The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-07-26
in THE LITERARY FIELD
FAMOUS CENTER OF BosTON's IN
TELLECTUAL LIFE.
A Good Novelist Not Likely to Make
Successful Observation-Disclosures
Matthews on Language.
rhe passing of the famous Boston institu-

The passing of the famous Boston institu-
ton. the "Old Corner Book Store" has led
to a reproduction in Boston papers OF this
tribute to the place, written many years ago
by George William Curtis:
THE annals OF publishing and the tradi-
tons of publishers in this country will
always mention the little Corner Book
Store in Boston, as you turn out of Wash
ingron street into School street, and those
who recall it IL other days will always
remember the curtained desk at which poet
and philosopher and historian and divine.
and the doubling, timid young author, were
sure 10 see the bright face and hear the
hearty welcome OF James L. Fields. What
crowded busy shop il was with the
shelves full of books and piles of books upon
the counters and tables, and loiterers tast-
lng them with their eyes and turning the
glossy new pages-loiterers at whom you
looked curiously, suspecting them to be
makers or books as well as readers. You
knew that you might be seeing there in
the flesh and in common clothes the famous
men ana women whose genius ana skill
made the old world a new world for every
one upon whom their spell lay. Suddenly,
from behind the green curtain, came a rip
pie OF Laughter; then burst, chorus; gay
voices OF two or three more, but always of
one-the one who sat at the desk and whose
place was behind the curtain, the literary
partner of the house the friend of the cell
ebrated circle which has made the Boston
or the middle of this century as justly re-
nowned as the Edinburgh of the close of the
century, the EdlnDurgn tnat saw burns,
but did not know him. That curtained cor
ner in the Corner Book Store is remembered
by those who knew it in its great days, as
Beaumont recalled the revels at the inmor-
tai tavern:
what things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! Heard words that
have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As II that every one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in JEST!
let hot finn hat
and story. Not only the poet brought his
poem there. still glowing from his heart, but
the lecturer came from the train with his
freshest touches of local humor. 1t was
the exchange of w.t. the RialtO of current
good things, the hub of the hub.
And 1t was the work of one man. Fields
was the genius loci. Fields, with his gentle
spirit, his generous and ready sympathy,
his love of letters and of literary men, his
fine taste, his delightful humor, his bust
ness tact and Skill drew, a magnet
draws its own, every kind OF man. the shy
and the elusive, as we'll as the gay men of
the world and the self-possessed favorites
of the people. 1t was his pride to have so
many OF the American worthless upon his
list OF authors, to place there if he could
the English poets and 'belles-lettres' writ
ers, and then to call them all personal
friends: Next year it will be forty years
since the house at the Corner Book Store
issued the two pretty volumes of Tenny
sons poems which introduced Tennyson to
America. Barry Cornwall followed in the
SdIHt uIcSS. lneN Caught All the SlfSlIS
birds at that corner and hung them up in
the pretty cages so that everybody might
hear the song. Transcendentalism and
The Dial were active also at the same
time. The idyl of Brook Farm was pro-
ceeding in the West Roxbury uplands and
meadows on the shores OF the placid
Charles. The Abolitionists were kindling
the national conscience of Chardon-street
Chapel and Marlborough Chapel. Theo-
dore Parker was appalling the staid pull
pits and docile pews. There was a univer-
sal moral and intellectual fermentation,
but at the Corner Book Store the distinct
i've voice was that of pure literature and
hospitable toward all and with open
| heart of admiration for the fervent re-
| formers, Fields had also the most humor-
Gus appreciation of the apostles of the
newness, but minded with zeal what he
| felt to be especially his own business.
1T was very remarkable group of men
indeed, 1T was the first group of really
| great American authors-which Familiarity
| frequented the corner as the guests of
| Fields. There had been Bryant and Irving
| and Cooper, and Haleck, and Paulding.
| and Willis in New York, but there had
| been nothing like the New England circle.
| 1t was that circle which compelled the
world TO acknowledge that there was an
American literature. OF most of these
authors the house at the corner came to be
| the publishers, and to the end they main
tanned the warmeSt relations with Fields,
| who not their publisher only, but
| their apprecative and sympathetic friend. -