"Take my Bible, here," he continued, as he took up an old and much-worn copy of the book. "I have a number of copies of the Great Book: one copy I preach from; another I minister from; but this is my own personal copy, and into it I talk and talk. See how I talk," and he opened the Book and showed interleaved pages full of comments in his handwriting. "There's where St. Paul and I had an argument one day. Yes, it was a long argument, and I don't know now who won," he added smilingly. "But then, no one ever wins in an argument, anyway; do you think so?

"You see," went on the preacher, "I put into these books what other men put into articles and essays for magazines and papers. I never write for publications. I always think of my church when something comes to me to say. There is always danger of a man spreading himself out thin if he attempts too much, you know."

Doctor Brooks must have caught the boy's eye, which, as he said this, naturally surveyed his great frame, for he regarded him in an amused way, and putting his hands on his girth, he said laughingly: "You are thinking I would have to do a great deal to spread myself out thin, aren't you?"

The boy confessed he was, and the preacher laughed one of those deep laughs of his that were so infectious.

"But here I am talking about myself. Tell me something about yourself?"

And when the boy told his object in coming to Boston, the rector of Trinity Church was immensely amused.

"Just to see us fellows! Well, and how do you like us so far?"

And in the most comfortable way this true gentleman went on until the boy mentioned that he must be keeping him from his work.

"Not at all; not at all," was the quick and hearty response. "Not a thing to do. I cleaned up all my mail before I had my breakfast this morning.

"These letters, you mean?" he said, as the boy pointed to some letters on his desk unopened. "Oh, yes! Well, they must have come in a later mail. Well, if it will make you feel any better I'll go through them, and you can go through my books if you like. I'll trust you," he added laughingly, as Wendell Phillips's advice occurred to him.

"You like books, you say?" he went on, as he opened his letters. "Well, then, you must come into my library here at any time you are in Boston, and spend a morning reading anything I have that you like. Young men do that, you know, and I like to have them. What's the use of good friends if you don't share them? There's where the pleasure comes in."

He asked the boy then about his newspaper work: how much it paid him, and whether he felt it helped him in an educational way. The boy told him he thought it did; that it furnished good lessons in the study of human nature.

"Yes," he said, "I can believe that, so long as it is good journalism."

Edward told him that he sometimes wrote for the Sunday paper, and asked the preacher what he thought of that.

"Well," he said, "that is not a crime."

The boy asked him if he, then, favored the Sunday paper more than did some other clergymen.

"There is always good in everything, I think," replied Phillips Brooks. "A thing must be pretty bad that hasn't some good in it." Then he stopped, and after a moment went on: "My idea is that the fate of Sunday newspapers rests very much with Sunday editors. There is a Sunday newspaper conceivable in which we should all rejoice—all, that is, who do not hold that a Sunday newspaper is always and per se wrong. But some cause has, in many instances, brought it about that the Sunday paper is below, and not above, the standard of its weekday brethren. I mean it is apt to be more gossipy, more personal, more sensational, more frivolous; less serious and thoughtful and suggestive. Taking for granted the fact of special leisure on the part of its readers, it is apt to appeal to the lower and not to the higher part of them, which the Sunday leisure has set free. Let the Sunday newspaper be worthy of the day, and the day will not reject it. So I say its fate is in the hands of its editor. He can give it such a character as will make all good men its champions and friends, or he can preserve for it the suspicion and dislike in which it stands at present."

Edward's journalistic instinct here got into full play; and although, as he assured his host, he had had no such thought in coming, he asked whether Doctor Brooks would object if he tried his reportorial wings by experimenting as to whether he could report the talk.

"I do not like the papers to talk about me," was the answer; "but if it will help you, go ahead and practise on me. You haven't stolen my books when you were told to do so, and I don't think you'll steal my name."

The boy went back to his hotel, and wrote an article much as this account is here written, which he sent to Doctor Brooks. "Let me keep it by me," the doctor wrote, "and I will return it to you presently."

And he did, with his comment on the Sunday newspaper, just as it is given here, and with this note:

If I must go into the newspapers at all—which I should always vastly prefer to avoid—no words could have been more kind than those of your article. You were very good to send it to me. I am ever Sincerely, Your friend, Phillips Brooks

As he let the boy out of his house, at the end of that first meeting, he said to him:

"And you're going from me now to see Emerson? I don't know," he added reflectively, "whether you will see him at his best. Still, you may. And even if you do not, to have seen him, even as you may see him, is better, in a way, than not to have seen him at all."

Edward did not know what Phillips Brooks meant. But he was, sadly, to find out the next day.

A boy of sixteen was pretty sure of a welcome from Louisa Alcott, and his greeting from her was spontaneous and sincere.

"Why, you good boy," she said, "to come all the way to Concord to see us," quite for all the world as if she were the one favored. "Now take your coat off, and come right in by the fire."

"Do tell me all about your visit," she continued.

Before that cozey fire they chatted. It was pleasant to the boy to sit there with that sweet-faced woman with those kindly eyes! After a while she said: "Now I shall put on my coat and hat, and we shall walk over to Emerson's house. I am almost afraid to promise that you will see him. He sees scarcely any one now. He is feeble, and—" She did not finish the sentence. "But we'll walk over there, at any rate."

She spoke mostly of her father as the two walked along, and it was easy to see that his condition was now the one thought of her life. Presently they reached Emerson's house, and Miss Emerson welcomed them at the door. After a brief chat Miss Alcott told of the boy's hope. Miss Emerson shook her head.

"Father sees no one now," she said, "and I fear it might not be a pleasure if you did see him."

Then Edward told her what Phillips Brooks had said.

"Well," she said, "I'll see."

She had scarcely left the room when Miss Alcott rose and followed her, saying to the boy: "You shall see Mr. Emerson if it is at all possible."

In a few minutes Miss Alcott returned, her eyes moistened, and simply said: "Come."

The boy followed her through two rooms, and at the threshold of the third Miss Emerson stood, also with moistened eyes.

"Father," she said simply, and there, at his desk, sat Emerson—the man whose words had already won Edward Bok's boyish interest, and who was destined to impress himself upon his life more deeply than any other writer.

Slowly, at the daughter's spoken word, Emerson rose with a wonderful quiet dignity, extended his hand, and as the boy's hand rested in his, looked him full in the eyes.

No light of welcome came from those sad yet tender eyes. The boy closed upon the hand in his with a loving pressure, and for a single moment the eyelids rose, a different look came into those eyes, and Edward felt a slight, perceptible response of the hand. But that was all!

Quietly he motioned the boy to a chair beside the desk. Edward sat down and was about to say something, when, instead of seating himself, Emerson walked away to the window and stood there softly whistling and looking out as if there were no one in the room. Edward's eyes had followed Emerson's every footstep, when the boy was aroused by hearing a suppressed sob, and as he looked around he saw that it came from Miss Emerson. Slowly she walked out of the room. The boy looked at Miss Alcott, and she put her finger to her mouth, indicating silence. He was nonplussed.

Edward looked toward Emerson standing in that window, and wondered what it all meant. Presently Emerson left the window and, crossing the room, came to his desk, bowing to the boy as he passed, and seated himself, not speaking a word and ignoring the presence of the two persons in the room.

Suddenly the boy heard Miss Alcott say: "Have you read this new book by Ruskin yet?"

Slowly the great master of thought lifted his eyes from his desk, turned toward the speaker, rose with stately courtesy from his chair, and, bowing to Miss Alcott, said with great deliberation: "Did you speak to me, madam?"

The boy was dumfounded! Louisa Alcott, his Louisa! And he did not know her! Suddenly the whole sad truth flashed upon the boy. Tears sprang into Miss Alcott's eyes, and she walked to the other side of the room. The boy did not know what to say or do, so he sat silent. With a deliberate movement Emerson resumed his seat, and slowly his eyes roamed over the boy sitting at the side of the desk. He felt he should say something.

"I thought, perhaps, Mr. Emerson," he said, "that you might be able to favor me with a letter from Carlyle."

At the mention of the name Carlyle his eyes lifted, and he asked: "Carlyle, did you say, sir, Carlyle?"

"Yes," said the boy, "Thomas Carlyle."

"Ye-es," Emerson answered slowly. "To be sure, Carlyle. Yes, he was here this morning. He will be here again to-morrow morning," he added gleefully, almost like a child.

Then suddenly: "You were saying—"

Edward repeated his request.

"Oh, I think so, I think so," said Emerson, to the boy's astonishment. "Let me see. Yes, here in this drawer I have many letters from Carlyle."

At these words Miss Alcott came from the other part of the room, her wet eyes dancing with pleasure and her face wreathed in smiles.

