Owen Wister - The Virginian

"That's having its day, ma'am, right now. And we are getting ready for the change — some of us are."

"And what may be the change, and when is it to come?"

"When the natural pasture is eaten off," he explained. "I have seen that coming a long while. And if the thieves are going to make us drive our stock away, we'll drive it. If they don't, we'll have big pastures fenced, and hay and shelter ready for winter. What we'll spend in improvements, we'll more than save in wages. I am well fixed for the new conditions. And then, when I took up my land, I chose a place where there is coal. It will not be long before the new railroad needs that."

Thus the old lady learned more of her niece's husband in one evening than the Bennington family had ascertained during his whole sojourn with them. For by touching upon Wyoming and its future, she roused him to talk. He found her mind alive to Western questions: irrigation, the Indians, the forests; and so he expanded, revealing to her his wide observation and his shrewd intelligence. He forgot entirely to be shy. She sent Molly to bed, and kept him talking for an hour. Then she showed him old things that she was proud of, "because," she said, "we, too, had something to do with making our country. And now go to Molly, or you'll both think me a tiresome old lady."

"I think—" he began, but was not quite equal to expressing what he thought, and suddenly his shyness flooded him again.

"In that case, nephew," said she, "I'm afraid you'll have to kiss me good night."

And so she dismissed him to his wife, and to happiness greater than either of them had known since they had left the mountains and come to the East. "He'll do," she said to herself, nodding.

Their visit to Dunbarton was all happiness and reparation for the doleful days at Bennington. The old lady gave much comfort and advice to her niece in private, and when they came to leave, she stood at the front door holding both their hands a moment.

"God bless you, my dears," she told them. "And when you come next time, I'll have the nursery ready."

And so it happened that before she left this world, the great-aunt was able to hold in her arms the first of their many children.

Judge Henry at Sunk Creek had his wedding present ready. His growing affairs in Wyoming needed his presence in many places distant from his ranch, and he made the Virginian his partner. When the thieves prevailed at length, as they did, forcing cattle owners to leave the country or be ruined, the Virginian had forestalled this crash. The herds were driven away to Montana. Then, in 1889, came the cattle war, when, after putting their men in office, and coming to own some of the newspapers, the thieves brought ruin on themselves as well. For in a broken country there is nothing left to steal.

But the railroad came, and built a branch to that land of the Virginian's where the coal was. By that time he was an important man, with a strong grip on many various enterprises, and able to give his wife all and more than she asked or desired.

Sometimes she missed the Bear Creek days, when she and he had ridden together, and sometimes she declared that his work would kill him. But it does not seem to have done so. Their eldest boy rides the horse Monte; and, strictly between ourselves, I think his father is going to live a long while.

Wister, Owen

Born:July 14, 1860, in Germantown, Pennsylvania

Died:July 21, 1938, in North Kingstown, Rhode Island

Vocations:Novelist, Short Story Writer, Poet, Playwright, Librettist, Biographer, Non-Fiction Writer

Geographic Connection to Pennsylvania:Germantown, Philadelphia County

Keywords:Harvard University; Fanny Kemble; Lady Baltimore ; Silas Weir Mitchell; Neurasthenia; Phi Beta Kappa; Frederic Remington; Romney ; Theodore Roosevelt; The Virginian ; Wyoming

Abstract:Owen Wister, a son of a wealthy Germantown family, was born in 1860. The future novelist first showed promise as a musician, though his father directed him into a career in banking and then in the law. Plagued with neurasthenia, Wister took a variant of the “rest cure” of Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell, traveling to Wyoming on Mitchell’s advice. From these experiences, Wister began to write short stories on the West. His Western writing culminated in the 1902 publication of The Virginian , the most popular Western ever. During his career, Wister published another novel, many short stories, an opera, three biographies, and a number of political pieces. Owen Wister died at his summer home in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, in 1938.

Biography:

Owen Wister was born on July 14, 1860, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He was the only child of well-to-do parents. Owen Jones Wister was a well-established doctor in Germantown, and he descended from a successful German family. Sarah Wister was the daughter of the famous stage actress Fanny Kemble and Pierce Butler, who was a descendant of the Butlers of South Carolina. Wister’s mother influenced the course of his early life profoundly. Her interests in culture and learning fostered Wister’s early talents in music and writing.

Wister’s education matched the expectations for the upper class of his time. From 1870 to 1873 he joined his family in Europe and was taught in schools in England and Switzerland. In 1873, the Wister family returned to Philadelphia and young Owen, known to the family as “Dan,” was packed off to the St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. Upon his graduation, he matriculated at Harvard University. His time at Harvard was invigorating for the budding young musician and writer. He wrote for the Harvard Lampoon and published a fantasy called The New Swiss Family Robinson , as well as a light opera for the Hasty Pudding Club, Dido and Aeneas . Wister also made lifelong friends at Harvard, most prominently future president Theodore Roosevelt, future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and future Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. He graduated from Harvard in 1882 summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He was determined to pursue a career as a composer.

Following graduation, Wister traveled to Europe to study music. His musical ability was so apparent that his grandmother engineered a performance for the great piano virtuoso Franz Liszt, who said that Wister had “ un talent prononcé ” [a pronounced talent]. After his audience with Liszt, Wister studied at the Paris Conservatoire. However, Wister’s ever-practical father ordered him home in 1883 to find a proper job. Wister returned to a position at the Union Safe Deposit Vault, computing interest. He loathed bankers for the rest of his life. After a year’s drudgery, he sought and was granted parental permission to return to Harvard for law school.

He expressed his disappointment and frustration during these years in two ways. First, he wrote a novel called A Wise Man’s Son about a young man destined to be a painter, but forced by his father into business. Upon the advice of William Dean Howells, the leading figure in American Letters at that time, Wister did not attempt to have the novel published. The manuscript has not survived. Wister’s then began to suffer a number of nervous and mental problems that incapacitated him and worried his family. Dr. Silas Weir Mitchell eventually diagnosed the malady as neurasthenia and prescribed a variation of his famous “rest cure.”

Following the doctor’s prescription, Wister made the first of numerous trips to Wyoming and to other parts of the West. This cure became the inspiration for the work that made Wister famous.