I saw Stranahan yesterday. He called with a counter proposition—a rather wooly and involved affair but he explained all about the Board & its membership &c. and said although the mission—such was the phraseology—to Europe was politely discountenanced, the reason was that as they had only part of their ground, they wished to avoid being quoted as doing this, but really as Prest he could say that I could start next week if the thing was quietly arranged. However I do not see us there just now. I am unravelling the proposition and shall put the thing into square convenient shape in the course of the week. The appt, they wished to avoid in definite terms for similar reasons. It will probably result in $7500 or thereabouts for the plan with an understanding that no work is to be started of any consequence and that I am to advise the Board & supervise generally till the close of the next Legislature when they hope to get their ground. He was very kind & seemed to wish to disabuse my mind of any idea that they wished to be mean or stingy. I think I told you that at the committee meeting at my office when they came to propose a simple $5000 plan I was rather short with them and gave them to understand that they did not stand between Brooklyn and myself as protectors of Brooklyn but that we were going in together to serve Brooklyn in a spirit of mutual confidence and that if we were not, the sooner the matter was closed the better. I see no reason why things should not turn out well. Campaign Document N° 2 which I sent to Stranahan the day before he last came, he did not refer to but I could see that he noticed the Brooklyn reference. It was of course intended he should & should show it to his men also. So this remains unsettled as I desire it should just now. They have refused my proposition and I am free—to [384]accept any better one from elsewhere while considering their counter prop.

The Central P. progresses. Bellows wrote me a kind note in general terms & asked me to call, but it came yesterday just as I was starting for Rondout with Mary & he goes west for 3 weeks so I do not suppose he will act. Still he may see Grinnell today but that is not likely. I wrote him a brief reply giving him the hint but do not anticipate that anything will come of it. It is of no material consequence however.

At the meeting on Friday, called by Grinnell to countermand the gate postponement, the thing was understood to be finally disposed of. Green, Blatchford & Fields voting adverse & G & Russell for. 5 must vote to countermand.

The vote to re-appoint did not come up. Butterworth & Hutchins must come in if G. & R. stand out. Why they should stand out now I know not. There is so much to be done that now the “referred to Green with power” Dodge has had the bottom knocked out of it. They are in a fix with the public and all want of course to get out of town, so it may come to a head this next week by special meeting.

I refused all “Executive Committee” operations in private conversation with Green.

You could not help being a little amused at the turn things are taking in that direction—he was at my home for the first time the other evening hanging around as of old for encouragement and consolation. He said “It seems to me that it is about time for someone else to come to me about this thing. I go from one to another & then to you and perhaps it may appear that I am not perfectly frank in the matter. It places me in a very delicate position. I think perhaps some other member had better bring this up.” I said that as the strong man of the Board if any pressure had to be brought to bear he was the man to bring it, I supposed, but it made no difference to us who brought it up. But if it should fail said he. Blank silence and evident perception of the fact on my part that he not we should be the sufferers in the long or now pretty short run. He is anxiously looking for violent declamation in the papers on the subject, and always winces when I tell him that the plans hang there till the middle of July and any time will do. The public are making up their minds. Campaign Document N° 3 is however in preparation, this time not signed by C.V., and I will send it you when it appears, perhaps however the Campaign will be ended before it appears.

I hope in all this you will see that whatever may be prudent to do in regard to AHG, that he is played out and if we play decently that we can make the L.A. cover anything we want or rather anything you want and save ourselves trouble into the bargain. We can talk all about this when you return. You must let me know exactly how all this strikes you and if I have not understood you & have missed in any way, why, [385]you must understand that I am sure that anything you want not only is right to be had but that it can be got by prudent calculation & cooperation.

All this may come to nothing but it looks very little like it this last week. Green is under the impression that his life depends on it I should think by the way he is working. I only now fear that humpty dumpty can’t be put together again with ease and celerity but we must try & make things smooth and “aisy.” I called A.H.G. a p.s. and an m.p. in two different letters apparently inconsistent statements but still true. He has been a main prop in one sense and I cannot reconcile myself to the idea of any man who has stood by the plan being left in the lurch, so we must try & make his mind Easy as to his Comptrollership—just the proper name for his work—and proceed by judicious means to get the power over the vital management of the park by proper reports and influence with the Board & public.

In the end, the LA may include all you want. If isolation is desirable to carry out your view, it can be had in time. But I will tell you what I am driving at. I will give you an example to illustrate. The Academy Building has just been built by the artists through their organization. It has been built by raising funds in a prudent & Yankee way by fellowships of laymen &c. The result is a business success for artists. They take the position of not only being artists but energetic men of affairs also. This is what we want—to show that an artist, is everybody else with something besides. The guild must be supported—and this applies especially to the Park, the big art work of the Republic. I have always felt that it would be mean on the part of its makers to let the success be an administration success—it would seem as if they were ashamed of their work. You approaching this thing from the other point & not being except instinctively an artist failed to see this but I assure you there is a valuable truth in it. I faithfully failed to keep this idea because you never would have understood it except in the light of a newly started opposition or antagonism, but I always expected that the thing would refuse to be carried through on an inaccurate basis—and this has been my perplexity from beginning to end, how to accommodate my convictions to my implied contract with you.

