The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-09-19
Mr.. Curtis's Early Newport DayA
boston Transcript

L
It is of Mr. Curtis as associated with
Newport that [ would like to say few
words, and in order to do so shall have
to go back into the dim past, when my
recollections of him begin here, in the
early fifties. Mr.. Curtis was gay young
man Of society in those early days-and
the writer of the present article was in
her sixth year.
Although he was fond of parties and
balls, as is the average young man,
healthy in body and mind. his tastes drew
him towards literary people, as is nat
ural in one who was already an author.
Instead of spending the summer at one
Of the vast hotels which then contained
Viewpoints summer population, he lived
at the Old Cliff House a delightful but
primitive hostelry, near the site of which
the present Cliff House and cottages are
built. Here were gathered together, dur
ing the season of which 1 speak, a rare
summer party of friends including the
poet Longfellow and his beautiful wife,
Mr.. Tom Appleton, Mr.. and Mrs. Free
man. the artists, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe,
Mr. Curtis, and others.
A photograph is still in existence of
this merry group, in which all are smil-
ing-probably at some bon-mot of Mr..
Appleton's- and Longfellow wearing a
high stove-pipe hat of the absurd shape
then in fashion, looks benign and beam
ing, as if he greatly enjoyed the joke of
the thing. For the protracted 'sittings
before the camera, which were necessary
in those days, had to be taken either as a
| most sober and dreadful earnest or as a
huge Jest. ,..,
Howadii'' by his friends, and what a
Howadii might wear was source of
wonder and mystery to my infant mind
I fancy that Mr.. Curtis was a sort of pet
with the rest of the rest of the party, who
were for the most part older than he, and
already married,
Mr.. Curtis's courtship was, in part at
least, carried on on our beautiful island
of Aquidneck; year or two after the
pleasant Cliff House days, there were ru-
mors of his engagement to Miss Anna
Shaw-whom I remember as a handsome
young woman, wearing her hair in curls.
1t is pleasant to think that the romantic
spell Of this peaceful spot was upon
two young people, ana Lna6 Uney perhaps
wandered through it's deep-wooded val
leys and drove together along its quiet
grass-fringed roads, while they were de-
Gliding to take together that longer jour
ney through life which, has just ended for
one of them.
OF the noble struggle which Mr.. Cur
It's made-and made successfully pay
off the debt Of his publishers, for which
he was not responsible, save morally, we
used to hear at times, in the days when I
remember him in his full power as a
brilliant orator, and handsome man, with
brown hair and whiskers, and the finely
formed chin, which he always wore
shaved. Brilliant, confident and win
ming speaker as he was, there must have
been time in the beginning when he
suffered from stage fright, to judge fet m
the following story my mother used
to tell us with much amusement,
how Mr.. Curtis at his first lecture adj
vanced and said, Ladies and gentlemen,
the Pitomless Bott," with a solemnity
which was changed to confusion when
| he perceived his error. For of course he
meant to make an oratorical allusion to
| the Bottomless Pit