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diff --git a/26910.txt b/26910.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ca78538 --- /dev/null +++ b/26910.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10085 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories of Authors, British and American, by +Edwin Watts Chubb + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Stories of Authors, British and American + +Author: Edwin Watts Chubb + +Release Date: October 13, 2008 [EBook #26910] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTHORS, BRITISH AND AMERICAN *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Jeannie Howse and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | + | been preserved. | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | + | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + + [Illustration: GEOFFREY CHAUCER + From a portrait in Occleve's Poems in the British Museum] + + + + +Stories of Authors + +_British and American_ + +BY +EDWIN WATTS CHUBB +Professor of English Literature +in the Ohio University. + + +_ILLUSTRATED_ + + +New York +STURGIS & WALTON +COMPANY +1910 + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +Copyright, 1910 +BY STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY + +Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910 + +Reprinted May, 1910 + + + + +PREFACE + + +The purpose of this book is to help in making literature and the +makers of literature alive and interesting. Few schools have libraries +including the bound volumes of the magazines of the past quarter of a +century. But what an aid such a collection is to the appreciation of +literature! The dignified and abbreviated history of literature cannot +indulge in such delightful gossip as is found in the freer essay and +fuller biography. To show the excellences of the art and the +lovableness of the artist rather than to hunt for defects is the duty +and the delight of the teacher of literature. This does not mean, +however, that one dare never see the weaker side, the foibles and +eccentricities of the man of genius. + +I like Macaulay none the less because his cock-sureness and loquacity +came dangerously near to making him a bore; Dr. Johnson grows in +interest when I learn that he found it a continual and almost hopeless +struggle to become an early riser, that he feared death, and could +drink tea as long as the housekeeper could brew it; that Tennyson was +a slave to tobacco and acted like a yokel when the newly-wedded +Muellers entertained him at breakfast does not detract from my +enjoyment of the exquisite pathos of _Tears, Idle Tears_; that the +marriage of the Brownings was a runaway romance is a whole commentary +of explanation when I read their poems of romantic love; that +Longfellow is said to have declined an invitation to the Adirondacks +because he was told that Emerson was to carry a gun is really far more +delightful, and I may add valuable, information than to know the exact +date of the birth of either. Of knowledge such as this is the kingdom +of literary interest. It is not well to place our literary lights upon +a pedestal so lofty that the radiating warmth and light never reach +our hearts. + +While many of the articles may be somewhat gossipy in tone, the +serious phase has not been overlooked. The sketches have been gathered +from many sources. Some have been written by myself, others have been +gathered from magazines and books. I wish to acknowledge the kindness +of _Scribners' Magazine_, of the _Bookman_, and of the _New England +Magazine_ in permitting me to use articles originally appearing in +these respective magazines. To all who have wittingly or unwittingly +made it possible for me to gather my material I wish to acknowledge my +indebtedness. Every article has been written, selected, or adapted +because of some special value. In these pages the reader may find what +Lamb earned during the years of his famous clerkship, or the exciting +details of Shelley's death. How many times have we heard of Sir Philip +Sidney's immortal act of chivalry as he _lay_ on the field at Zutphen! +But definite information has it otherwise. To learn of the prodigious +industry of the youthful Mill, the perseverance of Darwin, the heroic +struggle of Scott, the gentleness of Stevenson, the modesty of +Browning, the lifelong consecration of Motley,--is not the leaven of +inspiration made of knowledge such as this? + +I have an unshaken conviction that the highest art of the teacher is +manifested in the awakening of such an interest that the pupil shall +forever after be an eager learner. Am I wrong in hoping that no one, +though with but a meager knowledge of literature, can read these +sketches without a desire to know more of the men and women who are +the glory of England and America? Here is but a taste of a more +sumptuous feast. + + Dreams, books are each a world; and books, we know, + Are a substantial world, both pure and good: + Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, + Our pastime and our happiness will grow. + + EDWIN WATTS CHUBB. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +ENGLISH WRITERS + +CHAPTER PAGE + + I. The Ancient Tabard Inn 1 + + II. Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen 4 + + III. About Shakspere 9 + + IV. John Milton 17 + + V. Charles Lamb, the Clerk of the India House 24 + + VI. Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb 28 + + VII. The Death of Dr. Johnson 33 + + VIII. Gray Writes the Elegy 37 + + IX. Cowper as a Letter Writer 42 + + X. Gibbon and His Visit to Rome 46 + + XI. Burns Falls in Love 50 + + XII. Burns' First Book of Poems 54 + + XIII. Samuel Taylor Coleridge in School and College 59 + + XIV. Byron as Swimmer and Feaster 64 + + XV. Shelley as a Freshman 71 + + XVI. The Death of Shelley 76 + + XVII. The School-days of John Keats 82 + + XVIII. The Heroism of Sir Walter Scott 88 + + XIX. Walter Savage Landor 93 + + XX. Leigh Hunt's Business Ability 100 + + XXI. De Quincey Runs Away 102 + + XXII. Macaulay's Childhood 108 + + XXIII. Macaulay Becomes Famous 114 + + XXIV. Dickens Writes the Pickwick Papers 119 + + XXV. Charles Dickens as Reader 123 + + XXVI. On the Death of Dickens 126 + + XXVII. Ruskin's Childhood 130 + + XXVIII. The Marriage of the Brownings 135 + + XXIX. Robert Browning 140 + + XXX. Knight's Reminiscences of Tennyson 145 + + XXXI. Emerson on Carlyle and Tennyson 150 + + XXXII. Literary Recollections of Max Mueller 156 + + XXXIII. The Early Education of John Stuart Mill 162 + + XXXIV. Carlyle Goes to the University 167 + + XXXV. Carlyle and His Wife 170 + + XXXVI. Carlyle as Lecturer 175 + + XXXVII. Carlyle on Wordsworth and Browning 180 + +XXXVIII. The Author of "Jane Eyre" 184 + + XXXIX. Thackery in America 189 + + XL. George Eliot Becomes a Writer of Fiction 194 + + XLI. The Author of "Alice in WonderLand" 200 + + XLII. About Darwin 203 + + XLIII. Anecdotes of Huxley 209 + + XLIV. Stevenson at Vailima 214 + + XLV. Kipling in India 221 + + +AMERICAN WRITERS + + XLVI. Benjamin Franklin Runs Away 226 + + XLVII. Washington Irving 234 + + XLVIII. Cooper and "The Spy" 242 + + XLIX. John Lothrop Motley and Bismarck 249 + + L. The Youth of George Ticknor 254 + + LI. Fitz-Greene Halleck 259 + + LII. The Author of Thanatopsis 262 + + LIII. Curtis and Hawthorne at the Brook Farm 266 + + LIV. Hawthorne and the Scarlet Letter 270 + + LV. Max Mueller's Recollections of Emerson, Lowell and Holmes 279 + + LVI. Howells Calls on Emerson, and Describes Longfellow 284 + + LVII. Longfellow, the Universal Poet 290 + + LVIII. Henry David Thoreau 297 + + LIX. The Last Days of Edgar Allan Poe 303 + + LX. Artemus Ward 313 + + LXI. Edmund Gosse Visits Whittier 317 + + LXII. Personal Recollections of Whittier 320 + + LXIII. Henry Ward Beecher 329 + + LXIV. The London "Times" on Lowell 333 + + LXV. The Writing of "America" 338 + + LXVI. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her First Story 340 + + LXVII. Sidney Lanier 344 + + LXVIII. The Story of Mark Twain's Debts 349 + + LXIX. Hamlin Garland's Literary Beginning 358 + + LXX. Stephen Crane: A "Wonderful Boy" 361 + + LXXI. Eugene Field 364 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +Geoffrey Chaucer _Frontispiece_ + + FACING PAGE + +The Old Tabard Inn 2 + +William Shakspere 8 + +John Milton 16 + +Robert Burns 50 + +Lord Byron 64 + +Percy Bysshe Shelley 70 + +Charles Dickens 122 + +Robert Browning 134 + +Alfred Tennyson 144 + +Ralph Waldo Emerson 150 + +Thomas Carlyle 175 + +Benjamin Franklin 226 + +William Cullen Bryant 262 + +Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 290 + +John Greenleaf Whittier 320 + + + + +STORIES OF AUTHORS + + + + +I + +THE ANCIENT TABARD INN + + +The picture we see here is that of an inn whose fame is as widespread +as the love of English poetry, for it is at the Tabard Inn that +Chaucer more than five hundred years ago assembled his nine and twenty +pilgrims who were preparing to visit the tomb of Thomas a Becket at +Canterbury. The witchery of the springtime had stirred the blood of +these Londoners who, perhaps, were enticed from home more by the soft +April showers and the melody of the birds than by their need of +spiritual consolation. This, at least, is the impression we receive as +in imagination we join these immortal pilgrims at the Tabard. Our +guide is + + Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath + Preluded those melodious bursts that fill + The spacious times of great Elizabeth + With sounds that echo still,-- + +and as he moves among his motley group, let us take a glance at the +Tabard. + +The picture we have is that of the typical old English inn. "As late +as 1870 the ruins of the famous Tabard could be found. It was near St. +Saviour in the Borough High Street. Turning from the street into one +of those courtyards which abound in the east of London, the visitor +comes upon the ruins of the once famous inn the very name of which has +been transformed by time. It is now known as the '_Talbot_,' but the +inscription above the doorway contradicts the modern signboard and +proclaims the house to be '_The Ancient Tabard Inn_.' The whole yard +is redolent of dilapidation. Facing the visitor on entering is an +interesting block of old buildings, forming part of the left side, and +the bottom of what once was an ample courtyard. This part of the +building contains not improbably the shell of the corresponding +portion of the original inn. The doors of the first floor all open +into one of the wide balustraded galleries or verandas so common in +the genuine old English hostelry. Until recently the landlord of the +_Talbot_, then a small public-house, and still forming part of the +modern mass of brick building that blocks up the right side and part +of the center of the courtyard, rented the rooms by which this +balustraded gallery was, and still is, surrounded. They were then let +as bedrooms, and kept in good repair; and are supposed to occupy the +site of the very rooms once tenanted by the Canterbury pilgrims; the +gallery probably differing but little in appearance from what it was +when Chaucer frequented it in search of good wine. The landlord +eventually became insolvent; the paltry tavern was shut up, and the +bedrooms were dismantled. In that plight they might be seen some years +ago, may still possibly be seen--empty, dusty, dreary--ranged above +ground-floor premises which do duty as a parcels' conveyance office, +and abutting on a mean, ill-kept yard. Until within the last few +years the coigne of the old balustraded gallery was connected on the +right with the modern brick mass by an ancient wood-work bridge, +coeval at least with the oldest portion of the building as it stands. +But the bridge is gone, and the lust of gold and the pride of life +have so destroyed that spirit of reverence and refined superstitious +love for the venerable which should characterize an advanced +civilization, that it is greatly to be feared the rest of the +structure will soon follow. Yet it was in this courtyard, and before +this very inn, that Chaucer and his nine-and-twenty pilgrims stood in +picturesque confusion in the early dawn of that spring morning, long, +long ago; and agreed for their common amusement on the road each one +of them should tell at least one tale in going to, and another in +returning from Canterbury; the best story teller to be treated to a +supper by his fellow travelers on their return to the Tabard Inn. The +company comprises representatives from all classes of society except +the two extremes; there is neither a prince nor a beggar. The +characters are taken from middle-class life, of which they may be +accepted as fair and truthful types; being described with a vigorous +fidelity which has never been surpassed in the whole range of art. +Every figure stands out from the canvas sharp and clear like pictures +seen through a stereoscope. Not a touch, not a line is wanting; each +trick of speech and peculiarity of feature or of dress, is +photographed with Preraphaelite fidelity." + + [Illustration: THE OLD TABARD INN + From a drawing by Herbert Railton] + + + + +II + +SIR PHILIP SIDNEY AT ZUTPHEN + + +Whenever the name of Sir Philip Sidney is mentioned one involuntarily +thinks of noble generosity and knightly gentleness and self-sacrifice. +And here is the story of the act that forever united his name with the +highest ideals of chivalry: + +In August, 1586, Leicester assembled his troops at Arnheim, which he +made his headquarters. After reducing Doesburg, he prepared to besiege +Zutphen, an important town on the Yssel. The garrison was in sore need +of provisions, which Parma, before marching to its relief, determined +to supply. A convoy of corn, meat, and other necessaries, sufficient +to victual the place for three months, was accordingly collected, and +on the twenty-second of September left the Spanish camp. So high was +Parma's estimate of the importance of preserving Zutphen, that the +escort despatched with the convoy numbered twenty-nine hundred foot +and six hundred horse. Leicester was informed of the enemy's movement, +but not of the force which protected it. An ambuscade of five hundred +men, under Sir John Norris, was held sufficient to intercept the +convoy. About fifty young officers volunteered to add their services. +This gallant band was composed of the flower of the English army.... +It was indeed "an incredible extravagance to send a handful of such +heroes against such an army," but Leicester can scarcely be blamed for +failing to restrain the impulsive ardor which animated his entire +staff. Sidney's characteristic magnanimity betrayed him that day into +a fatal excess. He had risen at the first sound of the trumpet and +left his tent completely armed, but observing that Sir William Pelham, +an older soldier, had not protected his legs with cuishes, returned +and threw off his own. The morning was cold and densely foggy, as the +little company galloped forth to join their comrades in ambush. Just +as they came up, Sir John Norris had caught the first sounds of the +approaching convoy. Almost at the same moment the fog cleared off and +revealed at what terrible odds the battle was to be fought that day. +Mounted arquebusiers, pikemen and musketeers on foot, Spaniards, +Italians, and even, it is said, Albanians, to the number of +thirty-five hundred, guarded the wagons before and behind. The English +were but five hundred and fifty men. Yet among them all, the historian +has the right of blood to say with confidence, "There was no thought +of retreat." The indomitable national spirit embodied itself in the +war-cry of young Essex: "Follow me, good fellows, for the honor of +England and England's queen!" At the word a hundred horsemen, Sidney +in the midst, with lance in hand and curtel-axe at saddle-bow, spurred +to the charge. The enemy's cavalry broke, but the musketeers in the +rear fired a deadly volley, under cover of which it formed anew. A +second charge re-broke it. In the onset Sidney's horse was killed, but +he remounted and rode forward. Lord Willoughby, after unhorsing and +capturing the Albanian leader, lost his own horse. Attacked on all +sides, he must have fallen and yielded, when Sidney came to the rescue +and struck down his assailants. Individual valor, however, proved +unavailing against the might of numbers. After nearly two hours' +desperate opposition, the convoy still made way. Charge succeeded +charge in the vain effort to prevent its effecting a junction with the +garrison, two thousand of whom were waiting for the right moment to +sally forth. In the last of these onsets, Sir Philip's impetuosity +carried him within musket-shot of the camp. A bullet struck his +unprotected leg, just above the knee, and shattered the bone. He +endeavored to remain on the field, but his horse became unmanageable, +and in agonies of pain and thirst he rode back to the English +quarters, a mile and a half distant. An incident of that ride, as told +in the quaint language of Lord Brooke, retains the immortal charm of +pathos which commands our tears, how often soever repeated: + + In which sad progress, passing along by the rest of the army, + where his uncle the general was, and being thirsty with excess + of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought + him, but as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a + poor soldier carried along who had eaten his last at that same + feast, ghastly, casting up his eyes at the bottle, which Sir + Philip perceiving, took it from his head before he drank, and + delivered it to the poor man with these words, "Thy necessity + is greater than mine." And when he had pledged this poor + soldier, he was presently carried to Arnheim. + +The golden chain of heroic actions, Christian and pagan, may contain +examples of self-denial sublimer and more absolute than this; but in +the blended grace and tenderness of its knightly courtesy, we know not +where to find its parallel. + +Leicester met his nephew as he was borne back to the camp, and burst +into a genuine passion of sorrow. Many a rough soldier among those +who, in returning from the failure of their impossible enterprise, now +came up with their comrade, was unmanned for the first time that day. +Sir William Russell, as tender-hearted as he was daring, embraced him +weeping, and kissed his hand amid broken words of admiration and +sympathy. But Sidney needed no consolation. "I would," said Leicester, +in a letter to Sir Thomas Heneage, "you had stood by to hear his most +loyal speeches to her Majesty, his constant mind to the cause, his +loving care over me, and his most resolute determination for death; +not one jot appalled for his blow, which is the most grievous that +ever I saw with such a bullet." + +The English surgeons at first gave hopes of his speedy restoration to +health, and the favorable news was sent to England. Lady Sidney, who +had followed him to Flushing some months before, at once hastened to +him, but with no idea of his danger. The nation at large thought him +convalescent. He himself, however, never expected to recover, although +submitting with fortitude to whatever systems of treatment were +proposed. Nothing was left untried that affection could suggest or the +imperfect science of the age effect. His wife tenderly nursed him, and +his two younger brothers were constantly at his side. His quondam foe, +Count Hohenlo, though himself dangerously wounded, sent off his own +physician, Adrian Van den Spiegel, to his aid. After examining the +injuries Adrian pronounced them mortal, and then hastened back to the +Count, whose case was not so desperate. "Away, villain!" cried the +generous soldier in a transport of wrath; "never see my face again +till thou bring better news of that man's recovery, for whose +redemption many such as I were happily lost!" + +From the first to the last moment of his suffering Sir Philip's temper +was calm and cheerful. During the three weeks that he lingered at +Arnheim he occupied himself with the thoughts befitting a +death-bed.... On the 17th of October he felt himself dying, and +summoned his friends to say farewell. His latest words were addressed +to his brother Robert: "Love my memory; cherish my friends; their +faith to me may assure you they are honest. But, above all things, +govern your will and affections by the will and word of your Creator; +in me beholding the end of this world with all her vanities." When +powerless to speak, he replied to the entreaty of friends, who desired +some token of his trust in God, by clasping his hands in the attitude +of prayer, and a few moments afterwards had ceased to breathe. + + --Adapted from the _Edinburgh Review_. + + [Illustration: WILLIAM SHAKSPERE + From the portrait by Martin Droeshout] + + + + +III + +ABOUT SHAKSPERE + + +What would we not give to be able to relate a half-dozen good +anecdotes about Shakspere? It is true there are traditions, the best +known of which is the story that he poached deer in the park of Sir +Thomas Lucy. Men have discussed the pros and cons of this +deer-stealing tradition with a gravity and fulness worthy of a +weightier cause. Suppose he did engage in the exciting sport of +worrying a nobleman who had a game preserve. Does that fact blacken +the youth's character? It is said the students at Oxford were the most +notorious poachers in the kingdom, although expulsion was the penalty. +Dr. Forman relates how a student who afterwards became a bishop was +more given to poaching than to study. + +What do we know about the life of Shakspere? We know that he was born +at Stratford-on-Avon in 1564, that he died there in 1616, April 23. +Some years ago I stood in the house which is reputed to be the place +of his birth; over 20,000 pilgrims from all lands each year pay their +shilling for the privilege of going through that house; the town +corporation has purchased the property and controls it; the place has +been photographed until the reading world is familiar with the +picture,--and yet we do not positively know that Shakspere was born in +that house. For Shakspere's father owned two houses at the time of the +son's birth; in which of the two he lived at this time we can but +guess. We suppose he lived in the Henley Street house, for it was the +better of the two houses and the Shakspere family was prospering when +William was born. The house itself has been remodeled. I think it is +Sidney Lee who says that the only thing that remains as it was in +Shakspere's time is the cellar. We do not know the day of Shakspere's +birth. In Holy Trinity Church one may look into the book containing +the baptismal record of the babe, William. He was baptized on April 26 +and as children were usually baptized three days after their birth we +infer he was born April 23. We know that he married Anne Hathaway, a +woman eight years his senior; that in early manhood he went to London; +that he became an actor, dramatist, manager of a theater; that in +1597 he bought New Place, the stateliest residence in Stratford; that +he lived in Stratford during the last years of his life as a highly +esteemed and worthy man, and that he died in 1616 and was buried in +Trinity Church. These are the facts in the records of Shakspere's +life. They, however, are not the important facts. The main fact in his +life is his work, the matchless collection of literary masterpieces +that bear the imprint of his genius. It is also well to keep in mind +that our paucity of definite documentary records is not characteristic +of Shakspere alone. We may know little of Shakspere, but we know less +of Marlowe, his most brilliant competitor. + +It is because we know so little of fact in the life of Shakspere that +we delight to let fancy paint its charming pictures. We are led into +the old Grammar School which Shakspere in all probability attended. +Tradition points out the desk at which he used to sit. We can infer +what he studied. The name of the Latin grammar then used we can deduce +from his quoting a Latin sentence just as it was misquoted in Lilly's +grammar. Artists have painted from imagination the picture of the boy +Shakspere. Poets have wandered over the Warwickshire region and in +their mind's eye have seen the youthful bard as he walked over the +same picturesque region. In _Midsummer-Night's Dream_ we read + + I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, + Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, + Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, + With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.-- + +and we see the young Shakspere, keen-eyed, observant, reveling in the +beauty of nature. In _Macbeth_ we read + + This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air + Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself + Unto our gentle senses.-- + +and we recall that Kenilworth and Warwick Castles are near Stratford +and we see the boyish Shakspere as he walks about these magnificent +testimonies to the might and power of feudal England, or perhaps +mingling with the crowd when Royalty has come to Kenilworth to be +entertained by the lavish Leicester. So, too, when we find in _Much +Ado About Nothing_ + + The pleasant'st angling is to see the fish + Cut with her golden oars the silver stream, + And greedily devour the treacherous bait,-- + +we have a picture before us of the boy standing on the banks of the +placid Avon, enjoying the sports of boyhood and unconsciously +receiving impressions that shall later be reproduced to adorn with +freshest imagery the poetry of the world's greatest genius. + +After years of labor the scholars of the world have scraped together +enough definite information to make the Life of Shakspere, as Mr. +Raleigh puts it, "assume the appearance of a scrap-heap of respectable +size." But to us the great fact in the life of Shakspere is that he +has given us his masterpieces. Perhaps it is just as well that we know +so little about the facts in his life. We have all the more time to +study his works. About their quality there is little of disagreement. +Three hundred years ago Ben Jonson wrote + + ... I confess thy writings to be such + As neither man nor muse can praise too much,-- + +and the critic of to-day is saying the same thing, only he uses two +volumes instead of two lines to say it. It is true an occasional +voice, like that of Tolstoy's, will be heard in protest, but the +protest and the critic are both likely to be forgotten before the +consensus of three centuries shall be set aside. + +Shakspere lives and shall live as long as the human race shall delight +in the study of the human heart, not because of the chastity and +clearness of his diction, not because of the supremacy of his +imagination, nor because of the variety of his melodious verse,--not +even because of the matchless combination of all these charms; but the +Bard of Stratford lives and shall live because his sanity enabled him +to see the "God of things as they are," and his passion penetrated +into the deepest sorrows and rose to the highest aspirations of the +human heart,--and throughout all this sympathizing with goodness and +while despising the depraved yet pitying with a heart of love. + +No system-maker or formula-builder can account for Shakspere. Genius +is ever a miracle. However, we can study the environment in which +genius moves and has its being. When we ask ourselves how does it +happen that the plays of Shakspere breathe such a wholesome and +vigorous morality, we are led to two conclusions,--first, that the +England of Shakspere's time was a wholesome and vigorous England; +second, that the man Shakspere was sound to the core. + +The close of the sixteenth century is one of the most remarkable +periods in the history of the world. Indeed, so striking is the +intellectual activity of this age that lately an eminent scientist +advanced the hypothesis that some electric influence, some magnetic +current must have let itself loose to work upon the destinies of the +world in the production of great men. For in that period in Italy we +find Tasso, the greatest of modern epic poets; then too lived Galileo +and Kepler, the astronomers; in France we find the philosophic +essayist, Montaigne; in Spain the world-renowned Cervantes, the author +of the immortal Don Quixote; in England both Bacon and Shakspere, +beside a host of other writers, generals, admirals and artists. This +same age is the most flourishing period in Mahometan India; so, too, +in China, in Japan, and even in far away Persia we find an unusual +degree of intellectual activity. + +The England of Shakspere! The phrase suggests a train of associations +that kindle the imagination. The age of literature, war, conquest, +adventure, and achievement. The era of Edmund Spenser, "called from +faeryland to struggle 'gainst dark ways;" of Sir Philip Sidney, the +scholar, the courtier, the gentleman; of Sir Walter Raleigh, author, +knight, and explorer; of Bacon, "the wisest, meanest, brightest of +mankind." It is the time when in the _Golden Hind_ Drake is +circumnavigating the globe; when Hawkins is exploring the Indies, and +Frobisher is becoming the hero of the Northwest passage; the age of +marvelous tales told by intrepid explorers and adventurers returning +from America, a land whose fountains renewed youth and whose rivers +flowed over sands of gold. It is the era of English sea-dogs pillaging +Spanish provinces in spite of imperial manifestos,--above all, it is +the age of the Spanish Armada. + +To recall what this means it is necessary to remember that Spain was +the great dominating empire of the sixteenth century. Philip II, the +Duke of Alva, the horrors of the Spanish inquisition, condemn Spain's +power in this period. But one midsummer morn all England awoke to the +glorious news that the Invincible Armada lay at the bottom of the sea. +England had triumphed, and now for the first time national life +dreamed of the possibility of leadership in the great game of +world-politics. The atmosphere was electric with new life. In rural +England along lanes flanked with green hedges Englishmen walked with +bosoms swelling with new pride, in bustling London vigorous burghers +strode the city's streets with hearts pulsating with new warmth, and +everywhere the eyes of all Englishmen flashed with new fire. + +Could a soul so sensitive as Shakspere's live in such an atmosphere +and not be influenced by it? Listen to him as he pays his beautiful, +patriotic tribute to England's national glory: + + This other Eden, demi-paradise, + This fortress built by Nature for herself, + This precious stone set in the silver sea, + This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, + This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land, + Dear for her reputation through the world. + +And the second cause, we say, is the personality of the man himself. +Shakspere wrote pure and lofty poetry because his was a pure and lofty +nature. I know the disparagers of Shakspere and the advocates of the +Baconian theory make much of the traditional wildness of Shakspere's +youth. The common argument is that a man who is charged with the +poaching of deer in his youth is too bad to write good poetry, +therefore Bacon wrote Shakspere. Was Bacon an angel? By the same +process of reasoning Burns could not have written the Cotter's +Saturday Night. But I deny that Shakspere was profligate, and in +making this denial I need not prove the impeccability of Shakspere. +But his life was essentially pure, his heart good, because the +influence of the life is sane and wholesome. + +Not alone the greatest intellect of his time, of all times, but also +the greatest heart, was that possessed by this Warwickshire poet. As a +man thinketh in his heart so he is. As Shakspere was, so he wrote. +This crystalline wholesome water dashing over this rocky cliff did +not have its origin in yonder pool. Pure water does not flow from a +mud-puddle. Here is a man who in twenty years writes in round numbers +forty productions--the task of Hercules. The product of the man +attests the nobility of his soul. No man can labor for twenty years +without putting his stamp upon his work. Shakspere was no bar-room +brawler, no prodigal spender of time and substance in riotous living. +He lived to the mature age of fifty-two and died a well-to-do man. The +prodigals of the world do not retire with a competency. I repeat that +Shakspere was not impeccable; he was no Puritan; but we cannot think +of the creator of Hamlet, Ophelia, Othello, Desdemona, Cordelia, +Portia, Rosalind, Miranda, and Prospero as other than a man of a +contrite spirit and a pure heart. As he surpassed his contemporaries +in breadth and loftiness of intellect, so too he surpassed them in the +reach and vigor of his moral feeling. + +We cannot believe that this man who penetrated deeper than others into +the mystery of life missed the meaning of his own life. Let us hear +the conclusion of the whole matter--the power that moves the world is +not brilliancy of intellect; it is purity of heart. Nobility of +character is the essence of powerful personality. Lincoln is greater +than Webster, Washington than Jefferson, not through greater mental +grasp, but because of a purer spiritual essence. The world without +takes its meaning and color from the world within. Shakspere saw a +world of pure passion and wholesome sanity because his world within +was pure and sane. + + [Illustration: JOHN MILTON + From a miniature by Faithorne, painted in 1667] + + + + +IV + +JOHN MILTON + + +In 1623, when Milton was a boy of fifteen, John Heminge and Henry +Condell, "only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow +alive as was our Shakspere," had given to the world the folio edition +of Shakspere's works, very anxious that the said folio might commend +itself to "the most noble and incomparable pair of brethern," William, +Earl of this, and Philip, Earl of that, and exceedingly unconscious +that, next to the production of the works themselves, they were doing +the most important thing done, or likely to be done, in the literary +history of the world. Milton read Shakspere, and in the lines which he +wrote upon him in 1630, there seems to be the due throb of +transcendent admiration.... + +As Shakspere is the supreme name in this order of poets, the men of +sympathy and of humor, Milton stands first in that other great order +which is too didactic for humor, and of which Schiller is the best +recent representative. He was called the lady of his college not only +for his beautiful face, but because of the vestal purity and austerity +of his virtue. The men of the former class are intuitive, passionate, +impulsive; not steadily conscious of their powers; fitful, +unsystematic. Their love is ecstasy; their errors are the intoxication +of joy; their sorrows are the pangs of death.... + +Milton, the poet of Puritanism, stands out in bold contrast to these +imperfect characters. From his infancy there was nothing unregulated +in his life. His father, clearly a superior man, of keen +Protestantism, successful in business, well skilled in music, soon +perceived that one of the race of immortals had been born in his +house. He began, apparently with the conscious and delighted assent of +his son, to give the young Apollo such an education as Plato might +have prescribed. An eminently good education it proved to be; only not +so good, with a view to the production of a world-poet, as that which +nature, jealous of the Platos and pedagogues, and apt to tumble them +and their grammatical appurtenances out of the window when she has one +of her miraculous children in hand, had provided for that Stratford +lad who came to London broken in character and probably almost broken +in heart, some forty years earlier, to be a hanger-on of the theaters +and to mount the intellectual throne of the world. No deer-stealing +expeditions late o' nights when the moon silvered the elms of +Charlecote chase; no passionate love affairs and wild boy-marriage. + +Milton, carefully grounded in the tongues, went in due course to +Cambridge University, and during those years when the youthful mind is +in its stage of richest recipiency, lived among the kind of men who +haunt seats of learning,--on the whole, the most uninteresting men in +existence, whose very knowledge is a learned ignorance; not bees of +industry, who have hoarded information by experience, but +book-_worms_.... It is important, also, that Milton was never to any +distracting extent in love. If Shakspere had been a distinguished +university man, would he have told us of a catch that could "draw +three souls out of one weaver?" And if the boy of eighteen had not +been in a fine frenzy about Anne Hathaway, could he have known how +Juliet and Romeo, Othello and Desdemona, loved? + +... It is a proof of the fiery and inextinguishable nature of Milton's +genius that it triumphed over the artificiality of his training; that +there is the pulse of a true poetical life in his most highly wrought +poems, and that the whole mountain of his learning glows with the +strong internal flame. His inspiration was from within, the +inspiration of a profound enthusiasm for beauty and an impassioned +devotion to virtue. The district in which he lived during much of his +most elaborate self-education is not marked enough to have disturbed, +by strong impressions from without, the development of his genius from +within. Horton lies where the dead flat of southeastern Buckingham +meets the dead flat of southwestern Middlesex. Egham Hill, not quite +so high as Hampstead, and the chalk knoll on which Windsor Castle +fails to be sublime, are the loftiest ground in the immediate +neighborhood. Staines, the Pontes of the Romans, and Runnymede with +its associations, are near the parish church of Horton, in which +Milton worshiped for five or six years, and in which his mother is +buried, has one of the Norman porches common in the district, but is +drearily heavy in its general structure, and forms a notable contrast +to that fine example of the old English church in which, by the +willows of Avon, lie Shakspere's bones. The river Colne breaks itself, +a few miles to the north, into a leash of streams, the most +considerable of which flows by Horton. The abounding watercourses are +veiled with willows, but the tree does not seem to have attracted +Milton's attention. It was reserved for the poet-painter of the _Liber +Studiorum_ to show what depths of homely pathos, and what exquisite +picturesqueness of gnarled and knotted line, could be found in a +pollard willow, and for Tennyson to reveal the poetic expressiveness +of the tree as denoting a solemn and pensive landscape, such as that +amid whose "willowy hills and fields" rose the carol + + ... mournful, holy, + Chaunted loudly, chaunted lowly, + Till her blood was frozen slowly, + And her eyes were darkened wholly, + +of the Lady of Shalott.... + +Milton's bodily appearance at this time was in brilliant +correspondence with the ideal which imagination might form of a +youthful poet. Perfect in all bodily proportions, an accomplished +fencer, with delicate flowing hair, and beautiful features through +which genius, still half in slumber, shed its mystic glow, he was all +that the imagination of Greece saw in the young Hyperion or Apollo. + +... His three daughters, Anne, Deborah, and Mary, were the children of +his first wife. He was twice married after her death in 1653, but had +no more children. So early as 1644 his sight began to fail, and when +his little girls were left motherless, they could be known to him, as +Professor Masson touchingly says, "only as tiny voices of complaint +going about in the darkness." The tiny voices did not move him to love +or pity. His impatient and imperious nature had doubtless undergone +exquisite misery from the moaning discontent of his wife; the +daughters took the mother's part so soon as they were able to +understand her sorrows; and the grave Puritan displeasure with which +Milton regards the mother seems to have been transferred to the +children. His austerity as a Puritan and a pedagogue, and the worse +than old Hebrew meanness of his estimate of women, appear to the +greatest disadvantage in connection with his daughters. Had they been +sons, he would have thrown all his ardor into the enterprise of their +education. The training of boys was one of his enthusiasms; but his +daughters were taught nothing except to read, and were ordered to read +aloud to him in languages of which they did not understand a word. +Naturally they never loved him; his fame, which they were not able to +appreciate, cast on them no ray of comforting light; and they thought +probably in sad and scared bewilderment of the relations between their +unhappy wraith-like mother, and their Titan father. How different the +warm and tender relations between Shakspere and his children! In that +instance it was the daughter, the pet Judith, that was the demure +sweet Puritan, yet with a touch of her father's wit in her, and able +to enjoy all the depth of his smile when he would ask her whether +cakes and ale were to be _quite_ abolished when the reign of the +saints came in. + +... To the man himself we turn, for one brief glance before laying +down the pen. In the evil times of the Restoration, in the land of +the Philistines, Agonistes but unconquerable, the Puritan Samson ended +his days. Serene and strong; conscious that the ambition of his youth +had been achieved, he begins the day with the Hebrew Bible, listens +reverently to words in which Moses or David or Isaiah spake of God. +But he attends no church, belongs to no communion, and has no form of +worship in his family; notable circumstances which we may refer, in +part at least, to his blindness, but significant of more than that. +His religion was of the spirit, and did not take kindly to any form. +Though the most Puritan of the Puritan, he had never stopped long in +the ranks of any Puritan party, or given satisfaction to Puritan +ecclesiastics and theologians. In his youth he loved the night; in his +old age he loves the sunlight of early morning as it glimmers on his +sightless eyes. The music which had been his delight since childhood +has still its charm, and he either sings or plays on the organ or +bass-violin every day. In his gray coat, at the door of his house in +Bunhill Fields, he sits on clear afternoons; a proud, ruggedly genial +old man, with sharp satiric touches in his talk, the untunable fiber +in him to the last. Eminent foreigners come to see him; friends +approach reverently, drawn by the splendor of his discourse. It would +range, one can well imagine, in glittering freedom, like "arabesques +of lightning," over all ages and all literatures. He was the prince of +scholars; a memory of superlative power waiting, as submissive +handmaid, on the queenliest imagination. The whole spectacle of +ancient civilization, its cities, its camps, its landscapes, was +before him. There he sat in his gray coat, like a statue cut in +granite. England had made a sordid failure, but he had not failed. His +soul's fellowship was with the great Republicans of Greece and Rome, +and with the Psalmist and Isaiah and Oliver Cromwell. + + --From Peter Bayne in the _Contemporary Review_. + + + + +V + +CHARLES LAMB, THE CLERK OF THE INDIA HOUSE + + +The author of the _Essays of Elia_ and _Tales Founded on the Plays of +Shakspere_ worked for the greater part of his life in the employ of +the Honorable East India Company. He received his appointment in 1792, +the year of the birth of Shelley. He had been trained at Christ's +Hospital for a university career; this gave him a good classical +education but not especially good preparation for his new work. Had he +been obliged to pass a civil service examination he would hardly have +received the appointment. Of geography and arithmetic he knew little. +The schoolboy of to-day will be surprised to learn that a boy a +hundred and more years ago might reach the age of fifteen in a good +grammar school of that period and yet not be able to use the +multiplication table. As late as 1823 Lamb writes: "I think I lose a +hundred pounds a year owing solely to my want of neatness in making up +accounts: how I puzzle 'em out at last is the wonder!" There is no +evidence, however, to show that Lamb did not overcome his lack of +preparation. The contrary impression sometimes prevails, due, perhaps, +to his supposed apology for his late arrival by his representation +that he made up for it by a correspondingly early departure. His +industry must have been appreciated, for his salary rose from nothing +to a fair figure. + +The modern young man, desirous of earning a good salary at once, will +be surprised at the statement that Lamb worked for nothing at first. +He will be still more surprised to learn that in those days a clerk in +the employ of the great India Company worked three years for nothing. +This period evidently was considered as the apprenticeship. It is true +a gratuity of 30 pounds was given, and by extra work one might earn +small sums. In April, 1795, three years having ended, he received a +salary of 40 pounds a year. The next year it rose to 70. By 1799 it +had advanced to 90, and from then on to 1814 he received an increment +of ten pounds every two years. He also received a gratuity each year. +The gratuity by 1814 had amounted to 80 pounds. After a reorganization +of the company in 1815 Lamb seems to have progressed in salary, for he +then received 480 pounds, and in 1821 it was 700; and at the time of +his retirement it was 730. + +On the whole, one can say that Lamb's lot was not a hard one. No +doubt, many of his fellow-authors had reason to envy him his assured +income. His work was hard and not always pleasant, but he knew, with +all his half-pretended grumbling, that it would not be wise to rely on +his pen for a livelihood. He once remonstrated with the poetical +Quaker, Bernard Barton, who proposed