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The Geography of Genius 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

The Religion of 
Science 

The Faith of Coming Man 
By JAMES W. LEE 

12mo, cloth , net $1.50 

"An interpretation of Christianity 
according to modern modes of thought 
in the light of present-day conditions, 
in language simple, strong and brill- 
iant. A remarkable restatement in 
clearness, comprehensiveness and in 
its spiritual tone. It shows what Chris- 
tianity was, is, and shall be to the race. 
It is a book that earnest people who 
are not Christians will read and feel. 
Altogether, it will take its place as one 
of the best bookson the subject." 

— Christian Evangelist. 



The Geography of 
Genius 



BY 



JAMES W. LEE, D.D. 




New York 



Chicago 



Fleming H. Revell Company 

London and Edinburgh 



Copyright, 1920, by 
FLEMING H. REVEU, COMPANY 



' 



<H3 
L4 



New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago : 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street 

©CI.A605936 



NOTE 

The author of these pages died in St. Louis, 
Mo., October 4, 1919. His last work prior to the 
accident which resulted fatally, was the prepara- 
tion and editing of the pages following. His last 
literary effort was the dictation from his sick-bed 
of the preface to this book. The arrangement of 
this book during the Summer of 1919 was to him 
a labor of love. 

In view of the foregoing fact, I have added to 
this book a biographical sketch based largely on 
material which has appeared in recent years in 
the St. Louis Christian Advocate. It is felt that 
those who were interested in my father and his 
work would like to have this addition to the sub- 
stantive chapters of the book. 

I. L. L. 

New York, N. Y. 



FOREWORD 

IN the midst of a very busy life, as pastor 
and presiding elder of various churches, 
I have been fortunate enough to have the 
opportunity granted me by my people to travel 
extensively to different parts of the world. In 
my travels I have sought to establish the prin- 
ciple that no places are of importance or value 
on this earth except such as have been made 
significant by association with great people, 
great battles or great events of some kind. So 
I have included in my description only cities or 
rivers or villages that have not been illumi- 
nated and magnetized by some great person or 
historic deed. 

The whole idea appeals to me very deeply, 
and has led me to the recognition of the truth 
that this earth is a mere mass of inert matter 
except those parts of it that have been rendered 
important and attractive through relation to some 
great personal spirit. Very few people ever 
visit the Andes because the Andes is made up of 
rock and earth alone. Humboldt spent a short 
while in the neighborhood making scientific in- 
vestigations, and he is about the only great man 
that has ever touched this vast range of rock 

vii 



viii FOREWORD 

and wood and earth with any significance. But 
the Alps, made famous in poetry, in song, in 
history and literature, is visited by thousands 
and thousands of tourists every year. 

No one would ever visit Ayr, Scotland, but 
for Burns. No one would have any particular 
interest in Concord, Massachusetts, but for 
Emerson and Hawthorne and other great spir- 
its who have been associated with it. Many 
villages and country places are kept alive 
by the influence of people who have lived there, 
and who continue to draw admirers after they 
have passed away. St. Francis has given to 
Assisi spiritual value worth far more than mil- 
lions of money, and he never had a dollar in his 
life after his conversion. His gift was that of 
his beautiful life. He has been supporting a 
mountain town of three thousand inhabitants 
through the contributions of tourists and sight- 
seers in sufficient numbers to actually maintain 
the people of his native place. 

Thousands of descriptions such as these will 
occur to most anyone, but to me it has been an 
endless source of inspiration. The general 
title of my book of travels develops the aims I 
have followed in the whole book. 

James W. Lee. 
St Louis, Sept. 15, 1919. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Geography of Genius 9 

II. From St. Louis to Palestine and Back . . 15 

III. The Oldest City in the World 29 

IV. Jerusalem, the Capital of Christendom 44 
V. The Most Celebrated Village on Earth . 59 

VI. The Most Beautiful City on Earth .... 67 

VII. A Speck in Space 79 

VIII. In the Footsteps of Washington 85 

IX. The Westminster Abbey of the Quakers 96 

X. John Wesley's Country Ill 

XI. In the Burns Country 128 

XII. A Vacation in England 155 

XIII. Mexico from a Car Window 168 

XIV. The Unswept Halls of Montezumas 176 

XV. Eemarkable Mexican History 181 

XVI. Maximilian and Carlotta 188 

XVII. Downfall of the Mexican Empire 199 

XVIII. In Canada with Her Builders 207 

XIX. The Most Interesting Island in the West- 
ern Hemisphere 220 

XX. Keeping Up with Newport 235 

XXI. The American Home of Charles Wesley 250 
XXII. San Francisco and Robert Louis Steven- 
son 259 

XXIII. In the Country of Whittier and White- 

field 267 

Winter Days in the Dreamland of 

XXIV. Florida 283 



JAMES WIDEMAN LEE 

Biographical Sketch 

James Wideman Lee was born at Rockbridge, 
Georgia, November 28, 1849, the son of Zachary 
J. and Emily H. (Wideman) Lee. He was edu- 
cated at Bawsville Academy, Grantville (Ga.) 
High School and Emory College. 

Dr. Lee joined the North Georgia Conference 
in 1874 and was ordained to the ministry of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1876. He 
was pastor of churches in Georgia at Spring 
Creek, Kockmart, Long Cane, Carrollton, Dal- 
ton, Rome and Atlanta. He was pastor of Trin- 
ity Church, Atlanta, 1886-87-88-89. He was pas- 
tor of Park Street Church, Atlanta, 1890-91- 
92-93. He was then sent to St. John's Church, 
St. Louis, Mo., and was pastor there in 1894-95- 
96-97. 

Dr. Lee was appointed presiding elder of the 
St. Louis District and served the church in that 
capacity in 1898-99-1900-01. He was sent back 
to St. John's Church the second time and was 
again pastor there in 1902-03-04-05. He was ap- 
pointed again to Trinity Church, Atlanta, Ga., 
which he served the second time in 1906-07-08-09. 
He was sent back to Park Street Church and 
served that congregation again in 1910. He was 



xii JAMES WIDEMAN LEE 

transferred back to the St. Louis Conference and 
stationed at St. John's Church the third time, 
1911-12-13-14. He was again made presiding 
elder of the St. Louis District, and served the 
church in that capacity the second time, 1915-16. 
He was then appointed chaplain of Barnes Hos- 
pital, and served that institution 1917-18-19. 

Dr. Lee wrote nine books and edited six. He 
wrote : 

1892— "The Making of a Man." 

1895— "The Earthly Footsteps of the Man of 
Galilee." 

1897— "The Eomance of Palestine." 

1897— "Henry W. Grady, Editor, Orator and 
Man." 

1900— "Illustrated History of Methodism." 

1904 — "History of Jerusalem." 

1912— "The Religion of Science." 

1915 — "The Geography of Genius." 

1916— "The Bible and Life." 

Among the books Dr. Lee edited and illustrated 
were : — 

1897— "The Self-Interpreting Bible," in four 
volumes. 

1902— "Young Folk's Life of Christ." 

1902— "Young Folk's Bible." 

It was while pastor of Park Street Church, At- 
lanta, that Dr. Lee wrote "The Making of a 
Man," which was published in New York and 
London in 1892 and was translated into Japa* 



JAMES WIDEMAN LEE xiii 

nese in 18g3, into Chinese in 1904 and into the 
Korean language in 1908. In the Japanese 
language it had a sale of many editions, and in 
the Chinese it was presented to each of 2,000 of 
the officials and leading mandarins of China by 
Eev. Dr. Young J. Allen. 

It was during the last year of his pastorate at 
Park Street Church that Dr. Lee delivered the 
address before the World's Parliament of Be- 
ligions, held in Chicago, 1893, on "Christ the 
Eeason of the Universe." This was published, 
under the direction of Eev. Dr. John Henry Bar- 
rows, by the Parliament Publishing Company, in 
the two-volume edition of the work entitled "The 
World's Parliament of Eeligions." 

During the first year of his pastorate at St. 
John's Church, St. Louis, in 1894, Dr. Lee was 
invited by a publishing house to make a journey 
to Palestine to secure photographs and the data 
necessary for a book on "The Earthly Footprints 
of Christ and His Apostles." The work was pub- 
lished in 1895. In portfolio form it was used 
as a premium by one daily paper in each of the 
large cities of the United States and Great 
Britain, with the result that more than a million 
copies of it were sold. It was afterward bound 
in a single volume and sold by subscription. 
This work on Palestine has had the largest circu- 
lation of any book on the Holy Land ever printed. 

During the last year of his first pastorate at 



xiv JAMES WIDEMAN LEE 

St. John's Church, in 1897, Dr. Lee wrote "The 
Life of Henry W. Grady, Editor, Orator and 
Man;" and in the same year he edited and re- 
vised the comments in "The Self-Interpreting 
Bible," in four volumes, using the same pictures 
to illustrate the work he had taken in Palestine. 
During the same year he also wrote "The Ro- 
mance of Palestine." While presiding elder of 
the St. Louis District, in the year 1900, he wrote 
"The Illustrated History of Methodism," assisted 
by Dr. Naphtali, afterwards Bishop Luccock, and 
Rev. Dr. James Main Dixon. In 1902, during his 
second pastorate at St. John's Church, he edited 
and illustrated, with pictures taken in Palestine 
under his direction, "Young Folk's Life of 
Christ" and "Young Folk's Bible." 

In 1904, while pastor of St. John's Church the 
second time, Dr. Lee was invited to write for the 
Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in St. Louis, 
a book on Jerusalem, to be used as a guide-book 
to interpret the miniature Holy City, which was 
part of the exposition. While pastor of St. 
John's Church the third time Dr. Lee wrote, in 
1912, "The Religion of Science," which has been 
translated into Japanese and is now in the third 
edition in this country. And while presiding 
elder of the St. Louis District for the second 
time, in 1915, he delivered before the Burns Club, 
in St. Louis, an address on Robert Burns entitled 
"Tjie Geography of Genius," which has been pub- 



JAMES WIDEMAN LEE xv 

lished in book form. While presiding elder of 
the St. Louis District, in 1916, on the occasion of 
the celebration of the Centennial of the Ameri- 
can Bible Society, before the General Conference 
of the M. E. Church, held in Saratoga, N. Y., 
May, 1916, Dr. Lee delivered the Centennial ad- 
dress. His subject was "The Bible and Life/' 
and this also has been published in book form. 

As pastor Dr. Lee was a persistent visitor. 
He knew the names of not only the members of 
his congregation, but also the children in the 
Sunday Schools of his several churches. He 
early formed the habit of sending, during his va- 
cations, postal cards or letters to the children of 
his Sunday Schools and to the members of his 
congregations. Some years ago, when he was 
given leave of absence to visit Palestine, he wrote 
from the Holy Land, enclosing flowers from the 
Garden of Gethsemane, to every family in St. 
John's Church and to every scholar in the Sun- 
day School. He kept in touch with the mem- 
bers of the different charges he served, from his 
first circuit clear down through all the other 
charges for 44 years. 

Dr. Lee made a record in raising money for 
the institutions of the church. He never had a 
charge without leaving some visible witness of 
having been its pastor. While at Dalton, Ga., 
he built a parsonage. In Kome, Ga., he built 
one of the most imposing churches in the state, at 



xvi JAMES WIDEMAN LEE 

a cost of $75,000. When lie was pastor of Trin- 
ity Church, Atlanta, his next charge after Rome, 
he practically rebuilt that edifice in order to 
make it large enough to accommodate the people 
who wanted to hear the gospel. During his first 
pastorate at Park Street Church, Atlanta, he 
built another parsonage, and during his second 
pastorate at Park Street he built a stately church 
in Atlanta, at a cost of f 80,000. 

In St. Louis Dr. Lee raised the money and 
built St. John's Church, at a cost of over $200,- 
000, and left it without a dollar of debt ; and in 
connection with his work at St. John's, during 
his second pastorate, he secured perhaps the best 
parsonage in Southern Methodism. As presid- 
ing elder he was successful also in raising money 
for the several churches, and for charitable and 
educational causes in the St. Louis District. 

Dr. Lee received invitations to lecture in dif- 
ferent parts of the country from 1884 to the time 
of his death. During the first year of his pas- 
torate at Rome, Ga., he was invited to the Chau- 
tauqua platform by Bishop John H. Vincent. 

In 1886, during his first pastorate at Trinity 
Church, Atlanta, he was invited by Rev. Charles 
F. Deems to deliver an address before the Ameri- 
can Institute of Christian Philosophy, which met 
that year at Key East, N. J. There were present 
many of the leading thinkers of the United States 
and Great Britain, such as Prof. Borden P. 



JAMES WIDEMAN LEE xvii 

Bowne of Boston University; Dr. Burr, author 
of "Ecce Coeluin;" Dr. John Bascom, president 
of the University of Wisconsin. Rev. Dr. Howard 
Henderson wrote an account for the Western 
Christian Advocate of Dr. Lee's appearance be- 
fore this remarkable company of scholars, the 
subject of which was "Lee — Preacher, Poet, Phil- 
osopher," which is given below. 

"On August 26th Dr. Lee was introduced; 
smooth-faced, almost boyish looking; evidently 
timid, and at first, hesitating; while handsome, 
faultless in dress, graceful in carriage and action 
— he did not seem a saga, and inspired more curi- 
osity than confidence. Besides, he was from the 
South, and what could a Southerner know of 
metaphysics? Being myself from the South, as 
was President Deems, and a member of the 
Executive Committee, and hence somewhat re- 
sponsible for his appearance, I was nervous with 
anxiety lest he should not measure up to the 
standard set by the magnates who had preceded 
him. The theme was an ambitious one for a tyro 
among academicians, 'The Correllation of Spirit- 
ual Force,' and the speaker led off with a proces- 
sion of technical terms, 'correllation, equiva- 
lence, persistence, transmutability, indestructi- 
bility of force, conservation of energy, that sug- 
gested Tyndall, Spencer, Huxley, etc. Like the 
specter of Minerva that made Achilles tremble, I 
fairly quaked. By the^aid of a quotation from 



xviii JAMES WIDEMAN LEE 

Prof. Balfour Stewart, he secured momentum 
and plunged in medias res, grasping his subject 
by the forelock. Soon analytical power showed 
itself, and lissome lips made the occult lucid. 
His kaleidoscopic phrasing made philosophy 
poetical, and in five minutes he had the most So- 
cratic by the ears as well as the Homeric. 

"The structure of his thesis was as solid and 
stately as a cathedral, and as brilliant as its 
diaphanous windows and colored effigies. He 
made philosophy radiant with rhetoric. 

"His paragraphs passed like platoons, his cli- 
maxes like the saluted banners, his tones as the 
march music of heavy infantry-— moving like the 
Macedonian Phalanx, each step supported and 
supporting, the kind of advance that makes an 
opening in the battle ranks of an enemy with no 
echo of retreat in the resounding tread of the in- 
vincible corps. 

"When he flung a category of puzzling ques- 
tions at his adversaries it was like the firing by 
a file of fusiliers. The peroration was a brilliant 
summary of Christ's achievements, put in sharp 
contrast with Mahomet's methods and success. 
'The sun is the center of a system of nature des- 
tined to end. Any system the center of which is 
gradually losing its force cannot last. The sun 
is gradually losing itself, to find itself no more 
forever. Christ is pouring His force into the 
system of which He is the center, but by such a 



JAMES WIDEMAN LEE xix 

process He is not losing His force, but increasing 
it. By losing Himself He finds Himself. The 
universal law of the system of which He is the 
center comes back to Him augmented by the per- 
sonality of all who partake of it. Instead of be- 
coming poorer by giving, He becomes richer, 
This great truth St. Paul saw when he said : "All 
things are yours/' ' etc. 

"The silver trumpet of a Levite could not have 
breathed more mellow yet martial tones than 
those with which these words were transported 
from lip to ear. It was a fitting close to the sym- 
posium by the sea. It lingers in memory like the 
murmur of the ocean in the shell. From that 
triumph hour Dr. Lee's position as philosopher 
and poet was secure." 

In 1905, during the last year of his second pas- 
torate at St. John's Church, Dr. Lee was invited 
to preach before the National Conference of 
Charities and Correction, in the Auditorium of 
the Lewis and Clark Exposition, at Portland, 
Ore., Sunday morning, July 16th. Of this ad- 
dress Kev. Dr. C. E. Cline, of Portland, gave an 
account in the columns of the St. Louis CJvristkm 
Advocate , from which we quote: 

"Dr. Lee took Portland by storm. On Sunday, 
July 16th, he preached in the great auditorium of 
the Lewis-Clark Fair, for which purpose he was 
brought from St. Louis to speak to a countless 
multitude. Among the auditors was the Na- 



xx JAMES WIDEMAN LEE 

tional Congress of Charities and Corrections, the 
president of which, Dr. S. G. Smith of St. Paul, 
declared the sermon to be the greatest he ever 
heard. At the close the preacher, whose genu- 
ineness of soul and unassuming manner had 
charmed everyone, was swamped completely with 
blessings and handshakings. This was published 
in the annual report of the National Conference 
of Charities and Corrections for that year. 

"On Monday night following Dr. Lee, by spe- 
cial request, lectured before the Methodist Con- 
gress, a gathering of Methodist preachers and 
laymen from Oregon, Washington, Idaho and 
Montana, in the First M. E. Church, on 'What Is 
Science?' The lecture was of great scope and 
keenest analysis, holding the audience in close 
attention from start to finish, interruptions con- 
stantly coming from applause, which at the close 
became irrepressible till the speaker arose the 
second time for an off-hand Methodist talk, 
which the audience seemed determined to have. 

"In this the speaker showed the rare power of 
being able to rise to any occasion. The scene 
was unique. Everybody laughed and cried to- 
gether, rising with one impulse to their feet with 
wildest applause." 

In 1908, during his second pastorate at Trin- 
ity Church, Dr. Lee delivered, before the Third 
Annual Educational Conference of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South, held in Atlanta, Ga., 



JAMES WIDEMAN LEE xxi 

May 19th, an address on "The South of To- 
morrow," which was published in pamphlet form. 

On February 14, 1909, while still pastor of 
Trinity Church, he delivered a memorial address 
before the Grand Army of the Eepublic and the 
United Confederate Veterans, in the auditorium 
of Trinity Church, on the one hundredth anniver- 
sary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln. This ad- 
dress was published in pamphlet form by the O. 
M. Mitchell Post No. 1 of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, and circulated among the members of 
the Grand Army and the United Confederate 
Veterans all over the United States. On October 
15th, the same year, Dr. Lee delivered an address 
at a banquet of business men in Macon, Ga., held 
in the interest of Wesleyan College, on the sub- 
ject, "The Function of the College in the Struggle 
for Existence." This was published in pamphlet 
form by Wesleyan College. 

While pastor of Park Street Church the second 
time, on May 4, 1910, Dr. Lee delivered before 
the County School Officials' Association of 
Georgia, meeting at Athens, Ga., an address on 
"The Place and Importance of the Common 
School," which was published in pamphlet form 
by the Georgia County Schools Association. 

While pastor of St. John's Church the third 
time, he delivered an address, in November, 1911, 
at Central College, Fayette, Mo., on Benefactors' 
Day, entitled "The Discovery of the Philosopher's 



xxii JAMES WIDEMAN LEE 

Stone." This was published in pamphlet form 
by the Central College authorities. 

On May 24, 1914, during the last year of his 
third pastorate at St. John's Church, Dr. Lee 
delivered the fraternal address before the Gen- 
eral Conference of the Methodist Protestant 
Church at Zanesville, O., on "Methodism and the 
South ; the Function of the One in the Struggle 
for Spiritual Existence, and the Function of the 
Other in the Struggle for National Existence." 
This also was published in pamphlet form. Also, 
in 1916, he delivered an address at a working 
conference on the union of American Methodism, 
in Harris Hall, Northwestern University, Evans- 
ton, 111., on the subject of "Climate and Unity," 
which was published in the volume entitled "A 
Working Conference on the Union of American 
Methodism." 

At a luncheon held in the interest of the war 
encampment fund under the auspices of the 
Knights of Columbus, at the Planters' Hotel, St. 
Louis, Tuesday, October 7, 1917, Dr. Lee deliv- 
ered an address on "A Cathedral of Coopera- 
tion," in which he made a plea for the cooperation 
of Catholics, Jews and Protestants in supplying 
places of recreation for the soldiers at home and 
abroad. A large edition of this was published 
in pamphlet form by the Knights of Columbus 
for distribution. In 1917, also, he delivered an 
address by invitation of the Nation's Birthday 



JAMES WIDEMAN LEE xxiii 

Association, at the drill grounds in Forest Park, 
St. Louis, on "The Making of the Flag." This 
was published in pamphlet form by the Nation's 
Birthday Association. 

Dr. Lee found his recreation through travel- 
ing, not merely going about in an aimless way, 
but visiting places made famous by association 
with great persons and great deeds. In 1889, 
while pastor of Trinity Church the first time, he 
spent three months in Europe, visiting the birth- 
places and homes of famous men in England, 
France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Swit- 
zerland. 

In 1900, while pastor of Park Street Church 
the first time, Dr. Lee traveled all over the Re- 
public of Mexico, acting as correspondent of 
the Atlanta Constitution. Among his writings 
at this time was an account of the interesting 
career of Emperor Maximilian and Queen Car- 
lotta, from the time they left the beautiful 
Chateau of Miramar, at Trieste, on the Adriatic 
Sea, to their landing at Vera Cruz, on the shores 
of Mexico, in 1864, and through the period of 
their residence at the Castle of Chapultepec, in 
the City of Mexico, to the tragic death of the Em- 
peror on the 19th of June, 1917. 

In 1907, while pastor of Trinity Church the 
second time, Dr. Lee attended the Sunday School 
Convention held in Rome, Italy, and used the 
time after the convention was over in wandering 



xxiv JAMES WIDEMAN LEE 

among the homes and haunts of distinguished 
people in Assisi, Florence, Milan, Amsterdam, 
The Hague, Cologne, Brussels, Paris and Lon- 
don. 

In 1910, while pastor of Park Street Church 
the second time, Dr. Lee visited Europe again 
and continued his visits to interesting places in 
England and France. 

In 1911, the first year of his third pastorate at 
St. John's, Dr. Lee went to Europe and spent his 
vacation in visiting the homes and haunts of 
great people. He left enough material accumu- 
lated through his various pilgrimages to make 
several books. 

The secret of Dr. Lee's success was in the fact 
that he was interested in everybody and man- 
aged, in some way, to get into pleasant relations 
with the people in and outside of the Methodist 
Church in the community where he lived. He 
never met an acquaintance on the street without 
trying to say a word to him, happy and cheerful 
enough to keep him in good humor for the rest 
of the day. His work was seemingly a sort of 
luxury. He appeared as if he reveled in it. He 
knew the names and faces of more people in St. 
Louis than perhaps any other person in the city. 

Dr. Lee died in Barnes Hospital, St. Louis, on 
October 4, 1919, of injuries caused by a fall. 



CHAPTER I 
THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

THE publishers of Everyman's Library 
brought out a series of historical geogra- 
phies, in which only the places, cities, 
towns of each country were put down that stand 
out above the dead level of terrestrial monotony, 
because of their connection with decisive battles, 
heroic deeds, literary triumphs or other extra- 
ordinary achievements. In these books the 
patches of territory on the earth's surface, that 
have not been saturated with the personality of 
some great saint or hero are not considered at all 
Railroads, warehouses, vast fields of wheat, 
pork and beef plants, add in themselves alone 
nothing of permanent value to these countries, 
which are being mapped and geographically de- 
scribed from the standpoint of historic people 
and historic deeds. The Andes would not be 
down in any of these historical geographies but 
for the fact that Alexander von Humboldt 
climbed Chimborazo, one of its peaks, and made 
observations. 

If the geographical method of treating person- 
alities were applied to all the great people who 
have ever lived, we would find that instead of a 



10 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

few countries, such as we now know by the name 
of England or Germany or Egypt or Palestine, 
we would have thousands of them, such as we 
know by the name of Moses, Isaiah, St. Paul, 
Philo Judaeus, Plato, Sir Walter Scott, Burns, 
and on through the list of all those, who, by liv- 
ing or thinking or singing or serving, have lifted 
the places and things with which they were asso- 
ciated, from the realm of time to that of eternity, 
from the domain of matter to that of spirit. 

Like immortal ships, the spirits of great men 
sail the Ocean of Time, bearing the treasures and 
archives of the civilizations which gave them 
birth, and also the names of places with which 
they were associated on earth. They outride the 
fury of all the storms and will sail on till 

' ' The stars grow old, 
The sun grows cold ; 
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold. " 

The nation is unfortunate beyond expression 
that has no son with genius wide and universal 
enough to convey to coming ages her history. 
Whatever may be her wealth and her commercial 
importance, she is without a future. 

It was the misfortune of ancient Tyre in Phe- 
nicia that she had no son among all her merchant 
princes, with genius universal and deep enough 
to bear distant ages a record of her inner life. 

Life in Tyre took the form of sails which were 
spread to every breeze, and the strokes of oars 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 11 

heard in the waters of every sea. Her life stood 
in many storied houses, rustled in the silk of 
Tyrian purple, and uttered itself in the ears of 
all the world. But what the people of Tyre 
thought about death, or immortality, or duty, or 
righteousness, or religion, or philosophy, or 
poetry, or literature, or farming, or plowing, or 
cooking, or even sea-faring or trade, we can never 
know. Her life simply lifted itself into the mam- 
moth and unparalleled products of the mer- 
chandise of ancient times. It took the form of 
wharves, of ships, of purple awnings, of revelry, 
of eating, of drinking, of low sensual pleasure; 
hence it has been utterly swept away. It stood 
only in masts, shipboards, ivory benches, sails, 
pilots, mariners, towers, silver, iron, tin, lead, 
brass, horses, mules broidered work fine linen, 
coral, agate, honey, oil, balm, wool, cassia, cala- 
mus, precious clothes, chariots, lambs, spices, 
chests, riches, sardius, topaz, diamond, beryl, 
onyx, jasper, sapphire, emerald, carbuncle, tab- 
rets and pipes. 

Of Tyre we know something from Ezekiel, and 
something from Strabo, and something from the 
Bible and historians among surrounding nations. 
But as far as the people of Tyre themselves are 
concerned, they have mingled with the dust or 
gone to the depths of the sea, without leaving a 
single record that enables us to know the history 



12 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

of that splendid, wealthy, thundering commercial 
city. 

Tyre was so busy eating and dressing and 
drinking and trading and reveling that she failed 
to produce a son with soul large enough to be 
used as a ship in which to pack away her mer- 
chandise of thought or religion or aspiration for 
the future. 

On the other hand, how secure is the Greece 
stored up in her great men! She has been de- 
spoiled of her art treasures, her temples have 
fallen, the Parthenon is in ruins, but the years of 
her life, she deposited in her great people, are im- 
mortal. No tooth of time, no war's bloody hand, 
no devastation of the years, can take from her 
the glory which she lifted and locked in the 
genius of her artists, her statesmen and her phil- 
osophers. 

Plato and Aristotle still interpret her prob- 
lems of destiny. Sophocles and Pindar still sing 
her glories. Herodotus and Thucydides still 
keep the record of her victories. Demosthenes 
and Aeschines still declare her matchless elo- 
quence. Appelles still gives expression to her 
conceptions of beauty. Her riches were sent to 
the future in the spirits of great men. The un- 
folding centuries may look in upon them and 
enjoy them, but their passage through the years 
cannot be arrested. 



THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 13 

No nation under the sun ever sent so many 
ships from her intellectual shores laden with the 
merchandise of her spiritual life as sailed from 
Greece to all ages. These great vessels have 
ridden the storms of more than 2,000 years and 
will continue to voyage down the stream of the 
years forever. Think of their names, in addition 
to those mentioned above: Socrates, Pericles, 
Themistocles, Lysicrates, Xenophon, Epaminon- 
das, Isocrates, Thucydides, Phidias, Aristides, 
Alcibiades, Aeschylus, Hesiod, Euripides, Anac- 
reon, Theocritus, Epicurus, Epimenides, Pytha- 
goras, Democritus, Empedocles, Carneades, 
Pherecrates, Hypocrates, Archimedes and Aris- 
tophanes. 

The fact that Shakespeare lived at Stratford- 
on-Avon is worth more annually to the little 
English town than all the wheat produced year 
by year in the County of Warwickshire. 

The Palace of the Caesars does not occupy as 
much space in the Geography of Genius as the 
cottage at Chalfont St. Giles, in which Milton 
finished Paradise Lost and began Paradise Re- 
gained. The County of Hampshire, England, 
where John Keble preached in Hursley twenty- 
five years, and where Gilbert White preached in 
Selborne twenty years, and where Charles Kings- 
ley preached in Eversley thirty years, is given 
more attention than to all Kansas, with area 



14 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

enough to make more than a hundred counties as 
large as Hampshire. 

Concord, Mass., with its thousand inhabitants 
multiplied by Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne, 
occupies a larger place in the Geography of 
Genius than Buenos Ayres multiplied by more 
than a million of the common run of South Amer- 
ican mortals. 



CHAPTER II 

FROM ST. LOUIS TO PALESTINE AND 
BACK 

ON the 24th of March, 1894, in company 
with Mr. R. E. M. Bain, I left St. Lonis 
to visit the countries made sacred by the 
lives and deeds, the record of which is given in 
the Bible. We were invited to make this trip by 
an enterprising publishing firm. 

The publishers desired fresh and firsthand 
views of the monuments, cities, villages, moun- 
tains, rivers, valleys, plains, and flowers made 
memorable by the lives of Abraham, Issac, and 
Jacob; Moses, Joshua, and Samuel; Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, and Daniel, and most of all by the lives 
of Christ and the apostles. In no other age of 
the world would such a journey, with such happy 
advantages for fulfilling the purpose of it, been 
possible. 

We left with photography up-to-date on the 
New York, one of the greatest steamers ever 
built. We were going to the oldest regions on 
the earth to bring back pictures to gladden the 
eyes of the people who live in the newest. We 
were going from the midst of civilization large, 

15 



16 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

rich, robust, and grown to get representations of 
the sky lines and landscapes which surrounded 
its humble birthplace and childhood. We were 
going to see and to get copies of that land. 

"Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, 
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed 
For our advantage on the bitter cross. ' ' 

In going back to Palestine, even if we only go 
through a picture or a book, we are returning to 
the place of our birth and childhood. We are all 
copies and reproductions of the civilization in 
which we live, and Palestine and the countries 
about the Mediterranean Sea constitute the 
cradle of our civilization. Here we were rocked 
in the infancy of our ancestors by the blue waves 
of the "uttermost sea." Here bent above us, in 
the years of our weakness and innocence, the 
deep kindly face of the Syrian sky. Here bloomed 
about us, when we were learning to stand alone 
and to walk on the earth, the flowers which make 
Palestine a paradise. But for these lands and 
the lives which transfigure them, we would not 
be what we are, we would not have the names we 
bear nor the calendars we use, nor the history we 
know, nor the songs we sing, nor the books we 
read, nor the paintings we see, nor the homes we 
love, nor the religion which guides and blesses 
us from the cradle to the grave. 



FROM ST. LOUIS TO PALESTINE 17 

Hence Bible countries, as the homes of our 
fathers, belong to us. The heroism that blest 
them we have inherited. The virtues that grew 
in beauty there, have come to live and bloom in 
our lives. The laws that were ordained and hon- 
ored there, regulate our comfort. The hopes that 
were known and rejoiced in there, refresh our 
spirits. The Psalms that were felt and uttered 
there, feed our devotions. The prayers that arose 
from burdened hearts there, pass our lips and 
hush our sorrows. Upon the moral and spiritual 
production of the Bible lands we have fed for 
2,000 years. The polar bear, by living in the 
arctic regions, copies its snow in his white skin, 
and thus gets a kinship and title to his cold abode 
by becoming like it. Spending all our lives in 
the presence of the inspirations and hopes and 
hymns and ideas of the people who wrote the 
Bible, we copy and reproduce by an unconscious 
process the color and texture of their spirits. In 
this way we come into ownership of all they 
loved and hoped for. 

We crossed the Atlantic in seven days, landing 
at Southampton. From thence to London, where 
we waited three days for the Peninsular and Ori- 
ental express train. This magnificent dining and 
sleeping car goes from London through England 
France, and Italy to Brindisi, a distance of 1,600 
miles. At Brindisi we took the steamer that 



18 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

runs between London and India and landed at 
Port Said, April 11, just fourteen days from the 
time we left New York. Leaving Port Said, 
where the great steamers pass from the Mediter- 
ranean into the Suez Canal and out into the Red 
Sea, we proceeded to Cairo. Here we remained 
eight days, visiting in the meantime Heliopolis, 
where Joseph married, and Memphis, where 
Moses lived, and the Pyramids, built fifty cen- 
turies ago. We then went to Alexandria, the city 
built by Alexander the Great, and for a long 
time the home of Cleopatra, the beautiful Queen 
of Egypt. Here we took the Mediterranean 
steamer again and made our way to Joppa, land- 
ing there on Sunday morning, April 22. 

Joppa is on a stormy and rock-bound coast, 
and unless the weather is good it is impossible to 
reach the shore here at all. There is no harbor, 
and ships anchor far out at sea. If the waves 
are high the passengers are carried to some port 
further north. Between the place where the 
ships anchor and the beach there stretches a long 
line of rock rising just to the surface of the 
water. Through this ridge of rock there is a 
narrow opening wide enough for small boats to 
pass. 

But when the wind is strong the danger is that 
the small boat will miss the narrow passage and 
be thrown and broken into fragments upon the 



FEOM ST. LOUIS TO PALESTINE 19 

rocks. More people have found a watery grave 
here than at any other place in the world. 

The morning we came in sight of this famous 
sea town, however, the sea was perfectly smooth 
and quiet. No sooner was the great iron anchor 
cast out to hold us in place than seemingly a 
hundred row boats started from the shore to 
meet us. They came at the top of their speed, 
as if a large reward was to be secured by the one 
that reached us first. The noise and confusion 
and jabbering beggar description. It did not 
seem possible that we could ever get our glass 
plates through that wild scene of Arab confusion 
without breaking every one of them, but we 
finally succeeded in getting every box, together 
with ourselves, down into one of the little vessels, 
when two strong Arabs rowed us to the shore. 

At Joppa we were introduced to our drago- 
man, Abraham Lyons, a native of Jerusalem, but 
a Hungarian by descent. Before leaving London, 
we had arranged with Thomas Cook & Son for 
a month's camping expedition in the Holy Land. 
They furnished us with an outfit consisting of 
thirteen mules and horses, four muleteers, a 
sleeping tent, a cook tent, a lunch tent, a first- 
class cook, a waiter, and the best dragoman in 
the East. All this array of people and animals, 
and cooking utensils and appliances for camping 
and traveling was notified to meet us at Joppa. 



20 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

There they took charge of us with all our belong- 
ings and appurtenances. 

A railroad runs from Joppa to Jerusalem, and 
a train passes to and from these cities daily, 
drawn by an American engine. But as our busi- 
ness was to take pictures and make observations; 
we had to go slow. Besides, it did not seem quite 
proper to rush through the plains of Sharon and 
by the village of Emmaus in an American rail- 
way train. We were to pass along the road over 
which Solomon hauled the timbers from Lebanon 
which the King of Tyre had shipped to Joppa 
with which to construct the first temple in Jeru- 
salem. We were to pass through some of the 
great battlefields of the world, and by many 
places celebrated in Bible history. 

It was our first experience in the real land of 
the East, the clime of the sun. Every spot and 
every object in our novel and strange surround- 
ings was interesting from associations which had 
been gathering about it for thousands of years. 

After a good night's rest in Joppa our tents, 
beds, baggage, and glass plates were strapped 
on the backs of mules, and with the muleteers 
to guard and guide them, were sent ahead to 
Jerusalem. With our dragoman we remained in 
Joppa until 12 o'clock on Monday, as we were 
to make this part of our journey by carriage. 
Leaving our hotel, we passed through the gardens 



FROM ST. LOUIS TO PALESTINE 21 

and by the house of Tabitha, out into the open 
country. 

We were astonished to find that every step of 
the way to Jerusalem was surrounded by wild 
flowers. They stood in rows and squares and 
diamonds. They ran up the mountains, they il- 
luminated the valleys, they peeped out from the 
crevices in the rocks; they contested with the 
wheat for standing ground in the fields, they 
seemed to be bent on claiming everything and 
occupying with their beauty every inch of soil 
that appeared in sight. I had read that flowers 
were the alphabet of angels, and it occurred to 
me, if this were true, that surely all the little 
angels in heaven must come to Palestine to learn 
their letters. 

The goodness of God, turned from the heart of 
man, here finds a place for expression in the fair 
bloom of the flowers. Eden here unable to re- 
produce itself in its legitimate home, the life of 
man, spreads itself out in pristine beauty over 
the hills and the plains. It is as if heaven were 
determined, in spite of the meanness of man, to 
keep here witnesses in countless array of the 
glory of paradise. So about the forty-two miles 
of roadway between Joppa and Jerusalem the 
flowers bloom as fair and as fresh every spring as 
they did when Adam and Eve moved among them 
in the first garden of the world. 



22 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

The traveler who makes this journey in the 
spring of the year passes literally through a wil- 
derness of beauty — beauty in all conceivable 
shapes and sizes; beauty in ridge, fold, valley 
and mountain; beauty in square, cube, triangle, 
and straight line; beauty in red, green, scarlet, 
and blue; beauty single, double, manifold, and 
multitudinous. Is it any wonder that Palestine 
was the home of song and parable and vision and 
great idea? Heaven there by mountain, water- 
fall, bird, and flower invites men to be great and 
holy. One cannot live there without being mean 
by resisting or good by yielding to appeals of the 
Most High. 

In addition to the flowers which beguiled the 
tedium of our way to Jerusalem, every mile of 
the road was historic. We passed through Ram- 
leh, the Plains of Sharon, the Valley of Adjalon, 
Emmaus, and in sight of the birthplace of John 
the Baptist. At two o'clock on Tuesday, April 
24, we came to Jerusalem, the home of the pil- 
grim and the capital of Christendom. Here we 
made headquarters for a week, and using the 
Holy City as a base, made short journeys to Beth- 
any, Jericho, the Dead Sea, the Jordan, Bethle- 
hem, and Solomon's Pools. 

On May 1 our baggage and muleteers were sent 
ahead from Jerusalem and instructed to camp at 
Singil. We followed on May 2. Leaving the 



FKOM ST. LOUIS TO PALESTINE 23 

City of David, we pass on horseback the tombs 
of the kings, and soon come to the hill where we 
take the last sight of Jerusalem. We meet camels 
and donkeys coming in, loaded with roots to sell. 
The natives use roots for fuel. To secure this 
firewood they dig up the trees, but being destruc- 
tive and thriftless, they do not plant any to take 
the places of the ones dug up. 

We soon enter upon a most rocky and difficult 
road to travel. We follow single file. Sometimes 
the narrow path, the same historic way over 
which our Saviour passed, is so rough and filled 
with so many round rocks and cut by so many 
deep gullies that we get down and walk, leading 
our horses. 

We passed Nob, where the whole family of the 
high priest was massacred by Saul. We came to 
Hainan, where Samuel was born and was buried. 
We saw Beeroth, where Joseph and Mary missed 
Jesus and turned back to look for Him. At 
length we reached Bethel. Here we pitched our 
lunch tent and stopped for a two hours' rest. 
When our tent was raised and rugs spread on 
the ground to carpet it, our dragoman, on a white 
tablecloth, placed before us a bountiful repast, 
consisting of cold broiled chicken, sardines, eggs, 
and tongue. For dessert, lemonade, dried grapes, 
figs, oranges, and nuts. The meal was closed 
with small cups of black coffee, which the drago- 
man made before our eyes. 



24 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

After lunch, while resting on our rugs in the 
tent, the dragoman told us all about Bethel. 
Here Jacob dreamed as the ladder reach in his 
vision up to heaven. Here he saw the angels 
ascending and descending. Between this place 
and Ai Abraham built an altar to the Lord, when 
he came up from Ur of the Chaldees. Bethel is a 
small village containing only about forty fami- 
lies. These are very poor, being taxed almost to 
the point of starvation by the government. 

Our way in the afternoon led through the 
valley of the figs. Hundreds of acres we found 
here in fig trees. The natives make brandy of 
this fruit, which is said to be fearfully intoxi- 
cating. About five o'clock we reached Singil, 
where we were to spend the night. Our tents 
were already up and the American flag was over 
them, streaming in the breezes which came from 
the Mediterranean Sea, thirty miles to the west 
In our main tent we had a sitting room and bed 
room, table for writing, chairs and lamp. It was 
carpeted by some Oriental fabric, and the inner 
walls of the tent were made picturesque by 
highly-colored strips of oil calico, which were put 
together and sewed to them in various figures 
and patterns. 

At six o'clock we were called to a regular table 
d'hote dinner. We began with soup, then mut- 
ton, then artichokes, then chicken and salad, then 



FEOM ST. LOUIS TO PALESTINE 25 

dessert, then oranges, dried grapes and nnts. 
We closed with small cups of black coffee made 
after the Turkish fashion. Our baggage, glass 
plates and photographic outfit were placed by the 
muleteers in our tent. After dark two police- 
men came to guard us while we slept. 

This is the history of one day from Jerusalem 
to Singil. Thus we passed day after day as we 
made our way through the interior of Palestine. 
We will not speak of Shiloh, Samaria, Shunem, 
Nain, Nazareth, Cana of Galilee, Tiberias, Mag- 
dala, Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum, Dan, and 
Csesarea-Philippi, all of which we visited on our 
way to Damascus. 

In Damascus, which rises up out of the desert 
like a vision from heaven, we spent five days. 
Upon arriving here we dismissed our cook, 
waiter, muleteers, and camping outfit, but kept 
our dragoman, who remained with us until we 
bade him good-bye on the wharf at Beyrout. 

On Friday, May 18, we left Damascus by dili- 
gence at 4 o'clock in the morning and rode to 
Beyrout, a distance of seventy miles, by 6 o'clock 
in the afternoon. Six horses were hitched to our 
conveyance and were changed every hour. This 
kept us in fresh horses all the time, and much 
of the way was made in a sweeping gallop. 

Sunday, May 20, we left Beyrout by French 
steamer. But before getting to our ship we en- 
countered another serious trouble with reference 



26 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

to our glass plates. The custom-house officials 
insisted upon looking into our boxes again. It 
became necessary to enter into another conflict 
of words, which we did through our dragoman. 

After lengthy discussion a price was named, 
upon payment of which consent would be given 
to pass our boxes. At this point we never hesi- 
tated, we paid the sum demanded, and left the 
Turks with thanks that we were rid of them. 
The American consul at Beyrout accompanied us 
to our steamer, and bade us adieu, after assuring 
us that the American flag would be flying from 
the United States consulate in our honor as we 
left the shores of Syria. 

Our steamer sailed by Cypress, Patmos, and 
touched for a day at a time at different places 
on the coast of Asia Minor. We spent two days 
at Smyrna and a day at Thessalonica. We were 
for two days in sight of Mount Olympus, and 
reached Athens Sunday morning, May 27. Here 
we remained, visiting Corinth and places of in- 
terest, until Friday, June 1, when we left at 2 
o'clock by Italian steamer for Italy, reaching 
Brindisi Monday, June 4. This place we immedi- 
ately left on the morning train for Naples, arriv- 
ing there the evening of June 4. 

