My Unknown Chum

CONTENTS

• FOREWORD
• SKETCHES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL
• A PASSAGE ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
• LONDON
• ANTWERP AND BRUSSELS
• GENOA AND FLORENCE
• ANCIENT ROME
• MODERN ROME
• ROME TO MARSEILLES
• MARSEILLES, LYONS, AND AIX IN SAVOY
• AIX TO PARIS
• PARIS
• PARIS—THE LOUVRE AND ART
• NAPOLEON THE THIRD
• THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOREIGN TRAVEL
• PARIS TO BOULOGNE
• LONDON
• ESSAYS
• STREET LIFE
• HARD UP IN PARIS
• THE OLD CORNER
• SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF THEATRE ALLEY
• THE OLD CATHEDRAL
• THE PHILOSOPHY OF SUFFERING
• BOYHOOD AND BOYS
• JOSEPHINE—GIRLHOOD AND GIRLS
• SHAKESPEARE AND HIS COMMENTATORS
• MEMORIALS OF MRS. GRUNDY
• THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
• BEHIND THE SCENES
• THE PHILOSOPHY OF CANT

FOREWORD

_Life is too short for reading inferior books._

_Bryce._

In 1878 a letter of introduction to Mr. S—— of Detroit was instrumental
in securing for me the close friendship of a man some twenty years my
senior—a man of unusual poise of mind and of such superb character that
I have ever looked upon him as a perfect type of Newman’s ideal
gentleman.

My new friend was fond of all that is best in art and literature. His
pet possession, however, was an old book long out of print—"Aguecheek."
He spoke to me of its classic charm and of the recurring pleasure he
found in reading and rereading the delightful pages of its unknown
author, who saw in travel, in art, in literature, in life and humanity,
much that other travellers and other writers and scholars had failed to
observe—seeing all with a purity of vision, a clearness of intellect,
and recording it with a grace and ease of phrase that suggest that he
himself had perhaps been taught by the Angelic Doctor referred to in the
closing lines of his last essay.

A proffered loan of the book was eagerly accepted. Though still in my
teens, I soon became a convert to all that my cultured friend had said
in its praise.

With the aid of a Murray Street dealer in old books, I was fortunate
enough to get a copy for myself. I read it again and again. Obliged to
travel much, I was rarely without its companionship; for I knew that if
other reading-matter proved uninteresting, I could always find some new
conversational charm in the views and words of the World-Conversant
Author.

Fearing that I weighed the merits of the work with a mental scale
wanting in balance, I asked others what they thought of it. Much to my
surprise, they had never even heard of it. In fact, in these thirty-four
years I have found but three persons who knew the book at all. Recently
at The Players I asked Mr. Evert Jansen Wendell if he knew "Aguecheek."
"Why," said he, "it was in my hands only yesterday. It is in my
library—my dramatic library." The late John E. Grote Higgens, President
of the St. George Society, knew its interesting pages well; and it is, I
am assured, a "prized unit" in the library of His Eminence Cardinal
Farley.

I lent my copy to young and old, to men and women of various professions
and to friends in the world of commerce. The opinion of all might be
summed up in the appreciation of a well-known Monsignor—himself an
observant traveller and an ardent lover of "real" literature. Returning
the book, he said, "I have read it with the greatest of pleasure, and
have turned to it often. I could read it a hundred times. It is a great
book. Its fine humor, its depth, its simplicity and high ideals, commend
it to all, especially the highly educated—the scholar."

Charles B. Fairbanks is the reputed author, but the records show that he
died in 1859, when but thirty-two years old—an age that the text
repeatedly discredits. Whether written by Mr. Fairbanks or not, the
modest author hid his identity in an obscure pen-name that he might thus
be free to make his book "his heart in other men’s hands."

My Unknown Chum