almost wholly to prize fighting. My mother financed the venture. I doubt if a copy remains in existence. The enterprise was abandoned not because our mother's faith declined, but because Vaughan and his fellow editor were too lazy, or too busy with something else, ever to get out a second copy. I don't think Vaughan's contributions were of much value. I know he was terribly bored whenever we reminded him of them.

By this time I was trying to write plays, but it was not for some years that Vaughan took seriously to writing. When he was nineteen our mother resigned from her school and we went to Florida, where we spent six months camping and cruising on the gulf coast, a delectable time for Vaughan, who especially loved salt water and boats.

We camped for many weeks on Sea Horse Key six miles out in the Gulf of Mexico from Cedar Keys. Here Parsons Lathrop, and had been breakfasted by our mother's cousin, William Dean Howells, who then and thenceforth showed us both the utmost kindness. I think meeting Mr. Howells had much to do with firing Vaughan's ambitions. From that time on Mr. Howells was our guide, philosopher and friend, our sponsor and our supporter. We hoarded our funny stories in the hope—generally successful, for his good nature is unfailing—of making him laugh, and he lent an equally willing ear to all our troubles. Two young men never had a kinder friend, nor a wiser. From the first Mr. Howells had faith in Vaughan, and Mrs. Howells, whose rare discrimination we learned to value so highly, and whose generous interest was so unfailing and so helpful, at once saw qualities in him. Her appreciation of him was immediate and intuitive. She sensed at once not only what he was, but what he might become, and I think to her he was always of the stature which he was just consciously attaining when he died.

During one of Vaughan's long visits to his grandmother in Mount Vernon, Ohio, he heard a vague report that Dan Emmett, the composer of Dixie, was living north of the town. He hunted up the famous minstrel, and found him, nearly eighty years old, chopping wood for a living.

Mr. Emmett had been a man of some means, and was well connected, but he had drifted away from his people and was living a hermit's life in a little house he had built, unknown for the most part to his townspeople.

This meeting with Emmett was important to both my brother and to the old composer. They became great friends, and the result was that Vaughan wrote several articles for the papers—accounts of Emmett's career as a composer and as one of the Christy Minstrels. Kate Field's Washington printed the first of these articles. These sketches marked the beginning of Vaughan's career as a writer. It was his first real appearance in print. The money he received for this work he gave to Mr. Emmett, who had furnished him with the facts the articles embodied.

I remember very well how distressed Vaughan was at the thought of leaving Emmett when he should return to Virginia.

He induced me to write to A. M. Palmer, at that time head of the Actors' Fund, stating Mr. Emmett's case and explaining that Emmett was unwilling to make any appeal for himself. The response was immediate. Fifty dollars was telegraphed to my brother for Mr. Emmett, and a letter followed promising a pension of five dollars a week. This pension—and one was never better deserved—was paid to the old composer as long as he lived.

This little success with his pen inspired Vaughan to more serious effort. It was also the direct means of his meeting with Paul Wilstach, who was so long and so intimately associated with us, and whom, indeed, we came to regard as one of our family. Paul Wilstach was collecting autographs at the time Vaughan's article on Emmett appeared in Kate Field's Washington. He wrote, asking Vaughan to secure an autograph copy of Dixie for his collection. Vaughan replied that he would obtain the autograph if Mr. Wilstach would send him a check for five dollars for Mr. Emmett. The check was sent, a correspondence ensued, and when Paul Wilstach came east he visited us at Ben Venue, the house above the Potomac in which he now lives.

Paul Wilstach and my brother wrote some farces together, and aided each other to keep alive their literary enthusiasms. When a little later we were living in the big white house on Riverside Drive in New York, Paul Wilstach frequently made the place his home.

Vaughan was about twenty-three when we went to New York, settling ourselves on Riverside Drive in The Big White House, as the place came to be called by our friends. Here my brother and I wrote a two-act play together—The Cousin of the King—which was published in The Looker-On, and afterward played by Walker Whiteside. This was the only play in which Vaughan had a hand that was ever acted. But he was keenly interested in the theater and most sympathetically and helpfully interested in my various ventures as a playwright.