to give up a bank-clerkship, in +this wise: "Trust not the public; I bless every star that Providence, +not seeing good to make me independent, has seen it next good to +settle me down on the stable foundation of Leadenhall.... Henceforth +I retract all my fond complaints of mercantile employments; look upon +them as lovers' quarrels. I was but half in earnest. Welcome, dead +timber of a desk that makes me live! a little grumbling is a wholesome +medicine for the spleen; but in my inner heart do I improve and +embrace this our close but unharassing way of life." + +That his work was no sinecure can be gathered from this letter of +about 1815: "On Friday I was at office from ten in the morning (two +hours dinner excepted) to eleven at night; last night till nine. My +business and office business in general have increased so; I don't +mean I am there every night, but I must expect a great deal of it. I +never leave till four, and do not keep a holiday now once in ten +times, where I used to keep all red-letter days and some five days +besides, which I used to dub nature's holidays.... I had formerly +little to do.... Hard work and thinking about it taints even the +leisure hours--stains Sunday with workday contemplations." + +After thirty-three years of service he was granted by his company a +pension of 450 pounds. On the minutes of the Court of Directors can be +found the following resolution: "that the resignation of Mr. Charles +Lamb, of the accountant-general's office, on account of certified +ill-health be accepted, and it appearing that he has served the +company faithfully for thirty-three years ... he be allowed a pension +of 450 pounds annually." + +When the resolution was communicated to him he went home to enjoy one +long holiday of leisure and literary study and authorship. "I am +Retired Leisure.... I have worked task work, and have the rest of the +day to myself." But his day did not last many years. "Lamb was but +fifty when he quitted the service of the company; yet less than ten +years of life were left to him. Not only so, but the happiness he had +expected to find proved more and more elusive. The increasing +frequency of his sister's aberration was a heavy burden for a back +which grew daily less able to bear the strain. The leisure to which he +had looked forward so eagerly was spent in listening to incoherent +babblings, that rambling chat which was to him 'better than the sense +and sanity of this world.' In her lucid intervals they played picquet +together, or talked gravely but firmly of the inevitable separation +looming nearer and nearer. In 1830 Hazlitt died. Four years later that +'great and dear spirit,' Coleridge, passed away after long suffering. +The blow to Lamb was stunning in its severity; and the loss of this +earliest and best-loved friend possibly accelerated his own decease. +Towards the close of the year a fall while walking caused a trifling +wound. No harm was expected to result; but the general feebleness of +his health brought on erysipelas, and upon Saturday, January 3, 1835, +he was borne to his rest in a quiet corner of Edmonton Church-yard, +there to await the coming, twelve years later, of the sister who had +been throughout his life at once his greatest joy and his chiefest +care." + + + + +VI + +DR. JOHNSON AND CHARLES LAMB + + +Between Johnson and Lamb there would seem to be little in common. The +ponderous old philosopher, "tearing his meat like a tiger, and +swallowing his tea in oceans," presents a picture very dissimilar to +that of the stammering Lamb whom Coleridge has well called the +"gentle-hearted Lamb." And yet there are many points of similarity. + +Perhaps the most striking resemblance is in respect to their +generosity. The unfailing testimony of all their friends is that +neither could restrain the impulse to give. The celebrated De Quincey +is led to characterize Lamb's munificence as _princely_, while +Procter, one of his younger friends, simply says, "he gave away +greatly." On the other hand, the testimony in regard to the generosity +of Johnson is equally strong. He was so open-hearted that he could not +trust himself to go upon the street with much money in his purse. +Neither Lamb nor Johnson believed in the modern methods of attending +to charitable giving through the mediation of boards and committees. +Each violated the commonest precepts of a coldblooded political +economy. If want and suffering were depicted upon the face of the +mendicant, that was enough to call for the open purse. What if the +beggar did look like a thief or drunkard? He might spend the money for +gin or tobacco, but what of that? "Why should they be denied such +sweeteners of their existence?" was Johnson's indulgent plea. This +stern moralist so much enjoyed giving that he doubtless would have +regretted the passing of laws prohibiting the beggar from plying his +vocation in public. So too would the genial Elia, who obeyed his own +precept of "give and ask no questions." + +While returning to his lodgings after midnight Johnson would often +drop pennies into the hands of poor children sleeping on the +thresholds and stalls, to furnish them with the means for a breakfast. +This was done at a time when he was living on pennies himself. +"Reader," pleads Elia in his _Praise of Chimney Sweepers_, "if thou +meetest one of these small gentry in thy early rambles, it is good to +give him a penny--it is better to give him a twopence." And then Lamb +describes the choice and fragrant drink, _Saloop_, the delight of the +sweep, a basin of which together with a slice of delicate bread and +butter will cost but a twopence. As we read the description we have no +hesitancy in believing that the "unpennied sweep" frequently became a +pennied sweep after the gentle Elia had passed by. + +Goldsmith once remarked that to be miserable was enough to insure the +protection of Johnson. This generous quality of mind filled the house +of Johnson with a queer assortment of pensioners. Had Lamb's home life +permitted, equally full of the needy and homeless would it have been. +In 1796 occurred the terrible tragedy that we may permit Lamb himself +to describe in his letter to Coleridge,--"White, or some of my +friends, or the public papers by this time may have informed you of +the terrible calamities that have fallen on our family. I will only +give you the outlines: My poor, dear, dearest sister, in a fit of +insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at hand only +time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp. She is at present in +a madhouse, from which I fear she must be moved to an hospital.... My +poor father was slightly wounded, and I am left to take care of him +and my aunt.... God Almighty have us well in his keeping!" Lamb +assumed the tender care of his sister, and his watchfulness and loving +care are more beautiful than the most charming essay he ever wrote. +But this condition at home prevented that generous open-hearted +hospitality so characteristic of Johnson. As it was he contributed to +the support of several. For a long period he gave thirty pounds a year +to his old schoolmistress. Telfourd relates that when Lamb saw the +nurse who had waited on Coleridge during his last illness, he forced +five guineas on her. Equally impulsive was his manner toward Procter, +whom he one time noticed to be in low spirits and imagined the cause +to be lack of money. "My dear boy," said he suddenly turning toward +his friend, "I have a quantity of useless things, I have now in my +desk a--a hundred pounds--that I don't _know_ what to do with. Take +it." + +Some years ago when comparing these two men a Mr. Roose wrote in +concluding his paper: "We are all familiar with Johnson's huge, +ungainly form, arrayed in brown suit more or less dilapidated, +singed, bushy wig, black stockings, and mean old shoes. A quaint +little figure, Lamb comes before our vision, in costume uncontemporary +and as queer as himself, consisting of a suit of black cloth (they +both affected dark colors), rusty silk stockings shown from the knees, +thick shoes a mile too large, shirt with a wide, ill-plaited frill, +and tiny white neckcloth tied in a minute bow." + +It is pleasant to fancy these two originals being brought into +personal contact. Nor is it hard, for all the tokens to the contrary, +to imagine Elia taking the grand, humane old doctor into his embrace +(a huger armful than his beloved folios), sitting up with him o' +nights, as he did with them, delighting in the humor of his +conversation, which was said by a contemporary to be unequaled except +by the old comedians, in whom Lamb's spirit found diversion; piercing +to heights and depths in his nature which Boswell never revealed to +him; while Johnson, it may safely be inferred, would have loved this +"poor Charles," in whom Carlyle could perceive but so slender a strain +of worth. But had they met at all, it would have been on equal terms. +Goldsmith maintained with difficulty, though he did maintain, his +attitude of independence towards the colossus of his age. Charles +Lamb, without any difficulty and without the show of assertiveness, +would have maintained it better. Lamb, who from earliest manhood +refused to knock under to the threatening intellectual arrogance of +Coleridge; who shook Wordsworth by the nose instead of by the hand +with the greeting, "How d'ye do, old Lake Poet!"--his stammering voice +might have broken with impunity on the doctor's weightiest utterances +with the absurdest quips and twists of speech of which even he was +capable. Yet both were of wayward nature, and had they met might not +have coalesced. + +Lamb would have understood Johnson better than Johnson would have +understood the whimsicalities of the witty clerk. At one time while +discussing authors with friends Lamb said,--"There is Dr. Johnson: I +have no curiosity; no strange uncertainty about him." + +Johnson's restraint in the use of alcoholic drinks is in contrast with +Lamb's indulgence. But Johnson's intemperate tea-drinking makes him +one with Lamb in his struggle with tobacco. In writing to Coleridge +for advice on smoking, Lamb asks: "What do you think of smoking? I +want your sober _average noon opinion_ of it.... May be the truth is, +that _one_ pipe is wholesome, _two_ pipes toothsome, _three_ pipes +noisome, _four_ pipes fulsome, _five_ pipes quarrelsome; and that's +the _sum_ on't. But that is deciding rather upon rhyme than reason." +And Telfourd tells us that when Parr saw Lamb puffing like some +furious enchanter, he asked how he had acquired the power of smoking +at such a rate. Lamb replied, "I toiled after it, sir, as some men +toil after virtue." + + + + +VII + +THE DEATH OF DR. JOHNSON + + +By common consent Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ takes first place as a +biography. Some critics go so far as to say that the excellence of the +biography is to be accounted for by the deficiency in the character of +Boswell; that Boswell was such a blind and whole-souled worshiper of +Johnson that he exposed the faults of his subject with the same zeal +with which he published the virtues. This may be true. Whether true or +not, it is not an altogether bad quality. Many of us think that the +biographies of our modern men of letters would have more vivacity and +lifelikeness were they to contain an occasional glimpse of the hero +when he is not on the parade ground. The biography of Tennyson by his +son, Lord Hallam, would be far more convincing had the son given us +occasional pictures of the poet when he was not at his best. But, +perhaps, it is too much to hope that a reverent and admiring son can +give the world a vital, impartial, and comprehensive life of his +father. + +Boswell has given us a full account of Johnson's last days. The gruff +old lexicographer had lived a robust life; he had faced many +temptations, and had not always retired from the conflict victorious. +On the whole, however, he had lived an exemplary life, but like many +another good man he had a dread of dying; he feared he might not meet +the last foe as worthily as a man of his character and reputation +should. But this was a groundless fear. For when the last illness was +upon him, he asked his physician to tell him plainly whether there was +any hope of his recovery. The doctor first asked his patient whether +he could hear the whole truth, whatever it might be. Upon hearing an +affirmative reply, the physician declared that in his opinion nothing +short of a miracle would restore health. + +"Then," said Johnson, "I will take no more physic, not even my +opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul unclouded." + +A brother of Boswell's wrote the following letter concerning the last +hours of Johnson: + +"The Doctor, from the time that he was certain his death was near, +appeared to be perfectly resigned, was seldom or never fretful or out +of temper, and often said to his faithful servant, who gave me this +account, 'Attend, Francis, to the salvation of your soul, which is the +object of greatest importance:' he also explained to him passages in +the Scripture, and seemed to have pleasure in talking upon religious +subjects. + +"On Monday, the 13th of December, the day on which he died, a Miss +Morris, daughter to a particular friend of his, called, and said to +Francis, that she begged to be permitted to see the doctor, that she +might earnestly request him to give her his blessing. Francis went +into the room, followed by the young lady, and delivered the message. +The doctor turned himself in the bed, and said, 'God bless you, my +dear!' These were the last words he spoke. His difficulty of breathing +increased till about seven o'clock in the evening, when Mr. Barber and +Mrs. Desmoulins, who were sitting in the room, observed that the noise +he made in breathing had ceased, went to the bed, and found he was +dead." + +This account, together with several others given by various friends, +assures us that the death of Johnson was trustful and tranquil. It is +another illustration of that beautiful dispensation of nature which, +as a rule, makes death a mere slipping away, a falling asleep. The +Francis who is mentioned in the letter is the faithful negro servant +whom Johnson so generously provided for in his will. In making his +will the doctor had asked a friend how much of an annuity gentlemen +usually gave to a favorite servant, and was told that in the case of a +nobleman fifty pounds a year was considered an adequate reward for +many years of faithful service: + +"Then," said Johnson, "shall I be _nobilissimus_, for I mean to leave +Frank seventy pounds a year, and I desire you to tell him so." + +This generosity was too much for the equanimity of Sir John Hawkins, +one of the executors of the will, who, when he found that this negro +servant would receive about fifteen hundred pounds, including an +annuity of seventy pounds a year, grumbled and muttered "a caveat +against ostentatious bounty and favor to negroes." But however much +the Sir Johns may grumble, we cannot think the less of Johnson for his +kindness in remembering a faithful and deserving servant. + +Johnson's refusal to take either wine or opiates recalls that in an +age in which the use of alcoholic drinks was very common he was an +uncompromising foe to wine, and that he was, in his latter years, loud +in his praise of water. "As we drove back to Ashbourne," says Boswell, +"Dr. Johnson recommended to me, as he had often done, to drink water +only. 'For,' said he, 'you are then sure not to get drunk; whereas if +you drink wine, you are never sure.'" And this was not the only matter +in which he was in advance of his contemporaries, and of most of ours +too. Johnson liked satisfying food, such as a leg of pork, or veal pie +well stuffed, with plum pie and sugar, and he devoured enormous +quantities of fruit, especially peaches. His inordinate love of tea +has almost passed into a proverb,--he has actually been credited with +twenty-five cups at a sitting, and he would keep Mrs. Thrale brewing +it for him till four o'clock in the morning. The following impromptu, +spoken to Miss Reynolds, points its own moral: + + For hear, alas, the dreadful truth, + Nor hear it with a frown: + Thou can'st not make the tea so fast + As I can gulp it down. + + + + +VIII + +GRAY WRITES THE ELEGY + + +Recently I was conversing with a practical man of affairs who had just +returned from his first visit to Europe. Art galleries had proved +tiresome and Westminster Abbey had bored him. But there was one place +that he had determined to see and see it he did. + +"What place was that?" I asked. + +"Stoke Pogis," was the reply. + +Is not this answer indicative of the attitude of thousands who can +never forget the exquisite charm cast over their youth by the +melancholy beauty of the _Elegy in a Country Church-yard_? If fame was +the end of General Wolfe's ambition, he was wise in saying that he +would rather have written the _Elegy_ than be able to take Quebec on +the morrow; for of all English poems the _Elegy_ is the most popular +and widely known; it is the flower of the "literature of melancholy." +The _Elegy_ is the glorification of the obscure; therein lies its +popularity. The most of us are obscure. The _Elegy_ flatters us by +suggesting that we might have swayed the rod of empire or "waked to +ecstasy the living lyre," if we had had the chance,--or, what we think +is more likely the explanation, if we had not had a saner insight into +the values of life than the Miltons and Cromwells. + +Stoke Pogis is always associated with the name of Gray. It is a +village, if such it may be called, between London and Windsor Castle. +The church is "on a little level space about four miles north of the +Thames at Eton. From the neighborhood of the church no vestige of +hamlet or village is visible, and the aspect of the place is slightly +artificial, like a rustic church in a park on a stage. The traveler +almost expects to see the grateful peasantry of an opera, cheerfully +habited, make their appearance, dancing on the greensward." + +Gray and his mother, the father having died in 1741, went to Stoke +Pogis in 1742. At West End House, a simple farmhouse of two stories, +Gray lived for many years. In the autumn of 1742 was begun the _Elegy +in a Country Church-yard_. The common impression is that the whole +poem was written at Stoke Pogis, but this is not the truth. It is +better to say that it was begun in October or November at Stoke Pogis, +continued seven years later at the same place and at Cambridge, and +finished at Stoke Pogis on June 12th, 1750. It is interesting to note +that in each case an impetus was given to the composition of the poem +by the death of a friend. Several months before the poem was begun in +1742, West, a friend whose death made a very deep impression upon the +sensitive nature of Gray, had passed away; and on October 31 Jonathan +Rogers, an uncle of Gray's, died at Stoke Pogis; and when the poem was +next taken up Gray was mourning the death of his aunt. In commenting +on this subject Mr. Gosse writes,--"He was a man who had a very +slender hold on life himself, who walked habitually in the Valley of +the Shadow of Death, and whose periods of greatest vitality were +those in which bereavement proved to him that, melancholy as he was, +even he had something to lose and to regret." + +On the 12th of June, 1750, Gray wrote to his friend, Horace +Walpole,--"Having put an end to a thing whose beginning you have seen +long ago, I immediately send it to you. You will, I hope, look upon it +in the light of a thing with an end to it: a merit that most of my +writings have wanted, and are like to want." Walpole was naturally +delighted with the poem--so delighted, in fact, that he handed it +about from friend to friend and even made manuscript copies of it. +This caused some embarrassment to the poet. In February, 1751, he was +annoyed to find that the publisher of the _Magazine of Magazines_ was +actually printing his _Elegy_ in his periodical. So Gray immediately +wrote to Walpole: "As I am not at all disposed to be either so +indulgent or so correspondent as they desire, I have but one bad way +to escape the honor they would inflict upon me: and therefore am +obliged to desire you would make Dodsley print it immediately (which +may be done in less than a week's time) from your copy, but without my +name, in what form is most convenient for him, but on his best paper +and character; he must correct the press himself, and print it without +any interval between the stanzas, because the sense is in some places +continued without them." On the 16th of February, only five days after +this letter was received, _An Elegy wrote in a Country Church-yard_ +appeared as a large quarto pamphlet, anonymous, price sixpence. + +From the very first it achieved great popularity. Magazine after +magazine published it without giving the author any compensation. +Gray was soon hit upon as the author. Unfortunately, the success of +the poem gave no increased income to the poet. Dodsley, the publisher, +is said to have made about a thousand pounds from the various poems of +Gray, but Gray had the impractical idea that it was not dignified for +a poet to make money from poetry. + +In view of this lack of compensation for his poetic writings, it is +very gratifying to know that during the latter days of his life Gray +enjoyed the emolument arising from his holding the chair of Modern +Literature and Modern Languages at Cambridge. This paid him 400 pounds +a year, and did not require much work, as the office was a sinecure. + +One of the biographers points out that this promotion was brought +about inadvertently through the riotous living of Gray's great enemy, +Lord Sandwich. Professor Lawrence Brockett, the incumbent of the chair +of Literature at Cambridge, dined with Lord Sandwich at Hinchinbroke. +He became so drunk that in riding home to Cambridge he fell from his +horse and broke his neck. At once five obscure dons made brisk +application for the vacant place, and Gray, sensitive and lacking the +arts of the politician, did not expect the place. But the author of +the _Elegy_ was no longer to be neglected. He soon received a letter +highly complimenting his work and offering him the professorship. Gray +accepted and was summoned to court to kiss the hand of the monarch, +George III. The king made several complimentary remarks to Gray. +Afterwards when the poet's friends asked Gray to tell them what the +king had said he replied that the room was so hot and he so +embarrassed that he really did not know what the king had said. + + Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere; + Heaven did a recompense as largely send: + He gave to misery--all he had--a tear, + He gained from Heaven--'twas all he wished--a friend. + + No farther seek his merits to disclose, + Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,-- + There they alike in trembling hope repose,-- + The bosom of his father and his God. + + + + +IX + +COWPER AS A LETTER WRITER + + +William Cowper is well known as a poet, having written one of the most +popular hymns in the English language, and he is also one of the best +of letter writers. It is commonly said that we have lost the gentle +art of writing a good letter. When a man can send a postal card from +Boston to San Francisco for one cent and one from New York to Paris +for two cents, he is not likely to be so choice in his use of language +as when he paid a shilling for the privilege of getting a letter. In +the first letter which is here quoted we find Cowper writing an urgent +invitation to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, to visit him at Olney. + +"And now, my dear, let me tell you once more that your kindness in +promising us a visit has charmed us both. I shall see you again. I +shall hear your voice. We shall take walks together. I will show you +my prospects, the hovel, the alcove, the Ouse and its banks, +everything that I have described. Talk not of an inn! Mention it not +for your life! We have never had so many visitors but we could +accommodate them all, though we have received Unwin and his wife, and +his sister, and his son, all at once. My dear, I will not let you +come till the end of May, or beginning of June, because before that +time my greenhouse will not be ready to receive us, and it is the only +pleasant room belonging to us. When the plants go out, we go in. I +line it with mats, and spread the floor with mats; and there you shall +sit with a bed of mignonette at your side, and a hedge of +honeysuckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will make you a bouquet of +myrtle every day. Sooner than the time I mention the country will not +be in complete beauty; and I will tell you what you shall find at your +first entrance. Imprimis, as soon as you have entered the vestibule, +if you cast a look on either side of you, you shall see on the right +hand a box of my making. It is the box in which have been lodged all +my hares, and in which lodges Puss (Cowper's pet hare) at present. But +he, poor fellow, is worn out with age and promises to die before you +can see him. On the right hand stands a cupboard, the work of the same +author; it was once a dove-cage, but I transformed it. Opposite to you +stands a table, which I also made. But a merciless servant having +scrubbed it till it became paralytic, it serves no purpose now but of +ornament, and all my clean shoes stand under it. On the left hand, at +the farther end of this superb vestibule, you will find the door of +the parlor, into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce +you to Mrs. Unwin, unless we should meet her before, and where we will +be as happy as the day is long. Order yourself, my cousin, to the +_Swan_ at Newport and there you shall find me ready to conduct you to +Olney. My dear, I have told Homer what you say about casks and urns, +and have asked him whether he is sure that it is a cask in which +Jupiter keeps his wine. He swears that it is a cask, and that it will +never be anything better than a cask to eternity. So if the god is +content with it, we must even wonder at his taste, and be so +too.--Adieu! my dearest, dearest cousin,--W.C." + +Cowper's letters are not interesting because they treat of the great +men and important affairs of his day. They are interesting because he +lived a quiet life and was able in his own way to paint a picture +treating of the common doings of an apparently unimportant life. Here +is a picture of an election in the country, or rather of the +candidates' methods in the old days: + +"We were sitting yesterday after dinner, the two ladies and myself, +very composedly, and without the least apprehension of any such +intrusion, in our snug parlor, one lady knitting, the other netting, +and the gentleman winding worsted, when, to our unspeakable surprise, +a mob appeared before the window, a smart rap was heard at the door, +the boys halloed, and the maid announced Mr. Grenville. Puss was +unfortunately let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his +good friends at his heels, was refused entrance at the grand entry, +and referred to the back door, as the only possible way of approach. +Candidates are creatures not very susceptible to affronts, and would +rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely excluded. +In a minute the yard, the kitchen, and the parlor were filled. Mr. +Grenville, advancing toward me, shook me by the hand with a degree of +cordiality that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and as many more +as could find chairs were seated, he began to open the intent of his +visit. I told him I had no vote, for which he readily gave me credit. +I assured him I had no influence, which he was not equally inclined to +believe, and the less, no doubt, because Mr. Ashburner, the drapier, +addressing himself to me at that moment, informed me that I had a +great deal. Supposing that I could not be possessed of such a treasure +without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion by saying +that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to imagine where it could +be, or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the conference. Mr. Grenville +squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and withdrew. He +kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed upon the whole a +most loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman." + + + + +X + +GIBBON AND HIS VISIT TO ROME + + +In that celebrated literary club founded by Dr. Johnson and Sir Joshua +Reynolds were Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Fox, Gibbon, and Sheridan. Of +these Gibbon is not the least distinguished. He is an illustrious +example of what an ordinary personality can accomplish by reason of an +extraordinary devotion to one purpose. Some few men achieve fame by +their brilliant versatility; some, as in the case of Samuel Johnson, +by their commanding personal force; Gibbon has won a permanent place +in literary history by spending his life in doing one thing. That one +thing he did so well that E.A. Freeman, one of the prominent +historians of the nineteenth century, has truthfully said,--"He +remains the one historian of the eighteenth century whom modern +research has neither set aside nor threatened to set aside." + +In his memoirs Gibbon reveals himself as a man with little dignity or +heroism. There is a droll story that is apt to suggest itself when one +thinks of Gibbon. At one time, when asking a dignified lady for her +hand in marriage, he fell upon his knees in proper lover-like manner. +Unfortunately Gibbon was so stout that upon her refusal he found +himself in the embarrassing need of calling in a servant to help him +to his feet again. Memories such as these, however, cannot blind us to +the essential worth in the character of the great historian. In the +light of his consecration to a worthy purpose his life is not without +its heroism. To write _The History of the Decline and Fall of the +Roman Empire_ is a monumental achievement. To bend every energy to the +fulfilling of a high resolve is heroic. From 1764 to 1787 his one aim +in life was to write a scholarly history that should cover the vast +field that he had chosen. He may lack that spiritual insight which +enables one to estimate world movements in the upper regions of +religion, but he did not lack unfaltering devotion to his purpose. So +well did he do his work that his six volumes can be found in the +library of every student of the past. The story is told of a great +German who learned English in order to read Gibbon in the original. + +In the following extract from his Autobiography is found his own +explanation of the circumstances under which he conceived his vast +project "amid the ruins of the Capitol," in 1764: + +"My temper is not very susceptible of enthusiasm; and the enthusiasm +which I do not feel, I have ever scorned to affect. But, at the +distance of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the +strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and +entered the eternal city. After a sleepless night, I trod, with a +lofty step, the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus +stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; +and several days of intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could +descend to a cool and minute investigation. My guide was Mr. Byers, a +Scotch antiquary of experience and taste; but in the daily labor of +eighteen weeks, the powers of attention were sometimes fatigued, till +I was myself qualified, in a last review, to select and study the +capital works of ancient and modern art. Six weeks were borrowed for +my tour of Naples, the most populous of cities, relative to its size, +whose luxurious inhabitants seem to dwell on the confines of paradise +and hell-fire. I was presented to the boy-king by our new envoy, Sir +William Hamilton, who, wisely diverting his correspondence from the +Secretary of State to the Royal Society and British Museum, has +elucidated a country of such inestimable value to the naturalist and +antiquarian. On my return, I fondly embraced, for the last time, the +miracles of Rome.... In my pilgrimage from Rome to Loretto I again +crossed the Apennine; from the coast of the Adriatic I traversed a +fruitful and populous country, which could alone disprove the paradox +of Montesquieu, that modern Italy is a desert.... + +"The use of foreign travel has been often debated as a general +question; but the conclusion must be finally applied to the character +and circumstances of each individual. With the education of boys, +where or how they may pass over some juvenile years with the least +mischief to themselves or others, I have no concern. But after +supposing the previous and indispensable requisites of age, judgment, +a competent knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from domestic +prejudices, I will briefly describe the qualifications which I deem +most essential to a traveler. He should be endowed with an active, +indefatigable vigor of mind and body, which can seize every mode of +conveyance, and support, with a careless smile, every hardship of the +road, the weather, or the inn. The benefits of foreign travel will +correspond with the degrees of these qualifications; but, in this +sketch, those to whom I am known will not accuse me of framing my own +panegyric. It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat +musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars +were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of +writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind." + + + + +XI + +BURNS FALLS IN LOVE + + +When Robert Burns and his brother were working hard on the Mount +Oliphant farm, Robert fell in love. This experience, alas, in after +years became too frequent an occurrence to occasion much comment, for +the ease with which the poet fell in and out of love was the chief +fault in a faulty life. But when this episode occurred the boy was +still an innocent country lad in his fifteenth year, a lad perhaps +somewhat rude and clownish, at least such is an unfounded tradition. +Out of the monotony of this life of prosaic toil and drudgery, Burns +is lifted by the romance which fortunately he has himself described. + +"You know," he says, "our country custom of coupling a man and woman +together as partners in the labors of the harvest. In my fifteenth +summer my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than +myself. My scarcity of English denies me the power of doing her +justice in that language, but you know the Scottish idiom. She was a +bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. In short, she, altogether unwittingly to +herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which in spite of +acid disappointment, gin-house prudence, and book-worm philosophy, +I hold to be the first of human joys here below! How she caught the +contagion I cannot tell.... Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked +so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from +our labors; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill +like an AEolian harp; and especially why my pulse beat such a furious +ratan when I looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out the +cruel nettle-stings and thistles. Among her love-inspiring qualities, +she sung sweetly; and it was her favorite reel to which I attempted +giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. I was not so presumptuous as to +imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men +who read Greek and Latin; but my girl sung a song which was said to be +composed by a country laird's son, on one of his father's maids, with +whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well +as he; for, excepting that he could shear sheep and cast peats, his +father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than +myself. Thus with me began love and poetry." + + [Illustration: ROBERT BURNS + From the portrait by Nasmyth] + +The song that was due to this boyish passion is called "Handsome +Nell," and is said to be the first he wrote. It can be found in any +complete edition of the poet's work. In after years he himself calls +it puerile and silly, but, while lacking the exquisite perfection of +Burns' later lyrics, it is far superior to the usual first attempts of +poets. The last two stanzas run thus: + + A gaudy dress and gentle air + May slightly touch the heart; + But it's Innocence and Modesty + That polishes the dart. + + 'Tis this in Nelly pleases me, + 'Tis this enchants my soul! + For absolutely in my breast + She reigns without control. + +"I composed it," says Burns, "in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to +this hour I never recollect it but my heart melts, my blood sallies at +the remembrance." + +Poor Burns! How much happier he would have been had all his loves been +as innocent as this first experience! In one of Tennyson's most +vigorous passages in the _Idylls_ we read, + + ... for indeed I knew + Of no more subtle master under heaven + Than is the maiden passion for a maid, + Not only to keep down the base in man, + But teach high thoughts, and amiable words + And courtliness, and the desire of fame, + And love of truth, and all that makes a man. + +Perhaps, if Burns in a later love affair had been successful in his +suit, his life and reputation would not have suffered as they have, +for the most culpable trait in the character of the famous Scotch poet +is the ease with which he abandoned one lover for another. He was +forever falling in love, and there is some evidence to the effect that +he loved two or three at the same time. There is only too much truth +in Burns' own lines, + + Where'er I gaed, where'er I rade, + A mistress still I had aye. + +But perhaps all this would have been different had Ellison Begbie, the +daughter of a small farmer, smiled favorably upon the advances of the +young farmer from Lochlea. She is said to have been a young woman of +great charm and liveliness of mind, though not a beauty. In after +years Burns always spoke of her with the greatest of respect and as +the one woman, of the many upon whom he had lavished his fickle +affection, who most likely would have made a pleasant partner for +life. + +His love affair with this young lady took place near the close of his +twenty-second year. Her refusal seems to have had a malign influence +upon the career of our poet. Up to this time his love affairs, +although numerous, were innocent. As his brother Gilbert says, they +were "governed by the strictest rules of virtue and modesty." But +henceforth there is a change in the character of Burns. Shortly after +the fair Ellison had turned a deaf ear to the letters and love-songs +of the importunate wooer, Robert and his brother Gilbert went to +Irvine, hoping that in this flax-dressing center they could increase +their income by dressing the flax raised on their own farm. Here +Burns, always very susceptible to new influences,--he would not be the +poet he is had he not been keenly alive and susceptible,--fell under +the malignant charm of a wild sailor-lad whose habits were loose and +irregular. "He was," says Burns, "the only man I ever knew who was a +greater fool than myself, where woman was the presiding star; but he +spoke of lawless love with levity, which hitherto I had regarded with +horror. _Here his friendship did me a mischief._" + + + + +XII + +BURNS' FIRST BOOK OF POEMS + + +Burns was in trouble; he had failed as a farmer, and as a young man he +had wounded the sensibilities of his family. It seemed best to try a +new life in a new land, so he promised a Mr. Douglas to go to Jamaica +and become a bookkeeper on his estate there. But where should he get +the money to pay his passage? There were the poems lying in his +table-drawer--might they not be published and money be raised by the +sale? His friends encouraged him to publish them, and what is more to +the point, they subscribed in advance for a number of the copies. John +Wilson of Kilmarnock was to do the printing. During May, June, and +July of 1786 the printer was doing his work. At the end of July the +volume appeared, and soon the fame of the Ayrshire Plowman was +established. Let us hear Burns himself give his account of the +venture: + +"I gave up my part of the farm to my brother, and made what little +preparation was in my power for Jamaica. But, before leaving my native +country forever, I resolved to publish my poems. I weighed my +productions as impartially as was in my power; I thought they had +merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be called a clever +fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a poor +negro-driver, or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone +to the world of spirits! I can truly say that _pauvre inconnu_ as I +then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of my works as I have at +this moment, when the public has decided in their favor.... + +"I threw off about six hundred copies, of which I got subscriptions +for about three hundred and fifty. My vanity was highly gratified by +the reception I met with from the public; and besides, I pocketed, all +expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds. This sum came very +seasonably, as I was thinking of indenting myself, for want of money, +to procure a passage. As soon as I was master of nine guineas, the +price of wafting me to the torrid zone, I took a steerage passage in +the first ship that was to sail from the Clyde, for + + 'Hungry ruin had me in the wind.' + +"I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all +the terrors of a jail, as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the +merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell +of my friends; my chest was on the way to Greenock; I had composed the +last song I should ever measure in Caledonia, '_The gloomy night is +gathering fast_,' when a letter from Dr. Blackwood to a friend of mine +overthrew all my schemes, by opening up new prospects to my poetic +ambition." + +The success of the first edition of his poems was so pronounced that +Burns soon gave up the idea of going away to Jamaica. Ayrshire was +flattered to discover that within its borders lived a genuine poet. +Robert Heron, a young literary man living in that neighborhood, gives +us an account of the reception of the little book of poems: "Old and +young, high and low, grave and gay, learned or ignorant, were alike +delighted, agitated, transported. I was at that time resident in +Galloway, contiguous to Ayrshire, and I can well remember how even +plowboys and maidservants would have gladly bestowed the wages they +earned most hardly, and which they wanted to purchase necessary +clothing, if they might procure the works of Burns." + +When Burns wished a second edition of his poems, he had a very poor +offer from his printer. So he went to Edinburgh to see whether he +could not make a more advantageous bargain in the Scottish capital. He +reached that famous city on the 28th of November, 1786. Here he was +feted and banqueted, admired and criticised. In April, 1787, the +second edition appeared. The volume was a handsome octavo. The +Scottish public had subscribed very liberally, and eventually Burns +received 500 pounds, but Creech, his publisher, was so slow in making +payments that Burns had to wait a long time before he received his +due. + +Walter Scott was among the many who met Burns during his stay in +Edinburgh. Scott was but a boy of fifteen, but he never forgot the +glance of approval bestowed upon him by the poet. We are especially +fortunate in having Scott's own account of the incident: "As for +Burns, I may truly say, '_Virgilium vidi tantum_.' I was a lad of +fifteen when he came to Edinburgh. I saw him one day at the late +venerable Professor Adam Fergusson's. Of course we youngsters sat +silent, looked, and listened. The only thing I remember which was +remarkable in Burns' manner, was the effect produced upon him by a +print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his +dog sitting in misery on one side--on the other his widow, with her +child in her arms. These lines were written beneath: + + Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain, + Perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain-- + Bent o'er the babe, her eye dissolved in dew, + The big drops mingling with the milk he drew, + Gave the sad presage of his future years, + The child of misery baptized in tears. + +"Burns seemed much affected by the print: he actually shed tears. He +asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself +remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, +called by the unpromising title of _The Justice of Peace_. I whispered +my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to Burns, who +rewarded me with a look and a word, which though of mere civility, I +then received with very great pleasure. His person was strong and +robust; his manner rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness +and simplicity. His countenance was more massive than it looks in any +of the portraits. I would have taken the poet, had I not known who he +was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old Scotch school--the +_douce gudeman_ who held his own plow. There was a strong expression +of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, I think, +indicated the poetical character and temperament. It was large, and +of a dark cast, which glowed (I say literally, glowed) when he spoke +with feeling or interest. I never saw such another eye in a human +head, though I have seen the most distinguished men of my time." + + + + +XIII + +SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE IN SCHOOL AND COLLEGE + + +The following affecting narrative, written in Coleridge's person by +the tender-hearted Elia, gives the