Ehrman Syme Nadal

Background

Ehrman Syme Nadal was born on February 13, 1843 in Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia), United States. He was the son of Bernard Harrison and Jane (Mays) Nadal. His father, then minister of the Methodist church in Lewisburg, West Virginia later served parishes in Maryland and Pennsylvania, became professor of English in Indiana Asbury, now De Pauw, University in 1854, and at the time of his death was acting president at Drew Theological Seminary.

Education

Because his father's place of employment was so frequently changed, Nadal attended a variety of elementary and secondary schools. In 1860 he entered Columbia College, transferring in 1862 to Yale, from which he was graduated in 1864.

Career

In 1865 he was an instructor in Dickinson Seminary, Williamsport, Pennsylvania and from 1865 to 1867 he taught in schools in Dansville, New York, and Leavenworth, Kansas.

During the next five years he wrote for various periodicals, including the Nation, and for some time was employed by the New York Evening Post. On June 8, 1877, he was commissioned second secretary to the London legation, and held that office until November 26, 1883. After his return to the United States, he served for some time as secretary to the three civil-service boards of examiners in New York City, contributed to magazines, wrote for the Evening Post, and, in 1892-93, was lecturer on English composition at Columbia.

From 1900 until his death, at Princeton, New Jersey, though he continued to engage in literary work, his principal occupation was dealing in horses, chiefly saddle horses.

Nadal's interest in writing was stimulated by his father, who contributed to various denominational periodicals.

His own first literary venture was an editorial on civil-service reform, written while he was a government employee. It was printed by the New York Evening Post, and Nadal's connection with that journal was thus established.

During his first residence in London, he began to write essays on various aspects of English life that interested him, and these were collected in 1875 under the title Impressions of London Social Life. A rather shrewd observer, he made some illuminating comments on British customs, and the essays still have value as reflections of the life of that time. A second collection, containing some critical articles, followed in 1882--Essays at Home and Elsewhere. In 1895 appeared Notes of a Professional Exile, a slight volume made up of impressionistic comments on English and Americans at a German resort. He contributed an essay on Milton to The Warner Classics: Poets (1899). In 1917 he published A Virginian Village, which reprinted a number of essays that he had written for periodicals during the preceding two decades. One of Nadal's last essays was a rather valuable account of Henry James ("Personal Recollections of Henry James, " Scribner's Magazine, July 1920).

He belongs to the group of informal essayists that enjoyed some popularity in the later decades of the nineteenth century. He wrote with no great distinction, and literature was with him only an avocation, but he was able to impart to his work enough charm to win at least a small circle of readers. Though he wrote more or less on literary subjects, and though his judgment was independent and at times keen, he was too little disciplined to become a first-rate critic, and his best essays are descriptions of social customs. In tone his work is invariably personal.

Achievements

• He was employed by the federal government, first in the Philadelphia mint and afterwards in the dead-letter office, Washington. He was a secretary of legation in London.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Impressions of London Social Life, with Other Papers

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Francis Aquila Stout

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Essays at Home and Elsewhere

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • A Virginian Village, and Other Papers; Together With Some Autobiographical Notes

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Notes of a Professional Exile

    (Leopold is delighted to publish this classic book as part...)

Connections

He never married.

Father:

Bernard Harrison Nadal

clergyman

Mother:

Jane (Mays) Nadal