Harlow's Weekly (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 25, No. 3, Ed. 1 Saturday, January 16, 1926 Page: 2 of 14
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HARLOW’S WEEKLY
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Harlow’s Weekly Book Reviews
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PEOPLE are perpetually curious about
their fellows, esi>ecially those who
have attained some degree of success
and distinction. Biography or autobiogra-
phy has an eternal fascination; witness the
Jennial Pepys. Then, too. there is the
homely philosophy of Izauk Walton, which,
mixed in with the more technical ami scien-
titic discussion of angling, is the funda-
mental elmrm of the book. Lives of Andrew
Carnegie and .lodge Gary, perhaps attract
US from a subconscious desire to grasp ic
secret of their success.
J. P. Marquand has revived for us a quaint
combination of these, in ‘Lord Timothy Dex-
ter of Newburyport, Mass.." published »y
Minton, Balch and Co. Dexter was a queei
combination of captain ot industiy, phi an
thropist and eccentric. Born in 1747. of poor
but honest parents, at Malden, he is one ot
the early types of great men risen from
lowlv beginnings. Some time before he was
nine’ years old he went to the village school
for a short time, where he learned something
of figures, reading and writing, ami the let-
ters of the alphabet, from which he con-
cocted a wholly individual style of spelling,
which stands out as unorthodox against
even the rather irregular system of that
nine. At nine years old, his parents made
him self-supporting by placing him as a
bound boy with a farmer; and at fifteen he
passed to trade apprenticeship under a tan
net and leather worker. Long and hard
labor, poor food ami lodging, often brutality,
were the lot of such lads in those days.
And Dexter records that he had 'hard Noks
on my head 4 difrent times * * * twice tak-
en up for dead, two heatings.
However. Timothy lived through it. learned
his trade :|nd was given the customary
•‘freedom suit” by his master; very gmid
clothes, made of "guinea cloth,” that is
goods costing a guinea a yard; and probably
the first new garments the youth had had
in his life.
However, he shows at once the stamp of
greatness. The new clothes must have been
precious, but he looked tar beyond, to see
himself in gold-laced coat, riding grandly
in his carriage. His tirst act was to sell
the "free dom sout' to a "vandour, who
apparently was then as his tribe is to-day,
for he would give but live shillings a yard
for the new "guinea cloth.” "I was angry,”
says Timothy. But he took the money, eight
"dolours” and 20 cents, and with his old
clothes ami a “bondel" set out to make bis
fortune.
He went to Newburyport. There he worked
at his trade, ami in a comparatively short
time, married a widow with four children
and some property. He set up in business
for himself, prospered. Of his wife, it is
recorded that she was remarkably skillful
at patching of "britches”; I suppose her
children were all boys. Real wealth came
to Timothy when he had the nerve and fore-
By Zoe A. Tilghman
sight to buy the depreciated colonial cur-
rency and state bonds, at the close of the
Revolution. When the U. S. government
was established and assumed the debts of
the states, this investment repaid him many-
fold.
He bought a tine house and set up as a
gentleman. in a society which was yet strong-
ly class-bound, and he met the usual lot of
the new rich. He was not a social climber
however, and cared little for what people
thought. He never lost his business shrewd-
ness, and acquired a certain fame by suc-
cessfully selling a cargo of warming pans
in the West Indies, to the discomfiture of
those who had mocked loudly at the ven-
ture.
He courted publicity, he wrote, he assumed
the title of Lord, and lived in a princely
style. He even maintained a l»oet laureate,
a jioor schoolmaster-poet who rejoiced in
the comfort and easy living in his house-
hold. He exhibited a live African lion; he
held his own funeral before his death, and
having imbibed freely of the funeral cheer,
beat up his wife for not showing sufficient
grief at the occasion. He established a
museum, furnished with wooden statutes
of Washington, Napoleon and Louis XVI.
And he left generous bequests to towns, and
to charity and church.