best view possible of Coleridge's +scanty and suffering commencement of life. At that time, it may be +premised, the dietary of Christ's Hospital was of the lowest: +breakfast consisting of a "quarter of penny loaf, moistened with +attenuated small beer in wooden piggins, smacking of the pitched +leathern jack it was poured from," and the weekly rule giving "three +banyan-days to four meat days." + +"I was a poor, friendless boy; my parents, and those who should have +cared for me, were far away. Those few acquaintances of theirs, whom +they could reckon upon being kind to me in the great city, after a +little forced notice, which they had the grace to take of me on my +first arrival in town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They +seemed to them to recur too often, though I thought them few enough. +One after another they all failed me, and I felt myself alone among +six hundred playmates. Oh the cruelty of separating a poor lad from +his early homestead! The yearnings which I used to have towards it in +those unfledged years!... The warm, long days of summer never return +but they bring with them a gloom from the haunting memory of those +_whole days' leave_, when, by some strange arrangement, we were turned +out for the livelong day, upon our own hands, whether we had friends +to go to or none. I remember those bathing excursions to the New River +which Lamb recalls with so much relish, better, I think, than he +can--for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not care much for such +water-parties. How we would sally forth into the fields, and strip +under the first warmth of the sun, and wanton like young dace in the +streams, getting appetites for the noon; which those of us that were +penniless (our scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had not the +means of allaying--while the cattle and the birds and the fishes were +at feed about us, and we had nothing to satisfy our cravings; the very +beauty of the day and the exercise of the pastime, and the sense of +liberty setting a keener edge upon them! How faint and languid, +finally, we would return toward nightfall to our desired morsel, half +rejoicing, half reluctant, that the hours of uneasy liberty had +expired! + +"It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about the streets +objectless, shivering at cold windows of printshops, to extract a +little amusement; or haply, as a last resort, in the hope of a little +novelty, to pay a fifty-times-repeated visit (where our individual +faces would be as well known to the warden as those of his own +charges) to the lions in the Tower, to whose _levee_, by courtesy +immemorial, we had a prescriptive right of admission." + +This melancholy and harsh life was, however, ameliorated by some +curious personal incidents. Once, for example, the solitary boy, +moving along the crowded streets, fancied, in the strange vividness of +his waking dream, that he was Leander swimming across the Hellespont. +His hand "came in contact with a gentleman's pocket" as he pursued +this visionary amusement, and for two or three minutes Coleridge was +in danger of being taken into custody as a pickpocket. On finding out +how matters really stood, however, this stranger--genial, nameless +soul--immediately gave to the strange boy the advantage of a +subscription to a library close by, thus setting him up, as it were, +in life. On another occasion, one of the higher boys, a +"deputy-Grecian," found him seated in a corner reading Virgil. "Are +you studying your lesson?" he asked. "No, I am reading for pleasure," +said the boy, who was not sufficiently advanced to read Virgil in +school. This introduced him to the favorable notice of the head-master +Bowyer, and made of the elder scholar, Middleton by name, a steady +friend and counselor for years. Yet at this time Coleridge was +considered by the lower-master, under whom he was, "a dull and inept +scholar who could not be made to repeat a single rule of syntax, +although he would give a rule in his own way." The life, however, of +this great school, with all its injudicious liberties and +confinements, must have been anything but a healthy one. Starved and +solitary, careless of play as play, and already full of that consuming +spiritual curiosity which never left him, Coleridge's devotion to the +indiscriminate stores of the circulating library gave the last +aggravation to all the unwholesome particulars of his life. "Conceive +what I must have been at fourteen," he exclaims. "I was in a continual +low fever. My whole being was, with eyes closed to every object of +present sense, to crumple myself up in a sunny corner and read, read, +read; fancy myself on Robinson Crusoe's island finding a mountain of +plum-cake, and eating a room for myself, and then eating it into the +shapes of tables and chairs--hunger, and fancy!" ... + +A droll incident occurred about this period of his life, which shows +... his absolute want of ambition. The friendless boy had made +acquaintance with a shoemaker and his wife, who had a shop near the +school, and who were kind to him; and thereupon he conceived the +extraordinary idea of getting himself apprenticed to his friend, whom +he persuaded to go to the head-master to make this wonderful proposal. +"Od's, my life, man, what d'ye mean?" cried the master, with not +unnatural indignation mingling with his amazement; and notwithstanding +Coleridge's support of the application, the shoemaker was turned out +of the place, and the would-be apprentice chosen, "against my will," +he says, "as one of those destined for the university." The same +irascible yet excellent master flogged the boy severely on hearing +that he boasted of being an infidel.... + +His next stage in life was not a shoemaker's shop in Newgate Street, +but Jesus College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1791 at the age of +nineteen--the object of many high prophecies and hopes on the part of +his school and schoolfellows, who had unanimously determined that he +was to be great and do them honor. The first thing he did, however, +was alas! too common an incident: he got into debt, though not, it +would appear, for an overwhelming sum, or in any discreditable way. So +long as his friend of Christ's Hospital, Middleton, remained in +Cambridge, Coleridge pursued his studies with a great deal of +regularity and in his first year won the prize for a Greek ode. But +after awhile his industry slackened, and a kind of dreamy +idleness--implying no languor of the soul or common reluctance to +mental work, but rather, it would seem, a disinclination to work in +the usual grooves, and do what was expected of him--took possession of +the young scholar. "He was very studious, but his reading was +desultory and capricious," writes a fellow-student. "He was ready at +any time to shed his mind in conversation, and for the sake of this +his rooms were a constant rendezvous of conversation-loving friends. +What evenings I have spent in these rooms! What little suppers, or +_sizings_, as they were called, have I enjoyed; when Aeschylus and +Plato and Thucydides were pushed aside with a pile of lexicons and the +like, to discuss the pamphlets of the day! Ever and anon a pamphlet +issued from the pen of Burke. There was no need of having the book +before us; Coleridge had read it in the morning and in the evening he +would repeat whole pages _verbatim_." + + --Adapted from _Blackwood's Magazine_. + + + + +XIV + +BYRON AS SWIMMER AND FEASTER + + +In 1858 Trelawney published his _Recollections of the Last Days of +Shelley and Byron_. In many ways this is a remarkable book. It is the +one source of information as to the last days of Shelley; concerning +Byron's, others have furnished material. Trelawney is suspected of +mingling some fiction with his truth, but the general tendency +nowadays is to place confidence in these _Recollections_. He may not +always give us a literal report, but he has likely reproduced the +spirit. He is much more sympathetic in his treatment of Shelley than +he is in his account of Byron. Trelawney himself was a remarkable +character. He lived far into the time of a new generation, dying in +his eighty-ninth year in 1881. Mary Shelley, in a letter to Maria +Gisborne, February, 1822, describes him as "A kind of half-Arab +Englishman.... He is clever: for his moral qualities I am yet in the +dark. He is a strange web which I am endeavoring to unravel." + +In the _Recollections_ occurs this interesting account of Byron: + +Byron has been accused of drinking deeply. Our universities, +certainly, did turn out more famous drinkers than scholars. In the +good old times, to drink lustily was the characteristic of all +Englishmen, just as tuft-hunting is now. Eternal swilling, and the +rank habits and braggadocio manners which it engendered, came to a +climax in George IV's reign. Since then, excessive drinking has gone +out of fashion, but an elaborate style of gastronomy has come in to +fill the void; so there is not much gained. Byron used to boast of the +quantity of wine he had drunk. He said, "We young Whigs imbibed +claret, and so saved our constitutions: the Tories stuck to port, and +destroyed theirs and their country's." + + [Illustration: LORD BYRON + From the portrait by T. Phillips] + +He bragged, too, of his prowess in riding, boxing, fencing, and even +walking; but to excel in these things feet are as necessary as hands. It +was difficult to avoid smiling at his boasting and self-glorification. In +the water a fin is better than a foot, and in that element he did well; +he was built for floating,--with a flexible body, open chest, broad beam, +and round limbs. If the sea was smooth and warm, he would stay in it for +hours; but as he seldom indulged in this sport, and when he did, +over-exerted himself, he suffered severely; which observing, and knowing +how deeply he would be mortified at being beaten, I had the magnanimity +when contending with him to give in. + +He had a misgiving in his mind that I was trifling with him; and one +day as we were on the shore, and the _Bolivar_ at anchor, about three +miles off, he insisted on our trying conclusions; we were to swim to +the yacht, dine in the sea alongside of her, treading water the while, +and then to return to the shore. It was calm and hot, and seeing he +would not be fobbed off, we started. I reached the boat a long time +before he did; ordered the edibles to be ready, and floated until he +arrived. We ate our fare leisurely, from off a grating that floated +alongside, drank a bottle of ale, and I smoked a cigar, which he tried +to extinguish,--as he never smoked. We then put about, and struck off +towards the shore. We had not got a hundred yards on our passage, when +he retched violently, and, as that is often followed by cramp, I urged +him to put his hand on my shoulder that I might tow him back to the +schooner. + +"Keep off, you villain, don't touch me. I'll drown ere I give in." + +I answered as Iago did to Roderigo: + +"'A fig for drowning! drown cats and blind puppies.' I shall go on +board and try the effects of a glass of grog to stay my stomach." + +"Come on," he shouted, "I am always better after vomiting." + +With difficulty I deluded him back; I went on board, and he sat on the +steps of the accommodation-ladder, with his feet in the water. I +handed him a wineglass of brandy, and screened him from the burning +sun. He was in a sullen mood, but after a time resumed his usual tone. +Nothing could induce him to be landed in the schooner's boat, though I +protested I had had enough of the water. + +"You may do as you like," he called out, and plumped in, and we swam +on shore. + +He never afterwards alluded to this event, nor to his prowess in +swimming, to me, except in the past tense. He was ill, and kept to his +bed for two days afterwards. + +To return to his drinking propensities, after this digression about +his gymnastic prowess: I must say, that of all his vauntings, it was, +luckily for him, the emptiest--that is, after he left England and his +boon companions, as I know nothing of what he did there. From all that +I heard or witnessed of his habits abroad, he was and had been +exceedingly abstemious in eating and drinking. When alone, he drank a +glass or two of small claret or hock, and when utterly exhausted at +night, a single glass of grog; which when I mixed it for him I lowered +to what sailors call "water bewitched," and he never made any remark. +I once, to try him, omitted the alcohol; he then said, "Tre, have you +not forgotten the creature comfort?" I then put in two spoonfuls, and +he was satisfied. This does not look like an habitual toper. His +English acquaintances in Italy were, he said in derision, all +milksops. On the rare occasion of any of his former friends visiting +him, he would urge them to have a carouse with him, but they had grown +wiser. He used to say that little Tommy Moore was the only man he knew +who stuck to the bottle and put him on his mettle, adding, "But he is +a native of the damp isle, where men subsist by suction." + +Byron had not damaged his body by strong drinks, but his terror of +getting fat was so great that he reduced his diet to the point of +absolute starvation. He was of that soft, lymphatic temperament which +it is almost impossible to keep within moderate compass, particularly +as in his case his lameness prevented his taking exercise. When he +added to his weight, even standing was painful, so he resolved to keep +down to eleven stone, or shoot himself. He said everything he +swallowed was instantly converted into tallow and deposited on his +ribs. + +He was the only human being I ever met with who had sufficient +self-restraint and resolution to resist this proneness to fatten: he +did so, and at Genoa, where he was last weighed, he was ten stone and +nine pounds, and looked much less. This was not from vanity about his +personal appearance, but from a better motive; and as, like Justice +Greedy, he was always hungry, his merit was the greater. Occasionally +he relaxed his vigilance, when he swelled apace. + +I remember one of his old friends saying, "Byron, how well you are +looking!" If he had stopped there it had been well, but when he added, +"You are getting fat," Byron's brow reddened, and his eyes +flashed--"Do you call getting fat looking well, as if I were a hog?" +and, turning to me, he muttered, "The beast, I can hardly keep my +hands off him." The man who thus offended him was the husband of the +lady addressed as "Genevra," and the original of his "Zuleika," in the +_Bride of Abydos_. I don't think he had much appetite for his dinner +that day, or for many days, and never forgave the man who, so far from +wishing to offend, intended to pay him a compliment. + +Byron said he had tried all sorts of experiments to stay his hunger, +without adding to his bulk. "I swelled," he said, "at one time to +fourteen stone, so I clapped the muzzle to my jaws, and, like the +hibernating animals, consumed my own fat." + +He would exist on biscuits and soda-water for days together, then, to +allay the eternal hunger gnawing at his vitals, he would make up a +horrid mess of cold potatoes, rice, fish, or greens, deluged in +vinegar, and gobble it up like a famished dog. On either of these +unsavory dishes, with a biscuit and a glass or two of Rhine wine, he +cared not how sour, he called feasting sumptuously. Upon my observing +he might as well have fresh fish and vegetables, instead of stale, he +laughed and answered: + +"I have an advantage over you, I have no palate; one thing is as good +as another to me." + +"Nothing," I said, "disagrees with the natural man; he fasts and +gorges, his nerves and brain don't bother him; but if you wish to +live?-- + +"Who wants to live?" he replied, "not I. The Byrons are a short-lived +race on both sides, father and mother; longevity is hereditary: I am +nearly at the end of my tether. I don't care for death a ----; it is +her sting! I can't bear pain." + +His habits and want of exercise damaged him, not drink. It must be +borne in mind, moreover, that his brain was always working at high +pressure. The consequences resulting from his way of life were low or +intermittent fevers; these last had fastened on him in his early +travels in the Levant; and there is this peculiarity in malarial +fevers, that if you have once had them, you are ever afterwards +susceptible to a renewal of their attacks if within their reach, and +Byron was hardly ever out of it. Venice and Ravenna are belted in with +swamps, and fevers are rife in the autumn. By starving his body Byron +kept his brains clear; no man had brighter eyes or a clearer voice; +and his resolute bearing and prompt replies, when excited, gave to +his body an appearance of muscular power that imposed on strangers. I +never doubted, for he was indifferent to life, and prouder than +Lucifer, that if he had drawn his sword in Greece, or elsewhere, he +would have thrown away the scabbard. + + [Illustration: PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY + From a chalk drawing after the original painting by Miss + Curran] + + + + +XV + +SHELLEY AS A FRESHMAN + + +If one were to name ten of the greatest English poets beginning with +Chaucer and ending with Tennyson, the name of Shelley would be +included, although he died before he was thirty years old. Hogg, a +friend of Shelley's, has given us an interesting account of their +meeting when both were freshmen at Oxford. + +"At the commencement of Michaelmas Term," writes Hogg, "that is, at +the end of October in the year 1801, I happened one day to sit next a +freshman at dinner; it was his first appearance in hall. His figure +was slight, and his aspect remarkably youthful, even at our table, +where all were very young. He seemed thoughtful and absent. He ate +little and had no acquaintance with any one. I know not how we fell +into conversation, for such familiarity was unusual, and, strange to +say, much reserve prevailed in a society where there could not +possibly be occasion for any." This conversation led into a heated +discussion of the merits of German and Italian literature. When the +time for leaving the dining hall had come, Hogg invited his new +acquaintance over to his rooms. During the transit the thread of the +argument was lost, and while Hogg was lighting the candles Shelley +frankly said that he was not competent to argue the point, as he had +little knowledge of either German or Italian literature. Then Hogg +with equal ingenuousness confessed that he knew but little of Italian +and nothing of German literature. + +So the talk went merrily on. Shelley said it made little difference +whether Italian or German literature were the more worthy, for all +literature, what was it but vain trifling? What is the study of +language but the study of words, of phrases, of the names of things? +How much better and wiser to study things themselves! + +"I inquired," says Hogg, "a little bewildered, how this was to be +effected. He answered, 'Through the physical sciences, and especially +through chemistry,' and raising his voice, his face flushing as he +spoke, he discoursed, with a degree of animation that far outshone his +zeal in defense of the Germans, of chemistry and chemical analysis." +While this is going on Hogg studies the youthful speaker. What manner +of man is this brilliant guest? "It was a sum of many contradictions. +His figure was slight and fragile, and yet his bones were large and +strong. He was tall, but he stooped so much that he seemed of low +stature. His clothes were expensive and made after the most approved +mode of the day; but they were tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed. His +gestures were abrupt, and sometimes violent, occasionally even +awkward, yet more frequently gentle and graceful. His complexion was +delicate and almost feminine, of the purest red and white; yet he was +tanned and freckled by exposure to the sun, having passed the autumn, +as he said, in shooting. His features, his whole face and +particularly his head, were, in fact, unusually small, yet the last +appeared of a remarkable bulk, for his hair was long and bushy, and in +fits of absence, and in the agonies (if I may use the word) of anxious +thought, he often rubbed it fiercely with his hands, or passed his +fingers quickly through his locks unconsciously, so that it was +singularly wild and rough. In times when it was the mode to imitate +stage-coachmen as closely as possible in costume, and when the hair +was invariably cropped, like that of our soldiers, this eccentricity +was very striking. His features were not symmetrical (the mouth, +perhaps, excepted), yet was the effect of the whole extremely +powerful. They breathed an animation, a fire, an enthusiasm, a vivid +and preternatural intelligence, that I never met with in any other +countenance. Nor was the moral expression less beautiful than the +intellectual, for there was a softness, a delicacy, a gentleness, and +especially (though this will surprise many) that air of profound +religious veneration that characterizes the best works, and chiefly +the frescoes of the great masters of Florence and Rome." + +The next day Hogg pays a visit to Shelley's rooms. The furniture was +new and the walls were freshly papered, but everything in the room was +in confusion. "Books, boots, papers, shoes, philosophical instruments, +clothes, pistols, linen, crockery, ammunition, and phials innumerable, +with money, stockings, prints, crucibles, bags, and boxes, were +scattered on the floor in every place, as if the young chemist, in +order to analyze the mystery of creation, had endeavored first to +reconstruct the primeval chaos. The tables, and especially the carpet, +were already stained with large spots of various hues, which +frequently proclaimed the agency of fire. An electrical machine, an +air pump, the galvanic trough, a solar microscope, and large glass +jars were conspicuous amidst the mass of matter. Upon the table by his +side were some books lying open, several letters, a bundle of new +pens, and a bottle of japan ink, that served as an ink-stand, a piece +of deal, lately part of the lid of a box, with many chips, and a +handsome razor that had been used as a knife. There were bottles of +soda-water, sugar, pieces of lemon, and the traces of an effervescent +beverage. Two piles of books supported the tongs, and these upheld a +small glass retort above an argand lamp. I had not been seated many +minutes before the liquor in the vessel boiled over, adding fresh +stains to the table, and rising in fumes with a disagreeable odor. +Shelley snatched the glass quickly, and dashing it in pieces among +ashes under the grate, increased the unpleasant and penetrating +effluvium." + +Hogg and Shelley soon became fast friends and met every evening. "I +was enabled," writes Hogg, "to continue my studies in the evening in +consequence of a very remarkable peculiarity. My young and energetic +friend was then overcome by extreme drowsiness, which speedily and +completely vanquished him; he would sleep from two to four hours, +often so soundly that his slumbers resembled a deep lethargy; he lay +occasionally upon the sofa, but more commonly stretched upon the rug +before a large fire, like a cat, and his little round head was +exposed to such fierce heat, that I used to wonder how he was able to +bear it. Sometimes I have interposed some shelter, but rarely with any +permanent effect, for the sleeper usually contrived to turn himself, +and to roll again into the spot where the fire glowed the brightest. +His torpor was generally profound, but he would sometimes discourse +incoherently for a long while in his sleep. At six he would suddenly +compose himself, even in the midst of an animated narrative or of +earnest discussion, and he would lie buried in entire forgetfulness, +in a sweet and mighty oblivion, until ten, when he would suddenly +start up, and rubbing his eyes with great violence, and passing his +fingers swiftly through his long hair, would enter at once into a +vehement argument, or begin to recite verses, either of his own +composition or from the works of others, with a rapidity and an energy +that were often quite painful. During the period of his occultation I +took tea, and read or wrote without interruption. He would sometimes +sleep for a shorter time, for about two hours, postponing for the like +period the commencement of his retreat to the rug, and rising with +tolerable punctuality at ten, and sometimes, though rarely, he was +able entirely to forego the accustomed refreshment." + +After supper, which Shelley would take upon awaking at ten, the two +friends would talk and read together until two o'clock. + + + + +XVI + +THE DEATH OF SHELLEY + + +In the Protestant cemetery at Rome one can find in an obscure place a +plain stone bearing record of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and these lines +from Shakspere's Tempest: + + Nothing of him that doth fade, + But doth suffer a sea-change + Into something rich and strange. + +And this is the story of how Shelley happens to have a memorial in the +Roman cemetery: + +Shelley was a revolutionist in religion and politics, and +revolutionists are seldom popular at home. Shelley's lyric poetry is +unsurpassed, but his theories in some respects will never meet with +the approval of common-sense humanity. England proved uncomfortable +and so he left his country to live in other lands. In 1822 we find him +with his family and a Mr. and Mrs. Williams in Casa Magni, a Roman +villa in a cove on the bay of Spezzia. Here the poet and his friends +became very fond of sailing in a boat which had been made for them. +The boat, which they called the Ariel, was twenty-eight feet long and +eight feet broad, and this with the assistance of a lad they learned +to manage fairly well. To Shelley, whose health had been failing, the +out-of-door life gave renewed vigor. + +On the eighth of July, Shelley and Williams, accompanied by a +sailor-lad, left the harbor of Leghorn to go home to their wives, from +whom they had been absent for several days. They had gone to Pisa to +welcome Leigh Hunt to Italy, to meet other friends (among the number +was Byron), and to do some business. Neither Shelley, Williams, nor +the lad, was ever seen alive after that day. As we are indebted to +Hogg for the best pen-pictures of the boy Shelley, so we are indebted +to Trelawney for the best description of the closing scene. So we +shall follow Trelawney's account in the main. + +Trelawney was in Leghorn and intended to accompany his friends out of +the harbor in a separate boat, but owing to the refusal of the health +officer of the harbor he was not allowed to go. As from his own vessel +he watched the Ariel, containing the small party happy in the thought +that in seven short hours they should be at home with their loved +ones, his Genoese mate turned to him and said: "They are standing too +much in-shore; the current will set them there." "They will soon have +the land-breeze," replied Trelawney. "Maybe," said the mate, "she will +soon have too much breeze; that gaff topsail is foolish in a boat with +no deck and no sailor on board." Then he added as he pointed to the +southwest, "Look at those black lines and dirty rags hanging on them +out of the sky; look at the smoke on the water; the devil is brewing +mischief." + +"Although the sun was obscured by mists," Trelawney writes, "it was +oppressively sultry. There was not a breath of air in the harbor. The +heaviness of the atmosphere and an unwonted stillness benumbed my +senses. I went down into the cabin and sank into a slumber. I was +roused up by a noise overhead, and went on deck. The men were getting +up another chain-cable to let go another anchor. There was a general +stir amongst the shipping; shifting berths, getting down yards and +masts, veering out cables, hauling in of hawsers, letting go anchors, +hailing from the ships and quays, boats sculling rapidly to and fro. +It was almost dusk, although only half-past six o'clock. The sea was +of the color and looked as solid and smooth as a sheet of lead, and +covered with an oily scum. Gusts of wind swept over without ruffling +it, and big drops of rain fell on its surface, rebounding, as if they +could not penetrate it. There was a commotion in the air, made up of +many threatening sounds, coming upon us from the sea. Fishing craft +and coasting vessels, under bare poles, rushed by us in shoals, +running foul of the ships in the harbor. As yet the din and hubbub was +that made by men, but their shrill pipings were suddenly silenced by +the crashing voice of a thunder-squall that burst right over our +heads. For some time no other sounds were to be heard than the +thunder, wind, and rain. When the fury of the storm, which did not +last for more than twenty minutes, had abated and the horizon was in +some degree cleared, I looked to sea anxiously, in the hope of +descrying Shelley's boat amongst the many small craft scattered about. +I watched every speck that loomed on the horizon, thinking that they +would have borne up on their return to the port, as all the other +boats that had gone out in the same direction had done." + +Then followed a period of painful suspense. Were they safe or had they +gone down? On the third day Trelawney went to Pisa to ascertain +whether any one had heard anything of Shelley. "I told my fears to +Hunt," he writes, "and then went upstairs to Byron. When I told him +his lip quivered, and his voice faltered as he questioned me." + +And what of the wives at Casa Magni awaiting the return of their +husbands? Let one of the two tell the story. Mary is the wife of +Shelley, and Jane is Mrs. Williams. + +"Yet I thought when he, when my Shelley returns, I shall be happy--he +will comfort me; if my boy be ill, he will restore him and encourage +me.... Thus a week passed. On Monday, 8th, Jane had a letter from +Edward dated Saturday; he said that he waited at Leghorn for Shelley, +who was at Pisa; that Shelley's return was certain; 'but,' he +continued, 'if I should not come by Monday, I will come in a felucca, +and you may expect me on Thursday evening at furthest.' + +"This was Monday, the fatal Monday, but with us it was stormy all day, +and we did not at all suppose that they could put to sea. At twelve at +night we had a thunder-storm. Tuesday it rained all day and was +calm--the sky wept on their graves. On Wednesday, the wind was fair +from Leghorn, and in the evening several feluccas arrived thence. One +brought word they had sailed Monday, but we did not believe them. +Thursday was another day of fair wind, and when twelve at night came, +and we did not see the tall sails of the little boat double the +promontory before us, we began to fear, not the truth, but some +illness, some disagreeable news for their detention." + +"Jane got so uneasy that she determined to proceed the next day to +Leghorn in a boat to see what was the matter. Friday came and with it +a heavy sea and bad wind. Jane, however, resolved to be rowed to +Leghorn, since no boat could sail, and busied herself in preparation. +I wished her to wait for letters, since Friday was letter-day. She +would not, but the sea detained her; the swell rose so that no boat +would endure out. At twelve at noon our letters came; there was one +from Hunt to Shelley; it said, 'Pray write to tell us how you got +home, for they say that you had bad weather after you sailed on Monday +and we are anxious.' The paper fell from me. I trembled all over. Jane +read it. 'Then it is all over,' she said. 'No, my dear Jane,' I cried, +'it is not all over, but this suspense is dreadful. Come with me--we +will go to Leghorn, we will post, to be swift and learn our fate.' + +"We crossed to Lerici ... we posted to Pisa. It must have been fearful +to see us--two poor, wild, aghast creatures, driving (like Matilda) +towards the sea to learn if we were to be forever doomed to misery. I +knew that Hunt was at Pisa, at Lord Byron's house, but I thought that +Lord Byron was at Leghorn. I settled that we should drive to Casa +Lanfranchi, that I should get out and ask the fearful question of +Hunt, 'Do you know anything of Shelley?' On entering Pisa, the idea of +seeing Hunt for the first time for four years under such circumstances +and asking him such a question was so terrific to me that it was with +difficulty that I prevented myself from going into convulsions. My +struggles were dreadful. They knocked at the door and some one called +out, 'Chi e?' It was the Guiccioli's maid. Lord Byron was in Pisa. +Hunt was in bed, so I was to see Lord Byron instead of him. This was a +great relief to me. I staggered upstairs; the Guicciola came to meet +me smiling, while I could hardly say, 'Where is he--Sapete alcuna cosa +di Shelley?' They knew nothing; he had left Pisa on Sunday; on Monday +he had sailed; there had been bad weather Monday afternoon; more they +knew not." + + + + +XVII + +THE SCHOOL-DAYS OF JOHN KEATS + + +In the village of Enfield, in Middlesex, ten miles on the North Road +from London, my father, John Clarke, says Charles Cowden Clarke in +_The Gentleman's Magazine_, kept a school. The house had been built by +a West India merchant in the latter end of the seventeenth or +beginning of the eighteenth century. It was of the better character of +the domestic architecture of that period, the whole front being of the +purest red brick, wrought by means of molds into rich designs of +flowers and pomegranates, with heads of cherubim over niches in the +center of the building. The elegance of the design and the perfect +finish of the structure were such as to procure its protection when a +branch railway was brought from the Ware and Cambridge line to +Enfield.... + +Here it was that John Keats all but commenced, and did complete, his +school education. He was born on the twenty-ninth of October, 1795, +and he was one of the little fellows who had not wholly emerged from +the child's costume upon being placed under my father's care. It will +be readily conceived that it is difficult to recall from the "dark +backward and abysm" of seventy-odd years the general acts of perhaps +the youngest individual in a corporation of between seventy and +eighty youngsters; and very little more of Keats's child-life can I +remember than that he had a brisk, winning face, and was a favorite +with all, particularly my mother.... + +Keats's father was the principal servant at the Swan and Hoop +stables--a man of so remarkably fine a common-sense, and native +respectability, that I perfectly remember the warm terms in which his +demeanor used to be canvassed by my parents after he had been to visit +his boys. John was the only one resembling him in person and feature, +with brown hair and dark hazel eyes. The father was killed by a fall +from his horse in returning from a visit to the school. This detail may +be deemed requisite when we see in the last memoir of the poet the +statement that "John Keats was born on the twenty-ninth of October, +1795, in the upper rank of the middle class." His two brothers--George, +older, and Thomas, younger than himself--were like the mother, who was +tall, of good figure, with large oval face and sensible deportment. The +last of the family was a sister--Fanny, I think, much younger than +all,--and I hope still living (in 1874)--of whom I remember, when once +walking in the garden with her brothers, my mother speaking of her with +much fondness for her pretty and simple manners.... + +In the early part of his school-life John gave no extraordinary +indications of intellectual character; but it was remembered of him +afterwards, that there was ever present a determined and steady spirit +in all his undertakings: I never knew it misdirected in his required +pursuit of study. He was a most orderly scholar. The future +ramifications of that noble genius were then closely shut in the seed, +which was greedily drinking in the moisture which made it afterwards +burst forth so kindly into luxuriance and beauty. + +My father was in the habit, at each half-year's vacation, of bestowing +prizes upon those pupils who had performed the greatest quantity of +voluntary work; and such was Keats's indefatigable energy for the last +two or three successive half-years of his remaining at school, that, +upon each occasion he took the first prize by a considerable distance. +He was at work before the first school hour began, and that was at +seven o'clock, almost all the intervening times of recreation were so +devoted, and during the afternoon holidays, when all were at play, he +would be in the school--almost the only one--at his Latin or French +translation, and so unconscious and regardless was he of the +consequences of so close and persevering an application that he never +would have taken the necessary exercise had he not been sometimes +driven out for the purpose by one of his masters. + +It has just been said that he was a favorite with all. Not the less +beloved was he for having a highly pugnacious spirit, which, when +roused, was one of the most picturesque exhibitions--off the stage--I +ever saw. One of the transports of that marvelous actor, Edmund +Kean--whom, by the way, he idolized--was its nearest resemblance; and +the two were not very dissimilar in face and figure. Upon one +occasion, when an usher, on account of some impertinent behavior, had +boxed his brother Tom's ears, John rushed up, put himself in the +received posture of offense, and, it was said, struck the usher--who +could, so to say, have put him into his pocket. His passion at times +was almost ungovernable, and his brother George, being considerably +the taller and stronger, used frequently to hold him down by main +force, laughing when John was in "one of his moods," and was +endeavoring to beat him. It was all, however, a wisp-of-straw +conflagration, for he had an intensely tender affection for his +brothers and proved it upon the most trying occasions. He was not +merely the "favorite of all," like a pet prize-fighter, for his +terrier courage; but his high-mindedness, his utter unconsciousness of +a mean motive, his placability, his generosity, wrought so general a +feeling in his behalf, that I never heard a word of disapproval from +any one, superior or equal, who had known him. + +In the latter part of the time--perhaps eighteen months--that he +remained at school, he occupied the hours during meals in reading. +Thus, his whole time was engrossed. He had a tolerably retentive +memory, and the quantity that he read was surprising. He must in those +last months have exhausted the school library, which consisted +principally of abridgments of all the voyages and travels of any note; +Mavor's collection, also his _Universal History_; Robertson's +histories of Scotland, America, and Charles the Fifth; all Miss +Edgeworth's productions, together with many other works equally well +calculated for youth. The books, however, that were his constantly +recurring sources of attraction were Tooke's _Pantheon_, Lempriere's +_Classical Dictionary_, which he appeared to _learn_, and Spence's +_Polymetis_. This was the store whence he acquired his intimacy with +the Greek mythology; here was he "suckled in that creed outworn;" for +his amount of classical attainment extended no farther than the +_AEneid_, with which epic, indeed, he was so fascinated that before +leaving school he had _voluntarily_ translated in writing a +considerable portion. And yet I remember that at that early +age--mayhap under fourteen--notwithstanding, and through all its +incidental attractiveness, he hazarded the opinion to me (and the +expression riveted my surprise), that there was feebleness in the +structure of the work. He must have gone through all the better +publications in the school library, for he asked me to lend him some +of my books, and, in my "mind's eye" I now see him at supper (we had +our meals in the school-room), sitting back on the form, from the +table, holding the folio volume of Burnet's _History of His Own Time_ +between himself and the table, eating his meal from beyond it. This +work, and Leigh Hunt's _Examiner_--which my father took in, and I used +to lend to Keats--no doubt laid the foundation of his love of civil +and religious liberty. He once told me, smiling, that one of his +guardians, being informed what books I had lent him to read, declared +that if he had fifty children he would not send one of them to that +school. Bless his patriot head! + +When he left Enfield at fourteen years of age, he was apprenticed to +Mr. Thomas Hammond, a medical man, residing in Church Street, +Edmonton, and exactly two miles from Enfield. This arrangement +evidently gave him satisfaction, and I fear it was the most placid +period of his painful life; for now, with the exception of the duty he +had to perform in the surgery--by no means an onerous one--his whole +leisure hours were employed in indulging his passion for reading and +translating. During his apprenticeship he finished the _AEneid_. + +The distance between our residences being so short, I gladly +encouraged his inclination to come over when he could claim a leisure +hour; and in consequence I saw him about five or six times a month on +my own leisure afternoons. He rarely came empty-handed; either he had +a book to read, or brought one to be exchanged. When the weather +permitted, we always sat in an arbor at the end of a spacious garden, +and--in Boswellian dialect--"we had a good talk." ... + + + + +XVIII + +THE HEROISM OF SIR WALTER SCOTT + + +When Carlyle wrote and lectured on _Heroes and Hero Worship_, he would +have made no mistake in selecting one of his contemporary countrymen +as a fine example of the man of letters as hero. But it is one of the +characteristics of human nature to see the heroic in the remote in +time and place rather than in the near. Carlyle, had he closely +examined the life of his Scotch neighbor, would have been forced to +acknowledge that no knight battling with chivalric valor in the +fiction of Sir Walter ever displayed more nobility of soul than that +displayed by Walter Scott in his adversity. Critics may find flaws in +Scott's style, but as time reveals more fully the character of the man +they are unable to find fault with the man himself. Some years ago was +published Scott's journal. Parts of this had been published before, +but, owing to the nature of some of the information, much of this had +been suppressed until sixty years after the death of the writer. To +quote from this journal is, perhaps, the best method of giving a +first-hand impression of the real man. He is his own revealer. Scott +called the big book in which he from time to time records for several +years his thoughts his "Gurnal," because his daughter Sophia had once +spelled the word in that way. This book could be closed with a lock +and key. On the title-page was written: + + As I walked by myself, + I talked to myself, + And thus myself said to me. + (Old Song.) + +Scott's poems and novels brought him much revenue. This he spent in +purchasing land. He became a Scotch "laird" owning many acres, and a +most beautiful home, Abbotsford. But unfortunately he formed a bad +business partnership. When the firm through mismanagement and +speculation, in which Scott had no part, went down in ruin, Scott +found to his surprise that he owed a vast sum. In his "Gurnal" of +September 5, 1827, he wrote: "The debts for which I am legally +responsible, though no party to this contraction, amount to L30,000." +But although his legal responsibility was for so great a sum, he felt +that morally he was responsible for a far greater amount. When the +printing house of James Ballantyne & Co., the publishing house of +Constable, and Hunt and Robinson, failed, they failed for upwards of +half a million pounds. Of this enormous total, Scott could be held +morally responsible for one hundred and thirty thousand pounds. + +For several weeks after intimations of failure had reached Scott, he +lived in a state of uncertainty. On the 18th of December, 1825, he +wrote a long account in his journal. It was published lately for the +first time, appearing in the _Quarterly Review_. What a revelation of +the man it is! + +"Ballantyne called on me this morning. _Venit illa suprema dies._ My +extremity is come. Cadell has received letters from London which all +but positively announce the failure of Hurst and Robinson, so that +Constable and Co. must follow, and I must go with poor James +Ballantyne for company. I suppose it will involve my all.... I have +been rash in anticipating funds to buy lands, but then I made from +L5,000 to L10,000 a year, and land was my temptation. I think nobody +can lose a penny--that is my one comfort. Men will think pride has had +a fall. Let them indulge their own pride in thinking that my fall +makes them higher, or seems so at least. I have the satisfaction to +recollect that my prosperity has been of advantage to many, and that +some at least will forgive my transient wealth on account of the +innocence of my intentions, and my real wish to do good to the poor. +This news will make sad hearts at Darnick, and in the cottages of +Abbotsford, which I do not cherish the least hope of preserving. It +has been my Delilah, and so I have often termed it; and now the +recollection of the extensive woods I planted, and the walks I have +formed, from which strangers must derive both the pleasure and profit, +will excite feelings likely to sober my gayest moments. I have half +resolved never to see the place again. How could I tread my hall with +such a diminished crest? How live a poor indebted man where I was once +the wealthy, and honored? My children are provided [for]; thank God +for that! I was to have gone there in joy and prosperity to receive my +friends. My dogs will wait for me in vain. It is foolish, but the +thoughts of parting from these dumb creatures have moved me more than +any of the painful reflections I have put down. Poor things, I must +get them kind masters; there may be yet those who loving me may love +my dog because it has been mine. I must end this, or I shall lose the +tone of mind with which men should meet distress. I find my dogs' feet +on my knees. I hear them whining and seeking me everywhere--this is +nonsense, but it is what they would do could they know how things are. +Poor Will Laidlaw! Poor Tom Purdie! this will be news to wring your +heart, and many a poor fellow's besides to whom my prosperity was +daily bread." + +After touching on some other matters he comes back to +Abbotsford,--"Yet to save Abbotsford I would attempt all that was +possible. My heart clings to the place I have created. There is scarce +a tree on it that does not owe its being to me, and the pain of +leaving it is greater than I can bear." + +A Mr. Skene, in whose gardens Scott while in Edinburgh about a month +later took a walk, has left a record of a conversation with Scott. He +wrote immediately after the walk so as to record the conversation. +This is what Scott said: "Do you know I experience a sort of +determined pleasure in confronting the very worst aspect of this +sudden reverse--in standing, as it were, in the breach that has +overthrown my fortunes, and saying, Here I stand, at least, an honest +man. And God knows if I have enemies, this I may at least with truth +say, that I have never wittingly given cause of enmity in the whole +course of my life, for even the burnings of political hate seemed to +find nothing in my nature to feed the flame. I am not conscious of +having borne a grudge towards any man, and at this moment of my +overthrow, so help me God, I wish well and feel kindly to every one. +And if I thought that any of my works contained a sentence hurtful to +any one's feelings, I would burn it." + +Scott worked so assiduously that by January, 1828, he had reduced his +debt $200,000. On the 17th of December, 1830, more than the half of +his debt had been paid. On that day his creditors had a meeting during +which the following resolutions were passed: + +"That Sir Walter Scott be requested to accept of his furniture, plate, +linen, paintings, library, and curiosities of every description as the +best means the creditors have of expressing their very high sense of +his most honorable conduct, and in grateful acknowledgment for the +unparalleled and most successful exertions he has made, and continues +to make, for them." + +That the creditors of Scott would be glad to show their gratitude is +easy to believe when one learns that while Scott was paying pound for +pound the other members of the firm paid their creditors less than +three shillings to the pound. That Scott did his herculean task at +great sacrifice is known. How much of pain and worry he endured is not +so well known. At one time he writes: "After all, I have fagged +through six pages, and made poor Wurmser lay down his sword on the +glacis of Mantua--and my head aches--my eyes ache--my back aches--so +does my breast--and I am sure my heart aches--what can duty want +more?" + + + + +XIX + +WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR + + +Walter Savage Landor, whose course of life ran from 1775 to 1864, in +his old age confessed, "I never did a single wise thing in the whole +course of my existence, although I have written many which have been +thought so." This is the exaggeration of an old man who has been +impressed by the frailty of human endeavor. Nevertheless, Landor is a +striking illustration of the artistic temperament. He was impractical. +Landor could not make a good fist. Even when angry, a frame of mind in +which he found himself very frequently, he did not clench his fists +without leaving his thumbs in relaxation--a sure sign, it is said, of +the lack of tenacity of purpose and tact in practical dealings. He +would adjust his spectacles on his forehead, and then, forgetting what +he had done, would overturn everything in his wild search for them. +When he started out on a trip he would take the greatest pains to +remember the key of his portmanteau, and then forget to take the +portmanteau; and then on discovering the absence of the portmanteau he +would launch out into the most vehement denunciation of the +carelessness and depravity of the railroad officials, heaping +objurgations upon them, their fathers, and their grandfathers. Then +after he had exhausted his vocabulary of invective and eased his soul, +the humor of the situation would appeal to him and he would begin to +laugh, quietly at first, and then in louder and louder strains until +his merriment seemed more formidable than his wrath. + +When Landor says that he never did a wise thing but has written many, +one is led to think of his marriage. No one wrote about marriage more +seriously than Landor, no one entered upon marriage more recklessly. +"Death itself," he once wrote, "to the reflecting mind is less serious +than marriage. The elder plant is cut down that the younger may have +room to nourish; a few tears drop into the loosened soil, and buds and +blossoms spring over it. Death is not even a blow, it is not even a +pulsation; it is a pause. But marriage unrolls the awful lot of +numberless generations." The man who could write thus impressively +about marriage one spring evening at Bath attended a ball. There he +met a beautiful young lady whom he admired. As soon as he set eyes on +her he exclaimed, "By heaven! that's the nicest girl in the room, and +I'll marry her." He married her and was ever after unhappy. "God +forbid," once growled Landor, "that I should do otherwise than declare +that she always _was_ agreeable--to every one but _me_." Landor was +not in the habit of talking about his domestic troubles, but at one +time when he was contrasting other and more agreeable marriages he was +heard to say that he "unfortunately was taken by a pretty face." + +Kenyon related to a friend an incident of the Landor honeymoon that is +significant. On one occasion, it seems, the newly married couple were +sitting side by side; Landor was reading some of his own verses to his +bride--and who could read more exquisitely?