From here we visited Puteoli, where St. Paul 
landed on his last journey to Rome and Her- 
culaneum and Pompeii, in sight of the boiling 



FKOM ST. LOUIS TO PALESTINE 27 

Vesuvius. On June 7 we left Naples by early 
morning train for Kome, arriving there the after- 
noon of the same day. We remained in the city 
of the Caesars for a week, after which we left for 
London and New York, arriving safely at the 
metropolis of our own country on June 29, just 
three months and one day from the time we left. 

On Thursday, July 5, we had all our plates 
back in the factory of the dry plate works in St. 
Louis, where for us they were specially manufac- 
tured, and where Mr. Bain by the proprietors 
was kindly invited to develop them. 

We can never express the sense of relief and 
gratitude we felt at sight of our seventy-pound 
white boxes of glass plates safe in the photogra- 
pher's dark room in the city of our homes. Think 
of it, these boxes of fragile glass had traveled 
15,000 miles, more than half way around the 
globe. They passed through the great historic 
cities of the world. They had been carried from 
place to place by railway cars, by express 
wagons, by carriages, by steamboats, by row- 
boats, by porters, by Americans, by Englishmen, 
by Frenchmen, by Italians, by Egyptians, by 
Arabs, by Turks, by Greeks. They had been in 
the holds of ships, they had been piled on the 
decks of steamers, they had been strapped on the 
backs of mules, they had been to the pyramids, 
they had been on the road traveled by our 
Saviour and the apostles, they had followed in 



28 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

the footsteps of Paul in his missionary journeys, 
they had been in the city of Plato and Aristotle, 
and in the home of the Caesars. 

We had watched over them and slept by them 
and protected them throughout the ups and 
downs of a unique and wondrous journey. Now 
they were safe at home out of peril and secure 
from danger. They contained the record of our 
journey; but this record was unseen and invisi- 
ble. They had to be developed. The chemicals 
of the photographer had to be poured over them 
in the darkroom to bring out the pictures they 
contained. So suspense was not over until they 
were developed. We had to see what objects the 
sun had painted on them. 

Good luck did not fail us. Each plate, as one 
by one Mr. Bain poured the developing fluid over 
it, revealed a scene of beauty. Just after our 
return the National Photographers Convention 
met in St. Louis. A dozen of the first were en- 
tered to contest for a prize and they won it, and 
beside the additional declaration from leading 
photographers of the convention that they were 
the finest photographs that ever came from the 
East. 



CHAPTEE III 
THE OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD 

ON the 13th of May, 1894, our caravan 
passed through the gateway in the west- 
ern wall of Damascus, and we found our- 
selves in the midst of this most remarkable city. 
For hours before we reached it we saw its gleam- 
ing glory in the distance; the tall, graceful 
minarets rising from her more than three hun- 
dred mosques. 

Perhaps one of the reasons why travelers 
praise Damascus so unstintedly is because of the 
delightful contrast it furnishes to the treeless, 
hot and verdureless country through which they 
pass on their approach to it. After a horseback 
ride from Jerusalem over one of the roughest 
roads on earth, through a country with few trees, 
one would be in condition to praise any city in 
which gardens, orchards and abundance of water 
were to be found ; but when the contrast is pre- 
sented between such a desert journey and the 
surpassing beauty of Damascus, one is justified 
for a measure of extravagance in his terms of 
commendation. We see its gardens, canals, 
fountains, deep and abundant, shadows cast from 
long, spreading branches of most charming trees. 

29 



30 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

Certainly, the traveler may be allowed, at the 
pitch of his enthusiasm, to use the most ex- 
pressive adjectives in his praise of the new-found 
paradise. 

Damascus is said to be the oldest city in the 
world. This may not be literally true, but we 
know something of its history for four thousand 
years. It has been ruled by kings from Nineveh, 
Babylon, Persia, Greece and Eome, and under all 
it has been a place of importance. 

Damascus is the chief city of Syria. It lies 
in a plain of extreme fertility, which extends 
between Mount Lebanon and the desert. It is 
about thirty miles in diameter, and owes its 
beauty and fertility to the Kiver Barada, which 
comes down from the slopes of the Lebanon 
Mountains and spreads itself through the plain, 

The Orientals have ranked Damascus with 
Granada, as one of the paradises of the earth. It 
has been called "the mole on the cheek of nature," 
"the bright plumage of the heavenly peacock," 
"the neck of the dove," and "the collar of 
beauty." Mohammed himself called it "thrice 
blessed because the angels of God have spread 
their wings above it." 

It is about two hundred miles north of Petra 
and one hundred miles north of Jerusalem. Jo- 



OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD 31 

sephus says it was founded by Uz, the grandson 
of Shem, and this makes it one of the most 
ancient cities of history. 

But little is known of Damascus until the time 
of David, who conducted a successful expedition 
against it because of the assistance the city had 
given to his enemy, Hadadezer, king of Zabah. 
A subordinate of Hadadezer, named Rezon, suc- 
ceeded in securing a position in Damascus and 
establishing there a royal dynasty, so that 
throughout the reign of Solomon this Rezon 
seems to have been a constant enemy of the King- 
dom of Israel. Israel and Syria were enemies 
one to the other to the days of Ahab. 

After the days of David and Solomon, it was 
involved in a succession of wars until about 1884 
B. C, when it was attacked and captured by the 
Assyrians. At various times the Israelites and 
Assyrians were waging war against each other, 
or were combining their forces against other 
nations. The history of that time is a confused 
record of war and cruelty, infamy and slaughter. 

After 700 B. C. we hear nothing more of 
Damascus for a long period. In 333 B. C, after 
the battle of Issus, it was captured by Parmenio, 
one of the generals of Alexander the Great. In 
New Testament history, Damascus is mentioned 
only in connection with the conversion of St. 



32 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

Paul, and his escape from Aretas, the governor, 
by being lowered in a basket over the wall. 

In the year 150 A. D. under Trajan, Damascus 
became a Roman city. In 635 A. D., Damascus 
came under the dominion of the Mohammedans. 
The Crusaders attacked Damascus in 1226 but 
never succeeded in maintaining a hold upon it. 
It was the headquarters of Saladin during the 
wars with the Franks. Damascus was cap- 
tured by the Mongolians in 1260, and recap- 
tured by the Egyptians, under the leadership of 
Mamaluk Kotuz. It became a city of the Otto- 
man Empire in 1516. It was captured by Ibra- 
him Pasha, the Egyptian general, in 1832, and 
then revolted against Ibrahim's tyranny in 1834. 
The city came under Turkish rule when the Syri- 
ans were driven out in 1840 by the Allied Powers. 

The city of Damascus is situated on both sides 
of the Barada River. The waters of this river are 
carried by channels to all the houses of the city 
Its beauty and charm are doubtless due, in a 
large degree, to the fact that it is almost com- 
pletely surrounded by a barren desert, and it is 
the waters of the Barada River that make Da- 
mascus blossom like a rose. After passing 
through the city, they flow out about twenty-five 
miles, and are swallowed up by the Syrian desert. 

The natives think the Garden of Eden was lo- 
cated in Damascus. Some go so far as to assert 



OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD 33 

that the clay, which entered into the body of 
Adam, was taken from the banks of one of their 
rivers. To the north of the city, on a peak of a 
mountain overlooking it, the tomb of Abel is 
pointed out. It is said that Mohammed, on one 
of his journeys as a mule driver from Mecca, was 
permitted to look upon the city, with its gardens, 
from the top of a hill, and after seeing the place, 
turned away with the declaration: "Man can 
have but one paradise. My paradise is fixed 
above." And so he refused to enter Damascus. 
His guide, however, was so enchanted with the 
beauty of the scene that he exclaimed : "Here let 
me die!" A small building is pointed out as 
marking the grave of this guide. 

Minarets and glittering spires are seen in the 
morning, rising above the darkness of endless 
groves and gardens. Damascus is the metropolis 
of Romance and the capital of Oriental hope. 
The glowing imagery of its description in East- 
ern poetry is beautiful, but it pales before the 
reality of it. 

No wonder the Moslems look upon Damascus 
as an earthly paradise. It is encompassed by 
gardens and orchards. These cover an area of 
over twenty-five miles in circumference. Here 
grow olive, fig, walnut, apricot, poplar, palm, 
cypress, and pomegranate trees. In the richness 



34 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

of its soil, in the salubrity and semitropical char- 
acter of its climate, in its varied vegetation, we 
find the reason for the constant association of 
Damascus with the thought of gardens. It has 
been for four thousand years a garden. 

It is surrounded for miles with this splendor 
of verdure. Its gardens and orchards and far- 
reaching groves, rich in foliage and blossoms, 
wrap the city around like a mantle of green 
velvet powdered with pearls. The apricot or- 
chards seem to blush at their own surpassing 
loveliness, and the gentle breezes that rustle 
softly through the feathery tops of the palms are 
laden with the perfume of the rose and the violet. 
Tristram, in his account of what he saw, says : 
"Tall mud walls extended in every direction 
under the trees, and flowing streams of water 
from the Barada everywhere bubbled through the 
orchards, while all was alive with the song of the 
birds and the hum of bees. The great apricot 
trees were laden and bent down under strings of 
ripe golden fruit.' 7 

Whatever changes may be made by the hand 
of man in Damascus, whatever changes in gov- 
ernment and in commercial activities, the city is 
sure to be for all time a paradise of fertility and 
beauty. 

It will not be possible to give our readers an 
idea of order and relation in our presentations 



OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD 35 

of Damascus. We may, indeed, assert without 
fear of contradiction that there is no order in 
Damascus. It corresponds in its general 
make-up to the listless, indolent, happy-go-lucky 
element in human nature. It has been a city 
without a purpose. The people seem each day 
to seek only temporal enjoyment with as little 
personal exertion as possible, 

The whole city presents a perpetual invitation 
to lie down and rest. The trees, by the black 
shadows they throw across the roadside, call 
upon you to stop. The waters of the Abana wind 
their way through the gardens and courts of the 
houses, soliloquizing upon the blessedness of 
sleep and rest. The dress of the natives even 
when they walk — slippers half on, and with long, 
flowing robes — seems to say, "I am not walking 
much; I shall soon lie down again." 

The gardens of Damascus are the paradise of 
the Arabian world. Ooneybear, in his "Life and 
Epistles of St. Paul," says : "Damascus for miles 
around is a wilderness of gardens, wild roses 
among beautiful shrubbery, with fruit on the 
branches overhead. Everywhere among the trees 
the murmur of unseen rivulets is heard. Even 
in the city, which is in the midst of the garden, 
the clear rushing of the current is a perpetual re- 
freshment." In St. Paul's day there were no 



36 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

cupolas and no minarets. Justinian had not 
built St. Sophia and the Khalifs had erected no 
mosque, but the white buildings gleamed then as 
now in the midst of a verdant, incomparable 
paradise of gardens. 

Damascus has given itself up, in all ages, to 
trade in trinkets. It is a city of cotton bazaars, 
perfume bazaars, spice bazaars, cabinetmaker 
bazaars, slipper bazaars, sweetmeat bazaars, food 
bazaars. It is almost impossible to enumerate 
the vast variety of the curious bazaars, from 
their rich velvet down to brass pans and old 
clothes stores. 

The streets are crowded with files of camels 
plodding their way slowly along, guided by a 
very small boy, often perched on their neck. 
Mules and donkeys, with their gay caparisons, 
bestridden by some turbaned Eastern or izar- 
shrouded woman. The women all ride astride 
like the men, but their stirrups are much shorter 
and give them the appearance of almost kneeling 
on the donkey. 

The women are invariably engulfed in the 
white izar, a sheet about two yards deep and 
three or more yards long, which covers them from 
head to foot, the izar always having a fold, a 
couple of inches in depth, in the middle, or just 
where the wearer's waist would be — the object of 



OLDEST CITY IN THE WOELD 37 

which I failed to make out, unless it arose from 
a delusion that a fold there rendered more veiled 
the grace of the wearer's figure, which, however, 
is already entirely concealed by the thickness of 
the calico. 

In the streets of Damascus every Eastern na- 
tion and tribe have their representatives. Da- 
mascus merchants with flowing robe and em- 
broidered turban; Turkish effendis decked in a 
caricature of Frank costume badly made and 
worse put on; mountain princes trotting along 
in crimson jackets covered with gold embroidery ; 
Bedouins, spare in form and dark in visage, their 
piercing eyes granting stealthily on all who meet 
them; Druse sheiks arrayed gorgeously in silk 
robes interwoven with thread of gold and turban 
of white ; Kurdish shepherds in sheepskin caps ; 
stately Persians with long white robes and flow- 
ing beards — these are the classes one is likely 
to see in the vicinity of the bazaars — "a per- 
petual banquet of color." 

In the center of the city the houses bear evi- 
dence of thrift and cleanliness. There is an ex- 
tensive suburb on the south side of the city 
through which a broad street runs, and at its ex- 
tremity it is called the "Gate of God," through 
which the pilgrim caravan leaves and enters the 
city in state every year. Many of the leading 



38 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

streets to Damascus are covered, but this one is 
open. The uninviting exterior of the houses is 
not to be taken as an indication of their interior 
furnishing and decoration. The Damascenes 
care little for the outward appearance of their 
houses, but within flowers grow in profusion, 
fountains from the Abana play, and elegantly 
furnished reception rooms and parlors provide 
comfort and luxury for the inmates. 

"And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, 
named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a 
vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, 
Lord. And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and 
go into the street which is called Straight, and 
inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, 
of Tarsus; for, behold, he prayeth." Acts 9: 
10-11. 

The street called Straight is still the leading 
street in Damascus. It runs from east to west 
almost through the whole city. The leading 
carpet and silk shops are to be found on this 
avenue. It is narrow, and really it is a crooked 
street, although called Straight. Changes have 
taken place within a few years, and now one may 
ride through the most of the street in a modern 
carriage — a feat which could not have been per- 
formed a decade ago. 



OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD 39 

If the pilgrim enter the city of Damascus at 
its eastern gate and follow the street that is 
called Straight to the first lane at his right, he 
will soon reach what tradition calls the house of 
Ananias. It has been converted into a small 
church with a crypt and belongs to the Latins. 
The neighborhood is that of the Christian quar- 
ter and has none of the signs of Oriental luxury. 
These are found in the Moslem and Jewish quar- 
ters. 

Of course, it would be interesting to know the 
precise place in which Ananias lived, and yet the 
knowledge of a specific locality can not add to 
the importance and impressiveness of an event 
itself. It would be satisfactory to identify the 
very house in which Ananias lived, but it is not 
likely that the house of Ananias was, as the eccle- 
siastical tradition now insists, a mere cave, and, 
therefore, the chapel which has been built over 
the cave does not necessarily commemorate the 
precise locality, while it does recall the im- 
portant conversation which took place between 
the Lord and Ananias in his home. 

The Grand Mosque of Damascus is one of the 
most interesting buildings in the East. It is 
quadrangular in form, one hundred and sixty- 
three yards wide by one hundred and eight yards 
long. A lofty wall of fine masonry surrounds it. 
A few years ago the building was almost de- 



40 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

stroyed by fire. One of the most wonderful 
things about this mosque is an inscription which 
is pointed out to the tourist. It runs over an 
arch in the second story. It is in Greek and 
reads as follows : "Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an 
everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion en- 
dureth throughout all generations." 

This is the Septuagint rendering of Psalms 
145 : 13, with the simple addition of the name of 
Christ. What a curious inscription to find on a 
Moslem mosque ! And yet, how true it is that the 
kingdom of Christ is an everlasting kindom. To- 
day the power of Mohammedanism is waning. 
The Oriental systems — all of them — lose their 
lustre in the presence of the shining of His name 
who is in the light of the world. 

It is surprising that Mohammedan fanaticism 
has allowed this remarkable inscription to re- 
main here for more than twelve hundred years. 
The mosque was undoubtedly a Christian church, 
and before that, during the earliest centuries of 
the Christian era, it was probably a heathen 
temple. Thus the remains of the Christian pro- 
fession pronounce a glorious fact to the sons of 
man in this present time. 

Outside the east gate of the city of Damascus, 
on the banks of the Abana, is the leper hospital, 
which tradition tells us occupies the site of 
Naaman's house. Naaman was commander-in- 



OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD 41 

chief of the armies of Damascus. He was one of 
the greatest generals and greatest men of his 
age, but "he was a leper. " In some warlike expe- 
dition he carried away a little Jewish maid, who 
became his slave. Amid his sufferings the little 
maid exclaimed, "Would God my lord were with 
the prophet (Elisha) that is in Samaria! for he 
would recover him of his leprosy." Naaman 
went, but Elisha did not condescend to see him. 
He simply sent him a message saying, "Go wash 
in the Jordan." The proud Damascene was in- 
dignant. He expected that the prophet would 
come out "and call on the name of the Lord his 
God, and strike his hand over the place, and re- 
cover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, 
rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of 
Israel? May I not wash in them, and be clean?" 

But Naaman obeyed and was cleansed. He 
washed in the river again and again — seven 
times, according to the divine command of the 
prophet — and lo ! healing came ! The memory of 
Naaman clings to Damascus yet. Outside I have 
visited the lepers' hospital on the site of the 
house of JSTaaman, and when looking on its mis- 
erable inmates, all disfigured and mutilated by 
their loathsome disease, I could not wonder that 
the heart of the little Jewish captive was moved 
by her master's sufferings. That child's voice 
still rings through the ages, and the rich man 



42 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

and the poor, the great and the lowly, may find 
health and gladness in the rivers of salvation. 

But Damascus, like Petra, has never produced 
a man whose name is known in history. No na- 
tive has ever walked through the city of Da- 
mascus, great enough and rich enough in soul to 
make of the place of his birth a shrine. Though 
the rivers and gardens and trees and flowers in 
Damascus are so beautiful, they have never been 
touched with the spirit of any great personality. 
No person born in Damascus has ever breathed 
in that town, rich and broad and great enough to 
transfigure and glorify the city. It has never 
been consecrated by the presence of any vast 
spirit living in its neighborhood. The yellow 
primrose there has been a yellow primrose and 
nothing more, throughout all ages, because there 
were no eyes except such as were vulgar to behold 
it. No flower in any crannied wall there has 
ever opened its soul to any native poet. The airs 
which blow through the flower gardens there 
have never become instinct with unseen pres- 
ences, so as to impress the sense of something in- 
finitely mysterious and great, 

The world of Damascus has no partnership 
with the spirit, because there has never been 
a spirit native to the town great enough to appre- 
ciate the beauty of the place. No art, philosophy 



OLDEST CITY IN THE WORLD 43 

or romance has ever been exhaled from great in- 
tellects there to leave their charm upon the ma- 
terial surroundings of the city. All we know of 
Damascus we have learned from the history of 
those who have acted in and around the city, but 
from natives of the place we have learned abso- 
lutely nothing. 

Damascus is one city that has lived entirely for 
the present. It has been under the dominion of 
many different rulers, but has generally pros- 
pered because they have never forgotten that the 
object for which they lived was purely for the 
purpose of keeping up their trade, and enjoying 
themselves in the indolent, luxurious way that 
appealed to their ideas of life. Damascus has 
never had a purpose as a city in its entire exist- 
ence. 



CHAPTER IV 

JERUSALEM THE CAPITAL OF 
CHRISTENDOM 

JOHN HYRCANUS, a Maccabean prince 
ruled over Jerusalem and the surrounding 
country from B. C. 135-104. In his will he 
nominated his eldest son, Judas Aristobulus as 
high priest, but left the government to his wife, 
Aristobulus, not satisfied with merely being high 
priest, starved his mother to death, and assumed 
the place of king also. He reigned only one year, 
and was succeeded by his younger brother, Alex- 
ander Jannseus, who was king of the Jews and 
high priest, too, from B. C. 103-76. On his death, 
his widow, Aledandra became queen, and his son 
Hyrcanus II became high priest. The queen's 
reign lasted from B. C. 76-67. She was succeeded 
by her second son, Aristobulus II, who reigned 
from B. C. 67-63. 

After Pompeius captured Jerusalem, in B. C. 
63, the Romans took the political interests of this 
country into their own hands, but granted full 
power to rule Jerusalem itself to the high priest, 
Hyrcanus II. He reigned from B. C. 63-40, 
under the title of Ethnarch. 

44 



THE CAPITAL OF CHRISTENDOM 45 

After the rearrangement of the political affairs 
of the country by the Romans at this period, we 
find for the first time the word Sanheclrin used 
to represent the Supreme Court of the JewSo 
The Jews were now placed under the governor or 
province of Syria, and forced to pay tribute. 

In B. C. 40, the Parthians took Jerusalem, de- 
posed Hyrcanus II and appointed Antigonus, son 
of Aristobulus II as king, who styled himself 
both high priest and king, and who reigned from 
B. C. 40-37. Herod was appointed tetrarch by 
Marc Antony, and in B. C. 40 king by the Roman 
Senate. He took Jerusalem from Antigonus in 
B. C. 37, and executed him. Herod reigned from 
B. C. 37-4. 

In 6 A. D., Judea was taken from Archlaus, 
the son of Herod, and made a subprovince of 
Rome, with a governor of its own, called pro- 
curator, an office to which Pilate succeeded in 
A. D. 29. Twelve years afterward Herod 
Agrippa, a grandson of Herod the Great, suc- 
ceeded to all his father's dominion, and for four 
years ruled over united Palestine. The great 
siege of Jerusalem began in A. D. 70, under the 
leadership of Titus, and after the capture and 
destruction of the city, it remained for fifty years 
nothing more than the station of a small Roman 
garrison. 



46 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

In the year 20, B. C, Herod began to erect the 
new temple. When Christ first visited it, it was 
one of the finest buildings of antiquity. Never 
since Solomon's time had Jerusalem been such a 
center of interest and power. The Herods ruled 
from Sidon and Mount Hermon as far as the 
limits of Idumea nearly 300 miles to the south. 
With the new ports of Csesarea, connected by a 
highway with Jerusalem, the country possessed 
material advantages unknown in Solomon's day. 

The Jews of the dispersion scattered over the 
Eoman empire, who had become wealthy, were 
accustomed to paying frequent visits to the city. 
Besides, there were Parthians, and Medes, and 
Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and 
in Cappadoeia, in Pbntus, and Asia, Phrygia, 
and Pamphylia, and in Egypt, and in the parts of 
Libya, about Gyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews 
and proselytes, Gretes and Arabians. 

Down in the south of Arabia, in the district of 
Yen en, over which the Queen of Sheba had ruled, 
the Jews were found in great numbers, and 
thronged to Jerusalem at festival times by way 
of Petra and Hebron. The Jews seemed to have 
got as far east as China, and to have attained 
unto official rank there, as Joseph had done unto 
the Pharaohs. Some of them, it is said, became 
mandarins, and they tried to preserve their re- 



THE CAPITAL OF CHKISTENDOM 47 

ligion and customs, by building in China a copy 
of the Love Temple at Jerusalem. 

This great body of sightseers would be anxious 
to return with souvenirs of their visits, and so 
the cloisters of the Temple were turned into a 
kind of bazaar. It is probable that Christ talked 
with the learned doctors of these cloisters, which 
were much frequented by men eager for discus- 
sion. 

Solomon's porch, the only remnant of the work 
of the first founder, stood on the eastern side of 
the Temple enclosure; and here Jesus was ac- 
customed to walk out and to teach His unity 
with the Father. The early Christians gathered 
here, when they continued daily with one accord 
in the Temple. 

The Beautiful Gate, associated in our minds 
with the miracle of the healing of the cripple by 
Peter and John was on the east; and besides 
being the principal gate, was the richest in or- 
namentation, and most imposing in size. Fash- 
ioned out of finely wrought Corinthian brass, it 
was so heavy that twenty porters were needed to 
open and close its double folds. The Holy House, 
with its porch, was 150 feet long, by as many 
broad. 

The Holy Place was 60 feet long and 30 broad, 
and the Most Holy 30 long by 30 broad. There 



48 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

was a space around the side and rear of the 
sacred edifice 30 feet in width, and occupied by 
rooms devoted to sacred uses. These rooms, 
though three stories high, did not reach to the 
height of the main structure. Above the Holy 
and Most Holy Places were rooms, and the whole 
building was covered by a gabled roof of cedar, 
each piece of which had been nailed into position 
by a golden spike. 

There it stood on the summit of Moriah, in all 
its marvelous beauty of gold and snow, facing 
Olivet and the sun rising ; the pride of every Jew- 
ish heart, the center of the nation's thought, the 
earthly dwelling place of their God. In concep- 
tion and execution, Herod's artificers had at last 
surpassed those of Solomon. 

An article or a book giving the political and 
physical aspect of Jerusalem in the particular 
period of its history between B. C. 37, when 
Herod became king, to A. D. 70, when the Ro- 
mans destroyed it, would be easy to write. But 
no chronological fact, no description of valleys 
and hills, no measurement of walls and temples 
can convey to the mind any adequate idea of Je- 
rusalem. Jerusalem is a city to call forth the 
powers of the heart and not a place to be treated 
by the dry details of the analyst. 

Jerusalem is the city, that, above all others, 
stands for the religious element in human nature. 



THE CAPITAL OF CHKISTENDOM 49 

Man has always felt that he was more than the 
beasts that perish, and Jerusalem is the per- 
petual witness to the intensity of this feeling. 
Inland, lifted up, rock-bound and rock-under- 
girded, Jerusalem, by all the pinnacles that have 
pierced the heavens from her temples, churches, 
mosques ; by all the rocks that have gone into her 
massive walls; by all the wars that have raged 
around her devoted inhabitants ; by all the blood 
that has reddened her. streets, and by all the 
prayers and hymns from the love of her saints, 
has perpetually voiced man's undying belief in 
God, and the necessity he was under to love and 
serve Him. 

No city has been so often pillaged, so often de- 
molished ; yet the smoke has hardly ceased to go 
up from her fire-swept ruins before her people 
began to replace her palaces and to rebuild her 
walls. By turns, the nations surrounding her 
came up and emptied upon her devoted head all 
the resources of relentless fury, but amid it all 
and in spite of it all, this city of the conscience 
continued to weep and wail and sing songs and 
write prophecy and offer sacrifices. Her suffer- 
ings have made her great and have turned the 
very stones of her streets into objects of affection. 
For thousands of years human lips have been 
wearing away the stones of Jerusalem with their 
kisses. Jerusalem is a small city, and has never 
been large, but it has had more influence upon 



50 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

the thought and sentiment and conduct of the- 
human race than any other. 

Jerusalem has never had any commercial im- 
portance. Its only trade consists of the symbols 
and objects of affection, such as mother-of-pearl 
crosses, and carvings of the Savior's face ; flow- 
ers from the holy fields over whose acres walked 
the blessed feet nailed for our advantage on the 
bitter cross; olivewood stamps and paper 
weights, and pictures of places connected with 
the Savior's life. Jerusalem is an unworldly city 
and ministers to the lofty and great and holy in 
man, and stands for the eternal in human nature. 
Jerusalem is the only city on earth where every 
kind of money is current— Greek money, French 
money, Italian money, German money, American 
money, Egyptian money, Hindoo money, and 
every other sort of money is good, for to the city 
of David the tribes of all the earth continue to 
go up; there they all find welcome. Jerusalem 
is the city of man, and enjoys the distinction of 
being the only city the Son of man ever wept 
over. 

The walls surrounding the city contain forty 
feet of human history. For 4,000 years, Jerusa- 
lem has been the altar, the confessional, the 
mourner's bench of the human race. This has 
been the place where human nature has medi- 
tated, repented and aspired ; here the infinite, the 



THE CAPITAL OF CHRISTENDOM 51 

undying and spiritual in man have expressed 
themselves in the melody of song and the impor- 
tunity of ceaseless prayer; here the currents 
which drift toward God in human nature have 
come to shore; here their swell and sweep have 
lifted themselves into the psalms of David, the 
prophecies of Isaiah and the wailings of Jere- 
miah. 

The place has an infinite charm for poor, 
tempted, frail humanity, because here is the spot 
where One of our own flesh and blood first con- 
quered the world, the flesh and the devil; here 
virtue and honor and purity and holiness and 
tenderness and pity and sympathy and charity 
were enthroned and invested with the prestige 
that comes from succeeding. They failed at 
Athens in Socrates, but they triumphed in Jeru- 
salem in Jesus Christ. Human nature was digni- 
fied and ennobled by the success of Christ at Je- 
rusalem. He showed what man can be and do. 

Everything and every place about Jerusalem is 
interesting. There is the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, which is the cathedral not only of 
Palestine, but of all Christendom. No sacred 
edifice on earth is the object of so much senti- 
ment and affection. Here Christian belief in the 
resurrection has stood in mute stone for nearly 
sixteen centuries over the empty grave of our 
Lord, witnessing with a force no words can equal, 



52 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

to the fundamental and essential fact of the 
Christian religion. Here hard and unyielding 
rock has, by the power of creative Christian senti- 
ment, been turned into the delicate tracery of 
lace-work. 

Here we have in small compass and under one 
roof an epitome of Christian history. Here all 
orders and denominations and nationalities, 
found often wide apart in the great, broad world, 
get together in a common center. It is interest 
ing and suggestive to know that under the roof of 
one Christian church on earth there is room for 
all faiths. In this church the whole world is rep- 
resented; it belongs to no party or nation, but 
is owned by the Christian world, and because 
Christians have not yet advanced sufficiently in 
the spirit and charity of their Master to love one 
another as they ought, the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre is held in trust for them all by the 
Sultan of Turkey. 

There is the Via Dolorosa, or the Pathway of 
Pain. This is the street over which Christ bore 
the cross to the place of crucifixion. It extends 
from the prsetorium, the residence of Pilate, to 
Golgotha, or from the Turkish barracks to the 
Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There are four- 
teen stations along the way, each one represent- 
ing some particular event in the last walk of our 
Lord on earth. It is strange that this short way 



THE CAPITAL OF CHRISTENDOM 53 

should mark the beginning of western civiliza- 
tion. Here the world learned a new secret of 
strength and a new method of life. Here began 
the street which has extended through the ages, 
and along which healthy, heroic, triumphant hu- 
man life has walked ever since. 

There is the Garden of Gethsemane, visited by 
more pilgrims than any other garden on earth. 
The Garden of Gethsemane, where the second 
Man triumphed, balances the Garden of Eden, 
where the first man failed. Paradise, lost by 
transgression, is replaced by the paradise gained 
by obedience. The agony of Gethsemane meets 
and overcomes the sin of Eden. These two gar- 
dens, because of their relation to the moral his- 
tory of man, have become immortal. 

No emphatic disposition to locate the Garden 
of Eden has manifested itself. Men are not much 
inclined to make pilgrimages to the places which 
register the beginning of their lapses and wan- 
derings, but the Garden of Gethsemane has been 
fixed by the devotion and sentiment of nearly 
1,600 years. Stratford-on-Avon will ever be dear 
to the human race, for there lived the man whose 
creations have enriched the common mind; but 
Gethsemane stands, unrivaled and unapproached 
in human affection, because from thence came the 
report that it is impossible for God ever to cease 
to love sinners. The intimation from heaven, 



54 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

given in the agony of the last prayer in Gethsern- 
ane, that God takes an interest in the affairs of 
men, is the secret that makes it the sweetest place 
on earth. 

Then there is the Mosque of Omar, where stood 
the great palaces and the temple of Solomon, the 
temporary and inferior temple built by Nehe- 
miah, and the forgeous and magnificent temple 
built by Herod. What an appeal it presents to 
the imagination ! 

Here in this mosque we have the rock, where 
Melchisedek offered sacrifices, where Abraham is 
said to have been in the act of offering Isaac; 
where, according to tradition, Jacob saw the lad- 
der leading up to heaven ; where was the thresh- 
ing floor of Araunah; where was the site of 
the altar of burnt offering for Israel, upon which 
David sacrificed; where was the altar of the 
temples of Solomon, Zerubbabel and Herod, and 
where it is said Mohammed prayed, declaring 
that one prayer from this spot was worth a thou- 
sand elsewhere. 

Those who come with imagination to Jerusa- 
lem and with knowledge of its marvelously ro- 
mantic history will be able to see not one city 
only, but many. 

There is the Jerusalem of Melchisedek, living 
in his devotion, standing serene and beautiful 



THE CAPITAL OF CHRISTENDOM 55 

above the storms and clouds and changing for- 
tunes of time. There is the Jerusalem of the 
Jebusites, anchored forever to the threshing floor 
of Araunah. There is the Jerusalem of David, 
with its palaces in song, its trees in song, its 
Mount of Olives in song, perpetually holding its 
place in the unending pulsations of divine music, 
refreshing the ear and charming the hearts of the 
saints of all ages. 

There is the Jerusalem of Solomon, with its 
temple covered with gold, gleaming under sun of 
the deep Syrian sky throughout all time. There 
is the Jerusalem of Neherniah, built with a 
weapon of warfare in one hand, and an imple- 
ment of industry in the other, appealing to the 
strenuous of all ages. There is the Jerusalem 
of Isaiah, breathing in prophecy and falling in 
tears but rising in aspirations that are never to 
pass away. 

There is the Jerusalem of Jeremiah, changing 
with the cadences of his sad and mournful poem, 
but eternally fixed in the wailing and the tears 
of the prophet that God raised up to tell his na- 
tive city of her sins. There is the Jerusalem of 
our Savior, with its temple, its palace of Herod, 
its Garden of Gethsemane and its Mount Cal- 
vary, permanent in the New Testament Scrip- 
tures. 

There is the Jerusalem of Titus, with its raging- 
fire and mouldering ruins still burning and smok- 



56 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

ing in the glowing periods of the historian Jo- 
sephus. And then there is the Jerusalem of the 
crusaders, with its songs and gallant knights liv- 
ing to-day in Tasso's verse, and loved to-day as 
in the time of Peter and Hermit. 

If we are to have any rational conception of 
universal history, we must study it from Jerusa- 
lem. Condorcet said that had Xerxes been vic- 
torious at Salamis, we might still be barbarians, 
and Gibbon remarked that but for Charles Mar- 
tel's victory, Mohammedan doctors might to-day 
be teaching the Koran at the University of Ox- 
ford ; and Pascal went so far as to declare that 
if the nose of Cleopatara had been shorter, the 
whole face of the earth would have been changed. 

Whatever may be our estimate of the fancies 
of these great men, it is beyond question that had 
it not been for Jerusalem and the transaction 
which took place within her walls, human his- 
tory as we know it had not been. The initial 
stages of the great consummation toward which 
all human activity moves, were inaugurated at 
Jerusalem. 

It is to this City of the Great King that the 
countries around the Mediterranean Sea owe 
their charm and interest. Among the great cities 
of the past it was humble in position and small 
in extent. To the west of her stretched Egypt, 



THE CAPITAL OF CHRISTENDOM 57 

like a green ribbon for two thousand miles, pro- 
ducing enough wheat every year to feed half the 
world. Under the very shadow of her mountains 
lay Tyre and Sidon, crowding with their ships 
every market under the sun. To the east of her 
was Babylon, dazzling and corrupting the na- 
tions with her wealth. Somewhat further away 
on the west, was Athens, seated on her throne of 
hills by the sea, a queen of beauty, attracting 
students of the world by her art and learning. 
More distant still, was Eome, embracing by her 
arms of war all the peoples of the globe. 

Surrounded by cities strong, rich and imperi- 
ous, Jerusalem seemingly had small chance for 
a career. Alexandria could rely upon her corn, 
Tyre upon her purple dye, Babylon upon her 
wealth, Athens upon her beauty, and Rome upon 
her legions, but what had poor, rock-encompassed 
Jerusalem to rely on, as a reason for existence, 
or a future of influence. With her patches of 
environing soil held by terraces to her hills, with 
her narrow valleys hardly sufficient to produce 
bread for her people, with no army and no power, 
how could this weak mountain town hold up her 
head and compete for a place in the history of 
the world? 

While the cities about here were augmenting 
their wealth, and increasing their dominions and 
whitening the seas with their ships of trade and 
filling the world with the din of their battles ; the 



58 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

people of Jerusalem were writing poetry, chron- 
icling their spiritual hopes, uttering their pray- 
ers and reading from the interior depths of their 
souls the literature of heaven as God breathed it 
into the spirits of her inspired men. 

Now, in this far-off time, after the empires 
have passed, after the tumult of battle has ceased, 
after the temples have fallen, after the forms in 
which material civilizations clothed themselves 
have vanished, we find alone remaining, to bring 
us news of the countries long gone, like a forgot- 
ten dream, the prayers and chronicles and visions 
and dreams of a poor Hebrew people, who had 
faith in their day to trust in God and to conse- 
crate their lives to His service. If some Hebrew 
dreamers had not been taken captive from Jeru- 
salem to Babylon, the very name of that vast 
empire had doubtless passed from the memories 
of men. Had not the Jews, by the exigencies of 
fortunes come into relations with Egypt, interest 
in that wonderful land might never have been re- 
vived. St. Paul, crucified with the Christ, who 
died on the cross in Jerusalem, preached a ser- 
mon on Mar's Hill, that has clone more to con- 
serve the beauty lying by its side than all other 
things put together. 

Jerusalem's title to immortality is due not to 
any thing external, but to the devout, beautiful, 
interior lives of her saints. Their prayers have 
preserved the perfume of her flowers, and their 
sacrifices and sufferings have made her gates 
gleam with the radiance of heaven. 



CHAPTER V 
MOST CELEBRATED VILLAGE ON EARTH 

A GREAT personage imparts something to 
the place and time of his birth that glori- 
fies both. Hence it is that Bethlehem of 
Judea is the most famous town on earth, and the 
25th of December the greatest day ever measured 
from eternity. 

Bethlehem is about six miles south of Jerusa- 
lem, fourteen miles west of the Dead Sea, and 
thirty-nine miles east of the Mediterranean Sea. 
It stands on a projecting spur of limestone be- 
longing to the central range of Palestine. On 
the eastern end of the ridge it crowns stands the 
church and convent of the Nativity. It looks like 
a great fortress and commands the valley or plain 
of the shepherds, which runs out toward the 
mountains of Judea on the east. 

Stranger and sweeter sound waves were never 
known than those the shepherds heard, passing 
over the fields around Bethlehem, when Christ 
was born. They were so full of music and beauty 
that they were not only heard by the ear but seen 
by the eye. The vibrations, which then filled the 
sky Avith melody and light were created by the 

59 



60 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

songs of the multitude of the heavenly host, as 
St. Luke in the second chapter of his gospel 
teaches, seemingly sent from above to furnish 
music to celebrate the arrival of One sent from 
heaven to take personal and direct charge of the 
fortunes of humanity. 

The splendor that encompassed the manger 
was but the glow which flamed from the entrance 
of the Son of Man into the earthly environment 
of our human lot, just as the blaze of crimson 
glory we sometimes see radiating from the east 
as the king of day above the horizon, in the won- 
drous pageantry of the morning is but the result 
of transactions caused by the trading of pencils 
of light with the elements of the atmosphere. 

I had the pleasure of being in Bethlehem, one 
beautiful morning in 1894, and was impressed, as 
I stood in that Judean town, with a sense of its 
extraordinary significance. The only expression 
of one's soul up to the style of such a neighbor- 
hood is that of rapture and adoration. 

Bethlehem is no place to go with the logic- 
chopping, mechanical intellect striving to force 
events which transpired there into line with 
meager mental formulas. That the glory of the 
Lord should have shone about the shepherds, as 
they watched their flocks in the fields around 
Bethlehem is perfectly in keeping with the un- 



MOST CELEBRATED VILLAGE 61 

precedented wonders which have accompanied 
the career of Christ ever since He touched the 
shores of the planet. Many have no room in the 
meager horizon of their intellectual sky for the 
light and beauty that filled the heavens over 
Bethlehem when Christ was born. 

It is remarkable that such thinkers do not see 
that the wonder of Christ is not in the manner of 
His coming into the world, but consists of the 
universal enterprise He inaugurated and has 
been successfully conducting for nearly two 
thousand years. The extraordinary phenomenon 
which accompanied the entrance of Christ into 
humanity at Bethlehem, was but the beginning of 
a series of unparalleled happenings in connection 
with his career that have been repeated year by 
year down to the present time. 

The dazzling brilliance and unearthly beauty 
that literally wrapped the heavens in flame over 
Bethlehem, when Christ was born, have taken 
form in St. Mark's at Venice ; in Pisa's glorious 
pile; in the cathedrals of Milan, Modena, and 
Parma; in the lovely structures breaking into 
foam at Mayence, Worms, Basel and Brussels; 
in the vast marble blossoms which have come to 
flower in the churches of France, in the Abbey 
Church of Cluney, Chartres, Rouen and Notre 
Dame; in the wondrous expressions of frozen 



62 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

music we see in the English cathedrals of West- 
minister, Canterbury and Welles. 

The vast, awe-inspiring magnificence that has 
made Bethlehem a shrine through the Christian 
centuries, has also expressed itself in the ora- 
torios of the famous masters, and in the rhythm 
of the greatest poets, as well as in the gorgeous 
colors the great painters have used to illuminate 
the art galleries of the world. 

People whose faith staggers over the unparal- 
leled phenomenon that was seen lighting up the 
sky over Bethlehem nearly two thousand years 
ago should not find it necessary to travel back to 
the beginning of our era to find something con- 
nected with Christ to stumble over. Why be 
dazzled to the blindness of unbelief by a frag- 
ment of light that shone in Bethlehem when 
Christ was born, while we are forced to adjust 
ourselves to a hot, broiling, blazing sun of light 
directly over our heads, white enough with bril- 
liance to put the world's eyes out? The problem 
of Christ to marvel at is the triumphant, dynamic, 
all-conquering life He has lived in history. 

How a life that has expressed itself in the 
beauty of architecture, painting and poetry 
through the Christian centuries, should have 
come up out of Galilee, uncolored and untouched 
by any local limits of place, or by any tra- 



MOST CELEBRATED VILLAGE 63 

ditions of its time, or by any controversies 
of its age, is the miracle that throws reason 
from its throne and forces the human race 
to arrange itself into adjustment with a new and 
unparalleled fact. How life should rise out of a 
people, provincial to a proverb, and take charge 
of the fortunes of mankind and compel even time 
itself to capitulate in its presence, and forever 
measure its passing from a new date, is the prob- 
lem that throws all our intellectual methods into 
brokenness and ruin. 

What confuses us is the difficulty of under- 
standing how Christ so learned the ideal and es- 
sential relations between God and man, as to be 
able to bring in the facts of his own life the power 
and method of harmonizing them. What the aver- 
age man can never understand, by means of think- 
ing, is how Christ managed to get so completely 
into league with events that He was able to deal 
with the universe of mind and the universe of mat- 
ter and force the whole sum of things to conform 
to His purpose, and yet, without destroying the 
personality of any one man, to bring every man 
to a completer individuality through organizing 
all men into one social whole. What puzzles us 
is to know how Christ, having never traveled, 
learned so much about human nature that He 
was able to take the gifts intrusted to all men 
severally and show them how to use them in a 
perfectly balanced life. 



64 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

The coming of so marvelous a Person as 
Jesus Christ into terms of flesh and blood 
nearly twenty centuries ago, is the vast, 
overwhelming event which makes Bethlehem 
famous. His coming meant the inauguration 
of the period when a fresh and beautiful and 
divine issue of humanity was to be published. It 
was the invasion of time by eternity. The litera- 
ture of heaven was to be translated into the lan- 
guage of the earth. The infinite was to be domes- 
ticated in terms of the finite. In the light of 
these stupendous realities we can understand 
very well how Bethlehem and everything in it 
has been idealized and lifted from the realm of 
matter into that of spirit. 