In his book, "A Pickle for the Knowing
Ones," he says: "Ime the tirst Lord in the
younited Stales of America ry * * * it is the
voise of the people and I cant Help it there
‘will foller many more lords soune tor it dont
hurt anyone.” And he describes himself as
"First in the East, First in the West, and
the Greatest Philosopher in the Western
World.”
"Man." he says, “is the best annemal and
the worst; all men are more or less the
Devol but there is a site of odds—sum halfe,
sum three quarters."
He was religious, although it took both
a wife and housekeeper to bring this about.
"I have ben more than 20 years converted,
ever since I got me a housekeeper,” he writes,
And again. "1 have bin convarted upwards
:»o years, quite Resined for the day, the
grate day. I wish the preasts Node as
much as I think I do.”
His advertisement for a housekeeper when
this godly one was dead, his business deals,
his proposal for a Ix?ague of Nations, ver-
ses by "Johnathan Plummer. Jr.. Poet Lau-
riet to his Lordship,” are included in the
book. It is good reading.
ONE does not need to be a classical
scholar to read John Erskine’s account
of "The Private Life of Helen of Troy”
(The Bobbs Merrill Co.) though of course
it may add to the enjoyment. The book
can hardly be called a satire but some of
its scenes and conversations sound very mod-
ern and natural, as if we had heard the
like before.
Ulysses, after twice ten years of high and
bitter adventure, found that he could not
settle down contentedly in Ithaca. 1 am
a part of all that I have met,” he says. So
Helen, after the splendors of Troy and the
excitements of war, found Sparta dull. Then,
the family was somewhat at cross purposes.
Menelaus probably felt that she did not
give him enough credit for his magnani-
mous forgiveness. And Helen, who had seen
the Trojan elders at the gate, melting from
their bitterness against her, and rising in
homage, who had seen Menelaus himself with
his sword drawn above her head, falter ami
draw back, granting her pardon unasked,
naturally took it as her due. She knew
that men couldn't resist her, and gave Mene-
laus but mild gratitude, accordingly.
Her daughter Hermione, too. is grown
up. ami like most young lady daughters, is
a factor in the home life. As a natural re-
action. probably, from having grown up un-
der the shadow of a family scandal, she is
thoroughly conventional, with the intoler-
ance ami narrowness of youth. She cannot
see anything in being broad-minded, as ex-
emplified by Helen. She stands by her
lover Orestes, in his dilliculties. ami utilizes
her father's aid; but she bewilders him by
a ready Hop to her mother’s side when it
suits her pur|x»se; which after all is a com-
mon way with daughters.
Helen, however, is the central figure. Sho
is kind to Menelaus, she lets him talk, and
serenely manages things her own way.
old Eteoneus, the gatekeeper, sees through
her. He knows women ; he has had exiierience.
lie warns and counsels Menelaus. There
was too much company coming, and the work
of gatekeeper grew onerous for an aged
man. He resigned. Then. Menelaus found
him still on the job. Helen had asked him
to stay.
"I’ve been talking with her,” Eteoneus re-
ported to. Menelaus.
"You mean you've been looking at her.” said
Menelaus. "I quite understand, and your apol-
ogy is accepted. She has a persuading appear-
ance. You are not the first.”
"What could hi* expect from Menelaus after
that? Nothing, except what happened. He
still had his hearings, of course, and he
really was an eloquent man; liked to talk;
grew on him with practice, we supjtose. He
still put his foot down, too being in his
own house, you see and one feels it was
rather generous and gracious of Helen to
let him do it. But that was one of her
charms letting men feel they were assert-
ing themselves when in reality they were
yielding to her on every |mint. The thing is
done a good deal, we believe, if not always
with Helen's success, in making men fancy
it is their will, not hers, that is being done.”
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Harlow, Victor E. Harlow's Weekly (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 25, No. 3, Ed. 1 Saturday, January 16, 1926, newspaper, January 16, 1926; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc1601023/m1/2/: accessed April 25, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.