I felt that the L.A. must be the title I must fight under if I fought at all and fight I felt I must some day, and yet as you know it nearly made you feel that I had deserted you & taken advantage of your absence. It did not help me to know that you were merely laboring under a misconception and were pursuing your end under unfavorable circumstances that might be avoided and that in all essentials I was entirely with you and entirely appreciated the beauty of the idea of considering the park from beginning to end as a vital organism to be artistically treated not only in L. and A. but also in management and—all the rest of it. This is [386]

what you are gifted to foresee & design as well as and perhaps better than architecture or Planting or both together but it is all art of the pure sort, and places you on the platform with the rest of the guild. Of course you have unartistic capacities, as who has not that is able, but these predominate so far that you ought to be in no doubt as to where you stand and really ought to subscribe your abilities and everything you have to our side, not the LA, but the art side so that if for example you succeed in administration it may be quoted as an artist’s success and not show as if artists had to get other people to do their work of this sort. How far all this may impress you I know not, but I have so little doubt about your success as an artist and so great fear as to your judgment in entirely unartistic matters that I speak of course my own thought plainly.

I will also give you a clue to my habit of thought, and enclose two documents which please preserve. When I started in business I found the system of remuneration defective and unsettled. I refused all business not in the plan I determined on & established a set of precedents quietly (quietly enough), then I published my book and quoted these precedents, not so quietly and with considerable prominence printed my terms on the end of the vol—so as to attract attention. This was a little misunderstood and I afterwards elided the card. It was said that I advertised and [387]that I was protruding my card &c rather vulgarly. It touched me & I asked myself, if this really was so and if I was shoving myself into notice under the impression that I was strengthening the best interests of the profession. Just at that time the C.P. came up and I was placed in the position of either starting on the thing in a way that I could not approve as an architect or of seeming to insist at the outset on personal prominence.

I concluded to try the former alternative knowing well that it was unsound and perhaps not wholly defensible, standing as I did then in regard to the profession of which I was a well established member. However, I did adopt this line and this I refer to because my statement as to “accident” in a late letter might appear confused otherwise. Knowing the state of art and the position of artists and the needs of every strength being brought to bear, it was of course somewhat difficult to countenance the idea of an established archt serving as clerk for six months to a new man who chose to call himself or be called archt, but I chose to risk it trusting to the truth working itself out, and being well aware that you were wanted where you were more than anywhere else, that no one could do your work which was delicate art work most of it &c &c. Of course it led to much needless difficulty but if I had opposed you and you had been disheartened—there very likely might have been no park to chatter about today, for I alone was wholly incompetent to take it up. I approached the work first by arranging the terms of the competition first before you came on the Park or saw me, but I had no idea of competing because I felt my incapacity. I feel it no less—I will not say no less, but very little less—now, and enter on Brooklyn alone with hesitation and distrust not on the roads & walks or even planting, which Pilat would have to attend to but in regard to the main point—the translation of the republican art idea in its highest form into the acres we want to control.

I feel with regard to the L.A. that I must try & do for it at least as well as I felt it my duty to do for the A. Do my best to make it a pursuit worth following. I am therefore—steadying its system and making or trying to make judicious precedents, weaning the L.A. from the A. including all the art in the LA that it can be got to hold &c &c. Is not this a worthy aim, why is it not a brilliant one in the long run. I feel that it will be a burning shame and a reprehensible mistake on our part if the C.P. slips up as a confused jumble of which there is nothing quotable as precedent, that will help our successors. Think of this—with me it is almost a matter of religion and I speak of it the more distinctly because hitherto you have seemed to me too much of a Bedouin, in your views of such matters. You have refused to accept such responsibility and have preferred to accept other responsibilities.

For God’s sake let all this weigh with you. Do not do the small thing by the profession that you have entered on, and leave it with the [388]big job of the art in a state that may be quoted perhaps as an ornament among many ornaments in the watch chain of F.L.O., a mere point for a paragraph but which is only half done and yet spoiled for anyone else’s handling while it is full of the most vigorous vitality and has a million dollars & over in its till with an endless pocket to appeal to. For myself I could with perfect calmness and satisfaction at any time (or nearly at any time) have sat down with you & discussed & decided on the minutest detail of the most remotely necessary part of the scheme, living or dead with the full confidence that our time would come.

I hope if you return this will happen. As we get older our moods are more valuable. Let us try and help each other in this way and lay up a store of completely developed ideas so that as our power or the power of each increases we may succeed as if by magic and always be in an impregnable fortified position.