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Show ROBERT GRANT. Lilian Whltlnp; Writes of a Well Known HiiKton I.IUnary Man. Si'el.t' Corresponleiii,e.) Boston.-. . I'o be born in Boa-ton, Boa-ton, graduated at Harvard, own a pew lu Trinity (i'hillips Brooks') church, a villa on the north shore 0r in Newport, nml be buried in Mount Auburn this 1? considered by the modern Athenian to be the ideal career of man. Fortunately Fortu-nately for the society ho adorns and the public to whoso entertainment and enlightenment he contributes. Mr. liob-ert liob-ert tiratit has not yet met tho last con-cUioiiof con-cUioiiof 1 his lioslonian outline, but he lias fulliiled nearly all the others. His life has been one singularly rich in op-purtu'iitics, op-purtu'iitics, end ho has hnown well how toextract from tliese the finest conditions con-ditions and transmute privilege into high si TV ice. Robert Grant was born in Boston in lS.'c', completed the Boston Latin school course villi great success, and later the llarvaul, where he graduated in lNi;S, and three years hit er took the degree of 1'h.B. He entered the Harvard Law R-lioil, from which ho was graduated in l.spj, and immediately commenced the practice of law ill Boston. Bet ween tho tune of Mr. t haul's admission to tho bar and lS"-hti, n period of some seven year.-t, he achieved a class of literary work unique in its range, delicate, and subllo in fancy, full of charm and imaginative p,race. This work included seven novels, Hiid a number of very clever poems; but each was bo individual in its own line and owed so little to precedent that liis work cannot bo aliogeiher classified by any broadly accepted definitions. "The Little Tin tlods on Wheels," a satire in verse, appeari d in 18" J, and in 5t Mr. Grant sho,ed decided!)' his original orig-inal bent, his manly hatred of social filming, his courages in ranging liitnseif on the side of truth and humaniiy, and bis clearness of vision in (iisllnguishin'i the false from the true. After thisup-penred thisup-penred "The Con fes-ions of a Frivolous ( l irl," which went through a number of editions nml was a litcnuy as well as a ' popular success. Tho plot was very plight, but on this slender thread was bung tho hopes and fca's, the fancies itnd tlio reflections, tho courage a:;d the cowaidiee of a typical gad of nx-iety. Tho delicacy of perception shown by ill'. Grant in this work lias never, it fiiems tome, lcen adequately recognized. He does not make tins mistake a not uncommon ono of ascribing to the beauty and the belle the possession of all the vices or errors of the decalogue, and Implying conversely that the poor and thopluiu girl possesses all tho virtues, IIo knows society in its technical sense too truly for that. Alice shows tho selfishness that spring from thoughtlessness and from tho limited lim-ited range of sympathies almost iuevita- ROniiliT ORAXT. ble to the petted child of luxury, tmt sh lias a tender heart and a keen conscience, and, moreover, she is by no means destitute desti-tute of brains. Another very excellent portrait of the girl in social high life is Dorothy in "Tho Average Man," a story that Mr. Grant contributed as a aerial to Tho Century Magazine in J8S3. Untrained Un-trained writers, destitute of social experience, ex-perience, havo often depicted fashionable fashion-able life as utterly devoid of those graces of character which we aro accustomed to call the Christian virtues. All tho rich have been depicted as narrow minded, hypocritical, arrogant and cruel, while J'ne poor were shown to bo generous, patient and intelligent. Mr. Grant is too much in touch with tho most cultivated culti-vated social world of tho day to fall into any such error as this. "Face to Face" is another of Mr. Grant's very charming novels of social life. "Tho King's Men" was a story written by Mr. Grant in collaboration with three of his friends, leading Boston authors, Boyle O'Reilly, "J. S. of Dale" (Mr. Stiuipson) and Mr. John Wheelwright Wheel-wright "The Lamps" was the titlo of a clever 6a tiro in verse. "The Knave of Hearts," by "A Romantic Ro-mantic Young Lady," appeared in 18K5-6. 18K5-6. On the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Latiu school tho oldest school in America Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks delivered tlie oration, ora-tion, and Robert Grant wrote and recited re-cited the poem for the occasion. Mr. Grant was also invited a few years ago to write the Phi Beta, Kappa poem, and it was for this occasion that ha wrote his famous "Yankee Doodle," ;t very keen and ingenious hit tit certain political abuses and corruptions of that year in Massachusetts. In the past two or three years Mr. Grunt litis written in a new vein, that of out of door life. "Josh Hall; or, The School Days of an American Boy," made a furor among tlie boys. Mr. Grant married the daughter of an English nobleman in Canada, and their home is on Commonwealth avenuo, the palatial boulevard of Boston. With a large nnd exacting legal business, and alco serving at present as one of the wafer wa-fer commissioners of Boston, Mr. Grant finds little time for literary work, still he managas to write an hour at leat each day with considerable regularity. He has the happy elasticity of temperament tempera-ment that enables him to do his work wherever he happens to be, either at hia home or his office Lilian Whitinc. |