El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-08-24
Edward Everett Hale


| rotary at Z, sometimes at b O'CLOCK.
After an hour of solid work there
comes a hearty breakfast, and then
more work, letters, sermons, editori-
done, and then, at 9 or 10 o'clock, the
secretary is left to put the dictation
into typewriting aud the doctor goes
abroad for q walk, for pastoral visits,
and at O'Clock there Is dinner. Then
follows invariably q nap. No; not q
nap, but sound sleep of an hour or
more, which must not be disturbed un-
the afternoon the mornings work is
revised, and more put under way, and
in the evening only q very important
meeting can coax him away from
home, for he insists that that sleep
upon which he 80 much depends
must begin again at 10 o'clock.
When you have talked with him on
the subject for q while it is easy to be-
lieve that the Hundred Year club have
to adopt but two rules; lots OF sleep
and frequent nourishing meals.
This IS scattering way of writing .
story about DIR. Hale, for have so far
nek elected the conventional record OF
the place of his birth; and 1t should
have suggested itself readily, for it
happens that he was born April 8,
1922, in q house which stood directly
underneath the room in the Parker
house, Boston, where I am now writ
ing; .. no+ .,an
did not 60 to school" he says, and it is
fact that he was lisping away at
Latin in the famous Latin school of
this city when he was four years of
age and entered Harvard at thirteen!
He has some very interesting things to
say of the Harvard of 1869.
sit was simply a somewhat enlarged
country academy" he says. 1.-THE won
the rooms in which they recited, as
they would have done in such an aca-
denny. The distinction that you stud
led your lesson in your own room and
recited itin another building was the
principal distinction between the work
at the Boston Latin school and the work
you did in college,"
But there was another distinction,
which he makes in Lowell and His
Friends,'' which accounts in some
measure for the literary activity in New
England of those days:
"Let it be remembered, then, that
the whole drift of fashion, occupation
and habit among the undergraduates
ran in lines suggested by literature.
Athletics and sociology are, I suppose,
now the fashion at Cambridge. Not
five men in college then saw q daily
newspaper, for nobody cared for po-
litics. The books which the fellows
took out of the library, the books which
sciences, nor history, nor sociology,
nor politics; they were books of litera-
ture.n
DR.. Hale tells q story of q visit he
made to West Point in 1910 with the
afterward famous poet and artist, W..
W. Story, which illustrates how
science was Studied" in Harvard in
the '30s.
"We enjoyed" he says, ssto the full
the maschless hospitality of West Point
under the special care of two young
officers who had just finished their
course as we had just finished ours.
Story afterward said to me: Ned how
did you dare to tell those officers that
we studied about projectiles at Cam
bridge?"
"'Because we did, said I.
Did ever study projectiles?' ask
ed Story, puzzled.
day and Thursday afternoons as q ju-
nior; blue book with a white back
"'And was / studying projectiles
then?' asked Story"
Here is story of Lowell which re-
calls Arthur Pendennis' experience in
hearing the engaging Miss Amory
sing some of his verses in Grosvenor
place. James Russell Lowell's early
volume of verses. 1.-THE Years Life"
was not warmly received by the public,
so young Hale, Story. King and some
other of ,he poets frienos conspired
with their sisters to have one of the
sets of verses, The serenade," Sc. to
music and sung as a surprise for Lo-
we'll.
''As the we'll known words rang
through the room,'' says DR.. Hale. sit
was delightful to watch James face
surprise, pleasure, tremulous feeling,
and finally a look of delight spread
over it.
Probably when all England asked
President Cleveland not to recall
James Russell Lowell from the court
OF ST. James the poet diplomat felt less
pride and pleasure than in that first
singing of his early verses.
DR.. Hale has given this view of EN-
erson when he was the subject of ridi-
Guile. Emerson, who was to be little
less than worshiped by New England,
at Harvard!
sin 1887 the word 'trauscenden talist'
wac new, and it was considered good
for m to ridicule the 'transcendentalist'
and especially to ridicule Emerson.
When he spoke in 1887 the Grafton was
received in certain patronizing way
by his seniors. After thirty years EN-
erson was in the zenith of his fame.
He was the Buddhs of the west'---that
is DIR. Holmes phrase. He was the
Yankee Plato'-I believe that is Lo-
WELLS"
Only one more story of DIR. Hale's of
early days. 1t is a good Lincoln story
in itself. and shows that the "fashion
for literature" at Harvard in ante-bel-
lum days excluded what would seem
to have been q reasonable knowledge
Of contemporary events. Mr.. Hale him
self says it illustrates the narrowness
Of New England conservatism at that
time"