"I think we can help this young man; do you not think so, Louisa?" said Emerson, smiling toward Miss Alcott. The whole atmosphere of the room had changed. How different the expression of his eyes as now Emerson looked at the boy! "And you have come all the way from New York to ask me that!" he said smilingly as the boy told him of his trip. "Now, let us see," he said, as he delved in a drawer full of letters.

For a moment he groped among letters and papers, and then, softly closing the drawer, he began that ominous low whistle once more, looked inquiringly at each, and dropped his eyes straightway to the papers before him on his desk. It was to be only for a few moments, then Miss Alcott turned away.

The boy felt the interview could not last much longer. So, anxious to have some personal souvenir of the meeting, he said: "Mr. Emerson, will you be so good as to write your name in this book for me?" and he brought out an album he had in his pocket.

"Name?" he asked vaguely.

"Yes, please," said the boy, "your name: Ralph Waldo Emerson."

But the sound of the name brought no response from the eyes.

"Please write out the name you want," he said finally, "and I will copy it for you if I can."

It was hard for the boy to believe his own senses. But picking up a pen he wrote: "Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord; November 22, 1881."

Emerson looked at it, and said mournfully: "Thank you." Then he picked up the pen, and writing the single letter "R" stopped, followed his finger until it reached the "W" of Waldo, and studiously copied letter by letter! At the word "Concord" he seemed to hesitate, as if the task were too great, but finally copied again, letter by letter, until the second "c" was reached. "Another 'o,'" he said, and interpolated an extra letter in the name of the town which he had done so much to make famous the world over. When he had finished he handed back the book, in which there was written:

R. Waldo Emerson Concord November 22, 1881

The boy put the book into his pocket; and as he did so Emerson's eye caught the slip on his desk, in the boy's handwriting, and, with a smile of absolute enlightenment, he turned and said:

"You wish me to write my name? With pleasure. Have you a book with you?"

Overcome with astonishment, Edward mechanically handed him the album once more from his pocket. Quickly turning over the leaves, Emerson picked up the pen, and pushing aside the slip, wrote without a moment's hesitation:

Ralph Waldo Emerson Concord

The boy was almost dazed at the instantaneous transformation in the man!

Miss Alcott now grasped this moment to say: "Well, we must be going!"

"So soon?" said Emerson, rising and smiling. Then turning to Miss Alcott he said: "It was very kind of you, Louisa, to run over this morning and bring your young friend."

Then turning to the boy he said: "Thank you so much for coming to see me. You must come over again while you are with the Alcotts. Good morning! Isn't it a beautiful day out?" he said, and as he shook the boy's hand there was a warm grasp in it, the fingers closed around those of the boy, and as Edward looked into those deep eyes they twinkled and smiled back.

The going was all so different from the coming. The boy was grateful that his last impression was of a moment when the eye kindled and the hand pulsated.

The two walked back to the Alcott home in an almost unbroken silence. Once Edward ventured to remark:

"You can have no idea, Miss Alcott, how grateful I am to you."

"Well, my boy," she answered, "Phillips Brooks may be right: that it is something to have seen him even so, than not to have seen him at all. But to us it is so sad, so very sad. The twilight is gently closing in."

And so it proved—just five months afterward.

Eventful day after eventful day followed in Edward's Boston visit. The following morning he spent with Wendell Phillips, who presented him with letters from William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia Mott, and other famous persons; and then, writing a letter of introduction to Charles Francis Adams, whom he enjoined to give the boy autograph letters from his two presidential forbears, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, sent Edward on his way rejoicing. Mr. Adams received the boy with equal graciousness and liberality. Wonderful letters from the two Adamses were his when he left.

And then, taking the train for New York, Edward Bok went home, sitting up all night in a day-coach for the double purpose of saving the cost of a sleeping-berth and of having a chance to classify and clarify the events of the most wonderful week in his life!



VII. A Plunge into Wall Street

The father of Edward Bok passed away when Edward was eighteen years of age, and it was found that the amount of the small insurance left behind would barely cover the funeral expenses. Hence the two boys faced the problem of supporting the mother on their meagre income. They determined to have but one goal: to put their mother back to that life of comfort to which she had been brought up and was formerly accustomed. But that was not possible on their income. It was evident that other employment must be taken on during the evenings.

The city editor of the Brooklyn Eagle had given Edward the assignment of covering the news of the theatres; he was to ascertain "coming attractions" and any other dramatic items of news interest. One Monday evening, when a multiplicity of events crowded the reportorial corps, Edward was delegated to "cover" the Grand Opera House, where Rose Coghlan was to appear in a play that had already been seen in Brooklyn, and called, therefore, for no special dramatic criticism. Yet The Eagle wanted to cover it. It so happened that Edward had made another appointment for that evening which he considered more important, and yet not wishing to disappoint his editor he accepted the assignment. He had seen Miss Coghlan in the play; so he kept his other engagement, and without approaching the theatre he wrote a notice to the effect that Miss Coghlan acted her part, if anything, with greater power than on her previous Brooklyn visit, and so forth, and handed it in to his city editor the next morning on his way to business.

Unfortunately, however, Miss Coghlan had been taken ill just before the raising of the curtain, and, there being no understudy, no performance had been given and the audience dismissed. All this was duly commented upon by the New York morning newspapers. Edward read this bit of news on the ferry-boat, but his notice was in the hands of the city editor.

On reaching home that evening he found a summons from The Eagle, and the next morning he received a rebuke, and was informed that his chances with the paper were over. The ready acknowledgment and evident regret of the crestfallen boy, however, appealed to the editor, and before the end of the week he called the boy to him and promised him another chance, provided the lesson had sunk in. It had, and it left a lasting impression. It was always a cause of profound gratitude with Edward Bok that his first attempt at "faking" occurred so early in his journalistic career that he could take the experience to heart and profit by it.

One evening when Edward was attending a theatrical performance, he noticed the restlessness of the women in the audience between the acts. In those days it was, even more than at present, the custom for the men to go out between the acts, leaving the women alone. Edward looked at the programme in his hands. It was a large eleven-by-nine sheet, four pages, badly printed, with nothing in it save the cast, a few advertisements, and an announcement of some coming attraction. The boy mechanically folded the programme, turned it long side up and wondered whether a programme of this smaller size, easier to handle, with an attractive cover and some reading-matter, would not be profitable.

When he reached home he made up an eight-page "dummy," pasted an attractive picture on the cover, indicated the material to go inside, and the next morning showed it to the manager of the theatre. The programme as issued was an item of considerable expense to the management; Edward offered to supply his new programme without cost, provided he was given the exclusive right, and the manager at once accepted the offer. Edward then sought a friend, Frederic L. Colver, who had a larger experience in publishing and advertising, with whom he formed a partnership. Deciding that immediately upon the issuance of their first programme the idea was likely to be taken up by the other theatres, Edward proceeded to secure the exclusive rights to them all. The two young publishers solicited their advertisements on the way to and from business mornings and evenings, and shortly the first smaller-sized theatre programme, now in use in all theatres, appeared. The venture was successful from the start, returning a comfortable profit each week. Such advertisements as they could not secure for cash they accepted in trade; and this latter arrangement assisted materially in maintaining the households of the two publishers.

Edward's partner now introduced him into a debating society called The Philomathean Society, made up of young men connected with Plymouth Church, of which Henry Ward Beecher was pastor. The debates took the form of a miniature congress, each member representing a State, and it is a curious coincidence that Edward drew, by lot, the representation of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The members took these debates very seriously; no subject was too large for them to discuss. Edward became intensely interested in the society's doings, and it was not long before he was elected president.

The society derived its revenue from the dues of its members and from an annual concert given under its auspices in Plymouth Church. When the time for the concert under Edward's presidency came around, he decided that the occasion should be unique so as to insure a crowded house. He induced Mr. Beecher to preside; he got General Grant's promise to come and speak; he secured the gratuitous services of Emma C. Thursby, Annie Louise Cary, Clara Louise Kellogg, and Evelyn Lyon Hegeman, all of the first rank of concert-singers of that day, with the result that the church could not accommodate the crowd which naturally was attracted by such a programme.

It now entered into the minds of the two young theatre-programme publishers to extend their publishing interests by issuing an "organ" for their society, and the first issue of The Philomathean Review duly appeared with Mr. Colver as its publisher and Edward Bok as editor. Edward had now an opportunity to try his wings in an editorial capacity. The periodical was, of course, essentially an organ of the society; but gradually it took on a more general character, so that its circulation might extend over a larger portion of Brooklyn. With this extension came a further broadening of its contents, which now began to take on a literary character, and it was not long before its two projectors realized that the periodical had outgrown its name. It was decided—late in 1884—to change the name to The Brooklyn Magazine.

