The Memoirs of a
Failure
With an Account of
the Man and his
Manuscript
By
Daniel Wright Kittredge
ALBERT BRITNELL
TORONTO, CANADA
Copyright, 1908, by
DANIEL W. KITTREDGE.
Entered at Stationers’
Hall, in London
CONTENTS
| Dunlevy at the University of Virginia | 5 |
| Dunlevy at Harvard | 17 |
| Dunlevy: His Manuscript | 33 |
| “The Memoirs of a Failure” | 39 |
| Dunlevy Abroad? | 187 |
DUNLEVY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.
Lest the name of a hitherto unknown author be totally obliterated, I amgoing to give a description of his curious personality, together withan account of a manuscript in his handwriting, as bewildering as itis extraordinary, from which some extracts are now for the first timebrought from obscurity into the daylight of print. I give at once thename of this writer—William Wirt Dunlevy.
It is essential to begin by relating what little is known of the manhimself. Otherwise these fragments of his work would be even moreinexplicable than if they were presented without comment. Indeed, itis best to admit at the outset that the character of this man and theoutcome of his life are subjects which seem destined to remain quiteas inscrutable as the meaning of his manuscript. All that lies withinmy aim or power is simply to try to make known his personality as Ihave conceived it from the few facts of his life known to me, fromhis writings and from a slight intimacy with the man[Pg 6] himself. Whatis finest to me is the man behind the manuscript; and so my part isstrictly to essay at interpretative biography. I am about to tell thebrief story of a life singularly strange, a life whose overmasteringinterest is not in public events, not in famous friendships, not inoutward adventures, in nothing but in the man himself. I doubt ifDunlevy will make a wide appeal for favor. And there will be many, verymany, to whom this whole account will seem not worth while.
Dunlevy was a student at the University of Virginia at the time whensome of us, who were undergraduates, began to notice and comment uponhis personality. He was considerably older than the other students; andwe imagined that this was the reason why he held himself aloof from us.We used to watch him from the athletic field on pleasant afternoons.He was wont to stand on the great flight of stone steps which ledfrom a shaded avenue to gently sloping terraces that lie before theRotunda, the name of the college library. Dunlevy used to stand at thefoot of these steps, looking intently at the lofty porticos, as thoughimpressed with the maj