--when all at once the +lady, releasing herself from his arm, jumped up, saying, "Oh, do stop, +Walter, there's that dear delightful Punch performing in the street. I +must look out of the window." Exit poetry forever. + +It would have been difficult for any woman to live amicably with +Landor. In his youth he was suspended from college, and when he was a +very old man he was fined $5,000 for writing a libelous article. +Between these two periods his life was made up of many fits of +passion. His rustication, or suspension from Trinity College, +Cambridge, came about in the following manner: One evening Landor +invited his friends to wine. His gun, powder, and shot were in the +next room, as he had been out hunting in the morning of that day. In a +room opposite to Landor's lived a young man whom Landor disliked. The +two parties exchanged taunts. Finally in a spirit of bravado Landor +took his gun and fired a shot through the closed shutters of the +enemy. Quite naturally this bit of pleasantry was not appreciated by +the owner of the shutters and complaint was lodged. When the +investigation was made the president tried to be as lenient as he +possibly could, but his conciliatory manner was stubbornly met by the +youthful culprit. When rustication was pronounced it was hoped that +Landor would return to the college to honor it and himself by an +earnest devotion to his studies. But he never returned. + +When Landor was living in Florence the Italians thought him the +ideally mad Englishman. He lived for a time in the Medici palace, but +his friendly relations with the landlord, a nobleman bearing the +distinguished name of the palace, had an abrupt termination. Landor +imagined that the marquis had unfairly coaxed away his coachman, and +he wrote a letter of complaint. The next day in comes the strutting +marquis with his hat on in the presence of Mrs. Landor and some +visitors. One of the visitors describes the scene: "He had scarcely +advanced three steps from the door, when Landor walked up to him +quickly and knocked his hat off, then took him by the arm and turned +him out. You should have heard Landor's shout of laughter at his own +anger when it was all over; inextinguishable laughter, which none of +us could resist." This reminds one of the story Milnes told to +Emerson, that Landor once became so enraged at his Italian cook that +he picked him up and threw him out of the window, and then exclaimed, +"Good God, I never thought of those violets!" + +Quite in strong contrast to the irascible side of his nature was his +tender love for his children, of which he had four, the last born in +1825. In them he took constant delight. In their games _Babbo_, as he +was affectionately termed, was the most gleeful and frolicsome of them +all. When he was separated from them he was in continual anxiety. On +one of his trips he received the first childish letter from his son +Arnold. In his reply the concluding lines reveal the intense affection +of the father: + + I shall never be quite happy until I see you again and put my + cheek upon your head. Tell my sweet Julia that if I see twenty + little girls I will not romp with any of them before I romp + with her, and kiss your two dear brothers for me. You must + always love them as much as I love you, and you must teach + them how to be good boys, which I cannot do so well as you + can. God preserve and bless you, my own Arnold. My heart beats + as if it would fly to you, my own fierce creature. We shall + very soon meet. + + Love your, + BABBO. + +In literature Landor will be remembered as the author of _Imaginary +Conversations_, composed during his years of retirement at Florence. +In these _Conversations_ we hear the great men and women of the past +who converse as Landor imagined they might have talked. Landor's prose +style is admired, because of its simplicity and classic purity. After +the publication of the first two volumes of this work Landor was +visited as a man of genius by Englishmen and Americans. One day Hogg, +the friend of Shelley, was announced while Hare, a well-known +Englishman, was sitting in the room. Landor said, as he considered the +names of his two visitors, that he felt like La Fontaine with all the +better company of the beasts about him. Hazlitt was one of his +frequent visitors. One of their reported conversations is about +Wordsworth. Upon Landor's saying that he had never seen the famous +Lake poet, Hazlitt asked, "But you have seen a horse, I suppose?" and +on receiving an affirmative answer, continued, "Well, sir, if you have +seen a horse, I mean his head, sir, you may say you have seen +Wordsworth, sir." + +Emerson was desirous of seeing Landor. One of the motives that led him +to take his first trip abroad was the desire to see five distinguished +men. These men were Coleridge, Wordsworth, Landor, DeQuincey, and +Carlyle. "On the 15th May," writes Emerson in his _English Traits_, +"I dined with Mr. Landor. I found him noble and courteous, living in +a cloud of pictures at his Villa Gherardesca, a fine house commanding +a beautiful landscape. I had inferred from his books, or magnified +from some anecdotes, an impression of Achillean wrath,--an untamable +petulance. I do not know whether the imputation were just or not, but +certainly on this May day his courtesy veiled that haughty mind and he +was the most patient and gentle of hosts." + +Landor used to say somewhat loftily, "I do not remember that +resentment has ever made me commit an injustice." And in this +connection he related to a friend an incident of his early married +life, when he was living at Como, where he had for his next-door +neighbor the Princess of Wales. Landor and his royal neighbor had a +quarrel arising from trespassing by the domestics of the Princess. +"The insolence of her domestics," said Landor, "was only equaled by +the intolerable discourtesy of her Royal Highness when she was +appealed to in the matter." + +Some years later when the Milan Commission was carrying on its +"delicate investigation" concerning the character of the Queen, about +whom there had been rumors detrimental to her character, Landor was +asked to give confidential testimony against Queen Caroline. This made +Landor indignant and he replied,--"Her Royal Highness is my enemy; she +has deeply injured me, therefore I can say nothing against her, and I +never will." + +It is significant that shortly before this application for testimony +was made, George IV took an opportunity to ask Landor to dinner. "I +declined the honor," said the old lion, "on the plea that I had an +attack of quinsy. I always have quinsy when royal people ask me to +dinner," he added, laughing immoderately. + + Ah, what avails the sceptered race, + Ah, what the form divine! + What every virtue, every grace!-- + Rose Aylmer, all were thine. + + Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes + May weep but never see, + A night of memories and of sighs + I consecrate to thee. + + + + +XX + +LEIGH HUNT'S BUSINESS ABILITY + + +Sir George Murray Smith, leading member of the famous publishing house +of Smith, Elder and Company, was well acquainted with the leading +literary men of England during an active career of sixty years. The +following account of Leigh Hunt is especially entertaining: + +"Business was by no means Leigh Hunt's strong point. In this respect, +but not otherwise, he may have suggested Skimpole to Charles Dickens. +On one of my visits I found him trying to puzzle out the abstruse +question of how he should deduct some such sum as thirteen shillings +and ninepence from a sovereign. On another occasion I had to pay him a +sum of money, L100 or L200, and I wrote him a check for the amount. +'Well,' he said, 'what am I to do with this little bit of paper?' I +told him that if he presented it at the bank they would pay him cash +for it, but I added, 'I will save you that trouble.' I sent to the +bank and cashed the check for him. He took the notes away carefully +inclosed in an envelope. Two days afterward Leigh Hunt came in a state +of great agitation to tell me that his wife had burned them. He had +thrown the envelope, with the bank notes inside, carelessly down, and +his wife had flung it into the fire. Leigh Hunt's agitation while on +his way to bring this news had not prevented him from purchasing on +the road a little statuette of Psyche which he carried, without any +paper round it, in his hand. I told him I thought something might be +done in the matter; I sent to the bankers and got the numbers of the +notes, and then in company with Leigh Hunt went off to the Bank of +England. I explained our business, and we were shown into a room where +three old gentlemen were sitting at tables. They kept us waiting some +time, and Leigh Hunt, who had meantime been staring all round the +room, at last got up, walked up to one of the staid officials, and +addressing him said in wondering tones: 'And this is the Bank of +England! And do you sit here all day, and never see the green woods +and the trees and flowers and the charming country?' Then in tones of +remonstrance he demanded, 'Are you contented with such a life?' All +this time he was holding the little naked Psyche in one hand, and with +his long hair and flashing eyes made a surprising figure. I fancy I +can still see the astonished faces of the three officials; they would +have made a most delightful picture. I said, 'Come away, Mr. Hunt, +these gentlemen are very busy.' I succeeded in carrying Leigh Hunt +off, and, after entering into certain formalities, we were told that +the value of the notes would be paid in twelve months. I gave Leigh +Hunt the money at once, and he went away rejoicing." + + + + +XXI + +DE QUINCEY RUNS AWAY + + +My father died when I was about seven years old, says the author of +the _Confessions of an Opium-Eater_, and left me to the care of four +guardians. I was sent to various schools, great and small, and was +very early distinguished for my classical attainments, especially for +my knowledge of Greek. At thirteen I wrote Greek with ease, and at +fifteen my command of that language was so great, that I not only +composed Greek verses in lyric meters, but would converse in Greek +fluently, and without embarrassment--an accomplishment which I have +not since met with in any scholar of my times, and which, in my case, +was owing to the practice of daily reading off the newspapers into the +best Greek I could furnish _extempore_; for the necessity of +ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of +periphrastic expressions, as equivalents for modern ideas, images, +relations of things, etc., gave me a compass of diction which would +never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, etc. +"That boy," said one of my masters, pointing the attention of a +stranger to me, "that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than +you or I could address an English one." He who honored me with this +eulogy was a scholar, "and a ripe and good one," and of all my tutors, +was the only one whom I loved or reverenced. Unfortunately for me +(and, as I afterwards learned, to this worthy man's great +indignation), I was transferred to the care, first of a blockhead, who +was in a perpetual panic lest I should expose his ignorance; and, +finally, to that of a respectable scholar, at the head of a great +school on an ancient foundation. This man had been appointed to his +situation by ---- College, Oxford, and was a sound, well-built +scholar, but (like most men whom I have known from that college) +coarse, clumsy, and inelegant. A miserable contrast he presented, in +my eyes, to the Etonian brilliancy of my favorite master; and, +besides, he could not disguise from my hourly notice the poverty and +meagerness of his understanding. It is a bad thing for a boy to be, +and know himself, far beyond his tutors, whether in knowledge or power +of mind. This was the case, so far as regarded knowledge at least, not +with myself only, for the two boys who jointly with myself composed +the first form were better Grecians than the head-master, though not +more elegant scholars.... I who had a small patrimonial property, the +income of which was sufficient to support me at college, wished to be +sent thither immediately. I made earnest representations on the +subject to my guardians, but all to no purpose. One, who was more +reasonable, and had more knowledge of the world than the rest, lived +at a distance; two of the other three resigned all their authority +into the hands of the fourth, and this fourth, with whom I had to +negotiate, was a worthy man, in his way, but haughty, obstinate, and +intolerant of all opposition to his will. After a certain number of +letters and personal interviews, I found that I had nothing to hope +for, not even a compromise of the matter, from my guardian: +unconditional submission was what he demanded, and I prepared myself, +therefore, for other measures. Summer was now coming on with hasty +steps, and my seventeenth birthday was fast approaching, after which +day I had sworn within myself that I would no longer be numbered among +schoolboys. Money being what I chiefly wanted, I wrote to a woman of +high rank, who, though young herself, had known me from a child, and +had latterly treated me with great distinction, requesting that she +would "lend" me five guineas. For upward of a week no answer came, and +I was beginning to despond, when at length a servant put into my hands +a double letter, with a coronet on the seal. The letter was kind and +obliging; the fair writer was on the sea-coast, and in that way the +delay had arisen; she inclosed double of what I had asked, and +good-naturedly hinted that if I should _never_ repay her, it would not +absolutely ruin her. Now, then, I was prepared for my scheme: ten +guineas, added to about two that I had remaining from my pocket-money, +seemed to me sufficient for an indefinite length of time, and at that +happy age, if no _definite_ boundary can be assigned to one's power, +the spirit of hope and pleasure makes it virtually infinite. + +It is a just remark of Dr. Johnson's (and, what cannot often be said of +his remarks, it is a very feeling one) that we never do anything +consciously for the last time (of things, that is, which we have long +been in the habit of doing) without sadness of heart. This truth I felt +deeply when I came to leave ----, a place which I did not love, and +where I had not been happy. On the evening before I left ---- forever, +I grieved when the ancient and lofty schoolroom resounded with the +evening service, performed for the last time in my hearing; and at +night, when the muster-roll of names was called over, and mine (as +usual) was called first, I stepped forward, and passing the +head-master, who was standing by, I bowed to him, and looked earnestly +in his face, thinking to myself, "He is old and infirm, and in this +world I shall not see him again." I was right; I never _did_ see him +again, nor never shall. He looked at me complacently, smiled +good-naturedly, returned my salutation (or rather my valediction), and +we parted (though he knew it not) forever. I could not reverence him +intellectually, but he had been uniformly kind to me, and had allowed +me many indulgences, and I grieved at the thought of the mortification +I should inflict upon him. + +The morning came which was to launch me into the world, and from which +my whole succeeding life has, in many important points, taken its +coloring. I lodged in the head-master's house, and had been allowed, +from my first entrance, the indulgence of a private room, which I used +both as a sleeping-room and as a study. At half after three I rose, +and gazed with deep emotion at the ancient towers of ----, "drest in +earliest light," and beginning to crimson with the radiant luster of a +cloudless July morning. I was firm and immovable in my purpose, but +yet agitated by anticipation of uncertain danger and troubles; and if +I could have foreseen the hurricane, and perfect hail-storm of +affliction, which soon fell upon me, well might I have been agitated. +To this agitation the deep peace of the morning presented an affecting +contrast, and in some degree a medicine. The silence was more profound +than that of midnight, and to me the silence of a summer morning is +more touching than all other silence, because, the light being broad +and strong as that of noonday at other seasons of the year, it seems +to differ from perfect day chiefly because man is not yet abroad, and +thus, the peace of nature, and of the innocent creatures of God, seem +to be secure and deep, only so long as the presence of man, and his +restless and unquiet spirit, are not there to trouble its sanctity. + +I dressed myself, took my hat and gloves, and lingered a little in the +room. For the last year and a half this room had been my "pensive +citadel:" here I had read and studied through all the hours of the +night, and, though true it was that, for the latter part of this time, +I, who was framed for love and gentle affections, had lost my gayety +and happiness, during the strife and fever of contention with my +guardian, yet, on the other hand, as a boy so passionately fond of +books, and dedicated to intellectual pursuits, I could not fail to +have enjoyed many happy hours in the midst of general dejection. I +wept as I looked round on the chair, hearth, writing-table, and other +familiar objects, knowing too certainly that I looked upon them for +the last time. While I write this, it is eighteen years ago, and yet, +at this moment, I see distinctly, as if it were yesterday, the +lineaments and expressions of the object on which I fixed my parting +gaze: it was a picture of the lovely ----, which hung over the +mantelpiece, the eyes and mouth of which were so beautiful, and the +whole countenance so radiant with benignity and divine tranquillity, +that I had a thousand times laid down my pen, or my book, to gather +consolation from it, as a devotee from his patron saint. While I was +yet gazing upon it, the deep tones of ---- clock proclaimed that it +was four o'clock. I went up to the picture, kissed it, and then gently +walked out and closed the door forever! + + + + +XXII + +MACAULAY'S CHILDHOOD + + +Macaulay is one of the brilliant lights of the first half of the last +century. Trevelyan's _Life and Letters_ of Macaulay gives us an +interesting glimpse of his childhood. When his parents moved from the +heart of London into a less crowded district, Macaulay, baby though he +was, kept the early impressions of the place. + +"He remembered," says his biographer, "standing up at the nursery +window by his father's side, looking at a cloud of black smoke pouring +out of a tall chimney. He asked if that was hell: an inquiry that was +received with great displeasure which at the time he could not +understand. The kindly father must have been pained almost against his +own will at finding what feature of his stern creed it was that had +embodied itself in so very material a shape before his little son's +imagination. When in after days, Mrs. Macaulay was questioned as to +how soon she began to detect in the child a promise of the future, she +used to say that his sensibilities and affections were remarkably +developed at an age which to her hearers appeared next to incredible. +He would cry for joy on seeing her after a few hours' absence, and +(till her husband put a stop to it) her power of exciting his feelings +was often made an exhibition to her friends. She did not regard this +precocity as a proof of cleverness, but, like a foolish young mother, +only thought that so tender a nature was marked for early death. + +"The new residence was in the High Street of Clapham, a more +commodious part of London than that which they had just left. "It was +a roomy, comfortable dwelling, with a very small garden behind, and in +front a very small one indeed, which has entirely disappeared beneath +a large shop thrown out toward the roadway by the present occupier, +who bears the name of Heywood. Here the boy passed a quiet and most +happy childhood. From the time that he was three years old he read +incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with +his book on the floor, and a piece of bread and butter in his hand. A +very clever woman who then lived in the house as parlor-maid told how +he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perched on the table by her as +she was cleaning the plate, and expounding to her out of a volume as +big as himself. He did not care for toys, but was very fond of taking +his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion, whether nurse or +mother, telling interminable stories, out of his own head, or +repeating what he had been reading in language far above his years. +His memory retained without effort the phraseology of the book which +he had been last engaged on, and he talked, as the maid said, 'quite +printed words,' which produced an effect that appeared formal, and +often, no doubt, exceedingly droll. Mrs. Hannah More was fond of +relating how she called at Mr. Macaulay's, and was met by a fair, +pretty, slight child, with abundance of light hair, about four years +of age, who came to the front door to receive her, and tell her that +his parents were out, but that if she would be good enough to come in +he would bring her a glass of old spirits, a proposition which greatly +startled the old lady, who had never aspired beyond cowslip-wine. When +questioned as to what he knew about old spirits he could only say that +Robinson Crusoe often had some. About this period his father took him +on a visit to Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, and was much pleased +to exhibit to his old friend the fair, bright boy, dressed in a green +coat with red collar and cuffs, a frill at the throat, and white +trousers. After some time had been spent among the wonders of the +Orford Collection, of which he ever after carried a catalogue in his +head, a servant who was waiting on the company in the great gallery +spilled some hot coffee over his legs. The hostess was all kindness +and compassion, and when, after a while, she asked him how he was +feeling, the little fellow looked up in her face, and replied, 'Thank +you, madam, the agony is abated.' + +"But it must not be supposed his quaint manners proceeded from +affectation or conceit, for all testimony declares that a more simple +and natural child never lived, or a more lively and merry one. He had +at his command the resources of the Common; to this day the most +unchanged spot within ten miles of St. Paul's, and which to all +appearance will ere long hold that pleasant pre-eminence within ten +leagues. That delightful wilderness of gorse bushes, and poplar groves +and gravel pits, and ponds great and small, was to little Tom Macaulay +a region of inexhaustible romance and mystery. He explored its +recesses; he composed, and almost believed, its legends; he invented +for its different features a nomenclature which has been faithfully +preserved by two generations of children. A slight ridge intersected +by deep ditches toward the west of the Common, the very existence of +which no one above eight years old would notice, was dignified with +the title of the Alps; while the elevated island, covered with shrubs, +that gives a name to the Mount pond, was regarded with infinite awe, +as being the nearest approach within the circuit of his observation to +a conception of the majesty of Sinai. Indeed, at this period his +infant fancy was much exercised with the threats and terrors of the +Law. He had a little plot of ground at the back of the house, marked +out as his own by a row of oyster shells, which a maid one day threw +away as rubbish. He went straight to the drawing-room, where his +mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the circle and +said, very solemnly, 'Cursed be Sally; for it is written, cursed be he +that removeth his neighbor's landmark.' + +"When still the merest child, he was sent as a day-scholar to Mr. +Greaves, a shrewd Yorkshireman with a turn for science, who had been +brought originally to the neighborhood in order to educate a number of +African youths sent over to imbibe Western civilization at the +fountain-head. The poor fellows had found as much difficulty in +keeping alive at Clapham as Englishmen experience at Sierra Leone; +and, in the end, their tutor set up a school for boys of his own +color, and one time had charge of almost the entire rising generation +of the Common. Mrs. Macaulay explained to Tom that he must learn to +study without the solace of bread-and-butter, to which he replied, +'Yes, Mama, industry shall be my bread and attention my butter.' But, +as a matter of fact, no one ever crept more unwillingly to school. +Each several afternoon he made piteous entreaties to be excused +returning after dinner, and was met by the unvarying formula, 'No, +Tom, if it rains cats and dogs, you shall go.' + +"His reluctance to leave home had more than one side to it. Not only +did his heart stay behind, but the regular lessons of the class took +him away from occupations which in his eyes were infinitely more +delightful and important; for these were probably the years of his +greatest literary activity. As an author he never again had more +facility, or anything like so wide a range. In September, 1808, his +mother writes: 'My dear Tom continues to show marks of uncommon +genius. He gets on wonderfully in all branches of his education, and +the extent of his reading, and of the knowledge he derived from it, +are truly astonishing in a boy not yet eight years old. He is at the +same time as playful as a kitten. To give you some idea of the +activity of his mind I will mention a few circumstances that may +interest you and Colin. You will believe that to him we never appear +to regard anything he does as anything more than a schoolboy's +amusement. He took it into his head to write a compendium of universal +history about a year ago, and he really contrived to give a tolerably +connected view of the leading events from the creation to the present +time, filling about a quire of paper. He told me one day that he had +been writing a paper which Henry Daly was to translate into Malabar, +to persuade the people of Travancore to embrace the Christian +religion. On reading it, I found it to contain a very clear idea of +the leading facts and doctrines of that religion, with some strong +arguments for its adoption. He was so fired with reading Scott's _Lay_ +and _Marmion_, the former of which he got entirely, and the latter +almost entirely, by heart, merely from his delight in reading them, +that he determined on writing himself a poem in six cantos which he +called _The Battle of Cheviot_.'" + + + + +XXIII + +MACAULAY BECOMES FAMOUS + + +In 1848 Macaulay was a famous man. He had served in India and had +written the first part of his _History of England_. In this year after +a lapse of nine years he again keeps a diary. From this diary we quote +extracts showing how he became famous. + +"Dec. 4th, 1848.--I have felt to-day somewhat anxious about the fate +of my book. The sale has surpassed expectation: but that proves only +that people have formed a high idea of what they are to have. The +disappointment, if there is disappointment, will be great. All that I +hear is laudatory. But who can trust to praise that is poured into his +own ear? At all events, I have aimed high; I have tried to do +something that may be remembered; I have had the year 2000, or even +3000, often in my mind; I have sacrificed nothing to temporary +fashions of thought and style; and if I fail, my failure will be more +honorable than nine-tenths of the successes that I have witnessed." + +"Dec. 12th, 1848.--Longman called. A new edition of three thousand +copies is preparing as fast as they can work. I have reason to be +pleased. Of the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ two thousand two hundred +and fifty copies were sold in the first year; of _Marmion_ two +thousand copies in the first month; of my book three thousand copies +in ten days. Black says that there has been no such sale since the +days of _Waverley_. The success is in every way complete beyond all +hope and is the more agreeable to me because expectation had been +wound up so high that disappointment was almost inevitable. I think, +though with some misgivings, that the book will live." + +"January 11th, 1849.--I am glad to find how well my book continues to +sell. The second edition of three thousand was out of print almost as +soon as it appeared, and one thousand two hundred and fifty of the +third edition are already bespoken. I hope all this will not make me a +coxcomb. I feel no intoxicating effect; but a man may be drunk without +knowing it. If my abilities do not fail me, I shall be a rich man, as +rich, that is to say, as I wish to be. But that I am already, if it +were not for my dear ones. I am content, and should have been so with +less. On the whole, I remember no success so complete, and I remember +all Byron's poems and all Scott's novels." + +"Saturday, January 27th.--Longman has written to say that only sixteen +hundred copies are left of the third edition of five thousand, and +that two thousand more copies must be immediately printed, still to be +called the third edition.... Of such a run I had never dreamed. But I +had thought that the book would have a permanent place in our +literature, and I see no reason to alter that opinion." + +"February 2d.--Mahon sent me a letter from Arbuthnot, saying that the +Duke of Wellington was enthusiastic in admiration of my book. Though I +am almost callous to praise now, this praise made me happy for two +minutes. A fine old fellow!" + +The above selections are from Macaulay's diary, as was said. Now come +several from letters to a Mr. Ellis, to whom Macaulay sent many. + + "March 8th, 1849. + + "At last I have attained true glory. As I walked through Fleet + Street the day before yesterday, I saw a copy of Hume at a + book-seller's window with the following label: 'Only L2 2s. + Hume's _History of England_, in eight volumes, highly valuable + as an introduction to Macaulay.' I laughed so convulsively + that the other people who were staring at the books took me + for a poor demented gentleman. Alas for poor David! As for me, + only one height of renown remains to be attained. I am not yet + in Madam Tussaud's wax-works. I live, however, in hope of + seeing one day an advertisement of a new group of figures--Mr. + Macaulay, in one of his own coats, conversing with Mr. Silk + Buckingham in Oriental costume, and Mr. Robert Montgomery in + full canonicals." + + "March 9th, 1850. + + "I have seen the hippopotamus, both asleep and awake, and I + can assure you that, awake or asleep, he is the ugliest of the + works of God. But you must hear of my triumphs. Thackeray + swears that he was eye-witness and ear-witness of the proudest + event of my life. Two damsels were about to pass that doorway + which we, on Monday, in vain attempted to enter, when I was + pointed out to them. 'Mr. Macaulay,' cried the lovely pair. + 'Is that Mr. Macaulay? Never mind the hippopotamus.' And + having paid a shilling to see Behemoth, they left him in the + very moment at which he was about to display himself to them + in order to see--but spare my modesty. I can wish for nothing + more on earth, now that Madam Tussaud, in whose Parthenon I + once hoped for a place, is dead." + +In his diary of June 30th, 1849, we find: "Today my yearly account +with Longman is wound up. I may now say that my book has run the +gauntlet of criticism pretty thoroughly. The most savage and dishonest +assailant has not been able to deny me merit as a writer. All critics +who have the least pretense to impartiality have given me praise which +I may be glad to think that I at all deserve.... I received a note +from Prince Albert. He wants to see me at Buckingham Palace at three +to-morrow. I answered like a courtier; yet what am I to say to him? +For, of course, he wants to consult me about the Cambridge +professorship. How can I be just at once to Stephen and to Kemble?" + +"Saturday, July 1st--To the Palace. The Prince, to my extreme +astonishment, offered me the professorship, and very earnestly and +with many flattering expressions, pressed me to accept it. I was +resolute, and gratefully and respectfully declined. I should have +declined, indeed, if only in order to give no ground to anybody to +accuse me of foul play, for I have had difficulty enough in steering +my course so as to deal properly both by Stephen and Kemble, and if I +had marched off with the prize, I could not have been astonished if +both had entertained a very unjust suspicion of me. But, in truth, my +temper is that of the wolf in the fable, I cannot bear the collar, and +I have got rid of much finer and richer collars than this. It would be +strange if, having sacrificed for liberty, a seat in the Cabinet and +twenty-five hundred pounds a year, I should now sacrifice liberty for +a chair at Cambridge and four hundred pounds a year. Besides, I never +could do two things at once. If I lectured well, my _History_ must be +given up, and to give up my _History_ would be to give up much more +than the emoluments of the professorship--if emolument were my chief +object, which it is not now, nor ever was. The prince, when he found +me determined, asked me about the other candidates." + + + + +XXIV + +DICKENS WRITES THE PICKWICK PAPERS + + +We are always interested in the beginnings of a successful career, for +humanity with all its selfishness takes a generous pleasure in the +advancement of those who have made an honest fight for fame or wealth. +The first success of Dickens came with the publication of the +_Pickwick Papers_, by the publication of which the publishers, it is +said, made $100,000,--much to their astonishment. + +We all know the early career of the famous novelist: How he passed a +boyhood of poverty; how he became a stenographer, a good one, for said +a Mr. Beard, "There never was such a shorthand writer," at the time +Dickens entered the gallery as a Parliament reporter; how he later +became a reporter for the _Morning Chronicle_. In the December number +of the _Old Monthly Magazine_ his first published story saw the light. +This was in 1833, when Dickens was twenty-one. The story first went +under the name of _A Dinner at Poplar Walk_, but it afterwards was +changed to _Mr. Mims and his Cousin_. Then came _Sketches by Boz_ in +1835, and in 1836 _Pickwick_ appeared in serial form, the book coming +out a year later. + +An amusing and striking illustration of the widespread interest in +the story of _Pickwick_, if we may call so rambling an account as +_Pickwick_ a story, is related by Carlyle: "An archdeacon with his own +venerable lips repeated to me the other night a strange profane story: +of a solemn clergyman who had been administering ghostly consolation +to a sick person; having finished, satisfactorily as he thought, and +got out of the room, he heard the sick person ejaculate, 'Well, thank +God, _Pickwick_ will be out in ten days any way!'--this is dreadful." + +We are always interested in knowing whether the author received +adequate remuneration for his work. Literature is not a commercial +venture. The man who says, "Go to, now I shall make money by my pen!" +is not the one who achieves a masterpiece. Nevertheless we are glad to +know that genius is rewarded. It is more comforting to learn that Pope +received $45,000 for his translations of Homer than that Milton got +$25 for his _Paradise Lost_; that Scott received over $40,000 for +_Woodstock_, a novel written in three months, than that the author of +the _Canterbury Tales_ two years before his death was obliged to +petition the king, "for God's sake and as a work of charity," for the +grant of a hogshead of wine yearly at the port of London. + +Did Dickens receive anything for his _Pickwick_? Mr. Chapman, one of +the publishers, told Mr. Forster, the friend and biographer of +Dickens, that there was but a verbal agreement. The publishers were to +pay 15 guineas for each number and as there were twenty numbers it is +not hard to estimate his receipts on such a basis. The publishers, +however, were to add to this compensation according to the sale. Mr. +Chapman thinks that his firm paid about 3,000 pounds for _Pickwick_, +but Mr. Forster thinks the sum was about 2,500 pounds. While this sum +bears but a small proportion to what Dickens would have received had +he made a good bargain with his publishers, it is yet a large sum to +one beginning his literary career, and must have been deeply +appreciated by Dickens, who had been so poor that he was paid 30 +pounds in advance for the first two numbers, so that he might "go and +get married." + +_Pickwick_ was soon followed by _Oliver Twist_, and then came +_Nicholas Nickleby_, and the long series of successful novels that +brought the author both fame and money. For when Dickens died he had a +fortune of L93,000. Some of this was made in America, where his +"readings" were attended by great crowds. On his second tour to +America, after he had given thirty-seven readings, about one-half the +entire number, he sent home a check for L10,000. Some evenings he took +in $2,000. + +One reason why Dickens is a popular novelist is that he understands +the common emotions of humanity. He may be "stagey," be lacking in +plot, given to exaggeration, indulge in cheap pathos, but in spite of +all these defects his abounding vitality, his sympathy with the common +lot, his imagination, are of such transcendent power that his world of +readers adores the name of Dickens. Dickens was a good man. While not +closely following the forms of religion, his life was better than that +of many who follow the letter but break the spirit. As an illustration +of his Christian belief I quote an extract from his letter to his +youngest son, who was about to go to Australia: + + September, 1868. + + Never take a mean advantage of any one in any transaction, and + never be hard upon people who are in your power. Try to do to + others as you would have them do to you, and do not be + discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better for you + that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down + by our Saviour than that you should. I put a New Testament + among your books for the very same reasons, and with the very + same hopes, that made me write an easy account of it for you, + when you were a little child. Because it is the best book that + ever was, or will be, known in the world; and because it + teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature, who + tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be + guided.... You will remember that you have never at home been + harassed about religious observances, or mere formalities--I + have always been anxious not to weary my children with such + things, before they are old enough to have opinions respecting + them. You will therefore understand the better that I now most + solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the + Christian Religion, as it came from Christ Himself, and the + impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but + heartily respect it.... Never abandon the wholesome practice + of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. I have + never abandoned it myself, and I know the comfort of it. + + [Illustration: CHARLES DICKENS] + + + + +XXV + +CHARLES DICKENS AS READER + + +My first sight of Dickens, writes Herman Merivale in a gossipy article +in an English magazine, was characteristic enough. I was in the second +or third row of seats with some friends, at one of his readings of +_Oliver Twist_. As Thackeray was a gossip on the platform, so Dickens +was an actor. Like all speakers and actors, he longed for sympathy +somewhere; an unanswering audience kills us, on whichever side the +fault may lie. In the days of my political measles I have harangued a +London audience for an hour and twenty minutes when I have meant to +speak for a quarter of an hour; and in an out-of-the-way Hampshire +district, where I had gone on purpose to address the rurals for a set +hour, I have sate down, covered with confusion, in ten minutes, not +being able to hit on anything that interested them at all. I saw too +plainly, in all their good-natured faces, that they regarded me as the +greatest ass they had ever seen, or as an odd kind of cow gone wrong, +and of no use to the three acres. Dickens's audience that night was +dull, and he became so, too. I was disappointed. His characters were +not lifelike, and his acting was not good, and got worse as he went +on. It was the inevitable law of reaction. His audience bored him, and +he began to bore me, amongst the rest. He was not "in touch" with us, +that is all; and his eyes wandered as hopelessly in search of some +sympathetic eye to catch them, as the gladiators of old, for mercy in +the circus. Then suddenly, at one point of his reading, he had to +introduce the passing character of a nameless individual in a London +crowd, a choleric old gentleman who has only one short sentence to +fire off. This he gave so spontaneously, so inimitably, that the +puppet became an absolute reality in a second. I saw him, crowd, +street, man, temper, and all. For I am, I may say, what is called a +very good audience. I like what I like, and I hate what I hate; and on +one occasion growled at the theater so audibly at what I thought some +very bad acting that I began to hear ominous cries of "Turn him out!" +It was the first night of one of my own plays, Dickens's electric +flash bowled me over so completely and instantly that I broke into a +peal of laughter, and as we sometimes do when hard hit, kept on +laughing internally, which is half tears, and half hiccough, for some +time afterwards. Upon my word, I am laughing now, as I recall it. It +was so funny. The audience of course glared at me with the well-known +look of rebuke. "How _dare_ you express your feelings out loud, and +disturb us!" + +But Dickens's eye--I wasn't much more than a boy, and he didn't know +me from Adam--went at once straight for mine. "Here's somebody who +likes me, anyhow," it said. For the next few minutes he read at me, if +ever man did. The sympathetic unit is everything to us. And on my +word the result was that he so warmed to his work that he got the +whole audience in his hand, and dispensed with me. Only once +again--oh, how like him it was!