There was a periodical called The Plymouth Pulpit, which presented verbatim reports of the sermons of Mr. Beecher, and Edward got the idea of absorbing the Pulpit in the Magazine. But that required more capital than he and his partner could command. They consulted Mr. Beecher, who, attracted by the enterprise of the two boys, sent them with letters of introduction to a few of his most influential parishioners, with the result that the pair soon had a sufficient financial backing by some of the leading men of Brooklyn, like A. A. Low, H. B. Claflin, Rufus T. Bush, Henry W. Slocum, Seth Low, Rossiter W. Raymond, Horatio C. King, and others.

The young publishers could now go on. Understanding that Mr. Beecher's sermons might give a partial and denominational tone to the magazine, Edward arranged to publish also in its pages verbatim reports of the sermons of the Reverend T. De Witt Talmage, whose reputation was then at its zenith. The young editor now realized that he had a rather heavy cargo of sermons to carry each month; accordingly, in order that his magazine might not appear to be exclusively religious, he determined that its literary contents should be of a high order and equal in interest to the sermons. But this called for additional capital, and the capital furnished was not for that purpose.

It is here that Edward's autographic acquaintances stood him in good stead. He went in turn to each noted person he had met, explained his plight and stated his ambitions, with the result that very soon the magazine and the public were surprised at the distinction of the contributors to The Brooklyn Magazine. Each number contained a noteworthy list of them, and when an article by the President of the United States, then Rutherford B. Hayes, opened one of the numbers, the public was astonished, since up to that time the unwritten rule that a President's writings were confined to official pronouncements had scarcely been broken. William Dean Howells, General Grant, General Sherman, Phillips Brooks, General Sheridan, Canon Farrar, Cardinal Gibbons, Marion Harland, Margaret Sangster—the most prominent men and women of the day, some of whom had never written for magazines—began to appear in the young editor's contents. Editors wondered how the publishers could afford it, whereas, in fact, not a single name represented an honorarium. Each contributor had come gratuitously to the aid of the editor.

At first, the circulation of the magazine permitted the boys to wrap the copies themselves; and then they, with two other boys, would carry as huge bundles as they could lift, put them late at night on the front platform of the street-cars, and take them to the post-office. Thus the boys absolutely knew the growth of their circulation by the weight of their bundles and the number of their front-platform trips each month. Soon a baker's hand-cart was leased for an evening, and that was added to the capacity of the front platforms. Then one eventful month it was seen that a horse-truck would have to be employed. Within three weeks, a double horse-truck was necessary, and three trips had to be made.

By this time Edward Bok had become so intensely interested in the editorial problem, and his partner in the periodical publishing part, that they decided to sell out their theatre-programme interests and devote themselves to the magazine and its rapidly increasing circulation. All of Edward's editorial work had naturally to be done outside of his business hours, in other words, in the evenings and on Sundays; and the young editor found himself fully occupied. He now revived the old idea of selecting a subject and having ten or twenty writers express their views on it. It was the old symposium idea, but it had not been presented in American journalism for a number of years. He conceived the topic "Should America Have a Westminster Abbey?" and induced some twenty of the foremost men and women of the day to discuss it. When the discussion was presented in the magazine, the form being new and the theme novel, Edward was careful to send advance sheets to the newspapers, which treated it at length in reviews and editorials, with marked effect upon the circulation of the magazine.

All this time, while Edward Bok was an editor in his evenings he was, during the day, a stenographer and clerk of the Western Union Telegraph Company. The two occupations were hardly compatible, but each meant a source of revenue to the boy, and he felt he must hold on to both.

After his father passed away, the position of the boy's desk—next to the empty desk of his father—was a cause of constant depression to him. This was understood by the attorney for the company, Mr. Clarence Cary, who sought the head of Edward's department, with the result that Edward was transferred to Mr. Cary's department as the attorney's private stenographer.

Edward had been much attracted to Mr. Cary, and the attorney believed in the boy, and decided to show his interest by pushing him along. He had heard of the dual role which Edward was playing; he bought a copy of the magazine, and was interested. Edward now worked with new zest for his employer and friend; while in every free moment he read law, feeling that, as almost all his forbears had been lawyers, he might perhaps be destined for the bar. This acquaintance with the fundamental basis of law, cursory as it was, became like a gospel to Edward Bok. In later years, he was taught its value by repeated experience in his contact with corporate laws, contracts, property leases, and other matters; and he determined that, whatever the direction of activity taken by his sons, each should spend at least a year in the study of law.

The control of the Western Union Telegraph Company had now passed into the hands of Jay Gould and his companions, and in the many legal matters arising therefrom, Edward saw much, in his office, of "the little wizard of Wall Street." One day, the financier had to dictate a contract, and, coming into Mr. Cary's office, decided to dictate it then and there. An hour afterward Edward delivered the copy of the contract to Mr. Gould, and the financier was so struck by its accuracy and by the legibility of the handwriting that afterward he almost daily "happened in" to dictate to Mr. Cary's stenographer. Mr. Gould's private stenographer was in his own office in lower Broadway; but on his way down-town in the morning Mr. Gould invariably stopped at the Western Union Building, at 195 Broadway, and the habit resulted in the installation of a private office there. He borrowed Edward to do his stenography. The boy found himself taking not only letters from Mr. Gould's dictation, but, what interested him particularly, the financier's orders to buy and sell stock.

Edward watched the effects on the stock-market of these little notes which he wrote out and then shot through a pneumatic tube to Mr. Gould's brokers. Naturally, the results enthralled the boy, and he told Mr. Cary about his discoveries. This, in turn, interested Mr. Cary; Mr. Gould's dictations were frequently given in Mr. Cary's own office, where, as his desk was not ten feet from that of his stenographer, the attorney heard them, and began to buy and sell according to the magnate's decisions.

Edward had now become tremendously interested in the stock game which he saw constantly played by the great financier; and having a little money saved up, he concluded that he would follow in the wake of Mr. Gould's orders. One day, he naively mentioned his desire to Mr. Gould, when the financier seemed in a particularly favorable frame of mind; but Edward did not succeed in drawing out the advice he hoped for. "At least," reasoned Edward, "he knew of my intention; and if he considered it a violation of confidence he would have said as much."

Construing the financier's silence to mean at least not a prohibition, Edward went to his Sunday-school teacher, who was a member of a Wall Street brokerage firm, laid the facts before him, and asked him if he would buy for him some Western Union stock. Edward explained, however, that somehow he did not like the gambling idea of buying "on margin," and preferred to purchase the stock outright. He was shown that this would mean smaller profits; but the boy had in mind the loss of his father's fortune, brought about largely by "stock margins," and he did not intend to follow that example. So, prudently, under the brokerage of his Sunday-school teacher, and guided by the tips of no less a man than the controlling factor of stock-market finance, Edward Bok took his first plunge in Wall Street!

Of course the boy's buying and selling tallied precisely with the rise and fall of Western Union stock. It could scarcely have been otherwise. Jay Gould had the cards all in his hands; and as he bought and sold, so Edward bought and sold. The trouble was, the combination did not end there, as Edward might have foreseen had he been older and thus wiser. For as Edward bought and sold, so did his Sunday-school teacher, and all his customers who had seen the wonderful acumen of their broker in choosing exactly the right time to buy and sell Western Union. But Edward did not know this.

One day a rumor became current on the Street that an agreement had been reached by the Western Union Company and its bitter rival, the American Union Telegraph Company, whereby the former was to absorb the latter. Naturally, the report affected Western Union stock. But Mr. Gould denied it in toto; said the report was not true, no such consolidation was in view or had even been considered. Down tumbled the stock, of course.

But it so happened that Edward knew the rumor was true, because Mr. Gould, some time before, had personally given him the contract of consolidation to copy. The next day a rumor to the effect that the American Union was to absorb the Western Union appeared on the first page of every New York newspaper. Edward knew exactly whence this rumor emanated. He had heard it talked over. Again, Western Union stock dropped several points. Then he noticed that Mr. Gould became a heavy buyer. So became Edward—as heavy as he could. Jay Gould pooh-poohed the latest rumor. The boy awaited developments.

On Sunday afternoon, Edward's Sunday-school teacher asked the boy to walk home with him, and on reaching the house took him into the study and asked him whether he felt justified in putting all his savings in Western Union just at that time when the price was tumbling so fast and the market was so unsteady. Edward assured his teacher that he was right, although he explained that he could not disclose the basis of his assurance.

Edward thought his teacher looked worried, and after a little there came the revelation that he, seeing that Edward was buying to his limit, had likewise done so. But the broker had bought on margin, and had his margin wiped out by the decline in the stock caused by the rumors. He explained to Edward that he could recoup his losses, heavy though they were—in fact, he explained that nearly everything he possessed was involved—if Edward's basis was sure and the stock would recover.

