Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-10
FRANK IN HIS VIEWS
Some Opinions of the Late
Leslie Stephen.
WAS A VOLUMINOUS WRITER
Relations With His American FrienIs
Described.
HIS VISITS TO WASHINGTON
Irreverent References to the Men Who
Were Prominent in Public
Affairs at the Time.
WAS A VOLUMINOUS WRITER
HIS VISITS TO WASHINGTON
BY WILLIAM r. CURTIS.

written Tor ne Star ana the Chicago hecoru-
Herald
Personal memoirs are out of fashion
Men of genius and fame, men who think
and act these days, do not have time to
keep diaries. and they dictate their CORE
spondence as briefly possible to stenog
raphers. But occasionally some exceptional
person pursues the polite art of letter
writing in the old-fashloned style and dis
closes his thoughts and theories to admir-
ing friends in photographic communications.
Such a man was Leslie Stephen. the fa-
Eious English journalist and author, friend
and crony of James Bryce. now British
ambassador to Washington: James Russell
Lowell oliver Wendell Holmes. Charles
Elliot Norton, Thomas Carlyle, John Nor
ley, Dean Stanley. j. A Froude. Charles
Darwin. George Eliot, Matthew Arnold,
Robert Louis Stevenson and other men and
women who admired lis genius, tolerated
his eccentricities and recognized him, as
Mr.. Lowell said. to De the most lovable
OF men, Mr.. Bryce once said: II do not
suppose that any of US will ever know any
man more high-minded and pure-minded
in small things and great. and Charles
Matthews wrote: Under a somewhat
brusque exterior he concealed one of the
sweetest and kindest hearts ever given to
the sons of men,
Genius has many privileges that are not
allowed to common clay, and Leslie Stephen
did and said much that could never have
been forgiven In an ordinary man. Even
the loving sympathy OF his biographer
cannot conceal the fact that he was what
We are accustomed to call crank" but
few examples of that species of human
kind were ever SO brilliant and fascinating
The Late Leslie Stephen.
The Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen"
by Frederick William Maitland. professor
at Cambridge. fills volume of 800 pages.
illustrated with three portraits of the hero
and one each of his two wives. His first
wife was Harriet Marian Thackeray,
daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray.
the author and his second wife was Mrs.
Herbert Duckworth the widow of his dear
est friend and next-door neghbor who had
known him from childhood. Both were
women of exceptional attraction, mental
and physical. and both contributed to the
happiness of Leslie Stephen in an unusual
degree.
He was the son of Sir James Stephen.
eminent at the bar. eminent in British pub
lie life. member of her majesty's prfvy coun-
ell, under-secretary of state for the colonies
in the British cabinet for many years,
regius professor of modern history at Cam
bridge, and author of many historical and
other literary works. The grandmother
of Leslie Stephen was daughter of VIII
liam Wilberforce. philanthropist, statesman
and orator, leader of the anti-sfavery SEN
tirnent of his generation. From him
slave system in the United States and. for
that reason, without considering others, he
was an intense partisan of the Union during
our civil war. He was educated for the
ministry at Cambridge, and took orders,
and for a time was an instructor there,
but he never had charge of a parish, and
afterward became an agnostic.
After leaving Cambridge he devoted his
life to literary work and mountain climbing.
He was president of the Alpine Club. and
spent nearly every summer of his life In
Switzerland. He began his literary career
as a writer for the Pail Mall Gazette. the
Saturday Review and other English periodi-
calls. was editor of the Cornhill Magazine
for many years, edited the works of Thack-
cray. his father-ln-law. also those of Henry
Fielding and Samuel Richardson. The last
important literary work of his life was as
editor of the monumental English Diction-
airy of Biography. He died In 1904. The
list of his published work covers several
pages in the catalogues; he wrote biog-
raphies of Samuel Johnson. Alexander
Pope. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Dean Swift,
Henry Fawcett. George Eliot and Robert
Louis Stevenson. He wrote eight ten
books about Switzerland and the Alps, and
his essays upon political. theological. bio
graphical and other subjects fill number
of volumes.