The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1922-11-19

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ply for "reminiscences of the Hubs
eminent Victorians. and the Atlantic
Monthly Press brings out another book to
people with phantoms for brief moment
the slopes of Beacon Hill. 1t is a wistful
pastime, one would suppose. for Boston,
ians, but they seem to enjoy it. Others,
too, can enjoy it when the source of sup
ply is the diary of Mrs. James T. Fields,
who for many years was the Boswell not
to single DR.. Johnson but to a city full
of them. When Mrs. Fields died in 1915
she bequeathed to NJ. A DeWolfe Howe
a great mass of imprinted matter, which
he has now drawn upon for book called
Memories of Hostess much kinder
title, surely, than the one we have set
down at the head of this paper. So far
as Mrs. Fields is concerned, too, it is
much fairer one. for we have never yet
seen so much as a line in her journals to
indicate that she couldn't and didn't ap-
preciate any one of worth who came her
way. None the less her very fairness and
fulness of entry in her diaries enables us
to see how full the Charles must have
been in those days of floating logs. AS
full, perhaps, Forty-fourth street. New
York. to-day in front of the Hotel AL
gonquin.
Alas. that wonderful old house on the
water side of Charles street, where Mrs.
Fields lived for more than half century
is no more. A huge garage now stands
there. New York is not the only city
where the old order changes The present
writer we'll remembers going to see Mrs
Fields, or perhaps it was her companion
after her widowhood Sarah Orne Jewett,
in the year 1901 to secure some sort of
newspaper interview. 1t should have been
a brief and simple matter, but it wasn't,
because even so late in life, and to an I'M
known cub reporter Mrs. Fields's instinct
of hospitality was unfailing-and her love
of good talk. The young reporter sat in
the long living room surrounded by such
a cloud of witnesses as would make the
mouth of any collector water till the red
winter sunset had almost paled to night
over the Charles River Basin and heard
the dear old lady chat of men and women
but specially menI-who had been the
great ones Of his childhood. II was an
speaks of those great ones who in the
sixties and seventies crowded the Fields
hospitable house as log rollers it isn't be-
cause he lacks reverence for Mrs Fields,
or even for them In fact being himself a
Bostonian. he might get rather peevish if
some mere New Yorker spoke thus of
them,
Nevertheless. they were just that. and
sometimes quite consciously So Any one
who fancies that there is something new
about literary log rolling. something Pc
culiar to the American Poetry Society or
the Vicious Circle" of the Hotel Algon-
quin. and something mean and small which
great ones would shrink FROM is strongly
advised to read The Memories of a
Hostess"
Dr. Hayes of Arctic fame visited the
Saturday Club guest in 1867. OF him
Mrs Fields says with great vividness: HE
wears a corrugated face and his slender
spirited figure shows him the man for
such resolves and expeditions" But still
We learn that he was not the chief talker:
nor did George William Curtis and Pc
troleum V. Nasty. the other guests of
honor. apparently say much of anything.
DIR. Holmes was in great mood for talk.
but Lowell was critical and interrupted
him frequently" We further learn that
this rather annoyed DR.. Holmes.
The outspoken Tom Appleton. brother
in-law of Longfellow. who had a fashion
of speaking his mind. once remarked
hot iS