spoke continually the word that should inspire young men to be pure, and women to be strong; the word that shed poetry over the home life; the word that threw on every interest the light of conscience and the warmth of moral feeling."

The innovation in which Dr. Holland was perhaps beyond any other man the pioneer consisted not in using periodical publication for the moralist's purpose,—such use is as old as the time of Addison,- but in successfully grafting that function upon the modern daily, and making religion compete successfully there for men's attention with the press and throng of other interests. He opened a noble field which has as yet been but scantily worked. Much of his editorial writing had this quality, but his conspicuous success began when he wrote "Timothy Titcomb's Letters to Young People." He had previously contributed to the paper some series of letters on light social topics, and Mr. Bowles one day suggested that he should do something more of the same kind. "I thought at first," said Dr. Holland, "that I had written myself out, but without premeditation I made a dash at another line of subjects, and wrote that forenoon the first of the 'Timothy Titcomb Letters."" It shows how little expectation he had of attracting marked attention, that he borrowed a pen-name which had been used by Thackeray in one of his minor writings. His unexpected success was an illustration of Cromwell's saying: "A man never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going." The letters were in three series, the first addressed to young men, the next to young women, and the third to young married people. They were plain, familiar talks on the conduct of life, aimed neither too high nor too low for the average reader, familiar in illustration, pervaded with practical and undogmatic Christianity. They met with instant and wide favor. When gathered into a book, they had a

sale which at once gave Dr. Holland rank with the most popular authors of the country. Many a man and woman to-day remember them with gratitude. They were followed by other serials in a like vein, which proved equally popular, and won for the Republican a new hold on public regard.

These contributions, of which the authorship was soon known, gained for Dr. Holland a personal reputation in connection with the paper which for a time rivaled that of Mr. Bowles. Yet he did not find in daily journalism his most congenial field. After 1857, he gradually diverted his labors into lecturing and book-writing, and his contributions to the Republican ceased entirely about the year 1864. The culmination of his career was as one of the founders and the editor-in-chief of Scribner's Monthly (now The Century Magazine). In his later years, sitting on a piazza overlooking the Hudson with a friend, he said, pointing to the river, that his present life was to his earlier like the Hudson to the Connecticut.

With the exception of the brief Traveller episode, Mr. Bowles was from first to last identified heart and soul with the Republican. It was his hand that shaped its course, and assimilated the elements of its strength. It is the course of national events on which the historian of a newspaper naturally dwells most, and which was always the leading topic of the Republican. But the paper was continually seeking other and widening fields. Religion, social reform, literature, nature, amusements, personalities—it took them all as its province. In a little country town it presented the amplest range of human interests; it was as broad and various as humanity. It drew from many a worker who gave to it the best of his heart and brain. But it took its central inspiration and distinctive character from one manysided and intensely vital man.

"SAM

CHAPTER XIX.

PERSONAL RELATIONS.

AM BOWLES," as he was known to the Republican's readers, and the "Sam Bowles" whom his friends. and acquaintances knew, were the same, yet different. In truth, if almost any one of us could be seen as his image exists in the minds of different people, if he could be seen successively as his wife sees him, as his children, his servants, his business associates, his enemies, his intimates, see him,- the result would be a portrait gallery of many different people, with sometimes not even a family resemblance.

All his readers recognized Mr. Bowles's power, but all by no means admired him. He gave frequent and wide offense. Thoughout the Connecticut valley, the sentiment toward the paper was a strange mixture of admiration, pride, and hostility. Every one wanted to read it, and those who declared they did not, and stopped their papers, were drawn back to read it again, even while they abused it. To those who had grown accustomed to its well-flavored repast, it was a necessity. Any vigorous and outspoken paper, like any vigorous and outspoken man, will make enemies. The quality in the Republican which roused most hostility was its free criticisms upon institutions, parties, and every person and event of public concern. This freedom of judgment,

subject to no limitations save those of truth, the editor claimed as his right, asserted as his duty, and exercised with a width of range and deftness of stroke which increased as the years went on. There is nothing which almost any man so quickly resents as unfavorable criticisms upon himself, his friends, or the institutions he believes in. When the criticism is public, it has a tenfold sharper sting. There was not a day in which the Republican did not touch something or somebody with the thong of its whip. Its vocation was to make report and comment on the whole course of events, and frequent blame was its necessity. If it had been as just as Omniscience, it would still have given frequent offense. Being entirely human and fallible, it gave offense continually.

By the mass of the paper's readers this critical, sharpspeaking quality was probably regarded as the chief characteristic of Mr. Bowles. But to his personal acquaintances he showed a side as different from this as May from January. Many of them saw and felt both sides by turns, but to some he was always May.

From the earliest, his family affections were deep-seated and constant. His father's was one of those New England households in whose undemonstrative and outwardly meager life the domestic attachments strike tenacious root, like pine-trees in rocky soil. In later years his own family was the first object of his care and the center of his dearest affections. His chief aim in life was not to make for himself a career, a name, or a fortune, but to provide for the happiness of his wife and his children. His wife's aim in turn was to make their home above all else a resting-place for the husband. The habit and law of the house was that "Father's" rest was to be shielded and made comfortable. "I remember," says one of the children, there were now two daughters and a son,— "how we used to be kept quiet through the early forenoon,

because Father was asleep, and how we were taught to look out for the first early delicacies of spring, to tempt his appetite. I recollect his late breakfast,- Mother roasting oysters for him at the grate, and we children standing around expecting some of the juice, like open-mouthed birds." It was not in his nature to be a mere passive recipient from any one, least of all from those he loved most. He charged himself with a close oversight of the welfare of wife and children. In his absences, however full of occupation he might be, his letters to his wife were as constant and devoted as any youthful lover's. At home, his care for the various interests of the household was as vigilant as for the management of the newspaper. To spend and be spent, in every direction, was the law of his life.

In some of the chapters of this biography, extracts from his domestic correspondence are given with a good deal of freedom. It is impossible to do justice to the portraiture without giving these glimpses of the richness and sweetness of his household affections. Were it permissible to draw the portrait without any reserves, the fuller light would only bring out more distinctly the fineness of the traits. Browning says:

"God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures

Boasts two soul-sides-one to face the world with
One to show a woman when he loves her."

And the side which Mr. Bowles showed to the world made no disclosure so fine as the sweeter side he showed at home. Only in that intimacy were fully revealed the tenderness, the patience, the self-control which were in him.

His sojourn in Boston during the Traveller experiment was a painful exile to him. He once said to a friend who was about to be married: "You are going