Ernest Seton-Thompson at Home.
With portraits, and several sketches by Mr. Thompson, hitherto unpublished.
Ernest Seton-Thompson is a picturesque-looking man in the late thirties. His hair is long, black, and wavy; his face pale and regular, with emphatic, dark eyes. He looks as much like the great Polish pianist, Paderewski, as is possible for an Englishman.
But the obviously æsthetic ceases with Mr. Seton-Thompson's looks. In manner he is direct and simple, unaffected, does not talk “art,” and is interested primarily in facts.
An interview, in which the talk was carried on sometimes by Mrs. Seton-Thompson, sometimes by the artist himself, bore mainly upon the elucidation of the two prime qualities of the man — his tenacity of purpose and his love of truth.
“There is only one way to succeed,” he said, in answer to a question, “and that is to keep at it.” The autobiographical detail he told illustrated his ability in that line without his intending it. As a very young boy he was interested in animals, and when ten years old was at the head of a circus, where the boys impersonated Indians, buffaloes, etc., and had sham battles, much in the manner of Buffalo Bill. He even edited a newspaper at that tender age, in order, as he expressed it, “to advertise my show.” He wrote, as well as set up, illustrated, and printed all of the paper himself, and one day published a poem on the king-bird, which was always a favorite with him.
“Was it a sentimental poem?”
“No — heroic,” he replied, gravely.
A characteristic spirit for a student of wild animals.
When he was eighteen, he went to London to study art and natural history. He was the youngest student who ever got a life ticket to the British Museum, and the way he secured it was characteristic. After applying to the superintendent, the governor of the Museum, and other officials, and being systematically refused because of his minority, nothing daunted, he wrote letters to each of the Honorary Trustees: the Prince of Wales, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Beaconsfield. He got his ticket. He won a scholarship, too, at the Royal Academy, for his work in art. But all this time — a period of two years and a half — he spent only $400, and that included his ticket to London. He had one little dark hall-room, and his landlady cooked his frugal meals. In the daytime he worked at the Academy, and in the evening in the Museum, with books on natural history.
“I discovered,” he said, “that there have been naturalists since Cuvier and Audubon.”
“I was hungry but happy in London,” he remarked. “I was left alone with my work and a few books — Tennyson, Ruskin, Knight's Animated Nature[1], Chaucer, Spencer, and Shakespeare. Shakespeare bored me. Spencer was a duty. I liked Chaucer for his human nature, but Tennyson and Ruskin were favorites. My relatives finally looked me up and thought I was dying with consumption, but I was only hungry.”
He was sent to Manitoba, “where,” he said, “I was really born.” There he lived out-door, on the plains, among the animals, and studied the things he loved. The one dream he had always had, to be a naturalist, was there first practically realized. There he wrote his “Birds of Manitoba” and “Mammals of Manitoba.” There he got his material for, among other stories, the “Sand-hill Stag,” in which Yan is none other than himself.
“When I found I was to leave Manitoba,” he said, “I felt my heart sink.”
Nevertheless, he went to New York in 1883, to make his fortune, with $2.63 in his pocket; to a city where there was nobody he knew, except an old school friend whom he was unable to find for several days.
“I didn't know what to do,” he said, “or how to do it, but I knew I would do it.”
Madison Square fountain was the only place where he could get a free drink, so he used to go there every day at noon to eat his single roll. He busily canvassed the city for a job — any kind of a job. One day he went into a place on Elm Street and asked for work.
“What do you want to do?” the proprietor asked him.
“Anything,” he replied.
“Will you drive a street-car?”
“Yes.”
“Will you sweep the street?”
“Yes.”
“Will you run errands?”
“Yes.”
“Then I guess you'll get a job.”
“But he didn't give me a job,” smiled Mr. Seton-Thompson.
Finally he found a place in a lithographic store. The boss liked some drawings the young man showed him.
“How much salary do you want?” he asked.
“Forty dollars a week.”
“I'll give you $5.”
“All right,” replied the astonished and delighted youth, “I'll take it.” The bargain was closed.
One day a drummer came to the shop, and said to the boss that there was a new cigar called the “Raven,” and that a good design of a raven was worth $10,- 000. The new employee overheard what was said, and took the boss aside.
“You let me draw that raven,” he said, “and we'll get the prize.” He went to Central Park and drew a raven from life. “And a very good raven it was,” he said. Sure enough, his raven was declared the best, and used to advertise the cigar. So he went to the boss again.
“I wanted $40 a week when I came,” he said. “You gave me $5. I want a raise. You see, I'm of value.”
“How much do you want?”
“Forty dollars.”
“Why, my best man gets only $25.”
“But has he ever brought so much money to the concern?”
“Well, I'll give you $20.”
It was a colossal sum, and eagerly accepted.