The Church of the Nativity glows in the splen- 
dor of unearthly light. The lofty columns of red- 
dish, white-veined limestone, which form the 
nave and side aisles, do not seem to be formed of 
mere matter, but appear to be possessed of a 
soul that everywhere pervades them. The Co- 
rinthian capitals, which crown the pillars, seem 
in a way to be alive. And so with the fragments 
of ancient mosaics to be found here and there 
on the walls. The decorations and lamps which 
are suspended over the altar and are chiefly the 
gifts of distinguished kings and queens from 
various parts of the world, while having great 
material value in themselves, yet this is as noth- 



MOST CELEBEATED VILLAGE 65 

ing to the spiritual value which has been lent to 
them by the devotion and worship of Christian 
disciples. This whole church is not simply a 
thing of beauty, but there is about it a subtle 
mystic power which gives to it the grace of a 
sacrament. 

Just under the high altar is the cavern or 
grotto in which Christ was born. In the floor of 
the recess, where the manger was, there is a silver 
star, placed in the pavement, around which are 
written in Latin these words: "Hie de Virgine 
Maria Jesus Christus natus est." (Here Jesus 
Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. ) 

In this grotto more worshipers have stood to 
pray, meditate and adore, while looking upon the 
star, than ever stood in any other like space be- 
fore. Here Christ, the Savior of the world, came 
to man in terms of his own life. 

We have dwelt so much on the fact that Christ 
died for us that we have been in danger, some- 
times, of forgetting that He was born for us, was 
a child in His mother's arms for us, was a boy 
questioning the doctors in the temple for us. He 
saw the lilies and admired their beauty for us. 
He took dinner with Zaccheus in Jericho for us. 
Everything He did, every word He uttered, every 
prayer He breathed, was for us. 

There is not a single square inch of the entire 
surface of our being that Christ does not touch. 
When He entered humanity through Bethlehem 



66 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

He took upon Him the whole reach and sweep of 
our earthly life. 

I cried aloud, there is no Christ 

In all this world unparadised! 

No Christ to go to in my need — 

No Christ to comfort me and feed! 

He passed in glory out of sight, 

The angels drew Him into light ; 

Now in the lonesome earth and air 

I cannot find Him anywhere. 

Would God that heaven were not so far 

And I were where the white ones are. 

From the gray stones of the street, 
Where goes an ocean drift of feet, 
I heard a child's cry tremble up 
And turned to share my scanty cup, 
When lo, the Christ I thought was dead 
Was in the little one I fed. 
At this I drew my aching eyes 
From the far-watching of the skies 
And now, whichever way I turn, 
I see my Lord's white halo burn! 



CHAPTER VI 
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY ON EARTH 



T 



HINK of a petrified rainbow, of a cloud of 
gorgeous color, four thousand feet high 
and seven miles in circumference, turned 
into stone. Think of the deepest reds, the most 
brilliant purples, all shades of yellow, arranged 
in alternate bands, shading off into each other; 
curved and twisted into gorgeous fantasies, all 
standing up and out in rock, and you have the 
raw material out of which the City of Petra was 
cut. Think of this mountain of light, in the form 
of stone, with its heart pulled out, leaving a space 
three or four miles in circumference, surrounded 
by precipitous sides, and you have the ground 
plan of the strangest city under the sun. Think 
of an apple with the core cut out and you have 
a diminutive representation of the mountain in 
Arabia after some Titan had pitched out its 
heart, the Edomites used to build Petra. 

Not elsewhere in the world were there ever 
such perfect conditions formed by natural forces 
for a splendid city, and when you think of this 
three miles of circular space, surrounded by 
walls five hundred to four thousand feet high, 

67 



68 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

with but one entrance into it and one from it, you 
get an idea of what a perfect fortress, what a per- 
fect refuge from the peril of invasion this round 
pile of beauty became. A gorge two miles long, 
varying in width from twelve feet at its narrow- 
est point to thirty-five feet at its widest, rising 
up from four hundred to one thousand feet high, 
furnishes the entrance to the enclosure where the 
city was built. Through these gloomy walls, 
called the Sik, near enough together to almost 
shut out the blue ribbon of the sky, we pass from 
the desert into the City of Petra. 

It is not strange, when we think of the marvel- 
ous possibilities for a city formed by nature here, 
that man was tempted, from the beginning al- 
most, of his career in Arabia, to use the precip- 
itous cliffs of Petra for the purpose of cutting 
for himself homes, tombs, theatres, places of wor- 
ship out of the solid rock. This region comes 
into history as Mt. Seir, in the days of Abraham. 
It was the home of the Horites, who emerge at the 
dawn of human history. Some time after Jacob 
had fled to Paddan-aram from the anger of his 
brother, Esau left Isaac, his father, and made his 
home in Mt. Seir. Mt. Seir is supposed to be 
Petra. The kings of Edom reigned here at the 
time the children of Israel were in Egypt. A 
little more than half a century before the Chris- 
tian era, the king of Arabia issued from his pal- 



MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY 69 

ace in Petra, at the head of fifty thousand men, 
horse and foot, and entered Jerusalem, uniting 
with the disaffected Jews, he besieged Aristobu- 
lus, the king in the Temple, and was only driven 
off by the advance of the Eomans. In the time of 
Paul an Ethnarch under Aretas, the king of 
Petra, held the city of Damascus. 

Petra was once the central point to which the 
caravans from the* interior of Arabia, Persia and 
India came laden with all the precious commodi- 
ties of the East, and from which these commodi- 
ties were distributed through Egypt, Palestine 
and Syria and all the countries bordering on the 
Mediterranean, and even Tyre and Sidon derived 
many of their precious dyes from Petra. Here 
met the East and the West to trade and barter. 
It was also the great place of safety into which 
the caravans poured after the vicissitudes and 
dangers of the desert. Its wealth became fabu- 
lous. In A. D. 106 the Eomans seized the coun- 
try and made Petra the capital of this vision of 
Palestine. 

According to the Koran, it was here that Moses 
struck the rock, and the same fountain still flows 
under his name through the Sik. It is a remark- 
able tribute to a great man that there is hardly 
a single tent or house to-day in all that mountain 
region, without a Moses among its children or old 



70 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

people. Moses has taken possession of the coun- 
try. 

After the triumph of the Mohammedans in the 
seventh century, Petra drops out of attention and 
was absolutely lost sight of until within recent 
years. Buckhardt was one of the first travelers 
to visit Petra in modern times. He was there in 
1811. Irby was there in 1818. John Stephens 
was there in 1837, Steven Olin in 1840, Dean 
Stanley in 1852, Edward L. Wilson in 1882, Gen- 
eral Kitchener in 1883, Forder and Hornstein in 
1895, Gray Hill in 1896, Brunnow in 1896, Sir 
Charles Wilson in 1898, Samuel I. Curtis in 
1898, George L. Robinson in 1900, and W. B. Pal- 
more in 1903. Almost every traveler to Petra 
has come back with stories of the iniquity and 
perfidy of the people of that region. 

The historic associations of the place are ex- 
ceedingly interesting, but travelers who have vis- 
ited Petra can find no words capable of describ- 
ing the beautiful natural colors of the sandstone 
out of which it is built. 

"It seems no work of man's creative hand, 
By labor wrought as wavering fancy planned ; 
But from the rock as if by magic grown, 
Eternal, silent, beautiful, alone! 
Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine 
Where erst Athena held her rites divine; 
Not santly-grey, like many a minster fane 



MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY 71 

That crowns the hill and consecrates the plain, 

But rosy-red as if the blush of dawn 

That first beheld them were not yet withdrawn; 

The hues of youth upon a brow of woe, 

Which man deemed old two thousand years ago. 

Match me such marvel save in Eastern clime, 

A rose-red city half as old as Time." 

Petra, as seen to-day, appears to be a great cas- 
tellated mass of beauty. Whether seen in the 
gloom of the Sik or in the brilliant sunshine that 
kindles its craggy, bristling pinnacles into col- 
ored flame, the city amazes and surprises every- 
one. 

I have desired, ever since I read of this wonder- 
ful city in the midst of the desert, to sometime 
behold for myself the indescribable beauties of 
the purples, the yellows, the crimsons and the 
many-hued combinations of the wondrous place. 
I have read of the stony ramparts, with veins of 
white and blue, red, purple and sometimes scar- 
let and light orange running through it in 
rainbow streaks. With the minds' eye I have 
looked within its chambers, and where there had 
been no exposure to the action of the elements, 
had seen the freshness and beauty of the colors 
in which their waving lines were drawn, giving 
effects hardly inferior to those of the paintings of 
Titian and of the great artists of Venice and 
Florence. I have read of the endless variety of 
bright and living hues, from the deepest crimson 
to the softest pink, verging also sometimes to 



72 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

orange and yellow, and all these varying shades 
distinctly marked by waving lines and imparting 
to the surface of the rock a succession of brilliant 
and changing tints like the hues of watered silk. 
I have read of the red, purple, yellow and azure 
colors, woven into successive layers, or so 
blended as to form every hue and shade of which 
they are capable, as brilliant and soft as they 
ever appear in flowers or in the plumage of birds, 
or in the sky when illuminated with the most 
glorious sunset and so for years I have dreamed 
of seeing Petra. 

It has come to be known, within recent years 
that color and music and perfume are all formed 
by different wave-lengths. Music is made by the 
harmonious combination of sound waves pulsating 
at the rate of sixteen beats to the second on the 
lower scale and thirty-eight thousand beats to the 
second on the upper scale. Harmonious color is 
formed when light waves vibrate at the rate of 
four hundred trillion times to the second on the 
lower scales, and seven hundred trillion times to 
the second on the upper scale. What the artist 
does who paints a great picture is to arrange the 
pigments so that when the fingers of light come 
playing upon the canvas, we have an audible pic- 
ture, a picture that we cannot hear by the ear, 
but by that more refined organ of sound called 
the eye, we can see. 



MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY 73 

All the colors of the prismatic scale have been 
lodged by the Author of all beauty, in that petri- 
fied rainbow of a mountain out of which Petra 
was built, and so when the light comes pouring 
down upon the different pigments of stone, it 
makes them sing just as do the fingers of Pad- 
erewski make the notes of the piano sing when he 
touches them. The reason, therefore, the city of 
Petra captures the imagination and calls forth, 
in all lovers of the beautiful, a desire to see it, 
is because out there in the Arabian desert the 
whole city, under the pressure of the quadrillion- 
fingered light, has been singing since the days of 
Abraham. 

I have been in the neighborhood of Petra but 
never saw the city with my own eyes, but through 
a book entitled "Travels in Arabia," by Kev. W. 
B. Palmore, I have been permitted to visit that 
wonderful place. 

Without the perils and the expenses of an ac- 
tual visit, I have been able to hear Petra sing 
through those bright and gorgeous colors, which 
her stones receive from the sun, and throw back 
into the sky in the form of the glorious melody 
of her music. I have been able to wander among 
the walls of rock, which glow under the power of 
the sunlight in more flaming colors than Eastern 
carpets or any other fanciful fabric ever woven 
by the loom of man. Through the eyes of another 



74 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

I have seen the sun set in Petra and the glory of 
the king of day coming up to make flame like 
torches of painted fire, the splendor of her 
castles, her temples, her facades, her theaters and 
her vast buildings as beautiful and brilliant to- 
day as when they were first carved out of the 
rock. I have seen it glistening with the rain- 
drops after the showers. I have seen it before 
sunrise and in the weird beauty of the after-glow. 
I have seen it under the noonday sun, and have 
been able to observe the way in which those an- 
cient sculptors fixed the levels of their temples, 
tombs and dwellings so as to make the most ar- 
tistic use of the beautiful strata in the mountain 
walls. I have been able to marvel again and 
again, as I wandered through the never-ending 
ravines, at how those ancient dwellers con- 
sciously practiced a kind of landscape gardening, 
where instead of the beautiful effects produced 
by banks of fading flowers, they carved more gor- 
geous out of the many-hued and easilywrought 
solid stone, which rival the hues the flowers are 
able to throw back into the face of the sun. 

If you want to enjoy an hour of adventure, and 
revel in a wilderness of beauty, from the time 
you enter the door of the Sik until you come back 
through it to the edge of the desert, read a book 
on Petra. If you want to see the huge excavation 
the powers of nature have made out of a moun- 



MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY 75 

tain, assisted by torrent and earthquake and fur- 
ther helped by the hand of time, and frost, and 
tempest, in order to prepare the way for the most 
magnificent abode the children of men have ever 
nsed for a dwelling place, read a description of 
Petra. Here, through the ages, towering cliffs, 
lifted into myriad fantastic forms, have been 
radiating a splendor and a glorious beauty with- 
out any parallel on the earth's surface. 

One can travel as well by staying at home, if 
he has imagination, as he can by actually going 
over the earth's surface, and so through the imag- 
ination of another, I have been able to enter the 
city of Petra by the winding valley of the Sik, to 
gaze at its stupendous walls of rock, which close 
the valley and encircle this ancient habitation, 
showing how man himself can imitate nature and 
adorn the winding passes of her circling walls 
with the beauty of architecture and art and 
temple and tomb and column, portico and pedi- 
ment, and take the wild and savage forms of 
mountain summits and convert them into places 
of residence, into theaters and temples and 
castles, and make them places of enchantment 
that leave an impression upon the soul that once 
felt can never be forgotten. 

If the cathedral builders of the Middle Ages 
had found themselves living in Petra instead of 
France, they could have expressed their genius 



76 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

in far more magnificent fashion than they were 
able to do in the wondrous piles of beauty stand- 
ing under the soft French skies at Chartres and 
at Amiens. The amazing cathedral at Chartres 
looks as if it were wrapped in the mystery of 
its own shadow, thick with the haze of rain, soar- 
ing up lighter and lighter as it rises in the sky, 
aspiring like a soul purifying itself with increas- 
ing light, as it toils up, the ways of the mystic 
firmament. Its clustered columns spring up like 
tender sheaves their groups appearing so light 
as if they might bend at a breath, yet it is not 
until they reach a giddy height that these stems, 
curved over, flying from one side of the cathedral 
to the other, meet above the void, mingling their 
sap and blossoming at last like a basket of flow- 
ers under the once gilded pendants from the 
roof. 

Now, if those who lifted up into the heavens 
this splendid structure, had lived in Petra, they 
might have found stone out of which to carve 
their human faces, ablaze with light and clothed 
in robes of fire, and left them to dwell through all 
time in an environment of glory. A cathedral 
like that of Chartres built out of the colored 
stone of Petra, would impress the beholder as a 
persistent conflagration. The builders there 
would have found the bugle cry of the red, the 
limpid confidence of the white, the repeated hal- 



MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY 77 

lelujahs of the yellow, the virginal glory of the 
blue, all the quivering twines of untwisted light 
looking like a raveled rainbow, ready to hand for 
their cathedral. They would have had the ame- 
thyst there to mirror humility, the chalcedony to 
represent charity, the jasper to stand as an em- 
blem of faith and eternity, the sardonyx repre- 
senting martyrdom, the sapphire for hope and 
contemplation, the beryl representing learning 
and long-suffering — indeed, they would have 
found a tabled harmony of gems to apply to their 
patriarchs and apostles, out of the natural ma- 
terial of the rock. And the day will dawn when 
the human race shall come through the unity of 
the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God 
to a perfect man, then it may be that the most 
splendid and beautiful cathedral ever yet raised 
to the glory of God will be cut out of Petra. 

Petra came to desolation because all her 
beauty was crowded into her magnificent build- 
ings, and not into the souls of her people. Petra 
never failed outwardly. Her great edifices throw 
back into the heavens as much gorgeous color 
to-day as ever they did. Petra failed inwardly, 
because she never found men to match the splen- 
dor of the mountain out of which the city was 
carved. She failed because her people had no 
empires in their purpose, no new eras in their 
brains. 



78 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

God gave to the inhabitants of Petra the raw 
material of a wondrous house, and they used it to 
build a city that has been the marvel of all the 
ages, but they gloried only in their outward 
wealth of temple, theater, tomb, and residence. 
They never paved a highway for the human 
spirit ; they never wrought out a kingdom for the 
ampler destinies of human souls. So now, for 
more than a thousand years, the owls and the 
bats and the wild beasts have been accustomed to 
domesticate themselves in the far-famed palaces 
of Petra. 



CHAPTER VII 
A SPECK IN SPACE 

WHEN Rev. Benjamin J. Kiely (now 
bishop of Savannah) came to Atlanta 
in 1886 I was pastor at Trinity Chnrch. 
Soon after his arrival in the city, following the 
custom of ministers to call on new preachers, I 
felt it my duty to pay a visit to the pastor of the 
Church of the Immaculate Conception. He w T as 
then just from Wilmington, Del., where he la- 
bored from 1873 to 1886. Instead of paying him 
a short, formal visit, I found him so interesting 
that our conversation must have lasted two 
hours. Upon leaving he presented me with two 
old leather-covered volumes which had been pre- 
sented to him by a friend who was a Methodist 
preacher. The books were Massillon's sermons. 
My first meeting with Father Kiely marked the 
beginning of a friendship that has lasted to this 
day. 

I had spoken to Father Kiely of a long-cher- 
ished wish of visiting the lands of the Bible some 
day, and he had remarked in response : "If you 
ever go to Palestine I will give you a letter to 
my brother in Egypt, and he will take pleasure in 

79 



80 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

introducing you to important personages there 
who will be of advantage to you." As soon as the 
way opened up for the journey to the East I 
wrote Father Kiely from St. Louis to send me the 
letter of introduction to his brother. In reply, 
he sent not only a letter to his brother, but also 
one to a friend in the American Catholic College 
in Eome. 

Anthony Kiely was the American judge in 
the International Court of Appeals of Cairo, 
Egypt. 

I reached Cairo in the middle of April, 1894. 
The season for tourists was about over, and upon 
inquiry I learned that the international court 
had adjourned and that Judge Kiely had gone to 
England. So I had no chance to deliver my 
letter of introduction. I was the head of an ex- 
pedition, the object of which was to visit all 
places in the East connected with the life of 
Christ and His apostles. Leaving Egypt after 
seeing the spot where, according to tradition, 
Joseph and Mary and the Child Jesus spent their 
sojourn after Herod's cruel edict, we proceeded 
through Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, Greece and 
Italy. Finally on my way back I reached Liver- 
pool. At the wharf, where it is the custom to 
wait for the little tugboat in which passengers 
are taken out to the steamer, it occurred to me 
that I had no change to pay the cabman who had 



A SPECK IN SPACE 81 

brought me down from the station. No one 
around could change a five-pound note, the small- 
est bill I had. I saw a fine-looking man standing 
beside a lot of hand baggage, who seemed to be 
waiting for the steamer. I approached him and 
asked : "Are you going on the Majestic?" 

"Yes," he said. 

"I am going on the same steamer," I remarked, 
"and will thank you very much if you will let me 
have three shillings till I can get my money 
changed." 

"With pleasure," he responded, giving me the 
money. 

By and by the steamer was reached, my money 
was changed and I went in search of the kind 
stranger to pay him and to thank him for his 
goodness. I found him in the dining room, sitting 
on one of the long-cushioned seats that runs 
around the wall. By his side I noticed a maga- 
zine with the name of A. M. Kiely on it. 

"Is your name Kiely?" said I. 

"It is," said he. 

"Are you from Egypt?" I inquired. 

"I am," he responded. 

"Then," said I, "I suppose I have a letter of 
introduction to you from Father Kiely, in At- 
lanta." 

"Yes," said he; "I have a brother in Atlanta, 
Father Kiely." 



82 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

The impression I had was the world is not 
large. We crossed the ocean together and had 
many interesting talks. He was a charming con- 
versationalist, and one of the most accomplished 
men it has ever been my good fortune to meet. I 
wrote Father Kiely that I failed to find his 
brother in Egypt, but being a little hard up in 
Liverpool, I found him and borrowed money from 

him. 

* * * ♦ 

Leaving Damascus one morning before the 
railroad over the Lebanon Mountains was com- 
pleted, I reached Beyrout, 70 miles away, by 
omnibus, in time for 6 o'clock dinner. The 
horses were changed every hour and passed over 
much of the way in a gallop. Arriving at our 
hotel, we were soon ushered in to dinner. There 
were but two parties besides my traveling com- 
panion and myself at the table. The gentlemen 
who had preceded us into the dining room were 
engaged in a somewhat animated conversation. 
One of the parties was doing most of the talking. 
He seemed to be an Englishman, and was abusing 
something or somebody, about what I was unable 
to find out. The party who was saying just about 
enough to keep the talking man encouraged, 
finally made a remark, in which he referred to 
the State of Georgia. After awhile I took the 
liberty to ask him what he knew of Georgia. He 



A SPECK IN SPACE 83 

said that he was a citizen of Augusta, Ga. He 
was the United States consul general at Beyrout, 
and had been the editor of The Augusta Evening 
Neivs. His name was Thomas Gibson. When I 
told him that I had once lived in Atlanta, Ga., 
but had moved to St. Louis, he asked "What on 
earth could ever induce a man to leave Atlanta 
for St. Louis?" 

I told him that I was a Methodist preacher and 
that the bishop had sent me to St. Louis. 

Then he said, "You are Dr. J. W. Lee." This 
was the beginning of a most interesting experi- 
ence in Beyrout. Mr. Gibson came to our hotel 
next morning with a carriage and two uniformed 
attendants furnished him by the Turkish govern- 
ment, and showed us all the interesting places 
and buildings around the city. 



After leaving Beyrout we next arrived at 
Athens, in Greece. 

The officers at Pierus, which is the port of 
Athens, refused to let our nine boxes of 9x10 dry 
plates out of the custom house. We were in 
Greece to take pictures of places connected with 
the travels of St. Paul. We were informed that 
if we would get an order from the American min- 
ister stating that we were not trying to smuggle 
into the country whisky or tobacco we could take 
our boxes to the hotel. It is about four miles 



84 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

from Prieus to the city of Athens proper. So the 
first thing in order after reaching the hotel was 
to see the American minister. I called promptly 
and sent in my card. He appeared and greeted 
me by telling me that he was delighted to see me, 
that he had known me since the appearance of a 
certain book I had written, and that he would do 
everything in his power to make my stay in 
Greece pleasant. His name was Dr. Eben Alex- 
ander. He had been for many years connected 
with the University of North Carolina at Chapel 
Hill. He had been sent by Mr. Cleveland as our 
American minister to Greece. He is a brother-in- 
law of Judge W. T. Newman, of Atlanta. Leav- 
ing his home that day after the interview the 
thought was uppermost in my mind that the 
world is not large. 



CHAPTEK VIII 
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF WASHINGTON 

I SPENT my vacation in England during the 
summer of 1910 tracing the footsteps of 
George Washington. I can only give 
glimpses, but I learned that there was far more 
of George Washington's history in Europe than 
in America. Washington occupied far more of 
the world's attention before he was born than 
after he was born. Something of George Wash- 
ington sailed from Dives, France, in 1066, when 
William the Conqueror, started on his military 
expedition against Great Britain. 

According to the doctrine of the correlation of 
forces, the rising up of force in one place involves 
the subsidence of force in another place, the 
amount rising up being the exact equivalent of 
the amount subsiding. When a pine tree is cut 
down and split into small pieces and burned in 
the engine, just the same amount of heat is gath- 
ered from it that it managed to garner from the 
sun in fifty years of its growth. If this principle 
holds good in the human world as it does in the 
natural, then we are furnished with a method by 
which to account for the output of a great man's 

85 



86 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

life, just as we can account for the output of fire 
locked in a coal mine. We can get nothing of 
value from a coal mine except the wealth it ac- 
cumulated by trading with the sun for thousands 
and thousands of years. 

In the light of this doctrine we propose to con- 
sider the immensity of Washington. It is true 
that every man is indebted in some degree for 
what he comes to be to the elements afloat in the 
immediate political, social and intellectual at- 
mosphere which he breathes during his tem- 
porary sojourn upon the earth. The richer the 
environment into which a person enters when he 
first touches the planet, by so much the more is 
he affected by it. But however luminous and full 
it may be of all things essential to the ample fur- 
nishment of a great man's life, he must come as a 
baby into it with vast treasures of inherited apti- 
tudes and potentialities bequeathed by his an- 
cestors and by them packed away in the depths 
of his soul. 

By action and reaction between the interior 
self and its environment, the reserves of faculty 
and force hidden away in one's life are called 
out. It is said that the giraffe of to-day gets its 
long neck by the persistent stretching by its an- 
cestors for thousands of years toward the tops of 
the trees. It can be seen, therefore, that the 



IN FOOTSTEPS OF WASHINGTON 87 

young giraffe that conies into the jungles after 
countless ages of neck stretching toward the tree 
tops on the part of its ancestors has a great ad- 
vantage over the young giraffe born before the 
necks of its parents got long by stretching 
toward the high limbs of the forest. 

George Washington was born and grew up 
amid the crude and primitive conditions charac- 
teristic of the Colonial period of our history. 
There must have been a great deal more within 
the depths of the child's life, born at Bridges 
Creek, Va., February 22, 1732, than there was in 
in the environment on the outside of it, or George 
Washington never could have come to be the first 
in war, the first in peace, and the first in the 
hearts of his countrymen. Such a man could 
never have come out of the wilderness had it not 
been that he began to breathe with the reminis- 
censes of more than a thousand years of conquest 
and triumph urging him on to self expression and 
victory. 

There was nothing in the environment of the 
Colonial period of American history to make the 
man who called forth from Lord Brougham the 
declaration (made in Volume III of Statesmen of 
the Reign of George III), "Surely Washington 
was the greatest man that ever lived in this world 
unsustained by supernatural virture," or to pro- 



88 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

voke from Lord Macauley (in his essay on John 
Hampden) the statement that "England missed 
the sobriety, the self-command, the perfect 
soundness of judgment, the perfect rectitude of 
intention to which the history of revolutions fur- 
nish no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Wash- 
ington alone"; or to inspire the imagination of 
Lord Byron in his ode to Napoleon to say : 

Where may the wearied eye repose 

When gazing on the great, 
Where neither guilty glory glows 

Nor despicable state 
Yes — one — the first — the last — the best, 
The Cincinnatus of the West, 
Whom envy dared not hate, 
Bequeathed the name of Washington, 
To make man blush there was but one. 

As a psychological problem George Washing- 
ton has been a puzzle to the students of history. 
His balance, his poise, his patriotism, his democ- 
racy in the presence of the temptation of vain 
empire. Living in an age of the world when 
people were obsessed with the belief in kings, 
how Washington could hold in his hand the 
sword that had freed a nation and yet turn from 
a crown the people were ready to put on his head, 
is a wonder explorers in human nature have not 
been able to compass. An ordinary get-rich- 
quick mortal, rising all at once out of the Vir- 
ginia woods to high position, would have ac- 



IN FOOTSTEPS OF WASHINGTON 89 

cepted a throne for himself and his descendants 
world without end. 

George Washington was not a common, every- 
day run of mortal. He was not a get-rich-quick 
human accident happening to breathe between 
1732 and 1799. 

History had been at work in the making of 
George Washington from before the time of Con- 
stantine the Great. Someone will be ready to 
say more than that is true of every man, for does 
not every person date from Adam. So we may 
say every oyster found in Mobile Bay to-day 
dates from the first bivalve that ever made his 
way through the mud of the primal ages. So we 
may say that every long-necked giraffe dates 
from the first short-necked giraffe ever born in 
the jungles. But there is a vast difference be- 
tween the neckstretching giraffes and those who 
were content to live on without attempting any 
commerce with the upper limbs of the trees. 
There is a line of descent between every human 
being of the present day and the first one who 
ever breathed on the earth, but the genealogy of 
the stand-pat, self-satisfied, ordinary person can- 
not be traced for more than two or three genera- 
tions back. 

George Washington belonged to that class of 
climbing, neckstretching human beings, whose 



90 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

descent from the remotest ages can be definitely 
traced. Within the past few years the problem 
of Washington has been solved. His greatness 
was not accidental. Far more than in the ordi- 
nary sense his birth was a forgetting. The soul 
that rose with him had elsewhere its setting, and 
came from the rulers and kings and conquerors 
of more than a thousand years. 

Students have made it possible now for us to 
start with the little child, born at Bridges Creek, 
Va., February 22, 1732, and make our way 
through all the windings and ramifications of the 
Washington ancestry. 

We can now go from George to his father, Au- 
gustine Washington, and from Augustine to Law- 
rence, then to John, and then to Lawrence and to 
Lawrence again, who married Margaret Butler. 
From Margaret Butler we can go to William 
Butler, and then to John Butler, who married 
Margaret Sutton. From Margaret Sutton to 
John Sutton, and then to Edmund Sutton, who 
married Joyce Tiptoft, and then to John Tiptoft, 
who married Joyce Cherlton, who was the daugh- 
ter of Alinor Holland, who was the daughter of 
Thomas Holland, who was the son of Thomas 
Holland, who married Joan of Kent, who was the 
daughter of Edmund, Earl of Kent, who was the 
son of Margaret, the Queen of Edward I. 

Now Margaret was the daughter of Philip III, 
King of France. From Philip III we can pass 



IN FOOTSTEPS OF WASHINGTON 91 

straight down through those rulers of France 
known in history as Louis IX, from whom our 
city is named, Louis VIII, and on and on in 
regular descent through Philip II, Louis VII, 
Louis VI, Phillip I, Henry I, Robert II, Hugh 
Caput, Hugh the Great, Robert I, Robert, Theoth- 
bert, Nivelor, to Childebrand. 

Then we can come back to Edward I again, the 
husband of Margaret, and from him pass straight 
down through Henry III, John, Henry II, Ma- 
tilda, Henry I, William the Conqueror, Robert, 
Robert II, Guinolda, Synthia, Olaf, Biorn, Eric, 
Edmund, Eric, Edmund, Eric, Biorn, Harold 
Hildetana, Roric, Ivan Vidfama, Halfdam, 
Hilda, Hilderic, Hunneric, King of the Goths, 
who married Eudoxia, and on from Eudoxia to 
Valentinian III, next to Constans III, then to 
Constantine II, and then to Constantine the 
Great. 

Returning to Matilda, who married Henry I, 
we can pass on from her to Margaret, who mar- 
ried Malcolm, and from Margaret to Edward, 
then to Edmund, then to Ethelred, then to Edgar, 
then to Edmund, on to Edward, and then to Al- 
fred the Great. 

The names given above may be taken as repre- 
sentative persons from each of whom it is possi- 
ble to branch off in all directions, enabling us to 
touch sooner or later all the royal families of 



92 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

Europe. We can reach out from one or the other 
of these names to the rulers of Ireland, the kings 
on Denmark, and of Scotland, and of Bergundy, 
and of Wales, Hungary, Germany. 

Through Margaret Butler, who married Law- 
rence Washington, we reach the Plantagenet dy- 
nasty, descended from the Counts of Anjou, in 
France, whose ancestry begins with Ingelgerius. 
He was the father of Fulk the Red, who was 
Count of Anjou. He was succeeded by his son, 
Fulk the Good, who reigned from 941 to about 
960. 

From him we came to Geoffrey "Greytunic," 
the next Count of Anjou, reigning till 987. 
"Greytunic's" son, Fulk the Black, succeeded his 
father in 987. In order to give token of his sor- 
row for a great crime he went three times on pil- 
grimages to the Holy Land, and an old legend 
tells that he caused his servants to scourge him 
all the way with branches of the broom plant, 
the Plantagenista, from whence the name of 
Plantagenet is said to have come to his race. 

From Fulk the Black and Hildegarde of Lor- 
raine we go to Geoffrey Martel, "the Hammer." 
He became Count of Anjou on his father's death. 
The next Count of Anjou was Geoffrey III. His 
successor was Fulk V. Count Fulk visited the 
Holy Land in 1120 and in 1129 he married Meli- 
sinda, the daughter of Baldwin II, King of Jeru- 
salem. He became King of Jerusalem in 1131. 



IN FOOTSTEPS OF WASHINGTON 93 

Two of his sons, Baldwin III and Amalric, fol- 
lowed him on the throne of the Holy Land. 

Streams of life from all the royal shores of 
Europe met together in that vast personal sea 
we know by the name of Washington. If we 
could think of the sea Victor Hugo described as 
breathing and human, made up of life formed 
from the surging currents of ten thousand hearts, 
we would have a fitting representation of George 
Washington. 

In him were billows at ebb and flood, the inex- 
orable going and coming, the noise of all the 
winds, the blackness and the translucency, the 
vegetation peculiar to the deep, the democracy 
of clouds in full hurricane, the eagles flecked with 
foam the wonderful star-risings reflected in mys- 
terious agitations by millions of luminous wave 
tops — confused heads of the multitudinous sea — 
the errant lightnings which seem to watch. 

There were in the mysterious depths of that 
Washington sea of life the prodigious sobbings, 
the halfseen monsters, the nights of darkness 
broken by howlings, the furies, the frenzies, the 
torments, the rocks, the shipwrecks, the fleets 
crushing each other ; then within it there was the 
charm, the mildness, the festivals, the gay white 
sails, the fishing boats, the songs amid the up- 
roar, the shining ports, the mist rising from the 
shore. There were the wraths and the appease- 



94 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

ments, that all in one, the unforeseen amid the 
changeless, which made the vast marvel of inex- 
haustibly varied monotony — all this was in the 
mighty soul of Washington. 

In Washington's veins flowed blood from the 
Kings of Denmark, from the Earls of Salisbury, 
from the Kings of Scotland, from Duncan, who 
killed Macbeth, from the Saxon Kings of Eng- 
land, from Alfred the Great, from the Kings of 
Castile, from Clovis the Great, from the Czars of 
Russia, from the Kings of France, from the 
Kings of Austria, from the Emperors of Ger- 
many, from the Doges of Venice, from the Counts 
of Anjou, from the Kings of Norway, from the 
Kings of Hungary, from the Kings of Navarre, 
from the Kings of Italy, from the Earls of War- 
wick, and from the Kings of Wales. He was Con- 
stantine the Great, William the Conqueror, 
Charles Martel, and Frederick Barbarosa, all in 
one. 

The romance of Jerusalem, the chivalry of the 
Crusades, the enterprise of France, Italy, Ger- 
many, and England were all packed into the per- 
sonality of George Washington. The sum and 
substance of all royalty and kingship met in 
Washington to make of him the first universal 
democrat. All the kings and queens of civilized 
times united in Washington to make a man with a 
head too large to fit a crown. With Washington 



IN FOOTSTEPS OF WASHINGTON 95 

the rule of the potentates ended and the reign of 
the people began. 

If as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes said every 
man is an omnibus in which his ancestors are 
taking a ride, then more kings and queens and 
dukes and earls had seats in George Washington 
than were ever crowded into an American vehicle 
before in all history. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE WESTMINSTER ABBEY OF THE 
QUAKERS 

BUT twenty-five miles from London, under 
the great trees whose interlacing branches 
form a high roof above the yard around 
Jordan's Quaker meeting house, lies the sleeping 
dust of William Penn. Amid the quiet surround- 
ings of the same burying ground, small head- 
stones mark the graves of his two wives, Gu- 
lielma and Hannah; his sons, Springett and 
John; his daughters, Letitia Aubrey and Mar- 
garet Freame, and five of his children who died 
in infancy. This cemetery in the heart of the 
woods may be regarded as the Westminster Ab- 
bey of the Quakers. The marble forest support- 
ing the roof of the Westminster Abbey in 
London, where kings and queens and other great 
people sleep the last sleep, was built by man ; the 
Westminster Abbey of the Quakers was lifted 
into the sky by the hands of Almighty God. 

Here in this solitary corner of the Chalfont 
country, far from the onward rush and bustle of 
the madding crowd, in a little patch of territory, 
the ordinary tourist could never find without a 

96 



WESTMINSTER OF THE QUAKERS 97 

guide, hundreds of Friends are buried. They 
were distinguished in life by what they suffered, 
rather than by what they did. They were dis- 
tinguished by the unseen battles they fought for 
the freedom of their own souls rather than for the 
battles they fought for place and power in the 
world. Their victories are not recorded in any 
book on the "Decisive Battles of History." The 
verities with which they had to do were not tran- 
sient, but eternal. They believed unseeable 
things were the real things. 

It was because they adjusted their lives and 
conduct to the invisible principles of truth and 
righteousness and love that they were forced by 
the authorities of the time to spend a large por- 
tion of their lives in jail. For preaching kind- 
ness and sympathy and good will toward all men, 
they were locked in dungeons. They had the mis- 
fortune to appear in an age when it was thought 
necessary to keep sweetness and light and sanity 
of spirit behind prison bars. They were the fore- 
runners in England of the lamb at a time when 
a thousand hyenas prowled at large for every 
sheeplet that ventured to live and move and have 
its being. They were the spring coming out from 
the realm of warmth and bloom and color, at a 
time when frozen and black and heartless winter 
refused to be thawed or to give place to sweeter 
weather. 



98 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

The most significant and highly favored trees 
in the British Isles are the tall monarchs of the 
forest which here unite their strength and beauty 
to form the Westminster Abbey of the Quakers. 

William Penn, because of his relation with the 
New World, is without doubt the most distin- 
guished citizen of the sylvan city of the dead 
around the Jordan's meeting house. He was 
buried here on Tuesday, August 5, 1718. Wil- 
liam Penn was the son of the brilliant naval 
commander, Admiral William Penn. He was 
born on Tower Hill, in London, in 1614. He was 
H\e years old when King Charles I was executed. 
He was fourteen years old when Cromwell died, 
and when his son, Kichard, came to the English 
throne. And he was not quite sixteen when on 
April 22, 1661, he saw from a window in Cornhill 
King Charles II enter the city of London the day 
before his coronation. 

He was sent by his father to study at Oxford in 
1660. He was greatly influenced there by the 
celebrated Dr. Owen, who was dean at the time of 
Christ's Church. Penn showed first his Quaker 
tendencies at Oxford by refusing to wear the cap 
and gown, and so was expelled from the univer- 
sity. In 1667 Penn threw his lot completely in 
with the despised and persecuted Quakers, and 
from that time forward wore the Quaker hat. 
The old admiral, his father, stormed and raged 



WESTMINSTER OF THE QUAKERS 99 

and threatened to disown him for giving np all 
hope of a career by identifying himself with a 
contemptible coterie of fanatics. But the 
young man was immovable. He determined, at 
any cost, to serve God according to the dictates 
of his own conscience. He refused even to take 
off his hat in the presence of King Charles II. 
Noting this, the king took off his own hat, where- 
upon Penn said: "Friend Charles, wherefore 
dost thou uncover thyself?'' "Friend Penn," re- 
plied the king, "it is the custom of this place for 
only one man to wear his hat at a time." After 
this Penn was imprisoned in the tower for blas- 
phemy, founded on the misconception of a pass- 
age contained in the pamphlet he had written. 
Every effort was made to terrify the youth into a 
recantation. He was told that the bishop of 
London would keep him in prison to the end of 
his life. His answer was : "My prison shall be 
my grave before I will budge one jot. I owe my 
conscience to no mortal man." After eight 
months he was released, but he made good use of 
the days of his confinement and wrote the re- 
markable book, "NTo Cross, No Crown." 

In 1672 William Penn went down into Buck- 
inghamshire and was married at King's Farm, 
Chorley Wood, to Gulielma Springett, who was 
accustomed, it is said, to play on her flute to the 
poet Milton while he lived at Chalfont St. Giles, 



100 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

in the same neighborhood. The house in which 
Penn was married is in a good state of preserva- 
tion, and the room is pointed ont in which the 
wedding ceremony was performed. 

After his marriage William Penn and his bride 
lived for five years at Basing House, Rickman- 
worth. The house in which they lived is still 
standing, and the owners show a treasure in their 
possession, known as William Penn's armchair. 
Basing House, Rickmanworth, has been called 
the cradle of Pennsylvania, for it was here in the 
early days of his married life that Penn thought 
out his plans for a colony over the seas, where 
the persecuted Quakers might enjoy the liberty 
to worship God in their own way. In 1677 Penn 
took up his residence on his wife's Sussex estate 
at Warminghurst, and here he matured the 
plans for the Pennsylvania colony. The grant of 
land in America Penn obtained from Charles II 
was in payment of an old debt due from the gov- 
ernment to Admiral William Penn. 

It was in 1682 that Penn sailed from Deal in 
the ship Welcome, accompanied by about 100 
Friends. They landed on the shores of the New 
World in October of the same year, and soon after 
Penn met a number of Indian chiefs in council, 
and there made "the only league between the 
white man and red man that was never sworn to 
and never broken." Penn at this time was thirty- 
eight years old. After remaining in the new 



WESTMINSTER OF THE QUAKERS 101 

colony for two years he returned to England to 
represent the colonists before the king in a dis- 
pute with Lord Baltimore. After his return to 
England he resided for a time at his old place 
at Worininghurst, in Sussex, and after his second 
marriage he lived at Rushcombe, in Berkshire, 
and in London. 

He died on July 30 at his Berkshire home at 
the age of 74, after a strenous life as Quaker 
preacher, and pleader for tolerance and religious 
liberty at the courts of Charles II and James II. 
His body was conveyed to the Quaker burial 
ground at Jordan's meeting house, near Chalfont 
St. Peter, and there it was placed by the side of 
his first wife, Gulielma, six days after he ceased 
to breathe. 

At William Penn's death he had two children 
living by his first wife, William and Letitia, and 
five by his second, John, Thomas, Margaret, Rich- 
ard and Dennis. William being otherwise pro- 
vided for, Penn left 10,000 acres of land in Penn 
sylvania to Letitia and 10,000 acres to each of 
William's children, Gulielma, Maria, Springett, 
and William. The residue of his property was 
to go to his wife, Hannah, and her H\e children. 

It has been said that "William Penn, the great 
legislator of the Quakers, had the success of a 
conqueror in establishing and defending his col- 
ony among savage tribes without ever drawing 



102 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

the sword; the goodness of the most benevolent 
of rulers in treating his subjects as his own chil- 
dren, and the tenderness of a universal father, 
who opened his arms to all mankind without dis- 
tinction of sect or party." Macaulay declared: 
"A great commonwealth, beyond the Atlantic re- 
gards Penn with a reverence similar to that 
which the Athenians felt for Theseus and the 
Romans felt for Quirinus." The Society of 
Quakers, of which he was a member, honors him 
as an apostle. By pious men of other persuasions 
he is regarded as a bright pattern of Christian 
virtue. Admirers of a very different sort also have 
sounded his praises. The French philosophers of 
the eighteenth century pardoned what they re- 
garded his superstitious fancies in consideration 
for his cosmopolitan benevolence impartially ex- 
tended to all races and to all creeds. The name of 
Penn, therefore, throughout the whole world is a 
synonym for probity and philanthropy. 

There is nothing more striking than the con- 
trast between the honors paid to the memory of 
Penn in the country where he was born and in 
which he died, and the honors paid to him in 
America, where he spent but two years of his life, 
and in which he founded a great state. A $5 
marble slab marks his grave in England, a monu- 
ment thirty-six feet high crowns a $25,000,000 
City Hall in his memory in the City of Brotherly 



WESTMINSTER OF THE QUAKERS 103 

Love. In his native land it is difficult to find the 
ground in which he is buried, in the state which 
he colonized it is impossible to get out of the 
range of his presence and his influence. He is 
hidden away in the heart of the woods in Eng- 
land, his personality is multiplied by the area 
and wealth and power of Pennsylvania in Amer- 
ica. He is crowded into a diminutive corner of 
the Old World, he is given a place in sight of all 
the Union in the New. 

