A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After

n which to build the work of a lifetime. He saw each day in his duties as office boy some of the foremost men of the time. It was the period of William H. Vanderbilt's ascendancy in Western Union cont

ibraries to find a compendium that would authoritatively tell him of all successful men. He found it in Appleton's Encyclopaedia, and, determining to have only the best, he saved his luncheon money, walked instead of riding the five miles to his Brooklyn home, and, after a period

utch training, wrote to General Garfield, asking whether the boyhood episode was true, and explaining why he asked. Of course any public man, no matter how large his correspondence, is pleased to receive an earnest letter from an information-seeking boy. General Garfield answered warmly and fully. Edward showed the letter to his

ot autograph letters from famous persons be of equal service in his struggle for self-education? Not simple autographs--they were me

f successful men and women. Then, with boyish frankness, he wrote on some mooted question in one famous person's life; he asked about the d

o him; Longfellow told him how he came to write "Excelsior"; Whittier told the story of "The Barefoot Boy"; Tennyson wrote out a stanza or two

burg. A friend visiting Edward's father, happening to see the letter, recognized in it a hitherto-missing bit of history, and

hcock at once saw a "story" in the boy's letters, and within a few days The Tribune appeared with a long article on its principal news page giving an account of the Brooklyn boy's remarkable letters and how he had secured them. The Brooklyn Eagle quickly followed with

creep into letters from famous persons to whom he had written, saying they had read about his wonderful collection and were proud to be included in it. George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, himself the possessor of probab

apers the "distinguished arrivals" at the New York hotels; and when any one with whom he had corresponded arrived, Edward would, after business hours, go up-town, pay his respects, and thank him in person for his letters. No person was too high for Edward's boyish approach; President Garfield, General Grant, General Sherman

waiting to be received by some dignitary, he wondered how one could acquire enough means to live at a place of such luxury. The main dining-room, to the boy's mind, was an object of special interest. He would purposely sneak

al Grant say: "It might be better for us all to go down to dinner first and see the collection afterward." Edward had purposely killed time between five and seven o'clock, thinking that the general's dinner-hour, like his own, was at six. He had a

-letter days in Edward Bok's life, but the moment that still stands out pre-eminent is that when two colored head waiters at the dining-room entrance, whom he had so often watched, bowed low and escorted the party to their table. At last he

mind. The dinner ended with a wonderful dish of nuts and raisins, and just before the party rose from the table Mrs. Grant asked the waiter to bring her a paper bag. Into this she emptied the entire dish, and at the close of the evening she gave it to Edward "to eat on the way home." It was a wonderful evening, afterwar

om Sherman. Not bad." The

MR. B

d in form, as, for instance, in your quotation from Lord Lytton's play of "Richelieu," "The pen is mightier

e was a prefix o

rule of men

mightier th

tirely great are very rare indeed, and even Washington, who approached greatness as ne

s country (Lincoln) who wielded a powerful and prolific pen, an

The pen is mightier than the sword," which

e the principles of right and justice, bound up in the meshes of hatred, revenge, and tyranny, that the pens of mighty men li

. SH

th Avenue Hotel, intending to ask the clerk to send it to her room. Instead, he met General and Mrs. Grant just coming fr

tographs just taken of himself, and he signed one for you, and put it aside, intending to send it to you

the general. "Let me have yours," he said, turning to Ed

not a duplicate of the small carte-de-visite size which he had given

" said the general, as

oy didn't

an hour from the time he had been talking with General Grant he was sitting at the bedside of Mrs. Lincoln, showing her the wonderful photograph just presented to him. Edward saw that the widow of the great Lincoln did not mentally

arrives in New York." He read enough to see that the Confederate President was stopping at the Metropolitan Hotel, in lower Broadway, and as he looked out of the stage-window the sign "Metropolitan Hotel" stared him

a letter written by each member of the Confederate Cabinet. This he subsequently did. Edward remained with Mr. Davis until ten o'clock, and that eve

e country. He was ruminating over his possessions one day, and wondering to what practical use he could put his collection; for while it was proving educative to a wonderful degree, it was, after all, a hobby, and a hobby means e

arettes contained, in each package, a lithographed portrait of some famous actor or actress, and that if the purchaser would collect these he would, in the end, have a valuable album of the greatest actors and actresses of the day. Edward turned the picture over, only to find a blank reverse side. "All very well," he thought, "but what does a purchaser have, after all, in the

the Knapp Lithographic Company. The following luncheon hour, Edward sought the offices of the compan

hundred famous Americans," was Mr. Knapp's instant reply. "Send me a list, and group them

oday, "I gave Edward Bok his first literary commis

t is

ss that Mr. Knapp called for a second hundred, and then for a third. Finding that one hand was not equal to the task, Edward offered his brother five dollars for each biography; he made the same offer to one or two j

was likewise responsible for Edward Bok's first adventure as an editor. It was commercial, if y

rd Bok was being led more and mo