passed his youth in Virginia and Maryland; before he was twenty-three he
had lived several months in Germany, and, on his return voyage, he had
sailed by the white cliffs of England, and, from the deck of his
steamer, had caught glimpses of that Isle of Wight which then held his
youthful favourite Tennyson. He had added to these experiences a winter
in Kentucky and a sojourn of nearly two years in Missouri. His Southern
trip, to which Page refers in the above, had taken him through
Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana; he had visited
the West again in 1882, spending a considerable time in all the large
cities, Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Leadville, Salt Lake, and from the
latter point he had travelled extensively through Mormondom. The several
months spent in Atlanta had given the young correspondent a glimpse into
the new South, for this energetic city embodied a Southern spirit that
was several decades removed from the Civil War. After this came nearly
two years in New York and Washington, where Page gained his first
insight into Federal politics; in particular, as a correspondent
attached to the Tariff Commission--an assignment that again started him
on his travels to industrial centres--he came into contact, for the
first time, with the mechanism of framing the great American tariff. And
during this period Page was not only forming a first-hand acquaintance
with the passing scene, but also with important actors in it. The mere
fact that, on the St. Joseph _Gazette_, he succeeded Eugene Field--"a
good fellow named Page is going to take my desk," said the careless
poet, "I hope he will succeed to my debts too"--always remained a
pleasant memory. He entered zealously into the life of this active
community; his love of talk and disputation, his interest in politics,
his hearty laugh, his vigorous handclasp, his animation of body and of
spirit, and his sunny outlook on men and events--these are the traits
that his old friends in this town, some of whom still survive,
associate with the juvenile editor. In his Southern trip Page
called--self-invited--upon Jefferson Davis and was cordially
received. At Atlanta, as he records above, he made friends with that
chivalric champion of a resurrected South, Henry Grady; here also he
obtained fugitive glimpses of a struggling and briefless lawyer, who,
like Page, was interested more in books and writing than in the humdrum
of professional life, and who was then engaged