Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1892-09-15
ev YorE Evening Post Of August glst.

who have eudeayored to redeem our
civil service from the basenCss of q
partisan system of rewards and punish
ments, was born in Providence, II. l.,
February gath, 1924, and was thus, as il
were, sealed from his birth to that ''sou
liberty" Of Roger William proclamation
which was watchword often on his
lips. With Lowell's birthday on the
Bod of the same month, and Long
fellows on the 9th, there was here u
pleasant omen of the friendly nearness
Of these men that would enrich his life
Lowell's the nearer that the omen might
not lack anything of exactness. On his
fathers side he came of Il family that
bad long been honorably known in
Worcester, Mass, and his father, George
Curtis, was man of pronounced bust
ness faculty. His mother was daugh-
ter of James Burrill, Jr., at one time
United States senator from Rhode
Island, and at another chief justice Of
the state; and hence we may imagine
that direction of his blood which tended
10 q life of public interests rather than
one of mercantile pursuits. The latter
would have pleased his father more, and
10 this end, in 1889, after the boy had
been to a boarding-schoOl near Boston
for four years and with Il private tutor
for another, he was placed in German
importing house in New York. In these
years he had lost his mother, and his
father had married again and come to
New York TO engage in banking. The
boys school life at Jamaica Plain is
supposed to be freely rendered in the
opening chapters of "Hrumps," Mr..
Curtis only novel (1S5S-'9), and not
his most successful book.
BY this time the transcendcntal move
ment was in full swing, and young
Curtis interest in it soon became much
deeper than his interest in the routine
of business, and he broke away in 1910
and went to Brook Farm, where he re-
NAMED about four years. This episode
afforded him acquaintance with llaw-
thorne, Margaret Fuller, Ripley, Elmer
son, Alcott, Parker and many other per-
manent residents or transient visitors at
the farm, and laid up for him store of
happy recollection, on which he drew
delightfully."- in his later years in CONVEX
sation aud the lucubratiuns of his EASY
Chair" with much graVer matter, tell
ing of his exploits in washing dishes
and how he danced the clothes-pins
from his pockets in the evenings Joyous
round. From Brook Farm he passed TO
Concord, Mass, and there for two years
increased his intimacy with Emerson,
ThoTeau and Hawthorne, the last named
at ambrosial feasts in EmersOn's parlor,
"riding his horse of the night in silence
for the most part--in whatever com.
pany, alone. In his "Homes of Ameri-
can Authors" Mr.. Curtis memory of
these years helped him to many II vivid
stroke; among others, to that tragic in
,cidcnt of a pool. girl who drowned her.
self, which furnished Hawthorne with
the basis of his drowning OF Zenobia III
"rhc Blithedale Romance"
his ONLY TOUR ABROAD.
From August 1916, until August,
1850, Mr.. Curtis was in Europe, and he
never went again and never felt any
pressing inclination to do so, though
few travellers have enjoyed it more. 1t
may well have been, especially in the
later years, because he knew that il
would be ''anothcr Garrow," and
another everything, if he went again;
for times had changed and modes of
travel with them; where he had gone
by diligence or on foot the railway
brought invading swarms, and the trail
four years in Europe never ceased TO be
for him treasury from which he drew
the lovcliest things, yet was it always
full. His itinerary, even for those times
was of uncommon interest; for it took
him first to Italy, then to Switzerland
Germany, Holland, Egypt, Palestine
and to Egypt on the eve Of his return
and it conceded with period of grca
10 of la Init -
In Italy, with others, he risked danger
Gus walk from Como to Milan, and he
was in Berlin at the time of the outbreak
and saw that most impressive sight, the
collins of hundred or more of the deat
revolutionists borne in long procession
ON tile shoulders of their comrades t
their burial. When the soldiery werC
ordered to fire at any head that APP
peared at a window, Mr.. Curtis drew
back daring friend just in the nick o
time. He had delightful companions
varying from time to time; at one tim
DIR. h. II. Hedge and g. +. Cranch, a
another Rev. Francis Tiffany, and il
Venice he enjoyed season of the rares
, pleasure with Kensett, Thomas Kick
and others of their kind. He made man,
acquaintance that were an honor to hi
youth and growing satisfaction to III
maturer years; the Brownngs possiblr
the most precious of them all. The man
,ner of his meeting them is related in on
of the EASY Chair" papers, included il
tine select volume of them published il
1891.
But Mr.. Curtis travels were of NOR
importance because of the literary frui
they bore than because of fanny enjoymen
that he reaped from them at the imme
diate time. This fruit-the Nile Notes
and the Howadji in Syria'-was of al
eastern daintiness which melted in tn
mouth; they were not the stuff to brac
the intellectual or moral man; but the
were no vain repititions of a them
which, even then, was not unworn; the
were fantasies upon it which involve
every concrete detail in rosy mists c
fancy and conceit. The manner was nc
unrelated to other writing of the time
N but it had the stamp of individual taller
upon every page. Here, as in 'Pru
,and l. sentiment was pushed to til
~ verge of sentimentalism, but not GcroS
1.-THE line. The Nile Notes were pull
,lished in 1861, and the Howadii
Syria in 1862; and the latter gave
~ Mr.. Curtis a sObriquet that chung to Hit
for many years and into period whic
had little in common with the dream
Ilanguor of the Howadji. While NJ
Curtis was abroad he furnished occt
lsional letters to the New York Tim
and Tribnns, of which his friends Henri
PA j. Raymond and Charles A. Dana wei
then managing editors. His first literar
work after his return was in the way {
musical criticism for the Tribune, an
simultaneously, or soon after, he wrot