--he fixed me with his eye just towards +the end of the reading, and made a short but perceptible pause. I +wondered what was coming--and soon knew. The choleric old party in the +street had to appear for one passing instant more, and fire off one +more passing sentence. Which he did--with the same results. Good +heavens! what an actor Dickens was. + +When that reading ended--with the success which it deserved--never did +that most expressive of all human features, the eye, thank a boy more +expressively. Over all things cultivate sympathy. If antipathy goes +with it, so much the better. If the magnet must attract, it likewise +must repel. Dickens was a magnet of the magnets; but in his case I +must confess, that when a modern specimen tells me he can't laugh at +him, he makes me feel rather as Heine felt when somebody told him that +he--the somebody--was an atheist; frightened. + +... Dickens is perhaps best described as to my immense amusement, and +by the most delicious misprint I ever saw, I found myself once +described in the "Visitors' List" in an English paper abroad--"Human +Marvel, and family." It looked like some new kind of acrobat. Of +Charles Dickens's great kindnesses to me in after days, and of some +personal experiences of his stage passion, at the end of his life, I +ventured to gossip with readers of the _Bar_, some months ago, in a +paper called "With the Majority." In one sense, yes; but in +another--in what a minority, Thackeray and he! + + + + +XXVI + +ON THE DEATH OF DICKENS + + +When Charles Dickens died the English papers and magazines were filled +with criticisms and appreciations of the great writer. It may be +interesting to glance at a few extracts from these: + +From _Fraser's Magazine_.--On the eighth of June, 1870, the busiest +brain and the busiest hand that ever guided pen over paper finished +their appointed work, and that pen was laid aside forever. Words of +its inditing were sure of immediately reaching and being welcomed by a +larger number of men and women than those of any other living +writer--perhaps of any writer who has ever lived. + +About six o'clock on that summer evening, having done his day's work +with habitual assiduity, Charles Dickens sat down to dinner with some +members of his family. He had complained of headache, but neither he +nor any one felt the least apprehension. The pain increased, the head +drooped forward, and he never spoke again. Breathing went on for +four-and-twenty hours, and then there was nothing left but ... dismay +and sorrow. When the sad news was made public it fell with the shock +of a personal loss on the hearts of countless millions, to whom the +name of the famous author was like that of an intimate and dear +friend.... + +Anthony Trollope in _St. Paul's_.--It seems to have been but the other +day that, sitting where I now sit, in the same chair, at the same +table, with the same familiar things around me, I wrote for the +_Cornhill Magazine_ a few lines in remembrance of Thackeray, who had +then been taken from us, and when those lines appeared they were +preceded by others, very full of feeling, from his much older friend, +Charles Dickens. Now I take up my pen again because Charles Dickens +has also gone, and because it is not fit that this publication should +go forth without a word spoken to his honor. + +It is singular that two men in age so nearly equal, in career so +nearly allied, friends so old, and rivals so close, should each have +left us so suddenly, without any of that notice, first doubting and +then assured, which illness gives; so that in the case of the one as +of the other, the tidings of death's dealings have struck us a hard +and startling blow, inflicting not only sorrow, but for a while that +positive, physical pain which comes from evil tidings which are +totally unexpected. It was but a week or two since that I was +discussing at the club that vexed question of American copyright with +Mr. Dickens, and while differing from him somewhat, was wondering at +the youthful vitality of the man who seemed to have done his forty +years of work without having a trace of it left upon him to lessen his +energy, or rob his feelings of their freshness. It was but the other +day that he spoke at the Academy dinner, and those who heard him then +heard him at his best; and those who did not hear him, but only read +his words, felt how fortunate it was that there should be such a man +to speak for literature on such an occasion. When he took farewell of +the public as a public reader, a few months since, the public wondered +that a man in the very prime of his capacity should retire from such a +career. But though there was to be an end to his readings, there was +not, therefore, to be an end of his labors. He was to resume, and did +resume, his old work, and when the first number of _Edwin Drood's +Mystery_ was bought up with unprecedented avidity by the lovers of +Dickens's stories, it was feared, probably, by none but one that he +might not live to finish his chronicle. He was a man, as we all +thought, to live to be a hundred. He looked to be full of health, he +walked vigorously, he stood, and spoke, and, above all, he laughed +like a man in the full vigor of his life.... + +He would attempt nothing--show no interest in anything--which he could +not do, and which he did not understand. But he was not on that +account forced to confine himself to literature. Every one knows how +he read. Most readers of these lines, though they may never have seen +him act,--as I never did,--still know that his acting was excellent. +As an actor he would have been at the top of his profession. And he +had another gift,--had it so wonderfully, that it may almost be said +that he has left no equal behind him. He spoke so well, that a public +dinner became a blessing instead of a curse, if he was in the +chair,--had its compensating twenty minutes of pleasure, even if he +were called upon to propose a toast, or to thank the company for +drinking his health. For myself, I never could tell how far his +speeches were ordinarily prepared:--but I can declare that I have +heard him speak admirably when he has had to do so with no moment of +preparation. + +A great man has gone from us--such a one that we may surely say of him +that we shall not look upon his like again. As years roll on, we shall +learn to appreciate his loss. He now rests in the spot consecrated to +the memory of our greatest and noblest; and Englishmen would certainly +not have been contented had he been laid elsewhere. + + + + +XXVII + +RUSKIN'S CHILDHOOD + + +We are fortunate in having Ruskin's own account of how he passed his +childhood days. In _Praeterita_ we have his autobiography. His +description of his early days runs as follows: + +"I am and my father was before me a violent Tory of the old school +(Walter Scott's school, that is to say, and Homer's); I name these two +out of the numberless great Tory writers, because they were my own two +masters. I had Walter Scott's novels and the _Iliad_ (Pope's +translation), for my only reading when I was a child, on weekdays; on +Sunday their effect was tempered by _Robinson Crusoe_ and the +_Pilgrim's Progress_, my mother having it deeply in her heart to make +an evangelical clergyman of me. Fortunately, I had an aunt more +evangelical than her mother, and my aunt gave me cold mutton for +Sunday's dinner, which, as I much preferred it hot, greatly diminished +the influence of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, and the end of the matter +was, that I got all of the imaginative teachings of De Foe and Bunyan, +and yet--am not an evangelical clergyman. + +"I had, however, still better teaching than theirs, and that +compulsorily, and every day of the week. + +"Walter Scott and Pope's Homer were reading of my own election, but my +mother forced me, by steady daily toil, to learn long chapters of the +Bible by heart, as well as to read it every syllable through, aloud, +hard names and all, from Genesis, to the Apocalypse, about once a +year: and to that discipline--patient, accurate, and resolute--I owe, +not only a knowledge of the book, which I find occasionally +serviceable, but much of my general power of taking pains, and the +best part of my taste in literature. From Walter Scott's novels I +might easily, as I grew older, have fallen to other people's novels; +and Pope might, perhaps, have led me to take Johnson's English, or +Gibbon's, as types of language; but once knowing the 32d of +Deuteronomy, or the 119th Psalm, the 15th of 1st Corinthians, the +Sermon on the Mount, and most of the Apocalypse, every syllable by +heart, and having always a way of thinking with; myself what words +meant, it was not possible for me, even in the foolishest times of +youth, to write entirely superficial or formal English, and the +affectation of trying to write like Hooker or George Herbert was the +most innocent I could have fallen into." + + * * * * * + +"As years went on, and I came to be four or five years old he (the +father) could command a post-chaise and pair for two months in the +summer, by help of which, with my mother and me, he went the round of +his country customers (who liked to see the principal of the house, +his own traveler); so that, at a jog-trot pace, and through the +panoramic opening of the four windows of a post-chaise, made more +panoramic still to me because my seat was a little bracket in front +(for we used to hire the chaise regularly for the two months out of +Long Acre, and so could have it bracketed and pocketed as we liked), I +saw all the highroads, and most of the cross ones, of England and +Wales, and great part of lowland Scotland, as far as Perth, where +every other year we spent the whole summer; and I used to read the +_Abbot_ at Kinross, and the _Monastery_ at Glen Farg, which I used to +confuse with 'Glendearg,' and thought that the White Lady had as +certainly lived by the streamlet in the glen of the Ochlis, as the +Queen of Scots in the island of Loch Leven. + +"To my farther benefit, as I grew older, I thus saw nearly all the +noblemen's houses in England, in reverent and healthy delight of +uncovetous admiration,--perceiving, as soon as I could perceive any +political truth at all, that it was probably much happier to live in a +small house, and have Warwick castle to be astonished at, than to live +in Warwick castle and have nothing to be astonished at; but that, at +all events, it would not make Brunswick Square in the least more +pleasantly habitable, to pull Warwick castle down." + + * * * * * + +"Contented, by reason of these occasional glimpses of the rivers of +Paradise, I lived until I was more than four years old in Hunter +Street, Brunswick Square, the greater part of the year; for a few +weeks in the summer breathing country air, by taking lodgings in small +cottages (real cottages, not villas, so-called) either about +Hampstead, or at Dulwich, at 'Mrs. Ridley's,' the last of a row in a +lane which led out into the Dulwich fields on one side, and was itself +full of buttercups in spring, and blackberries in autumn. But my +chief remaining impressions of those days are attached to Hunter +Street. My mother's general principles of first treatment were, to +guard me with steady watchfulness from all avoidable pain or danger, +and, for the rest, to let me amuse myself as I liked, provided I was +neither fretful or troublesome. But the law was, that I should find my +own amusement. No toys of any kind were at first allowed, and the pity +of my Croydon aunt for my monastic poverty in this respect was +boundless. On one of my birthdays, thinking to overcome my mother's +resolution by splendor of temptation, she bought the most radiant +Punch and Judy she could find in the Soho bazaar, as big as a real +Punch and Judy, all dressed in scarlet and gold, and that would dance, +tied to the leg of a chair. I must have been greatly impressed, for I +remember well the look of the two figures, as my aunt herself +exhibited their virtues. My mother was obliged to accept them, but +afterward quietly told me it was not right that I should have them, +and I never saw them again. + +"Nor did I painfully wish, what I was never permitted for an instant +to hope, or even imagine, the possession of such things as one saw in +toyshops. I had a bunch of keys to play with, as long as I was capable +only of pleasure in what glittered and jingled, as I grew older I had +a cart and a ball, and when I was five or six years old, two boxes of +well-cut wooden bricks. With these modest, but I still think, entirely +sufficient possessions, and being always summarily whipped if I cried, +did not do as I was bid, or tumbled on the stairs, I soon attained +serene and secure methods of life and motion, and could pass my days +contentedly in tracing the squares and comparing the colors of my +carpet; examining the knots in the wood of the floor or counting the +bricks in the opposite houses; with rapturous intervals of excitement +during the filling of the water-cart, through its leathern pipe, from +the dripping iron post at the pavement edge; or the still more +admirable proceedings of the turncock, when he turned and turned till +a fountain sprang up in the middle of the street. But the carpet, and +what patterns I could find in bed-covers, dresses, or wall papers to +be examined, were my chief resources, and my attention to the +particulars in these was soon so accurate, that when at three and a +half I was taken to have my portrait painted by Mr. Northcote, I had +not been ten minutes alone with him before I asked him why there were +holes in his carpet." + + [Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING + From the portrait by Field Talfourd] + + + + +XXVIII + +THE MARRIAGE OF THE BROWNINGS + + +When Wordsworth heard of the marriage of Robert Browning to Elizabeth +Barrett, he is reported to have said, "So Robert Browning and Miss +Barrett have gone off together. I hope they understand each +other--nobody else would." When Wordsworth said this he was an old man +and like most old men unable to appreciate the new. Compared with the +simplicity of much of Wordsworth's poetry a poem like _A Death in the +Desert_ might seem unintelligible; but surely the same objection +cannot be urged against the poetry of Mrs. Browning. + +The marriage of Robert Browning to Miss Barrett is the one dramatic +event in his quiet life. To one who has read his passionate and at +times fiery, unconventional poetry, the runaway, unconventional +marriage is not unaccountable, but altogether consistent. The manner +of it was thus: + +In her youth Miss Barrett became an invalid through an injury to her +spine, an accident occurring while she was fixing the saddle of her +riding horse. As she grew older she was confined to her room. To move +from a bed to a sofa seemed a perilous adventure requiring a family +discussion. Her father was a strange unaccountable man, selfish and +obstinate, and passionately jealous of the affection of his children. +In the meantime Miss Barrett had written poetry that attracted the +attention of a kindred spirit. Robert Browning in 1845 wrote to her +saying that he had once nearly met her and that his sensations then +were those of one who had come to the outside of a chapel of marvelous +illumination and found the door barred against him. A little later he +suggested that he would like to call on her. This commonplace and +altogether natural suggestion threw the invalid into a state of +tremulous disapproval. With robust insistence Robert replied, "If my +truest heart's wishes avail, you shall laugh at east winds yet as I +do." Miss Barrett replied, "There is nothing to see in me nor to hear +in me. I never learned to talk as you do in London, although I can +admire that brightness of carved speech in Mr. Kenyon and others. If +my poetry is worth anything to any eye, it is the flower of me. I have +lived most and been most happy in it, and so it has all my colors. The +rest of me is nothing but a root fit for the ground and dark." A reply +such as this would be construed by any gentleman as a challenge. The +substance of Browning's reply was, "I will call at two on Tuesday." + +On May 20, 1845, they met. In September, 1846, Miss Barrett walked +quietly out of her father's house, was married in a church, and +afterwards returned to her father's house as though nothing had +happened. Between the marriage and the elopement Robert Browning did +not call at the Barrett house on Wimpole Street. One of his +biographers says that this absence was due to an inability of +Browning to ask the maid at the door for Miss Barrett when there no +longer was a Miss Barrett whom he wished to see. + +In passing judgment upon the elopement of this remarkable couple one +must remember that they were no longer giddy and rash youth. Browning +was thirty-four and the romantic Juliet was three years older. Again +it must be remembered that the objecting father was a most +unreasonable and selfish man. The climax of his selfishness was +reached when in opposition to the advice of the physicians Mr. Barrett +refused to allow his daughter to go to Italy. "In the summer of 1846," +writes Mr. Chesterton, "Elizabeth Barrett was still living under the +great family convention which provided her with nothing but an elegant +deathbed, forbidden to move, forbidden to see proper daylight, +forbidden to see a friend lest the shock should destroy her suddenly. +A year or two later, in Italy, as Mrs. Browning, she was being dragged +up hill in a wine hamper, toiling up the crests of mountains at four +o'clock in the morning, riding for five miles on to what she calls 'an +inaccessible volcanic ground not far from the stars.'" + +Miss Mitford, the literary gossip of the period, writes a letter to +Charles Bonar, in which she gives expression to an opinion concerning +Browning's poetry which is not dissimilar to the one we quoted from +Wordsworth. Miss Mitford was an intimate friend of Elizabeth Barrett: + +"The great news of the season is the marriage of my beloved friend +Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning. I have seen him once only, many +years ago. He is, I hear from all quarters, a man of immense +attainment and great conversational power. As a poet I think him +overrated.... Those things on which his reputation rests, _Paracelsus_ +and _Bells and Pomegranates_, are to me as so many riddles." + +In a later letter she writes to the same correspondent: "I at Miss +Barrett's wedding! Ah, dearest Mr. Bonar, it was a runaway match. +Never was I so much astonished. He prevailed on her to meet him at +church with only the two necessary witnesses. They went to Paris. +There they stayed a week. Happening to meet with Mrs. Jameson, she +joined them in their journey to Pisa; and accordingly they traveled by +diligence, by Rhone boat,--anyhow,--to Marseilles, thence took +shipping to Leghorn, and then settled themselves at Pisa for six +months. She says she is very happy. God grant it continue! I felt just +exactly as if I had heard that Dr. Chambers had given her over when I +got the letter announcing her marriage, and found that she was about +to cross to France. I never had an idea of her reaching Pisa alive. +She took her own maid and her (dog) Flush. I saw Mr. Browning once. +Many of his friends and mine, William Harness, John Kenyon, and Henry +Chorley, speak very highly of him. I suppose he is an accomplished +man, and if he makes his angelic wife happy, I shall of course learn +to like him." + +The runaway match proved to be a most happy one. This is in disproof +of the common thought that a poet is of so sensitive and irritable a +disposition that no woman should expect a calm life with a poet. But +in this case we have two distinguished poets joining hands. They +lived in great happiness, nor was this peace and harmony purchased at +the price of servitude and humility of the one. Each respected the +other. Their romantic passion was based on a spiritual affinity. The +love letters of the Brownings may have some degree of obscurity, but +it should be said that the obscurity is one of expression, not the +obscurity of misunderstanding in the sense in which some of the +Carlyle letters are obscure. The list of literary men whose marriages +have proved unhappy is not so long and distinguished as is commonly +supposed. Milton, Landor, Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, and Ruskin are +conspicuous examples of men who made shipwreck of marriage, but in +contrast shine forth the names of Browning, Tennyson, Wordsworth, and +Shakspere, for there is no evidence against the belief that +Shakspere's marriage was a happy one; then add to these the American +names, Longfellow, Lowell, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Holmes, and the +list is still incomplete. + +In verse Mrs. Browning has most exquisitely expressed the power of +love to transform the gloom of her sick-room into the wholesome +sunshine of life,-- + + I saw in gradual vision through my tears, + The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, + Those of my own life, who by turn had flung + A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware, + So weeping, how a mystic shape did move + Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair; + And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, + "Guess now who holds thee?"--"Death!" I said. But, there, + The silver answer rang. "Not Death, but Love." + + + + +XXIX + +ROBERT BROWNING + + +Shortly after Browning's death a young man published his recollections +of the poet in an English magazine. The extracts from that article +will help one to appreciate the kindliness of the great poet. + +"My first meeting with Browning came about in this wise. I was sitting +in the studio of a famous sculptor, who, kindly forgetful of my +provincial rawness, was entertaining me with anecdotes of his great +contemporaries; amongst them, Browning. To name him was to undo the +flood-gates of my young enthusiasm. Would my sculptor friend help me +to meet the poet, whose teaching had been my only dogma? 'Oh,' said my +friend, 'that's easy. Write to him--he is the most amiable fellow in +the world--and tell him about yourself, and tell him how much you want +to know him. Say, if you like, that you are a friend of mine.' The +advice seemed simple but useless. I felt that not even the portfolio +of unpublished poems which the imaginative eye might have beheld +palpable under my arm could so fortify my modesty. But my friend +assured me that Browning would not be offended, so, after waiting some +weeks for my crescent courage, I wrote.... + +"I was taken up to his study and shown in. The first thing that struck +me was that he had built up a barrier of books around his table, +perhaps because he feared a too practical enthusiasm. Huge heaps of +books lay on the floor, the chairs, the table, and at first I thought +the room otherwise unoccupied. But suddenly a dapper little figure +emerged from a huge armchair by the fire, and stepped briskly across +the room. For a moment I was bewildered. The poet's face was familiar +in photographs, but I had somehow imagined him a tall, gaunt man. I +recovered myself to find him standing before me, holding both my hands +and saying, 'Now this is really very kind of you, to come so far just +to see an old man like me.' Then he dragged up a companion chair and +forced me into it, standing for some moments by my side, with his hand +on my shoulder. Then he sat down and said, 'Well, tell me all about +yourself. Have you not brought some of your poems to show me?' Of +course I had not. I wanted to see him and talk of his work. But for a +while he would not let me do so. 'We'll talk about me later, if you +like, though I'm rather tired of the subject,' he said, and proceeded +to question me pretty closely about my aim and work. Then he sat and +thought awhile, then came across to me and said, 'Do you know that I +was nearly fifty before I made any money out of my writings? That's +the truth, and you will understand my reluctance to advise any one to +embark on such a cruel career. But--if you really mean to go in for +it--I would do anything I could to shorten your time of waiting. So +you must just send me some of your work, that I may give you my candid +opinion, if you think it's worth having. And now come and see my +books.' + +... "We went down to lunch, and I was introduced to the poet's sister, +who is, I was instantly ready to aver, the most charming little lady +in the world. I don't remember much of the talk at lunch--except that +it turned on Ruskin and his art views, with which latter, it seemed to +me, Browning had not much sympathy. He told me two anecdotes designed +to prove Ruskin's technical inaccuracy; one relating to Michael +Angelo, the other to Browning's own exquisite poem, _Andrea del +Sarto_. 'But never mind,' said Browning, 'he writes like an angel.' + +"Lunch was finished, and my host apologized for having to turn me out, +as he was obliged to attend some 'preposterous meeting,' he said. I +was standing in the hall, saying good-by, when suddenly he turned and +ran up-stairs. Presently he returned, bringing with him a copy of his +wife's poems. 'Will you take this as a record of what I hope is only +the first of many meetings?' he said. 'I can't find any of my own in +that muddle upstairs, but I would rather you would have this than any +of mine.' Yes, I took it, as proud as a boy could be who receives such +an honor from his chief idol; prouder than I shall ever be again as I +read the inscription: 'With the best wishes and regards of Robert +Browning.' And I went away after he had made me promise--as though it +were a thing I might be unwilling to do--to let him know when I should +be next in town. + +... "I called again at the beautiful house in De Vere Gardens. The +poet had just come in, he told me, from a meeting of the committee +for the memorial to Matthew Arnold, and he was evidently very +depressed by the sad thoughts which had come upon him of his 'dear old +friend, Mat.' 'I have been thinking all the way home,' he said, 'of +his hardships. He told me once, when I asked him why he had written no +poetry lately, that he could not afford to do it; but that, when he +had saved enough, he intended to give up all other work, and go back +to poetry. I wonder if he has gone back to it _now_.' Here Browning's +voice shook, and he was altogether more deeply moved than I had ever +seen him. 'It's very hard, isn't it?' he went on, 'that a useless +fellow like me should have been able to give up all his life to +it--for, as I think I told you, my father helped me to publish my +early books--while a splendid poet like Arnold actually could not +afford to write the poetry we wanted of him.' + +... "The last visit I paid to Browning was short enough, but since it +_was_ the last, and was marked by one of the most graceful acts ever +done to me, I may record it as the conclusion of these memories. He +had written inviting me to call soon, but without naming a day or +hour. 'If I should happen to be engaged,' he had said, 'I know that +your kindness will understand and forgive me.' So I called on the +first morning when I was free for an hour. He came across the room +with his accustomed heartiness of voice and hand. 'But, my dear boy, +why did you come to-day? In ten minutes I have an important business +appointment which I _must_ keep.' The ten minutes went all too soon, +and I took my hat to go. He was profuse, but plainly sincere, in his +apologies for turning me out, and made me promise to come again at a +specified hour. I had hardly left the door, when I heard the scurry of +footsteps and his voice calling me. I turned and saw him, hatless, at +the foot of the steps. 'One moment,' he cried; 'I can't let you go +till you tell me again that you are not offended, and I shan't believe +_that_ till you promise once again to come. Now, promise'--holding +both my hands. Of course I promised, wondering how many smaller men +would have shown the same courtesy. For some reason on my part, which +I now forget, that appointment was never kept, and I saw him no more. + +"As I stood in Poet's Corner that bitter day of last January, and saw +him put to rest, I could not but think of him as I had seen him last, +with the sunlight on his white hair, and I felt his warm hands, and +heard his kindly voice saying, 'Now, promise!' and I could but think +of that meeting as a tryst not broken, but deferred. And as I thought +again of that life, so rich, so vivid, so complete; of that strong +soul which looked ever forth, and saw promise of clear awaking to +something nobler than the sweetest dream, I knew that here, at least, +was one to whom death could do no wrong." + + --Adapted from _Littell's Living Age_. + + [Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON + From a photograph from life] + + + + +XXX + +KNIGHT'S REMINISCENCE OF TENNYSON + + +William Knight, a celebrated Scotch professor and the great expounder +of the life and poetry of Wordsworth, in 1890 spent two days with +Tennyson at Farringford. In an English magazine he has published his +reminiscence of that visit. After relating the feelings of respect and +the reverential sentiment with which he approached the place he says: +"In the avenue leading to the house, the spreading trees just opening +into leaf, with spring flowers around and beneath--yellow cowslips and +blue forget-me-nots--and the song of birds in the branches overhead, +seemed a fitting prelude to all that followed. Shortly after I was +seated in the ante-room, the poet's son appeared, and, as his father +was engaged, he said, 'Come and see my mother.' We went into the +drawing-room, where the old lady was reclining on a couch. Immediately +the lines beginning 'Such age, how beautiful' came into mind. No one +could ever forget his first sight of Lady Tennyson, her graciousness, +and the radiant though fragile beauty of old age. Both her eye and her +voice had an inexpressible charm. She inquired with much interest for +the widow of one of my colleagues at the University, who used formerly +to live in the island, close to Farringford, and whose family were +friends as well as near neighbors. Soon afterwards Tennyson entered, +and almost at once proposed that we should go out of doors. After a +short stroll on the lawn under the cedars, we went into the 'careless +ordered garden,' walked round it, and then sat down in the small +summer-house. It is a quaint rectangular garden, sloping to the west, +where nature and art blend happily,--orchard trees, and old-fashioned +flower-beds, with stately pines around, giving to it a sense of +perfect rest. This garden is truly a 'haunt of ancient peace.' Left +there alone with the bard for some time, I felt that I sat in the +presence of one of the Kings of Men. His aged look impressed me. There +was the keen eagle eye, and, although the glow of youth was gone, the +strength of age was in its place. The lines in his face were like the +furrows in the stem of a wrinkled oak-tree, but his whole bearing +disclosed a latent strength and nobility, a reserve of power, combined +with a most courteous grace of manner. I was also struck by the +neglige air of the man, so different from that of Browning or Arnold +or Lowell.... + +"We talked much of the sonnet. He thought the best in the language +were Milton's, Shakspere's, and Wordsworth's; after these three those +by his own brother Charles. He said, 'I at least like my brother's +next to those by the "three immortals."' ... + +"He had no great liking, he said, for arranging the poets in a +hierarchy. He found so much that surpassed him in different ways in +all the great ones; but he thought that Homer, AEschylus, Sophocles, +Virgil, Dante, Shakspere, and Goethe,--these seven,--were the +greatest of the great, up to the year 1800. They are not all equal in +rank, and even in the work of that heptarchy of genius, there were +trivial things to be found.... + +"Just at this stage of our talk Mrs. Hallam Tennyson, Mrs. Douglas +Freshfield, and her daughter came up the garden-walk to the +summer-house. Miss Freshfield wore a hat on which was an artificial +flower, a lilac-branch. It at once caught Tennyson's eye. There was a +lilac-tree in bloom close at hand, and he said, 'What is that you are +wearing? It's a flowery lie, it's a speaking mendacity.' He asked how +she could wear such a thing in the month of May! We rose from the +bower, and all went down the garden-walk to see the fig-tree at the +foot of it, and sundry other things at the western entrance-door, +where Miss Kate Greenaway was painting. We returned along a twisting +alley under the rich green foliage of elms and ilexes.... + +"Listening to the wind in the trees and the sound of running +water--although it was the very tiniest of rillets--led us away from +philosophy, and he talked of Sir Walter Scott, characterizing him as +the greatest novelist of all time. He said, 'What a gift it was that +Scotland gave to the world in him. And your Burns! He is supreme +amongst your poets.' He praised Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, as one of +the finest of biographies; and my happening to mention an anecdote of +Scott from that book led to our spending the greater part of the rest +of our walk in the telling of stories. Tennyson was an admirable +storyteller. He asked me for some good Scotch anecdotes, and I gave +him some, but he was able to cap each of them with a better one of +his own--all of which he told with arch humor and simplicity. + +"He then told some anecdotes of a visit to Scotland. After he had left +an inn in the island of Skye, the landlord was asked, 'Did he know who +had been staying in his house? It was the poet Tennyson.' He replied, +'Lor', to think o' that! and sure I thoucht he was a shentleman!' Near +Stirling the same remark was made to the keeper of the hotel where he +had stayed. 'Do you ken who you had wi' you t' other night?' 'Naa, but +he was a pleesant shentleman.' 'It was Tennyson, the poet.' 'An' what +may _he_ be?' 'Oh, he is the writer o' verses such as you see i' the +papers.' 'Noo, to think o' that, jest a pooblic writer, an' I gied him +ma best bedroom!' Of Mrs. Tennyson, however, the landlord remarked, +'Oh, but _she_ was an angel!' + +"I have said that the conversational power of Tennyson struck me quite +as much as his poetry had done for forty years. To explain this I must +compare it with that of some of his contemporaries. It was not like +the meteoric flashes and fireworks of Carlyle's talk, which sometimes +dazzled as much as it instructed, and it had not that torrent-rush in +which Carlyle so often indulged. It was far more restrained. It had +neither the continuousness nor the range of Browning's many-sided +conversation, nor did it possess the charm of the ethereal +visionariness of Newman's. It lacked the fullness and consummate sweep +of Mr. Buskin's talk, and it had neither the historic range and +brilliance of Dean Stanley's, nor the fascinating subtlety--the +elevation and the depth combined--of that of the late F.D. Maurice. +_But_ it was clear as crystal, and calm as well as clear. It was terse +and exact, precise and luminous. Not a word was wasted and every +phrase was suggestive. Tennyson did not monopolize conversation. He +wished to know what other people thought, and therefore to hear them +state it, that he might understand their position and ideas. But in +all his talk on great problems, he at once got to their essence, +sounding their depths with ease, or, to change the illustration, he +seized the kernel, and let the shell and fragments alone. There was a +wonderful simplicity allied to his clear vision and his strength. He +was more child-like than the majority of his contemporaries, and along +with this there was--what I have already mentioned--_a great reserve +of power_. His appreciation of other workers belonging to his time was +remarkable. Neither he nor Browning disparaged their contemporaries, +as Carlyle so often did, when he spotted their weaknesses, and put +them in the pillory. From first to last, Tennyson seemed to look +sympathetically on all good works, and he had a special veneration for +the strong silent thinkers and workers. + +"Tennyson appreciated the work of Darwin and Spencer far more than +Carlyle did, and many of the ideas and conclusions of modern science +are to be found in his poetry. Nevertheless he knew the limitation of +science, and he held that it was the noble office of poetry, +philosophy, and religion combined to supplement and finally to +transcend it." + + + + +XXXI + +EMERSON ON CARLYLE AND TENNYSON + + +On Christmas day, 1832, Emerson sailed out of Boston harbor to pay a +visit to Europe. His health needed a change of work and scene. His +wife had died, he had separated from his congregation, he manifestly +was in need of some recreation, and so his friends had advised him to +take a trip abroad. On the 2d of February he landed at Malta. From +there he traveled through Italy and finally entered England, ready to +make the acquaintance of English celebrities whom he had long admired. + +He writes in his journal: "Carlisle in Cumberland, Aug. 26. I am just +arrived in merry Carlisle from Dumfries. A white day in my years. I +found the youth I sought in Scotland, and good and wise and pleasant +he seems to me, and his wife a most accomplished, agreeable woman. +Truth and peace and faith dwell with them and beautify them. I never +saw more amiableness than is in his countenance." + +This passage, of course, refers to his visit to Carlyle, to visit whom +Emerson had driven over from Dumfries to Craigenputtock, where Carlyle +had been living for the last five years. In this connection it is +interesting to read what the man visited had to say about his +visitor: "That man," Carlyle said to Lord Houghton, "came to see me. I +don't know what brought him, and we kept him one night, and then he +left us. I saw him go up the hill; I didn't go with him to see him +descend. I preferred to watch him mount and vanish like an angel." + + [Illustration: RALPH WALDO EMERSON + From a wood engraving of a life photograph] + +In writing of this interview, Mr. Cabot, one of the biographers of +Emerson, says: "To Emerson the interview was a happy one, and +gratified the chief wish he had in coming to England, though he did +not find all that he had sought. He had been looking for a master, but +in the deepest matters Carlyle, he found, had nothing to teach him. +'My own feeling,' he says in a letter to Mr. Ireland a few days +afterwards, 'was that I had met with men of far less power who had got +greater insight into religious truth.' But he had come close to the +affectionate nature and the nobility of soul that lay behind the cloud +of whim and dyspepsia, and he kept to that, and for the rest, confined +his expectations thenceforth to what Carlyle had to give. 'The +greatest power of Carlyle,' he afterwards wrote, 'like that of Burke, +seems to me to reside in the form. Neither of them is a poet, born to +announce the will of the god, but each has a splendid rhetoric to +clothe the truth.'" + +During this first visit Emerson dined with Lafayette and a hundred +Americans. By the time he made his second visit Emerson was a far more +distinguished man than during his first trip. His second visit was +made in 1847. This time he was a lion among men. He again calls on the +Carlyles. This time the door is opened by Jane. + +"They were very little changed (he writes) from their old selves of +fourteen years ago, when I left them at Craigenputtock. 'Well,' said +Carlyle, 'here we are, shoveled together again.' The flood-gates of +his talk are quickly opened and the river is a great and constant +stream. We had large communication that night until nearly one +o'clock, and at breakfast next morning it began again. At noon or +later we went together, Carlyle and I, to Hyde Park and the palaces, +about two miles from here, to the National Gallery, and to the +Strand--Carlyle melting all Westminster and London down into his talk +and laughter as he walked. We came back to dinner at five or later, +then Dr. Carlyle came in and spent the evening, which again was long +by the clock, but had no other measure. Here in this house we +breakfast about nine; Carlyle is very apt, his wife says, to sleep +till ten or eleven, if he has no company. An immense talker he is, and +altogether as extraordinary in his conversation as in his writing--I +think even more so. You will never discover his real vigor and range, +or how much more he might do than he has ever done, without seeing +him. I find my few hours' discourse with him in Scotland, long since, +gave me not enough knowledge of him, and I have now at last been taken +by surprise.... Carlyle and his wife live on beautiful terms. Nothing +could be more engaging than their ways, and in her book-case all his +books are inscribed to her, as they came, from year to year, each with +some significant lines." + +In another place he writes: + +"I had good talk with Carlyle last night. He says over and over for +years, the same thing. Yet his guiding genius is his moral sense, his +perception of the sole importance of truth and justice, and he too +says that there is properly no religion in England. He is quite +contemptuous about _Kunst_ (art) also, in Germans, or English, or +Americans.... His sneers and scoffs are thrown in every direction. He +breaks every sentence with a scoffing laugh--'windbag,' 'monkey,' +'donkey,' 'bladder;' and let him describe whom he will, it is always +'poor fellow.' I said 'What a fine fellow you are to bespatter the +whole world with this oil of vitriol!' 'No man,' he replied, 'speaks +truth to me.' I said, 'See what a crowd of friends listen to and +admire you.' 