Edward keenly felt the responsibility placed upon him. He could never clearly diagnose his feelings when he saw his teacher in this new light. The broker's "customers" had been hinted at, and the boy of eighteen wondered how far his responsibility went, and how many persons were involved. But the deal came out all right, for when, three days afterward, the contract was made public, Western Union, of course, skyrocketed, Jay Gould sold out, Edward sold out, the teacher-broker sold out, and all the customers sold out!

How long a string it was Edward never discovered, but he determined there and then to end his Wall Street experience; his original amount had multiplied; he was content to let well enough alone, and from that day to this Edward Bok has kept out of Wall Street. He had seen enough of its manipulations; and, although on "the inside," he decided that the combination of his teacher and his customers was a responsibility too great for him to carry.

Furthermore, Edward decided to leave the Western Union. The longer he remained, the less he liked its atmosphere. And the closer his contact with Jay Gould the more doubtful he became of the wisdom of such an association and perhaps its unconscious influence upon his own life in its formative period.

In fact, it was an experience with Mr. Gould that definitely fixed Edward's determination. The financier decided one Saturday to leave on a railroad inspection tour on the following Monday. It was necessary that a special meeting of one of his railroad interests should be held before his departure, and he fixed the meeting for Sunday at eleven-thirty at his residence on Fifth Avenue. He asked Edward to be there to take the notes of the meeting.

The meeting was protracted, and at one o'clock Mr. Gould suggested an adjournment for luncheon, the meeting to reconvene at two. Turning to Edward, the financier said: "You may go out to luncheon and return in an hour." So, on Sunday afternoon, with the Windsor Hotel on the opposite corner as the only visible place to get something to eat, but where he could not afford to go, Edward, with just fifteen cents in his pocket, was turned out to find a luncheon place.

He bought three apples for five cents—all that he could afford to spend, and even this meant that he must walk home from the ferry to his house in Brooklyn—and these he ate as he walked up and down Fifth Avenue until his hour was over. When the meeting ended at three o'clock, Mr. Gould said that, as he was leaving for the West early next morning, he would like Edward to write out his notes, and have them at his house by eight o'clock. There were over forty note-book pages of minutes. The remainder of Edward's Sunday afternoon and evening was spent in transcribing the notes. By rising at half past five the next morning he reached Mr. Gould's house at a quarter to eight, handed him the minutes, and was dismissed without so much as a word of thanks or a nod of approval from the financier.

Edward felt that this exceeded the limit of fair treatment by employer of employee. He spoke of it to Mr. Cary, and asked whether he would object if he tried to get away from such influence and secure another position. His employer asked the boy in which direction he would like to go, and Edward unhesitatingly suggested the publishing business. He talked it over from every angle with his employer, and Mr. Cary not only agreed with him that his decision was wise, but promised to find him a position such as he had in mind.

It was not long before Mr. Cary made good his word, and told Edward that his friend Henry Holt, the publisher, would like to give him a trial.

The day before he was to leave the Western Union Telegraph Company the fact of his resignation became known to Mr. Gould. The financier told the boy there was no reason for his leaving, and that he would personally see to it that a substantial increase was made in his salary. Edward explained that the salary, while of importance to him, did not influence him so much as securing a position in a business in which he felt he would be happier.

"And what business is that?" asked the financier.

"The publishing of books," replied the boy.

"You are making a great mistake," answered the little man, fixing his keen gray eyes on the boy. "Books are a luxury. The public spends its largest money on necessities: on what it can't do without. It must telegraph; it need not read. It can read in libraries. A promising boy such as you are, with his life before him, should choose the right sort of business, not the wrong one."

But, as facts proved, the "little wizard of Wall Street" was wrong in his prediction; Edward Bok was not choosing the wrong business.

Years afterward when Edward was cruising up the Hudson with a yachting party one Saturday afternoon, the sight of Jay Gould's mansion, upon approaching Irvington, awakened the desire of the women on board to see his wonderful orchid collection. Edward explained his previous association with the financier and offered to recall himself to him, if the party wished to take the chance of recognition. A note was written to Mr. Gould, and sent ashore, and the answer came back that they were welcome to visit the orchid houses. Jay Gould, in person, received the party, and, placing it under the personal conduct of his gardener, turned to Edward and, indicating a bench, said: "Come and sit down here with me."

"Well," said the financier, who was in his domestic mood, quite different from his Wall Street aspect, "I see in the papers that you seem to be making your way in the publishing business."

Edward expressed surprise that the Wall Street magnate had followed his work.

"I have because I always felt you had it in you to make a successful man. But not in that business," he added quickly. "You were born for the Street. You would have made a great success there, and that is what I had in mind for you. In the publishing business you will go just so far; in the Street you could have gone as far as you liked. There is room there; there is none in the publishing business. It's not too late now, for that matter," continued the "little wizard," fastening his steel eyes on the lad beside him!

And Edward Bok has often speculated whither Jay Gould might have led him. To many a young man, a suggestion from such a source would have seemed the one to heed and follow. But Edward Bok's instinct never failed him. He felt that his path lay far apart from that of Jay Gould—and the farther the better!

In 1882 Edward, with a feeling of distinct relief, left the employ of the Western Union Telegraph Company and associated himself with the publishing business in which he had correctly divined that his future lay.

His chief regret on leaving his position was in severing the close relations, almost as of father and son, between Mr. Cary and himself. When Edward was left alone, with the passing away of his father, Clarence Cary had put his sheltering arm around the lonely boy, and with the tremendous encouragement of the phrase that the boy never forgot, "I think you have it in you, Edward, to make a successful man," he took him under his wing. It was a turning-point in Edward Bok's life, as he felt at the time and as he saw more clearly afterward.

He remained in touch with his friend, however, keeping him advised of his progress in everything he did, not only at that time, but all through his later years. And it was given to Edward to feel the deep satisfaction of having Mr. Cary say, before he passed away, that the boy had more than justified the confidence reposed in him. Mr. Cary lived to see him well on his way, until, indeed, Edward had had the proud happiness of introducing to his benefactor the son who bore his name, Cary William Bok.



VIII. Starting a Newspaper Syndicate

Edward felt that his daytime hours, spent in a publishing atmosphere as stenographer with Henry Holt and Company, were more in line with his editorial duties during the evenings. The Brooklyn Magazine was now earning a comfortable income for its two young proprietors, and their backers were entirely satisfied with the way it was being conducted. In fact, one of these backers, Mr. Rufus T. Bush, associated with the Standard Oil Company, who became especially interested, thought he saw in the success of the two boys a possible opening for one of his sons, who was shortly to be graduated from college. He talked to the publisher and editor about the idea, but the boys showed by their books that while there was a reasonable income for them, not wholly dependent on the magazine, there was no room for a third.

Mr. Bush now suggested that he buy the magazine for his son, alter its name, enlarge its scope, and make of it a national periodical. Arrangements were concluded, those who had financially backed the venture were fully paid, and the two boys received a satisfactory amount for their work in building up the magazine. Mr. Bush asked Edward to suggest a name for the new periodical, and in the following month of May, 1887, The Brooklyn Magazine became The American Magazine, with its publication office in New York. But, though a great deal of money was spent on the new magazine, it did not succeed. Mr. Bush sold his interest in the periodical, which, once more changing its name, became The Cosmopolitan Magazine. Since then it has passed through the hands of several owners, but the name has remained the same. Before Mr. Bush sold The American Magazine he had urged Edward to come back to it as its editor, with promise of financial support; but the young man felt instinctively that his return would not be wise. The magazine had been The Cosmopolitan only a short time when the new owners, Mr. Paul J. Slicht and Mr. E. D. Walker, also solicited the previous editor to accept reappointment. But Edward, feeling that his baby had been rechristened too often for him to father it again, declined the proposition. He had not heard the last of it, however, for, by a curious coincidence, its subsequent owner, entirely ignorant of Edward's previous association with the magazine, invited him to connect himself with it. Thus three times could Edward Bok have returned to the magazine for whose creation he was responsible.

Edward was now without editorial cares; but he had already, even before disposing of the magazine, embarked on another line of endeavor. In sending to a number of newspapers the advance sheets of a particularly striking "feature" in one of his numbers of The Brooklyn Magazine, it occurred to him that he was furnishing a good deal of valuable material to these papers without cost. It is true his magazine was receiving the advertising value of editorial comment; but the boy wondered whether the newspapers would not be willing to pay for the privilege of simultaneous publication. An inquiry or two proved that they would. Thus Edward stumbled upon the "syndicate" plan of furnishing the same article to a group of newspapers, one in each city, for simultaneous publication. He looked over the ground, and found that while his idea was not a new one, since two "syndicate" agencies already existed, the field was by no means fully covered, and that the success of a third agency would depend entirely upon its ability to furnish the newspapers with material equally good or better than they received from the others. After following the material furnished by these agencies for two or three weeks, Edward decided that there was plenty of room for his new ideas.