Not long after we settled in New York he wrote a short story, The Mills of the Little Tin Gods, which Mr. Walker accepted for publication in the Cosmopolitan magazine. Mr. Walker was enthusiastic about the story, and sent for Vaughan, who returned from Irvington with an offer to go on the staff of the magazine and the news syndicate which Mr. Walker was at that time conducting in connection with the Cosmopolitan. Vaughan enjoyed his work at Irvington. It was a novel experience and it brought him into contact with men of ability. He saw a magazine in the making and he helped to make it. He also did a great deal of hard work for the syndicate, and he obtained special articles from others. For a short time I joined my brother on Mr. Walker's editorial staff, and we would go up to Irvington together for the early Monday morning conferences.

After this there was never any doubt as to the career my brother meant to follow. It was while he was associated with the Cosmopolitan that he obtained a short leave of absence from his duties and returning to Mount Vernon, Ohio, was married to Miss Jennings. My brother's wife was deeply interested in his literary career, and devoted herself to him and to his work. His marriage was undoubtedly an added incentive to his ambition and it was at this time, or soon after, that he began the writing of his first novel.

It was after Vaughan left the Cosmopolitan that he joined me in promoting a special performance of Ibsen's Ghosts, which our friend John Blair gave at the Carnegie Lyceum. Charles Henry Meltzer was the other active worker behind the scenes. The whole affair was so distinguished and interesting that Mr. Blair conceived the idea of devoting the following winter to a series of modern plays. Vaughan and I, with Mr. Meltzer, volunteered our services, and we were joined by Mr. George Eustis, who by his generosity made a rather elaborate program possible. Performances of each of the five plays were given in New York, in Boston, and in Washington. The series was brilliantly successful; the genius of Miss Florence Kahn, now Mrs. Max Beerbohm, quite dazzled the critics, to Vaughan's great delight. He gave all his time, and did more, perhaps, than any other single individual to make the season a success. This was his only experience in actual theatricals. He knew, however, many noted actors and actresses. Indeed, our house was much frequented by artists of all sorts.

It was through Mr. Howells' influence that my brother obtained a position with Harper and Brothers. I have no very definite knowledge of the work he did for them, except that I know he read many manuscripts during his association with this publishing house, and that he met a number of men famous in the literary world. I think his whole association with the Harpers, though it did not extend over many months, was a pleasant one for him. It culminated in their acceptance of his first novel, The Manager of the B. & A.

In the spring of 1900 we returned to Virginia, taking up our residence at Woodlawn Mansion, about eight miles distant by road from Gunston Hall, and three miles from Mount Vernon. Woodlawn was built on what had been a part of George Washington's plantation. Washington himself drew the plans for the house, and they were afterward perfected by Doctor William Thornton, the architect of the Capitol.

Soon after we had established ourselves again in Virginia, The Manager of the B. & A. appeared as one of the American novel series the Harpers were then issuing. It was very generously received by the critics.

During the five years we lived at Woodlawn my brother was seldom absent from home. He was deeply interested in the restoration of the house, and even more interested in bringing up the worn-out farm lands.

He had much of the spirit of the backwoodsman. He was tall and powerful, standing six feet two without his shoes. He was very fond of wearing old, easy-fitting clothes—as he was of smoking old pipes. His affection for his old hats was remarkable. To see him about the place tinkering at any odd job which proved too much for the ingenuity of others, delighting in saws and hammers, and pounding his fingers, fond of gardening, and all the rough industries of a large country place, the last idea a stranger would have associated with him was that of authorship.

Vaughan found many types at hand which later offered not a few suggestions for some of the figures in The Prodigal Judge. Bob Yancey in particular had his prototype in Kelly Dove. Mr. Dove and my brother were great cronies, and I remember when years later he was reading the first chapters of The Prodigal Judge to us at Gunston Hall, we instantly recognized Mr. Dove in the character of Bob Yancey.