'Yes, they come to hear me, and they read what I write; +but not one of them has the smallest intention of doing these +things.'" + +While Emerson was in London he was elected to membership in the +Athenaeum Club, during his stay in England. Here he had the opportunity +of meeting many famous men. He writes: + +"Milnes and other good men are always to be found there. Milnes is the +most good-natured man in England, made of sugar; he is everywhere and +knows everything. He told of Landor that one day, in a towering +passion, he threw his cook out of the window, and then presently +exclaimed, 'Good God, I never thought of those violets!' The last time +he saw Landor he found him expatiating on our custom of eating in +company, which he esteems very barbarous. He eats alone, with +half-closed windows, because the light interferes with the taste. He +has lately heard of some tribe in Crim Tartary who have the practice +of eating alone, and these he extols as much superior to the +English.... Macaulay is the king of diners-out. I do not know when I +have seen such wonderful vivacity. He has the strength of ten men, +immense memory, fun, fire, learning, politics, manners, and pride, and +talks all the time in a steady torrent. You would say he was the best +type of England." + +Of Tennyson he writes: "I saw Tennyson, first at the house of Coventry +Patmore, where we dined together. I was contented with him at once. He +is tall and scholastic looking, no dandy, but a great deal of plain +strength about him, and though cultivated, quite unaffected. Quiet, +sluggish sense and thought; refined, as all English are, and +good-humored. There is in him an air of great superiority that is very +satisfactory. He lives with his college set, ... and has the air of +one who is accustomed to be petted and indulged by those he lives +with. Take away Hawthorne's bashfulness, and let him talk easily and +fast, and you would have a pretty good Tennyson. I told him that his +friends and I were persuaded that it was important to his health to +make an instant visit to Paris, and that I was to go on Monday if he +was ready. He was very good-humored, and affected to think that I +should never come back alive from France; it was death to go. But he +had been looking for two years for somebody to go to Italy with, and +was ready to set out at once, if I would go there.... He gave me a +cordial invitation to his lodgings (in Buckingham Palace), where I +promised to visit him before I went away.... I found him at home in +his lodgings, but with him was a clergyman whose name I did not know, +and there was no conversation. He was sure again that he was taking a +final farewell of me, as I was going among the French bullets, but +promised to be in the same lodgings if I should escape alive.... +Carlyle thinks him the best man in England to smoke a pipe with, and +used to see him much; had a place in his little garden, on the wall, +where Tennyson's pipe was laid up." + + + + +XXXII + +LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS OF MAX MUELLER + + +Another poet whom I knew at Oxford as an undergraduate, and whom I +watched and admired to the end of his life, was Matthew Arnold. He was +beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, yet full of dreams and +schemes. His Olympian manners began even at Oxford; there was no harm +in them, they were natural, not put on. The very sound of his voice +and the wave of his hand were Jovelike.... Sometimes at public +dinners, when he saw himself surrounded by his contemporaries, most of +them judges, bishops, and ministers, he would groan over the drudgery +he had to go through every day of his life in examining dirty +school-boys and school-girls. But he saw the fun of it, and laughed. +What a pity it was that his friends--and he had many--could find no +better place for him. Most of his contemporaries rose to high position +in Church and State, he remained to the end an examiner of elementary +schools. Of course it may be said that like so many of his literary +friends, he might have written novels and thus eked out a living by +potboilers of various kinds. But there was something nobler and +refined in him which restrained his pen from such work. Whatever he +gave to the world was to be perfect, as perfect as he could make it, +and he did not think that he possessed the talent for novels. His +saying that "no Arnold can ever write a novel" is well known, but it +has been splendidly falsified of late by his own niece. Arnold was a +delightful man to argue with, not that he could easily be convinced +that he was wrong, but he never lost his temper, and in the most +patronizing way he would generally end by, "Yes, yes! my good fellow, +you are quite right, but, you see, my view of the matter is different, +and I have little doubt it is the true one!" This went so far that +even the simplest facts failed to produce any impression on him.... + +Ruskin often came to spend a few days with his old friends, and as +uncompromising and severe as he could be when he wielded his pen, he +was always most charming in conversation. He never, when he was with +his friends, claimed the right of speaking with authority, even on his +own special subjects, as he might well have done. It seemed to be his +pen that made him say bitter things.... He was really the most +tolerant and agreeable man in society. He could discover beauty where +no one else saw it, and make allowance where others saw no excuse. I +remember him as diffident as a young girl, full of questions, and +grateful for any information. Even on art topics I have watched him +listening almost deferentially to others who laid down the law in his +presence. His voice was always most winning, and his language simply +perfect. He was one of the few Englishmen I knew who, instead of +tumbling out their sentences like so many portmanteaus, bags, tugs, +and hat-boxes from an open railway van, seemed to take a real delight +in building up his sentences, even in familiar conversation, so as to +make each deliverance a work of art.... + +And what a beautiful mind his was, and what lessons of beauty he has +taught us all. At the same time, he could not bear anything +unbeautiful, and anything low or ignoble in men revolted him and made +him thoroughly unhappy. I remember once taking Emerson to lunch with +him, in his rooms in Corpus Christi College. Emerson was an old friend +of his, and in many respects a cognate soul. But some quite +indifferent subject turned up, a heated discussion ensued, and Ruskin +was so upset that he had to quit the room and leave us alone. Emerson +was most unhappy, and did all he could to make peace, but he had to +leave without a reconciliation.... + +Another though less frequent visitor to Oxford was Tennyson. His first +visit to our house was rather alarming. We lived in a small house in +High Street, nearly opposite Magdalen College, and our establishment +was not calculated to receive sudden guests, particularly a poet +laureate. He stepped in one day during the long vacation, when Oxford +was almost empty. Wishing to show the great man all civility, we asked +him to dinner that night and breakfast the next morning. At that time +almost all the shops were in the market, which closed at one o'clock. +My wife, a young housekeeper, did her best for our unexpected guest. +He was known to be a gourmand, and at dinner he was evidently put out +by finding the sauce with the salmon was not the one he preferred. He +was pleased, however, with the wing of a chicken, and said it was the +only advantage he got from being a poet laureate, that he generally +received the liver-wing of a chicken. The next morning at breakfast, +we had rather plumed ourselves on having been able to get a dish of +cutlets, and were not a little surprised when our guest arrived, to +see him whip off the cover of a hot dish, and to hear the exclamation, +"Mutton chops! the staple of every bad inn in England." However, these +were but minor matters, though not without importance in the eyes of a +young wife to whom Tennyson had been like one of the immortals. He was +full of interest and inquiries about the East, more particularly about +Indian poetry, and I believe it was then that I told him that there +was no rhyme in Sanskrit poetry, and ventured to ask him why there +should be in English. He was not so offended as Samuel Johnson seems +to have been, who would probably have answered my question by "You are +a fool, sir; use your own judgment," while Tennyson made the very +sensible answer that rhyme assisted the memory.... + +It was generally after dinner ... that Tennyson began to thaw, and to +take a more active part in conversation. People who have not known him +then, have hardly known him at all. During the day he was often very +silent and absorbed in his own thoughts, but in the evening he took an +active part in the conversation of his friends. His pipe was almost +indispensable to him, and I remember one time when I and several +friends were staying at his house, the question of tobacco turned up. +I confessed that for years I had been a perfect slave to tobacco, so +that I could neither read nor write a line without smoking, but that +at last I had rebelled against the slavery, and had entirely given up +tobacco. Some of his friends taunted Tennyson that he could never give +up tobacco. "Anybody can do that," he said, "if he chooses to do it." +When his friends still continued to doubt and to tease him, "Well," he +said, "I shall give up smoking from to-night." The very same evening I +was told that he threw his tobacco and his pipes out of the window of +his bedroom. The next day he was most charming, though somewhat +self-righteous. The second day he became very moody and captious, the +third day no one knew what to do with him. But after a disturbed night +I was told that he got out of bed in the morning, went quietly into +the garden, picked up one of his broken pipes, stuffed it with the +remains of the tobacco scattered about, and then having had a few +puffs, came to breakfast, all right again. + +He once very kindly offered to lend me his house in the Isle of Wight. +"But mind," he said, "you will be watched from morning till evening." +This was, in fact, his great grievance, that he could not go out +without being stared at. Once taking a walk with me and my wife on the +downs behind his house, he suddenly started, left us, and ran home, +simply because he had descried two strangers coming towards us. + +I was told that he once complained to the queen, and said that he +could no longer stay in the Isle of Wight, on account of the tourists +who came to stare at him. The queen, with a kindly irony, remarked +that she did not suffer much from that grievance, but Tennyson not +seeing what she meant, replied, "No, madam, and if I could clap a +sentinel wherever I liked, I should not be troubled either." + +It must be confessed that people were very inconsiderate. Rows of +tourists sat like sparrows on the paling of his garden, waiting for +his appearance. The guides were actually paid by sight-seers, +particularly by those from America, for showing them the great poet. +Nay, they went so far as to dress up a sailor to look like Tennyson, +and the result was that, after their trick had been found out, the +tourists would walk up to Tennyson and ask him, "Now, are you the real +Tennyson?" This, no doubt, was very annoying, and later on Lord +Tennyson was driven to pay a large sum for some useless downs near his +house, simply in order to escape from the attentions of admiring +travelers. + + + + +XXXIII + +THE EARLY EDUCATION OF JOHN STUART MILL + + +At an age when most children are playing with a Noah's Ark or a doll, +John Stuart Mill was initiated into the mysteries of the Greek +language. "I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn +Greek," writes Mill, "I have been told that it was when I was three +years old." Latin was not begun until his eighth year. By that time he +had read in Greek,--AEsop, the Anabasis, the whole of Herodotus, the +Cyropaedia, the Memorabilia, parts of Diogenes Laertius, and of Lucian, +Isocrates; also six dialogues of Plato. An equipment like this +suggests the satiric lines of Hudibras: + + Besides, 'tis known he could speak Greek + As naturally as pigs squeak. + +In considering the difficulties that this child--shall we say +babe?--had to overcome one must remember that the aids to learning +Greek were not then what they are now. In 1820 the Greek lexicon was a +ponderous thing, almost as big and heavy as the infant student +himself. Worse than this, the definitions were not in English, but in +Greek and Latin, and as the boy had not yet learned Latin he had to +ask his father for the meaning of every new word. The immense task +placed thus upon the child makes one feel indignant and wish that some +organization for the prevention of cruelty to infants had interfered +with the ambition of the learned father. But we must admire the +patience of the father, however we may question his good sense. "What +he himself was willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction," +says the son in describing his father's teaching, "may be judged from +the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek +lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was +writing.... I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of +every word which I did not know. This incessant interruption, he, one +of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that +interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had +to write during those years." + +But this does not tell the whole story. Fearing that the Greek might +be too heavy and concentrated a food for the tender intellect of his +child, the considerate father added a diet of English history and +biography. The boy carefully studied and made notes upon Robertson, +Hume, Gibbon, Watson, Hooke, Langhorne's _Plutarch_, Burnet's _History +of His Own Time_, Millar's _Historical View of the English +Government_, Mosheim's _Ecclesiastical History_. In biography and +travel he read the life of Knox, the histories of the Quakers, +Beaver's _Africa_, Collin's _New South Wales_, Anson's _Voyages_, and +Hawkesworth's _Voyages Round the World_. "Of children's books, any +more than of playthings, I had scarcely any, except an occasional +gift from a relation or acquaintance.... It was no part, however, of +my father's system to exclude books of amusement, though he allowed +them very sparingly. Of such books he possessed at that time next to +none, but he borrowed several for me; those which I remember are the +_Arabian Nights_, Cazotte's _Arabian Tales_, _Don Quixote_, Miss +Edgeworth's _Popular Tales_, and a book of some reputation in its day, +Brooke's _Fool of Quality_." + +All this, it is to be remembered, was done by a boy who was not beyond +his eighth year. In his eighth year he began Latin, not only as a +learner but as a teacher. It was his duty to teach the younger +children of the family what he had learned. This practice he does not +recommend. "The teaching, I am sure, is very inefficient as teaching, +and I well know that the relation between teacher and taught is not a +good moral discipline to either." By the time this prodigy of +intellect and industry reached the age of fourteen he had studied the +following formidable list: Virgil, Horace, Phaedrus, Livy, Sallust, +the Metamorphoses, Terence, Cicero, Homer, Thucydides, the Hellenica, +Demosthenes, AEschines, Lysias, Theocritus, Anacreon, Aristotle's +Rhetoric; Euclid, Algebra, the higher mathematics, Joyce's Scientific +Dialogues, and various treatises on Chemistry; and in addition to all +this he had read parts of other Greek and Latin authors, and much of +English poetry and history. + +A boy with so heavy a burden of learning is very prone to an equal +amount of self-conceit. But the father tried to overcome this danger +by holding up a very high standard of comparison,--"not what other +people did, but what a man could and ought to do." He succeeded so +well that the boy was not aware that his attainments were +extraordinary. "I neither estimated myself highly nor lowly; I did not +estimate myself at all. If I thought anything about myself, it was +that I was rather backward in my studies, since I always found myself +so, in comparison of what my father expected of me." To this assertion +Mr. Mill very candidly adds: "I assert this with confidence, though it +was not the impression of various persons who saw me in my childhood. +They, as I have since found, thought me greatly and disagreeably +self-conceited; probably because I was disputatious, and did not +scruple to give direct contradictions to things which I heard said." + +A boy who is kept at his studies as assiduously as was young Mill has +little time for play or association with other boys. This lack of +contact with companions is a grave defect in the education of Mill. "I +constantly remained long," writes Mill, "and in a less degree have +always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity; my +mind, as well as my hands, did its work very lamely when it was +applied, or ought to have been applied, to the practical details +which, as they are the chief interest of life to the majority of men, +are also the things in which whatever mental capacity they have, +chiefly shows itself." + +On the whole we feel that the childhood of Mill could hardly have been +a happy one. The joy of physical achievement, the free-hearted +abandonment of the young barbarian at his play, the power to do as +well as to know--these are the birthright of every child. But while we +may pity him for his lack of these joys, we dare not forget that to +have lived the life or done the work of John Stuart Mill is no small +thing. And perhaps this life could not have been lived had his +education been other than it was. + + + + +XXXIV + +CARLYLE GOES TO THE UNIVERSITY + + +One of the most tender pictures in the history of English literature +is that of Carlyle as he starts for his University career. Just a boy, +a child not yet fourteen! It is early morning in November at +Ecclefechan--and Edinburgh with its famous University is a hundred +miles away. The father and mother have risen early to get Thomas +ready--not for the cab to take him to the "purple luxury and plush +repose" of the Pullman on the Limited Express. No, Tom is going to +walk,--his only companion a boy two or three years older. These +rugged, poor, and godly parents had long discussed the sending of +Tommy to the great University. James Bell, one of the wise men of the +community, had said: "Educate a boy, and he grows up to despise his +ignorant parents," but they knew that depended on the boy. "Thou hast +not done so; God be thanked," said James Carlyle to his son in after +years. + +But let us come back to our picture. In our mind's eye we see the +Scotch lad starting out on his hundred-mile trip in the mist of a +foggy November morning. Almost three-score years after, Carlyle +himself beautifully describes the event: "How strangely vivid, how +remote and wonderful, tinged with the views of far-off love and +sadness, is that journey to me now after fifty-seven years of time! My +mother and father walking with me in the dark frosty November morning +through the village to set us on our way; my dear and loving mother, +her tremulous affection, etc." + +That's the picture of an unknown boy going to the University to become +what every pious Scotch mother wants her boy to be--a minister of the +gospel. + +Here is another picture, taken about sixty years later. In a somewhat +plainly furnished room in a house on a quiet street in Chelsea, a part +of London, an old man "worn, and tired, and bent, with deep-lined +features, a firm under-jaw, tufted gray hair, and tufted gray and +white beard, and sunken and unutterably sad eyes, is returning from +the fireplace, where with trembling fingers he had been lighting his +long clay pipe, and now he resumes his place at a reading desk." Let +us enter this room with Theodore L. Cuyler, who in his _Recollections +of a Long Life_ tells us: "Thirty years afterwards, in June, 1872, I +felt an irrepressible desire to see the grand old man once more, and I +accordingly addressed him a note, requesting him the favor of a few +minutes' interview.... After we had waited some time, a feeble, +stooping figure, attired in a long blue flannel gown, moved slowly +into the room. His gray hair was unkempt, his blue eyes were still +keen and piercing, and a bright hectic spot of red appeared on each of +his hollow cheeks. His hands were tremulous and his voice deep and +husky. After a few personal inquiries the old man broke out into a +most extraordinary and characteristic harangue on the wretched +degeneracy of these evil days. The prophet Jeremiah was cheerfulness +itself in comparison with him.... Most of his extraordinary harangue +was like an eruption of Vesuvius, but the laugh he occasionally gave +showed that he was talking about as much for his own amusement as for +ours." + +Between these two pictures,--the one showing us the boy trudging away +in the mist of the November morning, the other revealing an old man +whose home in Chelsea had become the Mecca of the lovers of English +literature,--what has occurred? + +The young boy has finished his studies at the University; has +concluded not to enter the ministry; has studied law; served as tutor; +translated a masterpiece of German into English, and finally dedicated +his powers to becoming a notability in English literature: wrote +_Sartor Resartus_, the _History of the French Revolution_, a _Life of +Cromwell_, a _Life of Frederick the Great_, and has become +world-renowned as one of the great figures of the Nineteenth Century. + + + + +XXXV + +CARLYLE AND HIS WIFE + + +In 1826 occurred what Saintsbury calls the most important event in the +life of Carlyle,--his marriage with Jane Welsh, a young woman who +traced her ancestry back to John Knox, the rugged Scotch reformer. +Jane was a keen, active, high-strung, sensitive soul. There has arisen +a formidable mass of literature discussing the relationship between +Thomas and Jane. Were they happy or were they miserable? + +Jane Welsh was a Scotch lady whose family was socially superior to +that of Carlyle's. Her father had been a physician, while Carlyle's +was but a rude stone-mason,--and yet a great man. It is said she +married Thomas because she was ambitious and wanted to be the wife of +a famous man, and she had discovered in the unknown Thomas the marks +of genius. In after years she is reported to have said: "I married for +ambition. Carlyle had exceeded all that my wildest hopes ever imagined +for him; _and I am miserable_." + +Jeannie had what she had bargained for and yet she was unhappy,--why? + +Carlyle was a big-hearted, hard-working, gruff, but kind-hearted +individual. I have not a doubt that he loved his Jeannie. But he took +no pains to show his love in those tender though trivial devotions +that mean so much to the sensitive wife. + +During the first few years of their married life, they lived in a +lonely place and had but a scant income. We have a very interesting +picture of their life at Craigenputtock. Thomas could not eat bakers' +bread, so Jeannie baked. The one servant they had was not competent. +It may have been this same servant that was responsible for Thomas' +finding, altogether unexpectedly, of course, a dead mouse at the +bottom of his dish of oatmeal. As to the bread-baking Jean has given +us a very graphic account: + +"Further we were very poor, and further and worst, being an only +child, and brought up to 'great prospects,' I was sublimely ignorant +of every branch of useful knowledge, though a capital Latin scholar, +and very fair mathematician! It behooved me in these astonishing +circumstances to learn to sew! Husbands, I was shocked to find, wore +their stockings into holes, and were always losing buttons, and I was +expected 'to look to all that;' also it behooved me to learn to +_cook_! no capable servant choosing to live at such an out-of-the-way +place, and my husband having bad digestion, which complicated my +difficulties dreadfully. The bread, above all, bought at Dumfries, +'soured on his stomach' (Oh heaven!), and it was plainly my duty as a +Christian wife to bake at home. So I sent for Cobbett's _Cottage +Economy_, and fell to work at a loaf of bread. But knowing nothing +about the process of fermentation or the heat of ovens, it came to +pass that my loaf got put into the oven at the time that myself ought +to have been put into bed; and I remained the only person not asleep +in a house in the middle of a desert. One o'clock struck, and then +two, and then three, and still I was sitting there in an immense +solitude, my whole body aching with weariness, my heart aching with a +sense of forlornness and _degradation_. That I who had been so petted +at home, whose comfort had been studied by everybody in the house, and +who had never been required to _do_ anything, but _cultivate my mind_, +should have to pass all those hours of the night in watching _a loaf +of bread_, which mightn't turn out bread after all! Such thoughts +maddened me, till I laid down my head on the table and sobbed aloud. +It was then that somehow the idea of Benvenuto Cellini sitting up all +night watching his Perseus in the furnace came into my head, and +suddenly I asked myself: 'After all, in the sight of the Upper Powers, +what is the mighty difference between a statue of Perseus and a loaf +of bread, so that each be the thing that one's hand has found to do?' +... If he had been a woman living at Craigenputtock, with a dyspeptic +husband, sixteen miles from a baker, and he a bad one, all these same +qualities would have come out more fitly in a _good_ loaf of bread. + +"I cannot express what consolation this germ of an idea spread over my +uncongenial life during the years we lived at that savage place, where +my two immediate predecessors had gone _mad_, and the third had taken +to drink." + +While enjoying the description which Mrs. Carlyle has painted in such +an entertaining manner, it is well to observe that she does not blame +her husband. She seems to be writing the account while she is silently +laughing at the absurd preparation her life had had for the duties of +the wife of a poor man. But Mr. T.P. O'Connor, who writes in 1895, is +outspoken: + +"I do not want to speak disrespectfully of poor Carlyle, but in spirit +it is somewhat hard to keep one's hand off him, as we reconstruct +those scenes in the gaunt house at Craigenputtock. There is a little +detail in one scene which adds a deeper horror. I have said that Mrs. +Carlyle had to scrub the floors, and as she scrubbed them Carlyle +would look on smoking--drawing in from tobacco pleasant +comfortableness and easy dreams--while his poor drudge panted and +sighed over the hard work, which she had never done before. Do you not +feel that you would like to break the pipe in his mouth, and shake him +off the chair, and pitch him on to the floor, to take a share of the +physical burden which his shoulders were so much more able to bear?" + +Another anecdote is that at a dinner while Carlyle was monopolizing +the conversation, talking as only he could talk, he, the irritable, +turned upon his wife with "Jeanie, don't breathe so hard!" And still +again, we hear it said that Tennyson once remarked it was well the +Carlyles had married each other for if each had married another there +would have been _four_ instead of _two_ unhappy people. But I think +the truer remark was made when Tennyson said to his son, Hallam: "Mr. +and Mrs. Carlyle on the whole enjoy life together, or else they would +not have chaffed one another so heartily." + +The _Century_ of some years ago contained this witty skit from the pen +of Bessie Chandler: + + And I sit here, thinking, thinking, + How your life was one long winking + At Thomas' faults and failings, and his undue share of bile! + Won't you own, dear, just between us, + That this living with a genius + Isn't, after all, so pleasant,--is it, Jeannie Welsh Carlyle? + +However, with all that may be said to the contrary, I do not think we +dare say that the marriage of Thomas and Jeannie was an unhappy one. +After reading fifteen hundred pages of biography and hundreds of +letters passing to and fro, I am of the belief of Mr. Tennyson, that +on the whole their union was a happy one. + +Shortly after Carlyle had been elected Rector of the University of +Edinburgh, Jean died suddenly. While out driving one afternoon by Hyde +Park, she jumped out to pick up her little dog, over whose foot a +carriage had passed. She was never again seen alive. In her carriage +she was found dead with her hands folded on her lap. When Carlyle +heard of it he was away at Scotsbrig. Later in describing his feelings +he wrote: "It had a kind of _stunning_ effect on me. Not for above two +days could I estimate the immeasurable depth of it, or the infinite +sorrow which had peeled my life all bare, and a moment shattered my +poor world to universal ruin." And Froude tells us that in Carlyle's +old age--he lived to be eighty-five--he often broke forth in these +passionate words of Burns: + + Had we never loved sae kindly, + Had we never loved sae blindly, + Never met and never parted, + We had ne'er been broken-hearted. + + [Illustration: THOMAS CARLYLE + From a photograph from life] + + + + +XXXVI + +CARLYLE AS LECTURER + + +In 1834, the year of the death of Coleridge, we find Carlyle, like +many another Scotchman, leaving Scotland to enter the great Babylon, +London. The previous six years he had passed with his wife at +Craigenputtock. He was almost forty years of age. His wife had great +confidence in his ability, which up to this time the world had not +recognized. So she urged him to struggle for influence and power in +the great heart of the modern world. Number 5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, is +the house they selected. There for the remaining forty-seven years of +his life he worked and loved and stormed. Their neighborhood was one +famous in association with the names of many _literati_. Near by +Smollett wrote _Count Fathom_; in the same locality More had +entertained the great scholar, Erasmus; there too had once lived +Bolingbroke, and earlier, the Count de Grammont; and last but not +least the author of Abou Ben Adhem, Leigh Hunt. + +When Emerson once suggested to Carlyle that he come over to America to +lecture, Carlyle took kindly to the idea. He kept it in mind as a +possibility for years, but he never carried it into effect. But he did +lecture in London. His literary work was not bringing him the money +he needed. His friends were struck with his ability. Why should he not +lecture? This, if well managed, would bring him immediate +remuneration. His friends set diligently to work, issued a prospectus, +tickets at a guinea a course, and invited persons of influence to +attend. Spedding wrote this letter to Monckton Milnes: + +"I take the opportunity of writing to make you know, if you do not +know already, that Carlyle lectures on German literature next month; +the particulars you will find in the inclosed syllabus, which, if it +should convey as much knowledge to you as it does ignorance to me, +will be edifying. Of course, you will be here to attend the said +lectures, but I want you to come up a little before they begin, that +you may assist in procuring the attendance of others. The list of +subscribers is at present not large, and you are just the man to make +it grow. As it is Carlyle's first essay in this kind, it is important +that there should be a respectable number of hearers. Some name of +decided piety is, I believe, rather wanted. Learning, taste, and +nobility are represented by Hallam, Rogers, and Lord Lansdowne. H. +Taylor has provided a large proportion of family, wit, and beauty, and +I have assisted them to a little Apostlehood. We want your name to +represent the great body of Tories, Roman Catholics, High Churchmen, +metaphysicians, poets, and Savage Landor. Come!" + +Carlyle was busy with his _French Revolution_ and so did not make as +careful preparation as he might have made. Yet he was so full of his +subject that if he could overcome the difficulties of public +speaking, he was bound to be interesting. As the day approached both +he and his wife grew nervous. For diversion he drew up a humorous +ending: "Good Christians, it has become entirely impossible for me to +talk to you about German or any literature or terrestrial thing; one +request only I have to make, that you would be kind enough to cover me +under a tub for the next six weeks and to go your ways with all my +blessing." This fortunately he did not need to use. Mrs. Carlyle +worried lest he would be late, but by dint of close attention she felt +she could have him "at the place of execution" at the appointed hour. +How to get him to stop at "four precisely" was another problem. One +humorous suggestion was that a lighted cigar might be laid on the +table before him when the clock struck the hour. + +"May the First, 1837," says Professor MacMechan, "was a notable day. +In the afternoon, Carlyle lectured at Almack's, and in the evening +Macready produced young Mr. Browning's _Strafford_, for the first +time, at Covent Garden. Hallam, of the _Middle Ages_,--'a broad, old, +positive man, with laughing eyes,'--was chairman and brought the +lecturer face to face with his first audience, the two hundred holders +of guinea tickets. It was made up of the elements referred to in +Spedding's letter. Learning, taste, nobility, family, wit, and beauty +were all represented in that assembly; 'composed of mere quality and +notabilities,' says Carlyle. It is easy to figure the scene; the men +all clean-shaven, in the clumsy coats, high collars, and enormous +neck-cloths of the period, the ladies, and there were naturally more +ladies than men, following the vagaries of fashion in 'bishop' sleeves +and the 'pretty church-and-state bonnets,' that seemed to Hunt at +times, 'to think through all their ribbons.' We call that kind of +bonnet 'coal-scuttle' now, but Maclise's portrait of Lady Morgan +trying hers on before a glass justifies Hunt's epithet. The lecturer +was the lean, wiry type of Scot, within an inch of six feet. In face, +he was not the bearded, broken-down Carlyle of the Fry photograph, but +the younger Carlyle of the Emerson portrait. Clean-shaven, as was then +the fashion, the determination of the lower jaw lying bare, the thick +black hair brushed carelessly and coming down on the bony, jutting +forehead, violet-blue eyes, deep-set, and alert, the whole face shows +the Scot and the peasant in every line. It was a striking face, the +union of black hair, blue eyes, and, usually, ruddy color on the high +cheek bones, 'as if painted ... at the plow's tail,' Lady Eastlake +remarked, and she was an artist. Harriet Martineau remarks that he was +as 'yellow as a guinea,' but this would be due to some temporary +gastric disturbance. He was very nervous, as was most natural, and +stood with downcast eyes, his fingers picking at the desk before him. + +At the beginning his speech was broken, and his throat was dry, drink +as he would; but his desperate determination not to break down carried +him through. The society people were 'very humane' to him, and the +lecturer had a message for them; his matter was new, his manner was +interesting; he knew his subject. The rugged Scottish accent came like +a welcome draught of caller air from the moorlands of Galloway, to +the dwellers in London drawing-rooms, and 'they were not a little +astonished when the wild Annandale voice grew high and earnest.'" + +From this first venture which was so successful--he cleared one +hundred and thirty-five guineas after all the expenses had been +paid--Carlyle was induced to give other series in the next few years. +One of the most popular books by Carlyle is _Heroes and Hero Worship_; +this first was given in a course of lectures. When "The Hero as Man of +Letters" was given, Caroline Fox, an ardent admirer of the Scot, was +in attendance. She has left a vivid description of the man: "Carlyle +soon appeared, and looked as if he felt a well-dressed London audience +scarcely the arena for him to figure in as a popular lecturer. He is a +tall, robust-looking man; rugged simplicity and indomitable strength +are in his face, and such a glow of genius in it--not always +smoldering there, but flashing from his beautiful gray eyes, from the +remoteness of their deep setting under that massive brow. His manner +is very quiet, but he speaks as one tremendously convinced of what he +utters, and who had much, very much, in him that was quite +unutterable, quite unfit to be uttered to the uninitiated ear; and +when the Englishman's sense of beauty or truth exhibited itself in +vociferous cheers, he would impatiently, almost contemptuously, wave +his hand, as if that were not the kind of homage which truth demanded. +He began in a rather low and nervous voice, with a broad Scotch +accent, but it soon grew firm, and shrank not abashed from its great +task." + + + + +XXXVII + +CARLYLE ON WORDSWORTH AND BROWNING + + +On our first day's journey, wrote Mr. Duffy in the _Contemporary +Review_, the casual mention of Edmund Burke induced me to ask Carlyle +who was the best talker he had met among notable people in London. + +He said that when he met Wordsworth first he had been assured that he +talked better than any man in England. It was his habit to talk +whatever was in his mind at the time, with total indifference to the +impression it produced on his hearers. On this occasion he kept +discoursing how far you could get carried out of London on this side +and on that for sixpence. One was disappointed,--perhaps,--but, after +all, this was the only healthy way of talking, to say what is actually +in your mind, and let sane creatures who listen to make what they can +of it. Whether they understood or not, Wordsworth maintained a stern +composure, and went his way, content that the world went quite another +road. When he knew him better, he found that no man gave you so +faithful and vivid a picture of any person or thing which he had seen +with his own eyes. + +I inquired if Wordsworth came up to this description he had heard of +him as the best talker in England. + +"Well," he replied, "it was true you could get more meaning out of +what Wordsworth had to say than from anybody else. Leigh Hunt would +emit more pretty, pleasant, ingenious flashes in an hour than +Wordsworth in a day. But in the end you would find, if well +considered, that you had been drinking perfumed water in one case, and +in the other you got the sense of a deep, earnest man, who had thought +silently and painfully on many things. There was one exception to your +satisfaction with the man. When he spoke of poetry he harangued about +meters, cadences, rhythms, and so forth, and one could not be at the +pains of listening to him. But on all other subjects he had more sense +in him of a sound and instructive sort than any other literary man in +England." + +I suggested that Wordsworth might naturally like to speak of the +instrumental part of his art, and consider what he had to say very +instructive, as by modifying the instrument, he had wrought a +revolution in English poetry. He taught it to speak in unsophisticated +language and of the humbler and more familiar interests of life. + +Carlyle said, "No, not so; all he had got to say in that way was like +a few driblets from the great ocean of German speculation on kindred +subjects by Goethe and others. Coleridge, who had been in Germany, +brought it over with him, and they translated Teutonic thought into a +poor, disjointed, whitey-brown sort of English, and that was nearly +all. But Wordsworth, after all, was the man of most practical mind of +any of the persons connected with literature whom he had encountered; +though his pastoral pipings were far from being of the importance his +admirers imagined. He was essentially a cold, hard, silent, practical +man, who, if he had not fallen into poetry, would have done effectual +work of some sort in the world. This was the impression one got of him +as he looked out of his stern blue eyes, superior to men and +circumstances." + +I said I had expected to hear of a man of softer mood, more +sympathetic and less taciturn. + +Carlyle said, "No, not at all; he was a man quite other than that; a +man of an immense head and great jaws like a crocodile's, cast in a +mold designed for prodigious work." + +"I begged him," continued Mr. Duffy, in writing of conversations with +Carlyle, "to tell me something of the author of a serial I had come +across lately, called _Bells and Pomegranates_, printed in painfully +small type, on inferior paper, but in which I took great delight. +There were ballads to make the heart beat fast, and one little +tragedy, _The Blot in the 'Scutcheon_, which, though not over-disposed +to what he called sentimentality, I could not read without tears. The +heroine's excuse for the sin which left a blot in a 'scutcheon +stainless for a thousand years, was, in the circumstances of the case, +as touching a line as I could recall in English poetry: + + I had no mother, and we were so young." + +He said Robert Browning had a powerful intellect, and among the men +engaged in literature in England just now was one of the few from whom +it was possible to expect something. He was somewhat uncertain about +his career, and he himself (Carlyle) had perhaps contributed to the +trouble by assuring him that poetry was no longer a field where any +true or worthy success could be won or deserved. If a man had anything +to say entitled to the attention of rational creatures, all mortals +would come to recognize after a little that there was a more effectual +way of saying it than in metrical numbers. Poetry used to be regarded +as the natural, and even the essential language of feeling, but it was +not at all so; there was not a sentiment in the gamut of human passion +which could not be adequately expressed in prose. + +Browning's earliest works had been loudly applauded by undiscerning +people, but he was now heartily ashamed of them, and hoped in the end +to do something altogether different from _Sordello_ and _Paracelsus_. +He had strong ambition and great confidence in himself, and was +considering his future course just now. When he first met young +Browning, he was a youth living with his parents, people of +respectable position among the Dissenters, but not wealthy neither, +and the little room in which he kept his books was in that sort of +trim that showed that he was the apple of their eyes. He was about six +and thirty at present, and a little time before had married Miss +Barrett. She had long been confined to a sofa by a spinal disease, and +seemed destined to end there very speedily, but the ending was to be +quite otherwise, as it proved. Browning made his way to her in a +strange manner, and they fell mutually in love. She rose up from her +sick-bed with recovered strength and agility, and was now, it was +understood, tolerably well. They married and were living together in +Italy, like the hero and heroine of a mediaeval romance. + + + + +XXXVIII + +THE AUTHOR OF "JANE EYRE" + + +Charlotte Bronte was born in Yorkshire in 1816. A generation ago +everybody was reading and talking about _Jane Eyre_, her most popular +novel. The life of the author was not a happy one. She was compelled +to teach for a living, and her position as governess was at times +humiliating to her proud spirit. Her two sisters, whom she tenderly +loved, died young; her brother was no credit to the family, and the +life surrounding the parsonage--she was the daughter of a +clergyman--was not particularly cheery, yet her many trials but +enriched a rare and beautiful character. + +While living at the parsonage she would occasionally receive a box of +books from her publisher. The following letter is self-explanatory: + +"Do not ask me to mention what books I should like to read. Half the +pleasure of receiving a parcel from Cornhill consists in having its +contents chosen for us. We like to discover, too, by the leaves cut +here and there that the ground has been traveled before us. I took up +Leigh Hunt's book, _The Town_, with the impression that it would be +interesting only to Londoners, and I was surprised, ere I had read +many pages, to find myself enchained by his pleasant, graceful, easy +style, varied knowledge, just views, and kindly spirit. There is +something peculiarly anti-melancholic in Leigh Hunt's writings, and +yet they are never boisterous--they resemble sunshine, being at once +bright and tranquil. + +I like Carlyle better and better. His style I do _not_ like, nor do I +always concur in his opinions, nor quite fall in with his +hero-worship; but there is a manly love of truth, an honest +recognition and fearless vindication of intrinsic greatness, of +intellectual and moral worth considered apart from birth, rank, or +wealth, which commands my sincere admiration. Carlyle would never do +for a contributor to the _Quarterly_. I have not read his _French +Revolution_. Carlyle is a great man, but I always wish he would write +plain English. Emerson's _Essays_ I read with much interest and often +with admiration, but they are of mixed gold and clay,--deep, +invigorating truth, dreary and depressing fallacy, seem to me combined +therein. + +Scott's _Suggestions on Female Education_ I read with unalloyed +pleasure; it is justly, clearly, and felicitously expressed. The girls +of this generation have great advantages--it seems to me that they +receive much encouragement in the acquisition of knowledge and the +cultivation of their minds. In these days women may be thoughtful and +well read, without being stigmatized as "blues" or pedants. + +I have lately been reading _Modern Painters_, and have derived from +the work much genuine pleasure, and I hope, some edification; at any +rate it has made me feel how ignorant I had previously been on the +subjects which it treats. Hitherto I have only had instinct to guide +me in judging of art; I feel now as if I had been walking +blindfold--this book seems to give me eyes. I _do_ wish I had pictures +within reach by which to test the new sense. Who can read these +glowing descriptions of Turner's works without longing to see them! +However eloquent and convincing the language in which another's +opinion is placed before you, you still wish to judge for yourself. I +like this author's style much; there is both energy and beauty in it. +I like himself too, because he is such a hearty admirer. He does not +give half measure of praise or veneration. He eulogizes, he reverences +with his whole soul. One can sympathize with that sort of devout, +serious admiration (for he is no rhapsodist), one can respect it. Yet, +possibly, many people would laugh at it. I am truly obliged to Mr. +Smith for giving me this book, not often having met with one that has +pleased me more. + +I congratulate you on the approaching publication of Mr. Ruskin's new +work. If the _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ resemble their predecessor, +_Modern Painters_, they will be no lamps