The Independent 1892-11-03: Vol 44 Iss 2292

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Entered at the Post Office at New York, as Second-class Mail Matter.

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“ EVEN AS WE HAVE BEEN APPROVED OF GOD TO BE INTRUSTED WITH THE GOSPEL, SO WE SPEAK; NOT AS PLEASING MEN, BUT GOD WHICH PROVETH OUR HEARTS.”

"For Table of Oontents see Page 12.

COLUMBUS AT THE SPANISH COURT. BY HUNTINGTON SMITH.

THE wars are ended; and soft-brooding peace Distends her pinions o’er the ravaged land Hard won by Isabel and Ferdinand From Moorish clutches. At this glad release Of siege and sally, it is no caprice, But in thanksgiving, that the royal hand Hastens a general féte-day to command, And bids the mourning in the realm to cease. While the mad mirth goes forward, and all Spain Unites the ready cup of joy to quaff, Columbus, mute and hopeless, worn with pain, Leans in dejection on his faithful staff, Bearing potential empires in his brain,— And fools around him only look and laugh! DORCHESTER, Mass. ~ = MRS. HARRISON. BY THE REV. TEUNIS S. HAMLIN, D.D. Tue facts and events of Mrs. Harrison’s life are dis- tinctively American. She was the daughter of a clergy- man. It is a very notable fact, of which fresh illustra- tions are constantly coming to one’s attention here at the Capital, that many of our foremost men and women are children of Christian ministers. This simply emphasizes the value of early nurture in good morals and religious duties, in that careful economy which the narrow means of mest clerical households requires, and of descent from thoughtful, scholarly, refined and pure parents. All these advantages Mrs. Harrison enjoyed to the full. At the time of her birth, her father, the Rev. John Witherspoon Scott, D.D., was President of the Female College at Oxford, Ohio. Here her girlhood was spent, amid beautiful natural surroundings, and in the studious and literary atmosphere of a college town. She enjoyed the best educational advantages of the day, and she ap- preciated and improved them. She grew to be a fascinat- ing young woman, lovely in face and form, of simple, hearty manners, broadly intelligent, full of life and fun, witty, but never caustic in conversation—a universal favorite. ‘ At twenty-one years of age she was married at Oxford to Benjamin Harrison, a poor boy, just entering his chosen profession of the law. They began their united life in trae American fashion, simply and quietly ; living within their means, joining the industry and economy in which both had been reared. They gradually enlarged their manner of life as well-earned prosperity came ; and their Indianapolis home was notable for hearty and re- fined hospitality. But both husband and wife cordially disliked ostentation of any sort; and while residing at the Capital during General Harrison’s six years in the Senate, they lived modestly, tho always in a manner en- tirely worthy of their position. During those six years Mrs. Harrison interested herself actively in charitable and other good works, as she had always done at Indianapolis. The Garfield Hospital owes much to her unremitting efforts ; and her unnamed and unknown charities far exceeded those that ever came to the knowledge of the public. When she came here three-and-a-half years ago, as the wife of the President, she was no novice. She un- derstood fully the immense social responsibilities and burdens of the position. That these were not naturally congenial to her, that she greatly preferred the retire- ment and uninterrupted joys of family life, and that she still fulfilled every duty of her high station with conscientious fidelity, affords a thorough insight into her true and noble character. No visitor to the Execu- tive Mansion ever felt any chill of reluctance in Mrs. Harrison’s greeting. She was utterly unchanged by high station. She retained always the habit in which she had been reared of judging people by their merit, not