If Pennsylvania could crowd and embody itself 
in one man that person would be William Penn 
with a Quaker hat on his head. In England he 
has passed almost out of sight with the diminish- 
ing procession of the Quakers, who no longer live 
and move and have their being, as a sect, because 
the principles for which they contended no longer 
need them, since they have been translated into 
all the churches and into the lives of all the 
people. If ever a small company of saints found 
vindication in the verdict of history, the brave 
disciples of George Fox are entitled to the honor 
of achieving that distinction. The deep convic- 
tions cherished in the souls of a few consecrated 
men, ready in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies to lie in jail or sleep in the grave, rather 
than surrender them, are now the common prop- 
erty of all brave men of every name and order in 
the civilized world. While England pays but 
scant tribute to William Penn, in the way of 



104 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

monumental honors, the country pays him in- 
finitely higher respect in practicing in 1910 what 
he preached 250 years ago. 

The Quakers in all the world can very well af- 
ford to go out of business, as a sect, since they 
have indoctrinated all Christian people with the 
sweet reasonableness and charity of which they 
were the forerunners among English-speaking 
peoples in modern times. 

Penn said: "It is natural to man to have a 
supernatural light." So say the whole Christian 
world to-day. Penn said: "That which the 
people called Quakers, lay down as a funda- 
mental rule in religion is this, that God through 
Christ hath placed His Spirit in every man to 
inform him of his duty, and to enable him to do 
it, and that those who live up to this are the 
people of God, and that those who live in dis- 
obedience to it are not God's people, whatever 
name they may bear, or profession they may 
make of religion. By this spirit something that 
is divine, and though in man, yet not of man, but 
of God, and that it came from Him and leads to 
Him all those that will be led by it." 

Now, instead of being put into prison for such 
an utterance, the whole Christian world accepts 
and urges upon all men the truth contained in it. 
It is remarkable that what George Fox taught in 
the seventeenth century and what William Penn 



WESTMINSTER OF THE QUAKERS 105 

practiced throughout his wonderful life has now 
come to be the common creed of the Church uni- 
versal. Quaker Fox said Lamartine comprised 
all theology in charity, and that is precisely what 
Christ did in making the sum and substance of 
the law to consist in loving one's neighbor as one's 
self. Coleridge said that Spinoza's ideal of dem- 
ocracy was realized by a contemporary, not in 
state, for that is impossible, but in the profession 
and practice of George Fox and the Quakers. 
Even Penn's political aphorism, "Any govern- 
ment is free where the laws rule, and the people 
are a party to the law," was a forecast of demo- 
cratic opinion held in all enlightened communi- 
ties to-day. 

When we remember what a small number was 
ever comprised in the Society of Friends, it is 
amazing to think of the tremendous influence 
they have had on the religious opinions of the 
theological world. It is still more wonderful to 
recognize the fact that the ideal of life held by 
the Quakers is perhaps the clearest expression we 
have of the religious ideal of the English speak- 
ing peoples to-day. 

Estimated from the time of his mature life, it 
has taken 250 years for the ideas of George Fox 
to get into circulation in universal religious 
thought. Fox, by his insight, put himself in 
league with the drift of events. He seemed to 



106 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

foresee the direction things had to take in order 
to get anywhere, and into the stream of move- 
ment he felt to be inevitable he threw himself, 
with the result that now, after the lapse of more 
than two centuries, we see Fox and Penn and the 
Quakers triumphant, while those who jailed them 
and persecuted them have passed into oblivion. 
What Fox and Penn taught in the seventeenth 
century Wesley preached and converted into a 
great religious movement in the eighteenth. 
These prophets, more than any others, compre- 
hended the eternal order we are beginning to 
recognize to-day, and put their lives and thought 
into line with it. 

The thought of Fox and Penn on the subject of 
war is also coming to be the accepted view of the 
enlightened nations of the world. The Hague 
Peace Conference, in which all the great powers 
take part, is but the practical embodiment of the 
spirit of William Penn. 

The world-wide revival of interest on the sub- 
ject of childhood is but the breaking in to the 
minds of modern men of the light on the subject 
Penn and the Quakers were guided by more than 
a hundred years ago. 

Care of the young was regarded as one of the 
chief concerns of the Quakers. The modern 
Sunday school movement is one of the forms 
through which the spirit of the early Quakers 



WESTMINSTEK OF THE QTJAKEKS 107 

is expressing itself to-day. Their minds were 
constantly exercised concerning the moral and 
religious direction they were to give to the gen- 
eration coming on. In their esteem sympathy 
with children was a gift to be perpetually exer- 
cised. 

The doctrine of the divine immanence, which is 
engaging the attention of theologians to-day as 
never before, was urged as self-evident and nec- 
essary by Fox and Penn in their time. Even 
modern science, in so far as this view of the rela- 
tion of God to the world and history is concerned, 
has been moving in precisely the same direction 
followed by the Quakers. Herbert Spencer de- 
clared that there is no certainty more absolute 
than the one that we stand in the presence of 
and inscrutable energy from which all things 
proceed. What Spencer taught as absolute and 
philosophic truth from the standpoint of science, 
the Quakers accepted as religious faith more 
than a hundred years before Spencer was born, 
with the exception that they would have said, 
"We stand always in the immediate presence of 
an intelligent Creator from whom all things pro- 
ceed.'' 

Modern science to-day holds that belief in God 
is a necessity of thought. The Quakers by intui- 
tion, saw the same truth. What science has 
reached by logical processes and experiment, they 



108 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

came to by faith and spiritual insight, That Fox 
and Penn should have seen the new day, the light 
of which is just now flooding the world with its 
glory and hope, is a distinct tribute to their pro- 
phetic insight. 

The founding of a colony in the New World is 
regarded by many as Penn's greatest achieve- 
ment, but this does not compare in importance 
with his work in the establishment of that uni- 
versal colony of brotherly love, broad enough to 
furnish standing ground, not simply to the peo- 
ple of one commonwealth, but for the inhabitants 
of all the earth. Penn's real country was not 
England, where he lived seventy-two years, nor 
Pennsylvania, where he lived two, but it was the 
realm of eternal love. From that illimitable 
home of the spirit he is calling perpetually to all 
men to lay aside hate and envy and malice, and 
to find themselves in service and good will to all 
God's children. 

The people of Philadelphia appealed to the 
trustees of Jordan's Meeting House, some years 
ago, for permission to remove the bones of Wil- 
liam Penn from the Westminster Abbey of the 
Quakers to the city he founded. It was the wish 
of the citizens of Philadelphia to build such a 
monument to Penn as would, in a sense, measure 
their devotion to his memory. The trustees of 
the Jordan's meeting house refused to entertain 



WESTMINSTER OF THE QUAKERS 109 

the proposition to take the chief citizen of their 
city of the dead away from the quiet burying 
ground where it was his wish to sleep with his 
fellow saints away from the noise and tumult of 
the world. 

It was thought by his admirers in the New 
World that the ashes of Penn should be removed, 
like those of Alexander the Great, to the city 
which he founded, or like those of Napoleon, to 
his favorite city on the banks of the Seine. The 
Quakers thought that the desire to be borne 
across the sea to a distant city might have be- 
fitted the "Macedonian Madman," or the "Man 
of Destiny," but that it was distinctly alien from 
the spirit of the community, whose only monu- 
ments of their dead during a century and a half 
were the turf of the sod and the daisies beneath 
which they slept. 

The Quakers were right. A vast mausoleum in 
Philadelphia, or a place in Westminster Abbey in 
London would befit great generals, captains or 
kings or naval commanders, but not the man 
whose whole life was spent in opposing war and 
pomp and pageantry. Penn's last resting place 
is exactly in keeping with his character. It is in 
a quiet corner, in a country of farmers, under the 
big trees, where rumors of war and deceit never 
come. He lived a serene and sweet and tender 
and gentle life, loving his family and his neigh- 
bors, keeping company with ideals more akin to 



110 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

heaven than to earth, and now it would be an 
outrage to disturb, after his death, an order of 
procedure he chose for himself in life. 

No man in history stands less in need of marble 
or brass to perpetuate his memory than Penn. His 
monument is Pennsylvania, with its 6,000,000 
of people. It is Philadelphia. It is the move- 
ment for peace among the great powers. It is 
the institution that seeks to embrace the young 
life of the earth known as the Sunday school. It 
is the warmer atmosphere of federation and co- 
operation the whole religious globe is breathing 
to-day. Penn identified himself with love, and 
wherever love is, in heart or home, or church or 
community, or nation, he has a monument. To 
undertake to crowd his memory into a marble 
shaft, or into a mausoleum, would be like trying 
to press summer into a single tree, or spring into 
a rose, or all April into a single garden. A 
mausoleum high enough and wide enough to in- 
close him would be as tall as heaven and as ex- 
tensive as humanity. 



CHAPTER X 
JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTRY 

THERE has been a series of books pub- 
lished in London on "The Scott Country/' 
"The Dickens Country/' "The Thackeray 
Country/' "The Burns Country/' and so on. It 
is a custom with the several writers to trace the 
steps of their respective heroes to every place in 
which they lived for a time, or sojourned for a 
night, or a week, and then credit up to them every 
spot associated with their lives, and call the 
whole sum of the places their country. 

According to this method, all, for instance, 
Dickens had to do to get an eternal claim on a 
- certain region was to visit it. By stepping on a 
foot of soil, or but putting his head inside a 
house, or an inn, he made them his own. This 
is seemingly an easy way to secure a country for 
one's self. 

But it is more difficult than it looks. In order to 
get titles to land, hotels, houses and lecture halls, 
after this fashion, one must measure up to a cer- 
tain level of personal and mental immensity. No 
little man can pick up and put into himself any- 
thing except what he can eat. But if, in addi- 
tion to the organs of physical digestion, a person 

ill 



112 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

has the infinitely greater powers of mental diges- 
tion and assimilation, he is given every scene he 
contemplates and every neighborhood he passes 
through. 

The ordinary mortal has no ownership of any- 
thing except such as a fee simple exclusive title 
gives him. Lacking in comprehension, sympathy 
and appreciation, if he had such a title to the 
whole earth, it would not be his in any high sense 
no more than the splendid masterpiece hanging 
on the walls of a rich, wooden-headed man's 
house belongs to him. Such a work of art be- 
longs to the person who has soul enough to com- 
prehend it, outside of any mere title that can be 
recorded in a court house. The England of 
Shakespeare's time belong to him and not to 
Queen Elizabeth. 

The England Queen Bess knew was outside of 
her; the England Shakespeare knew was the 
country he had put inside his vast mind. Thus 
the principle in accordance with which the places 
associated with a great man's life are made over 
to him and called his is perfectly right and 
proper. In this way the skies belonged to Co- 
pernicus, beauty to Raphael, music to Beethoven, 
and gravity to Newton. They owned these sev- 
eral regions of constellation, art and natural law, 
because, more than any others, they appre- 
hended, comprehended, digested and assimilated 



JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTRY 113 

thein. They not only lived on the outside of 
them as all do; they appropriated them, and 
used them for furnishinent to their interior 
selves. Copernicus thus became a palpitating;, 
living form of the heavens, as did Raphael of 
harmony in color, as did Beethoven of harmony 
in sound, and as did Newton of the physical 
order. 

In line with these general principles, I propose 
to claim that England belongs to John Wesley 
more than to any other man who ever lived in 
Great Britain. He trod more of its soil than any 
other man in all its history. He was great 
enough of soul to make every nook and corner 
of it he ever penetrated his own. It was only a 
small patch of England that Dickens, even when 
all the places he ever saw in it are pieced to- 
gether, ever saw. Wesley saw it all. He crossed 
and recrossed all its spaces and roadways. He 
passed by all its castles and abbeys and inns. 
He rode by all its estates and moats and manor 
houses. He was in all cities and villages. He 
preached under every stretch of its sky. 

Like Thackeray and Scott and Dickens, he was 
a creator. He differed from these in the respect 
that while they created imaginary men and 
women and situations out of their thought, Wes- 
ley took the actual, unprivileged, wretched, pov- 
N erty-strucken, sin-beridden men and women he 



114 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

met and transfigured them, put new motives into 
their hearts, new horizons around their lives, new 
visions in their eyes and new ideals in their 
minds. 

He turned actual drunkards into sober men, 
gamblers into honest working men. He took 
men out of the cock pits and engaged their tal- 
ents in better work than making chickens fight, 
by transforming their love of a cruel sport into 
a determination to fight the devil of greed and 
dissipation. 

Scott introduced a new clime of romance into 
England. Wesley breathed on his country the 
atmosphere of heaven. Dickens deals in the hy- 
pocrisy of fancy and gives it life and being under 
the name of Pecksniff. He has to do with ideal 
avarice and sets it up in human form and calls 
it Jonas Chuzzlewit; he creates cruelty and 
names it Quilp. His people are destined to live 
as long as the language in which they were given 
a place in the world of fiction. 

Wesley took real hypocrisy embodied in human 
life and converted it into sincerity. He did not 
merely depict avarice; he found thousands of 
Jonas Chuzzlewits and made them self-sacrificing 
and generous. He found multitudes of cruel 
Quilps walking about and by the grace of God 
made them tender and filled them with pity. 



JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTKY 115 

The novelists made men out of air and gifted 
them with meanness, or kindness, or cruelty, ac- 
cording as the story they were writing demanded. 
Wesley found his men already made by their own 
sins, mean, or wicked, or degraded. His work 
was to use all the means of grace to redeem them 
and make their lives new and happy and good. 
He was as practical as a blacksmith or a ship- 
builder. He had to do with actual, not ideal, 
folks. 

To represent the Wesley country as Frederick 
G. Kitten has represented the Dickens country, 
one would be under the necessity of describing 
the entire surface of England, Scotland, Wales, 
and Ireland, with Savannah, Ga. ; Charleston, S. 
C, and a little streak of Holland and Germany 
thrown in for good measure. If the wealth of 
Dickens and Wesley is to be measured by the 
real estate each put his foot on, then the coun- 
try of Wesley is to that of Charles Dickens as a 
continent is to a turnip patch. 

For the past three weeks I have been doing 
England in an automobile. Day by day I have 
been making pilgrimages to places associated 
with the lives of great people. But there is no 
spot in this green and beautiful country, that 
the greatest evangelist since St. Paul, has not 
visited. With Baedeker's guide book and John 



116 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

Wesley's Journal, it is easy to follow in the steps 
of Wesley, while looking up the historical places 
of interest. My average run a day is nearly one 
hundred miles, sometimes more, sometimes less. 
Here, for instance, is the round of one day: 
The starting point is Walton-on-Thames, twenty 
miles in the country from London. The hour 
of starting is 10 o'clock. First, Weybridge, 
where Edward VI kept court in 1548; where 
Philip and Mary came from Hampton Court to 
live a while in 1555'; where Henry VIII had a 
private way, "with hanging gates," from Hamp- 
ton Court; where Elizabeth came in the early 
part of her reign, in 1599, and again in 1602; 
where James I often came, and where his con- 
sort, Anne, of Denmark, had her favorite resi- 
dence; where the youngest son, Henry, of 
Charles I, was born; where the Duke of New- 
castle built a "grotto." Still a show place, in 
which the Duke of York and his friends were 
accustomed to drink and gamble; and where 
Louis Phippe and his queen, Marie Amelie, were 
buried. Weybridge is just one mile from the 
starting point, but think of what one sees in 
this single mile. 

Now, think how interesting all this becomes 
when I turn to my Wesley's Journal and learn 
that there is not a road or spot in all the region he 
did not see. 



JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTRY 117 

Then, three miles further, Chertsey is reached. 
Here Charles James Fox, the English statesman, 
lived, of whom Lord Broughan said, "He was the 
greatest debater who ever lived." Here at Chert- 
sey, the Elizabethan poet, Cowley, lived and died. 
Here a great abbey was built in 675. Here a 
benedictive convent was established by Edgar in 
964. Here, in the parish church, the remains of 
Henry VI were interred, and from which they 
were moved to Windsor by Richard III. Here, 
in the parish church, hangs the curfew bell, cast 
in 1310, about which the poem, "Curfew Must 
Not Ring To-Night," was written, by Rosa Hart- 
wick Thorpe, of San Diego, Cal., and it was this 
bell that tolled the death of King Henry VI in 
1471. 

Here, in Chertsey Abbey, the first book of 
"Common Prayer" was, for the most part, com- 
piled. Across the River Thames from Chertsey 
the famous Dr. Thomas Arnold taught school be- 
fore he became headmaster of Rugby. Here 
Mathew Arnold, his eldest son, was born, and 
here the critic and poet is buried. It would take 
a whole article to tell of all incidents and events 
of Chertsey alone. Here Wesley tells us in his 
Journal that on Monday, the 5th of February, 
1750, he preached. Here, on Monday, 12th of 
February, 1750, he was at Chertsey again. 
"Word," he said, "had been industriously spread 



118 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

about the town that I would not come that night. 
However, many came to see whether I would or 
no; to whom I offered 'the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ.' " 

While making a tour of England in 1910 I had 
the privilege of attending service in a little Wes- 
leyan Methodist chapel in Chertsey. There was 
first a hymn, then a short invocation, followed by 
reading a chapter from the Scriptures, then an- 
other hymn followed by a five minutes' sermon 
to the children in the audience, then another 
hymn, followed by a longer prayer, then a second 
lesson from the Scriptures, then another hymn 
followed by the sermon. The minister was a 
Eev. Mr. Westlake, the superintendent of the 
circuit. The regular circuit preacher was just 
leaving for another field, having served out his 
three years. The superintendent made a beauti- 
ful reference to the work of the pastor, and then 
read a text from the writings of St. Paul and 
proceeded to deliver one of the most spiritual, 
helpful sermons I have ever heard. It was 
simple, but direct, and impressed me as a mes- 
sage straight from heaven. 

I noticed when each person found his seat, he 
bowed in silent prayer. Not a word was spoken 
by one to another until after the benediction was 
pronounced. Then the conversation was low and 
subdued as if they all felt they were in the house 



JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTRY 119 

of God. Some of the people approached our 
party and expressed the hope that we had en- 
joyed the service, and that we would return to 
the evening service. 

I had a new insight from the sermon, the 
prayers, the hymns, of what an inestimable bless- 
ing real worship is. The prayer of the minister 
bore up the congregation into the very presence 
of God. His every word was bread for the 
hungry soul. His sermon seemed to be the ut- 
terance of one who stood inside the sacred pre- 
cincts of the heavenly world. One lost sight of 
the meagerness of earthly cares and concerns, 
as he stood in the presence of things eternal. 
England looked little, the pomp and circum- 
stances of royalty, the great thundering rush of 
the business world, all looked small and insig- 
nificant in the face of the eternal realities the 
minister was disclosing. Temptations lost their 
hold, the things of time and sense lost their grasp 
on heart and mind, as the messenger from 
heaven unfolded the wealth and sweep of the 
Word of God. 

The world St. Paul faced was the same world 
poor guilty men and women face today. The 
comfort and inspiration, the great apostle found 
in Christ was just as accessible to those in the 
storm-tossed world now as they were to him. 
There was no way out of sorrow, and trial, and 
sin, except through Christ. Christ stood over 



120 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

against human weakness as its only strength. 
He stood over against human despair as its only 
hope; He stood over against the meanness and 
littleness of human life, as its only significance 
and dignity. Christ was to the soul what bread is 
to physical hunger, what water is to Christ, what 
light is to vision, what fire is to zero weather. 
In Christ the soul had everything! Outside of 
Him it had nothing but husks and vanity and il- 
lusion and afterward bitterness and death. 
Christ was not a dogma merely. He was not an 
intellectual proposition; He was not even a 
creed ; He was the very life of our life ; the very 
truth of our intelligence, the very law of our 
will, the very beauty of our imagination. 

To take Christ out of humanity was like taking 
the sun out of the heavens ; Christ was a country, 
a climate, a living, all-enswathing force; He 
could be touched and felt, as the body could be 
touched and moved by fire. He needed no more 
to be defended than bread or gravitation needs 
to be defended. It was only necessary to move 
into Him and know Him, and catch the light of 
His life into our worn and weary faces, to recom- 
mend Him to every dying man and woman. 
Christ won human hearts as flowers win us. No 
one could see Him reproduced in a life, without 
feeling He was the balm of every wound, the so- 
lution for every problem, the light of every dark 
situation. Doubt might stand out against a de- 



JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTRY 121 

fense of Him, logic might stand up against an 
argument about Him, or for Him, but no subtlety 
of reason could resist Him, as He lived His own 
blessed life, again in the spirit of His disciple 
and servant. The slaves of Christ were the only 
freemen. 

All this and more the preacher made plain, so 
that nothing except a heart, set on wickedness 
and disobedience could have resisted. It was 
easy to lift one's heart in thanksgiving and praise 
to God for the unspeakable gift of His blessed 
Son. I came away from the service feeling that 
I wanted to present Christ to the people as that 
man had presented Him to me and his congrega- 
tion that day. I could not help praying God to 
forgive me that I had not learned before to de- 
clare Him in so winsome and appealing a fashion. 
It was a heart-searching time with one poor 
Methodist preacher in the little Chertsey Meth- 
odist Church, and I will never cease to thank 
God for finding the way to that chapel on Sun- 
day morning. 

Fourteen miles to Guildford, one of the most 
interesting and historic places in Surrey, of 
which it is the country town. It would take an 
article to describe this, so it is passed here. But 
the city and all that is in it belongs to Wesley, 
for he was often there on his way to Winchester 
and other places in the south of England. 



122 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

Twelve miles more, over a most beautiful road, 
and we came to Farnham. Here is a wonderful 
old castle, the home of the bishop of Winchester. 
In 1136 Henry de Blois, bishop of Winchester, 
commenced to build a castle on the very ground 
occupied by the present one. To this castle 
Queen Elizabeth came often. She was here in 
1567, when Kobert Home was bishop. 

Here it was, in 1569, Queen Elizabeth invited 
the Duke of York to dine with her, and having 
suspicions that he was plotting to marry Mary 
Queen of Scots, she warned him to "be careful 
on what pillow he laid his head." Two years 
after that the duke was executed on Lomer Hill. 
James I came soon after to this castle and stayed 
as a guest so long that Bishop Wilson was led 
to ask him once if he looked upon Farnham as 
an inn. Here, in Farnham, William Cobbett, the 
political writer, was born, and is buried. 

In Farnham Jonathan Swift, the author of 
"Gulliver's Travels," lived, and acted, in the be- 
ginning of his career, as a sort of secretary to Sir 
William Temple. Here Swift was accustomed 
to meet Stella, a servant girl, in Sir William 
Temple's Hall, and here began the love affair 
between Swift and Stella, as celebrated as that 
of Petrarch, or Abelard. In Farnham, Toplady, 
the author of "Rock of Ages," was born. 



JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTKY 123 

This place, too, is made doubly significant by 
its association with the horseback traveling of 
John Wesley. Eight miles more and we come to 
Alton. In this neighborhood still stands an old 
brick house in which Jane Austen lived. Here 
she wrote her immortal works of fiction. Ma- 
cauley said her book, "Northanger Abbey," was 
worth all Dickens and Pliny put together. He 
says, further, " Shakespeare has had neither equal 
nor second, but among the writers who have ap- 
proached nearest to the manner of the great mas- 
ter, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, 
a woman of whom England is justly proud." 

Just across the street from Jane Austen's 
house lives Walter Herries Pollok, once the 
editor of The Saturday Revieiv, and an intimate 
friend of Tyndale, Huxley and the leading stu- 
dents of science in England in the eighties of last 
century. He is a wonderfully bright man, and 
when I called to ask him about the book he had 
written concerning Jane Austen, he at once took 
down from his library "The Story of Jane Aus- 
ten's Life," by an American writer, and requested 
me to put it in my pocket and keep it as long as 
I wanted it and then return it to him. 

Leaving Alton, the next place to see was Sel- 
borne, where Gilbert White, the celebrated au- 
thor of the "Natural History of Selborne," lived. 



124 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

By the letter of law Selborne belongs to Lord Sel- 
borne and other landowners, but according to the 
principle we are applying it belongs to Gilbert 
White. 

Think of a man shut up in a little, struggling, 
out-of-way village, studying birds, preaching the 
gospel and becoming the best-known observer of 
nature among all Englishspeaking people. 

At the little village hotel manjr names of dis- 
tinguished men are inscribed in the volume kept 
for the purpose — those of Professor Huxley, 
Lord Napier, John Burroughs and many others. 

Across the country then we made our way to 
Haslemere, sixteen miles away. Here George 
Eliot lived, and Lord Tennyson, the poet; Pro- 
fessor John Tyndall, Grant Allen, A. Conan 
Doyle, G. Bernard Shaw, and many others noted 
in some line of mental activity. All these places 
were visited. Not under the sun, surely, is to be 
found such a spot as that on which Tennyson 
built his "Aldworth," where he lived so long 
and where he died. To reach the house it is nec- 
essary to pass through a deeply shaded road, 
called Tennyson's lane, for three miles. This 
roadway winds in and out and around and around 
as if it were leading in the direction of no place. 

One would be sure he would be lost if any 
other road led away from it. Once in it nothing 
is left the shrine hunter except to keep on. But 



JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTBY 125 

finally we come into the very yard in the midst 
of which the poet's magnificent home was bnilt. 
The place is as high above the valleys reaching 
out and lying below the house as the castle of 
Chapultepec, near the City of Mexico, is above 
the valley of Aspam, stretching out for a hun- 
dred miles in front of it. Tennyson loved soli- 
tude, and did not care to be interrupted by idle 
visitors, so he deliberately put all his wits to 
work to hide himself in the very depths of nature. 

The only side of it from which one can see the 
country is so high up above the level of the val- 
leys below that an intruder could never make 
his way to the house. The other side, as I have 
shown, is guarded by the most puzzling, crooked 
road that ever, perhaps, led to a human habita- 
tion. At the very entrance to this winding road, 
where the Tennyson estate begins, a sign is seen, 
on which, in big letters, the words "private 
grounds" are written. When we reached this 
forbidden line the chauffeur did not think we 
could afford to go in. But I commanded him 
to move forward. 

Having reached the house I proceeded at once 
to the front door and announced myself as call- 
ing to see Lord Tennyson, the son, who has suc- 
ceeded to his father's title and estate, but the 
servant said his lordship had just taken a walk. 
I missed seeing the owner of the place, but such 
a view of the country from the beautiful flower- 



126 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

belined garden at the back of the house I will 
never forget. 

Calling at Tyndall's house I asked for Mrs. 
Tyndall, but learned from the servant that she 
was spending a few weeks in Switzerland. 

After Haslemere and its wonderful neighbor- 
hood of great people, the time had come to start 
back home. In order to see more new towns the 
chauffeur is asked to go back as far as Guild- 
ford by a new road. Just a few miles from Hasle- 
mere, at Godalming, we came into the region 
where the State of Georgia had its beginning. 
Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, the father of General 
Oglethorpe, lived at Westbrook Godalming. 
After his experiment in Georgia, General Ogle- 
thorpe represented this region in parliament. 
We pass back through Guildford, and straight 
on then to Walton-on-Thames, the point from 
which we started at 10 o'clock in the morning. 
This round made it necessary to travel about 
eighty miles in the machine. It will be clear that 
many names of men and of places have been 
mentioned, but they are all in John Wesley's 
country, the Charles James Fox country, the 
Austen country, the Toplady country, the George 
Eliot country, the Tennyson country and the 
Tyndall country are only so many diminutive 
provinces in the Wesley country. 



JOHN WESLEY'S COUNTKY 127 

They made little patches theirs by association 
with theni, but Wesley was in touch with all 
England as completely as they were with a few 
neighborhoods of it. All the great men outside 
of Wesley mentioned above have their limited 
constituencies, but John Wesley has a constitu- 
ency one hundred and nineteen years after his 
death of 30,000,000 people. No Englishman, liv- 
ing or dead, has such a record. Not only is the 
land in which he personally lived and wrought 
his, but if what Emerson says is true, that "an 
institution is the lengthened shadow of one man. 

Methodism of Wesley," then we may say, 

that through his lengthened shadow, Methodism, 
he has covered and touched the soil of the whole 
earth, and made the entire world his. 

Wesley said he looked upon the whole world as 
his parish, and now, after more than a hundred 
years, he is visiting his parishioners through 
thousands and thousands of ministers, his living 
representatives and disciples. 



CHAPTEE XI 
IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 

SCOTLAND'S PLACE IN THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

THE geography enhanced by the genius of 
Robert Burns does not cover much of the 
earth's surface. A few little rivers and 
villages and towns and the City of Edinburgh 
were sufficiently illuminated by association with 
the poet to secure perpetual distinction in the 
Geography of Genius. Take the humble cottage 
in which the poet was born. It consists of but 
two small rooms paved with flagstones, and with 
but one window of four small panes, while the 
thatched roof forms the only ceiling. It is diffi- 
cult to imagine a father and mother and seven 
small children living in such a place. 

THE HOUSE IN WHICH BURNS WAS BORN AND THE 
TAJ MAHAL 

But this little home, multiplied by Burns, is 
of more value, from the standpoint of pounds, 
shillings, and pence, even, than the Taj Mahal 
multiplied by Shah Jehan. About fifty thou- 
sand people a year visit the cottage in which 
Burns was born. Suppose it costs $20.00 for 
each of these persons to go up from London to 

128 



IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 129 

Ayr and return. That would equal one million 
dollars. This is an income, at five per cent., on 
twenty million dollars. We may say, then, meas- 
ured by the annual income it produces that 
Burns' cottage, costing perhaps one thousand 
dollars to build, is worth twenty million dollars, 
while the Taj Mahal, that cost twenty million 
dollars to build, does not perhaps produce an in- 
come of ten thousand dollars. 

It is certainly not through any reasoning or 
calculation that pilgrimages are made to places 
made famous because of their relation to great 
men. The disposition to see the Scotland of Burns 
does not grow out of the aesthetic sense or desire 
for trade and profit. 

MATTER SHOT THROUGH WITH SPIRIT 

The secret is one of the soul, and the environ- 
ing conditions outside the soul. When a spot 
has become sacred to men, it is always in the first 
place because a great spirit has dwelt there, but 
another feature is the way in which, in the mak- 
ing of a shrine like the birthplace of Burns, for 
instance, the physical surroundings have man- 
aged, in some way, to absorb the very soul of the 
poet; as though emanations from his spirit had 
been shot into the house in such a way as to hu- 
manize it with the flavor of Burns' personality; 
and into the fields around the house in such a 



130 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

way as to fill them with the aroma of Burns' 
spirit ; and into the little river flowing near the 
house in such a way as to put it to singing with 
music caught from the melody of Burns' songs. 

One feels, in the Burns country, as if there had 
been a subtle giving off of the poet's interior 
being, a passing of its essence into its immediate 
surroundings, a process which might be com- 
pared to the outrush of electrons from an atom 
of radium. 

It is known that radium gives off heat enough 
to raise the temperature of objects near its pres- 
ence, as much as three degrees. Badium, among 
the primal elements, we may use to illustrate 
what genius is among human beings. Badium 
has the power, it is said, of imparting some of its 
energy to everything with which it comes in con- 
tact. A piece of wood that has been permeated 
with radiant matter continues, for a time, to give 
it off on its own account as if it were itself a 
sort of second rate radium. 

So we may say of genius. It is a form of 
mental energy that can be given off from a richer 
to a poorer mind until the less highly endowed 
intellect comes into possession of power enough 
to give to others lower in the mental scale than 
itself. 

This subtle reaction of mind and matter is a 
very remarkable fact. Every feeling of Burns, 



IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 131 

every aspiration, his own innermost heartbeats, 
are held and reflected by the environing condi- 
tions in the midst of which he spent his short life 
of thirty-eight years. 

MELODY OF A SOUL SINGING IN ITS EARTHLY 
SURROUNDINGS 

As a violin, played on by a great artist, ac- 
quires a new value because of the melody that 
manages to sink into its wood, so the earthly sur- 
roundings of Burns have acquired infinite value 
because they are saturated with the wonder and 
mystery of the poet's soul. His spirit continues 
to vibrate through the physical surroundings 
with which he was associated. The peculiar 
quality of his dominating personality colors the 
whole impression made upon those who visit 
the country of the poet. 

More tourists visit the birthplace of Burns, 
two miles southward out of Ayr on the Maybole 
road, than ever see the birthplace of any other 
poet or literary man who ever lived. The cottage 
was built literally of clay by the poet's father, on 
a small holding of six or seven acres, which he 
had leased as a means of adding to his livelihood 
as a gardener. Because Burns first saw the light 
in this cottage, and because he spent the first six 
years of his life under its thatched roof, it has 



132 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

come to have a large place in the Geography of 
Genius and in the imagination of mankind. 



BURNS BELIEVED HIS BIRTHDAY WOULD BE OBSERVED 

It is a remarkable fact that Burns seemed to 
have intimations that his birthday would be 
noted among other great events. In a letter to his 
early patron, Gavin Hamilton, in 1786, he says : 
"For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of be- 
coming as eminent as Thomas a Kempis or John 
Bunyan; and you may expect henceforth to see 
my birthday inscribed among the wonderful 
events, in the Poor Kobin and Aberdeen Alma- 
nacks, along with the Black Monday and the 
Battle of Bothwell-bridge." 

With these anticipations of Burns, concerning 
his own career, in his mind, Thomas Miller 
wrote : 

"Upon a stormy winter night 
Scotland 's bright star first rose in sight ; 
Beaming upon as wild a sky 
As ever to prophetic eye 
Proclaimed that Nature had on hand 
Some work to glorify the land, 
Within a lonely cot of clay, 
That night her great creation lay. 

1 ' Coila — the nymph who round his brown 
Twined the red-berried holly-bough — 
Her swift-winged heralds sent abroad, 
To summons to that bleak abode 



IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 133 

All who on Genius still attend, 
For good or evil to the end. 

"They came obedient to her call: 
* * # * * 

"Then Coila raised her hollied brow, 
And said, 'Who will this child endow?' 
Said Love, ' I '11 teach him all my lore, 
As it was never taught before; 
Its joys and doubts, its hopes and fears, 
Smiles, kisses, sighs, delights, and tears/ 
Said Pity, 'It shall be my part 
To gift him with a gentle heart. ' 
Said Independence, 'Stout and strong 
I'll make it to wage war with wrong.' 
Said Wit, ' He shall have mirth and laughter, 
Though all the ills of life come after.' 
Warbling her native wood-notes wild, 
Fancy but stooped and kissed the child; 
While through her fall of golden hair 
Hope looked down with a smile on Care. 

' ' Said Labor, ' I will give him bread. ' 
'And I a stone when he is dead,' 
Said Wealth, while Shame hung down her head. 

" 'He'll need no monument,' said Fame; 
' I '11 give him an immortal name ; 
When obelisks in ruin fall, 
Proud shall it stand above them all; 
The daisy on the mountain side 
Shall ever spread it far and wide; 
Even the roadside thistledown 
Shall blow abroad his high renown. ' 
Said Time, 'That name, while I remain, 
Shall still increasing honor gain; 
Till the sun sinks to rise no more 5 
And my last sand falls on the shore 
Of that still, dark and unsailed sea, 



Which opens on Eternity.' 



134 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

Alloway Mill, where the poet went to school, 
has a place in literature equal to that of a great 
university. When the poet was six years old, the 
little household moved over the hill to Mount 
Oliphant, and by so doing made that the most dis- 
tinguished mountain in Scotland. There the next 
six years were spent. "We lived very poorly," 
said Burns, "I was a dexterous plowman for my 
age, and the next eldest to me (Gilbert) could 
drive the plow very well, and help me to thresh 
the corn." 

BURNS ENHANCED THE VALUE OF EVERYTHING HE 
TOUCHED 

At the same time, the future poet was imbib- 
ing other influences. In the evenings, his moth- 
er's ballads were supplemented by the stories of 
Jenny Wilson, an old woman who lived in the 
family, and whose astonishing store of tales and 
songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, 
witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, 
dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions and the like, 
ceased to be provincial and local, but became uni- 
versal and eternal when touched by the genius 
of Burns. 

He read the "Life of Hannibal" and the "His- 
tory of Sir William Wallace," and thus gave 
them a circulation wider than they had ever be- 
fore attained. 



IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 135 

In the town of Ayr itself, one may still see that 
other bridge, the "Auld Brig," which owes its 
preservation and the popular fervor of 1906, 
which produced ten thousand pounds for rebuild- 
ing it, to the fact that it figures in Burns' poem, 
"The Twa Brigs." 

The farm of Mossgiel near Mauchline, secured 
and stocked by the poet and his brothers and sis- 
ters when the clouds of ruin were gathering 
around their father's head, will outlive any other 
farm in Great Britain, because it was in the fields 
of Mossgiel itself that the incidents occurred 
which suggested the poems, "To a Mouse," "To a 
Mountain Daisy," "Death and Dr. Hornbrook," 
"The Twa Dogs," "The Cottar's Saturday Night" 
and "Halloween." 

THE BONNIE DOON LARGER THAN THE MISSISSIPPI 
RIVER 

In the neighborhood of this region is a little 
stream flowing through deeply wooded banks, 
known as Bonnie Doon, which is larger, meas- 
ured by the space it occupies in the Geography of 
Genius, than the Mississippi River. 

Then there is the Alloway Kirk not far away, 
that is perhaps the smallest church that ever 
filled so large a place in the thought of the world. 
No grand and storied cathedral pile in all Europe 
is better known, and to no shrine of famous min- 



136 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

ster do more pilgrims journey, than to this little 
church immortalized by the pen of Burns. 

The most trifling and seemingly unimportant 
activities of Eobert Burns, when multiplied by 
his personality, became significant. 

Not far from the Solway shore, Burns, with a 
small party of revenue officers, was left to watch 
the motions of an armed smuggling brig, which 
had got into shallow water, while a brother ex- 
ciseman went to Dumfries for a guard of dra- 
goons, and the superintendent went to Eccle- 
fechan on a similar errand. While the party lay 
in the wet salt-marsh chafing at the exciseman's 
delay, Burns, on the hint of one of his men, com- 
posed and recited on the spot his well-known set 
of verses, "The Deil's Awa' Wi' the Exciseman," 
and by so doing put the adventure of the day 
down in the Geography of Genius. 

THE MOST FAMOUS EESIDENCE IN THE WORLD 

Directly after the flush of his success and fame 
as a great poet, he came into Nithsdale and built 
the farmhouse of Ellisland, which is still stand- 
ing on the bank of the Nith, some six or seven 
miles from Dumfries. This house will stand for- 
ever, not in outward material form but in the 
literature of all coming ages, because the ob- 
ject for which he built it is expressed in his own 
lines : 



IN THE BUKNS COUNTKY 137 

"To make a happy fireside clime 
For weans and wife — 
That's the true pathos and sublime 
Of human life. ' ' 

Here in these happy days, after his marriage to 
Jean Armour, while superintending the building 
of the house in Ellisland, the poet composed that 
most exquisite of all love songs, in the music of 
which his house and his Jean will float down all 
the years of history. 

"Of a ' the airts the wind can blaw I dearly like the west, 
For there the bonnie lassie lives, the lassie I lo'e best; 
There wildwoods grow and rivers row, and many a hill be- 
tween 
But day and night my fancy *s flight is ever wi ' my Jean. ' * 

On the gable window of the house Burns built 7 
which is still standing, looking south, one may 
still see the poet's handwriting. Under it's roof 
in those first halcyon days, he gave the place im- 
mortality by writing such fine things as "Gae 
Fetch to Me a Pint o' Wine," "My Heart's in the 
Hielands," "Willie Brewed a Peck o' Maut." 

The place is enhanced still more, because it was 
here, on the anniversary of the day on which he 
heard of the death of his early love, Mary Camp- 
bell, and while stretched on a mass of straw in 
the barnyard, with his eyes fixed on a planet that 
shone like another moon, it is said he composed 
that noblest of all his ballads, "To Mary in 
Heaven" : 



138 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

' ' Thou lingering star with lessening ray, 
That lov'st to greet the early morn, 
Again thou usher \st in the day 
My Mary from my soul was torn. f ' 

WHERE BURNS WROTE "TAM O'SHANTER" 

Below the house there still may be seen the 
path running along the bank of the Mth, which 
was his favorite walk, and where in the hours of 
a single day, he forged white-hot on the anvil of 
his genius, the most famous of all his master- 
pieces, "Tarn O'Shanter." He committed the 
verses to writing, it was said, on the top of a 
turf-dyke over the water, and when the whole 
was finished came into the house and read them 
in high triumph at the fireside. Many other spots 
in this neighborhood have been made illustrious 
in the poet's verse. 

But the farming failed and his work as excise- 
man began toward the close of 1791, when Burns 
moved into Dumfries again. Here he wrote 
"Duncan Gray," "The Lee Rig/' and "Highland 
Mary." 

HOW BURNS GAVE A PLACE IN THE SUN TO A SOLDIER 

His duties as an exciseman made it necessary 
for him to ride some two or three hundred miles 
every week, and in consequence the countryside 
far and near was illuminated by celestial fire, 
flaming hot out of his soul. At Brownhill on 



IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 139 

the Glasgow road, one evening, Burns, noticing 
a weary soldier limp past the window, called him 
in, regaled him heartily, and after hearing his 
pathetic story, enshrined it in his fine stanzas, 
"The Soldier's Return," and so conferred upon 
the soldier the glory of being permitted to limp 
forever past that window and to be hailed and 
regaled by Robert Burns. 

GIVING FAME TO A LANDLORD 

The same hotel at Brownhill saw the composi- 
tion concerning Bacon, the landlord, who was 
in the habit of inflicting his company, uninvited, 
rather constantly on his guests, and this fact 
Burns immortalized, as follows : 

' ' At Brownhill, we always get dainty good cheer, 
And plenty of Bacon each day in the year; 
We've all things that's nice, and mostly in season, 
But why always bacon ? Come give me a reason. ' ' 

Not many landlords ever found such a chance 
to secure a place in the sun of the literary 
heavens. On a tumbler belonging to Mrs. Bacon, 
Burns wrote, increasing the value of the tumber 
from ten cents to twenty thousand dollars, 

' • You 're welcome, Willie Stewart ; 
You're welcome, Willie Stewart; 
There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May 
That's half so welcome's thou art." 

Mrs. Bacon made so much ado about this dam- 
age to her property that a gentleman present 



140 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

paid her a shilling for the glass. This afterwards 
found a place among the most valued relics at 
Abbottsford. Thus Mrs. Bacon and her hus- 
band will occupy places forever in the Geography 
of Genius — the one by inflicting his company, un- 
invited, on his guests, and the other, by complain- 
ing of the damage to her tumbler caused by the 
handwriting of Kobert Burns. 

Among other spots in the neighborhood ren- 
dered famous by the presence and the muse of 
Burns, the most interesting is Lincluden College 
ruin, close by the town. The green banks of the 
river there was a favorite walk of the poet's, and 
he mentioned it in at least two of his composi- 
tions. By these walls, hoary with memories, 
within which lies buried the daughter of King 
Kobert III, who was wife of Archibald the Grim, 
Earl of Douglas and Duke of Touraine, Burns 
composed his "Vision of Libert" : 

"As I stood by yon roofless tower 
Where wallflower scents the dewy air, 
Where the owlet mourns in her ivy bower, 
And tells the midnight moon her care. 

