New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-05-28

RECOlLECTION6 Of NAfIAGHO Lac -.
BY George Cary Eggleston- With poE-
trait. svo PIP. viii, S4 Henry Holt d
I II is a varied life. but above all a busy
one, upon which Mr.. Eggleston looks
back at the age Of threescore and ten.
"Hoosier schoolraaster" at sixteen, law
yer, Confederate cavalryman and officer,
for many years a hard-worked news
paper man in important positions. liter
airy adviser OF publishing houses and
general literary worker" he has to his
credit also as shelfful OF books whose
titles number considerably over thirty.
His rRecollections," while not q formal
autobiography, is yet consecutive re-
view OF his life, with occasional depart
ures from strict chronology when the
reminiscent mood is strong upon him.
IT is this vein Of retrospective anec-
dotes. told in their proper place, re-
gardless of the date Of their occurrence,
which gives the book its cozily intimate
quality. Subjective IL Is not, yet the
author sufficiently, and evidently un-
consciously, analyses himself here and
there most significantly in an early
paragraph, which sounds the note OF
all these pages. He says:
+ have found my fellow men In the main
kindly. just and generous. The chiep pleas,
from my association with them In good
fellowship and all kindness. The very re"
of them who have wronged me nave 1or-
given. The few who have been onenslHe
10 me have forgotten with conscientiously
dilfgent care There has seemed to me TO
be no better thing to do with them.
The early chapters Of these Recollec-
lions form an interesting addition to our
fund Of knowledge of the conditions OF
life in this country In the eighteen
forties, subject upon which much has
been written Of late by Mr.. Eggleston's
reminiscent contemporaries, but to
which much remains to be aided. The
country at that time was AL American
certainly in the West, where even the
few survivors Of the Swiss founders OF
Mr.. Eggleston's birthplace, Vevay, Ind,
foreigners who could not help their in
feriority. He continues:
And yet, in spite of the prevailing con-
viction that everything foreign was in
ferior, the people of the Ohio Valley, who
constituted the most considerable group OF
Western Americans, looked with unapprov-
ing but ardent admiration upon foreign
! life manners and ways of thinking as
these were exemplified in New Orleans. The
men who annually voyaged thither on fat
boats brought back wondering tales or the
strange things seen there. and especially
of the enormous wickedness encountered
among q people who had scarcely heard OF
the religious views accepted among our
selves as unquestiored and unquesionable
truth. ] remember hearing whole ser
mon on the subject once.
Rather unexpected is Mr.. Eggleston' S
reference to the religious animosities Of
that period, with their relentless intol-
erance. their unreason, their matchless
malevolence, and their readiness to be-
lieve evil" this, too. in the midst of a
people whose great virtues he depicts in
glowing colors, the high qualities of the
men and women of Kentucky and Vir-
ginia. Carolina, Pennsylvania and New
England. who came to found the popula-
ton of the Middle West. Provincialism
was rampant in these days. owing to
lack of means of INSTRUMENTATION
We had no national life in the eighteen
I forties. for long afterward-no com
I of mind. The several parts of the country
were a loose bundle of segregated and, in
many ways, antagonistic communities.
: bound together only by a common 10y
/ altys TO the conviction that this was the
/ greatest, most glorious, most fnvincibie
/ country in the world, God-endowed with a
! mental. moral and physical superiority that
4 put all the rest of the earth'S nations
/ completely out of the reckoning. We Were
; all OF US observation-disclosures, self-satisiied,
! self-glorifying AmeTfcans-but we had lit
! tie else in common. The country was pro-
viHcial 10 the rest of the world and still
more narrowly provincial eacn region to
the others. I think, however, that the
! West was less provincial and narrow in
its views and sympathtes than were New
England. the Middle States and the South
! at that time, and this for very suf-
/ ficient reason-the West was common
/ meeting ground.
! This is one of those books which the
reviewer begins to mark approximately
for quotation, only to discover ere long
! that he cannot possibly find room for
half the passages selected. We must
pass over, therefore, with a mere refer
ence Mr.. Eggleston's many revelations
! Of the changes that have been made in
our everyday life since the middle of the
! last century Che reminds us, for in
I stance, of the very recent date OF the in
| PRODUCTION Of the bathtub as an article
Of daily and universal use) and content
/ ourselves Will ITOlfl his Cdplldf
| chapters on his experiences in the Con-
federate army, only his slyly humorous
confession that the book which stopped
a bullet and saved his life was not the
| improving" work Of tradition. but q
copy of 'eTristram Shandy." Referring
TO the unceasing warfare waged between
the oldtime country schoolmaster and his
husky pupils. and speaking with the au-
thority of full knowledge, he says:
There WIS really some justification for
| this attitude of the young Americans in
every such district; for under the old sys-
TEN. as / very well remember IL, the gov
eminent of schools brutal, cruel. in
human in a degree that might in many
cases have excused If IT did not Justify a
homicidal impulse on the part of its VIC
I Tins The boys Of the early time would
! never have grown into the stalwart Ameri-
cans who fought the Civil War IL they
had submitted TO such injustice and SO
resistance they could.
BY far the greater part Of the volume
is, however. devoted to Mr. Eggleston's
later recollections. which are almost ex-
clusively journalistic and literary. He
served as editor. literary editor and
editorial writer on the STATS of three
New York dailies. and was for many
/ years an occasional contributor to the
columns of The Tribune. His pages are
studded with stories and sketches of
american men Of letters Of the last
I .hirt,- vears and with observations ON