The Portland daily press., 1891-12-18
MoNcURE o. CONWAY INTERVIEWED.
BE Is Living i'm the City of New York
and Is by No Means Idle.

BE Is Living i'm the City of New York
and Is by No Means Idle.
Especial Correspondence
NEW YORK, Dec. 10.-As the represen-
tative of your paper l called on Mr.. Mon
cure Daniel Conway few days ago. /
found him at twilight in his beautiful
and interesting study, the broad win
dows and balconies of which overlook
Central park. for MIR. Conway lives
in one of those palacelike apartment
houses on Fifty-ninth street, west.
On the walls of that study hang the
portraits of many of the distinguished
men of literature, progressive thought
and enlarged personal influence with
whom Mr.. 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 Mr.. 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 well filed with pic
lures, among them original paintings by
Corot. Millet, Edouard Frere, Courbet,
Turner, Landseer; and there is a fine
portrait of Mrs. Conway by Arthur
Hughes, of London. There are some
parcfo,1 ~, L
jects of interest, among them leaf of
DO 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, Mr.. Conway
showed me and talked to me about with
the kindness and grave courtesy of
Virginia gentleman of the old SCHOOL,
mean the social school of the Washing
tons, Fairfaxes and Custises.
In allusion to his Persian pictures and
the leaf of the DO tree, Mr.. Conway re-
marked, 81 have always kept up my in
terest in religious thought, though lately
! 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.
Mr.. 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 Mr.. 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, Mr.. Con-
way believes, that his opinions, which
were considered obnoxious in the past.
will be thought rather conservative by
many who have a traditional horror Of
his very name.
In addition to this biography, on which
Mr.. 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 manuscript, History
of Virginia" by Edmund Randolph, Sec
rotary of state under Washington. This
is now treasure of the Virginia Histori-
cal society. 1t has never seen the light,
but it was referred to by William Writ
in his "Life of Patrick Henry"
"This is intrusted to me-" said Mr..
Conway ''by the Virginia Historical So
ciety, although before the war, on ac-
count of my antislavery opinions, which
date from 1854, was considered stray
sheep in Virginia and in the south. But
am, for all that, deeply attached to my
native state, and very anxious to con-
tribute something to the proper revision
and calculation of it's history-a noble
history. come naturally by that feel
ing, having been born in the region of
the Washingtons, Monroes, Madisons
and Lees"
will here mention what the modesty
of Mr.. Conway forbids him to tell, that
he is descendant of the Washington
family on the paternal side, while his
great-grandfather on the mothers side
was Thomas Stone, of Maryland, one of
the signers Of the Declaration of Inde.
pendence.
Mr.. Conway said he found himself
increasingly fond of New York as a
place of residence" Familiar as he is
with all the other great cities of the
world, he now finds more novelty and
variety here than anywhere else, and it's
literary opportunities very large.
His family consists OF his wife, son,
who is 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 it's ''neighborhood guilds"
E. V. BATTEY.