He discussed the matter with his former magazine partner, Colver, and suggested that if they could induce Mr. Beecher to write a weekly comment on current events for the newspapers it would make an auspicious beginning. They decided to talk it over with the famous preacher. For to be a "Plymouth boy"—that is, to go to the Plymouth Church Sunday-school and to attend church there—was to know personally and become devoted to Henry Ward Beecher. And the two were synonymous. There was no distance between Mr. Beecher and his "Plymouth boys." Each understood the other. The tie was that of absolute comradeship.

"I don't believe in it, boys," said Mr. Beecher when Edward and his friend broached the syndicate letter to him. "No one yet ever made a cent out of my supposed literary work."

All the more reason, was the argument, why some one should.

Mr. Beecher smiled! How well he knew the youthful enthusiasm that rushes in, etc.

"Well, all right, boys! I like your pluck," he finally said. "I'll help you if I can."

The boys agreed to pay Mr. Beecher a weekly sum of two hundred and fifty dollars—which he knew was considerable for them.

When the first article had been written they took him their first check. He looked at it quizzically, and then at the boys. Then he said simply: "Thank you." He took a pin and pinned the check to his desk. There it remained, much to the curiosity of the two boys.

The following week he had written the second article and the boys gave him another check. He pinned that up over the other. "I like to look at them," was his only explanation, as he saw Edward's inquiring glance one morning.

The third check was treated the same way. When the boys handed him the fourth, one morning, as he was pinning it up over the others, he asked: "When do you get your money from the newspapers?"

He was told that the bills were going out that morning for the four letters constituting a month's service.

"I see," he remarked.

A fortnight passed, then one day Mr. Beecher asked: "Well, how are the checks coming in?"

"Very well," he was assured.

"Suppose you let me see how much you've got in," he suggested, and the boys brought the accounts to him.

After looking at them he said: "That's very interesting. How much have you in the bank?"

He was told the balance, less the checks given to him. "But I haven't turned them in yet," he explained. "Anyhow, you have enough in bank to meet the checks you have given me, and a profit besides, haven't you?"

He was assured they had.

Then, taking his bank-book from a drawer, he unpinned the six checks on his desk, indorsed each thus: wrote a deposit-slip, and, handing the book to Edward, said:

For deposit (??) in Bank H. W. Beecher

"Just hand that in at the bank as you go by, will you?"

Edward was very young then, and Mr. Beecher's methods of financiering seemed to him quite in line with current notions of the Plymouth pastor's lack of business knowledge. But as the years rolled on the incident appeared in a new light—a striking example of the great preacher's wonderful considerateness.

Edward had offered to help Mr. Beecher with his correspondence; at the close of one afternoon, while he was with the Plymouth pastor at work, an organ-grinder and a little girl came under the study window. A cold, driving rain was pelting down. In a moment Mr. Beecher noticed the girl's bare toes sticking out of her worn shoes.

He got up, went into the hall, and called for one of his granddaughters.

"Got any good, strong rain boots?" he asked when she appeared.

"Why, yes, grandfather. Why?" was the answer.

"More than one pair?" Mr. Beecher asked.

"Yes, two or three, I think."

"Bring me your strongest pair, will you, dear?" he asked. And as the girl looked at him with surprise he said: "Just one of my notions."

"Now, just bring that child into the house and put them on her feet for me, will you?" he said when the shoes came. "I'll be able to work so much better."

One rainy day, as Edward was coming up from Fulton Ferry with Mr. Beecher, they met an old woman soaked with the rain. "Here, you take this, my good woman," said the clergyman, putting his umbrella over her head and thrusting the handle into the astonished woman's hand. "Let's get into this," he said to Edward simply, as he hailed a passing car.

"There is a good deal of fraud about beggars," he remarked as he waved a sot away from him one day; "but that doesn't apply to women and children," he added; and he never passed such mendicants without stopping. All the stories about their being tools in the hands of accomplices failed to convince him. "They're women and children," he would say, and that settled it for him.

"What's the matter, son? Stuck?" he said once to a newsboy who was crying with a heavy bundle of papers under his arm.

"Come along with me, then," said Mr. Beecher, taking the boy's hand and leading him into the newspaper office a few doors up the street.

"This boy is stuck," he simply said to the man behind the counter. "Guess The Eagle can stand it better than this boy; don't you think so?"

To the grown man Mr. Beecher rarely gave charity. He believed in a return for his alms.

"Why don't you go to work?" he asked of a man who approached him one day in the street.

"Can't find any," said the man.

"Looked hard for it?" was the next question.

"I have," and the man looked Mr. Beecher in the eye.

"Want some?" asked Mr. Beecher.

"I do," said the man.

"Come with me," said the preacher. And then to Edward, as they walked along with the man following behind, he added: "That man is honest."

"Let this man sweep out the church," he said to the sexton when they had reached Plymouth Church.

"But, Mr. Beecher," replied the sexton with wounded pride, "it doesn't need it."

"Don't tell him so, though," said Mr. Beecher with a merry twinkle of the eye; and the sexton understood.

Mr. Beecher was constantly thoughtful of a struggling young man's welfare, even at the expense of his own material comfort. Anxious to save him from the labor of writing out the newspaper articles, Edward, himself employed during the daylight hours which Mr. Beecher preferred for his original work, suggested a stenographer. The idea appealed to Mr. Beecher, for he was very busy just then. He hesitated, but as Edward persisted, he said: "All right; let him come to-morrow."

The next day he said: "I asked that stenographer friend of yours not to come again. No use of my trying to dictate. I am too old to learn new tricks. Much easier for me to write myself."

Shortly after that, however, Mr. Beecher dictated to Edward some material for a book he was writing. Edward naturally wondered at this, and asked the stenographer what had happened.

"Nothing," he said. "Only Mr. Beecher asked me how much it would cost you to have me come to him each week. I told him, and then he sent me away."

That was Henry Ward Beecher!

Edward Bok was in the formative period between boyhood and young manhood when impressions meant lessons, and associations meant ideals. Mr. Beecher never disappointed. The closer one got to him, the greater he became—in striking contrast to most public men, as Edward had already learned.

Then, his interests and sympathies were enormously wide. He took in so much! One day Edward was walking past Fulton Market, in New York City, with Mr. Beecher.

"Never skirt a market," the latter said; "always go through it. It's the next best thing, in the winter, to going South."

Of course all the marketmen knew him, and they knew, too, his love for green things.

"What do you think of these apples, Mr. Beecher?" one marketman would stop to ask.

Mr. Beecher would answer heartily: "Fine! Don't see how you grow them. All that my trees bear is a crop of scale. Still, the blossoms are beautiful in the spring, and I like an apple-leaf. Ever examine one?" The marketman never had. "Well, now, do, the next time you come across an apple-tree in the spring."

And thus he would spread abroad an interest in the beauties of nature which were commonly passed over.

"Wonderful man, Beecher is," said a market dealer in green goods once. "I had handled thousands of bunches of celery in my life and never noticed how beautiful its top leaves were until he picked up a bunch once and told me all about it. Now I haven't the heart to cut the leaves off when a customer asks me."

His idea of his own vegetable-gardening at Boscobel, his Peekskill home, was very amusing. One day Edward was having a hurried dinner, preparatory to catching the New York train. Mr. Beecher sat beside the boy, telling him of some things he wished done in Brooklyn.

"No, I thank you," said Edward, as the maid offered him some potatoes.

"Look here, young man," said Mr. Beecher, "don't pass those potatoes so lightly. They're of my own raising—and I reckon they cost me about a dollar a piece," he added with a twinkle in his eye.

He was an education in so many ways! One instance taught Edward the great danger of passionate speech that might unconsciously wound, and the manliness of instant recognition of the error. Swayed by an occasion, or by the responsiveness of an audience, Mr. Beecher would sometimes say something which was not meant as it sounded. One evening, at a great political meeting at Cooper Union, Mr. Beecher was at his brightest and wittiest. In the course of his remarks he had occasion to refer to ex-President Hayes; some one in the audience called out: "He was a softy!"

"No," was Mr. Beecher's quick response. "The country needed a poultice at that time, and got it."

"He's dead now, anyhow," responded the voice.

"Not dead, my friend: he only sleepeth."

It convulsed the audience, of course, and the reporters took it down in their books.