' ' By heedless chance I turned mine eyes, 
And by the moonbeams shook to see 
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise, 
Attired as minstrels wont to be." 



IN THE BUKNS COUNTKY 141 

Other pieces written at this time in this neigh- 
borhood were "My Nannie's Awa'," and "A 
Man's a Man for a' That." 

The convivialities of Dumfries made such 
drafts on the health of Burns that he could no 
longer bear them. One hotel in particular, is 
made significant through its association with 
Kobert Burns. The Globe, in its narrow entry 
off High Street, has changed little since he fre- 
quented it. His writing is still legible on several 
of its windows, and in its dark, low-roofed, wain- 
scoted parlor is preserved the rough round chair 
in which he used to sit and keep the mirth flying 
till the small hours. 

POSTING TO THE GRAVE THROUGH THE SNOW 

But his visits to the Globe were made at a ter- 
rible cost. It was there he accepted an invitation 
to dine with his friends. He remained till three 
in the morning, and on leaving the company sat 
down on the step of the tavern stable and there fell 
asleep. It was January and there was snow on 
the ground, and from that hour he felt the grasp 
of death upon him. Bodily pain and mental 
anxiety for the future of those dear to him made 
day and night alike a misery. 

1 ' He erred, he sinn 3d ; and if there be 
Who, from his hapless frailties free, 
Rich in the poorer virtues, see 

His faults alone — 
To such, Lord of Charity, 

Be mercy shown! 



142 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

' ' Singly he faced the bigot brood, 

The meanly wise, the feebly good; 

He pelted them with pearl, with mud; 

He fought them well — 

But ah, the stupid million stood, 

And he — he fell! 

' ' All bright and glorious at the start, 
'Twas his ignobly to depart, 
Slain by his own too affluent heart, 

Too generous blood; 
And blindly, having list Life 's chart, 

To meet Death's flood. , 



i i 



So closes the fantastic fray, 
The duel of the spirit and clay ! 
So come bewildering disarray 

And blurring gloom. 
The irremediable day 

And final doom. 

" So passes all confusedly 

As lights that hurry, shapes that flee 
About some brink we dimly see, 

The trivial, great, 
Squalid majestic tragedy 

Of human fate. 

' ' Not ours to gauge the more or less, 
The will's defect, the blood's excess, 
The earthly humors that oppress 

The radiant mind, 
His greatness, not his littleness, 
Concerns mankind." 

COLORING PLACES BY THE MOODS OF THE SPIRIT 

Not only did Burns enhance every place he 
passed, every object he saw, every spot upon 



IN THE BURKS COUNTRY 143 

which he stood, but he left the color of his differ- 
ent moods upon the places associated with him. 
Perhaps the happiest and gayest and most radi- 
ant period of Burns' life was during the first two 
months he spent in Edinburgh. No city in all 
Europe ever had its palaces and towers, its halls 
of justice, its sons and daughters, lifted before 
all nations in such beautiful rhythm, and assured 
in so splendid a fashion of holding its place in 
the Geography of Genius forever. 

' ' Edina ! Scotia 's darling seat ! 
All hail thy palaces and towers, 
Where once beneath a monarch's feet 
Sat Legislation's soverign powers! 
From marking sovereign powers! 
As on the banks of Ayr I stray 'd, 
And singing, lone, the ling 'ring hours, 
I shelter in thy honour 'd shade." 

NO TWO SHRINES OF THE SAME COLOR 

The intimate partnership between the outside 
environment and the inside spirit of every great 
genius shows itself by the particular color left 
on the physical surroundings, in the midst of 
which he lived. As we go from shrine to shrine, 
we find ourselves coming under the spell of first 
one presiding genius, who magnetized the place 
of his abode by emanations from the depths of his 
individual soul of one kind, and then of another, 
who magnetized his environing conditions with 
emanations from the depths of his individual soul 
of another kind. 



144 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

The Lake Country effects us very differently 
from that of the Border region. The one is domi- 
nated by the contemplative, dreamy, mystical 
personality of Wordsworth, while the other is 
under the inspiration of the military, romantic 
spirit of Sir Walter Scott. 

Perhaps no poet of any age ever imparted so 
much of his own personality to the surroundings 
in which he lived as did Robert Burns. He lit- 
erally saturated every road over which he trav- 
eled, every lake he passed, every hotel he spent 
a night in, every field he walked through, and al- 
most every human being he met, with the radiant 
energy of his own life. 

William Watson, a modern poet, felt the differ- 
ence between the genius of Burns and that of all 
other British poets, when he wrote the lines : 

HOW BURNS DIFFERS FROM OTHER BRITISH POETS 

" What wooes the world to yonder shrine? 
What sacred clay, what dust divine? 
Was this some Master faultless-fine, 

In whom we praise 
The cunning of the jeweled line 

And carven phrase? 

' ' A searcher of our source and goal, 
A reader of God's secret scroll? 
A Shakespeare, flashing o'er the whole 

Or Man's domain 
The splendor of his cloudless soul 
And perfect brain? 



IN THE BUBNS COUNTRY 145 

' ' Some Keats, to Grecian gods allied, 
Clasping all beauty as his bride? 
Some Shelley, soaring dim-descried 

Above Time's throng, 
And heavenward hurling wild and wide 

His spear of song? 

' ' A lonely Wordsworth, from the crowd 
Half -hid in light, half -veiled in cloud? 
A sphere-born Milton, cold and proud, 

In hallowing dews 
Dipt, and with gorgeous ritual vowed 

Unto the Muse? 

' ' Nay, none of these — and little skilled 
On heavenly heights to sing and build! 
Thine, thine, O Earth, whose fields he tilled 

And thine alone, 
Was he whose fiery heart lies stilled 
'Neath yonder stone. 

{ ' He came when poets had forgot 
How rich and strange the human lot; 
How warm the tints of Life ; how hot 

Are Love and Hate; 
And what makes Truth divine, and what 

Makes Manhood great." 

No people ever had the opportunity of sending 
the plain, simple, common everyday duties and 
relations of their lives down to the future, 
through so great a genius, as did the countrymen 
of Burns. 

THE SPIRIT OF JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS USED TO SHIP 
THE HISTORY OF GEORGIA TO THE FUTURE 

Joel Chandler Harris, of Georgia, did for the 
negro what Burns did for the Scotland of his 



146 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

day. Into his spirit he gathered the whole civili- 
zation of the old time South and gave it literary 
expression. Mr. Harris gave personality to the 
rabbit, fox, possum, and the other animals of his 
section, and through them expressed the very 
soul of the plantation negro as he was known in 
the South before the Civil War. 

It is recognized by all that a special quality of 
soul is necessary to give the peculiar religious 
flavor of feeling to a place that St. Francis im- 
parted to his native town of Assisi. Assisi has a 
different aroma from towns which have become 
distinguished by association with literary genius 
alone. Perhaps there is not in all history a town 
that has secured a larger place in the Geography 
of Genius than has Assisi because of its relations 
with St. Francis. He so thoroughly identified 
himself with the community that it is perfectly 
proper to say either St. Francis of Assisi or 
Assisi of St. Francis. 

St. Francis is the subject of which Assisi is the 
object, or Assisi is the subject of which St. 
Francis is the object. He has so thoroughly 
transfigured it and magnetized it that it con- 
tinues to draw, from year to year, enough tour- 
ists to support the four thousand inhabitants 
who live in the place. It is a small mountain 
town, three miles from the railroad, and would 



IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 147 

not continue to exist if association with St. 
Francis were taken from it. 

ST. FRANCIS HAS SUPPORTED THE POPULATION OF 
HIS NATIVE TOWN FOR NEARLY 800 YEARS 

We have here the remarkable instance of a re- 
ligious genius, who never had a dollar in his 
pocket after he was converted, supplying bread 
and meat and clothes for four thousand people 
who live in his community, nearly eight hundred 
years after his death. 

Burns, perhaps, came nearer doing for the 
Scotland with which he was associated, what St. 
Francis did for Assisi, than any other man ever 
did for his native place. He not only filled the 
country with the aroma of his spirit, but he left 
all the moods and tenses of it, all the gayety and 
bitterness of it, all the disappointments and tri- 
umphs of it, on the surroundings in the midst of 
which he lived. 

Contrast the radiant moods with which Burns 
illuminated the beautiful city of Edinburgh with 
the sad, depressed state of mind in which he came 
to the village of Brow near Dumfries, on the Sol- 
way shore, in the last fortnight of his life, to try 
what sea bathing and sea air might do for his 
failing powers. 

BURNS' LAST POEM 

Here it was he wrote the last song he was ever 
to pen, entitled "The Fairest Maid on Devon's 



148 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

Banks.' 1 Here it was that he wrote that last 
letter to Thomson, his publisher, imploring five 
pounds to prevent a rascal haberdasher putting 
his emaciated body into jail. 

THE SADDEST LETTER IN LITERATURE 

This is perhaps one of the most pathetic letters 
ever written : 

1 ' Brow, on the Sol way Firth, 

"12th July, 1796. 
"After all my boasted independence, curst necessity com- 
pels me to implore you for five pounds. A cruel wretch of a 
haberdasher, to whom I owe an account, taking it into his 
head that I am dying, has commenced a process and will in- 
evitably put me into jail. Do, do, for God's sake, send me 
that sum, and that by return post! Forgive me this earnest- 
ness, but the horrors of jail, have made me half distracted. 
I do not ask this gratuitously, for upon returning health I 
hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds 
worth of the neatest song genius you have seen. I tried my 
hand on the poem this morning. The measure is so difficult that 
it is impossible to infuse much genius in the lines. They are 
on the other side. Forgive me ! Forgive me!" 

" Fairest maid on Devon's banks, 
Crystal Devon! Winding Devon! 
Wilt thou lay that frown aside 
And smile as thou wert wont to do?" 



Here is a letter to his wife, the last he ever 
wrote to her : 

"My Dearest Love: I delayed writing until I could tell you 
what effect sea-bathing was likely to produce. It would be in- 
justice to deny that it has eased my pains and I think has 



IN THE BUENS COUNTKY 149 

strengthened me, but my appetite is still extremely bad. No 
flesh nor fish can I swallow. Porridge and milk are the only 
things I can taste. I am very happy to hear from Miss Jessie 
Lewars that you are all well. My very best and kindest com- 
pliments to her and all the children. I will see you on Sunday. 
Your affectionate husband." 

Then we can follow the poet to that low-roofed 
upper room of the house still standing in Dum- 
fries, whither he returned to die. The room is 
still said to contain the round mahogany table 
at which he was sitting for one of his last meals, 
when a friend asked him how he felt and was 
answered by the ominous words, "Posting fast to 
the grave, madam." 

The last scene was not far off. It was the 18th 
of July when he returned home, with difficulty 
able to stand upright and reach his own door. 
On the 21st of July, 1796, he died. Not far away, 
in St. Michael's kirkyard, is to be seen the mauso- 
leum to which the remains of the poet were re- 
moved in 1815. Tens of thousands visit the 
shrine every year. 

1 ' No mystic torch through Time he bore, 
No virgin veil from Life he tore; 
His soul no bright insignia wore 

Of starry birth; 
He saw what all men see — no more — 
In heaven and earth; 

' ' But as, when thunder crashes nigh, 
All darkness opes one flaming eye, 
And the world leaps against the sky — 
'So fiery clear 



150 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

Did the old truths that we pass by 
To him appear. 

' ' A dreamer of the common dreams, 
A fisher in familiar streams, 
He chased the transitory gleams 

That all pursue; 
But on his lips the eternal themes 

Again were new. ' ' 



DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NATURE AND ART 

In the direction of this line of study, we learn 
the secret of why more than a hundred thousand 
people go to Europe every year and none to 
South America. The Rhine and the Rhone are 
tiny brooks compared with the Amazon. The 
Alps, the Apennines and the Pyrenees combined 
are but hills compared to the mighty chain of the 
Andes. Why does Europe draw the people while 
the vaster southern continent does not? It is 
because Europe has been idealized and lifted by 
genius out of the realm of nature into that of 
art. 

THE AVON LARGER THAN THE AMAZON 

The Amazon River is mere hugeness and bulk 
of matter and does not interest the soul because 
the advent of man has not yet given it history 
and converted it into art. The Avon, the Thames, 
the Cam, the Isis and even the tiny rill of Bonnie 
Doon, are a million times larger because Shake- 
speare, Milton, and Burns have made them great 



IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 151 

and started their waters to flowing all around the 
globe. 

No one goes to Scotland to see the country God 
made, but to see the land made by Scott, and 
Burns, and Hume, and John Knox. The coun- 
tries made by the Creator are less interesting 
than the countries made by great men — or rather, 
it is truer to say that the only countries which 
draw the people are such as God has made 
through man. 

SHAKESPEARE'S KING LEAR MORE REAL THAN 
GEORGE III 

In the realm of pure creative art are not the 
names which the poet and the novelist have given 
us often more real to us than any historic char- 
acter? King Lear is far more real than George 
III and Hamlet far more real than any man who- 
ever enacted the part. 

William Pitt once said that he had learned 
from Shakespeare all he knew of English history, 
On reflection, we see the truth of this most preg- 
nant saying. Within the limits of a single his- 
torical play, like that of "Henry VIII," which 
can be read or enacted in a single evening, Shake- 
speare has put into a single play the whole move- 
ment — the essential truth — of a great epoch of 
history. 



152 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

TRUE ART TRUER THAN FACT 

It might be granted that not one word which 
Shakespeare puts into the mouth of king or queen 
or cardinal was actually uttered by them. Yet 
these words express to us what these people stood 
for in the world, and what they did, far more 
truly, in fact, than would all the multitude of 
their actual words and deeds convey it to us if 
they could be recorded. And thus we arrive at 
the surprising truth that true art is truer than 
fact. 

It is not, therefore, nature herself that we love 
in the highest, most enduring way, but nature in- 
terpreted and purified and transformed and en- 
dowed by the genius of man. Nature does not in- 
terpret herself. 

It is the penetrating eye of the man of spiritual 
insight which alone can do this; and, if his 
insight be true, he sees at the same time that 
higher than nature is art. Art is the articulate, 
the rational, the clearly spoken word. It is art 
which has, in very literal truth, given nature to 
our comprehension and love, and never nature 
which have given art to us. 

The presence of art in the world will only be 
explained when we see that it comes from the de- 
mand of the soul of man to image to itself the 
true, the ideal, and hence the permanent; and 
this must be, in the case of art, the beautiful. 



IN THE BURNS COUNTRY 153 

Art springs from the power of man's mind to 
create ideals and its impulse to realize them. 
Nature deals with the accidental ; art with what 
is permanent. Nature has no definite aesthetic 
purpose. Art selects, creates, and preserves and 
has definite aim and unity, and all with reference 
to the soul of man. 

True art is the portrayal of the true and ad- 
mirable and divine in forms appreciable to the 
senses. The same quality of our nature, which 
gives us through the medium of the senses, art, 
gives us in the realm of intellect, science and 
philosophy, and in the realm of conduct and the 
emotions, morals and religion. Viewed thus, we 
see that art is the product of reason, and takes 
its high rank along with the other rational prod- 
ucts of — not nature, but human nature — man- 
kind. 

IT IS LEFT TO MAN ALONE TO MAKE THE EARTH 
ATTRACTIVE 

Is it not the finest of all tributes to humanity 
that it is left to man alone to make our world 
significant and attractive? Man has universally 
and instinctively put his final award only on 
the highest qualities. 

Man has been often greedy and selfish, but to 
his credit it must be said he has never canonized 
greed and selfishness. He has called his cities 



154 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

and his famous places after the names of his 
saints and heroes. There is a certain exaggera- 
tion in this saying of Renan, yet a truth in it: 
"What is the whole of America beside a ray of 
that infinite glory with which a city of the second 
or third order — Florence, Pisa, Sienna, Perugia 
— sines on Italy? 

THE EARTH IS ONLY DUST UNTIL IT IS SATURATED 
BY SPIRIT 

The geography of the earth's surface repre- 
sents only so much commonplace gravel until the 
whole is idealized and transformed and illumi- 
nated by the genius of man. Thus we are able to 
see what genius has to do with the making of 
geography. They tell us that the earth will 
finally be left without heat and cease at length 
to be a dwelling place for man. One thing is 
certain, the parts of it associated with the lives 
of great men and women are eternally safe. 



CHAPTER XII 
A VACATION IN ENGLAND 

THREE days before leaving England in 
1910, I made a pilgrimage to the ruins of 
the old Gorhambury palace, where Lord 
Bacon lived and where he died, at St. Albans. It 
is a grand old ivy-clad pile, and is one of the most 
famous places in Great Britain. Here it was 
that Queen Elizabeth was accustomed to visit 
Sir Nicholas Bacon, when Francis, his son, was 
a boy. I was not only shown the ruins of the pres- 
ent home Verulam by the earl himself, but had the 
privilege of seeing the pictures of his ancestors 
for five hundred years, each one of them painted 
by a master. 

I refer to this because I know of no case in 
English history that so well illustrates the re- 
spect for law on the part of the English people, 
and so well serves to point out the danger of 
violating the law, as that furnished by the fall of 
Lord Bacon. He had reached, in his upward 
climb to position, the pinnacle of greatness. He 
had been raised to the peerage as Lord Verulam 
and had been created Viscount St. Albans. He 
was next to the king himself in honor and 

155 



156 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

wielded more power than the king as a distribu- 
tor of patronage. 

At the meeting of parliament in 1621, a de- 
mand was made for reform in connection with 
the oppressive monopoly patents. Bacon was ac- 
cused of being a party to disgraceful transac- 
tions by which the nation had been robbed. The 
chancellor had done nothing more than hundreds 
have been doing in this country, within recent 
years, who have been untouched by the law. 

But, in the case of Bacon, nothing could save 
him. He had used a high place for personal ad- 
vantage. He was condemned and fined f 200,000, 
and imprisoned in the tower during the king's 
pleasure. Besides, he was declared incapable 
of holding office in the state, or of sitting in par- 
liament and that never again should he come 
within the verge of the court. He was a dis- 
graced man forever. That was three hundred 
years ago. But the same strict adherence to 
the letter and spirit of the law prevails in Eng- 
land to-day that hurled Bacon from position into 
disgrace in 1621. 

There is no respect in which the contrast be- 
tween England and the United States is more 
striking than that which one observes between 
the respect for and obedience to law in the 
mother country, and the disregard of it in our 
own. 



A VACATION IN ENGLAND 157 

On August 26, the day I sailed for New York, I 
secured the London daily papers. These gave a 
record of a day's doings in England for August 
25. On September 2, I glanced over the New 
York dailies. These gave a report of a day's 
doings in the United States for September 1. I 
am not overstating the truth when I say that 
more lawlessness was recorded as having taken 
place in any one of our large States of the Amer- 
ican union, with, say, its 4,000,000 of population, 
in one day, than was represented by the papers 
as having taken place in all England, with its 
forty-odd million population, in one day. 

There must be some underlying cause for this 
difference in the matter of lawlessness between 
the two countries. We are the same people, 
mainly, as to blood and traditions and ideals. 
We answer by the same Bible, we worship God 
after the same doctrines, hold to the same funda- 
mental, political and religious conceptions. Why 
do our ancestors over the sea keep up the practice 
of our doctrines, political and other that we hold 
in common, while we, their descendants, main- 
tain the doctrines in our heads and professions, 
while we have departed from them in our hearts 
and practices? This question brings before our 
minds something to study about. This is a mat- 
ter for the most searching inquiry of which we 
are capable. 



158 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

It is bad enough to rush hellward at all, if we 
are to represent our modern American activity 
by the lurid and picturesque word used by one 
of our recent orators, in denning the region 
toward which the American people are moving, 
but to move hellward without asking ourselves 
about our destination; without seeking to ac- 
quaint ourselves with the character of the place 
toward which we are headed, indicates that we 
have not only lost our chart, but our pilot ; that 
we have not only lost our noble impulses, but our 
towering heads. To go to hell with our eyes open 
is possible, but then we but reap the consequences 
anticipated. To go to hell, on the other hand, 
with our eyes shut would imply that we were 
silly sheep and not rational human beings. 

In the language of Colonel Roosevelt, the 
American people, in the main, are sound in heart 
and disposition. They are not silly sheep, nor 
are they rushing blindly to hell. There have been 
recent perverse expressions of the national life, 
but these furnish no grounds for pessimism, but 
reasons for universal heart-searching on the part 
of us all. It is a time not for manning the life 
boats and jumping overboard, but for every man 
and woman to get busy stopping the leaks and 
mending the ship. 

A time of national awakening will come, both 
in political parties and in churches. From graft- 



A VACATION IN ENGLAND 159 

ing and jobbing and duplicity and political wick- 
edness, sane leaders are crying : "Good Lord, de- 
liver us !" From cant and coldness and spiritual 
indifference, earnest preachers are praying: 
"Good Lord, deliver us!" The deliverance will 
come. We will again be clothed and established 
in sanity, simplicity, soberness and righteous- 
ness. The national ship is freighted with too 
much precious merchandise in which all mankind 
is interested to be wrecked but a few miles from 
shore. As a people we are hardly out of sight 
of land on the voyage our fathers planned for 
us only yesterday, in the lifetime of nations. 
There is no time for panic among the passengers. 
This is no time for leaders of the people to wail 
and wring their hands. Our machinery of state 
is not old, it has just been put together. The 
structure of our union is seaworthy. There is no 
trouble outside of us, either in sea or running- 
gear. 

The only trouble is inside. The passengers 
have not been respecting one another's rights. 
They have not been pacing the deck in sight of 
the stars enough. They have kept themselves too 
completely down in the stuffy state rooms, and 
have not been taking into their lungs enough of 
ocean ozone. But the beauty about our situation 
is, we are beginning to feel that we cannot stand 
it much longer. The sense of inability to breathe 
under unhealthy conditions is driving the people 



lm THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

above. We will get normal and vigorous and 
sane in a little while. Then the joy of living will 
come back to us. 



Still, it is the duty of rational people to con- 
sider the causes which have brought about our 
confusion. 

We cannot do better than to pay careful heed 
to the methods and habits of the people of our 
mother country. There they are on their little 
island still ruling the world. There they are, 
still sane and serious and masters of themselves. 
They are said to be slow and dull and dense 
enough to have American humor explained to 
them. But it strikes an impartial observer, that 
while they do move with cautious step, the point 
which they are slowest about reaching is the 
perilous one at which an Englishman can make 
up his mind to do wrong or to violate the laws 
made to" regulate his conduct. I cannot see that 
a citizen of Great Britain steps any slower when 
moving toward a dollar he has honestly earned 
than an American. At least England manages 
to maintain its place as the clearing house of the 
world's money. 

The English are not particularly tardy when 
they are moving toward the solution of great 
financial, social, political and scientific proposi- 
tions. It must be remembered that the British 
Association, which is an institution of Great 



A VACATION IN ENGLAND 161 

Britain, is doing more to advance the cause of 
thought in the modern mind than all other sim- 
ilar institutions on earth put together. 

Much has been said about the dullness and 
density of the English people, but if there is any 
high and honorable and rational and beautiful 
and good thing known among men that they do 
not get to as speedily as the people of any other 
realm, ancient or modern, I wish some alert 
American would point out what it is. 

In my two month's observation last summer 
one thing became clearer to me than ever before, 
and that is, more English people find their way to 
church every Sunday morning, and reach the 
altars of God earlier and more speedily than do 
the inhabitants of any other country on the 
planet. 

The only thing the English are slow about is 
breaking the law. If he does happen to forget 
himself sufficiently to do it one time, then as sure 
as fate, the only hotel he will ever put up at any 
more is the jail. This was so before Lord Bacon ; 
it has been so ever since. They would cut off 
King George's head to-day just as quickly as they 
did that of Charles I, if he swerved from the 
straight way mapped by the law. From the king 
down to the veriest denizen of the slums, every- 
one in England must keep the law, or else pay 
the penalty of its violation, as sure as the sun 



162 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GEXIUS 

rises and sets. Everyone recognizes this and, 
hence, everyone obeys the law. The result is the 
English people are disciplined. They are not 
offensively self-assertive. They are kind and 
polite. A policeman has the manners and the 
considerate speech of a first-class gentleman. 
Life is not cheap. Every railroad and every auto- 
mobile must respect it. 

The high level of national greatness occupied 
by England is due to the fact that her people re- 
spect and observe the law. They seem to have 
sense enough to recognize the fact that there is 
a moral order over and around them as really as 
there is a physical order over them and around 
them. They appear as little inclined to violate 
the moral order as the physical. They appear to 
respect the Ten Commandments as completely as 
they respect the laws of gravity. They seem to 
know as well that if they do wrong morally, they 
will be punished, as they know if they climb to 
the top of a church steeple and jump to the pave- 
ment they will be punished. "Lawlessness is a 
reproach to any people." 

The present trouble with all people of the 
United States is lawlessness. This is not so 
much because our people are meaner than the 
English, their impulses are just as fine, but it is 
largely because we are not disciplined by long 
practice in the observance of the law. We have 



A VACATION IN ENGLAND 163 

been swayed too much by the stupid and sense- 
less rage of the mob. As a consequence, judicial 
blindness has fallen upon whole communities of 
our people. Judicial blindness is often found 
side by side with noble and generous feelings. A 
man is afflicted with judicial blindness when his 
intellectual wheels have ceased to turn, and when 
he is at the mercy of any chance impulse that 
happens to be imported from the mob into his 
emotional self. Such a man is stupid and dense 
enough to think that murder committed by a mob 
under so-called lynch law will wipe out the wick- 
edness of murder committed by an assassin. 

Anyone with a spark of reason to light up his 
mind is obliged to see that lynching by a mob is 
just as much murder as is the cold-blooded act of 
the assassin in taking the life of his fellow man. 
The English have sense and training enough to 
see this. Hence, there has not been a case of 
lynching in England,N so far as I have read, in 
five hundred years, and not in Canada since the 
country's foundation. And yet English and 
Canadians are of the same blood as our people. 
The} 7 differ not because they are naturally any 
better than our folks, they simply have more 
trained intelligence. Our people are lawless be- 
cause they are ignorant, untrained, undisci- 
plined. 



164 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

The English people have maintained their re- 
spect for law through the hundreds of years of 
their history because they have been perpetually 
taught in home and church and school to rever- 
ence those in authority and to respect and keep 
the laws. The English people have not advanced 
beyond the sense of duty resting upon them to 
attend regularly the church services. Every- 
where I went, I found, whether in city or village, 
practically all the people accustomed to go to 
church. The places of worship were full of rev- 
erent, devout people. They are so far behind the 
times over there that every person, upon finding 
his seat in church, has no more idea of progress 
than actually to bow his head and pray. They 
are so backward and belated in England that no 
person ever speaks to another in the house of 
prayer until the benediction is pronounced, and 
then whatever may be spoken is in a whisper, as 
if the hush of eternity was on his life. 

The foundation of English order and obedience 
to law in the country is the religion for which 
their churches stand to foster and feed. Take the 
churchgoing habits from the people and they will 
become as lawless as their kinspeople in America 
have become in the past fifteen years. This in- 
difference to religion and the Church is a new 
thing with us, and it is not becoming. It is mak- 
ing way for the sort of moral and spiritual re- 
laxation that leads to lawlessness. We are young 



A VACATION IN ENGLAND 165 

and will get over it, just as a man will learn to 
quit mince pie for supper, when he finds out that 
his constitution cannot stand it. 

The human constitution breaks down very soon 
in its attempts to digest lawlessness. It is not 
wholesome ; it cannot be assimilated and turned 
into good, healthy blood and muscle. The people 
of this country have already had about all they 
can stand of the mince pie lawlessness ; they are 
turning from it with loathing and deep disgust. 
They are beginning to see that it is better to go 
to bed on plain mush and milk and secure pleas- 
ant sleep and sweet dreams, than to retire on a 
wrong diet to dream about ruin and jails and 
falling into the clutches of old Satan all night. 

Evidences of returning to sanity are to be read 
on every hand. A better, brighter day is soon to 
dawn on our great country. Our people will find 
their way back to the deserted altars of religion. 
They will cut away the briars which have choked 
up the gateways to them. They will again wear 
paths over the same old lines our fathers trod to 
the houses of God. The windows in the old build- 
ings will be repaired. The sense of broken trust, 
of old memories despised, of God's altars stained 
and dishonored, will pass from inside the de- 
serted shrines our fathers were taught to pray in, 
when we return from our wanderings and make 



166 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

up our minds no longer to live on husks intended 
for swine and not for immortal souls. 

I attended, while in England, Church of Eng- 
land cathedrals, Congregational houses of wor- 
ship and Wesleyan Methodist chapels. 

The efforts of the preachers seemed to be con- 
centrated on the one object of arousing the 
people to accept the spiritual and eternal order 
represented by Jesus Christ as their only hope 
from barrenness and death in time and eternity. 
They seemed to be bent on advertising no nos- 
trums, or facts, or so-called new ideas; what 
they did was to call the people from sin to holi- 
ness, from death to life, from animality to spir- 
ituality; instead of seeming to think the old 
gospel had lost its power, they preached it with 
a winsomeness and a dynamic intensity that led 
one to feel that the a, b, c's of the gospel had not 
yet been learned by the average preacher even. 
There were no apologetics, no halfway tentative 
sort of positions taken; every utterance was as 
positive and clear-cut as a policeman's club 
They apologized for nothing, no more than a 
sheriff would apologize for the severity of the 
law, when arresting a criminal. They were mak- 
ing known a tried and well-worn way all civilized 
leaders had followed. To doubt its value as the 
only way to walk in, in order to get anywhere, 
was not only to write one's self down as wicked, 



A VACATION IN ENGLAND 167 

but as utterly stupid. The wishy-washy, goody- 
goody, flabby sort of hearer one often meets over 
here, could not have endured such messages. 
They would have been declared as out of date and 
belonging to a by-gone time. But the English, 
being serious-minded and accustomed to think, 
accepted the sermons as sound and capable of 
being transmuted into the solemn duties of prac- 
tical life. 

One could not doubt where the secret of the 
strength of the people lay after seeing them in 
their churches and recognizing the sort of spir- 
itual food they were accustomed to take from 
their ministers. 



CHAPTER XIII 
MEXICO FROM A CAR WINDOW 

IT IS NOT easy to analyze the feelings with 
which one enters Mexico. They are mingled 
with the mystery which hangs around this 
strange land of romance and blood. It is in ac- 
cordance with the structure of the human mind 
that Mexico captivates and holds the imagination 
in a more delightful bondage than any other 
country on the earth. 

This, because of what is disclosed and of what 
is withheld, enough comes to view, in the wealth 
of its climate, the variety of its products, the 
beauty of its scenery, and in the character of its 
history, to make up an unprecedented array of 
facts to meet the needs of the understanding for 
something solid, while enough is concealed in the 
form of myth and legend and dream to furnish 
an infinite realm for the excursions of fancy. 

Mexico occupies the same parallel of latitude 
in the west that Egypt does in the east. She 
disputes with Egypt as to which has the oldest 
civilization, competes with Egypt in the number 
and wonder of her pyramids, equals Egypt in 
her odd hieroglyphics, and parallels the Phara- 

168 



MEXICO FKOM A CAR WINDOW 169 

ohs of Egypt with the long line of her ante-Toltec 
Montezumas. 

What Mexico lacks of having all zones by her 
location on the globe she pushes her Popocatepetl 
and her Citlaltepetl nearly two thousand feet 
into the heavens and makes by her altitude. Be- 
tween the snow on Orizaba and the guava fruit 
in Tabasco there are degrees of temperature all 
the way from 20 to 100 above zero, and the dif- 
ference between Russia and southern Italy. 

Mexico has 768,500 square miles of territory, 
reaching 1,900 miles in length and 750 in width, 
divided into twenty-seven states, a federal dis- 
trict and a territory, and having an ocean and 
gulf front of 600 miles. 

The remarkable combination of climates and 
altitudes in the republic invites to the division 
and specialization of labor. A particular state, 
because of the zone in which it finds itself, and 
because of its position above sea level, easily de- 
velops a partial monopoly in some line of busi- 
ness. 

It takes less outlay of labor to secure large re- 
sults in Mexico than in any other country. 

Coffee trees are planted five feet apart. A tree 
four years old costs 11 cents. It yields the fourth 
year two pounds, worth 20 cents; cost of gath- 
ering, 5 cents. This makes a profit of 15 cents 
per tree. 



170 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

A banana plantation can be put out at a cost 
of 5 cents per plant, which includes every ex- 
pense up to the time of bearing fruit. At the 
end of the first year the plant produces one 
bunch, which can be sold in New York for $2.50 
to $3. One thousand banana trees, costing $50, 
will bring $1,000 in one year. The second year 
the product is double that of the first and almost 
wholly without expense. 

One man can cultivate seven to eight acres of 
orange trees. One tree will yield 5,000. Taking 
half this figure as the yearly yield, each tree will 
bring $25, and each acre of seventy trees $1,750, 
making an income of $12,250 on seven acres. 

One thousand pineapple plants can be put out 
on two and a half acres. A crop of corn sown 
among the plants pays for the expense of culti- 
vation. On the ground the pineapples sell for 38 
cents per dozen; exported to the United States, 
they sell for $6 per dozen. Two thousand dollars, 
it is said, can be made per acre, and one man can 
cultivate six acres. 

Wheat yields twenty bushes per acre, and corn 
thirty bushels per acre. 

Napoleon said Holland was an alluvian of 
French rivers, the Rhine, the Scheldt, and the 
Meuse, and with this pretext added it to the em- 
pire, but Mexico is the creation of volcanic fires. 
Holland is beneath the sea, but Mexico is higher 



MEXICO FROM A CAR WINDOW 171 

than any other country above it. Man made Hol- 
land, but with the making of Mexico man has had 
absolutely nothing to do. It has been thrown up 
between the oceans and divided between table- 
lands and mountains. The tablelands furnish 
the soil for food and fruit, while the mountains 
stand to tower, turret and pinnacle the whole. 

The mountains piled in majestic folds along 
both sides of the Mexican National Railway for 
nearly a thousand miles, beggar description. 
They are now split into numberless peaks, stand- 
ing out in the dim distance like sentinels ap- 
pointed to their posts from the foundations of 
the world. Then they come together and, in one 
giant form, command the plain for miles around. 
The ride from Laredo to the City of Mexico would 
sometimes grow tedious with so many miles of 
desolate cactus-covered plains to pass through 
were it not for the million forms of the Sierra 
Madre Mountains. They seem bent on keeping 
you entertained. About the time you think you 
have exhausted the situation and throw your- 
self back for a little bit of reading a new com- 
bination is sprung on you, and you are ready to 
regard yourself as stupid for daring to turn from 
the car window one single moment. After a 
while you surrender, and as soon as nature sees 
you have learned enough to pay attention she 
begins to show you sights sure enough. 



172 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

She presents you with mountains single and 
mountains double, mountains in rows and moun- 
tains out of order, mountains in platoons and 
mountains in regiments, mountains square and 
mountains round, mountains pinnacled and 
mountains flat. They stand, they lie, they roll, 
they lean back, they come forward. They are 
blue. They are gray. They are brown. They 
are black. They look solemn. They look jocular. 
They jut square up from the earth, they rise by 
gradual ascent. They welcome you, they defy 
you. They elicit your admiration, they remind 
you of your littleness. Friendly enough now to 
bid you abide in their presence, now lonely and 
forbidding enough to make you dread the acci- 
dent that would keep you in their sight an hour. 

They seem to be the symbols which nature used 
in her attempt to utter some awful and great 
message to man. They speak directly to the soul, 
and in a language that no one can translate, yet 
a language one must be without a soul not to un- 
derstand. They constitute the literature of some 
primeval time, and speak in prose, poetry, com- 
edy and tragedy. The great period of Grecian 
history was when the national life was expressed 
in the genius of her generals, her statesmen, her 
poets, her artists and her philosophers. These 
mountains were lifted up in the Homeric period 
of the world's formation, and as the wealth of 
Greece transmitted into the spirits of her great 



MEXICO FROM A CAR WINDOW 173 

men is fixed in everlasting form. So the earth's 
fires that lifted themselves into these magnificent 
works of natural art are stereotyped forever. 

It is a matter of unaccountable wonder why 
X)eople, who have time and opportunity to travel, 
do not visit Mexico first. When this country is 
seen nothing in natural scenery will ever sur- 
prise any more. In the esteem of most people 
Switzerland has had a monopoly of the sublime 
in mountain scenery for a long time. Mont 
Blanc, the Matterhorn and the Jung Frau have 
been the acknowledged leaders of the mountain 
peaks for ages. They have preempted the sky 
by a triple aristocracy that will be hard to down. 
But when the tide of travel turns toward the 
Tropic of Cancer, if they maintain their stand- 
ing, it will be by grace, and not by altitude or 
snow. Popocatepetl has on its top as much snow 
as Mont Blanc, and about 2,000 feet the ad- 
vantage in altitude. 

The events which have transpired around the 
Alps are on record and are known the world 
around. Napoleon in the act of crossing them is 
fixed by the artist's brush and hung in the palace 
at Versailles. This is all in favor of the Alps 
But many a Toltec warrior has crossed the Sierra 
Madres whose name has been forgotten, and 
many a dusky maiden has lived in a cottage at 
their base whose sorrows furnish themes for 



174 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

romance as rare as any ever woven from the grief 
of woman in Italy or Switzerland. She wept her 
tears and uttered her sighs amid the cacti which 
encircled her humble home, and no famous ro- 
mancer ever heard her story to publish it to the 
world. 

This is all against the Sierra Madres. If some 
one could only do for these mountains what Sir 
Walter Scott did for the Scotch lakes, every one 
in Europe and America would want to see them. 
One thing is certain, whether any story-teller 
ever comes to place the charm of legend around 
their hoary heads or not, they are here, and hav- 
ing maintained the meager place they have held 
in the world's esteem without regret, they will 
receive the praises of men when they come with- 
out vanity. 

The Mexican National Railway people have 
raised a pyramid exactly on the line between the 
temperate and the torrid zone. At this place the 
train stopped, that the passengers might contem- 
plate the point at which they passed from one 
zone into another. A kodak man took a snap of 
our party as we stood beside this pyramid. So, 
in addition to an unparalleled ride through the 
mountains, we had the good fortune to see our 
pictures hung on the girdle of the earth. 

San Luis Potosi is a little over half way be- 
tween Laredo and the City of Mexico. It is the 
capital of the State of San Luis Potosi, The city 



MEXICO FROM A CAR WINDOW 175 

contains many fine buildings, the most notable 
being the state capitol, the business exchange, 
the state museum, the mint and the public li- 
brary. The public library contains between sev- 
enty and eighty thousand volumes. There are 
more two-story buildings here than in any other 
city I have seen in the republic. 

There are many fine churches, and a bronze 
statue of the patriot Hidalgo. This patriot is 
called the Washington of Mexico. He was unlike 
Washington, in that he added to the qualities of 
a great warrior, the merits of a noble, self-sacri- 
ficing priest, and while seeking to win the inde- 
pendence of his country from the Spaniards, he 
put in his spare moments in trying to save his 
people from the thraldom of the devil. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE UNSWEPT HALLS OF THE 
MONTEZUMAS 

PLINY mentions a celebrated mosaic of 
Sosos of Pergamos, called the "Unswept 
Halls." This was a pavement of inlaid 
wood, representing the crnmbs and fragments 
left on the floor after a banquet. The natural 
features of Mexico look as if they might be vast 
crumbs and fragments left on the floor of Mexi- 
can tablelands after a banquet of primal Titans. 
The political upheavals of Mexican history con- 
stitute another wild lot of crumbs and fragments 
left on the floor of that beautiful country after 
the riotous and unholy banquet of the nations, 
bent on robbing and murdering its people. 

For nearly 400 years, foreign nations, races, 
institutions, customs and laws have been seek- 
ing to domesticate themselves in Mexico. Slowly, 
by an ordeal as of fire and violent strain on the 
anvil of experience, they have been seeking to 
weld out of the profuse varieties of material 
brought from all countries, some kind of orderly 
government, but up to this time they have failed. 

The flowers of Mexico constitute a mosaic. 
The varieties of Mexican flowers peculiar to her 

176 



UNSWEPT HALLS OF MONTEZUMAS 177 

hot lands, her temperate lands, and her cold 
lands, deep, rich, are intense in color, and ex- 
haust all the hues of the prismatic scale. They 
glow like stars in the sky. They lie upon the 
meadows, reach down the deep gorges, and run 
up the mountain sides, illuminating plain, and 
ravine, and crag with the brilliant colors of the 
rainbow. By a little use of the imagination the 
calla lilies, the camelias, the poppies and the ten 
thousand specimens, which make up the unriv- 
aled flora of this sunny land, may be regarded as 
covering the earth in accordance with the order 
of the chromatic scale, and to move from every 
side of one in octaves, illustrating as they go 
all the tints the light can make. 

Standing upon some of the mountains about 
Orizaba, overlooking the tropical forests of the 
surrounding country, we get a vision which 
comes in response to the play of the trillion-fold 
fingers of the sun as they strike the notes lodged 
in the blue, the scarlet, the crimson of these 
flowers, which, once having seen, one can never 
forget. It i3 the music of color, too subtle and 
refined for the ear, but rising in symphonies, 
silent and radiant, to regale the imagination 
through the eye. 

The birds lend enchantment to slope and grove 
and field. In plumage and song the birds of 
Mexico are entitled to the first place. In song 



178 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

they lead the world's choral union among the 
feathered singers, who from their throats pour 
streams of melody through the corridors of God's 
first temples. In plumage, according to Senor 
Don Antonio Garcia Cubas, the fifty varieties of 
humming birds, alone, form a chromatic scale of 
brilliant tints, running from sea-green, through 
bluish-green, to emerald-green, and from the 
lightest straw color to the deepest scarlet and 
fiery red. 

Here, too, is a marvelous combination and mix- 
ture of races, Toltec, Aztec, Spaniard, pure and 
mixed. In the language these races speak we 
find the rugged strength and picturesque struc- 
ture of the Aztec, set off as the mountains do the 
plains, the soft, sunny flow of the Spanish. 

The states of the Eepublic vary in the char- 
acter of their soil, the quality of their mines, the 
color of their flowers, the plumage of their birds 
and in the nature of their scenery. A particular 
state, because of its position above sea level, and 
because of the special qualities of its mines, its 
woods, its soil, finds it easy to develop a partial 
monopoly of some lines of business. Queretaro 
has a corner on the beauty which flames in her 
opals, and provokes the industry of her people 
to supply them to the markets of the world. 
Pueblo hangs her hopes for fortune upon the 



UNSWEPT HALLS OF MONTEZUMAS 179 

onyx, which her people make into ornaments that 
they may secure the money of the unsuspecting 
tourist. Aguas Calientes is an agricultural cen- 
ter, and lives by supplying the country with corn 
and beans. Chihuahua raises horses and cattle. 
Oaxaca teems with its splendid harvests of indigo 
and cochineal. Tamaulipas offers luxuriant 
fields for the herdsman and the shepherd. Zaca- 
tecas and Guanajuato are famous for the enor- 
mous amount of silver contained in their mines. 
Vera Cruz is studded with an endless variety of 
useful and ornamental timber. So, of all the 
rest, each is noted for some particular capacity 
of soil or mine. 

