Arizona republican., 1891-12-27


 portraits of many of the distinguished men of literature, progressive thought and enlarged personal influence with whom Mir. Conway has been acquainted and more or less intimately associated in one way or another in the past. From his walls look down upon you the pictured faces of Tennyson, Emerson, Carlyle, Moreau, Lindley, Mill, Wen dell Phillips, Browning and Fanny Wright. This last picture was present. ed to Mir, Conway by the widow of the old London bookseller who suffered so much persecution for publishing radical books. Several of the other portraits were presented by the originals or by members of their families. Indeed, the rooms and hall are we'll filled with pic lures, among them original paintings by Corot, Millet, Edouard Frere, Courbet, Turner, Landseer; and there is fine portrait of Mrs. Conway by Arthur Hughes, of London. There are some curious Persian paintings and other ob- jects of interest, among them leaf of bo tree of India, supposed to be descend ed from that under which the teacher himself satan emblem held by the Buddhists in sanctity resembling that of the cross among Christians.
 All these treasures, the collections of a busy, thoughtful life, MT. Conway showed me and talked to me about with the kindness and grave courtesy of a Virginia gentleman of the old school-l mean the social school of the Washing tons, Fairfaxes and Custises,
 In allusion to his Persian pictures and the leaf of the bo tree, MT. Conway re- marked, "I have always kept up my in terest in religious thought, though lately I have been writing history and biog- raphy." He had much pleasure in writ ing while in Rome recently Life of Hawthorne. In answer to inquiries he told me that he was at present carrying through the press Life of Thomas Paine" For this large and critical work he had been gathering materials for some years. It will, he hopes, be pub lished in January by Messrs. Putnam.
 Mir, Conway visited the birthplace of Paine-Thetford England-and followed his footsteps through that country and France. The book will contain much that is thrilling, for Paine was an actor in the French as well as in the American Revolution. In this work Mir Conway said he had been assisted by English clergymen in obtaining information in their parishes. When the life of Paine is published it will be found, Mir. Con- way believes, that his opinions, which were considered obnoxious in the past, will be thought rather conservative by many who have traditional horror of his very name.
 | In addition to this biography, on which | Mir. Conway has been at work since his return last year from twelve months sojourn in Europe, novel by him has appeared Prisons of Air" When his Paine is finished he expects to take up the task of editing a manuscript, History of Virginia" by Edmund Randolph, sec- retary of state under Washington. This is now treasure of the Virginia Histori. cal society. It has never seen the light, but it was referred to by William Wirt | III HIS lLllt Ol dlIlCh
 "This is intrusted to me-" said Mir. | Conway "by the Virginia Historical so. ciety, although before the war, on ac- count of my antislavery opinions, which date from 1854, was considered a stray sheep in Virginia and in the south. But l am, for all that, deeply attached to my native state, and very anxious to con tribute something to the proper revision and elucidation of its history-a noble history. come naturally by that feel ing, having been born in the region of the Washingtons, Monroes, Madisons and Lees"
 l will here mention what the modesty of Mir. Conway forbids him to tell, that he is a descendant of the Washington family on the paternal side, while hii great-grandfather on the mothers sids was Thomas Stone, of Maryland one oi the signers of the Declaration of Inde pendence
 Mir. Conway said he found himself increasingly fond of New York as place of residence" Familiar as he is with all the other great cities of tho world, he now finds more novelty anC variety here than anywhere else, and it' literary opportunities very large.
 His family consis of his wife, a son. who is a practicing lawyer in New York and his daughter, Miss Mildred Conway who although quite young, just past her teens, shows her heredity and the infu. ence of her fathers example and cult, having already identified herself with the charities of New York and assisted in the foundation and development and the movements of its ''neighborhood guilds.
 E. V. BATTEY.