After the meeting Edward drove home with Mr. Beecher. After a while he asked: "Well, how do you think it went?"

Edward replied he thought it went very well, except that he did not like the reference to ex-President Hayes.

"What reference? What did I say?"

Edward repeated it.

"Did I say that?" he asked. Edward looked at him. Mr. Beecher's face was tense. After a few moments he said: "That's generally the way with extemporaneous remarks: they are always dangerous. The best impromptu speeches and remarks are the carefully prepared kind," he added.

Edward told him he regretted the reference because he knew that General Hayes would read it in the New York papers, and he would be nonplussed to understand it, considering the cordial relations which existed between the two men. Mr. Beecher knew of Edward's relations with the ex-President, and they had often talked of him together.

Nothing more was said of the incident. When the Beecher home was reached Mr. Beecher said: "Just come in a minute." He went straight to his desk, and wrote and wrote. It seemed as if he would never stop. At last he handed Edward an eight-page letter, closely written, addressed to General Hayes.

"Read that, and mail it, please, on your way home. Then it'll get there just as quickly as the New York papers will."

It was a superbly fine letter,—one of those letters which only Henry Ward Beecher could write in his tenderest moods. And the reply which came from Fremont, Ohio, was no less fine!



IX. Association with Henry Ward Beecher

As a letter-writer, Henry Ward Beecher was a constant wonder. He never wrote a commonplace letter. There was always himself in it—in whatever mood it found him.

It was not customary for him to see all his mail. As a rule Mrs. Beecher opened it, and attended to most of it. One evening Edward was helping Mrs. Beecher handle an unusually large number of letters. He was reading one when Mr. Beecher happened to come in and read what otherwise he would not have seen:

"Reverend Henry Ward Beecher.

"Dear Sir:

"I journeyed over from my New York hotel yesterday morning to hear you preach, expecting, of course, to hear an exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, I heard a political harangue, with no reason or cohesion in it. You made an ass of yourself.

"Very truly yours, .

"That's to the point," commented Mr. Beecher with a smile; and then seating himself at his desk, he turned the sheet over and wrote:

My Dear Sir:—

"I am sorry you should have taken so long a journey to hear Christ preached, and then heard what you are polite enough to call a 'political harangue.' I am sorry, too, that you think I made an ass of myself. In this connection I have but one consolation: that you didn't make an ass of yourself. The Lord did that."

"Henry Ward Beecher.

When the Reverend T. De Witt Talmage began to come into public notice in Brooklyn, some of Mr. Beecher's overzealous followers unwisely gave the impression that the Plymouth preacher resented sharing with another the pulpit fame which he alone had so long unquestioningly held. Nothing, of course, was further from Mr. Beecher's mind. As a matter of fact, the two men were exceedingly good friends. Mr. Beecher once met Doctor Talmage in a crowded business thoroughfare, where they got so deeply interested in each other's talk that they sat down in some chairs standing in front of a furniture store. A gathering throng of intensely amused people soon brought the two men to the realization that they had better move. Then Mr. Beecher happened to see that back of their heads had been, respectively, two signs: one reading, "This style $3.45," the other, "This style $4.25."

"Well," said Mr. Beecher, as he and Doctor Talmage walked away laughing, "I was ticketed higher than you, Talmage, anyhow."

"You're worth more," rejoined Doctor Talmage.

On another occasion, as the two men met they began to bandy each other.

"Now, Talmage," said Mr. Beecher, his eyes twinkling, "let's have it out. My people say that Plymouth holds more people than the Tabernacle, and your folks stand up for the Tabernacle. Now which is it? What is your estimate?"

"Well, I should say that the Tabernacle holds about fifteen thousand people," said Doctor Talmage with a smile.

"Good," said Mr. Beecher, at once catching the spirit. "And I say that Plymouth accommodates, comfortably, twenty thousand people. Now, let's tell our respective trustees that it's settled, once for all."

Mr. Beecher could never be induced to take note of what others said of him. His friends, with more heart than head, often tried to persuade him to answer some attack, but he invariably waved them off. He always saw the ridiculous side of those attacks; never their serious import.

At one time a fellow Brooklyn minister, a staunch Prohibitionist, publicly reproved Mr. Beecher for being inconsistent in his temperance views, to the extent that he preached temperance but drank beer at his own dinner-table. This attack angered the friends of Mr. Beecher, who tried to persuade him to answer the charge. But the Plymouth pastor refused. "Friend — is a good fellow," was the only comment they could elicit.

"But he ought to be broadened," persisted the friends.

"Well now," said Mr. Beecher, "that isn't always possible. For instance," he continued, as that inimitable merry twinkle came into his eyes, "sometime ago Friend — criticised me for something I had said. I thought he ought not to have done so, and the next time we met I told him so. He persisted, and I felt the only way to treat him was as I would an unruly child. So I just took hold of him, laid him face down over my knee, and proceeded to impress him as our fathers used to do of old. And, do you know, I found that the Lord had not made a place on him for me to lay my hand upon."

And in the laughter which met this sally Mr. Beecher ended with "You see, it isn't always possible to broaden a man."

Mr. Beecher was rarely angry. Once, however, he came near it; yet he was more displeased than angry. Some of his family and Edward had gone to a notable public affair at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where a box had been placed at Mr. Beecher's disposal. One member of the family was a very beautiful girl who had brought a girl-friend. Both were attired in full evening decollete costume. Mr. Beecher came in late from another engagement. A chair had been kept vacant for him in the immediate front of the box, since his presence had been widely advertised, and the audience was expecting to see him. When he came in, he doffed his coat and was about to go to the chair reserved for him, when he stopped, stepped back, and sat down in a chair in the rear of the box. It was evident from his face that something had displeased him. Mrs. Beecher leaned over and asked him, but he offered no explanation. Nothing was said.

Edward went back to the house with Mr. Beecher; after talking awhile in the study, the preacher, wishing to show him something, was going up-stairs with his guest and had nearly reached the second landing when there was the sound of a rush, the gas was quickly turned low, and two white figures sped into one of the rooms.

"My dears," called Mr. Beecher.

"Yes, Mr. Beecher," came a voice from behind the door of the room in question.

"Come here one minute," said Mr. Beecher.

"But we cannot," said the voice. "We are ready for bed. Wait until—"

"No; come as you are," returned Mr. Beecher.

"Let me go down-stairs," Edward interrupted.

"No; you stay right here," said Mr. Beecher.

"Why, Mr. Beecher! How can we? Isn't Edward with you?"

"You are keeping me waiting for you," was the quiet and firm answer.

There was a moment's hesitation. Then the door opened and the figures of the two girls appeared.

"Now, turn up the gas, please, as it was," said Mr. Beecher.

"But, Mr. Beecher—"

"You heard me?"

Up went the light, and the two beautiful girls of the box stood in their night-dresses.

"Now, why did you run away?" asked Mr. Beecher.

"Why, Mr. Beecher! How can you ask such a question?" pouted one of the girls, looking at her dress and then at Edward.

"Exactly," said Mr. Beecher. "Your modesty leads you to run away from this young man because he might possibly see you under a single light in dresses that cover your entire bodies, while that same modesty did not prevent you all this evening from sitting beside him, under a myriad of lights, in dresses that exposed nearly half of your bodies. That's what I call a distinction with a difference—with the difference to the credit neither of your intelligence nor of your modesty. There is some modesty in the dresses you have on: there was precious little in what you girls wore this evening. Good night."

"You do not believe, Mr. Beecher," Edward asked later, "in decollete dressing for girls?"

"No, and even less for women. A girl has some excuse of youth on her side; a woman none at all."

A few moments later he added:

"A proper dress for any girl or woman is one that reveals the lady, but not her person."

Edward asked Mrs. Beecher one day whether Mr. Beecher had ever expressed an opinion of his sister's famous book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and she told this interesting story of how the famous preacher read the story:

"When the story was first published in The National Era, in chapters, all our family, excepting Mr. Beecher, looked impatiently for its appearance each week. But, try as we might, we could not persuade Mr. Beecher to read it, or let us tell him anything about it.

"'It's folly for you to be kept in constant excitement week after week,' he would say. 'I shall wait till the work is completed, and take it all at one dose.'