Farming the land and restoring the house were fascinating and time-engrossing occupations, but Vaughan still continued his writing, and it was at Woodlawn that he wrote his second novel, The Fortunes of the Landrays, which the McClures published.

Always a most deliberate and unhurried worker, he grew even more deliberate and unhastening as time went on. He worked hard, but did not work rapidly. There were times when a chapter would seem to write itself, but I fancy he was a little suspicious of easy composition so far as it concerned his own work.

He was always at his desk when not engaged in some congenial outdoor occupation. He wrote a great deal on scraps, throwing much away. He seldom or never crossed a “t” nor dotted an “i”. Often he left great blank spaces and half pages without a line upon them, covering others closely with his fine writing. In their externals his methods of composition seemed rather slovenly, and his manuscripts would have been the despair of any copyist but his wife; but he knew what he was about, and it was utterly useless to attempt any reformation in his habits. He had great patience. He did not satisfy himself easily. He wrote and rewrote and polished and polished again.

Not infrequently he would put aside his work on a novel to write a short story. He wrote a dozen or more, all of which found their way into print except one, Mollie Darling, written not long before his death, which appears in this volume for the first time.

Just before the publication of The Fortunes of the Landrays, Woodlawn Mansion was sold and I bought a place in the north of England. In England Vaughan met with an understanding a little more complete than he had known in America, except from Mrs. Howells. He made friends immediately, and fitted into the easy agreeable country-house life as perfectly as he had fitted into the different phases of American life he had known. The Fortunes of the Landrays came out while we were at Augill Castle.

Vaughan's throat causing him some concern, we went to London, taking Lady Florence Boyle's little house in Victoria Square, just back of Buckingham Palace. He had begun a new novel at Augill Castle, but he did little or no writing in London. Later it was thought best for him to return to America. Some months were spent at Ben Venue and then we moved into Gunston Hall, which remained my brother's home until his death.

While we were in Ben Venue, Vaughan wrote his one romantic novel, John o' Jamestown. Contrary to his usual custom he wrote this book rapidly; but he compensated himself by taking more time than was usual over his work on a new novel, afterward published under the title of The Just and the Unjust.

He had almost completed this book when he was seized with the idea which resulted in the writing of his best known and most popular story, The Prodigal Judge. He had submitted the incomplete manuscript of The Just and the Unjust to one or two friends, who suggested rewriting certain parts. For this work at the time he had no inclination, so put the book aside and plunged into his work on The Prodigal Judge with a great deal of enthusiasm. At last he had hit on a theme in which he could employ his wonderful sense of humor. His wit was spontaneous; but while it was a constant delight to those who knew him intimately, he had never regarded it as an asset of any value. I think at the last he began to appreciate that it was his best medium, and that with him the line of least resistance was the safest and wisest to follow.

During the three or four years he lived at Gunston Hall, his work was constantly interrupted by journeys to Washington for slight operations upon his throat. He had great singleness of purpose or he could not have successfully continued his work in the face of such disadvantages. But there was nothing of the invalid about my brother. He diffused an atmosphere of wholesome strength, good nature and health, and until the very last weeks of his life he maintained the attitude of a strong well man.

We were confident that The Prodigal Judge would meet a ready acceptance and would find favor with the public. My brother hoped so, too, but there was sufficient doubt in his mind for him to be relieved intensely by the very generous words in which the publishers accepted the book.

The book was well under way and the proofs read, when my brother's physicians decided that an operation of a somewhat serious character was necessary. He met the ordeal bravely and came through it well. We had a pleasant Christmas together at Gunston Hall, and he was recommencing work on The Just and the Unjust, when another very serious operation was determined upon. Two weeks after the second operation a third operation was performed. My brother rallied, and in March was able to return to Gunston Hall. He had the satisfaction of knowing that his book had achieved all the success he could possibly have hoped for it. He died at Gunston Hall on the night of the fourth of July, 1911.

Paul Kester.