The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-02-19
fsnecial Corresnonoence.l

Especial Corresponoence.)
New York, Feb. 1S.-Mr. Frank r
Stockton is again making a kind OF
transient home in this city, as he Is
apt to do for two or three months each
winter. He is devoted TO a country life;
and in his commodious home at Con-
vent Station, near Morristown, n. J., he
has all the interior comfort and vide
pleasant outlook that a man could re-
Quire to keep him IN the temper to
write cheerful and humorous stories
But Mr.. Stockton is no recluse; he likes
company and social diversion, and,
moreover, he was born in Philadelphia,
and through his boyhood and his early
manhood lived pretty constantly in the
city, so a term of strict city life now
and then remains rather necessity
with him. He is far from losing ali
connections with it, even when he is at
his country home; for it is only the or
binary daily journey of the suburbaner
away. But he cannot then so certainly
be counted on to appear at social 1unc-
tiOnS and the various literary enter
tainments and gatherings for which he
is always in request. When he Is stay
ing in town, he IS. for example, one OF
the most faithful of the members OF
the Authors club. appearing at the
fortnightly social meetings about as
unfaiingly as anyone; but after he
has got back home, there must be come
rather special occasion TO insure his
presence. l once heard of his saying
that the city is no place in which to
find stories: and when you think of 1t,
the small part that the city and strict
city life have in his stories is quite re-
markable. They are. for the most part,
of the suburbs, the country and the
sea
There IS no really good portrait of Mr..
m
served near by, his living face has a
peculiar and positive interest; there Is
distinct character in ii, and extreme
sensibility. But much of this gets lost
in the pictures~
1t is. perhaps, not generally suspected
that the recent boom" in Wall street
has had a. direct effect upon literature.
y few evenings ago a friend of Ed
mund Clarence Stedman's explained his
absence from an entertainment at
which he was expected by saying that
since the great tear of business IN Wall
street came on Mir. Stedman went home
so completely tired out at night that
he had TO deny himself evening diver
sions. For upward of thirty years now
Mir. Stedman has been in active bust
ness in Wall street as a broker, keep
ing Office hours and following the turns
Of the market with the scrUDulousness
fortune of his clasS-nOW a delightful
flow OF prosperity, and now a grizzling,
Wrinlxling turn of adversely. The lat
p est tide, apparently, is prosperous; and,
for myself 1 hope there will be no de-
parture from that for the amiable poet
henceforward TO the end. On leaving
college, forty-fiVe years ago, Mr.. Sted-
man became editor of a newspaper in
Norwich. Conn. Later he conducted a
newspaper at Winsted, in the same
state. Then he made trial of fortune
as an author in New York. The ven
ture ended as Such ventures usually
end, by the adventures settling down
TO regular work on some newspaper.
Mr. Stedman was an editorial writer
for a time, and then, through the first
three years of the civil war, a. CORE
spondent in the field. Finding little
satisfaction for genuine literary aSDir-
atoms in all this, he finally took uD
his present calling, as one that prom
ised a comfortable, and possibly a gen.
erous livelihood. because of the short
ness of the stock brokers' business day,
fair leisure for literary work.
From calculations of this sOTt-and
they have been made by many another
literary man beside Mr.. Stedman-
there is apt to follow some diSapDoint-
ment. Business. in its occupation and
exhaustion OF the mind. if not of the
hands, so inevitably Outruns the stated
business hours, that the preallotment
for writing and study is never fully,
and often scarcely at all, realized. Mr.
Stedman, l have no doubt, has found
il so. But he has no just reason 10
feel otherwise than cheerful when he
makes review of what he has been able
TO accomplish as an author since he
went into Wall street. Beside Droduc-
ing the larger and perhaps more not
able part of his poetry, he has produced
Of faD u
really distinguished books in literary
criticism by Americans writer's; and,
in addition, he has done some large ard
important tasks as an editor of volumes
and series of volumes.
Mr.. Stedman'S present home, as 1
think l may have mentioned in this
correspondence, is at BronXville, a
nearby suburb. where he has for neigh
bors Mr. VIII H Lowe and other artists
and authors. 1t is not so far out but
that he is often seen at the Century
and Authors clubs and various liter
airy and social gatherings. He is a
small man with an abundance of now
almost white hair and beard; a pair of
lively black, or at least very dark eyes,
and a fairly youthful lightness of step
and movement.
7 have just been accorded as a spe-
cial favor a glimpse into the manu-
twelve years horrible captivity at ON
durham. Neufeld, it viii be remember
ed. is the German nglishman who was
set free from the khalifa's letters and
prison last September by Kitcheners
final overthrow of the dervishes and
capture of Omdurman, or Khartoum
within a week of his getting back 70
Cairo, after being set at liberty, he be-
gan to dictate the narrative of his
twelve years of suffering; and this is
the story 1 have just read. The ar
rangements for its publication in this
country are, I think, not yet fully COM
pleted; but it viii. undoubtedly, be put
out in book form, both here and in
England. some time this spring.
IF there We're any room to doubt the
fact, one would find it impossible TO
believe that there still survived in the
world people who had the disposition
and the power to practice upon a man,
through so long Il period, such barbara
ties as NeUfeld suffered. He was not
simply confined in the beastliest Of pris-
ons, but part Of the time he was chain
ed, ana all Of the time he was fettered
there: and the thing continued. as 1
have said, FOR twelve years. When Neu-
field was captured by the followers Of
the mahdi in the spring of 1887, he had
gone south from Cairo on q private
trading expedition. But he had pre-