"After the serial ended, the book came to Mr. Beecher on the morning of a day when he had a meeting on hand for the afternoon and a speech to make in the evening. The book was quietly laid one side, for he always scrupulously avoided everything that could interfere with work he was expected to do. But the next day was a free day. Mr. Beecher rose even earlier than usual, and as soon as he was dressed he began to read Uncle Tom's Cabin. When breakfast was ready he took his book with him to the table, where reading and eating went on together; but he spoke never a word. After morning prayers, he threw himself on the sofa, forgot everything but his book, and read uninterruptedly till dinner-time. Though evidently intensely interested, for a long time he controlled any marked indication of it. Before noon I knew the storm was gathering that would conquer his self-control, as it had done with us all. He frequently 'gave way to his pocket-handkerchief,' to use one of his old humorous remarks, in a most vigorous manner. In return for his teasing me for reading the work weekly, I could not refrain from saying demurely, as I passed him once: 'You seem to have a severe cold, Henry. How could you have taken it?' But what did I gain? Not even a half-annoyed shake of the head, or the semblance of a smile. I might as well have spoken to the Sphinx.

"When reminded that the dinner-bell had rung, he rose and went to the table, still with his book in his hand. He asked the blessing with a tremor in his voice, which showed the intense excitement under which he was laboring. We were alone at the table, and there was nothing to distract his thoughts. He drank his coffee, ate but little, and returned to his reading, with no thought of indulging in his usual nap. His almost uncontrollable excitement revealed itself in frequent half-suppressed sobs.

"Mr. Beecher was a very slow reader. I was getting uneasy over the marks of strong feeling and excitement, and longed to have him finish the book. I could see that he entered into the whole story, every scene, as if it were being acted right before him, and he himself were the sufferer. He had always been a pronounced Abolitionist, and the story he was reading roused intensely all he had felt on that subject.

"The night came on. It was growing late, and I felt impelled to urge him to retire. Without raising his eyes from the book, he replied:

"'Soon; soon; you go; I'll come soon.'

"Closing the house, I went to our room; but not to sleep. The clock struck twelve, one, two, three; and then, to my great relief, I heard Mr. Beecher coming up-stairs. As he entered, he threw Uncle Tom's Cabin on the table, exclaiming: 'There; I've done it! But if Hattie Stowe ever writes anything more like that I'll—well! She has nearly killed me.'

"And he never picked up the book from that day."

Any one who knew Henry Ward Beecher at all knew of his love of books. He was, however, most prodigal in lending his books and he always forgot the borrowers. Then when he wanted a certain volume from his library he could not find it. He would, of course, have forgotten the borrower, but he had a unique method of tracing the book.

One evening the great preacher suddenly appeared at a friend's house and, quietly entering the drawing-room without removing his overcoat, he walked up to his friend and said:

"Rossiter, why don't you bring back that Ruskin of mine that I lent you?"

The man colored to the roots of his hair. "Why, Mr. Beecher," he said, "I'll go up-stairs and get it for you right away. I would not have kept it so long, only you told me I might."

At this Beecher burst into a fit of merry laughter. "Found! Found!" he shouted, as he took off his overcoat and threw himself into a chair.

When he could stop laughing, he said: "You know, Rossiter, that I am always ready to lend my books to any one who will make good use of them and bring them back, but I always forget to whom I lend them. It happened, in this case, that I wanted that volume of Ruskin about a week ago; but when I went to the shelf for it, it was gone. I knew I must have lent it, but to whom I could not remember. During the past week, I began to demand the book of every friend I met to whom I might have lent it. Of course, every one of them protested innocence; but at last I've struck the guilty man. I shall know, in future, how to find my missing books. The plan works beautifully."

One evening, after supper, Mr. Beecher said to his wife:

"Mother, what material have we among our papers about our early Indiana days?"

Mr. Beecher had long been importuned to write his autobiography, and he had decided to do it after he had finished his Life of Christ.

Mrs. Beecher had two boxes brought into the room.

"Suppose you look into that box, if you will," said Mr. Beecher to Edward, "and I'll take this one, and we'll see what we can find about that time. Mother, you supervise and see how we look on the floor."

And Mr. Beecher sat down on the floor in front of one box, shoemaker-fashion, while Edward, likewise on the floor, started on the other box.

It was a dusty job, and the little room began to be filled with particles of dust which set Mrs. Beecher coughing. At last she said: "I'll leave you two to finish. I have some things to do up-stairs, and then I'll retire. Don't be too late, Henry," she said.

It was one of those rare evenings for Mr. Beecher—absolutely free from interruption; and, with his memory constantly taken back to his early days, he continued in a reminiscent mood that was charmingly intimate to the boy.

"Found something?" he asked at one intermission when quiet had reigned longer than usual, and he saw Edward studying a huge pile of papers.

"No, sir," said the boy. "Only a lot of papers about a suit."

"What suit?" asked Mr. Beecher mechanically, with his head buried in his box.

"I don't know, sir," Edward replied naively, little knowing what he was reopening to the preacher. "'Tilton versus Beecher' they are marked."

Mr. Beecher said nothing, and after the boy had fingered the papers he chanced to look in the preacher's direction and found him watching him intently with a curiously serious look in his face.

"Must have been a big suit," commented the boy. "Here's another pile of papers about it."

Edward could not make out Mr. Beecher's steady look at him as he sat there on the floor mechanically playing with a paper in his hand.

"Yes," he finally said, "it was a big suit. What does it mean to you?" he asked suddenly.

"To me?" Edward asked. "Nothing, sir. Why?"

Mr. Beecher said nothing for a few moments, and turned to his box to examine some more papers.

Then the boy asked: "Was the Beecher in this suit you, Mr. Beecher?"

Again was turned on him that serious, questioning look.

"Yes," he said after a bit. Then he thought again for a few moments and said: "How old were you in 1875?"

"Twelve," the boy replied.

"Twelve," he repeated. "Twelve."

He turned again to his box and Edward to his.

"There doesn't seem to be anything more in this box," the boy said, "but more papers in that suit," and he began to put the papers back.

"What do you know about that 'suit,' as you call it?" asked Mr. Beecher, stopping in his work.

"Nothing," was the reply. "I never heard of it."

"Never heard of it?" he repeated, and he fastened that curious look upon Edward again. It was so compelling that it held the boy. For several moments they looked at each other. Neither spoke.

"That seems strange," he said, at last, as he renewed the search of his box. "Never heard of it," he repeated almost to himself.

Then for fully five minutes not a word was spoken.

"But you will some day," said Mr. Beecher suddenly.

"I will what, Mr. Beecher?" asked the boy. He had forgotten the previous remark.

Mr. Beecher looked at Edward and sighed. "Hear about it," he said.

"I don't think I understand you," was the reply.

"No, I don't think you do," he said. "I mean, you will some day hear about that suit. And I don't know," then he hesitated, "but—but you might as well get it straight. You say you were twelve then," he mused. "What were you doing when you were twelve?"

"Going to school," was the reply.

"Yes, of course," said Mr. Beecher. "Well," he continued, turning on his haunches so that his back rested against the box, "I am going to tell you the story of that suit, and then you'll know it."

Edward said nothing, and then began the recital of a story that he was destined to remember. It was interesting then, as Mr. Beecher progressed; but how thrice interesting that wonderful recital was to prove as the years rolled by and the boy realized the wonderful telling of that of all stories by Mr. Beecher himself!

Slowly, and in that wonderfully low, mellow voice that so many knew and loved, step by step, came the unfolding of that remarkable story. Once or twice only did the voice halt, as when, after he had explained the basis of the famous suit, he said:

"Those were the charges. That is what it was all about."

Then he looked at Edward and asked: "Do you know just what such charges mean?"

"I think I do," Edward replied, and the question was asked with such feeling, and the answer was said so mechanically, that Mr. Beecher replied simply: "Perhaps."

"Well," he continued, "the suit was a 'long one,' as you said. For days and weeks, yes, for months, it went on, from January to July, and those were very full days: full of so many things that you would hardly understand."

And then he told the boy as much of the days in court as he thought he would understand, and how the lawyers worked and worked, in court all day, and up half the night, preparing for the next day. "Mostly around that little table there," he said, pointing to a white, marble-topped table against which the boy was leaning, and which now stands in Edward Bok's study.

"Finally the end came," he said, "after—well, months. To some it seemed years," said Mr. Beecher, and his eyes looked tired.

"Well," he continued, "the case went to the jury: the men, you know, who had to decide. There were twelve of them."

"Was it necessary that all twelve should think alike?" asked the boy.

"That was what was hoped, my boy," said Mr. Beecher—"that was what was hoped," he repeated.

"Well, they did, didn't they?" Edward asked, as Mr. Beecher stopped.

"Nine did," he replied. "Yes; nine did. But three didn't. Three thought—" Mr. Beecher stopped and did not finish the sentence. "But nine did," he repeated. "Nine to three it stood. That was the decision, and then the judge discharged the jury," he said.

There was naturally one question in the boyish mind to ask the man before him—one question! Yet, instinctively, something within him made him hesitate to ask that question. But at last his curiosity got the better of the still, small voice of judgment.

"And, Mr. Beecher—" the boy began.

