An Adventure with a Genius: Recollections of Joseph PulitzerIreland, Alleyne
General
An Adventure with a Genius: Recollections of Joseph Pulitzer
Ireland, Alleyne
Pulitzer, Joseph, 1847-1911
I have said that it was J. P.'s custom to seek repose on the yacht when
he was worn out with overwork; but it would be more accurate to say that
rest was the seldom realized object of these short cruises, for nothing
was more difficult for J. P. than to drop his work so long as he had a
vestige of strength left with which he could flog his mind into action.
Starting out with the best intentions, J. P.'s cruises of recuperation
were usually cut short by putting in to Portland, or New London, or
Marblehead to get newspapers and to send telegrams summoning to the
yacht one or another of the higher staff of The World.
It was, however, when we anchored, as we often did, off Greenwich,
Conn., that J. P. indulged himself to his utmost capacity in conferences
with editors and business managers of The World and with one or two
outsiders. We would drop anchor in the afternoon, pick up a visitor,
cruise in the Sound for a night and a morning, drop anchor again, send
the visitor ashore, and pick up another.
Toward the latter part of September, 1911, J. P. left the yacht and
moved into his town house in East 73d Street. It was a large and
beautifully designed mansion, differing in three particulars from the
ordinary run of residences which have been built, furnished, and
decorated with the utmost good taste and without regard to expense.
The room in which J. P. usually took his meals was a small but
beautifully proportioned retreat so placed that it was completely
surrounded by other rooms and had no direct contact with the outside
world. It was in its ground plan an irregular octagon, and it drew its
light and air from a glass dome. The most striking element in the
decorations was a number of slender columns of pale-green Irish marble,
which rose from the floor to the dome.
Another unusual feature of the house was a superb church organ, which
was built into a large recess halfway up the main staircase. J. P. was
an enthusiastic lover of organ music, and heard as much of it as he
could during his brief visits to New York.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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