Chapter IV

In 1913, Kilmer’s daughter Rose, nine months of age, was stricken with infantile paralysis. It was then, upon his bringing his family to town to give his daughter the treatment of a specialist, when he came to my house to tell me of this, that I first distinctly realised that this young man was remarkable--in a manner far beyond mere talent. The idea which he kept firmly before his mind was that it had been declared there was no occasion to fear her death as a result of her affliction. During the course of his stay with me that day he said several times, “Well, there are lots of people worse off than I am.” This idea, too, it was apparent, he felt he must hold before him. And then, with his amazing and unconquerable _flair_ for life, he launched upon the theme that this was a “very interesting disease,” and he elaborated the thought that an infirmity of the body frequently resulted in an increased vitality of the mind.

“I like to feel that I have always been a Catholic,” was a sentiment frequently expressed by Kilmer. It has repeatedly been declared by friends very close to him that his minute knowledge of pious customs and practices of which a life-long Catholic might easily be ignorant was a constant surprise to them, but that with respect to religion as particularised in himself he kept silent, would never discuss the steps that led to his conversion, and it was only by chance they discovered he was a daily communicant. It was late in 1918 that Kilmer astonished the little world that then comprised his family, his friends and acquaintances by entering, with his wife, the Roman Catholic Church. One afternoon not long after this occurrence he not so much invited as directed me over the telephone to meet him that night for dinner at the Columbia Club. His purpose soon became clear. This was the only solemn hour I ever spent with Kilmer. I think it well to record here what he deeply impressed upon me: that it was this searing test of his spirit which had come upon him in the affliction of his daughter that fixed his religion.

Kilmer did not become a great patriot when his country entered the world war. He was, of course, the same in fibre then as before. Only then was known to him and visible to others what was latent in his heart. And in this sense it was, I think, that it was clear to him that he did not become, but had always been a Catholic, though he had not earlier realised it. He tried all things and held fast to that which he found good. He was inwardly driven to seek until his spirit found its home. That only the time of his conversion was, in a sense, accidental, and that the conversion itself was inevitable, must be evident in the fact that he was never really himself before he became, as we say, a convert. Then his fluid spirituality, his yearning sense of religion, was stabilized. What is the “secret,” as we say, of all that has been told of his ability? His courage, his mental and physical energy, were, manifestly, unusual. But his character, in the faith that he embraced, found its tempered spring. His talent was a wingéd seed which in the rich soil which had mothered so much art found fructification.

It is not an unsupported assertion to say that he was in his time and place the laureate of the Catholic Church. His sentiments as to the function of a Catholic poet he has expressed very positively in his essays and lectures. He joyed in the new proof given by Helen Parry Eden “that piety and mirth may comfortably dwell together.” “A convert to Catholicism,” he wrote of Mr. Yeats on Lionel Johnson, “is not a person who wanders about weeping over autumn winds and dead leaves, mumbling Latin and sniffing incense.” Nor is it necessary to lay æsthetic hands on the church’s treasures, “and decorate rhymes with rich ecclesiastical imagery and the fragrant names of the saints.” But in Faith one may find “that purity and strength which are the guarantees of immortality.”

And, once a Catholic, there never was any possibility of mistaking Kilmer’s point of view: in all matters of religion, art, economics and politics, as well as in all matters of faith and morals, his point of view was obviously and unhesitatingly Catholic. Considerable as were his gifts and skill as a politician in the business of his career, the veriest zealot could not say that he did not do the most unpolitic things in the service of his faith. A very positive figure, he laboured tirelessly, alternating from one field to another, for the Catholic Church.

As a brilliant interpretative critic of Catholic writers, such as Crashaw, Patmore, Francis Thompson, Lionel Johnson and Belloc, he brought, I think I may venture to say, an altogether new touch into Catholic journalism in America, a striking and distinguished blend of “piety and mirth,” which had the rare and highly effective quality of being both engaging and highly illuminating even to, as Kilmer would amiably have said, the Pagan. Impetus, of course, was given to his style in this by his admiration for the brilliant school of English Catholic journalists, an impetus doubtless accelerated by the personal acquaintance with Belloc, the Chestertons and the Meynells he gained in a flying visit to England in 1914 to rescue his mother from war difficulties in London; when, during a few odd moments before his return, he established a lively connection with the Northcliffe papers and _T. P.’s Weekly_. Even so, Kilmer almost, or quite, alone transplanted this particular spark; and his note of witty common sense and spiritual sensibility was particularly Kilmerian, too.

One day about four years ago the village Post Office at Mahwah did a totally unprecedented and most extraordinary business in outgoing mail, and Kilmer was again multiplied manifold. The neat circulars which he had printed and with which he stuffed the mail box announced that the author of “Trees,” a member of the staff of the _New York Times_, etc., etc., “offered the following lectures for the coming season.” The result may best be epitomised in the parable of the gentleman who cast his bread upon the waters to have it come back to him in the form of sardine sandwiches. The rapid development of Kilmer’s lecture business, which soon assumed the proportions of no mean career in itself, immensely extended his force as a quickening influence in the Catholic world. Before societies and educational institutions in many places, frequently travelling as far as Notre Dame, Indiana, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, he flung his bright portraits of “seekers after that real but elusive thing called beauty, a thing which they found in their submission to her who is the mother of all learning, all culture, and all the arts, the Catholic Church.”