University of Virginia Library

Without expressing any opinion critically, it is quite safe to say that there are few, if any, living American writers on historical subjects in whom the general reading public has more real interest than Miss Ida M. Tarbell, the author of the lives of Madame Roland, Napoleon and of Lincoln, and The History of the Standard Oil, which is now running serially in McClure's Magazine. Miss Tarbell was interviewed a short time ago for THE BOOKMAN by Mr. Charles Hall Garrett, and out of that interview grew these paragraphs. Beginning biographically, it is enough to say that Miss Tarbell attended school in Titusville, Pennsylvania, and later Alleghany College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, where she was an editor of the college publication. Being graduated with honours, she became preceptress of the Seminary at Poland, Ohio. Two years later she assumed the associate editorship of the Chautauquan, published at Meadville in the interests of its Chautauqua work; and eventually became managing editor of that publication. It was during this period that she awakened to a realisation of her interest in historical and biographical work.

"Historical work," said Miss Tarbell, "is a distinct profession, one for which

you must be educated in matters of research, treatment and style. As the French methods of handling history for general readers had always appealed to me, in 1891 I went to Paris and remained there three years, attending the lectures at the Sorbonne and the College de France. While pursuing my studies in Paris, where I lived in rather Bohemian style in a cheap quarter of the city, I wrote letters and stories for the Boston Transcript, for McClure's Syndicate and for Scribner's Magazine, and when Mr. McClure started his magazine, I contributed also to it. All my articles were submitted by mail, and many of them travelled to and fro across the Atlantic half a dozen times. I have still some that were not accepted. Before leaving America I had not made the acquaintance of a single magazine editor, and had only very unremunerative connections with a few newspapers. That I had the temerity to go to Paris to study for three years with very little money, depending for my support entirely upon the chance of what I might write being accepted in America, astonishes me to-day. But I lived economically, and was fortunate in being able to sell my 'stuff.' Only once was I threatened by real need; that was at the time of the panic of 1893, when over one hundred dollars was owed me but was not promptly mailed. It was necessary for me to pawn my sealskin coat and my watch, an experience so novel that it rather amused me.

"Through the pursuit of my studies I met many prominent literary people. I

had the entree into the home of James Darmstetter, the great Hebrew scholar, whose wife was Mary Robinson, the poetess; and Madame Blanc, a wonderful woman, who has done much to introduce American literature into France, was a most helpful friend to me. Alexandre Dumas, fils, was still living, and I saw him several times. He was the greatest Frenchman I ever met, indeed, one of the greatest men. Rarely have I met a man who impressed me so deeply with his serenity of character and comprehension of things. Zola, whom I saw in his home, always seemed to me most irritable and dogmatic. Once I was commissioned to call on Francois Coppee to secure the American rights to a Christmas story, which he granted. As I moved toward the door he turned around pleasantly and asked in that inimitable French manner 'if I did not want to talk with him? to interview him?' I had not thought of it, but instantly said yes, as I knew I could 'place' any interview I might get from Coppee. It was the only time I ever had an interview thrust upon me. He who most influenced me and who seemed to take a real interest in my endeavours was Charles Seignobos, a leading historical scholar and writer of France—a lecturer at the Sorbonne, and since a prominent figure in the anti-Dreyfus movement. Before I went abroad I had become deeply interested in the part women played in the French Revolution, and in order to get at it in a more satisfactory way I undertook a study of the life of Madame Roland. I was fortunate in meeting her descendants, in whose possession were many then unpublished documents of her life, which were later collected and presented to the Bibliotheque Nationale. One spring I spent two delightful weeks at her old home near Lyons, and was given every facility in my work. So when, in 1894, I boarded a steamer for America I had practically ready in manuscript my story of her life. That I had to borrow only fifty dollars from this side before sailing does not seem to me so discreditable considering that I had studied three years abroad, and clothed and supported myself."

Soon after her return, Miss Tarbell was asked to undertake the writing of the Life of Napoleon, a task for which three years was needed, after which she turned her energies to the Life of Lincoln. "In collecting my material for the Life of Lincoln," said Miss Tarbell, "a work on which I expended five solid years, I went from Kentucky to Indiana, from Indiana to Illinois, and from Illinois to Washington, interviewing men who had known him and had been affiliated with him in law and in politics, delving into old newspaper files and documents bearing upon his life and going into out-of-the-way corners, if but to see a locality in which he had appeared. One of the most striking facts about this interviewing of Lincoln's old friends was that few of them even to this day understand how one of them could have become President. From them seems to be hidden a proper appreciation of his great gifts. During the publication of the Life I received hundreds of letters commenting upon it, and asking questions expressive of the almost affectionate regard in which it was obvious he was held by many in the South. Letters from Mississippi and Alabama claimed, without ground, that he was an illegitimate son of a Southern planter, a relative of Jefferson Davis, while others from North Carolina endeavoured to prove him to be an illegitimate son of a planter by the name of Calhoun. Once I received a letter from a town in Nebraska inquiring if it were so, as a Western newspaper claimed, that my publishers had said that I was the oldest living playmate of Lincoln. The newspaper, it continued, disputed this and stated that Nancy Green, eighty-seven years old, of their town, had positive proof of the fact that she was the oldest living playmate of Lincoln. I wrote vigorous denials of this; I mean of my being a contemporary of Lincoln."

Speaking of her History of the Standard Oil: "I've tried," said Miss Tarbell, "to lean neither to one side nor the other in my Standard Oil articles, but merely to tell the truth, corroborated by court documents and pamphlets issued at various times. This has required much travelling, and the unearthing of such pamphlets and documents in newspaper and law offices. My childhood was spent in the oil regions, and if I have any natural sympathy, it is with the independent operators.

But my individual opinions are subservient to the facts I have endeavoured to arrange in this article—on which I have been engaged two years. I once thought of writing a novel centred in the oil region, and went so far as to write a number of chapters. I believe that the material for the greatest American novel lies there, but it would require a Balzac at write it, and I am not a Balzac."