Certain American Faces - Sketches From Life

Text extracted from opening pages of book: CERTAIN AMERICAN FACES Sketches from Life BY CHARLES LEWIS SLATTERY NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 68 1 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright, 1918 BY E, P. BUTTON & COMPANY Att Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America PREFACE IN England there have been many collec tions of short sketches of notable char acters in the intellectual and spiritual realm, all the way from the great classic, Walton's Lives, to Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson's Leaves of the Tree, written in our own time. As I was reading with intense pleasure Mr. Benson's book, it came over me that we had in America men not only of equal interior power, but also of equal personal charm, worthy of a similar chron icle; and I wondered if we were going to allow their unique traits to be forgotten. In spite of an impression to the contrary, we in America are far more reticent than our brave English allies: it is painfully difficult tf PREFACE for ty?* 3tV: speak of the ideals and the heroes about whom we care most. We are possibly a little too sensitive to ridicule. We imagine the smiling critic as he takes up our im aginary volume we think we hear him murmur, All very well, this book; but it ought to be called, ' Great Men Who have Known Me.' And forthwith, though we have reverently touched the hem of the gar ments of the saints, we allow the fragrant memory of them to fade from the earth. Most of the names commemorated in this book are well known. Two or three will be strange to almost every reader: I have in cluded them because they represent a group of striking personalities of such real power that they would stand among the renowned of the earth if the appeal of a conspicuousopportunity had come to them, and also be cause they are the sort of people who inspire others to attainment and to action, while they themselves prefer a dimmer light One of the heroes is a boy, his life here finished PREFACE vii before its promise had been tested: these are days when we know the greatness of youth, and exalt the glory of the unfinished. We suspect to what famous tasks the Master of All the Worlds has assigned them in the blessed Country to which they have gone. As one generation passes and another be gins, we, who have known the old leaders, lament that those who are to lead the future did not know face to face the men who in spired us. I remember that once in a college class-room the lecturer broke off from his subject with the remark that, when he was a young man, he and his friends were con stantly looking forward to a new poem by Browning or Tennyson or Matthew Arnold, a new essay by Carlyle, or a new novel by Thackeray; and he wondered how we of a duller age could have any courage or spirit without the incentive which had been his. There is a benevolent motive, therefore, in the attempt to prolong the lives of our heroes and saints. We would have them flash, if viii PREFACE only for an instant, their radiant faces upon the oncoming generation. C. L. S. GRACE CHURCH RECTORY, NEW YORK, 12 October, 1918. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS UNDER the name of Romney Reynolds the chapter in this book on Josiah Royce was published in The Outlook and several of the other sketches were printed in The Churchman. To the Editors of these magazines grateful acknowledgment is made. Thanks are due also to those who have allowed the reproduction of photographs and paintings for the illustrations, especially to Dr. Mixter, the friend of Bishop Brooks, who took the intimate photograph which is the frontispiece, and to Mrs. Rieber, who has just completed for Harvard University the remarkable painting of The Three Harvard Philosophers. CONTENTS I. PHILLIPS BROOKS 3 II. ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY .... 19 III. WILLIAM JAMES . . .? . . . 33 IV. JOSIAH ItOYCE . . . . - . . . .51 V. ALEXANDER VIETS GRISWOLD ALLEN . 67 VI. HENRY SYLVESTER NASH 85 VH. BISHOP WHIPPLE 101 VIDE. Two COUSINS BY MARRIAGE . . . .117 IX. A BOY I KNEW 131 X. A MINNESOTA DOCTOR 147 XI. SAMTJEL HART 161