But Mr. Beecher knew! He knew what was at the end of the tongue, looked clear into the boy's mind; and Edward can still see him lift that fine head and look into his eyes, as he said, slowly and clearly:

"And the decision of the nine was in exact accord with the facts."

He had divined the question!

As the two rose from the floor that night Edward looked at the clock. It was past midnight; Mr. Beecher had talked for two hours; the boy had spoken hardly at all.

As the boy was going out, he turned to Mr. Beecher sitting thoughtfully in his chair.

"Good night, Mr. Beecher," he said.

The Plymouth pastor pulled himself together, and with that wit that never forsook him he looked at the clock, smiled, and answered: "Good morning, I should say. God bless you, my boy." Then rising, he put his arm around the boy's shoulders and walked with him to the door.



X. The First "Woman's Page," "Literary Leaves," and Entering Scribner's

Mr. Beecher's weekly newspaper "syndicate" letter was not only successful in itself, it made liberal money for the writer and for its two young publishers, but it served to introduce Edward Bok's proposed agency to the newspapers under the most favorable conditions. With one stroke, the attention of newspaper editors had been attracted, and Edward concluded to take quick advantage of it. He organized the Bok Syndicate Press, with offices in New York, and his brother, William J. Bok, as partner and active manager. Edward's days were occupied, of course, with his duties in the Holt publishing house, where he was acquiring a first-hand knowledge of the business.

Edward's attention was now turned, for the first time, to women and their reading habits. He became interested in the fact that the American woman was not a newspaper reader. He tried to find out the psychology of this, and finally reached the conclusion, on looking over the newspapers, that the absence of any distinctive material for women was a factor. He talked the matter over with several prominent New York editors, who frankly acknowledged that they would like nothing better than to interest women, and make them readers of their papers. But they were equally frank in confessing that they were ignorant both of what women wanted, and, even if they knew, of where such material was to be had. Edward at once saw that here was an open field. It was a productive field, since, as woman was the purchasing power, it would benefit the newspaper enormously in its advertising if it could offer a feminine clientele.

There was a bright letter of New York gossip published in the New York Star, called "Bab's Babble." Edward had read it, and saw the possibility of syndicating this item as a woman's letter from New York. He instinctively realized that women all over the country would read it. He sought out the author, made arrangements with her and with former Governor Dorscheimer, owner of the paper, and the letter was sent out to a group of papers. It was an instantaneous success, and a syndicate of ninety newspapers was quickly organized.

Edward followed this up by engaging Ella Wheeler Wilcox, then at the height of her career, to write a weekly letter on women's topics. This he syndicated in conjunction with the other letter, and the editors invariably grouped the two letters. This, in turn, naturally led to the idea of supplying an entire page of matter of interest to women. The plan was proposed to a number of editors, who at once saw the possibilities in it and promised support. The young syndicator now laid under contribution all the famous women writers of the day; he chose the best of the men writers to write on women's topics; and it was not long before the syndicate was supplying a page of women's material. The newspapers played up the innovation, and thus was introduced into the newspaper press of the United States the "Woman's Page."

The material supplied by the Bok Syndicate Press was of the best; the standard was kept high; the writers were selected from among the most popular authors of the day; and readability was the cardinal note. The women bought the newspapers containing the new page, the advertiser began to feel the presence of the new reader, and every newspaper that could not get the rights for the "Bok Page," as it came to be known, started a "Woman's Page" of it own. Naturally, the material so obtained was of an inferior character. No single newspaper could afford what the syndicate, with the expense divided among a hundred newspapers, could pay. Nor had the editors of these woman's pages either a standard or a policy. In desperation they engaged any person they could to "get a lot of woman's stuff." It was stuff, and of the trashiest kind. So that almost coincident with the birth of the idea began its abuse and disintegration; the result we see in the meaningless presentations which pass for "woman's pages" in the newspaper of to-day.

This is true even of the woman's material in the leading newspapers, and the reason is not difficult to find. The average editor has, as a rule, no time to study the changing conditions of women's interests; his time is and must be engrossed by the news and editorial pages. He usually delegates the Sunday "specials" to some editor who, again, has little time to study the ever-changing women's problems, particularly in these days, and he relies upon unintelligent advice, or he places his "woman's page" in the hands of some woman with the comfortable assurance that, being a woman, she ought to know what interests her sex.

But having given the subject little thought, he attaches minor importance to the woman's "stuff," regarding it rather in the light of something that he "must carry to catch the women"; and forthwith he either forgets it or refuses to give the editor of his woman's page even a reasonable allowance to spend on her material. The result is, of course, inevitable: pages of worthless material. There is, in fact, no part of the Sunday newspaper of to-day upon which so much good and now expensive white paper is wasted as upon the pages marked for the home, for women, and for children.

Edward Bok now became convinced, from his book-publishing association, that if the American women were not reading the newspapers, the American public, as a whole, was not reading the number of books that it should, considering the intelligence and wealth of the people, and the cheap prices at which books were sold. He concluded to see whether he could not induce the newspapers to give larger and more prominent space to the news of the book world.

Owing to his constant contact with authors, he was in a peculiarly fortunate position to know their plans in advance of execution, and he was beginning to learn the ins and outs of the book-publishing world. He canvassed the newspapers subscribing to his syndicate features, but found a disinclination to give space to literary news. To the average editor, purely literary features held less of an appeal than did the features for women. Fewer persons were interested in books, they declared; besides, the publishing houses were not so liberal advertisers as the department stores. The whole question rested on a commercial basis.

Edward believed he could convince editors of the public interest in a newsy, readable New York literary letter, and he prevailed upon the editor of the New York Star to allow him to supplement the book reviews of George Parsons Lathrop in that paper by a column of literary chat called "Literary Leaves." For a number of weeks he continued to write this department, and confine it to the New York paper, feeling that he needed the experience for the acquirement of a readable style, and he wanted to be sure that he had opened a sufficient number of productive news channels to ensure a continuous flow of readable literary information.

Occasionally he sent to an editor here and there what he thought was a particularly newsy letter just "for his information, not for sale." The editor of the Philadelphia Times was the first to discover that his paper wanted the letter, and the Boston Journal followed suit. Then the editor of the Cincinnati Times-Star discovered the letter in the New York Star, and asked that it be supplied weekly with the letter. These newspapers renamed the letter "Bok's Literary Leaves," and the feature started on its successful career.

Edward had been in the employ of Henry Holt and Company as clerk and stenographer for two years when Mr. Cary sent for him and told him that there was an opening in the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons, if he wanted to make a change. Edward saw at once the larger opportunities possible in a house of the importance of the Scribners, and he immediately placed himself in communication with Mr. Charles Scribner, with the result that in January, 1884, he entered the employ of these publishers as stenographer to the two members of the firm and to Mr. Edward L. Burlingame, literary adviser to the house. He was to receive a salary of eighteen dollars and thirty-three cents per week, which was then considered a fair wage for stenographic work. The typewriter had at that time not come into use, and all letters were written in long-hand. Once more his legible handwriting had secured for him a position.

Edward Bok was now twenty-one years of age. He had already done a prodigious amount of work for a boy of his years. He was always busy. Every spare moment of his evenings was devoted either to writing his literary letter, to the arrangement or editing of articles for his newspaper syndicate, to the steady acquirement of autograph letters in which he still persisted, or to helping Mr. Beecher in his literary work. The Plymouth pastor was particularly pleased with Edward's successful exploitation of his pen work; and he afterward wrote: "Bok is the only man who ever seemed to make my literary work go and get money out of it."

Enterprise and energy the boy unquestionably possessed, but one need only think back even thus far in his life to see the continuous good fortune which had followed him in the friendships he had made, and in the men with whom his life, at its most formative period, had come into close contact. If we are inclined to credit young Bok with an ever-willingness to work and a certain quality of initiative, the influences which played upon him must also be taken into account.

Take, for example, the peculiarly fortuitous circumstances under which he entered the Scribner publishing house. As stenographer to the two members of the firm, Bok was immediately brought into touch with the leading authors of the day, their works as they were discussed in the correspondence dictated to him, and the authors' terms upon which books were published. In fact, he was given as close an insight as it was possible for a young man to get into the inner workings of one of the large publishing houses in the United States, with a list peculiarly noted for the distinction of its authors and the broad scope of its books.

The Scribners had the foremost theological list of all the publishing houses; its educational list was exceptionally strong; its musical list excelled; its fiction represented the leading writers of the day; its general list was particularly noteworthy; and its foreign department, importing the leading books brought out in Great Britain and Europe, was an outstanding feature of the business. The correspondence dictated to Bok covered, naturally, all these fields, and a more remarkable opportunity for self-education was never offered a stenographer.