The history of Mexico partakes of the manifold 
diversity of the surface, products, races and lan- 
guage of the country. Looking back to its his- 
tory since 1821, we see Emperors, Presidents, 
Dictators, Provisional Governors, Regents, and 
Ad Interims rising and falling, coming in and 
going out, thus weaving a piece of historic patch- 
work such as the eyes of men never saw in any 
other country. It is historically stated that 
from 1821 to 1863 there were seventy-five execu- 
tives, an average of almost two a year. Revolu- 
tion has been the national game of Mexico. Hi- 
dalgo, Iturbide, Pedraza, Bustamente, Santa 
Ana, Comonfort, Zuloago, Miramon, Maximilian, 



180 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

Juarez and Diaz have in turn engaged in the 
play, along with other notable Mexicans. 

There is not a country in history that furnishes 
a story so tragic, so pathetic, as that of Mexico. 
Naturally the most beautiful country on earth 
and with resources of gold, silver, coal, oil and 
marble surpassing that of any other, and yet this 
is the region that has been called upon to suffer 
more in the past four hundred years than any 
other land under the sun. 



CHAPTER XV 
REMARKABLE MEXICAN HISTORY 

SOME curious records in the form of pic- 
torial writing yet remain in Mexico, princi- 
pally in the national museum at the capital. 

After the last of the Toltec king in 1097 this 
people seem to have been the controlling one in 
Mexico, until about the year 1325, when they 
were overthrown and driven away by the Aztecs. 
The rulers of the Aztecs were known as the Mon- 
tezumas. They built up a civilization noted for 
its barbaric and extravagant splendor. 

The Toltecs worshipped the sun, moon and 
stars. They offered to their gods flowers, fruits 
and the life-blood of small animals. 

The Aztecs introduced the awful rites of sacri- 
ficing human beings. 

When Cortez came from Cuba, in 1519, to con- 
quer Mexico, Montezuma II was on the throne. 
He is represented as one of the most extravagant 
of voluptuaries. According to the Spanish 
writers, the ornaments worn by him must have 
been equal in elegance and value to the crown 
jewels of any imperial family in Europe. Monte- 
zuma died a miserable death at the hands of 
Cortez, and Guatemozin, the last of the Aztec 

181 



182 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

emperors, was hanged by the Spanish conqueror. 
After this Spain ruled Mexico for three hundred 
years. 

Spain found this Egypt of the Western hemi- 
sphere and at once appointed herself its guard- 
ian. She destroyed her temples of worship, 
despoiled her of her gold, parceled out her lands, 
and burnt off the feet of the last Montezuma in 
the vain attempt to make him tell where he had 
buried the Aztec treasures. For three hundred 
years Spain played the part of doctor to Mexico. 
She forced the Mexicans, as far as she was able, 
to swallow her civilization as so much needed 
medicine, but instead of improving, Mexico at 
length became sick unto death, and in 1820 began 
the series of revolutions that have continued ever 
since. From the home of shepherds Mexico be- 
came the rendezvous of warriors. The pruning 
hook was turned into the dagger. 

Many scholars sought the cause of the variety 
and velocity of the Mexican revolution. It was 
not in the climate — the air and the scenery 
tended to peace and tranquility. The world now 
knows what the matter was. Mexico had too 
much of Spain. She had been dosed with Span- 
ish civilization long enough to know that death 
was preferable to another swallow. She swore 
by all the proud lineage of her Toltec and Aztec 



REMARKABLE MEXICAN HISTORY 183 

ancestors, by the last of her kings — the unrecon- 
structed Guatehnioc, who, when hanging on the 
cypress, addressed to the dying sun the requiem 
of his race — that she would have no more of it. 

But Mexico was so weak and sick that her first 
attempts to break the folds of the Castilian ana- 
conda that had fastened itself about her national 
life were fitful and unavailing. She would rise 
in her delirium, conscious of her weakness, but 
remembering her wrongs, and stagger, and shoot 
and butcher a while, then fall back exhausted and 
despairing. Gaining fresh strength and fresh 
hope, she would come again with renewed vigor 
and strike the second time with more effect. For 
forty years this was continued. 

France, Spain and England, not interpreting 
properly the cause of the Mexican revolutions, 
and finding it impossible to collect their national 
debts from her exhausted treasury, entered into 
a tripartite alliance. In 1861 three European 
powers signed an agreement in London that they 
would send soldiers to Mexico and force the 
country into some sort, of a national organiza- 
tion, so that they could collect the money due 
them. 

Spanish and French and English troops landed 
at Vera Cruz, but by some manner Juarez, the 
president, settled the claims of England and 



184 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

Spain, leaving only the French to prosecute the 
war with Mexico. 

ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN CALLED TO THE THRONE 

It was not many months before the French 
troops were victorious in all the southern part of 
Mexico. In 1863 Napoleon III called all the 
Mexican notables together for the purpose of 
determining the kind of government they would 
have. At his suggestion doubtless, they declared 
in favor of a limited monarchy, and selected 
Archduke Maximilian, of Austria, as emperor. 
A committee was appointed and proceeded at 
once to Trieste, the home of Maximilian, on the 
Adriatic Sea, to inform him of the action of the 
notables. The archduke refused to accept the 
throne until the people of the whole country 
should have the opportunity to express by vote 
their choice. 

The notables came back to Mexico and went 
through the farce of taking the ballot. In six 
months the same committee were at Miramar, the 
castle of Maximilian, again. They declared to 
him that he was the unanimous choice of the 
Mexican people. Then he at once accepted the 
crown and made preparations to leave for 
Mexico. 



REMARKABLE MEXICAN HISTORY 185 

BENITO JUAREZ 

The greatest man ever produced outside of the 
United States on American soil was Benito 
Juarez. 

At the time when Napoleon was at the height 
of his power after Austerlitz, when he had put 
one brother on the throne of Holland and another 
on the throne of Naples, there was born among 
the mountains of Oaxaca an Indian boy who was 
destined to give the final blow to Napoleonic am- 
bition. 

In 1521 Luther stood before Charles V to plead 
for the liberty of conscience, and gained it for the 
world. In 1867 Don Benito Juarez signed the 
death warrant of a lineal descendant of Charles 
V. Luther plead before Charles V in 1521, for 
the principle that led Juarez to sign the death 
warrant of Maximilian, a blood relation of 
Charles V. Such is the nemesis of history. The 
affection which the Mexican people cherish for 
the memory of Juarez will be understood in some 
degree when I say that the last anniversary of 
his death, $60,000 worth of flowers were hung 
around his tomb. They were made in France of 
porcelain and imported, one single wreath cost- 
ing $3,000. At the next recurring anniversary 
the tomb will be covered with new flowers sent 
hither by his friends all over the world. It is in- 
teresting to know that the wreath referred to 
above as costing $3,000 was sent by friends as a 



186 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

gift from France. Juarez is among the great 
men of Mexico what Popocatepetl is among her 
mountains. 

When Maximilian landed in Mexico he sent a 
letter to Juarez and other republican leaders ask- 
ing for a conference, hoping, he said, thereby to 
see if all parties could not be induced to come to 
peaceful relations with the new empire. Juarez 
replied that he could not consent to such a con- 
ference, and, in closing a long letter to Maxi- 
milian, which is one of the most remarkable docu- 
ments ever written, he said: "In the course of 
history, it is sometimes permitted men to invade 
the domain, violate the constitutional rights and 
take the property of a people powerless to resist, 
but there is one thing from which there is no 
escape — that is, the everlasting verdict of his- 
tory. It will judge us." 

It has judged them already. The Maximilian 
pageant has well nigh faded from our view. But 
of Juarez the eminent Spanish orator, Emilio 
Castelar, said, while the Maximilian empire was 
in its glory and while Juarez was hiding, with a 
few faithful followers, in the desert plains of the 
northern part of the empire: 

Heroism in prosperity is beautiful, but in ad- 
versity it is sublime. 

The men who rise against the whole world are 
the great men of history. Conquered and aban- 



REMARKABLE MEXICAN HISTORY 187 

doned by America, cursed by a theocracy that 
desires at any cost to preserve its perishing 
goods, handed over to a foreigner by a group of 
traitors, the sword of the first empire of Europe 
pressed against his forehead, Juarez, the repre- 
sentative of a fallen race, the chief of a people 
without hope, did not abandon his place. Serene 
and inflexible he rose amid the ruins surrounding 
him, as the sacred personification of the Repub- 
lic. If Washington ennobled the cradle of one 
republic, Juarez sanctified the sepulchre of an- 
other. "And from the sepulchre thus sanctified 
it will be resurrected strong and eternal." These 
words spake Castelar in 1864. He was not only 
an orator, but more — a prophet. 



CHAPTEK XVI 
MAXIMILIAN AND CARLOTTA 

MAXIMILIAN was the son of Francis 
Charles Joseph, Archduke of Austria, 
and the younger brother of Francis 
Joseph, the Emperor of Austria. He was born in 
1832. He was a cousin of Victoria and in some 
way related by blood to nearly all those who at 
that time occupied the important thrones of 
Europe. He was an accomplished scholar, the 
author of seven or eight volumes, and had trav- 
eled in the leading foreign countries of the world. 
He had been the guest of Dom Pedro in Brazil, 
and had written a book concerning that empire. 
He was a favorite at all courts, and had the best 
royal blood in his veins. He had manners be- 
fitting the prince that he was, and, besides, had 
the wide information of the student and the 
traveler. 

Carlotta was the daughter of Leopold I, King 
of the Belgians. She was the granddaughter of 
Louis Philippe, King of France, and is a sister 
of Leopold II, the second king of Belgians, who 
was a staunch friend of the explorer Stanley. 
She was born in 1840. 

188 



MAXIMILIAN AND CARLOTTA 189 

Maximilian and Carlotta were married in 1857. 
He was twenty-five and she was seventeen years 
of age. When they left Miramar, in 1861, she 
was twenty-four and he was thirty-two years of 



There is nothing sadder in history than the 
departure of this young prince and his hand- 
some bride from their castle on the Adriatic Sea. 
All that heart could wish and imagination con- 
ceive was theirs. They enjoyed society at Vienna 
and Brussels, or at London and Paris, Berlin and 
Stockholm, with flowers and music, and sea and 
books, and love at Miramar. Born to fortune and 
to purple ; coming by inheritance into the world's 
thought and admiration ; surrounded from birth 
by all the tender ministrations of affection and 
wealth, it was enough to make the heart sick to 
think of this confiding and tender couple leaving 
such scenes and surroundings to play the last 
act on the bloody stage of Mexico. 

Would that some counsel of father or mother 
had held them back. They were too good and 
noble to become the victims of Napoleon's am- 
bition or of the righteous vengeance of the Aztecs. 
They had done nothing worthy of death, or of the 
agony that flung reason from its throne. All 
their lives they had been accustomed to gracious 
words. No ill winds had blown about their child- 
hood homes at Vienna or Brussels, or around 



190 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

their marble castle at Miramar. They had been 
reared like delicate plants in royal gardens, and 
were unsuited to the soil volcanic fires had lifted 
between the gulf and the ocean. They were un- 
suspecting, sympathetic and generous. If they 
coveted a throne earlier than one came to them 
in the order of events, that was pardonable, for 
they had been taught that they were born for 
dominion and empire. 

Of the resources, scenery and magnificent cli- 
mate of Mexico they had read. Having been 
greeted with universal favor everywhere in Eu- 
rope, they felt they would be received with the 
same consideration in that land of everlasting 
spring. So Miramar was to be exchanged for 
Chapultepec ; a castle by the Adriatic Sea for a 
castle overlooking Lake Tezcuco; the proba- 
bilities of a throne in Austria for the certainty 
of a throne in Mexico. They signed away their 
rights in Austria, which were prospective, for a 
place in Mexico, which was present and cer- 
tain. They left their friends with the blessing 
of the pope and the pledges of the Emperor of 
France. 

On the ship Novaro, they left amid the booming 
of cannon and the huzzas of the loved ones. 
Never was fairer morning succeeded by redder 
or stormier noon. Never was brighter hope re- 
placed by gloomier fate. Never were happy 
hearts beaten and torn out and utterly crushed 



MAXIMILIAN AND CARLOTTA 191 

by direr and deadlier conflicts. They left a bed 
of roses to be racked and pierced on a bed of 
thorns. They exchanged ease for agony, and a 
life of rosy, radiant outlook for a life of haggard, 
unspeakable misery. No sooner were the sails 
of their ship unfurled for the voyage to the west, 
than their doom was sealed and set in blood. 

Because of the astute brain of the patriot 
Juarez, because of his undying pledge to the 
traditions of his fathers, it was sealed. Because 
of the treachery and unblushing falsehood of 
Louis Napoleon, and because of the secret deter- 
mination of the United States, that no more em- 
pires should be established on American soil, it 
was sealed. Because of the weakness and fickle- 
ness and corruption of the party that invited him 
to a throne, it was sealed. 

Yet the good ship Novaro was now bounding 
over the waters of the Atlantic, bearing two 
hearts as true and generous as ever beat in hu- 
man breasts. They were sailing — one to death, 
the other to a lunatic's dungeon. They stood 
upon the deck, they talked of their prospects, 
they saw the waves rise and pass, marking the 
distance between them and their native land. 
They thought of the time when, clothed with do- 
minion, settled in their royal home at Cha- 
pultepec, they would surround themselves with 
friends from the courts of Europe. 



192 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

They had with thein their silver, their linen, 
their cut glass, and all costly furnishings for 
their table. They had their carriage lined with 
richest satin and covered with burnished gold, 
the finest in which king or queen ever rode. In 
the ancient grove surrounding the stone-but- 
tressed castle of the Montezumas, they will put 
thousands of nightingales and place here and 
there rare specimens of statuary from the old 
masters. 

Little did they suspect that the land they were 
called to rule had an accumulation of three hun- 
dred and fifty years of unavenged wrongs to be 
met and settled. The machinery which turned 
the mills of the gods was rumbling in the dis- 
tance, and they may have mistaken this for the 
murmur of the sea. The blood of the Indians 
whose feet were burned off in boiling oil, cried 
from the ground. The invisible frame- work of 
the temples Cortez had torn down in his mad 
greed, stood upon the plains and waved their 
shadowy minarets, calling for vengeance. The 
ghosts of the long line of Aztec kings walked 
the streets of the City of Mexico, at night, and 
bade their living descendants rise and claim the 
country they had civilized. The ashes of the 
manuscript of legend and myth, and history, the 
Spaniards had burned, rode upon the wings of 
the wind and struck dirges to the long moss of 



MAXIMILIAN AND CARLOTTA 193 

the alinaceda, inviting the natives to vindicate 
the wrongs of their fathers. The pallid faces of 
Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl silently repri- 
manded the people for the indolent ease that per- 
mitted them to sleep until Mexico was free. 

Into this land of ghosts and voices, and ashes 
and blood ; into this land of unsettled accounts, 
Maximilian and Carlotta were coming, called 
by bankrupt notables, as treacherous as they 
were cowardly. 

They landed at Vera Cruz in May, 1864; the 
welcome they received was tumultuous and over- 
whelming. The flowers, the mountains, the cli- 
mate, the keys of the city, the homage of the mul- 
titude, the rhetoric of the authorities — all were 
theirs. 

They left amid the acclaim and devotion of 
the people for the capital of the new-made em- 
pire. At Cordova, at Orizaba, at Pueblo, they 
passed under the arches made of poppies, of 
camelias, of calla lilies, of heliotropes. Their 
carriage was too fine to touch the earth, it rolled 
over the orchids — red and scarlet, and blue, and 
green, plucked from the tropical trees of the 
country. 

Reaching the City of Mexico, the scene was un- 
precedented in that capital, accustomed to splen- 
did pageants and display. The ten thousand bells 



i94 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

in all the churches waked the echoes of the dis- 
tant mountains with their jubilant greeting. The 
gay young senoritas and senors expressed their 
joy in music from harp and guitar, as they moved 
in their boats among the far-famed hanging gar- 
dens of the city. The city was held as if in a 
whirlwind of excitement. 

For a time it seemed as if the republican stars 
had faded from the view, in the light of the im- 
perial sun which had come from the east to il- 
luminate and bless the land. Juarez, and Diaz, 
and Escobedo, and Gonzalez, had suddenly fallen 
from their position as great generals, to the place 
of petty leaders of starving banditti. Maxi- 
milian, however, desiring to be magnanimous to 
republican leaders, addressed them a letter, in- 
viting them to a conference in the capital. The 
terms of this they refused to accept. To die 
rather than yield was their unfaltering deter- 
mination. 

After this, through the influence of General 
Bazaine, the leader of the French forces, the em- 
peror was induced to sign the "black decree." 
In accordance with the provisions of this decree, 
all found in arms against the imperial govern- 
ment were to be shot. Several brave republican 
generals were executed in accordance with this 
order, and among them, Salazar and Artteago. 
This infamous proclamation, issued at the insti- 



MAXIMILIAN AND CAKLOTTA 195 

gation of the French, it was, that led at length to 
the execution of Maximilian. 

Settled in their adopted home, the emperor 
and his wife began the work of organizing 
the government. Carlotta had a drive laid out 
from Chapultepec to the center of the city, 
adorning it with statuary and monuments 
of distinguished men. It is perhaps the finest 
to-day in the world, and is called "Carlotta's 
Drive." Maximilian appointed a cabinet and 
did his best to reclaim the country from the chaos 
and confusion in which he found it. But, in 
1865, Mr. Seward addressed a communication to 
Napoleon III, of France, letting him know in un- 
mistakable terms that the relation between the 
United States and France would be jeopardized 
unless French troops were withdrawn from Mex- 
ican soil. This gave heart and hope to the re- 
publican generals in Mexico. In 1866 Carlotta 
left for France to see Napoleon, and for Italy to 
see the pope. But neither emperor or pope gave 
her any encouragement. From an audience with 
Napoleon she left heart-broken, and from an au- 
dience with the pope she left a hopeless maniac. 

In the closing part of 1866 Maximilian left 
Chapultepec for Queretaro, a city about one hun- 
dred and seventy miles from the capital. From 
that beautiful city of fountains and opals he 



196 THE GEOGRAPHY OP GENIUS 

watched the empire as it slowly sank in blood. 
There he was captured in the outskirts of the 
city, at the hill of bells — Cerro de las Campanas 
— by General Escobedo, on the 14th of May, 1867. 

A court-martial was soon held, and the em- 
peror and the commanding officers with him, 
Miramon and Mejia, were condemned to death. 
On the 19th of June, 1867, was performed the 
last act of that terrible tragedy, and Maximilian, 
Miramon and Mejia were shot by order of the 
court-martial, with the sanction of the command- 
ing officers, General Escobedo and President 
Juarez. 

They were executed on the Cerra de la Cam- 
panas, about one hundred paces from where they 
were arrested. Maximilian called the seven sol- 
diers who were to fire upon them, to him ; he gave 
to each an ounce of gold and asked them to aim 
well at his heart. He then approached Generals 
Miramon and Mejia and embraced them cordially 
three times, saying to them, "In a few moments 
we will meet in the other world." At first Maxi- 
milian was in the center, but turning to Mira- 
mon he said, "General, a brave man is admired by 
monarchs. I want to give you the post of honor," 
and placed him in the center. Then, turning to 
Mejia, he said: "General, what is not rewarded 
on this earth will be in heaven." Mejia was very 
low spirited, because a few moments before, his 
wife, who had just been delivered, ran crazy 



MAXIMILIAN AND CARLOTTA 197 

through the streets of Queretaro with a new-born 
child in her arms — a scene that would have 
brought tears to a tiger's eyes. 

Advancing a few steps, the emperor, with ex- 
traordinary coolness and a loud clear voice, 
spoke as follows: "Mexicans, men of my class 
and my origin, who are animated with my senti- 
ments, are destined by providence to make the 
happiness of people or be their martyrs. When I 
came among you I did not bring illegitimate 
ideas, as I came, called by the Mexicans, who in 
good faith, desired the welfare of their country, 
and who to-day succumb with me. Before step- 
ping into the grave, I will add that I take with 
me the consolation of having done all the good in 
my power. Mexicans, may my blood be the last 
spilled, and may it regenerate Mexico, my unfor- 
tunate adopted country." He then stepped to 
one side and with one foot advanced, his hands 
crossed on his chest, his eyes toward heaven, he 
quietly awaited death. 

Before the execution he wrote the following 
to his wife : "My beloved Carlotta — if God per- 
mit that your health get better, and you should 
read these lines, you will learn the cruelty with 
which fate has stricken me since your departure 
for Europe. You took along with you not only 
my heart, but my good fortune. Why did not I 
give heed to your voice? So many untoward 



198 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

events. Alas! So many sudden blows, have 
shattered all my hopes, so that death is but a 
happy deliverance, not an agony to me. I shall 
die gloriously, like a soldier, like a king van- 
quished, but not dishonored. If your sufferings 
are too great and God should call you soon to join 
me, I shall bless His divine hand, which has 
weighed so heavily upon us. Adieu, Adieu. Your 
poor Max." 

So the curtain falls at the close of the last act 
of forty-seven years of tragedy in Mexico. 



CHAPTEK XVII 
DOWNFALL OF THE MEXICAN EMPIRE 

THE downfall of the Mexican empire 
shocked the civilized world. 

The crash was sudden, and complete. 
In no national project on earth had more been 
invested. Prouder hands had never wrought in 
ancient or modern times, to give expression to an 
ambitious ideal, than had been engaged in this 
last mighty enterprise of failing purple. 

This empire had been called into existence by 
the most powerful nations at the time, upon the 
earth. France had within her keeping the glories 
of a thousand years of battle and conquest. Her 
flag had floated in triumph over every capital of 
continental Europe. She had reduced the bar- 
barians of Northern Africa to the laws of civili- 
zation. She had stayed, with the help of Eng- 
land and Sardinia, the proud advances of im- 
perial Russia upon the Bosphorus and Darda- 
nelles, and saved the keys of southern Europe 
and northern Asia from falling into its hands. 
She had left the footprints of her power and 
civilization in Pekin, the oldest capital in the 
world, in Cochin China, Madagascar, and in the 
Friendly Islands. Her imperial flag had been 

199 



200 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

borne in triumph beside the cross, into the Holy 
Land by Louis XI, the imperial eagles of the first 
Napoleon had crowned the towers of the Krem- 
elin, and floated from the pyramids and the Alps. 
They had been carried by Napoleon III to the 
Crimea and to the plains of Magenta and Sol- 
ferino. 

At last, they had come to protect a monarchy 
in the realms of the Montezumas. On the throne 
of this monarchy had been placed a lineal de- 
scendant of Charles V, the son-in-law of Fer- 
dinand and Isabella, and himself, one of the 
greatest men of all ages. 

In Maximilian was represented all the power 
and prestige of royalty. The foundations of the 
empire were as seemingly impregnable as the 
bases of the majestic mountains, which stand like 
grim sentinels appointed to their posts from the 
foundations of the earth. It was set on the solid 
dominion that ruled the world for centuries. It 
was invested with dignity and position, won in 
the battles which had determined the direction of 
history. High and lifted up it had come with a 
lineage undoubted and a descent unquestioned 
to replace the barbaric splendor of the Aztecs, 
with a kingdom wrought in the throes of civilized 
conflict. Every throne in Europe shook when the 
empire fell. 



DOWNFALL OF MEXICAN EXPIEE 201 

They had all contributed to its strength and to 
its dizzy height. They had helped to raise it in 
the plains of Anahuac. In its overthrow notice 
was served on the princes, that royalty had been 
on trial, and that the verdict of mankind was 
forming against it. In toppling to ruin, with all 
its health of plan, its wealth of column, its curve 
of arch, its depth of foundation, it advertised to 
the world that eras, and epochs and civilizations 
have had their day and their doom. 

Like temples they may rise from the earth 
without sound of hammer or clink of trowel; 
into their walls men may go down as living 
stones and they may house for a while the hopes 
and the interests of nations, but the growing 
aspirations and widening purposes of peoples 
make a change inevitable. The index finger on 
the dial plate of time declares the dawning of a 
new day, and they are leveled with the ground. 
Larger and fairer structures are reared in their 
places, such as furnish room for a nobler man- 
hood, and a wider national life. 
\ 

The downfall of the Maximilian empire was 
simply the utterance of events that it was im- 
possible for kingly ambition to project itself 
further down the opening years. It was the an- 
nulment and the obliteration of the so-called 
divine rights of kings. It was the decadence of 
one man's will, that the wills of a nation of free- 



202 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

men might be enthroned. It was the transfer- 
ence of the prerogatives of dominion from the 
one to the many. It was the distribution of the 
purple, the extension of authority and the pul- 
verization of a throne that the dust of it might 
fall under every man's feet. 

In the displacement and destruction of roy- 
alty in Mexico many old scores were settled. 
Many national debts were paid off. On the bal- 
ance sheet of a downtrodden race many new 
cerdits were set down. Unmitigated wrongs and 
unholy usurpations found compensation at last. 
The fires which had set the oil to boiling in 
unctuous fury when Cuathemoc's feet were 
burned off had never gone out. The light they 
gave was dim and flickering often, but for 350 
years they had kept company with the unper- 
turbed ice on the brow of Popocatepetl. Fed by 
Juarez's patriotism, they now flamed to heaven 
and flashed among the stars the vindication of 
the Indian race. New luster was added to the 
glory of Hidalgo's name. It found itself written 
in fresh flowers and filled with new meaning. 
Under the beaming sky of that unchanging sum- 
mer land justice had come to walk amid her ba- 
nana plantations and her coffee groves and to 
lend new beauty to her crimson and scarlet flow- 
ers. The music in her 10,000 plazas would fall 
upon the evening and morning air with sweeter 



DOWNFALL OF MEXICAN EXPIRE 203 

harmony; the tales of love, young senors 
breathed through lattice windows into the ears 
of bright senoritas would have in them more of 
self-reliance and manliness. 

The sympathy of the human race is perhaps 
well nigh unanimously with Juarez and his 
brave Aztec leaders, as far as this Mexican ques- 
tion is concerned. But men everywhere, without 
respect to nationality or clime, will never cease 
to regret the fatal mistake that led Maximilian 
and "Poor Carlotta" to reach Mexico just in 
time to be caught and overwhelmed in the ruins 
of an unwelcomed empire. 

The relations of Maximilian and Carlotta were 
beautiful, ideal. They were rich, titled and 
crowned in mutual, holy affection. Unlike many 
alliances in royal life, they loved each other as 
tenderly as ordinary people. It was their love 
for one another sustained amid all the dark days 
which came to them, more than anything in their 
titles or their blood, that won for them the good 
will of all nations. By the accidents of birth and 
fortune they were separated from the mass of 
mankind, but in their devotion to each other's in- 
terests; in their simple, faithful, unfaltering 
love, cherished and growing amid misfortune, 
they were one with the good and the virtuous of 
all the earth. 



204 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

Carlotta's sufferings have lifted her to a high 
place in the esteem of every good man and woman 
in the world. Of the house of Orleans, young and 
happy and rich, she united her fortune with those 
of the heir to the throne of Austria when just 
past sixteen. At twenty-six years of age the sun 
went out of the day of her life, and now for 
thirty-seven years she has groped in darkness, 
unrelieved by a single ray of hope. In the castle 
at Miramar, where once she roamed the spacious 
grounds with her lover in bounding hope, she 
bore for a while her never-lifting sorrow. The 
wild waves of the Adriatic murmured of her girl- 
hood. The generous noble man whose life had 
thrown around her young womanhood such a 
radiant and rosy charm, will never come from 
over the sea any more. His heart ceased to beat 
on "the hills of the bells." No incident of the 
sad event could stop the downflow of one single 
tear, except the knowledge of the fact that the 
last prayer of Maximilian was for his "Poor Car- 
lotta." 

The last order ever signed by Maximilian was 
for 2,000 nightingales with which to stock the 
groves of Chapultepec. 

The state carriage of Maximilian cost $47,000. 
It has not been used since his death, and is kept 
along with the other trappings of the empire in 
the national museum. 



DOWNFALL OF MEXICAN EXPIKE 205 

The salary of Maximilian was put by the au- 
thorities of Mexico at $5,500,000. He would not 
consent to receive more than f 500,000. 

Having no child of his own, and with a view 
to strengthening the empire with the natives, 
Maximilian and Carlotta adopted the grandson 
of Iturbide, the first emperor of Mexico. The 
mother of young Iturbide consented at first to 
this, and even sent the playthings of the young 
prince to the royal palace at Chapultepec. But 
her heart yearned for her child. She plead with 
Maximilian to give him back to her, but he re- 
fused. She then appealed to Napoleon III and 
the dignitaries of the Church, and after long and 
determined effort, sustained by the love found in 
none other than a mother's heart, her boy was 
restored to her. This same young man is now, I 
am told, in Washington city, and is known as 
"Prince Iturbide." 

Carlotta is at Miramar, the white marble castle 
at Trieste, on the Adriatic Sea. The day before 
the execution of Maximilian he wrote a letter to 
his physician requesting him to see that Mrs. 
Miramon, the wife of his dear companion in 
arms, be sent to xlustria, where she would be pro- 
vided for by his mother. Mrs. Miramon and 
Princess Sam Sam have been with Carlotta at 
Miramar ever since. Had not Maximilian ac- 



206 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

cepted a throne and crown in Mexico, he would 
to-day have been the emperor of Austria. 

The same ship, Novaro, that brought Maxi- 
milian and his beautiful and accomplished wife 
to Vera Cruz, was sent by his relatives from Aus- 
tria to convey his lifeless body to Vienna, where 
it now rests with his royal ancestors. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

IN CANADA, WITH HER BUILDERS 

66 \ COMPANY of pioneers organized for 
f\ gain and adventure in the early days 
of Western Canada called themselves 
'Lords of the North.' No better descriptive sen- 
tence could be devised to represent the whole 
population of the Dominion to-day. Not on the 
whole face of the earth has any people ever waged 
a fiercer warfare with the elements than the 
Canadians have fought since the country was 
permanently settled by Champlain in 1608. And 
now, after 300 years of unparalleled hardship 
and bravery, the people have conquered. 

"These men of the high North have caught in 
their eyes the light of the wild sky that blazes 
above them. They have lived in the midst of opal 
islands, afloat on silver seas, and the wondrous, 
streaming splendors, kindled by the aurora bore- 
alis, until they have woven into their very beings 
something of the mystery and magnificence of 
their environment. 

"Golden argosies of beauty from the radiant 
Northern sky have moved down from the heights 
through pale ports of amber into the very depths 

207 



208 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

of their souls. So that they are in love with the 
region in which they have found themselves and 
the vast fortunes which have at last crowned 
their labors. They began as nionarehs, but their 
subjects were nothing but wolves and bears; 
their thrones were mountains; their cars were 
rivers ; their couches were forests ; their candles 
were stars, and they depended upon the crash 
of the bull moose to call them from sleep with the 
breaking day. Now, they are steel-braced, 
straight-lipped, enduring, dreadless in danger 
and dire in defeat. 

"Canada is so immense that even a provincial 
does not have to open his eyes very wide to see 
sights and wonders that he never dreamed were 
realities on the continent of North America. 

"The average citizen of Uncle Sam's country is 
accustomed to think of the United States as cov- 
ering a vast stretch of the planet, but Canada is 
larger in area than the United States, including 
Alaska, by 111,992 square miles. Canada has a 
bay as large as the Mediterranean Sea. Canada 
is eighteen times larger than the republic of 
France and thirty-three times larger than the 
kingdom of Italy. 

"England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales could 
all be put down in Canada and then leave enough 
territory to make thirty more United Kingdoms 
just as large. Canada is nearly as large as the 



IN CANADA WITH HER BUILDERS 209 

whole of Europe. Canada's 13,000-mile coast 
line equals half the circumference of the earth. 
It would take 2,983 states as large as Rhode 
Island to equal the area of Canada, and if 
Canada was as thickly settled as Rhode Island, 
she would have a population of 1,275,515,430, 
nearly equal to that of all the human beings on 
the globe at the present time. 

"It would take 327 kingdoms as large as that 
of Belgium to equal Canada, and if the Dominion 
was settled as thickly as Belgium, she would have 
a population of 2,159,476,035, or 659,476,035 
more than all the mortals now breathing on the 
globe. 

"Canada has one-half of all the fresh water sur- 
face of the earth. There are 50,000 lakes between 
Port Arthur and Winnipeg. The lakes between 
Sarnia and Port Arthur one sails over in coming 
from Detroit to Canada, show more small bodies 
of land surrounded by water than any in the 
world, and the land between Port Arthur and 
Winnipeg shows more small bodies of water sur- 
rounded by land than any other territory of the 
same size on earth. 

"Canada begins the Twentieth Century with 
the same population the United States had at the 
beginning of the Nineteenth. A Canadian has 
said: 'The Nineteenth Century belonged to the 



210 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

United States, the Twentieth Century belongs to 
Canada.' 

"Twenty years ago the United States produced 
eighteen bushels of wheat to Canada's one. The 
United States now produces but six to Canada's 
one. Canada's wheat-growing belt is four times 
that of the United States, and the average yield 
per acre of wheat area for the past ten years has 
been eighteen bushels, while the average for our 
State of North Dakota for the same period has 
been twelve bushels per acre. Canada has the 
largest continuous wheat field in the world, 900 
miles long by 300 miles wide. Canada has the 
largest wheat elevator in the world at Port 
Arthur. In 1880 the United States exported 
180,000,000 bushels of wheat and flour and Can- 
ada only 7,500,000 bushels. In 1906 our country 
exported 97,000,000 bushels, while Canada ex- 
ported about half as much, 47,000,000. 

"Think of a farmer sowing his wheat in May 
and just ten days more than three months after 
sowing it having it harvested and on the way to 
market. It is one hundred days between sowing 
and harvesting of spring wheat in Canada. 
Think of the sort of bank Mother Earth is to the 
Canadian farmer. He deposits a bushel of wheat 
in May and takes out twenty-four bushels three 
months and ten days thereafter. If he put in one 



IN CANADA WITH HER BUILDERS 211 

bushel and took out two in twelve months he 
would make 100 per cent., but when he puts in 
one and takes out twenty-four in three months, 
he is dealing with a bank such as no human being 
could run, but such as only the Creator Himself 
could manage. Canada's wheat is now trans- 
ported to the European markets through the 
Great Lakes from Port Arthur to Buffalo, or 
through the St. Lawrence River to Montreal, 
where it is changed to ocean steamers and sent on 
its way. This way of reaching the European 
markets is found too distant and too expensive. 

"A railroad is already projected and partly 
built to Port Churchill, on the Hudson Bay, di- 
rect from Winnipeg, the center of the Western 
Canada wheat trade. The completion of this 
railway is only the question of a short time, for 
it is only 650 miles from Winnipeg to Port 
Churchill. After this road is finished the wheat 
of Western Canada will go in trains to the new 
port, and there be loaded on enormous ocean 
freight ships and sent direct to Liverpool or 
Hamburg or Naples. 

"By this new line of transportation the wheat 
growers will cut the distance to Liverpool about 
1,200 miles, and besides save the enormous ex- 
pense of changing steamers at Montreal or of 
loading on cars at Buffalo for New York or Bal- 
timore. Hudson's Bay is navigable for six 



212 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

months every year and 2,000 miles of its southern 
coast line is in the temperate zone. It is thought 
now that they will not only ship wheat and other 
products from Port Churchill, but will, in a few 
years be raising immense crops on the soil sur- 
rounding the lower half of it. Already wheat is 
grown 2,000 miles north of St. Louis." 

Until within recent years western Canada was 
a wilderness. It constituted a part of the vast 
area of mountains, heaved to heaven, and of 
black canyons, through which the rapids roar, 
Jack London calls the "Wild." Indians here and 
there camped upon its foothills, and a stray ad- 
venturer from civilization now and then roamed 
over its ranges. For a good part of every year 
it was a region of white silence, through which 
trails were broken only on snow shoes. 

The building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, opened this un- 
known, wondrous territory to civilization. When 
the scream of the steam engine breaks the silence 
of the map's void spaces, then the restless peoples 
from the crowded populations of the world rush 
in. They began pouring into this region a little 
more than a quarter of a century ago. The coun- 
try is only touched on its outer edges as yet, but 
enough has been learned of the marvelous re- 
sources of this part of the world to make it clear 



IN CANADA WITH HER BUILDERS 213 

that here in the years to come is to flourish a 
great and robust people. 

The foolish and the feeble can never live here. 
Those who have been cradled in custom and 
soaked in convention until their nerves are flabby 
had better keep away from this northern land. 
Amid the stern, severe conditions of these wild, 
wide borders they can not survive. Only strong 
men, girt for the combat with the elements of 
climate and soil and western custom can make 
their way here. That class of citizens is now di- 
recting the fortunes of this new patch of the 
earth's surface. The misfits and the failures 
have been weeded out. 

Lord Strathcona, who more than any other 
man has been instrumental in making western 
Canada a fit place for the habitation of man, is 
himself a fine illustration of what this country 
can do to make a man. He came here a boy sev- 
enty-three years ago to fill an engagement as a 
clerk for the Hudsons Bay Company. He spent 
thirteen years upon the shores of that inland 
northern sea and so won the confidence of his 
company that he was given the chief place in that 
wealthy organization. He accumulated a vast 
fortune, but better than that, he made of himself, 
for probity, for integrity, for moral worth, one 
of the greatest men of his time, and of all times 



214 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

In Lord Strathcona western Canada has found 
a human embodiment of itself. In him this brood- 
ing land, with its turbid torrents, its singing 
pines, its endless plantations of snow, its weird 
northern lights, streaming up from the frozen 
zone, as from an exhaustless mine of burning 
radium, has found a beautiful, triumphant, per- 
sonal expression of itself. He is nearly ninety 
years of age, but when he arose to speak before 
the British Association at the opening of the 
meeting here last Wednesday night, 2,000 per- 
sons sprang to their feet to cheer him, as if they 
faced in human form the immensity and beauty 
of the aurora borealis. It was such a tribute as 
only a man who at the same time had become a 
country and a climate could call forth. 

Lord Strathcona claims Winnipeg as his home, 
though as the imperial commissioner of Canada 
he spends most of his time in England. He is a 
Scotchman by birth, and has a face, while dis- 
closing Canada in front, reveals reminiscent in- 
timations of Scotland at the back. But that 
which gives to him his sublimity of bearing is the 
fact that beneath Canada and Scotland, which 
advertise themselves in his tall, rugged form, 
there may be seen the faith and mysticism and 
tenderness of the religion of John Knox. 

The people of Canada love him as they do no 
other living man. When he stands before the 
English Government to represent his over-the- 



m CANADA WITH HEK BUILDERS 215 

sea adopted country, all Canada is present. The 
Indians believe in him, and from all parts of 
Manitoba they have been calling this week to pay 
their tribute of love to him. 

James J. Hill, an ex-Canadian, but now an 
American, and a great power in the railway 
world, left, for a few days, his pressing interests 
just to see and visit, as he said, his old friend, 
Lord Strathcona. It was exceedingly interesting 
to see these two men, each of whom is a genuine 
world power, on the same platform, before the 
Winnipeg Board of Trade, and to hear them 
speak of their early struggles in the wilds of 
Western Canada. 

One can not remain Rye minutes in the pres- 
ence of James J. Hill without feeling himself in 
the neighborhood of an enormous force. He has, 
especially when he begins to talk, a winsome, won- 
drous face. Joel Chandler Harris was accus- 
tomed to chuckle with merriment when a par- 
ticularly interesting and amusing idea started on 
its way to expression from his lips. He seemed 
to enjoy it as he felt it rising and then again he 
had a double experience of delight after it was 
expressed, in participating in the pleasure he had 
given his company by the impartation of his 
fancy. 

So Mr. Hill seemed himself to be filled with a 
sense of the significance of what he was about to 



216 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

say before he said it. You could tell by the way 
he threw out his arms, as if he were grasping at 
immensity itself, that something valuable was on 
its way through his lips to the ears of his hearers, 
and when the truth he had to utter did get itself 
slipped over the waves of the atmosphere to the 
mental ports of his audience, it was clear to all 
that freight of supreme value had come to shore. 
He did not talk of atoms and ether and radium 
and of positive and negative electricity as Sir 
J. J. Thompson, the president of the British As- 
sociation, did in his opening address before that 
body, but his remarks were nearer to the compre- 
hension of the average member of the Board of 
Trade than would have been those of the English 
scientist. 

Mr. Hill talked of the value of manure, and 
said that it was worth one-third of that part of 
the crop fed to cattle and horses. He declared 
that experts should be appointed to teach the 
farmers how to farm. He said that the Great 
Northern Railway paid a salary to Professor 
Thomas Shaw, formerly of the experimental 
farm at Guelph, to do such work along its west- 
ern lines. He said he attributed his vigor at sev- 
enty-one years of age to taking good care of him- 
self; that he retired early and never worried. 
He declared that Canada never had a public man 
who had shown the unselfish devotion to the Do- 
minion Lord Strathcona had. 



IN CANADA WITH HER BUILDERS 217 

Mr. Hill said lie first met Lord Strathcona in 
1869. Afterwards he met him in 1873, he said, 
when they together arranged to purchase the 
bonds of the old St. Paul and Pacific Railway. 
He said he was interested with Lord Strathcona 
and Lord Mount Stephen in the construction of 
the Canadian Pacific Railroad west of Winnipeg. 
He said the first section from Winnipeg to 
Broadview was constructed in 1882 and that his 
car was the first to cross the Saskatchewan River 
when the line reached that point. He said his 
interests were so extensive in the South that he 
sold his interests in the Canadian Pacific to Lord 
Mount Stephen. 

After the visit of Mr. Hill to Winnipeg was 
over, he was driven to the station in an automo- 
bile, accompanied by Lord Strathcona. In leav- 
ing the head of the Great Northern placed his 
arm affectionately about the shoulders of Can- 
ada's grand old man, whom he had known for 
forty years, and assured him of the pleasure their 
meeting had given him. 

A newspaper man asked Mr. Hill if he thought 
aviation would ever supplant the railroads in 
the handling of freight and passengers. His 
reply was that "when they begin to use airships 
to transport freight it will be by means of hot 
air." But in saying that Mr. Hill's speech before 
the Winnipeg Board of Trade was nearer to the 



218 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

comprehension of his hearers than would have 
been the address of Sir J. J. Thompson, I would 
not be understood as conveying the impression 
that Sir Joseph Thompson's was not as im- 
portant. In fact, the address before the British 
Association was far more important. Had it not 
been for the work of members of the British As- 
sociation like Sir J. J. Thompson, in studying 
atoms and heat and ether, such men as Lord 
Strathcona and Lord Mount Stephen and James 
J. Hill would never have been able to build the 
Canadian Pacific Railroad. The practical men 
get the credit for building the immense commer- 
cial institutions of civilization, but it is in reality 
the quiet, scientific students who furnish the 
knowledge of nature's secrets by which they ac- 
complish all their practical work. The practical 
men come in for the glory and the pay, but the 
students make both possible. The expansion of 
western Canada to-day is but the extension of 
the conquests of science. 