at all, but a new +constellation--seven bright stars, for whose rising the reading world +ought to be anxiously agaze. + +I am beginning to read Eckermann's _Goethe_--it promised to be a most +interesting work. Honest, simple, single-minded Eckermann! Great, +powerful, giant-souled, but also profoundly egotistical old Johann +Wolfgang von Goethe! He _was_ a mighty egotist. He thought no more of +swallowing up poor Eckermann's existence in his own, than the whale +thought of swallowing Jonah. + +The worst of reading graphic accounts of such men, of seeing graphic +pictures of the scenes, the society in which they moved, is that it +excites a too tormenting longing to look on the reality; but does such +reality now exist? Amidst all the troubled waters of European society, +does such a vast, strong, selfish old leviathan now roll ponderous? I +suppose not. + + * * * * * + +I often wish to say something on the "condition-of-women" question, +but it is one on which so much cant has been talked, that one feels a +sort of reluctance to approach it. I have always been accustomed to +think that the necessity of earning one's living is not, in itself, an +evil; though I feel it may become a heavy evil if health fails, if +employment lacks, if the demand upon our efforts, made by the weakness +of others dependent upon us becomes greater than our strength. Both +sons and daughters should early be inured to habits of independence +and industry. + +A governess' lot is frequently, indeed, bitter, but its results are +precious. The mind, feelings, and temper are subjected to a discipline +equally painful and priceless. I have known many who were unhappy as +governesses, but scarcely one who, having undergone the ordeal, was +not ultimately strengthened and improved--made more enduring for her +own afflictions, more considerate for the afflictions of others. The +great curse of a single female life is its dependency; daughters, as +well as sons, should aim at making their way through life. Teachers +may be hard-worked, ill-paid, and despised; but the girl who stays at +home _doing nothing_ is worse off than the worse-paid drudge of a +school; the listlessness of idleness will infallibly degrade her +nature. + +Lonely as I am, how should I be if Providence had never given me +courage to adopt a career, perseverance to plead through two long +weary years with publishers till they admitted me? How should I be, +with youth passed, sisters lost, a resident in a moorland parish where +there is not a single resident family? In that case I should have no +world at all. The raven weary of surveying the deluge, and with no ark +to return to, would be my type. + +As it is, something like a hope and motive sustain me still. I wish +every woman in England had also a hope and a motive. Alas! I fear +there are many old maids who have neither. + + --Adapted from _Littell's Living Age_. + + + + +XXXIX + +THACKERAY IN AMERICA + + +Thackeray, like many other Englishmen of note, came to America to +lecture in order to make money. He had delivered lectures in London +and in other towns in England on the _English Humorists_. Why not use +his popularity in America as a means of acquiring a little fortune for +the sake of his wife and two girls. "I must and will go," he wrote to +his eldest daughter, "not because I like it, but because it is right I +should secure some money against my death for your mother and you two +girls. And I think, if I have luck, I may secure nearly a third of the +sum that I think I ought to leave behind me by a six months' tour in +the States." + +Let us, in order to get a first-hand impression, read from letters +that he wrote from America: + +"The passage is nothing, now it is over; I am rather ashamed of gloom +and disquietude about such a trifling journey. I have made scores of +new acquaintances and lighted on my feet as usual. I didn't expect to +like people as I do, but am agreeably disappointed and find many most +pleasant companions, natural and good; natural and well read and well +bred too, and I suppose am none the worse pleased because everybody +has read all my books and praises my lectures (I preach in a +Unitarian Church, and the parson comes to hear me. His name is Mr. +Bellows, it isn't a pretty name), and there are 2,000 people nearly +who come, and the lectures are so well liked that it is probable I +shall do them over again. So really there is a chance of making a +pretty little sum of money for old age, imbecility, and those young +ladies afterwards.... Broadway is miles upon miles long, a rush of +life such as I have never seen; not so full as the Strand, but so +rapid. The houses are always being torn down and built up again, the +railroad cars drive slap into the midst of the city. There are +barricades and scaffoldings banging everywhere. I have not been into a +house, except the fat country one, but something new is being done to +it, and the hammerings are clattering in the passage, or a wall or +steps are down, or the family is going to move. Nobody is quiet here, +nor am I. The rush and restlessness please me, and I like, for a +little, the dash of the stream. I am not received as a god, which I +like too. There is one paper which goes on every morning saying I am a +snob, and I don't say no. Six people were reading it at breakfast this +morning, and the man opposite me this morning popped it under the +table-cloth. But the other papers roar with approbation." + +In this letter, of which we have read a fragment, Mr. Thackeray +inclosed a clipping from the New York _Evening Post_. This is what the +newspaper had to say: "The building was crowded.... Every one who saw +Mr. Thackeray last evening for the first time seemed to have had +their impressions of his appearance and manner of speech corrected. +Few expected to see so large a man; he is gigantic; six feet four at +least; few expected to see so old a person; his hair appears to have +kept silvery record over fifty years; and then there was a notion in +the minds of many that there must be something dashing and 'fast' in +his appearance, whereas his costume was perfectly plain; the +expression of his face grave and earnest; his address perfectly +unaffected, and such as we might expect to meet with, in a well-bred +man somewhat advanced in years. His elocution also surprised those who +had derived their impressions from the English journals. His voice is +a superb tenor, and possesses that pathetic tremble which is so +effective in what is called emotive eloquence, while his delivery was +as well suited to the communication he had to make as could well have +been imagined. + +"His enunciation is perfect. Every word he uttered might have been +heard in the remotest quarters of the room, yet he scarcely lifted his +voice above a colloquial tone. The most striking feature in his whole +manner was the utter absence of affectation of any kind. He did not +permit himself to appear conscious that he was an object of peculiar +interest in the audience, neither was he guilty of the greater error +of not appearing to care whether they were interested in him or not. +In other words, he inspired his audience with a respect for him, as a +man proportioned to the admiration, which his books have inspired for +him as an author." + +From Philadelphia Thackeray writes: "Oh, I am tired of shaking hands +with people, and acting the lion business night after night. +Everybody is introduced and shakes hands. I know thousands of +colonels, professors, editors, and what not, and walk the streets +guiltily, knowing that I don't know 'em, and trembling lest the man +opposite to me is one of my friends of the day before. I believe I am +popular, except at Boston among the newspaper men who fired into me, +but a great favorite with the _monde_ there and elsewhere. Here in +Philadelphia it is all praise and kindness. Do you know there are +500,000 people in Philadelphia? I daresay you had no idea thereof, and +smile at the idea of there being a _monde_ here and at Boston and New +York.... I am writing this with a new gold pen, in such a fine gold +case. An old gentleman gave it to me yesterday, a white-headed old +philosopher and political economist, there's something simple in the +way these kind folks regard a man; they read our books as if we were +Fielding, and so forth. The other night men were talking of Dickens +and Bulwer as if they were equal to Shakespeare, and I was pleased to +find myself pleased at hearing them praised. The prettiest girl in +Philadelphia, poor soul, has read _Vanity Fair_ twelve times. I paid +her a great big compliment yesterday, about her good looks of course, +and she turned round delighted to her friend and said, '_Ai most +tallut_,' that is something like the pronunciation." + +In another letter: "Now I have seen three great cities, Boston, New +York, Philadelphia, I think I like them all mighty well. They seem to +me not so civilized as our London, but more so than Manchester and +Liverpool. At Boston is very good literate company indeed; it is like +Edinburgh for that,--a vast amount of toryism and donnishness +everywhere. That of New York the simplest and least pretentious; it +suffices that a man should keep fine house, give parties, and have a +daughter, to get all the world to him." + + + + +XL + +GEORGE ELIOT BECOMES A WRITER OF FICTION + + +As one is ready to call Elizabeth Barrett the greatest poetess of the +nineteenth century, so there is little hesitation in pronouncing +George Eliot the foremost of the many women who have written fiction. +The literary critics sometimes dispute her supremacy by urging the +claims of Jane Austen, who is said to have Shaksperean power in the +delineation of character. But the name of Jane Austen is unknown to +the general public. For every reader of _Pride and Prejudice_ there +are a score of readers of _Adam Bede_. + +George Eliot is the pseudonym of Mary Ann Evans. She took the name of +_George_ because it was the first name of Mr. Lewes, and Eliot "was a +good, mouth-filling, easily pronounced word." + +George Eliot was almost thirty-seven years old before she began to +write fiction; in this respect reminding us of Scott, who had first +achieved fame as a poet before he began in his maturity to write +fiction. We are happy in having from the pen of George Eliot herself +the account of how she began to write fiction: + +"September, 1856, made a new era in my life, for it was then I began +to write fiction. It had always been a vague dream of mine that some +time or other I might write a novel; and my shadowy conception of what +the novel was to be, varied, of course, from one epoch of my life to +another. But I never went further toward the actual writing of the +novel than an introductory chapter describing a Staffordshire village +and the life of the neighboring farm-houses; and as the years passed +on I lost any hope that I should ever be able to write a novel." + +Mr. Lewes encouraged George Eliot by admiring her introductory +chapter. He first read it when they were together in Germany. When +they had returned to England and she was more successful in her essay +writing than he had expected, he continued to urge her to try to write +a story. "He began to say very positively, 'You must try and write a +story,' and when we were at Tenby he urged me to begin at once. I +deferred it, however, after my usual fashion with work that does not +present itself as an absolute duty. But one morning, as I was thinking +what should be the subject of my first story, my thoughts merged +themselves into a dreamy doze, and I imagined myself writing a story, +of which the title was _The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton_. +I was soon wide awake again and told G. (Mr. Lewes). He said 'Oh, what +a capital title!' and from that time I had settled in my mind that +this should be my first story. George used to say, 'It may be a +failure--it may be that you are unable to write fiction. Or, perhaps, +it may be just good enough to warrant your trying again.' Again, 'You +may write a _chef-d'oeuvre_ at once--there's no telling.' But his +prevalent impression was, that though I could hardly write a _poor_ +novel, my effort would want the highest quality of fiction--dramatic +presentation. He used to say, 'You have wit, description, and +philosophy--those go a good way towards the production of a novel. It +is worth while for you to try the experiment.'" + +When she had finished the first part of _Amos Barton_, Mr. Lewes was +no longer skeptical about her ability to write dialogue. The next +question was whether she had the power of pathos. This was to be +determined by the way in which the death of Milly was to be treated. +"One night G. went to town on purpose to leave me a quiet evening for +writing it. I wrote the chapter from the news brought by the shepherd +to Mrs. Hackit, to the moment when Amos is dragged from the bedside, +and I read it to G. when he came home. We both cried over it, and then +he came up to me and kissed me, saying, 'I think your pathos is better +than your fun.'" + +The first part of _Amos Barton_ appeared in the January number of +_Blackwood_. The publisher paid the author fifty guineas. Afterwards, +when the series of stories dealing with clerical life was published in +book form, she was paid L120; later, when the publishing firm decided +to issue a thousand copies instead of seven hundred and fifty, L60 was +added to the original sum. George Eliot expressed herself as sensitive +to the merits of checks for fifty guineas, but the success of her +later writings was so pronounced that a check for fifty guineas would +have made little impression, except a feeling of disdain. + +_Amos Barton_ was followed by _Mr. Gilfil's Love Story_, and _Janet's +Repentance_. The three comprise _Scenes from Clerical Life_. The +stories are based upon events which happened in the early life of the +writer when she lived in Warwickshire. The village of Milby is really +Nuneaton. When the villagers and country people read the _Scenes from +Clerical Life_ there was great excitement. Who could this _George +Eliot_ be? Some one who had lived among them and heard all the gossip +of the neighborhood. But they could not recall any man with enough +literary ability to do what had been done. Finally they did remember +that a man, Liggins by name, had written poetry. The poetry was rather +weak stuff, but perhaps his strength lay in fiction. Liggins was +flattered by the suspicions of his neighbors. His own doubt was +gradually changed to belief. Yes, he was the author of this new +fiction, because every one said he was. The voice of the people is the +voice of God. He was invited to write for a theological magazine. +Finally George Eliot was obliged to reveal her identity when the +public was about to subscribe a sum of money for the pseudo-literary +Liggins who was so fastidious as to refuse money for the product of +his genius. Here ends the career of Liggins, the liar. + +One reason the villagers had for believing one of their own number was +the author was based on the conversations in the _Scenes from Clerical +Life_. Not only were they true to life, but they were conversations +that had actually taken place. How did George Eliot hear them? Had she +loitered in the public room of the village tavern? Mr. C.S. Olcott +writes in the _Outlook_,--"The real conversations which were so +cleverly reported were actually heard by Robert Evans, the father of +George Eliot, who doubtless often visited the Bull in company with his +neighbors. He repeated them to his wife, not realizing that the little +daughter who listened so attentively was gifted with a marvelous +memory, or that she possessed a genius that could transform a simple +tale into a novel of dramatic power. Mary Ann Evans had moved to +Coventry sixteen years before, and was therefore scarcely known in +Nuneaton at the time the stories appeared. She then had no literary +fame, and was no more likely to be thought of in this connection than +any one of a hundred other school-girls." + +In her journal she records on October 22, 1857,--"Began my new novel, +_Adam Bede_." For it her publishers offered her L800 for the copyright +for four years; later they added L400, and still later Blackwoods, +finding a ready sale for their numerous editions, proposed to pay L800 +above the original price. And for the appearance of _Romola_ in the +_Cornhill Magazine_, Mr. George Smith offered L10,000, but L7000 was +accepted. For _Middlemarch_, which appeared in separate publication, +that is, independent of a magazine, she received a still larger +amount. Middlemarch is considered by many critics her best work. It +was very popular from the first. In a letter to John Blackwood, +November, 1873, George Eliot writes,--"I had a letter from Mr. +Bancroft (the American ambassador at Berlin) the other day, in which +he says that everybody in Berlin reads _Middlemarch_. He had to buy +two copies for his house, and he found the rector of the university, a +stupendous mathematician, occupied with it in the solid part of the +day." + +The public may prefer _Adam Bede_ or _Middlemarch_ but it is reported +that George Eliot herself preferred _Silas Marner_. This is the report +of Justin McCarthy, who was a frequent visitor on Sunday afternoons at +the Priory, the home of George Eliot, where many distinguished +visitors, such as Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, and Huxley, loved to +gather. "There is a legend," writes Mr. McCarthy, "that George Eliot +never liked to talk about her novels. I can only say that she started +the subject with me one day. It was, to be sure, about a picture some +painter had sent her, representing a scene in _Silas Marner_, and she +called my attention to it, and said that of all her novels _Silas +Marner_ was her favorite. I ventured to disagree with her, and to say +that the _Mill on the Floss_ was my favorite. She entered into the +discussion quite genially, just as if she were talking of the works of +some stranger, which I think is the very perfection of the manner +authors ought to adopt in talking about their books." + + + + +XLI + +THE AUTHOR OF "ALICE IN WONDERLAND" + + +It is said that when Victoria, late queen of England, had read _Alice +in Wonderland_ she was so pleased that she asked for more of the +author's books. They brought her a treatise on logarithms by the Rev. +C.L. Dodgson. Lewis Carroll and the Rev. C.L. Dodgson were one and the +same person, although they were two dissimilar characters. The one was +a popular author of nonsense that delighted children by the hundreds +of thousands and the other was a scholarly mathematician. + +C.L. Dodgson came of good Northern-England stock. His father, +grandfather, and great-grandfather were clergymen--a contradiction, +says his biographer, Mr. Collingwood, of the scandalous theory that +three generations of parsons end in a fool. As a boy he kept all sorts +of odd and unlikely pets. From Rugby he entered Oxford. In 1856 he was +made college lecturer in mathematics, a position which he filled for a +quarter of a century. That he had thoughts of lighter material than +mathematics is evidenced by a short poem that appeared about this time +in a college paper called _College Rhymes_. Two of the stanzas run +like this: + + She has the bear's ethereal grace + The bland hyena's laugh, + The footsteps of the elephant, + The neck of the giraffe; + + I love her still, believe me, + Though my heart its passion hides, + She is all my fancy painted her, + But oh! how much besides. + +The year 1862 saw the beginning of the world-famous _Alice_. He told +the story to Dean Liddell's three daughters. "Alice," the second of +the three (now Mrs. Reginald Hargreaves) thus tells the story: + +"I believe the beginning of _Alice_ was told one summer afternoon when +the sun was so burning that we had landed in the meadows down the +river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to +be found, and which was under a new-made hay-rick. Here from all three +came the old petition of 'Tell us a story,' and so began the ever +delightful tale. Sometimes to tease us--and perhaps being really +tired--Mr. Dodgson would stop suddenly and say, 'And that's all till +next time.' 'Oh! but it is next time,' would be the exclamation from +all three; and after some persuasion the story would start afresh. +Another day perhaps the story would begin in the boat, and Mr. +Dodgson, in the midst of telling a thrilling adventure, would pretend +to fall fast asleep, to our great dismay." ... + +"Many of Lewis Carroll's friendships with children began in a railway +carriage. Once when he was traveling, a lady, whose little daughter +had been reading _Alice_, startled him by exclaiming: 'Isn't it sad +about poor Mr. Lewis Carroll? He's gone mad, you know.... I have it +on the best authority.'" + +Lewis Carroll, or rather Mr. Dodgson, did not wish his acquaintances +to speak of him as the author of _Alice_. In his every-day work he +wanted to be known as the serious mathematician. He was conservative +in his ideas and did not look with favor upon the movement to +overthrow Euclid. In 1870 he published a book entitled _Euclid and his +Modern Rivals_. The London _Spectator_ speaks of this as probably the +most humorous contribution ever devoted to the subject of mathematics. +In an academical discussion held at Oxford he once published three +rules to be followed in debate. This is one of the three: "Let it be +granted that any one may speak at any length on a subject at any +distance from that subject." + + + + +XLII + +ABOUT DARWIN + + +When a prominent literary journal at the close of the last century +asked a number of distinguished Americans and Englishmen to name the +ten most influential books of the century, it was interesting to note +that Darwin's _Origin of Species_ received more frequent mention than +any other book. Five years after Charles Darwin had been buried (he +was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey in 1882), his son published the +_Life and Letters of Darwin_, which included an autobiographical +chapter. From this work we can gather enough to show some aspects of +this remarkable man. + +Men of genius are often in childhood very imaginative. It is sometimes +pretty difficult to distinguish between playful imagination and lying. +Let us give Darwin the benefit of the doubt in this instance: + +"One little event during this year (1817) has fixed itself very firmly +in my mind, and I hope that it has done so from my conscience having +been afterwards sorely troubled by it; it is curious as showing that +apparently I was interested at this early age in the variability of +plants! I told another little boy (I believe it was Leighton, who +afterwards became a well-known lichenologist and botanist), that I +could produce variously colored polyanthuses and primroses by watering +them with certain colored fluids, which was of course a monstrous +fable, and had never been tried by me." + +Darwin's school experiences were not always profitable. He says: + +"I had many friends, and got together a good collection of old verses, +which by patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could +work into any subject. Much attention was paid to learning by heart +the lessons of the previous day. This I could effect with great +facility, learning forty or fifty lines of Virgil or Homer whilst I +was in morning chapel. But this exercise was utterly useless, for +every verse was forgotten in forty-eight hours. I was not idle, and +with the exception of versification, generally worked conscientiously +at my classics, not using cribs. The sole pleasure I ever received +from such studies, was from some of the odes of Horace, which I +admired greatly." + +Of his years at Cambridge he writes: + +"During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, +as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at +Edinburgh and at school. I attempted mathematics, and even went, +during the summer of 1828, with a private tutor (a very dull man) to +Barmouth, but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to me +chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the very early +steps in algebra. This impatience was very foolish, and in after years +I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to +understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics, +for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense.... In order to pass +the B.A. examination, it was also necessary to get up Paley's +_Evidences of Christianity_, and his _Moral Philosophy_. This was done +in a thorough manner, and I am convinced that I could have written out +the whole of the _Evidences_ with perfect correctness, but not of +course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book and, as +I may add, of his _Natural Theology_, gave me as much delight as did +Euclid. The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn +any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course which, as +I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the +education of my mind. I did not at that time trouble myself about +Paley's premises, and taking these on trust I was charmed and +convinced by the long line of argumentation." + +One of the great opportunities of Darwin's life came to him when, some +time after he had finished his course at Cambridge, he was offered a +place as naturalist on the _Beagle_, a ship sent by the English +government on a survey. At first Darwin thought he could not go +because his father was opposed to the plan. Finally the father said he +would consent if any man of common sense should advise his son to go. +This common sense man "was found in the person of his uncle, a Josiah +Wedgwood, who advised the father to permit his son to go. The voyage +has been described by Darwin, and thousands have been interested and +profited by the reading. Some of the letters that he wrote to his +friends during his trip are also very interesting. Here is one he +sent to his cousin, Fox: + +"My mind has been, since leaving England, in a perfect _hurricane_ of +delight and astonishment, and to this hour scarcely a minute has +passed in idleness.... Geology carries the day; it is like the +pleasure of gambling. Speculating, on first arrival, what the rocks +may be, I often mentally cry out, three to one tertiary against +primitive; but the latter has hitherto won all the bets.... My life, +when at sea, is so quiet, that to a person who can employ himself, +nothing can be pleasanter; the beauty of the sky and brilliancy of the +ocean together make a picture. But when on shore, and wandering in the +sublime forests, surrounded by views more gorgeous than Claude ever +imagined, I enjoy a delight which none but those who have experienced +it can understand. If it is to be done, it must be by studying +Humboldt. At our ancient snug breakfasts, at Cambridge, I little +thought that the wide Atlantic would ever separate us; but it is a +rare privilege that with the body, the feelings and memory are not +divided. On the contrary, the pleasantest scenes of my life, many of +which have been at Cambridge, rise from the contrast of the present +the more vividly in my imagination." + +From Valparaiso, after he had been two years on the voyage, he writes +to a friend: + +"That this voyage must come to a conclusion my reason tells me, +otherwise I see no end to it. It is impossible not bitterly to regret +the friends and other sources of pleasure one leaves behind in +England; in place of it there is much solid enjoyment, some present, +but more in anticipation, when the ideas gained during the voyage can +be compared with fresh ones. I find in Geology a never-failing +interest, as it has been remarked, it creates the same grand ideas +respecting the world which astronomy does for the universe. We have +seen much fine scenery; that of the tropics in its glory and +luxuriance exceeds even the language of Humboldt to describe. A +Persian writer could alone do justice to it, and if he succeeded he +would in England be called the 'Grandfather of all liars.'" + +No one can read the life of Darwin without feeling great respect for +his perseverance. His faithful devotion to his work can teach us all a +useful lesson. Says his son: + +"No one except my mother, knows the full amount of suffering he +endured, or the full amount of his wonderful patience. For all the +latter years of his life she never left him for a night, and her days +were so planned that all his resting hours might be shared with her. +She shielded him from every possible annoyance, and omitted nothing +that might save him trouble, or prevent his becoming overtired, or +that might alleviate the many discomforts of his ill-health. I +hesitate to speak thus freely of a thing so sacred as the life-long +devotion which prompted this constant and tender care. But it is, I +repeat, a principal feature of his life, that for nearly forty years +he never knew one day of the health of ordinary men, and that thus his +life was one long struggle against the weariness and strain of +sickness. And this cannot be told without speaking of the one +condition which enabled him to bear the strain and fight out the +struggle to the end." + +That Darwin himself appreciated the goodness of his wife can be seen +from the following tribute which has appeared in _More Letters of +Charles Darwin_. It does not appear in the _Autobiography_ because +Mrs. Darwin was living at the time of its publication. Where in all +literature can a more tender and beautiful appreciation be found?-- + +"You all know your mother, and what a good mother she has been to all +of you. She has been my greatest blessing, and I can declare that in +my whole life I have never heard her utter one word I would rather +have been unsaid. She has never failed in kindest sympathy towards me, +and has borne with the utmost patience my frequent complaints of +ill-health and discomfort. I do not believe she has ever missed an +opportunity of doing a kind action to any one near her. I marvel at my +good fortune that she, so infinitely my superior in every single moral +quality, consented to be my wife. She has been my wise adviser and +cheerful comforter throughout life, which without her would have been +during a very long period a miserable one from ill-health. She has +earned the love of every soul near her." + + + + +XLIII + +ANECDOTES OF HUXLEY + + +Huxley was more than one of the greatest scientists of the last +century; he was a man of literary ability. By his popular lectures and +clear expositions he probably did more than any other man of the +century to popularize the many and important discoveries of the +scientific world. At first there was much opposition to him, owing to +a lack of information on the part of the public as to the import of +the doctrine of evolution. Ex-President Gilman of Johns Hopkins +University tells what a storm of protest was raised in America when +Huxley was invited to deliver the opening address at the founding of +the new university. Huxley is not even now regarded as an orthodox +man, but much of the former prejudice has given way. + +John Fiske, who in so many ways can be regarded as the American +Huxley, has published a magazine article giving his impressions of +Huxley. In this article he gives two versions of a famous Huxley +anecdote. Here is one: + +"It was at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford in 1860, +soon after the publication of Darwin's epoch-making book, and while +people in general were wagging their heads at it, that the subject +came up before a hostile and fashionable audience. Samuel Wilberforce, +the plausible and self-complacent Bishop of Oxford, commonly known as +'Soapy Sam,' launched out in a rash speech, conspicuous for its +ignorant mis-statements, and highly seasoned with appeals to the +prejudices of the audience, upon whose lack of intelligence the +speaker relied. Near him sat Huxley, already known as a man of +science, and known to look favorably upon Darwinism, but more or less +youthful withal, only five-and-thirty, so that the bishop anticipated +sport in badgering him. At the close of his speech he suddenly turned +upon Huxley and begged to be informed if the learned gentleman was +really willing to be regarded as the descendant of a monkey. Eager +self-confidence had blinded the bishop to the tactical blunder in thus +inviting a retort. Huxley was instantly upon his feet with a speech +demolishing the bishop's card house of mistakes; and at the close he +observed that since a question of personal preferences had been very +improperly brought into a discussion of a scientific theory, he felt +free to confess that if the alternatives were descent, on the one hand +from a respectable monkey, or on the other from a bishop of the +English church who would stoop to such misrepresentations and sophisms +as the audience had lately listened to, he would declare in favor of +the monkey!... It is curious to read that in the ensuing buzz of +excitement a lady fainted, and had to be carried from the room; but +the audience were in general quite alive to the bishop's blunder in +manners and tactics, and, with the genuine English love of fair play, +they loudly applauded Huxley. From that time forth it was recognized +that he was not the sort of man to be browbeaten. As for Bishop +Wilberforce, he carried with him from the affray no bitterness, but +was always afterwards most courteous to his castigator." + +Huxley was a great reader of history, poetry, metaphysics, and +fiction, but this is not what made him a great scientist. Original men +make books, they do not need to read them. Yet Huxley loved to read. +He even in his old age studied Greek to read Aristotle and the New +Testament in the original. But Huxley loved things even more than +books. He had little respect for mere bookish knowledge. "A rash +clergyman once, without further equipment in natural science than +desultory reading, attacked the Darwinian theory in some sundry +magazine articles, in which he made himself uncommonly merry at +Huxley's expense. This was intended to draw the great man's fire, and +as the batteries remained silent the author proceeded to write to +Huxley, calling his attention to the articles, and at the same time, +with mock modesty, asking advice as to the further study of these deep +questions. Huxley's answer was brief and to the point: 'Take a +cockroach and dissect it.'" + +Huxley was fond of children and their ways. His son, Leonard, tells us +that Julian, the grandchild of Huxley was a child made up of a +combination of cherub and pickle. Huxley had been in his garden +watering with a hose. The little four-year-old was with him. Huxley +came in and said: "I like that chap! I like the way he looks you +straight in the face and disobeys you. I told him not to go on the +wet grass again. He just looked up boldly straight at me, as much as +to say, 'What do _you_ mean by ordering me about?' and deliberately +walked on to the grass." In the spring the approval was not so +decided. "I like that chap; he looks you straight in the face. But +there's a falling off in one respect since last August--he now does +what he is told." + +When Julian, the grandchild, was learning to read and write, he became +interested in _Water-Babies_, a story that has delighted so many +children. In it he found a reference to his grandfather as one who +knew much about water-babies. So he wrote to his grandfather: + + Dear Grandpater, have you seen a water baby? Did you put it in + a bottle? Did it wonder if it could get out? Can I see it some + day? + Your loving + JULIAN. + +This is the answer to the letter: + + March 24, 1892. + MY DEAR JULIAN: + + I never could make out about that water-baby. I have seen + babies in water and babies in bottles; but the baby in the + water was not in the bottle and the baby in the bottle was not + in the water. + Ever your loving + GRANDPATER. + +Huxley was also fond of cats and dogs and pets of all kind. His son +tells us that once he found his father in an uncomfortable seat, while +the cat had the best chair. He defended himself by saying that he +could not turn the beast away. In 1893 a man, who was writing on the +_Pets of Celebrities_, wrote to him for information concerning his +personal likings. Huxley sent him this letter: + + A long series of cats has reigned over my household for the + last forty years or thereabouts; but I am sorry to say that I + have no pictorial or other record of their physical and moral + excellencies. + + The present occupant of the throne is a large young gray + tabby, Oliver by name. Not that in any sense he is a + protector, for I doubt whether he has the heart to kill a + mouse. However, I saw him catch and eat the first butterfly of + the season, and trust that the germ of courage thus manifest + may develop, with age, into efficient mousing. + + As to sagacity, I should say that his judgment respecting the + warmest place and the softest cushion in the room is + infallible, his punctuality at meal-time is admirable, and his + pertinacity in jumping on people's shoulders till they give + him some of the best of what is going indicates great + firmness. + + + + +XLIV + +STEVENSON AT VAILIMA + + +Robert Louis Stevenson, the writer of _Treasure Island_ and many other +exciting romances, was an exile from home during the last few years of +his life. The state of his health demanded a sunny clime and so he was +forced to live in Samoa, a group of islands in the South Pacific. +About three miles behind Apia, on a slight plateau seven hundred feet +above the level of the sea, he cleared the forest and made a house. "I +have chosen the land to be my land, the people to be my people, to +live and die with," said Stevenson in his speech to the Samoan chiefs. +Mr. Lloyd Osbourne, his step-son, thus describes their abode: + +"Unbroken forest covered Vailima when first we saw it; not the forest +of the temperate zone with its varied glades and open spaces, but the +thick tangle of the tropics, dense, dark, and cold in even the hottest +day, where one must walk cutlass in hand to slash the lianas and the +red-edged stinging leaves of a certain tree that continually bar one's +path. The murmur of streams and cascades fell sometimes upon our ears +as we wandered in the deep shade, and mingled with the cooing of wild +doves and the mysterious, haunting sound of a native woodpecker at +work. Our Chinaman, who was with us on our first survey, busied +himself with taking samples of the soil, and grew almost incoherent +with the richness of what he called the 'dirty.' We, for our part, +were no less enchanted with what we saw, and could realize, as we +forced our way through the thickets and skirted the deep ravines, what +a noble labor lay before our axes, what exquisite views and glorious +gardens could be carved out of the broken mountain side and the sullen +forest." + +As Stevenson was afraid that villas might be made to intervene between +him and the sea, he bought much land that his view might be forever +unobstructed. He entered into the work of clearing the forest with +vigorous delight. For months he lived in pioneer confusion. Gangs of +native workmen worked from morning to night. + +"The new house was built," says Mr. Osbourne; "I arrived from England +with the furniture, the library, and other effects of our old home; +the phase of hard work and short commons passed gradually away, and a +form of hollow comfort dawned upon us. I say hollow comfort, for +though we began to accumulate cows, horses, and the general apparatus +of civilized life, the question of service became a vexing one. An +expensive German cooked our meals and quarreled with the white +house-maid; the white overseer said 'that manual labor was the one +thing that never agreed with him,' and that it was an unwholesome +thing for a man to be awakened in the early morning, 'for one ought to +wake up natural-like,' he explained. The white carter 'couldn't bear +with niggers,' and though he did his work well and faithfully, he +helped to demoralize the place and loosen discipline. Everything was +at sixes and sevens, when, on the occasion of Mrs. Stevenson's going +to Fiji for a few months' rest, my sister and I took charge of +affairs. The expensive German was bidden to depart; Mr. Stevenson +discharged the carter; the white overseer (who was tied to us by +contract) was bought off in cold coin, to sleep out his 'natural +sleep' under a kindlier star and to engage himself (presumably) in +intellectual labors elsewhere. There are two sides to 'white +slavery'--that cherished expression of the labor agitator--and with +the departure of our tyrants we began again to raise our diminished +heads. My sister and I threw ourselves into the kitchen, and took up +the labor of cooking with zeal and determination; the domestic +boundaries proved too narrow for our new-found energies, and we +overflowed into the province of entertainment, with decorated menus, +silver plate and finger-bowls! The aristocracy of Apia was pressed to +lunch with us, to commend our independence and to eat our biscuits. It +was a French Revolution in miniature; we danced the carmagnole in the +kitchen and were prepared to conquer the Samoan social world. One +morning, before the ardor and zest of it all had time to be dulled by +custom, I happened to discover a young and very handsome Samoan on our +back veranda. He was quite a dandified youngster, with a red flower +behind his ear and his hair limed in the latest fashion. I liked his +open, attractive face and his unembarrassed manner, and inquired what +propitious fate had brought him to sit upon our ice-chest and radiate +good nature on our back porch. It seemed that Simele, the overseer, +owed him two Chile dollars, and that he was here, bland, friendly, but +insistent, to collect the debt in person. That Simele would not be +back for hours in no way daunted him, and he seemed prepared to swing +his brown legs and show his white teeth for a whole eternity. + +"'Chief,' I said, a sudden thought striking me, 'you are he that I +have been looking for so long. You are going to stay in Vailima and be +our cook!' + +"'But I don't know how to cook,' he replied. + +"'That is no matter,' I said. 'Two months ago I was as you; to-day I +am a splendid cook. I will teach you my skill.' + +"'But I don't want to learn,' he said, and brought back the +conversation to Chile dollars. + +"'There is no good making excuses,' I said. 'This is a psychological +moment in the history of Vailima. You are the Man of Destiny.' + +"'But I haven't my box,' he expostulated. + +"'I will send for it,' I returned. 