People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1897 — BRYAN AND HIS BOOK [ARTICLE]

BRYAN AND HIS BOOK

IN LITERATURE, AS IN POLITICS, HE IS A BUBY MAN. A Peep Into His Workshop—Mrs. Bryan Sits on -One Side of the Table, He on the Other—His Book Coming on Slowly. Story of His Dally Life. William J. Bryan is engaged just at present in writing a book. He is the literary man just now, not the orator, and there is a difference. Bryan in his workshop looks the literary man—the literary man that you read about, the man whose thoughts run to his ink well rather than to his coat. Bryan has not had his hair cut for some time. It is not heavy on the top of his head, but about his ears it falls very long, with a manifest tendency to curl. His faoe takes to Itself the darkening shades of an ambitions beard in a single day, but he does not take time to shave every day. William J. Bryan is a workingman just now—not that this is anything new, for he is one of those people so peculiarly constituted that he seems to enjoy work. During the late campaign Bryan’s smile became famous. Many thought that it was only a candidate’s affectation, but they were wrong. Bryan’s campaign smile was not a oampaign storm coat, to be thrown off after the rain, it was simply—William J. Bryan. He smiles all alone in his library over columns of uncorrooted proof. During the oampaign Bryan underwent a strain that no other candidate for the office of president had ever undergone before. •He worked himself out until the oarpers all said that he would collapse, and then, when he did not break down, they said that if he was defeated he would never rally from the shock. Bryan was defeated, but there was no oollapse. It is doubtful if he ever lost a moment’s sleep. It oertainly did not oast him down or detract anything from his great capacity for work. Western people do not expect to live in the same house forever, and therefore they do not care so mnoh whether they are built to last for a lifetime or not. The Bryan homestead -is a “boom” house, such as every western town knows—bnilt not to shelter half a dozen generations, hut built to shelter a western family until it gets ready to move into a better house—and none too good, not even the house that is painted white. The flat prairie town, the muddy streets, the very western house and the children’s dog all fjide from the memory when one enters the workshop of the Bryan home and the doors are drawn, and the interest centers only in the man to whom millions have listened surrounded only by the stage settings of his own deni This man Bryan does not ohange much under any surroundings, however. He is too honestly candid for that. You think that you are going to discover him as he is, and yon find that you only discover him as yon knew he .was. He has on an old velvet smoking jaoket and a three days’ beard, and when, after you are seated, he throws himself into his work chair behind a pile of books and papers and says, “Here is where I like best to be,” yon know that he is speaking the trntb. The book will be called “The First Battle. ” It will be a history of the first great battle for free silver by the general himself. The book will contain Bryan’s speeches during the campaign, an account of his wonderful campaign journeys and also Bryan’s ideas as to the battles for free silver which are ft) come as well as the historical account of the one which is passed. It will also oontain an account of his life, written by Mrs. Bryan, and the letters of acceptance of the other candidates and all the principal historical facts of the last oampaign. It will in all the years that are to come be one of the most important historical doonments of this country. “I am working harder now than I did during the campaign,” said he—“that is, it is more wearing upon me. I start in to work as soon as I get my breakfast, and I work until 10:30 at night. I never go down town—l don’t know whether you had better mention that or not, but I never do—because, if I do, you know, I meet so many people, and they want to shake hands and talk, and I cannot spare the time. Now and then I take a short walk, but Ido not get ont of the house mnoh. I stay right here, and there is no place I feel so contented as shut right up here in this room. Mrs. Bryan, yon see, has her seat right across the desk, and it is here that I can enjoy myself. ” The room in which Mr. Bryan is living all the time he is not asleep at the present time is not a large room. It is well lighted and is so packed that it j seems cozy. A large, square, flat desk J ocoupies the center of the room, and at j this desk Mr. and Mrs. Bryan sit opposite each other to do their literary work, j The walls of the room are lined with j bookshelves, and of this library Bryan ! is very proud. “I want you to look at my books,” was one of the first things he said to me after he had welcomed me to his den. He pointed them all ont before he had finished. Not one of the books bad beau- ! tiful and elaborate bindings; as far as 1 1 was able to discover not one of them ! was a present. They were simply the ; books Bryan and his wife had bought j sinoe the day they were married to read and study. It was a complete library only in one thing—it contained I the speeches of almost all the famous orators, from the man who gargled a pebble in his mouth down to the present time. It is evident that there was no prejudice in the selection of these volumes, for “The Speeches and Publio Documents of Grover Cleveland” had a place of honor between the speeches of Cicero and those of Wendell Phillips. “Not much light literature in all this, ” I remarked. * 'Where are the novels?” “Well, there are Dickens and Thackeray,” Baid Bryan. “Yon could not call them light literature perhaps,

but they are our favorite novels. I guess they are about all the novels we^have. this Bryan. He and bis wife seem so closely connected in habits and tastes and so constantly in each other's minds that he says “we” where all the 909,909 men ont of 1,000,000 would say “L ” s Bryan had expected that his book—or, if you follow out his plural idea, “their” book—would be ready by the first of the year, but he does not think now that he can have it ready by that time. “It is a bigger thing, when you ; get into it, than it seemed before,” said . he. “New ideas keep occurring to you after yon get settled to the work, and yon find it necessary to depart from your original ideas. Then this thing of going over all the speeohes is a great work.” He grabbed np a pile of pasted J clippings off his desk—printed speeches ' —which he had been oarefnlly going over, catting oat the applauses and looking for repetitions. “I have to hunt out all the abbreviations,” said he, “and put in the ‘do nots’ for the ‘don’ts, ’ you see, and there is a good deal of work about it. But what do you think of my pictures?” Bryan’s piotures are on a par with his library. Fronting him as he sits at his desk are engravings of Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln. Over the fireplace is that old familiar picture of Clay, with his arms stretched out in a most unnatnral position, addressing *1 the United States senate. Then all around the walls are piotures of Douglas, Calhoun, Webster and all the other famous orators. A man could hardly be confined in the room for an hour without getting the orator itoh. But these things are not affectations with Bryan —he loves the memory of the orators,: , beoause he loves oratory. ' Bryan disclaims any descriptive powers, but at the same time he has literary ambitions beyond those to be realized by an acconnt of a political campaign, such as he is at present preparing. I die! not know that I was asking such a leading question when I said, “But you intend to do other writing than this, do , you not?” Bryan has no artifice about him, and yet he has an idea that it is not a good thing to talk too much for publication. He hesitated, and then said, “Well, yes, perhaps; but please excuse me if I do not care to discuss suoh a matter at this time.” Later he., laughed, and said: “Now, in writing about me, say as little as possible. You newspaper correspondents can do that, because you can work in so much descriptive. That is why I would never 1 make a newspaper correspondent. lam no hand at desoriptive writing. I have ‘ to content myself with a statement of facts and ideas. ’ ’ Bryan has great hopes for the book he is preparing. It will undoubtedly have one of the largest sales ever known. A boat the lecture business he is not so confident. “Don’t say much about that,” said he, “I don’t know how I will like it yet. I don’t know bow long the lecture tour will last, anflJSy although I am doing some work upon itf|p at odd times, I do not care to annonnce the subject of my lecture as yet. ” m In his library, among his books, surrounded by the pictures of the greak orators —among which future generations will place his own—Bryan, for all his pleasant smiles and winning ways, is a wonderfully earnest man—earnest, very much in earnest about everything, bnt there is still a great deal of boyishness . about him.—Kansas City Times.