A stay of five weeks in Canada has convinced 
me that we do not know everything there is to 
be learned down in Georgia, and also that they 
do not know everything there is to be learned, 
even in this favored region of creation. We can 
learn much from the Canadians and they can 
learn much from us. They can beat us on wheat, 
but we can beat them on cotton. They lack in 



IN CANADA WITH HER BUILDERS 219 

many instances the things we have, and we also 
lack in many points where they are advanced. 
They have no lynchings up here, but then, 
strange to say, they do not have as much sym- 
pathy for the poor and helpless as we have. The 
man who fails here is simply down and out, and 
that is the end of it. They have no sympathy 
with what one of their poets calls "the pallid 
pimps of the dead line," except to drown them 
like rats in their rivers, or to starve them, like 
curs, on their plains." They have but little time 
to waste in commiserating those who are willing 
to be 

' ' Steeped in the slime at the bottom, dead to a decent world, 
Lost 'mid the human flotsam, far on the frontier hurled; 
In the camp at the bend of the river, with its dozen saloons 

aglare, 
Its gambling dens ariot, its gramophones all ablare, 
Crimped with the crimes of a city, sin-ridden and bridled with 
lies. ' ' 

But fortune smiles here, and the people smile 
upon all who husband their resources of body 
and mind and transmute them into, the hard 
work that brings success. This is why such out- 
bursts of applause were called out from the 
hearts of these "lords of the North" to Lord 
Strathcona and James J. Hill. They had met the 
terrors of a hard environment, such as all the 
people face, and they had conquered. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE MOST INTERESTING ISLAND IN THE 
WESTERN HEMISPHERE 

LOCATED in a world of marsh that borders 
a world of sea, St. Simon's Island is the 
center of a region richer in natural feat- 
ures and historic associations than any other in 
the western waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It is 
made up of a small patch of the planet twelve 
miles long and six miles wide, not yet finished. 
It is not far away from Brunswick, Ga. 

Sir Charles Lyell, the distinguished geologist, 
came here all the way from England to take 
lessons direct in world-building. Here "sinuous 
southward and sinuous northward the shimmer- 
ing band of the sand beach fastens the fringe of 
the marsh to the folds of the land." Here "in- 
ward and outward, to northward and southward, 
the beach lines linger and curl," enabling one 
to see how all the shores of our earthly ball were 
made. The Creator is here to-day, measuring off 
the "terminal blue of the main," and fixing boun- 
daries between it and the finished land. 

220 



THE MOST INTERESTING ISLAND 221 

Sir Charles Lyell discovered here evidences of 
the presence of the horse on these shores long 
before Columbus discovered America. 

John Bartram, of Philadelphia, appointed bot- 
anist for America by George III, came here in 
the Eighteenth Century to study plants. Lin- 
naeus declared him to be the greatest natural bot- 
anist in the world. Here he discovered a species 
of the bay tree, the only one of its kind ever 
found on the earth. He took the seed of this tree, 
from which descendants of the species have been 
preserved in the different botanical gardens of 
the world. 

Were you to go into the Shaw Botanical Gar- 
dens of St. Louis, or in the botanical gardens of 
Leyden, in Holland, or into any other in the 
world, and ask for the history of the gordonia 
pabescus, or gordonia Altamaha, the technical 
name of the species in question, you would be 
told that the only species of the tree ever known 
was discovered by John Bartram in the neigh- 
borhood of St. Simon's Island. 

Places receive far more of significance and 
charm from association with heroic, noble hu- 
man life than from the possession of striking 
natural features. Students may be attracted to 
a region because of its unparalleled geographical, 
botanical or other natural aspects, but the masses 



222 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

of the people will make pilgrimages only to 
places that have been enhanced by their connec- 
tion with great deeds and great persons. 

The hill rising from the sea and overlooking 
Smyrna, in Asia Minor, where Poly carp was put 
to death, interested me more when I passed the 
city in 1894 than all the rest of the metropolis 
put together. That hill had been baptized by the 
blood of a heroic soul. Even drops of water from 
the muddy River Jordan have a market value be- 
cause taken from the stream in which Christ was 
baptized. 

The English lake country has been glowing 
with unearthly splendor ever since Wordsworth 
put upon it the brilliant colors of his genius. 
The woods around Concord, Mass., are winsome 
and affable in the deep glooms of their shade be- 
cause the free spirit of Thoreau once moved 
through them. 

Any museum would welcome as a sacred relic 
a time-dried shoe made by the hand of William 
Carey. The timber Stradivarius used to form his 
violins is almost priceless. The touch of his 
fingers was enough to turn lumber into gold. 

It is because of the historic associations that 
have been interwoven with St. Simon's Island that 
give to the small patch of territory its charm. 
This limited stretch of soil is humanized and im- 
mortalized by the spirits of famous people who 



THE MOST INTERESTING ISLAND 223 

have lived in its neighborhood. Its live oaks 
would be as commonplace as any in Georgia had 
not Sidney Lanier turned every one of their 
limbs into torches to burn forever with the light of 
his genius. Its vast, wide-reaching plains of 
marsh, "candid and simple and nothing-with- 
holding and free/' would not today be publishing 
themselves to the sky and offering themselves to 
the sea had not the Georgia poet lifted them out 
of the sand and the water to grow and play with 
ideal winds and ocean forever in the realm of 
thought. 

Lanier did for the marshes of Glynn, which 
surround St. Simon's Island, what Burns did for 
Bonnie Doon — he made them universal and he 
made them immortal. The solid land will doubt- 
less in days to come be built up here fast and 
hard against the waves of the relentless sea, but 
"the length and breadth and sweep of the 
marshes of Glynn," which encompass this beau- 
tiful island Lanier saw, are safe from the en- 
croachments of earth or the enterprise of men. 
They will stand "waist high, broad in the blade, 
green, and all of a height, unflecked with a light 
or a shade," and "stretch leisurely off in a pleas- 
ant plain, to the terminal blue of the main" 
throughout all time. 

What a pity that all the islands of Georgia 
could not for a time have claimed the presence 
of Lanier, that he might have given to their trees 



224 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

some fixed and secure place in all future time. 
Just a touch of genius is sufficient to change 
"Bingen on the Rhine" from an obscure village to 
one of the best known places in the world. 

On St. Simon's Island lived General James E. 
Oglethorpe, the first governor of Georgia. He 
had for his private secretary no less a person 
than Charles Wesley, whose devotion sings in 
more hymns than were ever written by any other 
man in the Christian centuries. The author of 
"Jesus, Lover of My Soul," took up his work as 
private secretary to the governor of Georgia here 
in 1736. His brother, John Wesley, came down 
from Savannah and preached here to the soldiers. 

Not far away, under the direction of General 
Oglethorpe, was fought, in 1742, the battle of 
Bloody Marsh, which settled the question as to 
whether Spain or England should direct in the 
beginning the fortunes of this commonwealth. 

Oglethorpe returned to England in 1744 and, 
being a friend of Oliver Goldsmith, doubtless re- 
lated to him some of his experiences in America. 
In his "Deserted Village" Goldsmith refers to 
this region as the wild home of some of his coun- 
trymen who had left "Sweet Auburn," and de- 
scribes them : 

Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go, 
Where wild Altamaha murmurs to their woe. 



THE MOST INTERESTING ISLAND 225 

These blazing suns that dart a downward ray, 

And fiercely shed intolerable clay, 

Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, 

But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling, 

Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, 

Where at each step the stranger fears to wake 

The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake. 

The picture Goldsmith gives of the region of 
St. Simon's Island, being drawn mostly from his 
imagination, incorrectly represents this beauti- 
ful realm of island, marsh and sea. 

Fredericia, on St. Simon's, was in the early 
days the rival of Savannah, and here is the only 
ground the first governor of Georgia ever owned. 
In later times many of the most wealthy and cul- 
tured families of Georgia lived on St. Simon's 
Island. Shell roads were made from one end of 
the island to the other. There were twelve or 
fourteen families settled here, with elegant resi- 
dences, beautiful grounds and flourishing cotton 
plantations. They owned among them 4,000 or 
5,000 negroes and raised the famous sea island 
cotton. 

The hospitality shown by the owners of these 
great estates amazed famous travelers, who vis- 
ited here from all parts of the world. Sir Charles 
Lyell, who was the guest of Mr. James Hamilton 
Couper while making his geological observations, 
speaks of it in his books. So does Frederika Bre- 



226 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

mer, the popular Swedish novelist, who also vis- 
ited the home of Mr. Couper. 

The Hon. Amelia M. Murray, one of Queen 
Victoria's maids of honor, was here in 1855, and, 
writing from the home of Mr. Couper, she said : 
"I forgot to mention that there are from 300 to 
400 negroes on this estate. Mr. and Mrs, Couper 
have no white servants ; their family consists of 
six sons and two daughters. I should not like 
to inhabit a lonely part of Ireland, or even Scot- 
land, surrounded by 300 Celts. I believe there is 
not a soldier or policeman nearer than Savannah, 
a distance of sixty miles. Surely this speaks vol- 
umes for the contentment of the slave popula- 
tion." 

Open house was kept on the island for all 
comers, while picnics and regattas were con- 
stantly taking place. A visit to one home meant 
a visit to all. Major John Couper, the father of 
Mr. James Hamilton Couper, a Scotchman by 
birth, settled here in 1792. 

At the northern end of the island was the home 
of Major Pierce Butler. At the outbreak of the 
Revolutionary War he was an officer in the Brit- 
ish army. He had married an heiress, a Miss 
Middleton, of South Carolina. When the war 
with the mother country came on he resigned his 
commission as major in the English army and 
cast in his lot with the colonists. After the war 



THE MOST INTERESTING ISLAND 227 

was over he moved to St. Simon's Island, bring- • 
ing with him 800 slaves. 

Major Butler was a friend of Aaron Burr, and 
after the duel in which he killed Alexander Ham- 
ilton in 1804, he was invited to visit St. Simon's 
Island. Here Burr found a refuge from the 
storm that raged round him at the time. 

Major Butler was descended from a famous 
Irish family, the head of which was created a 
baronet in 1628. Major Butler, being the third 
son of his father, could not succeed him. The 
same title, however, is maintained in the Butler 
family in Ireland to-day by Sir Richard Pierce 
Butler, the eleventh baronet. Sir Richard's fa- 
ther, Sir Thomas Pierce Butler, served in the 
Crimean War in 1855, when he was only nineteen 
years of age and carried the queen's colors of the 
Fifty-sixth Regiment on the 8th of September, 
1855, at the taking of Sebastopol. He died March 
9, 1909, and was succeeded by his son, Sir Rich- 
ard Pierce Butler, who lives at Ballin Temple, 
Tullow, County Carlow, Ireland. 

Our American Major Butler, who came from 
South Carolina to St. Simon's Island, had two 
children, a son and a daughter. The son went 
to England to be educated, and, not agreeing 
with his father's political opinions, expatriated 
himself and never came back to America. The 
daughter married Dr. Mays, of Philadelphia, and 



228 THE GEOGBAPHY OF GENIUS 

two sons were born of this union, John, the elder, 
and Pierce, the younger. 

At the death of Major Butler his will declared 
that his eldest grandson, John Mays, should in- 
herit his entire estate, upon the condition that he 
change his name to Butler. This John at first 
refused to do, but Pierce Mays, upon arriving 
at majority, consented to change his name to 
Butler, and thus complying with the conditions 
of his grandfather's will, came into possession of 
the estate. After this Pierce Butler made a pri- 
vate arrangement with his brother, John Mays, 
by which he consented to give him a half life in- 
terest in the property if he would change his 
name to Butler. This the elder brother did. 
Then the two brothers further agreed that if 
sons were born to them the estate should go to 
the elder son of the elder brother. If no sons 
were born to them the property was to descend 
to the heirs of the younger brother. It so hap- 
pened that neither brother had any sons. John 
had one daughter and Pierce had two. So the 
daughters of Pierce inherited the estate. 

Pierce Butler married, in 1834, Frances Anne 
Kemble, the brilliant English actress. Their 
eldest daughter was named Sarah. She married 
Owen Jones Wister, of Philadelphia. They had 
one son, Owen Wister, the author of "The Vir- 
ginian" and "Lady Baltimore." Their youngest 



THE MOST INTERESTING ISLAND 229 

daughter was named Frances. She married Hon. 
and Very Eev. James Wentworth Leigh, D.D., 
dean of Hereford, England* since 1894. He was 
the third son of the first Lord Leigh, and is now 
the uncle of the present Lord Leigh, of Stone- 
leigh Abbey, Kenilworth, England. They had 
one daughter, Alice Leigh, who was married in 
1906 to Sir Richard Pierce Butler, above re- 
ferred to. Mrs. Frances Kemble Leigh died in 
England in November, 1910. 

Mrs. Fanny Kemble Butler, though married to 
Pierce Butler in 1834, continued to live on her 
husband's place near Philadelphia till 1838. In 
November of that year she came with her hus- 
band to the Georgia plantation, and remained 
there until about the 1st of April, 1839. She was 
not happy in Georgia. 

The institution of slavery she hated with all 
the power of her remarkably strong nature. She 
wrote a book while on St. Simon's Island, enti- 
tled "Life on a Georgia Plantation," that makes 
one's blood run cold to read even now. It is the 
most direct and brilliant and merciless arraign- 
ment of slavery ever printed in English. Though 
written in 1838-39, it was not published until 
1863, It was in the form of letters, and these had 
been passed around and read by her friends in 
England and America. 

A strong movement was on foot in England 
to recognize the Southern Confederacy. The 



230 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

friends of abolition were terribly concerned to 
defeat this. It has been said, therefore, that 
"Life on a Georgia Plantation" was published at 
the solicitation of influential people in this coun- 
try like Henry Ward Beecher and Mrs. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe with the view of having it read in 
England before the question of the recognition 
of the Southern Confederacy was finally deter- 
mined. Anyhow, it is said that John Bright read 
the book, and John Bright defeated the move- 
ment looking to the recognition of the Southern 
Confederacy. It is remarkable that such a book 
should have been written by the wife of the 
owner of a thousand slaves. Owing to incom- 
patibility of temper Pierce Butler obtained a di- 
vorce from his wife in 1849, the conditions being 
that the children should spend six months with 
their mother and six months with their father. 

Fanny Kemble was the most brilliant woman 
of the Nineteenth Century, and Pierce Butler 
was a man of the very highest character. During 
the war between the states he lived in Philadel- 
phia, but all his sympathies were with the South- 
ern cause. He visited the Southern soldiers in 
Northern prisons and assisted them by his own 
means. After the war, in 1S66, he came with his 
daughter Frances back to the plantation. 

More than half of his servants engaged to 
work for him for wages. Pierce Butler died on 
his plantation in 1867. Frances Butler managed 



THE MOST INTEKESTIXG ISLAND 231 

the plantation for ten years after her father's 
death. She wrote a very interesting book about 
her experiences here, entitled "Ten Years on a 
Georgia Plantation." In the early part of 1867, 
before her father died, she tells of a serenade the 
negroes gaye her on her birthday. A dear old 
seryant by the name of Uncle John came up to 
her and, taking her hands in his, said : 

"God bless you, missus, my dear missus !" 

Her father, standing near and being touched 
by the old man's devotion to his children, put his 
arm around the old man's shoulders and said : 

"You haye seen five generations of us now, 
John, hayen't you?" 

"Yes, massa," said Uncle John ; "Miss Sarah's 
little boy be de fifth, bless the Lord." 

Miss Sarah's little boy, referred to, was Owen 
Wister, at that time about seven years old. 

I walked oyer the grounds of the old Butler 
homestead. Cedars are growing in Fanny Kem- 
ble's garden, higher than the shabby walls of the 
old house. The place is still owned by the fam- 
ily, but is now utterly neglected. The roofs are 
off the walls of the houses, built of shell and lime, 
and the cedars are growing up through them. 
Some day a great Southern story will be written, 
the scene of which will be found in this neighbor- 
hood. Owen Wister could never have written 
"Lady Baltimore" but for his knowledge of the 



232 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

men and women who once lived in this charming 
region, which must have been a very paradise. 
One might say with far more meaning about St. 
Simons Island what Goldsmith said about 
"Sweet Auburn :" 

No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 

But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way; 

Along thy glades a solitary guest. 

The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; 

Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, 

And tires their echoes with unvaried cries; 

Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, 

And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall; 

And, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler 's hand, 

Far, far away thy children leave the land. 

While standing in Fanny Kemble's garden the 
verses of Goldsmith came to me : 

Near yonder copse, where once the gardens smiled, 
And still where many a garden flower grows wild ; 
There, where a few torn shrubs the place disclose. 

I thought of that beautiful, accomplished 
woman, laboring to make grow in the ground the 
flowers which, alas, under the circumstances in 
which she found herself placed, could not grow 
in her heart. 

In the neighborhood of St. Simon's Island 
"The Wanderer," the last slave ship to cross the 
ocean, landed its 500 negroes. The citizens of 
Fredericia, on St. Simon's Island, once the capi- 



THE MOST INTERESTING ISLAND 233 

tal of Georgia, were the first in the history of 
this country to sign a protest against the intro- 
duction of slavery. It contained these words : 
"Introduce slaves and we cannot but believe they 
will one day return to be a scourge and a curse to 
our children or children's children." This docu- 
ment was signed by every man living in Fred- 
ericia in 1749. 

In the neighborhood of St. Simon's Island 
Gen. Nathaniel Green, the greatest commander 
next to Washington in the Revolutionary War, 
spent his declining years. Here, after his death, 
lived his daughter, Mrs. Shaw. It was while 
upon a visit to her that "Light-Horse Harry" 
Lee, father of Gen. Robert E. Lee, died. Here 
he was buried, and his distinguished son, Gen. 
Robert E. Lee, visited his grave just a little while 
before his death. It was near here that Eli 
Whitney, while living in the home of Gen. Na- 
thaniel Greene's family, invented the cotton gin. 

To say that St. Simon's Island is the most 
famous twelve miles of land surrounded by water 
in the Atlantic Ocean is to make a statement 
strictly in accordance with truth. With what 
other small patch of territory in Western waters 
is associated so many great people, whose names 
are household words in modern history? 

What other pinch of a paradise, gleaming in the 
Western seas, can make claims to association with 
such famous people as Gen. James Oglethorpe, 



234 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

who lived longer on earth than any other English 
general ever did; as John Wesley, the greatest 
preacher since St. Panl; Charles Wesley, who 
wrote more hymns than any other man in the 
Christian centuries ; John Bartram, the greatest 
natural botanist of his time, according to Lin- 
naeus ; Sir Charles Lyell, the founder of modern 
geology; Oliver Goldsmith, the friend of Dr. 
Samuel Johnson; Nathaniel Greene, the great- 
est general, after Washington, in the Revolution- 
ary War; "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, the father 
of Robert E. Lee, the greatest general America 
ever produced ; Eli Whitney, the inventor of the 
cotton gin; Fannie Kemble, the most accom- 
plished woman of the Nineteenth Century ; Owen 
Wister, one of America's greatest novelists; 
Sidney Lanier, who wrote the " Marshes of 
Glynn," the greatest poem ever written by an 
American, which he wrote to celebrate the waters 
surrounding St. Simon's Island; Aaron Burr, 
vice-president of the United States and grand- 
son of Jonathan Edwards; Hon. Amelia M. Mur- 
ray, one of Victoria's maids of honor, and Fred- 
erika Bremer, the most popular Swedish novelist 
of her time. 



CHAPTER XX 
KEEPING UP WITH NEWPORT 

VACATIONS furnish one the opportunity of 
improving his mind and of enlarging his 
outlook upon the world. My vacations 
have been used to make pilgrimages to places in 
different parts of the world made famous by asso- 
ciation with the lives of great people. This chap- 
ter has to do with a month spent in the neighbor- 
hood of Newport, Rhode Island, a few years ago. 

In his story, "Keeping Up With Lizzie," Irving 
Bacheller identified the fortunes of Pointview, 
Connecticut, with the life of its leading citizen. 
The personality of Lizzie Henshaw is represented 
as being charged with meaning enough to lend 
significance to the town in which she lived. She 
illuminated her local environment from day to 
day with light out of her soul, and did not, like 
the chameleon, take the color of her being from 
things on the outside of her. Lizzie and Point- 
view, in the course of events, became different 
names for the same reality. Pointview became 
an extended, spread-out edition of Lizzie, and 
Lizzie became a breathing, epitomized edition of 
Pointview. "Keeping Up With Lizzie" meant 

235 



236 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

keeping up with Pointview, and keeping up with 
Pointview meant keeping up with Lizzie. 

In representing Lizzie as the human definition 
of Pointview, and in portraying Pointview as a 
center of population rescued from oblivion by the 
good fortune of having produced a distinguished 
citizen with whose life to link its history, the 
novelist conforms to a custom as old as litera- 
ture. The message of Amos, for instance, has 
gone into all the world, but Tekoa, a small vil- 
lage in Palestine, is always connected with it, so 
that one can never know what the prophet 
thought without learning at the same time where 
the prophet lived. 

The light of Aristotle's genius has kept the 
heavens of speculative thought brilliant for 
nearly 2,500 years, but from Stagira it has al- 
ways shone, and not a ray of it has ever illumi- 
nated a single human mind without throwing 
upon its walls a picture of the spot on the Stry- 
monic Gulf where the thinker was born. To 
keep up with Aristotle is to keep up with Stagira, 
and no one has ever been able to keep up with 
Stagira without keeping up with Aristotle, the 
Stagirite. The only Stagira there is today is 
the universal, eternal little town that from a 
place has become an atmosphere and now circu- 
lates throughout the world in the philosophy of 
Aristotle. 



KEEPING UP WITH NEWPOKT 237 

The city that has come into association with 
no great spirit, or with no universally known 
historic event with which to link its name and 
its activities, is like an harbor from which no 
vessel ever goes to sea. What ever raw material 
of tragedy or romance on incident there may 
have been piled upon such a shore, it can never 
get into the intellectual commerce of the cen- 
turies, simply because no man or woman ap- 
peared among its people with soul detached from 
its local surroundings enough to serve as a ship, 
to bear its merchandise of deed or thought, or 
hope, or fear, or faith, to future ages. 

These preliminary remarks furnish a basis for 
the general conclusion that keeping up with a 
town means keeping up with the person who, by 
association with it, has given to its name and 
scenery a larger place in the common mind of 
humanity than any other of its citizens. Mere 
places on the earth's surface do not go anywhere. 
The inhabitants of patches of territory here and 
there on the world's round face who are content 
to eke out a provincial existence, bounded by the 
skyline of the horizon in which they breathe, 
never go anywhere. Places rise and float through- 
out the seas of universal intelligence as they are 
lifted from the stationary coasts of matter by the 
tides of human thought. 



238 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

In the early morning of its history, George 
Berkeley, the most distinguished philosophic 
thinker ever produced among English-speaking 
peoples, lived three years in Newport. In the en- 
virons of Newport, Berkeley bought the only 100 
acres of land he ever owned and upon it resided 
in the only house he ever built. 

Berkeley was 44 years of age when he ar- 
rived in Newport. He was already the most dis- 
tinguished English thinker on the planet. He 
had written, while a student at Trinity College, 
Dublin, his Commonplace Book, when he was 20 
years of age; his Treatise on a New Theory of 
Vision he had published when he was 24; his 
Treatise on the Principles of Human Knowledge 
when he was 25, and his Three Dialogues Be- 
tween Hylas and Phylonous when he was 28. 
He had traveled on the continent of Europe with 
Lord Peterborough and had written his Italian 
Journey. He was the intimate friend of Gay, 
Addison, Steele, Pope and Swift, the greatest lit- 
erary men of his time. He was a favorite at the 
Court of King George II and one of the most val- 
ued friends of Queen Caroline. 

Everybody knows that William Ellery Chan- 
ning and Commodore M. C. Perry were born in 
Newport, but it will be admitted by all that 
George Berkeley was not only the most famous 
character who ever resided in Newport, but the 



KEEPING UP WITH NEWPORT 239 

most potent and influential man from an intel- 
lectual point of view who ever touched the shores 
of America. 

Many person with more than local influence 
have been associated with Newport from the time 
of Rev. James Honeynian, who preached there in 
Trinity Church from 1704 to 1750, down to the 
present time. There have been among those of 
the past and the present, distinguished officers of 
the United States Navy, such as Chadwick, En- 
nis, Everett, Fullam, Sims, Hobbs, Luce, Rees; 
authors like Maude Howe Eliott and Mrs. U. 
King Van Rensselaer; lawyers like Elbridge T. 
Gerry, George Wellington Green, Judge Darius 
Baker, Sampel Robertson Honey and Lispenard 
Stewart; without any question every one will 
admit that George Berkeley was not only the 
greatest man who ever lived in Newport, but the 
greatest speculative philosopher who ever lived 
in this country. 

A vacation spent in the neighborhood of New- 
port furnished me the opportunity to study the 
town. The island, upon the southern tip end of 
which Newport is situated is about thirteen miles 
long and three and a half miles broad. As far 
as physical features can combine to render a strip 
ef territory remarkable from every geographical 
point of view, the island of Rhode Island is, per- 
haps^ the most notable patch of land surrounded 
by water on the planet. Encompassed by the 



240 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

waters of Narragansett Bay, the denizens of New- 
port enjoy the opportunity of breathing sea air 
as completely as if they lived on the deck of a 
vast steamer out in the ocean. As a spot to live, 
and breathe and be in, no other place under the 
sun can compare with it. The sense of being 
enisled in this gorgeous and glorious region is 
enough to tempt one to surrender himself to the 
luxury of mere physical existence. 

Berkeley married the daughter of Judge John 
Foster, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, 
in 1728. She is said to have been a devoutly re- 
ligious mystic, Fenelon and Madame Guy on be- 
ing among her favorite authors. "I chose her," 
Berkeley tells Lord Percival, "for her qualities of 
mind and her unaffected inclination for books. 
She goes with great thankfulness to America to 
live a plain farmer's wife and wear stuff of her 
own spinning. I have presented her with a spin- 
ning-wheel." They sailed in September for 
Rhode Island, where Berkeley intended to winter 
and purchase an estate to settle a correspondence 
and trade between that island and the Bermudas. 
He arrived in Newport in January, 1729, having 
touched at Virginia on the way. 

There is not in the whole history of romantic 
adventure anything to compare with the enter- 
prise which was the occasion of Berkeley making 



KEEPING UP WITH NEWPORT 241 

his home in Newport. He conceived the scheme 
of building a college on the islands of the Ber- 
mudas in the Atlantic Ocean for the better sup- 
plying of churches on the English plantations 
and for converting the savage Indians to Chris- 
tianity. He proposed to convert the most iri- 
descent dream that ever flit across the mind of 
a human being into a vast world-transforming 
reality out in the wilds of the sea. 

It is a most remarkable fact that he was fasci- 
nating and magnetic enough to persuade King 
George II and the British Parliament that his 
program for a college in the Atlantic Ocean was 
feasible and workable. Even Sir Robert Wal- 
pole, while never approving the scheme, did con- 
tribute out of his private means to it. A charter 
was granted by Parliament for a college to be 
known as St. Paul's, of which Berkeley was to be 
the head, and for the establishment of which 
$100,000 was granted by the English Govern- 
ment. 

In addition to this, personal friends from all 
over the kingdom promised large sums from their 
personal fortunes for the college. Miss Vanessa 
Vonhombrigh, known as one of the celebrated 
women loved by Jonathan Swift, who accepted 
the attentions of the distinguished dean as equiv- 
alent, practically, to an offer of marriage, willed 
her property, consisting of $40,000, to him. 



242 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

When "Stella," the other lady celebrated by her 
association with Swift, informed "Vanessa" that 
she herself had already been married secretly to 
the dean and distinguished author of "The Tale 
of a Tub," Miss Vonhombrigh destroyed her orig- 
inal will and left half of her property to Berke- 
ley, whom she had met at dinner but once and to 
whom she is said to have been introduced by 
Swift. 

So, with the promise of the king and the Brit- 
ish Parliament and the actual bequest of Swift's 
"Vanessa," Berkeley left England with his wife 
and a few friends and sailed for Rhode Island. 
He was received with such marked attention 
when he arrived at Newport that when Rev. 
James Honeyman, who was delivering a sermon 
at Trinity Church, heard that Berkeley was in 
the harbor, he dismissed his congregation and 
with all the people went out to meet the dis- 
tinguished visitor. 

Berkeley built a house in the environs of New- 
port on the ground he had purchased, which he 
named Whitehall. As the money of Swift's 
"Vanessa" doubtless, was used in the purchase 
of this property, it would not be inappropriate to 
call it "Vanessa's" Cottage, as the house in Farn- 
ham, Surrey, in which lived Swift's other lover, 
is called "Stella's" Cottage. 



KEEPING UP WITH NEWPORT 243 

The grant of the English Government made for 
Berkeley's College was to be paid out of the pro- 
ceeds arising from the income of St. Christopher's 
Island, one of the Leeward group, which had been 
ceded to England by France under the terms of 
the Treaty of Utrecht, entered into by the two 
countries in 1714. 

When Berkeley learned that England was reg- 
ularly receiving returns from St. Christopher's 
Island and that no part of it was being paid to- 
ward his college enterprise, he became discour- 
aged. Sir Robert Walpole wrote him that the 
money would be paid, but added that as no par- 
ticular time had been fixed for its payment, and 
as the English finances were somewhat depleted, 
he could give him no definite assurance as to 
when it would be paid. Berkeley took this as an 
intimation that the money would never be paid. 
So, wearied by the long delays of the govern- 
ment, Berkeley at length gave up his residence 
in Newport and sailed from Boston back to Eng- 
land in September, 1731, just three years after 
his departure from England. 

Berkeley gave Whitehall with the land belong- 
ing to it to Yale College to be applied to the 
maintenance of three students of said college dur- 
ing the time between their first and second de- 
gree, and such students to be known as "schol- 
ars of the house," to be elected by the head of the 



244 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

college jointly with the senior Episcopal mis- 
sionary of Connecticut after an examination in 
Latin and Greek. The Berkeley an scholarships 
and prizes thus established have been regularly 
awarded since 1733, and the list of those who 
have received these honors include the names of 
some of the most distinguished graduates of 
Yale College. 

The Whitehall farm was leased by the college 
in 1762 for a period of 999 years for an annual 
rental of $150. It can easily be seen that by the 
year 2761, when the lease will have expired, 
Berkeley's gift to the institution, including in- 
terest calculated on the first rental of $150 for 
998 years, and then on down through all the 
years till its expiration, principal and interest 
so compounded year by year, would amount to 
an enormous sum, greater, perhaps, than that 
paid to Yale by any-friend of the college. If the 
principal and interest on this money since 1733 
had been used in the making of more money sim- 
ply, it would by this time equal a greater sum 
than any college in the world has for its endow- 
ment. 

For such a man as Berkeley merely to have re- 
sided in Newport for three years was sufficient 
to throw about the place the enhancement a great 
personality confers upon any region in which he 
happens for a time to live. For a man like Berke- 



KEEPING UP WITH NEWPORT 245 

ley to spend a night in a hotel and to have left 
his name upon its list of guests was sufficient to 
throw interest for all future time around the hos- 
telry. If Berkeley had done nothing but walk 
the streets of Newport, this would have been 
enough to make them gleam forever, but he did a 
great thing in Newport — he wrote there his most 
popular book, by means of which he lifted its 
meadows and shore lines and beaches and rocks 
from the plane of matter to that of spirit. The 
color and beauty and sweetness of Newport's 
environs were converted into Alciphron, or, The 
Minute Philosopher, and into the poem in which 
the line occurs, familiar to all readers of English 
literature, "The course of empire westward takes 
its way." Newport's hanging rock, its old stone 
tower, its bay, its jagged-edged shores, were lifted 
from the commonplace level of material fact and 
made to shine through all time in the magical 
colors of Berkeley's genius. 

Berkeley was the only man who ever lived in 
Newport who converted the physical features of 
the town into terms of universal thought. Just 
as Bonnie Doon through Burns flows around the 
world, so Newport through Berkeley found a 
place on the map of the common mind of man. 
He did for Newport what Sir Walter Scott did 
for Scotland. Take Wordsworth out of the Eng- 
lish lake country and who would care to see 



246 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

Grasmere? Take Byron out of the Dukeries, and 
who would visit Newstead Abbey? Of course, it 
is true that romance and poetry appeal immedi- 
ately to the rank and file of the reading public, 
while the writings of such a man as Berkeley 
create for him no immediate constituency. 

Berkeley was an intellectual world builder. 
Along with writers, like Aristotle and Descartes 
and Spinoza and Locke, he was engaged in open- 
ing up territory for writers, like Wordsworth 
and Coleridge and Scott and Byron, to range in. 
Because of this, Berkeley's residence in Rhode 
Island has not invested the place with the gen- 
eral interest among the masses of the people it 
should have received from association with so 
vast a genius. But the day will come when he 
will be put into possession of it as surely as 
Michael Angelo has an eternal title to Florence. 
Fee simple, exclusive titles, can never stand in 
the higher courts of thought against the title a 
man has to a town, who lifts its scenery from the 
realm of matter to that of spirit. 

The man I engaged in Newport to take me 
around the ten-mile drive pointed out the houses 
and gave something of the history of each family 
living in the several mansions on the way. When 
I asked him about "Whitehall," where Berkeley 
had lived, he had heard of it and conducted some 



KEEPING UP WITH NEWPORT 247 

lone pilgrim to see it, but he could not tell who 
had lived there or why anybody should want to 
visit it. I called at all the bookstores in New- 
port, but there was not a page or pamphlet or 
book in one of them about Berkeley. There was 
not a post card of "Whitehall" in one of them. I 
did succeed in buying a post card of "Whitehall" 
from the caretaker who looks after the house for 
the Colonial Dames, who have purchased the 
lease from Yale College, but there was not one in 
all Newport, nor was there a photograph of 
Berkeley. If one were to judge of Berkeley's 
ownership of Newport by the hold he seems to 
have on the average citizen of it to-day, he would 
be apt to conclude that the greatest philosopher 
among English-speaking people had never seen 
the town. 

In its power to regale the sensuous imagina- 
tion, Newport has no rival among the resorts of 
fashion on the earth. If the leading halls and 
castles of the English aristocracy were all lifted 
from the center of vast estates in which they sev- 
erally stand and crowded together along ten 
miles of sea beach, they would make no greater 
show than is made by the vast summer homes 
of Newport. 

The money spent in maintaining the functions 
of Newport exceeds that ever paid in the same di- 
rection by any other brilliant center of sport. 



248 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

The Emperor Tiberius is said to have spent for- 
tunes on costly viands, but he lived like an ordinary 
mortal in comparison with the summer devotees of 
high living in Newport. The function that cost 
Lucullus f 10,000 is recorded as having no paral- 
lel in history, but this is a modest repast in com- 
parison with what is ordinary in Newport. 
Dances, dinners, canoe races, water frolics, tennis 
tournaments succeed one another at Newport 
after a fashion that is simply amazing. Ball 
rooms are constructed with mirrors framed in 
the panels of the walls so as to reflect and mul- 
tiply many times the throngs of dancers with 
their gay decorations. 

The gowns worn by the women of Newport's 
summer colony are so gorgeous that the vocabu- 
lary of the newspaper reporter furnishes no lan- 
guage subtle and highly colored enough to de- 
scribe them. There are costumes which are 
dreams in mustard colored linen, combined with 
Persian colored embroidery ; in long purple satin 
coats, embroidered with floss, covering gowns of 
blue and striped voile ; in white serge skirts with 
short coats of Dresden chintz; in white eyelet 
embroidered linen and amethyst colored tussor 
cloth ; in gowns of white linen covered with pale 
green shoulder scarfs and white striped chiffon ; 
and in white serge embroidered in yellow. 



KEEPING UP WITH NEWPOKT 249 

There are visions in black hats with plumes; 
in purple straw hats topped with white plumes ; 
in bright red straw hats wreathed in bright red 
poppies; in black chip hats topped with ai- 
grettes; in purple straw hats wreathed with 
deep rose colored double hollyhocks; in yellow 
Leghorn hats wreathed with pink flowers, and in 
black straw hats topped with natural wheat. 

There are brilliant fancies in slippers studded 
with diamonds; in blue satin slippers with dia- 
mond buckles ; in silver slippers with silver but- 
terfly bows ; in gold slippers with butterfly bows 
of small pearls. 

Keeping up with modern Newport involves no 
labor greater than is necessary to acquaint one's 
self with a blazing array of millinery and dia- 
monds and pearls and Oriental stones. 

But the Newport of mansions and functions 
and millinery and sparkling gems is not going 
anywhere. That Newport will fade like a splen- 
did pageant and leave not a trace of its tem- 
porary existence, except such as those who visit 
the town in the years to come will find in its 
ruins. 

But the Newport of Berkeley lives and will live 
through all eternity in the universal mind of 
man. 

1 ' With meaning won from him, forever glows 
Each air that Newport feels and star it knows. " 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE AMERICAN HOME OF CHARLES 
WESLEY 

IN HIS journal dated Tuesday, March 9, 1736, 
Charles Wesley writes : "About three in the 
afternoon I first set foot on St. Simon's 
Island." 

Here in a town called Fredericia lived General 
Oglethorpe, the first governor of Georgia. 
Charles Wesley's Journal, beginning March 9, 
1736, gives an account of his arrival at Freder- 
icia and of his experience as the secretary of Gen- 
eral Oglethorpe. 

St. Simon's Island, the only town of which is 
Fredericia, is a diminutive area, but has more of 
interesting events, heroic deeds, and famous lives 
associated with its history than that of any other 
small body of land surrounded by water in the 
Western Hemisphere. The fact that it was the 
home of the greatest hymn writer of all the ages 
would be sufficient of itself to make it a center of 
perennial interest. 

Here in Fredericia, on St. Simon's Island, 
Charles Wesley lived long enough to identify 
its name and scenery with his own beautiful 

250 



HOME OF CHARLES WESLEY 251 

life. The very gloom of its oaks is interfused 
with the perfume of his personality. The deep 
green of its sod, clinging to the earth like a 
carpet of velvet moss, is reminiscent of his foot- 
steps. The little yellow flowers that grow here 
on the soil, like enameled stars, dropped from 
the sky to light up the plain, glow with a radi- 
ance borrowed from the light of his character. 
The notes the' waves here strike on the shore 
fill the air with a melody, seemingly intermingled 
with something caught from the energy of his 
spirit. 

Fredericia is known as the dead town of 
Georgia, but the Fredericia of Charles Wesley 
is not dead. Through its relations with the poet 
it has been transformed with its wide-spreading 
oaks, magnolias, and trailing garlands of wild 
jessamine into an ideal paradise of unchanging 
beauty. This town in the early morning of its 
earthly life, when its natural flowers filled the 
air with sweetness and covered the earth with 
curtains of blooms, as Charles Wesley knew it, 
must have been a very vision of loveliness. 

That fair and fresh and sweet little city back 
there under the magnolias within sound of the 
ocean, gleaming in the opening dawn of Georgia's 
history, is the Fredericia fixed through all the 
changing years beside the rhythmic sea of Charles 
Wesley's music. Its forts and barracks and 
pioneer people are safe from invasion, either by 



252 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

the death-dealing inroads of time or the destruc- 
tive fires of alien armies. And it is the primal 
Fredericia, encompassed, enhanced, enchanted, 
possessed by the morning light of Charles Wes- 
ley's spirit, that keeps the very ground upon 
which it stood eloquent with mysterious mean- 
ing, producing in one who stands here the feel- 
ing that Tennyson knew when he wrote : 

''Moreover, something is or seems 
That touches me with mystic gleams, 
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams, 
Of something felt, like something here; 
Of something done, I know not where; 
Such as no language may declare. ' ' 

The year 1708, when considered through the 
light of the events that were taking place in 
England, was a remarkable one. The death of 
Prince George of Denmark had placed the scep- 
ter in the hands of Queen Anne. The first Brit- 
ish Parliament, elected after the union with 
Scotland, held that year its first session. 

But the greatest thing that happened in Eng- 
land in 1708 was the birth of Charles Wesley. He 
was the youngest son and the eighteenth child of 
remarkable parents. He was, as a boy, bright, 
attractive and fun-loving. Mr. Garrett Wesley, 
a rich landowner in Ireland, offered to adopt him 
while in his teens. The choice of becoming the 
heir of a great estate or remaining in the humble 
home of his parents was left with the boy. He 



HOME OF CHARLES WESLEY 253 

elected to stay in the place of limitation rather 
than enter the larger realm of earthly wealth. 
The young man Garrett Wesley did adopt was 
named Colly, and he became the grandfather of 
the Duke of Wellington. 

Charles Wesley came to Fredericia to live when 
he was twenty-eight years old. He was not 
happy here. He was misunderstood, persecuted, 
and passed through the ordeal of deep personal 
affliction. At the end of five weary months he 
was ordered home, and landed in England just 
fourteen months after leaving his native land. 
The period of his sojourn in Fredericia was a time 
of trial and discipline. The fountains of melody 
in the depths of his soul, however, were getting 
ready to flow. When he left Fredericia he felt the 
weight of the wrongs he had endured heavy on 
his spirit. 

Arriving in England he found himself longing 
for freedom and reaching out for the clear light 
of a wider day. He had lived a legal, limited, 
and pinched life. His soul had been struggling 
against the barriers of self-imposed forms and 
ceremonies. He was worn and wearied and sick 
at heart. 

In the early morning of May 21, 1738, he felt 
he could proceed no further without a blessing 
direct from heaven. He began to cry out: "O 
Jesus, thou hast said, 'I will come unto you.' 
Thou hast said, 'I will send the Comforter unto 



254 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

you.' Thou hast said, 'My Father and I will 
come unto you and make our abode with you.' 
Thou art a God who canst not lie, I wholly rely 
upon Thy most true promise, accomplish it in 
Thy time and manner." Then it was that he 
found peace and exclaimed: "I believe! I be- 
lieve !" 

On the first anniversary of his spiritual birth, 
May 21, 1739, he wrote : 

1 ' On this glad, day the glorious Sun 
Of Righteousness arose; 
On my benighted soul he shone, 
And filled with repose. 

' ' O for a thousand tongues to sing 
My great Redeemer's praise! 
The glories of My God and King, 
The triumphs of His grace." 

After his complete release from the shackles 
of bondage to form and fear, he entered and 
lived till 1788 a universal life. He wrote be- 
tween 1738 and 1788 seven thousand hymns. 
Supposing that he slept and rested twelve hours 
of each day of these fifty years, the amazing fact 
is revealed that he wrote a hymn every thirty-one 
of the working hours he lived after his return 
from Fredericia. Such a record was never made 
before by mortal man. 

He built out of words enough ships of song to 
send the wealth of heaven's soul and mercy into 
the ports of every human soul on earth. For 



HOME OF CHAKLES WESLEY 255 

more than a hundred years, during every minute 
of every day, thousands of Charles Wesley's sa- 
cred transports have been landing their imperish- 
able merchandise into the harbors of human 
spirits. They are seaworthy and well built. 
Isaac Watts declared that he would rather be the 
author of "Come, O Thou Traveler unknown, 
whom still I hold, but cannot see," than of all the 
hymns he had written. Charles Wesley's hymns 
are vessels of song set sailing between the gates 
of glory and the shores of earthly sin and pain 
and sorrow. 

John Wesley was a greater preacher and a 
greater organizer of men, but Charles Wesley 
has touched far more vitally and deeply the heart 
of humanity with his hymns than his brother 
ever did with his sermons and ecclesiastical ma- 
chinery. The Methodists claim John Wesley, but 
no denomination can monopolize Charles. His 
hymns are as universal as mercy and as wide as 
the goodness of God. He set redemption to music 
in the present age of the world. The cross in his 
songs vibrates with a subtle, penetrating power 
that breaks and makes over the heart estranged 
from God through guilt. 