NEW YORK, THURSDAY, NUVEMBER 3, 1892. = ee By title or official place. «The oldest Indianapolis friends and the highest diplomats alike found her affable, sin- cere, sympathetic—a true American woman. Mrs. Harrison was pre eminently domestic. Tho hold- ing the highest station in the land, she did not regard the duties of the household as unworthy of her earnest attention. The historical associations of the White House were very dear to her,and she understood them thoroughly. She aimed to make the house, in its public rooms, worthy of the nation; and the new decorations of the main eorridor, the State dining room, and other portions of the building, are proofs of her exquisite taste. Even more sedulous care was bestowed upon the family rooms of the second story, and what was lacking in liberality of appropriations was made good by Mrs. Harrison's skilland knowledge. But the changes below- stairs, and which the public never see, are still more characteristic of her kind heart. She found the work- ing and servants’ rooms sadly neglected, uncomfortable and unhealthy. They have all been made wholesome and attractive under her personal direction. There is not a man or woman employed about the White House that does not love Mrs. Harrison devotedly and feel per- sonally bereaved in her death. Her most fondly cherished plan was an enlargement of the Mansion, long too small, and each year growing more inadequate, privacy for the family resident there being now quite out of the question. Mrs. Harrison gave this subject the most thoughtful attention, and the design she originated has been laid before the Congress. It is to be earnestly hoped that, at the session now at hand, it may be adopted, and an appropriation made for its immediate execution. What more suitable memorial of Mrs. Harrison would be possible ? As President of the Daughters of the American Revo- lution, Mrs. Harrison performed much quiet labor ; and her wise counsel, ready tact, charity of judgment, and willing service did much to bring this splendid organiza- tion to its present state of prosperity. The family life at the Executive Mansion during these last years has been very beautiful. Itis rare to find four generations living together under any roof. Here such was the fact ; and each ideal in itself, and in its relation to all the others. Dr? Scott, now in his ninety-third year, vigorous, active, full of interest in men and things, brought to the White House the benediction of his use- ful life and his beautiful old age. The President and Mrs. Harrison have had here the same devoted, Christian home life that they always maintained in Indianapolis, faithfully observing the Sabbath, constantly maintaining family worship, and as conscientiously true to their pri- vate as to their public duties. Their children have been their joy and comfort, Mrs. McKee especially aiding her mother most efficiently in every way. And the three grandchildren, strong, beautiful, bright, have brought constant sunshine, while they have been reared in all the obedience and love of a true Christian home. Here Mrs. Harrison has spent her happiest hours, loving and be- loved, a beautiful example of American womanhood. Her long illness has been borne with noble fortitude and patience. Long before the public knew of it, she was beginning to break under the too great strain. Pub- licity was so wearisome to her that she snatched every opportunity for retirement ; and hours that should have been spent in open-air exercise were devoted to her be- loved china painting. To the very end of the last social season she was always in her place, and every duty was ungrudgingly done. When at last the break came,she had a passionate longing to be alone, and thence- forward saw only her immediate family. She was gentle, peaceful, grateful to her devoted physician and nurses, but uninterested in the outside world. Of all the exceed- ing tenderness and fidelity of the stricken husband the world will never know. The President was completely merged in the Christian man, Never in any home was there a more prayerful watching, a more Christian en- trance upon immortality, a more Heaven-consoled grief. It has been one of the chief moral forces of England for the last half-century that the throne was occupied by a pure, true woman, a model wife and mother. In all these respects she has had her peer in the late mis- treas of the Executive Mansion. It becomes all Ameri- can Christians, while they grieve with their Chief Mag-

istrate, heartily to thank God for the life and example of Caroline Scott Harrison, WASBINGTON, D.C, NUMBER 2292 AMERICAN LITERATURE. Its Movements and Tendencies. REALISM AND ROMANTICISM. POETRY AND STORY BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS, THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, Pror THOMAS R. PRICE, LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY. HJALMAR HJORTH BOYESEN, MAURICE THOMPSON, RICHARD HOVEY, BLISS CARMAN.

THE SHORT STORY. BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.

OnE of the interesting things in the history of litera- ture is a study of the moods that fashion takes in form. The stately, stupid, periodical essay—the glory of the Spectator ; the boudoir literature of Ladies’ and Gentle- men’s Annuals; the architectural love-poems in whose involved and dusty corridors any modern passion would lose itself forever ; the epics useful to us as safe and pleasant anodynes ; the unplausible romances and pon- derous novels of adventure, impossibility, history and metaphysics which have each in turn led the fashion of their day, and made the most of it—these have retired to the back shelves of our too busy age. Only students, often only scholars, read these cylinders of a leisurely and bountiful past. Our modern taste is formed, is tuo much formed by our spasmodic methods of living. It is the fact, however reluctant we ought to be to own it, that the ‘‘Whip of the Sky” flogs us along so fast that the majority of what are called reading not find inclination or do not force time to books outside of the easy alcoves of fiction; and it 1s significant that even a full-grown novel is rapidly be- coming too large an undertaking for the average mind. Out of our nervous conditions, our hurry and worry, our rush and push, our suburban trains and clubs, our ecclesiastical steam-power, and philanthropic whirlpools, and business tornadoes, out of our estrangement from leisure, our gaining passion for travel, and growing indifference to home, and marked lack of repose—there has been born one good thing if no other ; and that is the short story. The short story is, without question, the literary fa pec »ple do read many vorite of our time. The popular preference, which is usually worth counting in most matters, clearly turns in this direction. Newspaper syndicates have reported for a year or two a decline in the serial market. Even magazines are beginning to feel a lull in the demand for continued novels ; while publishers record a briskly gain- ing sale for volumes of brief, collected tales. In a word, the short story, which has, of course, always existed, but hitherto in an apologetic form that literature has recognized when a superior genius forced it to, has become the lion of our intellectual day. It does not require genius now, to give dignity to a short story ; and the little “pastel” struts confidently among us, believing itself to be a tale, and is scarcely undeceived It is not too much to claim that America is doing, and has long been doing her full share of the admirable work which this form of expression renders possible. France, which has taught us so many noble and so many ignoble lessons in literature, has carried the short story to a refinement of elaboration which it is still pos- sible to supplement by a depth of plummet and hight of purpose more naturally attainable by the sterner con- science and graver temperament of our people. From France we can learn something; but we can teach her quite as much. Our ideal, and, we may say, probable short story- writer will not peed narcotic stimulants ; nor will he end his days in a private asylum. Our purer morality will forbid the serpent that coils on the wing of so many of the gifted imaginations sprung from a society less controlled than ours by the cleanest ethics. On the whole, itis time to remember that the struggle narrows to these two nations; for no other can be said, strictly, to compete with us in thisdepartment of literary effort to- day. Itis becoming a duel between the two great Repub- lics, Which will produce the best of the briefest fiction ?