Title Page detail, Companions on the Trail
Passing the seventy-eighth anniversary of Seton’s death (October 23), I will note that of all his recent biographers, only Jack Samson actually knew him. Fortunately, Seton met the novelist and memoir writer Hamlin Garland in 1896. They remained acquaintances for some time before developing a close friendship that Garland later wrote about.
Garland and Seton were born one month apart in 1860; Seton was the elder. Garland grew up in Wisconsin, Seton in Lindsay and Toronto, Ontario. Like Seton, Garland held a fascination for the American West and for the culture of Native Americans. Importantly, Garland proved a useful ally to Seton; Seton proved a source of inspiration to Garland.
TRAIL COMPANIONS
Although they don’t seem to have physically traveled much together, in his book Companions on the Trail (1931), Garland chronicled a number of persons important to him on the trail of life, including Seton. His reminiscences included both the expected, and for me, the unexpected starting with a January 20, 1900 dinner held at the home of a mutual friend in New York. Current in the news at time was the Second Boer War going on in South Africa. The Americans present at the dinner were united in their opposition to the British. (Quotes are taken from Garland’s book.)
Garland writes that when the group questioned the justice of the imperialist undertaking, “this stirred Seton-Thompson’s British blood. Fill with English imperialism, he defended the war in Africa with fiery eloquence. His black eyes glowed with a menacing light…” (pg. 11) Ironically, at that moment, the English-speaking world stood breathless at the press coverage of the Siege of Mafeking, previously thought of as strategically unimportant. Holding out against indifference by the British military and fierce attacks by the Boers was a previously obscure, in the process of becoming world famous general: Robert Baden-Powell.
GO WEST YOUNG MEN
Apparently, their disagreement on the Boer issue was more spirited than important as their love for the American West led them to spend considerable time together—in New York City. “Our talk was mainly on trails and trailing,” Garland noted, with stories exchanged about their respective visits to wilderness areas and to Indian reservations.
“He was (as I told him in 1897 when advising him as to contracts) three men in one—artist, fictionalist, and zoologist. With a prodigious capability for hard walk, he wrote and drew and studied for sixteen hours of every day.” (Pg. 14) They spoke of New Mexico pueblos, Montana meadows and contemporary Indian societies.
And unlike most writers and visual artists, Seton welcomed the constant interruption and disruption of arriving and departing guests, engaging in conversations with visitors as they watched him work. When not at his Cos Cob estate or engaged in his near constant traveling, Seton made his New York City residence in a choice location overlooking Bryant Park, a rare open space amid the buildings crowding in on all sides. Seton indicted that he would not have chosen the location for himself, perhaps implying that his wife had selected it.
Garland spent many afternoons in that space talking about, among other topics, “Indians, bears, and birds, subjects of which he never tired…He liked to have his friends come in of an afternoon chat. Visitors appeared to help rather than to hinder his drawing—a fact which puzzled me. I could work only in solitude and silence.” (Pg. 182) Seton tended to write in the morning, illustrate in the afternoons. Perhaps he kept a quieter morning schedule.
ROOSEVELT AND BURROUGHS
Garland mentions a number of brief lunches and dinners with Seton without providing much detail. (I would have liked to have found out something about his taste in scotch.) An important lunch, minus Seton, took place at President Theodore Roosevelt’s private Oyster Bay residence on August 27, 1903. The Nature Faker controversy was then current; Garland knew of Seton’s desire to stir clear of the thing. He mentioned his hope to Roosevelt that Wild Animals I Have Known could be left out of the Nature Faker category.
Roosevelt allowed as how he liked the writing but, quoting the President: “in his preface he goes too far in emphasizing the scientific value of his tales.” Garland defended Seton’s research backed by extensive field notes, adding, “His influence on the young people of the day is enormous and altogether wholesome!”
Roosevelt allowed that latter point, but did not give up on the idea that Seton “should draw the line more clearly between his fiction and zoology.” Garland reported the conversation to Seton who was relieved to know the criticism, although unwelcome, was not worse. Garland noted that “To be included among ‘The Nature Fakers’ by Roosevelt and Burroughs was no joke.” Garland remained a fan: “He has made his own way, as I have, but he has gone much farther than I. His courage and his ability in three lines of endeavor make my power seem feeble.” (Pg. 204)
The Nature Faker controversy would have profound implications for Seton’s career, even though he largely stayed out it. His subsequent non-fiction writing came about in no small part as an answer to Roosevelt’s critique and the more explicit criticism by John Burroughs. This seems to have paid off with the elder naturalist by early in the following year. Garland recorded: “In dining with us, Burroughs admitted a growing regard for Seton, and was willing to exempt him from the charge of nature faking.” (Pg. 224)
IMPORTANT ANIMALS
Central to Seton’s defense was a project Garland recalled from 1907: “Seton was at work on a huge book dealing with big game in America. Stung by the assault upon his fictional or biographical studies of animals, he had planned this volume as an answer to his critics. Into it he was putting the results of his years of study in the field. From his long shelf of notebooks (some of them stained with blood and rain and crammed with measurements and drawings of animals he had captured) he was building a monumental work which should lift him entirely out of the ‘the nature faker’ controversy.” (Pg. 330) Observing Seton in his natural habitat of Cos Cob, Connecticut, Garland was all but overwhelmed by Seton’s “prodigious” working, writing all morning, drawing all afternoon, with a bit of time off for dinner and a walk.
“I never knew such energy.” (Pg. 330)
Seton published the ground-breaking two-volume book set, Life-Histories of Northern Animals (1909), finally garnering the admiration of Roosevelt that was so important to him. See excerpts from that work.