Charles Wesley took the dogmas of the Church 
that were hard and fast and fixed and fused them 
so that they flowed in streams of melody warm 
out of his soul. He converted the Bible into 



256 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

rhythm. He put all the prophets of the Old Tes- 
tament to singing the old songs to new tunes. 
He put old Jacob to wrestling for peace with God 
through the strenuous hours of a new night, and 
sent him happy from the prayer of triumph into 
a new morning. He humanized and modernized 
the old, yet ever new, truths of salvation. He 
played his music to the multitudes in thirty-three 
meters, more than any single singer was ever 
able to use before. Every place and every event 
of Providence furnished him a theme for poetry. 
Once, when riding with a condemned criminal 
to the scaffold, he composed a hymn, on the way, 
to sing just before the poor man's soul left the 
body. Once he was interrupted in a seaport town 
by a company of half-drunken sailors, who had 
come to church to break up the service with a 
song of the street called "Nancy Dawson." He 
listened to their song, mastered its tune and 
meter, and composed on the spot a hymn of the 
same measure and gave out the following to the 
tune of "Nancy Dawson" : 

' l Listed into the cause of sin, 

Why should a good be evil? 
Music, alas! too long has been 

Pressed to obey the devil. 
Come, let us try if Jesus' love 

Will not as well inspire us; 
This is the theme of those above, 

This upon earth shall fire us." 



HOME OF CHARLES WESLEY 257 

Once he wrote in his Journal: "Near Ripley 
my horse threw me and fell on me, my leg was 
bruised and my hand sprained and hy head was 
stunned." But the only serious result that he 
saw in the accident was it kept him from writing 
a hymn that day. Amid the consternation that 
seized the people of London in 1750, when Eng- 
land was shaken by an earthquake, Charles Wes- 
ley sought to allay the terror by sending forth in 
a hymn his own confidence : 

"Let earth's inmost center quake 

And shattered nature mourn ; 
Let the unwieldly mountains shape 

And fall, by storms uptorn — 
Fall with all their trembling load, 

Far into the ocean hurled. 
Lo ! we stand secure in God, 

Amidst a ruined world." 

The secret of Charles Wesley's success in the 
accomplishment of so much permanent work is 
not hard to find. He yielded his life to God in 
complete surrender, and then raised the gates 
of his soul that spiritual power might flow in 
song to refresh humanity. He did not create the 
force of which his life was the channel. He 
simply let it flow through his consecrated person- 
ality from heaven to earth. The floods of spir- 
itual energy he turned into the world are as 
easily explained as are the currents that flow 
along the trolley lines from the power house. It 



258 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

was simply adjustment to the sources of energy 
and constant compliance with the conditions 
upon which the power works. 

Any man who will repeat the experiment of 
Charles Wesley will find himself, not perhaps 
writing hymns or preaching sermons as John 
Wesley or making violins as Stradivarius, but 
turning out from God some work to bless man- 
kind. 

George Eliot made the old violin maker of 
Cremona say : 

1 ' If my hand should slack, I would rob God, , 

Since he is fullest good, leaving a blank instead of violins, 
For God Himself could not make Stradivarius violins without 
Antonio. ' ' 

The hymns of Charles Wesley are from heaven, 
but sent to the earth through the soul of a saint, 
and had his hand slacked he would have robbed 
God, leaving a blank instead of songs. 



CHAPTER XXII 

SAN FRANCISCO AND ROBERT LOUIS 
STEVENSON 

THE pen used by a great man to sign an 
important state document at once becomes 
of priceless value. A button from the coat 
of George Washington is of more interest than 
a diamond. A pebble, worn round by the waves 
of Lake Galilee, is esteemed like a jewel. A drop 
of water from the River Jordan is worth more 
than a million gallons from the Amazon. 

Reflections like these passed through my mind 
as I stood by the monument erected by public 
subscription in the Plaza of San Francisco to 
Robert Louis Stevenson. It is a granite pedestal 
supporting a bronze galleon, designed by Mr. 
Bruce Porter. Upon one side of it are carved the 
following words taken from Stevenson's own 
writings: "To be honest, to be kind, to earn a 
little and to spend a little less, to make upon the 
whole a family happier for his presence, to re- 
nounce, when that shall be necessary, and not to 
be embittered, to keep a few friends but these 
without capitulation, above all, on the same grim 
condition, to keep friends with himself — here is 

259 



260 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

a task for all that a man has of fortitude and 
delicacy." 

Stevenson came to San Francisco from Scot- 
land in August, 1879, but was so much shaken 
by the long journey that he looked upon his ar- 
rival, like a man at death's door. To recover his 
health, he immediately went south about one 
hundred and fifty miles and camped out by him- 
self in the coast range of mountains beyond 
Monterey. After this, he went down to Monterey, 
noted the world over for its beautiful hotel in the 
midst of ample grounds where he remained until 
the middle of December. 

But while there was a magnificent hotel at 
Monterey, Stevenson did not stop there. He 
lodged with a doctor and got his meals at Simon- 
eau's restaurant. Stevenson describes it as hav- 
ing a barber shop in front and a kitchen at the 
back. The dining room was a little, chill, bare, 
adobe affair, and upon the table was always to be 
found a dish of green peppers and tomatoes. At 
any time, just before a meal, Simoneau the pro- 
prietor could be heard all about the kitchen 
rattling among the dishes. With Simoneau Ste- 
venson says, "he played chess every day and dis- 
cussed the universe." 

After the middle of December he went back to 
San Francisco and remained there until May 
19, 1880, when he was married to Fanny Van de 



SAN FRANCISCO AND STEVENSON 261 

Grift in the house of Rev. Dr. Scott. Immedi- 
ately after his marriage he went to the country, 
fifty miles north of San Francisco to seek health 
in the mountains. Here he took possession of all 
that was left of an old mining town, and found 
the data for that interesting work of his, "The 
Silverado Squatters." 

In July he left California, and with his wife, 
returned to Scotland to visit his father. He was, 
therefore, at this time, in California not quite a 
year. He returned to the United States in 1897 
and by the 7th of June, 1898, he was back in Cali- 
fornia. Soon after, he sailed with his family on 
the Casco for a long cruise in the South Seas, 
where among its islands he spent the remainder 
of his life. While sojourning in San Francisco, 
before he sailed away for the last time, he and 
Mrs. Stevenson lodged at the Occidental Hotel. 

The details of Stevenson's life in San Fran- 
cisco are given to show that while he was there 
but a short time, it was long enough to give now 
interest and color to every spot and hotel and 
person he met. It was long enough to awaken in- 
terest sufficient in him to secure a monument to 
his memory. Not one of the multi-millionaires 
on Knob Hill lent as much interest to San Fran- 
cisco in all his life as did Stevenson by a few 
month's residence there. Not that millions are 
counted in public esteem against a man, but more 
than millions or billions is the man himself. If 



262 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

the man who comes into the possession of mil- 
lions of money, happens to be one who uses his 
wealth as Stevenson used his genius, to bless 
mankind, then the millionaire will be honored 
not because of his money simply, but because he 
used it nobly. 

After his various cruises in the South Seas, he 
bought for himself a plantation of four hundred 
acres of land in the Island of Upolo, in the Sa- 
moan group. Here, overlooking Apia, the capital 
and port of the island, he built a house and lived 
in it until he died. Having permanently settled 
himself, he spent his time when not writing, in 
improving his estate and in advancing the men- 
tal, moral and political conditions of the poor 
native he found living around him. He attended 
church, taught a Sunday school class, and held 
in his household family prayers daily. He died 
on the 3d of December, 1894. 

On the evening before his death, which was 
Sunday, he uttered in the presence of his family 
the following prayer which he composed for the 
occasion : "We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us 
with favor, folk of many families and nations 
gathered together in the peace of this roof, weak 
women, and women subsisting under the covert 
of Thy patience, be patient still; suffer us yet 
awhile longer; with our broken purposes of 
good, with our idle endeavors against evil, suffer 



SAN FRANCISCO AND STEVENSON 263 

us awhile longer to endure and (if it may be) 
help us to do better. Bless to us our extraord- 
inary mercies ; if the day conies when these must 
be taken, brace us to play the man under af- 
fliction. Be with our friends, be with ourselves. 
Go with each of us to rest ; if any awake temper 
to them the dark hours of watching; and when 
the day returns, return to us, our Sun and Com- 
forter, and call us with morning faces and with 
morning hearts — eager to labor; eager to be 
happy, if happiness shall be our portion — and if 
the day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure 
it. We thank Thee and praise Thee; and in 
words of Him to whom this day is sacred, close 
our oblation.-' 

By his own direction he was buried on the 
Summit of Vaea near his island home, and after 
the Samoan fashion, a large tomb was built above 
his grave. On either side of the tomb there is a 
bronze plate. On one of them is written his own 
requiem beneath his name thus : 

Alpha. Robert Louis Omega. 

1850. Stevenson. 1894. 

' ' Under the wide and starry sky, 
Dig the grave and let me lie; 
Glad did I live and gladly die 
And I laid me down with a will. 
This be the verse you grave for me: 
Here he lies where he longed to be; 
Home is the sailor, home from the sea, 
And the hunter home from the hill. " 



264 THE GEOGEAPHY OF GENIUS 

Stevenson profoundly believed in Foreign Mis- 
sions. In an address made to the Women's Mis- 
sionary Association and Members of the General 
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of New 
South Wales, at Sydney, March 18, 1893, he said 
at the opening of his remarks : 'I suppose I am 
in the position of many other persons. I had a 
great prejudice against missions in the South 
Seas, and I had no sooner come there than that 
prejudice was at first reduced and at last anni- 
hilated. Those who deblaterate against missions 
have only one thing to do, to come and see them 
on the spot. They will see a great deal of good 
done; they will see a race being forwarded in 
many different directions, and I believe if they be 
honest persons, they will cease to complain of 
mission work and its effects. 

The true are of the missionary, as it seems to 
me, an outsider, the most lay of laymen, and for 
that reason, on the old principle that the by- 
stander sees most of the game, perhaps more than 
usually well able to judge — is to profit by the 
great, I ought really to say the vast — amount of 
moral force reservoired in every race, and to 
change and to fit that power to new ideas, and to 
new possibilities of advancement.' " 

Mrs. Stevenson, in the introduction to a little 
book entitled "Prayers Written at Vailima, by 
Robert Louis Stevenson," says : "As soon as our 
household had fallen into a regular routine, and 



\ SAN FRANCISCO AND STEVENSON 265 

tLe bonds of Samoa's life began to draw us more 
closely together, Susitala (the name the natives 
gare to Robert Louis Stevenson) felt the neces- 
sity of including our retainers (servants) in our 
evening devotions. I suppose ours was the only 
white man's family in all Samoa except those of 
the missionaries, where the day naturally ended 
with this homely, patriarchal custom.'' 

"With my husband," continues Mrs. Stevenson, 
"prayer, the direct appeal, was a necessity. 
When he was happy he felt impelled to offer 
thanks for undeserved joy; when in sorrow or 
pain, to call for strength to bear what must be 
borne." 

One of the most beautiful of Stevenson's 
prayers is as follows : 

"Lord, behold our family here assembled, we 
thank Thee for this place in which we dwell ; for 
the love that unites us; for the peace accorded 
us this day ; for the hope with which we expect 
to-morrow; for the health, the work, the food, 
and the bright skies, that make our lives delight- 
ful; for our friends in all parts of the earth, 
and friendly helpers in this foreign isle. Let 
peace abound in our small company. Purge out 
of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace 
and strength to forbear and to persevere. Of- 
fenders, give us the grace to accept and to forgive 
offenders. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear 
cheerfully the forgetfulness of others. Give us 



266 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to 
us our friends ; soften to us our enemies. Bless 
us if it may be in all our innocent endeavors. If 
it may not, give us the strength to encounter 
that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, 
constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath and 
in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates 
of death, loyal and loving one to another. As the 
clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, 
as children to* their sire, we beseech of Thee this 
help and mercy for Christ's sake." 

That one with such wealth of mind and heart 
should have lit up the South Seas with a new 
light is not strange. Pilgrims in the years to 
come will climb that lonely hill above his home 
in the island of Upola where he sleeps, the last 
sleep, to stand again amid the scenes of his clos- 
ing years. 



CHAPTEK XXIII 

IN THE COUNTRY OF WHITTIER AND 
WHITEFIELD 

EARLY one morning Mr. S. M. Kennard and 
myself left his home in Magnolia to make 
a pilgrimage of love to Whit-tier's country. 
We spent the day in Newburyport and Ames- 
bury. We called on Rev. Dr. Hovey, the pastor 
of the old South Church. We rode in a carriage 
from "Joppa Flats to Grasshopper Plains. " 

We saw the ancient house of Lord Timothy 
Dexter, who made in his day wooden statues of 
the great men of his time, and stationed them 
upon the posts of his fence and greeted them by 
name as he passed them in leaving his home for 
his place of business. The man who made a for- 
tune out of warming pans, which he shipped to 
the West Indies, and who, late in life, had a mock 
funeral, when a grand oration was delivered in 
his honor, and who, before the occasion ended, 
whipped his wife because, in his esteem, she did 
not seem sufficiently heartbroken to shed as 
many tears as he thought she ought. 

We saw the old elms and the old mansions of 
what we united in thinking the most quaint and 

267 



268 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

beautiful old out-of-the-way town in all New 
England. 

Amesbury, where Whittier lived and where 
his house still stands, is almost a suburb of New- 
buryport, where Whitefield died and is buried. 
There is a continuous town along a beautiful 
roadAvay, over the chain bridge across the Merri- 
mac River, and by the picturesque home of Mrs. 
Harriet Prescott Spofford on Deer Island, from 
the larger Newburyport to its suburb, made 
famous by one of America's most loved poets. 

This whole region has been idealized by Whit- 
tier, so that the country one visits here now, is 
really Whittier's country, just as Scotland is Sir 
Walter Scott's country. Over it all, Whittier 
has thrown the color of his own imagination, and 
given to it an eternal mental existence. Whit- 
tier, through sympathy and appreciation, appro- 
priated the land, not a from Dan to Beersheba," 
but in reality" from Joppa Flats to Grasshopper 
Plains," as the natives here say. 

The Merrimac Eiver, the great elm trees, 
which stand along the streets of the towns and 
the roads between, the hills which rise and fall 
over the green plains ; the boulders and granite 
blocks left scattered about after creation, all of 
these are Whittier's. He was not satisfied with 
making his own miles of country which border 
the ever-tumbling sea in this neighborhood, but 



THE COUNTKY OF WHITTIER 269 

with pardonable poetic covetousness, he lent 
an aspect of mystery and wonder to his estate, 
to many leagues far out into the ocean, the 
blue water, too. So that both ocean and shore 
in this part of New England, all belong to John 
Greenleaf Whittier, the Quaker poet, and the 
lover of his fellow man. 

The curious, old-time dwelling places, with 
their Yankee inmates, have been touched by 
Whittier's thought, and somehow made to remind 
one of the poet's gentle spirit. By living here he 
has increased the value of every acre of its soil. 
Everything in the realm breathed upon by his 
genius has caught something of the significance 
and worth genius lends to things. 

A leaf from a tree in Whittier's country, sent 
in a letter to a friend, is treasured and kept. A 
very pebble, worn round by the waves, in Whit- 
tier's country, is thought of sufficient value to be 
placed in the family cabinet of curios. A picture 
of his house, or of the church he attended, or of 
the tree where he carved his name when a boy, or 
of any object with which he was associated com- 
mands a price everywhere. Earth, roads, gates, 
sea, stones, grass, sheep, everything in the com- 
munity about Newburyport has passed through 
the verse of Whittier, from the realm of matter 
into the realm of thought. He eternalized his 



270 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

native home by putting upon it the eternal stamp 
of genius. 

The Methodist evangelist, George Whitefield, 
came, after preaching in the open air two hours 
at Exeter, N. H., to Newburyport, in the after- 
noon of September 29, 1770, where he was to 
preach the next day. But he was seized, dur- 
ing the night with asthma and died on Sunday 
morning, September 30. He was buried in the 
old South Church and his bones may be seen in 
the crypt. His funeral was observed in many 
parts of the country and a sermon in honor of 
his memory was preached in London by John 
Wesley. Thus we see that the great evangelist 
spent only one night in the town of Newburyport. 
That was enough, says Whittier, to "hallow the 
ancient town." The coming of Whitefield to 
Newburyport and his death and burial in the old 
South Church there, called forth one of the most 
beautiful and characteristic of Whittier's poems, 
that one entitled "The Preacher." 

At first the poet describes the old sea-blown 
town of Newburyport : 

Its windows flashing to the sky, 
Beneath a thousand roofs of brown, 
Far down the vale, my friend and I 
Beheld the old and quiet town; 
The ghostly sails that out at sea 
Flapped their white wings of mystery; 



THE COUNTRY OF WHITTIER 271 

The beaches glimmering in the sun, 
And the low wooded capes that run 
Into the sea mist north and south; 
The sand-bluffs at the river 's mouth; 
Tne swinging chain-bridge, and, afar, 
The foam line of the harbor-bar. 

Over the woods and meadowlands 

A crimson-tinted shadow lay, 

Of clouds through which the setting day 

Flung a slant glory far away. 

It glittered on the wet sea sands, 

It flamed upon the city's panes, 

Smote the white sails of ships that wore 

Outward or in, and gilded o 'er 

The steeples with their veering vanes! 

Awhile my friend with rapid search 

O'er ran the landscape. " Yonder spire 

Over gray roofs, a shaft of fire: 

What is it, pray?"— "The Whitefield Church! 

Walled about by its basement stones, 

There rest the marvelous prophet's bones." 

Then as our homeward way we walked, 

Of the great preacher's life we talked; 

And through the mystery of our theme 

The outward glory seemed to stream 

And nature's self interpreted 

The record of the dead. 

Here Whittier introduces Jonathan Edwards, 
preaching in Northampton and working and 
waiting for a revival. He represents Edwards 

"Waiting long to hear 
The sound of the Spirit drawing near." 



272 THE GEOGKAPHY OF GENIUS 

The great New England metaphysician and 
marvelous preacher of the Gospel had, by prayer, 
and visiting from house to house among his flock, 
prepared the people until : 

' ' Hearts are like wax in the furnace ; who 
Shall mould, and shape, and cast them anew? 
Lo! by the Merrimac Whitefield stands 
In the temple that never was made by hands — 
Curtains of azure, and crystal wall, 
And dome of the sunshine over all — 
A homeless pilgrim, with dubious name, 
Blown about on the winds of fame; 
Now as an angel of blessing classed, 
And now as a mad enthusiast. 
Called in his youth to sound and gauge 
The moral lapse of his race and age, 
And sharp as truth the contrast draw 
Of human frailty and perfect law; 
Possessed by the one dread thought that lent 
Its good to his fiery temperament, 
Up and down the world he went, 
As John the Baptist crying, repent! 

1 ' And the hearts of the people where he passed 
Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast, 
Under the spell of a voice which took 
In its compass the flow of Silva's brook, 
And the mystical chimes of the bells of golds 
On the ephod's hem of the priest of old — 
Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe 
Of the trumpet heard in the mount of law, 

A solemn fear on the listening crowd 
Fell like the shadow of a cloud. 
The sailor reeling from out the ships 
Whose masts stood thick in the river-slips 
Felt the jest and the curse die on his lips. 
Listened the fisherman rude and hard, 



THE COUNTRY OF WHITTIER 273 

The ealker rough from the builder's yard; 
The man of the market left his load, 
The teamster leaned on his bending goad; 
The maiden, and youth beside her, felt 
Their hearts in a closer union melt, 
And saw the flowers of their love in bloom 
Down the endless vistas of life to come. 
Old Age sat feebly brushing away 
From his ears the scanty locks of gray; 
And careless boyhood, living the free, 
Unconscious life of bird and tree, 
Suddenly wakened to a sense 
Of sin and its guilty consequence. 
It was as if an angel's voice 
Called the listeners up for their final choice; 
As if a strong hand rent apart 
The veils of sense from soul and heart, 
Showing in light ineffable 
The joys of heaven and woes of hell! 
All about in the misty air 
The hills seemed kneeling in silent prayer; 
The rustle of leaves, the moaning sedge, 
The water's lap on its gravelled edge, 
The wailing pines, and, far and faint, 
The wood-dove's note of sad complaint, — • 
To the solemn voice of the preacher lent 
An undertone as of low lament; 
And the roll of the sea from its sandy coast, 
On the easterly wind, now heard, now lost, 
Seemed the murmurous sound of the judgment host." 

After describing the effects of the great revival 
Whittier closes this wonderful poem on White- 
field in the following beautiful words: 

1 * Under the church of Federal Street, 
Under the tread of its Sabbath feet, 
Walled about by its basement stones, 



274 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

Lie the marvelous preacher's bones. 

No saintly honors to them are shown, 

No sign nor miracle have they known; 

But he who passes the ancient church, 

Stops in the shade of its belfry porch 

And ponders the wonderful life of him 

"Who lies at rest in that charnel dim. 

Long shall the traveler strain his eye 

From the railroad cars, as it plunges by, 

And the vanishing town behind him search 

For the slender spire of the Whitefield church; 

And feel for one moment the ghosts of trade, 

And fashion, and folly, and pleasure laid, 

By the thought of that life of pure intent, 

That voice of warning yet eloquent, 

Of one on the errands of angels sent. 

And if where he labored the flood of sin 

Like a tide from the harbor-bar sets in, 

And over a life of time and sense 

The church spires lift their vain defense. 

Still, as the gem of its civic crown, 

Precious beyond the world's renown, 

His memory hallows the ancient town." 

At the age of fifteen, Whitefield was employed 
by his brother to serve ale behind the counter at 
the Bell Inn. It was remarkable that the first 
money he earned he devoted to the purchase of 
the "Manual for Winchester Scholars," by the 
saintly Bishop Ken, and even when he was a com- 
mon drawer of beer he spent his intervals of leis- 
ure reading romances, which he exchanged for a 
time for the devotional pages of Thomas a 
Kempis, and busied himself also with the compo- 
sition of several sermons. It is very clear that 



THE COUNTRY OF WHITTIER 275 

the whole bent of his being was toward preach- 
ing. 

After his entrance as a servitor or domestic 
at Pembroke College, he heard of the band of 
young students at Oxford, who, like himself, 
were striving to live by rule and method, and 
after an interview with Charles Wesley he be- 
came a member of the Holy Club. John Wesley 
organized the evangelical movement, in the 
Eighteenth Century, Charles Wesley was its 
hymn writer, and George Whitefield was its 
preacher. He was the first to engage in open-air 
preaching. The first service of this kind he ever 
held was in Bristol, where he preached to a com- 
pany of two hundred, who were impelled by 
curiosity to hear him. It was a good show to see 
a clergyman in gown and cassock declaiming in 
the open air like a Merry Andrew, but Whitefield 
felt that the ice was broken, and while the step 
he had taken shut the doors of the Bristol Church 
upon his as an unlicensed preacher, who had 
disgraced the cloth, he had crossed the Rubicon 
and found himself in the possession of new pow- 
ers. 

It is said that while he stood in the open air 
addressing that crowd of smutty-faced, rude 
miners, he felt that the prophet's mantle had in 
truth fallen upon him. All his wonderful gifts 
of appeal, persuasion and exaltation were mani- 



276 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

fested in their full strength and splendor, and 
soon thousands thronged to hear him, and they 
were spellbound as if by a magician's wand. 
When he pleaded with these vast multitudes in 
the fields for his Savannah Orphanage, it is said 
his hat came back so full of coins that he had to 
ask for assistance to hold it. 

The Rev. Dr. Gillis, a cotemporary college di- 
vine, says of Whitefield, that he was graceful and 
well-proportioned ; his stature was rather above 
the middle size; his complexion was very fair; 
his eyes were of a dark blue and small but 
sprightly; he had a squint on one of them, oc- 
casioned either by the ignorance or carelessness 
of the nurse who attended him with measles 
when he was about four years old; his features 
were generally good and regular; his counte- 
nance was manly, and his voice exceeding strong, 
but both were softened by an uncommon degree 
of sweetness. He was always very clean and 
neat, and often said pleasantly that a minister 
of the gospel ought to be without spot. His de- 
portment was easy, without the least stiffness or 
formality, and his engaging polite manners made 
his company unusually agreeable. He was able 
to cast a spell over audiences, affecting not only 
the ignorant but also the educated and refined. 



THE COUNTEY OF WHITTIER 277 

The wife of Jonathan Edwards said of him, 
that his voice was deep-toned and yet so clear 
and melodious that he speaks from a heart all 
aglow with love, and pours out a torrent of elo- 
quence almost irresistible, 

As a preacher, I suppose that Whitefield im- 
pressed the world of his day more than any other 
living minister. He could be distinctly heard in 
the open air by twenty thousand persons at once, 
and was accustomed to speak in the compass of a 
single week as many as forty hours, and he kept 
this up for years. I suppose it may be safely said 
that his voice was heard by more persons during 
the period of his active career than by any other 
man of his day. Something of his force may be 
understood by the tremendous impression he 
made upon the people. He excited more opposi- 
tion by far than did John Wesley or any of the 
preachers associated with him. Cowper says of 
him: 

' ' Assailed by scandal and the tongue of strife, 
His only answer was a blameless life. ' ' 

Sir James Stephen, in his essays of Ecclesi- 
astical Biography," says: "If ever fellowship 
burned in the human heart with a pure and in- 
tense flame, impressing the whole family of man, 
in a spirit of universal charity, it was in the 
heart of George Whitefield. He loved the world 
that hated him." 



278 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

The Arabians have a proverb which says : "He 
is the best orator that can turn men's eyes into 
tears." Whitefield had the peculiar faculty of 
so dramatizing his speech that it seemed to move 
and walk before the eyes of his hearers. He was 
accustomed to draw such vivid pictures of the 
things he was handling that his hearers could be- 
lieve that they actually saw and heard them. 

Isaac Taylor, one of the greatest writers of his 
time, says that Whitefield must be allowed to 
occupy the luminous center upon the field of 
Methodism. W. E. H. Lecky, in his History of 
England, declares that Whitefield lived perpetu- 
ally in the sight of eternity, and that a desire to 
save souls was the single passion of his life. 
Praxton Hood calls him the Orpheus of the pul- 
pit. Orpheus, we have been told, by the power of 
his music drew trees, stones, frozen mountain 
tops, and caused the floods to bow to his melody ; 
and so, Whitefield, by the power of his gospel 
caused a change to pass over the natures of stock- 
ish, hard men, full of rage and fury, as they came 
under his spell. 

In 1749 the Countess of Huntington opened 
her noble mansion in Park Street, London, as a 
preaching place, and appointed Whitefield her 
domestic chaplain. Here he met many of the dis- 
tinguished people of his day, such as William 
Pitt, the great commoner, Lord North, the Earl 



THE COUNTRY OF WHITTIER 279 

of Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, Viscount Bolen- 
broke, Frederick, Prince of Wales, Sarah, Duch- 
ess of Marlborough, and other leaders in politics 
and in society. While most of them came and 
went with seemingly no permanent change of 
character, two Scottish noblemen, the Earl of 
Buchan and the Marquis of Lothian, were ex- 
ceptions. 

Horace Walpole heard him here and said: 
"The Methodists love your big sinners, and in- 
deed they have a plentiful harvest." Henry 
Fielding, in his earliest novel, "Joseph An- 
drews," published in 1742, makes his character of 
Parson Adams proclaim himself as utterly op- 
posed to "Whitefield's" enthusiasm, saying, 
"None but the devil himself could have the confi- 
dence to preach his doctrine of faith." 

Whitefield made his first visit to New England 
in 1740. The effect of his preaching at Boston 
is described as extraordinary. The effect upon 
Harvard College was powerful and lasting. "At 
Cambridge," writes Dr. Coleman, a Boston 
clergyman, in a letter to Whitefield, "college is 
entirely changed. The students are full of God, 
and will, I hope, come out blessings in their gen- 
eration, and I trust now are so to each other. 
Many of them are now, we think, truly born 
again, and several of them happy instruments of 
conversion to their fellows. The voice of prayer 



280 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

and praise fill their chambers, and sincerity, 
fervor and love and seriousness of heart sit visi- 
bly on their faces. I was told yesterday that not 
seven out of one hundred remain unaffected." 

A similar effect attended his preaching at Yale 
College in New Haven. He was welcomed in 
North Hampton by Jonathan Edwards, and he 
records in his diary his impressions of this visit. 
He says, "On the Sabbath felt wonderful satis- 
faction in being at the house of Mr. Edwards. 
He is a son himself, and hath also a daughter of 
Abraham for his wife. A sweeter couple I have 
not seen. Their children were dressed not in 
silks and satins, but plain as becomes the chil- 
dren of those who in all things ought to be ex- 
amples of Christian simplicity. She is a woman 
adorned with a meek and quiet spirit, and talks 
so feelingly and so solidly of the things of God, 
and seems to be such a helpmeet to her husband 
that she caused me to renew those prayers, which 
for some months I have put up to God that He 
would send me a daughter of Abraham to be my 
wife." 

The college finally located at Princeton, New 
Jersey, in the year 1757, now known as Princeton 
University, has many associations of Whitefield, 
'Who received from it an honorary degree. Nas- 
sau Hall, the acorn cup which held the oak of 
Princeton University, received a Methodist bap- 



THE COUNTRY OF WHITTIER 281 



tism at its birth. Not only did Whitefield in- 
spire and encourage its leaders, but the Method- 
ists ia England gave it funds, and one of its 
presidents, Davies, was a correspondent of 
Whitefield, honoring him as a restorer of the true 
faith. Dortmouth College had a similar origin. 
In its beginning, it was nourished by funds con- 
tributed by English Methodists. 

Whitefield, in prosecuting his evangelical la- 
bors, crossed the Atlantic thirteen times. To his 
zeal and marvelous eloquence various religious 
bodies owe their later religious life and earnest- 
ness. The Congregational churches of New Eng- 
land, Presbyterian of the Middle States, and the 
Baptist of the South were alike quickened by this 
apostolic man. Though he did not organize his 
labors in the New World, he prepared the way 
for the coming of Wesley's itinerancy at a later 
time. 

The last sermon that Whitefield ever preached 
in the open air was at Exeter, Mass., from this 
text : "Examine yourself s, whether ye be in the 
faith, prove your own selves ; know ye not your 
own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you, ex- 
cept ye be reprobates." After preaching at 
Exeter he rode on to Newburyport with his 
friend, Jonathan Parsons, at whose house, close 
by the church, he was wont to stay. In the eve- 



282 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

ning, people, having learned that he had come to 
the town, gathered around Jonathan Parson's 
house that he might speak to them a few words. 
He stood with a candle in his hand on the door- 
step and spoke earnestly to them regarding eter- 
nal salvation, until the candle almost burned 
away, then he withdrew and ascended to his bed- 
chamber until six o'clock the next morning. His 
last act before going to bed had been to read from 
the Bible and a volume of Watts' Hymns. 

Benjamin Franklin heartily acknowledged 
how beneficial had been the influence of White- 
field upon society at large, and John Wesley 
asked : "Have we read or heard of anyone who 
has been the blessed instrument of bringing so 
many sinners from darkness to light and from 
the power of Satan unto God?" 

The qualities that made George Whitefield the 
greatest preacher of his time were simplicity, di- 
rectness, marvelous descriptive power, earnest- 
ness, pathos, action, voice and fluency, and these 
qualities, according to Dr. Ryle, the Bishop of 
Liverpool, he possessed in unrivaled combina- 
tion. When Whitefield appealed to audiences it 
was soul speaking to soul. Some one has said 
that Whitefield was the soul of the evangelical 
movement, John Wesley was its system, and 
Charles Wesley was its song. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

WINTER DAYS IN THE DREAMLAND OF 
FLORIDA 

AN interesting thing about Florida is that it 
is made up of many states piled one above 
the other. The first layer of this dream- 
land region is Spanish. A journey to the Span- 
ish slice of Florida is like a visit to Seville, Gran- 
ada, Valencia, Barcelona, Toledo, Cordova, and 
Madrid. This layer of Florida is made signifi- 
cant by association with Columbus, who discov- 
ered America, with Juan Ponce de Leon, who dis- 
covered Florida and who accompanied Columbus 
on his second voyage to America, and with Fer- 
nando De Soto, who first attempted the conquest 
of Florida. 

Next we have a Huguenot Florida, associated 
with Captain Jean Ribaut, who came here with 
Laudonnier in 1564. Then, above this, we have 
another Spanish Florida, associated with Pedro 
Memendez, who settled St. Augustine in 1565. 
Next, an Indian layer, because the Indians, under 
Saturvia, began war on the Spaniards in 1566. 
Next, again a French Florida, associated with de 

283 



284 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

Gourges, who landed in Florida to revenge the 
massacre of the French by Menendez in 1568. 

Then we have a little section of English Flor- 
ida, associated with Sir Francis Drake, who at- 
tacked St. Augustine in 1586. Next Governor 
Moore, of South Carolina, invaded Florida, and 
attacked St. Augustine in 1702. General Ogle- 
thorpe, governor of Georgia, whose private secre- 
tary was Charles Wesley, the hymn writer, at- 
tacked St. Augustine and besieged the fort in 
1740. 

Then we have again a Spanish state, associated 
with Don Alonzo Fernandez de Herrera, who 
was appointed governor of Florida in 1755, and 
who completed Fort Marion in 1756. Then we 
have a layer of English again, when Nicholas 
Turnbull brought the Minor cans to Florida and 
settled them near New Smyrna in 1767, after 
Florida had been ceded to England. Florida was 
first ceded to England in exchange for Cuba in 
1762, then in 1784 it was ceded back to Spain in 
exchange for the Bahama Islands. The Spanish 
then occupied Florida until July 12, 1821, when 
the red and yellow banner of Spain gave way to 
the Stars and Stripes of the American Union. 
Andrew Jackson, for whom Jacksonville was 
named, was appointed governor of Florida while 
it was still a territory in 1821. 



THE DREAMLAND OF FLORIDA 285 

A study of the history of the State from 1513 
down to 1919 reveals the fact that the various 
strata of the peninsula — Spanish, French, Span- 
ish, English, Spanish and American — have all 
been made out of dreams. In this part of the 
world every foreign settler has been a dreamer. 
Here men have come to secure those magical 
lights that dawn and generally fade within them. 
It is, physically, a many-colored land, vying in 
outward appearance, seemingly, with the many 
national colors which unite to make up its his- 
tory. 

According to the teachings of an ancient scrip- 
ture, it was said that to whatsoever place one 
would travel that place one's own self became. 
So all the various pilgrims to this land of adven- 
ture and dream have been converted into the 
image and likeness of the country to which they 
came to make their home. It has been said that 
every man is a Shakespeare in his dreams and 
that the dreamer of a landscape is really superior 
to a Turner who paints one, because a dreamer 
makes his trees to bend before the wind and his 
clouds to move in fleets across the sky. If this 
be true, Florida has the distinction of being as- 
sociated with more Shakespeares than any other 
region of the same size under the sun. 



286 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

The truth is, the moment we close our eyes to 
the material objects around us and get face to 
face with our thoughts and our dreams, we find 
ourselves alone with mystery and miracle. 

The entire history of Florida reads like a 
dream. I visited the house in St. Augustine once 
owned by Colonel Frederick Dent, father-in-law 
of General Ulysses S. Grant. It is now occupied 
by Mr. Arthur Barrett, a former citizen of St. 
Louis. At this place General Grant, General 
Sherman and General Sheridan once spent a day 
together on a visit to Colonel Dent, and each one 
of the three generals planted an orange tree in 
his garden. 

The most remarkable event in the history of 
Florida was the coming of Henry M. Flagler to 
the State in 1883. He was the first man to reach 
Florida who, in addition to a wealth of dreams, 
brought also millions and millions of money with 
which to convert his dreams into realities. He 
came to a land that, in the language of the poet, 
was: 

A tangled wilderness, or trackless shore, 
Unused, untrafficked, spread beneath the skies, 
This land lay, till it woke with glad surprise 
To see the long neglect of years was o 'er, 
And waste and wilderness should be no more; 
For one had come who read the future; wise 
And skilled to view the land with prophet's eyes, 
Who yielded freely, richly, of his store, 
And where undreamed of beauty slept before, 
His faith has been repaid with Paradise. 



THE DREAMLAND OF FLORIDA 287 

From far and near there comes a joyful host, 

To share the glory of the land and sea, 

While prosperous towns and fruitful groves we boast, 

His name will be remembered gratefully, 

And will not be forgotten on this coast, 

Till Time is shadowed by Eternity. 



He came there dreaming of fields to be sown, 
and he sowed them. He came dreaming of fields 
to be reaped, and he reaped them. He came 
dreaming of railways, and he planted them. 
They were all folded in the depths of his soul 
when he arrived in Florida. He appeared in 
dreamland to convert it from a swamp into a 
habitation for human beings. He was a vision- 
ary, but his visions were workable. His visions 
were startling and immense, but when they be- 
gan to flash out of his imagination into great 
hotels and cities and railroads people felt that a 
dreamer had at last come to Florida capable of 
giving to the state something from the hidden 
world of his imagination to make it blossom as 
the rose. He came to Florida with a soul full of 
palaces. He converted them into vast hostelries 
for tourists to dream his own dreams after him 
in. He seemed to be the most impractical child 
in the shape of a grown man that ever lived, be- 
cause he proposed, as a magician, to bring out of 
dreams experienced as the deeps of sleep a com- 
monwealth of beauty. 



288 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

People could not resist the impression when 
they saw him that divine realities are still 
around us and are related to us * that they await 
us ; that they beckon us to come up to them and 
sit in high places with them. He seemed to say 
to those who had lost their bearings, "You are all 
lost princes, herding obscurely on levels of life 
beneath you.' 7 He said to them : "The romance 
of your spirits are the most marvelous stories." 
He made the impression that the possible wan- 
derings of every soul were greater than any ever 
made by Ulysses of classic fame. He seemed to 
say that every man is a bird of paradise and 
should not live as a wingless outcast, huddled 
under the rocks, without hope and without in- 
spiration. 

He had come to the fountain of youth, seem- 
ingly, to teach the people that the land of im- 
mortal youth everyone might find for himself in 
the depths of his own life. He seemed to feel 
that earth can become magical and sweet to all 
who are willing to throw sweetness and light 
into it. He believed in the eternity of the spirit, 
because it was only in the light of such a belief 
that he could interpret himself to himself and 
understand how he could take the myriad images 
and dreams, pouring from the depths of his soul, 
and use them as so much raw material out of 



THE DREAMLAND OF FLORIDA 289 

which to make grounds for Wall Street to come 
every winter to play golf on. 

The first thing Mr. Flagler did to excite world- 
wide attention to himself as a dreamer and vis- 
ionary was to convert the history of Spain into 
three of the most remarkable hotels ever built on 
earth. 

Mr. Flagler was the son of a Presbyterian 
preacher, whose salary was about $400 a year. 
There is not a better place on earth in which to 
develop a dreamer than inside the home of a 
Presbyterian preacher. All the training he ever 
had at school was obtained before he was four- 
teen years old, so he left home at that age and 
walked ten miles to the town of Medina, in Ohio, 
carrying a carpet bag. At Medina he got aboard 
a freight boat on the Erie Canal and went to 
Buffalo. He arrived at the little village of Re- 
public, in Ohio, and got a position at $5 a month 
and his board in a country store, but he worked 
hard and he saved money. 

When he had accumulated a little money he 
moved to Belleville, a small place in the next 
county, and went into the grain business. John 
D. Rockefeller was then a commission merchant 
in Cleveland, and Flagler sent him a good many 
carloads of wheat, which he sold as his agent. 
He afterward went to Saginaw and tried to 



290 THE GEOGRAPHY OF GENIUS 

manufacture salt. There lie lost the little for- 
tune he had accumulated and owed about f 50,000 
to about 500 Irishmen who had been working in 
his salt factory. He borrowed enough money to 
pay his debts, and then went to Cleveland and 
engaged in the corn and produce commission 
business. John D. Rockefeller and William 
Rockefeller and Samuel Andrews had started a 
small oil refinery in Cleveland on the side of a 
hill. When the second refinery was built, in 
1867, Stephen Harkness loaned him f 100,000 to 
enter into partnership with Mr. Rockefeller and 
his associates. As other refineries sprung up 
they bought them, and in 1870 they organized the 
Standard Oil Company. 

In 1885 Mr. Flagler paid his first visit to Flor- 
ida and became impressed with the business pos- 
sibilities presented there by the railroad field in 
connection with the development of winter re- 
sorts. The State of Florida is very largely his 
creation. He not only brought the world to see 
her beauty and her resources, but he transformed 
her wilderness into towns, and placed churches 
and schools and farms where only the hunter and 
the pioneer had made their homes. 

Owing to the abuse of rich men and great cor- 
porations, the public has been led to believe that 
they are the enemies of the common people. It 
has been claimed that a man who owns $100,000,- 



THE DKEAMLAND OF FLOKIDA 291 

000 has |99,000 ? 000 which belong to the poor la- 
borers who contributed to the wealth of that rich 
man. Of course, such ideas pushed a little fur- 
ther lead to anarchism, lawlessness, a division 
of property, the destruction of all corporation 
work and Bolshevism. 

When Henry M. Flagler passed away he was 
one of the richest men in the world. He went to 
a state fit only for oranges, malaria and early 
vegetables. He built 152 miles of railroad from 
Jacksonville to Key West. One hundred and six 
miles of this was built over the ocean. The over- 
sea part of this road is the greatest triumph of 
engineering skill ever known. It spans the 
waters of the South Atlantic and reaches the 
hitherto inaccessible southernmost point of the 
nation's domain, the Gibraltar of America. 
Through his engineers and superintendents of 
construction, he went to school to the ocean, and 
the lessons learned from the sea they converted 
into arches that span the ocean for 106 miles. 

His pastor, Dr. George Ward, asked him once 
his purpose in Florida. Dr. Ward wanted to 
know what he was trying to do in Florida. He 
asked, "Is this investment or philanthropy or are 
you anxious to pose as a state builder?" "That 
is pertinent enough," replied Mr. Flagler, and he 
went on : "I believe this state is the easiest place 



292 THE GEOGBAPHY OF GENIUS 

for many men to gain a living. I do not believe 
anyone else would develop it if I do not. This 
is a safe kind of work for me to do, and I hope to 
live long enough to prove I am a good business 
man by betting a dividend on my investment." 
According to the testimony of Mr. Ward, Mr. 
Flagler one day called him into his office and 
showed him a map of Florida, with a red line 
drawn through the Keys down to Key West. 
"What do you think of that?" asked Mr. Flagler. 
"Why," answered Dr. Ward, "it looks to me like 
a very fair map of Florida. What is there unique 
about it?" "You notice that red line?" asked 
Mr. Flagler. "Yes, what is it?" "That is a rail 
road I am going to build," was Mr. Flagler's an- 
swer. "What! a railroad in that God-forsaken 
section?" "Yes." "Well," said Dr. Ward, "you 
need a guardian." 

He took a delight in overcoming difficulties. 
He was always looking for new worlds to con- 
quer. He was a very devout, regular attendant 
at the Presbyterian Church at Palm Beach. He 
was fond of a poem which reads as follows : 

Is all the beautiful and good 
Delusive and misunderstood 1 ? 
And has the soul no forward reach? 
And do indeed the facts impeach 
The theories the teachers teach? 
And is this immortality 
The child of ideality- 
Delusion or reality ? 



THE DREAMLAND OF FLORIDA 293 

And yet — at times — 

We get advice 
That seems like chimes 

From Paradise; 
The soul doth sometimes seem to be 
In sunshine which it cannot see; 
And times the spirit seems to roam 
Beyond the land, above the foam, 
Back to some half -forgotten home.