It is saddening to learn, from his friend, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, that Stedman's last days were embittered by financial worries. It is scant consolation to find that these were occasioned by no fault of his own-except the noble fault of over-generosity. March 10, 1893, writing his friend, he said: "I am so driven at this season, let alone' financial worries, that I have to write letters when and where I can." April 2, 1903, he wrote: "Owing to difficulties absolutely beyond my control, I have written scarcely a line for myself since the Yale bi-centennial" [1901]. And, finally, March 20, 1907, he left with his friend this brave last word, revealing the fine fiber of his soul: "Since 1900 I have had three long and disabling illnesses, from two of which it was not thought I could recover. Between these, what desperate failure to 'catch up.' Oh, I can't tell you, the books, the letters, the debts, the broken contracts. Then the deaths of my wife and son, and all the sorrows following; the break-up of my home, and the labor of winding up so much without aid. But from all the rack I have always kept, separated on my table, all your letters and remembrances." As critic, Stedman had the rare gift of the impressionist. He could with a single touch present a portrait not only recognizable at sight, but pleasantly recalled long afterward. For example, he pictures Walter Savage Landor at ninety as a "monarch of the forest, most untamed when powerless." Of Halleck, he says: "He was a natural lyrist, whose pathos and eloquence were inborn." Of Bryant he says: "He did not give himself to poetry, but added poetry to his ordinary life and occupation." He pictures the dualnatured Lowell as "wearing his Arcadian garb, yet hastening to throw aside his crook at the sound of the trumpet." While Stedman the author overshadows Stedman the banker, the man's success in finance goes far to disprove the too hastily-accepted conclusion that success in literature is necessarily at the expense of business success. As a broker on the New York Stock Exchange, alone and unaided, he twice amassed a moderate fortune. His judgments as to the future of stocks were remarkably clear. From 1864, when he bought a seat in the Stock Exchange, until 1890, the date of his retirement, he was in constant and close relations with "the Street." His first fortune was swept away by an unfortunate investment; but he resolutely set himself to the task of acquiring another. In this he was so successful that, in his sixty-seventh year, he felt himself abundantly able to retire and give himself up to literary pursuits. His death brings to mind the beautiful and deeply suggestive sonnet contributed by him to the "Century Magazine" of April, 1894, entitled "Mors Benefica": Give me to die unwitting of the day, And stricken in Life's brave heat, with senses clear: But as that old man eloquent made way From Earth, a nation's conclave hushed anear; No ministrant beside to ward and weep, (Spared grave and shroud) below the ancient main. IN XVIII LEWIS V. F. RANDOLPH 1838 the year 1901 appeared a modest little book of poems entitled "Survivals," by L. V. F. Randolph, then president of the Atlantic Trust Company, New York, later president of the Consolidated Exchange, New York, and a director in many large corporations. Mr. Randolph began his business career in 1854, in the American Exchange Bank, New York; and from a successful banker in time became a financier of large means and extended influence. His advent into the literary world after attaining his first half-century brought to the front the fact that, like Halleck of old New York, he had early in life secretly and oft indulged in wrestlings with the muse, hence the title of his book of verse. Of the several survivals, perhaps the most notable is the "Song for the Mercantile Library Dinner," in 1868. That the poet in the man of affairs has evolved from youth to age is evident from the fact that the best poem in the ninety pages of Mr. Randolph's verse is "The Man with the Hoe," a soul-stirring reply to Edwin Markham's famous poem. Here is the opening stanza: Who least requires the pity of his kind Who least desires your condescending aid? He who with plow and hoe has conquered Earth, With cheer and strength in every walk of life. The poet here joins the man of affairs in sounding the note of alarm: Shall we be blameless if we warm and nurse The serpent Anarchy to work our woe? The concluding lines embody an eloquent tribute to Labor-not the degraded creature pictured by Markham, but the inspirer of men, the achiever, the attainer: Patience shall conquer all--not fierce recoil! When man shall reach the topmost peaks of joy, Shall Dread Destruction or Impatience stand |