Walter H. Page

“ Mr. Mifflin, the head of the house, even formally thanked Page "for the hearty human way in which you take hold of life." Mr. Ellery Sedgwick, the present editor of the Atlantic, has described the somewhat disconcerting descent of Page upon the editorial sanctuary of James Russell Lowell:
"Were a visitant from another sphere to ask me for the incarnation of those qualities we love to call American, I should turn to a familiar gallery of my memory and point to the living portrait that hangs there of Walter Page. ”

“ Thus Page had a profound respect for a human being simply because he was a human being; the mere fact that a man, woman, or child lived and breathed, had his virtues and his failings, constituted in Page's imagination a tremendous fact. He could not wound such a living creature any more than he could wound a flower or a tree; [pg II-298] consequently he treated every person as an important member of the universe. Not infrequently, indeed, he stormed at public men, but his thunder, after all, was not very terrifying ”

“ Above all, the Democratic party in 1912 possessed one asset to which the Republicans could lay no claim—a new man, a new leader, the first statesman who had crossed its threshold since Grover Cleveland.
Like many scholarly Americans, Page had been charmed by the intellectual brilliancy of Woodrow Wilson. The utter commonplaceness of much of what passes for political thinking in this country had for years discouraged him. American political life may have possessed energy, character, even greatness ”

“ Page greatly enjoyed life in Boston and Cambridge. The Atlantic was rapidly growing in circulation and in influence, and the new friends that its editor was making were especially to his taste. He now had a family of four children, three boys and one girl—and their bringing up and education, as he said at this time, constituted his real occupation. So far as he could see, in the summer of 1899, he was permanently established in life. But larger events in the publishing world now again pulled him back to New York. ”

“ All wealth is the creation of man, and he creates it only in proportion to the trained uses of the community; and the more men we train the more wealth everyone may create.
"I believe in the perpetual regeneration of society, and in the immortality of democracy and in growth everlasting."
Thus Page nailed his theses upon the door of his native state, and mighty was the reverberation. In a few weeks Page's Greensboro address had made its way all over the Southern States, and his melancholy figure, "the forgotten man" had become part of the indelible imagery of the Southern people. ”

“ He has not breathed a spirit into the people: he has encouraged them to supineness. He is not a leader, but rather a stubborn phrasemaker.
And now events and the aroused people seem to have brought the President to the necessary point of action; and even now he may act timidly.
"One thing pleases me," Page wrote to his son Arthur, "I never lost faith in the American people. It is now clear that I was right in feeling that they would have gladly come in any time after the Lusitania crime. Middle West in the front, and that the German hasn't made any real impression on the American nation. ”

“ Merely from the standpoint of geography, Page's achievement had been an important one; how many Americans, at the age of twenty-eight, have such an extensive mileage to their credit? Page had spent his childhood—and his childhood only—in North Carolina; he had passed his youth in Virginia and Maryland; before he was twenty-three he had lived several months in Germany, and, on his return voyage, he had sailed by the white cliffs of England, and, [pg I-36] from the deck of his steamer, had caught glimpses of that Isle of Wight which then held his youthful favourite Tennyson. ”

“ CHAPTER II JOURNALISM I
The five years from 1878 to 1883 Page spent in various places, engaged, for the larger part of the time, in several kinds of journalistic work. It was his period of struggle and of preparation. Like many American public men he served a brief apprenticeship—in his case, a very brief one—as a pedagogue. In the autumn of 1878 he went to Louisville, Kentucky, and taught English for a year at the Boys' High School. But he presently found an occupation in this progressive city which proved far more absorbing. ”

“ Page said "Good morning" to his doorman with the same deference that he showed to Sir Edward Grey, and there was not a little stenographer in the building whose joys and sorrows did not arouse in him the most friendly interest. Some of the most affecting letters written about Page, indeed, have come from these daily associates of more humble station. "We so often speak of Mr. Page," writes one of the Embassy staff—"Findlater, Short, and Frederick"—these were all English servants at the Embassy ”

“ He believed that his country was now face to face with its destiny. What would Washington do?
Page had a characteristic way of thinking out his problems. He performed his routine work at the Chancery in the daytime, but his really serious thinking he did in his own room at night. The picture is still a vivid one in the recollection of his family and his other intimates. Even at this time Page's health was not good, yet he frequently spent the evening at his office in Grosvenor [pg II-4] Gardens, and when the long day's labours were finished, he would walk rather wearily to his home at No. ”

“ Politicians were awarded the presidency and the professorships as [pg I-19] political pap, and the resources of the place, in money and books, were scattered to the wind. Page had therefore to find his education elsewhere. The deep religious feelings of his family quickly settled this point. The young man promptly betook himself to the backwoods of North Carolina and knocked at the doors of Trinity College, a Methodist Institution then located in Randolph County. ”

“ Buttrick first met Knapp, however, there were few indications of this splendid future. He brought Dr. Knapp North and exhibited him to Page. This was precisely the kind of man who appealed to Page's sympathies. His mind was always keenly on the scent for the new man—the original thinker who had some practical plan for uplifting humankind and making life more worth while. And Dr. Knapp's mission was one that had filled most of his thoughts for many years; its real purpose was the enrichment of country life. Page therefore took to Dr. Knapp with a mighty zest. He supported him on all occasions ”

