YESTERDAYS In a Busy Life - 1918, - CONTENTS - CHAP C I H . AP . . . . . . . . . . . . . WIXTERGREEN l1 I1 . IN THE BEGISSING . . . . . . . . . . . 111 . I. RR .. z G I E AXD BROOKLY . N . . . . . . . . IV . NESTLEDOW S . . . . . . . . . . . . V . XIY NEW YORKY EARS . . . . . . . . . . V1 . THE CIVIL WARP ERIOD . . . . . . . . . V11 . GERMANY IT , ALY A , S D FRANCE . . . . . . . V111 . THE SOCIETY OF DECORATIVAER T . . . . . . IX . THE ASSOCIATEADR TISTS . . . . . . . . l X . ONTEORA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI . I A R T K W AIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI1 . THE COLUMBIAENX POSITION . . . . . . . . XI11 . ANDERS Z ORN . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIV . SEASOK IN LOSDON . . . . . . . . . . XV . X SCXMER IX BROADWAY . . . . . . . . XVI . POSTLUDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PAGE i 28 65 105 134 154 175 209 231 268 ILLUSTRATIONS YESTERDAYS IN A BUSY LIFE YESTERDAYS BUSY N writing the story ot ones life the instinct is I to begin where one stands, at the quiet restingplace where all the issues of life are finally gathered. To the present years, which are almost unbelievably good to me, and to the future, I have given a new setting-a winter home in Georgia where everything I plant grows into beauty with almost audible joy, where everything I plan falls into a delightful whole, and where the friendships I have made are like a new blossoming of life. All this came to me with an air of whim, quite unbecoming to my years. I saw its unbecomingness in the faces of my old friends, whose exclamations of surprise sounded in my ears like remonstrances. They spelled, At your age l I YESTERDAYS At my age it becomes increasingly difficult to deal with the new position in which one finds oneself-so much behind and so little before and certainly, if a certain degree of usefulness and dignity has been maintained throughout life, one would like to plan a graceful exit. We are told that when a birds wings grow old and its body too weak for happy migration it looks for and creeps into some small, inclosed solitude. There it remains, and no one knows when its little spark of life goes out into the great force of animate intelligence, to be finally refashioned and repartitioned and launched, in new shape, into life again. This final seclusion and secrecy is a part of the bird-wisdom which airdwelling and sky-flights have taught them and, since we are learning to fly like birds, perhaps we shall yet learn to die comfortably, decently, and confidently, without offense or anguish to our friends or to the world. But if I unconsciously planned for seclusion in my Georgia home, I reckoned without my host for during the nine years of my occupation I have been constantly contriving and building new bed rooms and adding to kitchen and dining-room, until now my retreat houses three generations. Nevertheless, in spite of its being an individual venture, planned for hyself alone, I was greatly encouraged and abetted by a friend still in the heyday of life, who tempted me with a joint forty 2 WINTERGREEN acres of pine and magnolia woods, sweet with flower growths of various delightsomeness. Wintergreen is a great success, and, like all things of virtue, a constantly increasing one. And so, just now and here, I am beginning the story which my children and friends are always urging me to write-the story of my life. I fancy that every soul of us could write a book which the world would read, if only we dared to tell the exact truth about ourselves and our happenings, and so give a perfect reflection of one human life. But who of us does dare to do that Our ideas about ourselves, our very standards of good or evil, inevitably make us hypocrites... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.