“But when springtime began to boil in my blood,” continued Mr. Seton-Thompson, “I longed for the plains, and told my boss I was going. He said, ‘How big a raise do you want now?’ But I told him I must go, and I went.”
That time he stayed in Manitoba till 1885, and since then, although he has made many trips West, New York has been his headquarters. The recent history of his life has been largely the history of his work, and is well known.
So much in the way of anecdote, to illustrate the man's energy and tenacity of purpose. Now let us see his ideal, and what he wants to do.
“There is only one thing in life worth having,” he said emphatically, “and that is the truth.”
He picked up an old note-book containing maps, descriptions of animals and plants, minute observations, illustrative drawings, detail of all sorts about the habits, measurements, and characteristics of animals. The book was frayed and torn, but the artist handled it with tender sympathy.
“It looks like a lot of rags,” he said; “but there isn't enough money in New York to buy it.”
He has a whole big book of notes given over to the reindeer. That animal is pictured in all sorts of occupations and attitudes — there are all sorts of descriptive notes and observations of the minutest character. It is primarily the faithful work of a scientist.
“I am an artist only by accident,” said Mr. Seton-Thompson. “I never call myself an artist. I am simply a naturalist. My ambition is to be known as a naturalist.”
“I don't want to bore you,” he continued, “but let me show you that I am really conscientious.” He showed the visitor the preliminary notes — two big volumes — of what he hopes will prove his magnum opus. It will be a completely illustrated history of all the Big Game in America, their territorial range, habits, characteristics, etc. He has already many carefully prepared maps, and no end of observations. He is so much interested in this volume that it was with difficulty he could be induced to talk of anything else.
“I see,” said the visitor, “that you have Botticelli and Japanese tapestries on your walls. Why do you like them?” “I like the Japanese and the pre-Raphaelites,” answered the artist, “because they tell the truth. They are interested in nature. I hate the art that tries to be pretty. I have no patience with the cry of ‘art for art's sake.’ I like art for nature's sake. When I am in the Rockies, I never want to draw. I only draw and write when I am not living.”
“It is wonderful,” he proceeded, “how the truth will prevail. Throw five lies and three truths together, and the lies will be swallowed up. When I gather material from cow-punchers, the forty-niners, etc., I take down all they say, for I find that only the truth will remain when it is sifted.”
Mr. Scton-Thompson illustrates the rare case of a man with predominating scientific interest who is also an artist. In his case, art, although merely a hand-maiden to science, is not crushed out, as it usually is, by the scientific habit of mind.
Like most men who work all the time, Mr. Seton-Thompson's habits are very simple. As his wife remarked; “He is abnormal in no particular. He rises regularly at 7 or 7.30” (“6.30” interrupted her husband), “and works continually, and without putting his feet on the table. It is consequently difficult to find him in a picturesque attitude. His amusement is in working at scientific books or making investigations. He does not care for sports, and belongs to no clubs. The editor of one of our literary reviews asked him some time ago to join a club. ‘Is it the sort of a place where I can take my wife to dine?’ he asked, innocently. He is very domestic and rarely goes to the theatre; but when he does, his mind churns on the play for weeks and distracts him from other things. Whatever comes before him receives the keenest attention. He does not care for animal pets, for they are tame, but is fond of going to the Zoo.”
Mr. Seton-Thompson is writing, in collaboration with Ed. Milton Royle, the well-known playwright, a comic opera, founded on the characters in his books. Although it is light, there is, as in all his work, a serious undertone. The only man in the play, a sportsman, appears as the villain. The other characters are well-known animals — Lobo, Faunima (the all-powerful spirit of the animals), Wully, Mustang, Coyotito, etc. They capture the sportsman in a bear-trap, and sit in judgment on him.
A sample verse from the Coyote's song, written by Mr. Seton-Thompson, is as follows:
I'm the voice of all the wildest West, the Patti of the plains,
A wild Wagnerian opera of diabolic strains;
I'm a raving, ranting orchestra, with lunatics becrammed;
A vocalized tornado, I'm the shrieking of the damned.
Refrain.
So I can sing to charm your soul or pierce it like a lance,
All I ask of you to do is give me half a chance—
With a yap, yap, yap for the morning,
And a youp, youp, youp for the night.
And a wow, wow, wow for the rising moon,
And a yah-h-h-h for the camp-fire light:
Yap—youp—wow—yah-h-h!
Even in this comic Coyote's song one sees the naturalist. Mr. Seton-Thompson has heard that beast sing at all times and in all seasons, and has embodied his observations in a form likely to catch the attention of the public.
Those who know him are well aware that “Thompson” is purely an assumed name on the part of his family. He is a son of the old Scottish house of Seton, and is so fully alive to the distinction that we need not be surprised to have him appear publicly under his historic family name.
- ↑ Knight, Charles: Pictorial museum of animated nature: and companion for the zoological gardens. London 1856–8, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001997682