“ This distinguished scholar—a fine figure with an imperial beard that suggested the Confederate officer—used to have Page to tea at least twice a week and at these meetings the young man was first introduced in an understanding [pg I-23] way to Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and the other writers who became the literary passions of his maturer life. And Price did even more for Page; he passed him on to another place and to another teacher who extended his horizon. Up to the autumn of 1876 Page had never gone farther North than Ashland ”

“ To solicit contributions would have seemed an entirely undignified proceeding; in all cases contributors must come to him. According to Page, however, "an editor must know men and be out among men." His system of "making up" the magazine at first somewhat astounded his associates. A month or two in advance of publication day he would draw up his table of contents. ”

“ He found that the atmosphere had materially changed since he had last been in the British capital; when he had left for Sandwich there had been a general expectation that the Germans would get Paris or the Channel ports; now, however, there was every confidence of victory. Greatly as Page rejoiced over the new prospect, however, the fight at Belleau Wood brought him his last great sorrow. His nephew, Allison M. Page, of Aberdeen, North Carolina, the son of his youngest brother, Frank, lost his life in that engagement. At first the young man was reported "missing" ”

“ But even the education which these institutions gave was inferior. Page told his North Carolina audience that the University of which they were so proud did not rank with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and other universities of the North. The state had not produced great scholars nor established great libraries. In the estimation of publishers North Carolina was unimportant as a book market. ”

“ As soon as the two men definitely decided not to assume the Harper responsibility, therefore, they joined forces and founded the firm of Doubleday, Page & Company. Page now had the opportunity which he had long wished for; the mere editing of magazines, even magazines of such an eminent character as the Forum and the Atlantic Monthly, could hardly satisfy his ambition; he yearned to possess something which he could call his own, at least in part.
The life of an editor has its unsatisfactory aspect, unless the editor himself has an influential ownership in his periodical. ”

“ He has no real companions. Nobody talks to him freely and frankly. I've never known quite such a condition in American life." Perhaps the President had no desire to discuss inconvenient matters with his Ambassador to Great Britain, but Page was certainly determined to have an interview with the President. "I'm not going back to London," he wrote Mr. Laughlin, "till the President has said something to me or at least till I have said something to him. I am now going down to Garden City and New York till the President send for me ”

“ Messrs. Doubleday and McClure, able as they were, would need the help of the best talent available in the work that lay ahead. The first man to whom they turned was Page, who presently left Boston and took up his business abode at Franklin Square. The rumble of the elevated road was somewhat distracting after the four quiet years in Park Street, but the new daily routine was not lacking in interest. The Harper experiment, however, did not end as Mr. Morgan had hoped. After a few months Messrs. Doubleday, Page and McClure withdrew, and left the work of rescue [pg I-66] to be performed by Mr. ”

“ Sir Walter left London on March the 16th to take the Egypt at Marseilles. He stayed in London for a couple of days before he left and worked hard at the office putting in page headings on the latest proofs which had just come in from the Clarendon Press. We had to take a hurried lunch. Sir Walter liked a good meal to the accompaniment of beer. I suggested a tavern near Oxford Circus identified with the male domestic fowl. There is an excellent dining-room over the main bar. The food is as good as is procurable anywhere in London. ”

“ There was talk of a large map of France to go into a pocket at the end of the book. Some sort of a map was necessary to illustrate the chapter dealing with the early days in France from Mons to Ypres. “I am still in favour of the one page map wherever possible—and I hate the pocket business. Map-makers care nothing about books. A book with a pocket is not a book.... The chart-makers who are admirable want a book to help the maps. I want maps to help the book. If stuff is good to read you don’t break it off repeatedly to look up places on a map.” ”

“ With Page Baker, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Times Democrat, he formed a salutary and enduring friendship. The very difference in character between the two seems to have made the bond all the more enduring. Page Baker was a man of great business capacity, and at the same time keen discrimination in literary affairs. From the first he conceived the highest opinion of Hearn's literary ability. However fantastic or out-of-the-way his contributions to the columns of the Times Democrat, they were always inserted without elision. ”

“ Finally, overcome by impatience, the author wrote to ascertain what had become of it, and shortly afterward he received a proof of it. With its publication in 1884 came instant popularity.
But at no time previous to his moving to Washington was literature first in Page's mind. In the beginning, at Richmond, he wrote only at night, when his day's work was done; and for a time he actually ceased writing fiction entirely lest it might interfere with the practice of his profession. For, as a matter of fact, he has been a very successful lawyer. ”

“ I must tell you when we meet.... The latter [2] is wonderful on any period or any incident, shake the tree and a plum falls off.... Brancker is as gay as a lark.”
Chapter VIII was finished at last and Sir Walter’s life-work was nearing completion. The next effort was revision. This effort was almost as worrying as the original writing. The records are often contradictory and sometimes a whole day was spent trying to check some small fact which eventually was cut out of the book.
Perhaps the greatest trouble when revising was given by the question of wireless. Sir Walter was a man of letters. ”

“ Page said, after a few moments' silence, 'to purchase the Sparrow-hawk for my son, and start him in business as a steam-trawler owner. Perhaps it would be well if I introduced you to him at once.'
'I shall be proud to make the young gentleman's acquaintance. I am not a man to boast, sir; but if any one can produce a man that knows more about North Sea fishing than I do, I'm a Dutchman.'
'Charlie!' Mr. Page called out loudly, and in walked from the conservatory Charlie, Ping Wang, and Fred. ”