'I would not lose you for twenty +boxes. If you need clothes, why there stands my own chest; flowers +grow in profusion and the oil-bottle rests never empty beside my +humble bed; and in the hot hours of the afternoon there is the +beautifulest pool where one can bathe and wash one's lovely hair. +Moreover, so generous are the regulations of Tusitala's (Stevenson's) +government that his children receive weekly large sums of money, and +they are allowed on Sundays to call their friends to this elegant +house and entertain them with salt beef and biscuit.' + +"Thus was Taalolo introduced into the Vailima kitchen, never to leave +it for four years save when the war-drum called him to the front with +a six-shooter and a 'death-tooth'--the Samoan war-cutlass or +head-knife. He became in time not only an admirable chef, but the +nucleus of the whole native establishment and the loyalest of our +whole Samoan family. His coming was the turning-point in the history +of the house. We had achieved independence of our white masters, and +their discontented white faces had disappeared one by one. Honest +brown ones now took their places and we gained more than good servants +by the change." + +The following incident illustrates the high regard in which Stevenson +was held by the native Samoans. When Mataafa, a claimant for the +throne of Upolo, was imprisoned by the European powers, Stevenson +visited him in prison and gave him tobacco and other gifts to cheer +the disconsolate chief. He also visited other prisoners who had sided +in the affairs of Mataafa. When they were released they wished to show +their gratitude in some tangible way. So they built a fine wide road +to the home of the famous writer, a work which they disliked but which +their love for Stevenson enabled them to accomplish. They called it +"The Road of the Loving-Heart." Once when his favorite body-servant, +Sosimo, had anticipated some of his master's wants and Stevenson had +complimented him with, "Great is the wisdom!" "Nay," replied Sosimo +with truer insight, "Great is the Love!" + +Stevenson's manner of life at Vailima was somewhat like this: At six +o'clock or earlier he arose and began the day's work. By dawn the +rest of the household were up, and at about eight his wife's daughter +began to take his dictation, working from then until noon. The +afternoons were usually spent in some form of recreation--riding was a +favorite pastime. He was fond of strolling through the tropical +forest, and of taking part in any of the numerous outdoor sports. +However, when he was in the height of literary inspiration, he stayed +at his desk all day long. + +On Sunday evening the household was always called together for +prayers; a chapter was read from the Samoan Bible, Samoan hymns were +sung and one of Stevenson's own beautiful prayers, one usually written +for the occasion, was read, concluding with the Lord's Prayer in the +tongue of the natives. In the dominant note of these prayers, the call +for courage and cheerfulness, one can hear the cry of the dying +Stevenson's need: "The day returns and brings us the petty round of +irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to +perform them with laughter and kind faces, let cheerfulness abound +with industry.... Give us health, food, bright weather, and light +hearts.... As the sun lightens the world, so let our loving-kindness +make bright the house of our habitation." + +Stevenson died as he wished--in the midst of his work. After a day +spent in writing his _Weir of Hermiston_, a day full of life and +gayety, he suddenly fainted and died a short time afterwards. In the +prayer offered the evening before had been this sentence,--"When the +day returns, return to us our sun and comforter, and call us up with +morning faces and with morning hearts, eager to be happy, if +happiness shall be our portion--and if the day be marked for sorrow, +strong to endure it." + +On the following morning a group of powerful Samoans bore the coffin +upon their shoulders to the summit of Mount Vaea, where it was the +wish of Mr. Stevenson that he should rest. One of the inscriptions +upon the tomb is his own noble _Requiem_: + + Under the wide and starry sky + Dig the grave and let me lie; + Glad did I live and gladly die, + And I laid me down with a will. + + This be the verse you grave for me: + Here he lies where he longed to be; + Home is the sailor, home from the sea, + And the hunter home from the hill. + + + + +XLV + +KIPLING IN INDIA + + +In four lines of oft-quoted poetry Pope has declared that with words +the same rule holds that applies to fashion,--"Alike fantastic if too +new or old." Fashion changes, not only the fashions of millinery but +of literature also. When the world is tired of the brilliant wit of +Byron, it turns in relief to the contemplative verse of Wordsworth; +when Longfellow and Tennyson have had their artistic day and a +thousand imitators have produced romantic poetry, because + + Most can raise the flowers now + For all have got the seed,-- + +then this same world turns with delight to the robust poetry of +Kipling. He has brought a new dish to the banquet of life, or at least +a new flavor has been given to the old. + +Kipling is a man's poet, robust and virile. As a preface to one of his +stories he wrote: + + Go stalk the red deer o'er the heather, + Ride, follow the fox, if you can! + But for pleasure and profit together + Allow me the hunting of man;-- + +and this joy in the hunting of man is what has made Kipling so +acceptable to men. Kipling has the defects of his virtues. There is a +certain brutality in his point of view. His beautiful _Recessional_ is +not the greater part of Kipling. His voice "is still for war." His +critics charge him with "Jingoism." One of the most brilliant parodies +of recent times is Watson's + + Best by remembering God, say some, + We keep our high imperial lot-- + Fortune, I think, has mainly come + When we forgot, when we forgot! + +The greater influence of Kipling, both in his prose and poetry, is +contrary to the humanitarian spirit of the age. Le Gallienne has +said,--"As a writer Mr. Kipling is a delight; as an influence a +danger." + +Mr. Kipling sprang into public notice because he had genius and +because he had a new world to reveal to a jaded public. Mr. E. Kay +Robinson was a friend and associate of Kipling when both were in the +land of mysteries, India. Mr. Robinson went to India in 1884 and soon +began to write verses over the signature of "K.R." Kipling was writing +ballads under the initials "R.K." The similarity of the signatures +attracted Kipling and he wrote to Robinson. They were afterwards +associated in newspaper work and became close friends. Robinson has +written about Kipling in India: + +"My first sight of Kipling was at an uninteresting stage, when he was +a short, square, dark youth, who unfortunately wore spectacles instead +of eyeglasses and had an unlucky eye for color in the selection of his +clothes. He had a weakness apparently for brown cloth with just that +suggestion of ruddiness or purple in it which makes some browns so +curiously conspicuous. The charm of his manner, however, made you +forget what he looked like in half a minute.... + +"Among Kipling's early journalistic experiences was his involuntary +assumption 'for this occasion only' of the role of the fighting +editor. He was essentially a man of peace, and would always prefer +making an angry man laugh to fighting with him; but one day there +called at the office a very furious photographer. What the paper may +have said about him or his photographs has been forgotten, but never +will those who witnessed it forget the rough-and-tumble all over the +floor in which he and Kipling indulged. The libel, or whatever it was, +which had infuriated the photographer was not Kipling's work, but the +quarrel was forced upon him, and although he was handicapped by his +spectacles and smaller stature he made a very fine draw of it, and +then the photographer--who, it may be remarked, was very drunk--was +ejected. And Kipling wiped his glasses and buttoned his collar. + +"That trick of wiping his spectacles is one which Kipling indulged +more frequently than any man I have ever met, for the simple reason +that he was always laughing; and when you laugh till you nearly cry +your spectacles get misty. Kipling, shaking all over with laughter, +and wiping his spectacles at the same time with his handkerchief, is +the picture which always comes to mind as most characteristic of him +in the old days." + +With regard to Kipling's minute and exact knowledge of details Mr. +Robinson has this to say: + +"To learn to write as soldiers think, he spent long hours loafing with +the genuine article. He watched them at work and at play and at prayer +from the points of view of all his confidants--the combatant officer, +the doctor, the chaplain, the drill sergeant, and the private himself. +With the navy, with every branch of sport, and with natural history, +he has never wearied in seeking to learn all that man may learn at +first-hand, or the very best second-hand, at any rate.... But most +wonderful was his insight into the strangely mixed manners of life and +thought of the natives of India. He knew them all through their +horizontal divisions of rank and their vertical sections of caste; +their ramifications of race and blood; their antagonisms and blendings +of creed; their hereditary strains of calling or handicraft. Show him +a native, and he would tell you his rank, caste, race, origin, +habitat, creed, and calling. He would speak to the man in his own +fashion, using familiar, homely figures, which brightened the other's +surprised eyes with recognition of brotherhood and opened a straight +way into his confidence. In two minutes the man--perhaps a wild hawk +from the Afghan hills--would be pouring out into the ear of this +sahib, with heaven-sent knowledge and sympathy, the weird tale of the +blood feud and litigation, the border fray, and the usurer's iniquity, +which had driven him so far afield as Lahore from Bajaur. To Kipling +even the most suspected and suspicious of classes, the religious +mendicants, would open their mouths freely. + +"By the road thick with the dust of camels and thousands of cattle and +goats, which winds from Lahore Fort to the River Ravi, there are +walled caravanserais the distant smell of which more than suffices for +most of the Europeans who pass, but sitting with the travelers in the +reeking inside Kipling heard weird tales and gathered much knowledge. +Under a spreading peepul tree overhanging a well by the same road +squatted daily a ring of almost naked fakirs, smeared with ashes, who +scowled at the European driving by; but for Kipling there was, when he +wished it, an opening in the squatting circle and much to be learned +from the unsavory talkers. That is how Kipling's finished +word-pictures take the lifelike aspect of instantaneous photographs." + + + + +XLVI + +BENJAMIN FRANKLIN RUNS AWAY + + +Benjamin Franklin had so many strong qualities, was eminent in so many +lines of endeavor, that we do not always include him among the +literary men of America. However, his _Autobiography_ is a +masterpiece. In sincerity and simplicity it is unsurpassed. This is +all the more remarkable because it was written at a time when ornate +writing was the fashion. A man's style is the outgrowth of his nature, +and it is a striking comment upon the robust quality of Franklin's +mind that his style has the simplicity of the Bible, or _Pilgrim's +Progress_. + +The following account, taken from his _Autobiography_, begins just +after he has landed in New York, a boy of seventeen who has run away +from home because he felt that his brother was not treating him +fairly: + +My inclinations for the sea were by this time worn out, or I might now +have gratified them. But, having a trade, and supposing myself a +pretty good workman, I offered my service to the printer in the place, +old Mr. William Bradford, who had been the first printer in +Pennsylvania, but removed from thence upon the quarrel of George +Keith. He could give me no employment, having little to do and help +enough already; but, says he, "My son at Philadelphia has lately lost +his principal hand, Aquilla Rose, by death; if you go thither I +believe he may employ you." Philadelphia was a hundred miles farther; +I set out, however, in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and things +to follow me round by sea. + + [Illustration: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN + From a portrait by Duplessis] + +In crossing the bay we met with a squall that tore our rotten sails to +pieces, prevented our getting into the Kill, and drove us upon Long +Island. In our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger too, fell +overboard. When he was sinking, I reached through the water to his +shock pate, and drew him up so that we got him in again. His ducking +sobered him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out of his +pocket a book, which he desired I would dry for him. It proved to be +my old favorite author, Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, in Dutch, +finely printed on good paper, with copper cuts, a dress better than I +had ever seen it wear in its own language. I have since found that it +has been translated into most of the languages of Europe, and suppose +it has been more generally than any other book, except, perhaps, the +Bible. Honest John was the first that I know of who mixed narration +and dialogue; a method of writing very engaging to the reader, who in +the most interesting parts finds himself, as it were, brought into the +company and present at the discourse. Defoe in his _Crusoe_, his _Moll +Flanders_, _Religious Courtship_, _Family Instructor_, and other +pieces, has imitated it with success, and Richardson has done the same +in his _Pamela_, etc. + +When we drew near the island we found it was at a place where there +could be no landing, there being a great surf on the stony beach. So +we dropped anchor, and swung round toward the shore. Some people came +down to the water edge and hallooed to us, as we did to them; but the +wind was so high and the surf so loud that we could not hear so as to +understand each other. There were canoes on the shore, and we made +signs, and hallooed that they should fetch us, but they either did not +understand us or thought it impracticable, so they went away, and +night coming on, we had no remedy but to wait till the wind should +abate. In the meantime, the boatman and I concluded to sleep if we +could, and so crowded into the scuttle with the Dutchman, who was +still wet, and the spray beating over the head of our boat leaked +through to us, so that we were almost as wet as he. In this manner we +lay all night, with very little rest; but the wind abating the next +day, we made a shift to reach Amboy before night, having been thirty +hours on the water, without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of +filthy rum, the water we sailed on being salt. + +In the evening I found myself very feverish, and went in to bed; but, +having read somewhere that cold water, drunk plentifully, was good for +a fever, I followed the prescription, sweat plentifully most of the +night, my fever left me, and in the morning, crossing the ferry, I +proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty miles to Burlington, +where I was told I should find boats that would carry me the rest of +the way to Philadelphia. + +It rained very hard all the day. I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon +a good deal tired, so I stopped at a poor inn, where I stayed all +night, beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut so +miserable a figure, too, that I found, by the questions asked me, I +was suspected to be some runaway servant and in danger of being taken +up on that suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got in +the evening to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept +by one Dr. Brown. He entered into conversation with me while I took +some refreshment, and finding I had read a little, became very +sociable and friendly. Our acquaintance continued as long as he lived. +He had been, I imagine, an itinerant doctor, for there was no town in +England, or country in Europe, of which he could not give a very +particular account. He had some letters, and was ingenious, but much +of an unbeliever, and wickedly undertook, some years after, to +travesty the Bible in doggerel verse, as Cotton had done Virgil. By +this means he set many of the facts in a very ridiculous light, and +might have hurt weak minds if his work had been published; but it +never was. + +At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached +Burlington, but had the mortification to find that the regular boats +were gone a little before my coming, and no other expected to go +before Tuesday, this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old +woman in the town of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the +water, and asked her advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till +a passage by water should offer; and, being tired with my foot +traveling, I accepted the invitation. She, understanding I was a +printer, would have had me stay at that town and follow my business, +being ignorant of the stock necessary to begin with. She was very +hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox cheek with great good will, +accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I thought myself fixed +till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the evening by the side +of the river, a boat came by, which I found was going toward +Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in, and, as +there was no wind, we rowed all the way, and about midnight, not +having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must +have passed it, and would row no farther. The others knew not where we +were, so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, and landed near an +old fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being +cold, in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the +company knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above +Philadelphia, which we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and +arrived there about eight or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and +landed at the Market Street wharf. + +I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and +shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your +mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since +made there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come +round by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out +with shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul, nor where to look for +lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I +was very hungry, and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch +dollar and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people +of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on account of my +rowing; but I insisted on their taking it, a man being sometimes more +generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, +perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little. + +Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the market house +I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, +inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he +directed me to, in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending +such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in +Philadelphia. Then I asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they +had none such. So not considering or knowing the difference of money +and the greater cheapness, nor the names of his bread, I bade him give +me threepenny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great +puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having +no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and +eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth +Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when +she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly +did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went +down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the +way, and, coming round, found myself again on Market Street wharf, +near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river +water; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a +woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and +were waiting to go farther. + +Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had +many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I +joined them, and was thereby led into the great meetinghouse of the +Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking +round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor +and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and +continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to +rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, +in Philadelphia. + +Walking down again toward the river, and looking in the faces of +people, I met a young Quaker man, whose countenance I liked, and, +accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger could get +lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," +says he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a +reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me I'll show thee a better." +He brought me to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. Here I got a +dinner, and while I was eating it several sly questions were asked me, +as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance that I might +be some runaway. + +After dinner my sleepiness returned, and, being shown to a bed, I lay +down without undressing and slept till six in the evening, was called +to supper, went to bed again very early, and slept soundly till next +morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I could, and went to Andrew +Bradford the printer's. I found in the shop the old man, his father, +whom I had seen in New York, and who, traveling on horseback, had got +to Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received +me civilly, and gave me a breakfast, but told me he did not at present +want a hand, being lately supplied with one; but there was another +printer in town, lately set up, one Keimer, who, perhaps, might employ +me; if not, I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would +give me a little work to do now and then till fuller business should +offer. + + + + +XLVII + +WASHINGTON IRVING + + +Washington Irving may be called the father of American literature. It +is true he is not the first writer who flourished on American soil, +but in point of accomplishment he is the first literary man to impress +himself upon the readers of the two continents. And what a sweet, +beautiful soul he is! The only rival he has is Franklin, and Franklin +is not a literary man, though he produced a literary masterpiece in +his _Autobiography_. The test of a great piece of literature is, In a +hundred years can it be bought in a new edition for ten cents? The New +Testament can be bought for ten cents, so can the _Autobiography_, and +the _Sketch Book_. These emerge from the sea of mediocrity of early +American life. They abide while the works of the Michael Wigglesworths +and Anne Bradstreets can be found only in the collections of the +fortunate book-lover. + +The early settlers believed in the virtue of large families. It is +well, for otherwise Franklin and Irving would have been lost to +American life. Franklin was the youngest son in a family of seventeen +children, there were two girls younger (Benjamin was the eighth child +of the second wife), and Irving was the eighth son and last child in +a family of eleven children. It is not hard to account for Irving's +first name. Nowadays when you meet a boy named Dewey or Garfield it is +not difficult to guess the boy's age. Irving was born in 1783; the air +was laden with the praises of the great American leader. "Washington's +work is ended," said the mother, "and the child shall be named after +him." Several years after this when Washington, as President, was in +New York, Lizzie, the Scotch servant of the Irving family, followed +the great man into a shop and said, "Please, your honor, here's a +bairn was named after you." Washington placed his hand on the lad's +head and gave him a fatherly blessing. + +Like Lowell and Bryant, Irving was first devoted to the law, but his +devotion was not of the quality that consumes. He soon strayed into +pleasanter paths. In January, 1807, appeared the first number of +_Salmagundi_, a humorous periodical which caused a great deal of +curiosity as to the authors, whose witty articles appeared +anonymously. Two years later came the droll _History of New York by +Diedrich Knickerbocker_, a book in which according to Scott were to be +seen traces of the wit of Swift. Scott said that he used to read it +aloud to his wife and guests until "our sides were absolutely sore +with laughing." + +Before this work had appeared, Irving lost in three consecutive years +three persons who would have rejoiced the most in his success,--his +father, "the tenderest and best of sisters, a woman of whom a brother +might be proud," and his sweetheart, Matilda Hoffman. She was a rare +and beautiful maiden who had kindled in the heart of Irving a passion +which survived her death until he himself passed away an old man. When +he died his friends found her miniature and a lock of fair hair, +together with the part of a manuscript written for a lady who had +asked Irving why he had never married. Describing Miss Hoffman he +says: + +"The more I saw her, the more I had reason to admire her. Her mind +seemed to unfold itself leaf by leaf, and every time to discover new +sweetness. Nobody knew her so well as I, for she was generally +silent.... Never did I meet with more intuitive rectitude of mind, +more delicacy, more exquisite propriety in word, thought, and action +than in this young creature. Her brilliant little sister used to say +that 'people began by admiring her, but ended by loving Matilda.' For +my part I idolized her." Irving then continues by giving a long +account of his efforts to succeed in his literary and legal work with +a view of earning a place in life so as to enable him to marry. "In +the midst of this struggle and anxiety she fell into a consumption. I +cannot tell you what I suffered.... I saw her fade rapidly away, +beautiful, and more beautiful, and more angelic to the very last. I +was often by her bedside, and when her mind wandered she would talk to +me with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence that was +overpowering. I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that delirious +state than I ever had before.... I was by her when she died, and was +the last she ever looked upon.... She was but seventeen." + +So poignant was the grief of Irving that for thirty years after her +death he did not like any one to mention her name to him. One day he +was visiting her father when one of her nieces, taking some music from +a drawer, brought with it a piece of embroidery. "Washington," said +Mr. Hoffman, "this was poor Matilda's work." The effect was +instantaneous. The light-hearted conversationalist of a moment before +became silent and soon left the house. When in _Bracebridge Hall_ he +writes,--"I have loved as I never again shall love in this world--I +have been loved as I shall never again be loved,"--is he not thinking +of the fair Matilda? And in a note-book we find,--"She died in the +beauty of her youth, and in my memory she will ever be young and +beautiful." + +In May, 1815, Irving went abroad for the second time. His purpose was +to stay a few months; he remained seventeen years. The first sight +that greeted the newly arrived American in Liverpool was the +mail-coach bringing the news of the battle of Waterloo. Irving's +sympathies were with Napoleon. "In spite of all his misdeeds he is a +noble fellow, and I am confident will eclipse in the eyes of posterity +all the crowned wiseacres that have crushed him by their overwhelming +confederacy." In the year 1818 the Irving brothers went into +bankruptcy. Washington's interest in the business was that of a +younger brother who had little responsibility. But of late years he +had been much harassed by the accumulating troubles. With the end of +the business anxieties he turns to literature with a whole-souled +devotion. His home friends tried to secure for him the position of +Secretary of the Legation in London; his brother William wrote that +Commodore Decatur was keeping open for his acceptance the office of +Chief Clerk in the Navy Department; but Irving turned the offers +aside. Irving is usually imaged as a sunshiny, genial, easy-going +gentleman into whose blood little of the iron of firmness had been +infused. The fact that he not only refused these offers but also +rejected offers from Scott and Murray shows that he had will enough to +keep to the bent of his genius at a time when he needed money and +influence. Murray offered him a salary of L1000 a year to be the +editor of a periodical. + +The first number of the _Sketch Book_ appeared in May, 1819, and +consisted mainly in point of merit of two papers, _The Wife_ and _Rip +Van Winkle_. The series was finished in 1820. The work was highly +successful in America, and Irving was deeply moved by the cordial +expressions of praise that reached him. His manly nature is revealed +in a letter to a friend in which he says,--"I hope you will not +attribute all this sensibility to the kind reception I have met to an +author's vanity. I am sure it proceeds from very different sources. +Vanity could not bring the tears into my eyes as they have been +brought by the kindness of my countrymen. I have felt cast down, +blighted, and broken-spirited, and these sudden rays of sunshine +agitate me more than they revive me. I hope--I hope I may yet do +something more worthy of the appreciation lavished on me." + +Irving had not intended to publish the _Sketch Book_ in England, but +owing to reprints by others he was obliged to take the matter in his +own hands. Murray refused to undertake the work. Then Irving became +his own publisher. But the work sold so well that Murray bought the +copyright for two hundred pounds. + +In 1826 we find Irving in Spain. To the American reader the name of +Spain is forever associated with that of Irving, for _The Alhambra_, +_The Conquest of Granada_, and _The Life of Columbus_ are the rich +evidences of his absorption of the spirit of Spain. The _Life of +Columbus_ was written with great care. Irving wanted to produce +something that would do credit to the scholarship of his loved +America. Murray paid about fifteen thousand dollars for the English +copyright. For the _Conquest of Granada_ he received ten thousand +dollars, and for _The Alhambra_ a Mr. Bentley paid five thousand. + +While Irving was in Madrid one of his most welcome visitors was +Longfellow, then a young man of twenty, fresh from college. Writing to +his father Longfellow says,--"Mr. Rich's family is very agreeable, and +Washington Irving always makes one there in the evening. This is +altogether delightful, for he is one of those men who put you at ease +with them in a moment. He makes no ceremony whatever with one, and of +course is a very fine man in society, all mirth and good humor. He has +a most beautiful countenance, and a very intellectual one, but he has +some halting and hesitating in his conversation, and says very +pleasant, agreeable things in a husky, weak, peculiar voice. He has a +dark complexion, dark hair, whiskers already a little gray. This is a +very offhand portrait of so illustrious a man." + +It is interesting to compare this sketch with one that Longfellow drew +from memory many years later,--"I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. +Irving in Spain, and found the author, whom I had loved, repeated in +the man. The same playful humor, the same touches of sentiment, the +same poetic atmosphere; and what I admired still more, the entire +absence of all literary jealousy, of all that mean avarice of fame +which counts what is given to another as so much taken from one's +self.... Passing his house at the early hour of six one summer +morning, I saw his study window already wide open. On my mentioning it +to him afterwards he said, 'Yes, I am always at work by six.' Since +then I have often remembered that sunny morning and that open window, +so suggestive of his sunny temperament and his open heart, and equally +so of his patient and persistent toil." + +Irving's career is usually looked upon as ideal. In many ways it was +singularly blessed. Friends, influence, fame, and wealth were his. +When an American publisher undertook the issuing of a new edition of +Irving's works in 1848, there was much uncertainty as to the success +of the venture, but the author received eighty-eight thousand dollars +from 1848 to 1859. He also had the satisfaction of working to the +last, although the last year was one of suffering. "I am rather +fatigued, my dear, by my night's rest," he replied to the anxious +inquiry of a niece. He had been hard at work upon his _Life of +Washington_, and he sometimes feared he might have overtaxed his +brain. "I do not fear death," he said, "but I would like to go down +with all sails set." + +This modest prayer was granted. To the day of his death he was able to +receive visitors, talk intelligently, read for his own pleasure, and +take short drives. The day before he died he attended church, and on +coming home he remarked that he must "get a dispensation to allow +whist on Sunday evenings," because he dreaded the long, lonely nights. +On Monday he went to bed, and as he turned to arrange the pillows he +gave a slight exclamation and instantly expired. + +By his mother's side they laid him, in a cemetery overlooking the +Hudson and the valley of Sleepy Hollow, a region made forever famous +by the genial pen of Irving. "I could not but remember his last words +to me," writes a friend who made a pilgrimage to the spot on the day +of the funeral, "when his book was finished and his health was +failing: 'I am getting ready to go. I am shutting up my doors and +windows.' And I could not but feel that they were all open now, and +bright with the light of eternal morning." + + + + +XLVIII + +COOPER AND "THE SPY" + + +James Fenimore Cooper is one of the most interesting characters in the +history of American authorship. Irving, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, +Holmes, and Hawthorne early in life showed their literary bent, and +lived academic and peaceful careers. They were also popular. Cooper +was thirty years old before he thought of writing, and his life was +embittered by the consciousness that he was the target of the most +bitter criticism, both at home and abroad. Yet not one of the +distinguished authors I have named is more widely known to-day than +Cooper. Matthew Arnold has said somewhere that an author's place in +the future is to be determined by his contemporaneous ranking in +foreign lands. If that is true the names of Mark Twain, Cooper, Walt +Whitman, and Poe will rank high in the annals of posterity, for their +European fame is said to be the most general of any of the American +writers. + +There is an appealing fascination about the boyhood days of Cooper. +When James was a babe of fourteen months his father moved to the +headwaters of the Susquehanna. The family consisted of fifteen +persons; James, the future novelist, was the eleventh of twelve +children. Their home was in the midst of the forest. Near by was the +charming lake, Otsego. The father owned several thousand acres, and +was, probably, the most prominent man in that sparsely-settled region. +What boy would want a finer opportunity to indulge all the wild +propensities that lurk in the untamed heart of every healthy +youngster? To roam in the untracked forest, to sail the lake, to hunt, +to fish, to dream of the great unknown world lying just beyond the +sun-tipped trees,--what can the schools give in exchange for this? Is +it surprising that the wholesomeness of the forest and the charm and +freshness of God's out-of-doors found their way into the man's novels, +when so many delightful boyhood experiences must have found their way +into the boy's heart? + +As I said, Cooper was thirty years old before he began to write. He +had studied under an Episcopal rector, and was intending to enter the +junior class at Yale; the rector died and Cooper entered the second +term of the freshman class; for some frolic in which he was engaged he +was dismissed; he then entered the navy, where he gathered valuable +experience which he worked afterwards into literature; he married; +resigned, and lived the quiet life of a country gentleman. One day he +threw down an English novel he had been reading and said to his wife, +"I believe I could write a better story myself." Now this is a feeling +that many of us have had, but few of us are put to the test. Cooper's +wife fortunately told him to make the trial. He did so, and +_Precaution_ was the result. This was published in 1820. As a novel +it is a failure; as a literary document it is highly interesting. +_Precaution_ is a story of English life. Why should Cooper write of +American life when all Americans seemed to consider American life dull +and prosaic? Politically we were free; intellectually we were slaves. +The English lark sang in American poetry and English lords talked in +American novels. It was not until 1837 that Emerson gave that famous +address, _The American Scholar_, an event which Lowell calls "without +any former parallel in our literary annals," and which Holmes declared +to be "our intellectual Declaration of Independence." + +_Precaution_ has been called a failure, but it was not so much of a +failure that Cooper's friends discouraged him from trying again. No, +it was a first attempt and gave promise of something better. Why not +write about American scenes and events? The very neighborhood in which +he lived had been the scene of many stirring adventures during the +Revolutionary conflict. "Years before, while at the residence of John +Jay, his host had given him, one summer afternoon, the account of a +spy that had been in his service during the war. The coolness, +shrewdness, fearlessness, but above all the unselfish patriotism of +the man had profoundly impressed the Revolutionary leader who had +employed him. The story made an equally deep impression upon Cooper at +the time. He now resolved to take it as the foundation of the tale he +had been persuaded to write." + +Near the close of 1821 _The Spy_ appeared. In March of the following +year a third edition was on the market. The work soon appeared in +England, published by Miller, the same publisher that had first +ventured to bring Irving's _Sketch Book_ before the English public. In +England the book was at once successful. This meant much to the +American estimate of the author's ability, for American critics were +afraid to praise a work that had not yet been applauded by England. In +this same year, 1822, a French translation appeared. In France the +work was enthusiastically received. This was the first of many +translations into many European languages. Its influence in teaching +patriotism cannot be estimated, nor can its value as an effective +retort to the sneer "Who reads an American book?" ever be overlooked. + +About the early life of Cooper there are unfortunately but few +anecdotes. One reason for this lack of _personalia_ about a man who +had a most vigorous personality is due to his dying request. He +enjoined upon his family that they permit no authorized biography to +appear. Because of this we have lost much that would be valuable in +estimating the character of Cooper. There is a story that when he was +a young man he engaged in a foot-race for a prize of a basket of +fruit. "While Cooper and his competitor were preparing to start, a +little girl stood by full of eagerness for the exciting event. Cooper +quickly turned and picked her up in his arms. 'I'll carry her and beat +you!' he exclaimed, and away they went, Cooper with his laughing +burden, the other runner untrammeled. It is almost needless to add +that Cooper won the race, else why should the story have been +preserved?" One cannot help speculating about the size of the girl and +the speed of the rival runner, if this story is true. + +A more satisfying story is that told of Cooper's meeting with Scott. +In 1826 Cooper went to Europe. With a family of ten persons he moved +about for seven years. Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, and +England were visited. When in Paris the two romancers met. + +"Est ce Monsieur Cooper que j'ai l'honneur de voir?" + +"Monsieur je m'appelle Cooper." + +"Eh bien, donc, je suis Walter Scott." + +After a minute or two of French Sir Walter suddenly recollected +himself and said: "Well, here have I been _parley vooing_ to you in a +way to surprise you, no doubt, but these Frenchmen have got my tongue +so set to their lingo that I have half forgotten my own language." + +I have said that Cooper was not popular. This is not putting it strong +enough. He was more than unpopular; he was hated by his neighbors, and +slandered by the press at home and abroad. This lamentable condition +of affairs was not due to any despicable qualities in the man, for +Cooper was a kind father, an affectionate husband, a good citizen, and +an honest, truth-loving man. These seem admirable qualities. Of few of +us can much higher praise be spoken. Why then did the citizens of +Cooper's home village hold a mass meeting and pass resolutions to the +effect that Cooper had rendered "himself odious to a greater portion +of the citizens of this community," and why should _Fraser's +Magazine_, three thousand miles away, call Cooper "a liar, a bilious +braggart, a full jackass, an insect, a grub, and a reptile"? + +The cause is not far to seek. Cooper was the most disputatious man in +the history of American literature. Cooper used to tell the story of +the man who in an argument was met with: "Why it is as plain as that +two and two make four." "But I deny that too," was the retort, "for +two and two make twenty two." Cooper was himself that sort of a man. +He always had a quarrel on his hands. The more pugnacious a man is, +the more militant he will find society. He instituted libel suits +against the most prominent editors in the country, among them Horace +Greeley and Thurlow Weed. And what is more to the point,--he won his +cases. But this did not make him any more popular with the press. When +we remember that Billingsgate was an important part of the literary +equipment of the critic of Cooper's time, we need not be surprised +that Cooper's pugnacity evoked such sweet disinterestedness as Park +Benjamin indulged in when he called Cooper "a superlative dolt, and a +common mark of scorn and contempt of every well-informed American." + +In addition to this denunciation of Cooper as a man, there have in +recent years arisen severe criticisms on Cooper as a writer. "There +are nineteen rules," writes Mark Twain, "governing literary art in the +domain of romantic fiction--some say twenty-two. In _Deerslayer_ +Cooper violated eighteen of them." And then Mark Twain gives us the +detailed specifications. It is very cleverly put, this criticism of +Mark Twain's. But the astounding fact remains that the one rule Cooper +did not violate seems to secure him a place in the Pantheon of +authors. Along with Poe, and Whitman, and Mark himself, Cooper is +found in various editions on the shelves of the bookdealers and in the +libraries of the book-lovers from the Thames to the Volga. If Cooper +had observed only one or two more of the rules of literary art, where +would he stand? One is reminded of the Dutchman who was told that this +clock would run eight days without winding. "Ach, Himmel, what would +she do if she was woundt?" + +The one literary sin that Cooper does not commit is dulness. He is +interesting. Of course there are some of Cooper's works that no one +cares to read now. But he is to be judged by his best, not by his +worst. Balzac is something of a novelist himself, and has a right to +be heard. "If Cooper," says Balzac in a passage quoted by every writer +who touches upon Cooper, "had succeeded in the painting of character +to the same extent that he did in the painting of the phenomena of +nature, he would have uttered the last word of our art." This is no +mean praise. Cooper is read because he is interesting. He shall +continue to be read for another reason. He is wholesome and vigorous. +The air we breathe is the air of the pine forest and the salt sea. +Youth is forever attracted by the mystery and adventure of primitive +life. As America becomes more and more densely settled the imagination +will turn back to the early times when the bear and the deer, the +settler and Indian were tracking the trail through the forest and +along the shore. For this reason Cooper is likely to remain an abiding +force in American literature. + + + + +XLIX + +JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY AND BISMARCK + + +John Lothrop Motley, the American historian, a writer who in his _The +Rise of the Dutch Republic_ produced a history as fascinating as a +romance and a work that was immediately in Europe translated into +three different languages, was, after graduation from Harvard, a +student at Goettingen. Here he studied German so well that in after +years he was asked by the emperor of Austria whether he were not a +German. Here too he became acquainted with Bismarck. + +That they were great friends is evident from letters by Bismarck +himself. "I never pass by old Logier's House, in the +Friedrichstrasse--wrote Bismarck in 1863--without looking up at the +windows that used to be ornamented by a pair of red slippers sustained +on the wall by the feet of a gentleman sitting in the Yankee way, his +head below and out of sight. I then gratify my memory with remembrance +of 'good old colony times when we were roguish chaps.'" And here is +another part of a letter which illustrates that even dignitaries like +to unbend and become like boys again. This letter was written by the +minister of foreign affairs to the minister of the United States at the +court of Vienna: + + Berlin, May 23d, 1864. + + Jack my Dear,-- ... what do you do that you never write a line + to me? I am working from morn to night like a nigger, and you + have nothing to do at all--you might as well tip me a line as + well as looking at your feet tilted against the wall of God + knows what a dreary color. I cannot entertain a regular + correspondence; it happens to me that during five days I do + not find a quarter of an hour for a walk; but you, lazy old + chap, what keeps you from thinking of your old friends? When + just going to bed in this moment my eye met with yours on your + portrait, and I curtailed the sweet restorer, sleep, in order + to remind you of Auld Lang Syne. Why do you never come to + Berlin? It is not a quarter of an American's holiday from + Vienna, and my wife and me should be so happy to see you once + more in this sullen life. When can you come, and when will + you? I swear that I will make out the time to look with you on + old Logier's quarters, ... and at Gerolt's, where they once + would not allow you to put your slender legs upon a chair. Let + politics be hanged and come to see me. I promise that the + Union Jack shall wave over our house, and conversation and the + best old hock shall pour damnation upon the rebels. Do not + forget old friends, neither their wives, as mine wishes nearly + as ardently as myself to see you, or at least to see as + quickly as possible a word of your handwriting. + + Sei gut und komm oder schreibe. + Dein, + V. BISMARCK. + +In a letter to Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1878, Bismarck in answer to an +inquiry tells how the two became friends. + +"I met Motley at Goettingen in 1832, I am not sure if at the beginning +of the Easter term or Michaelmas term. He kept company with German +students, though more addicted to study than we members of the +fighting clubs. Although not having mastered yet the German language +he exercised a marked attraction by a conversation sparkling with wit, +humor, and originality. In autumn of 1833, having both of us emigrated +from Goettingen to Berlin for the prosecution of our studies, we +became fellow lodgers in the house No. 161 Friedrichstrasse. There we +lived in the closest intimacy, sharing meals and outdoor exercise. +Motley by that time had arrived at talking fluently: he occupied +himself not only in translating Goethe's poem, _Faust_, but tried his +hand even in composing German verses. Enthusiastic admirer of +Shakspere, Byron, Goethe, he used to spice his conversation abundantly +with quotations from these his favorite authors. A pertinacious +arguer, so much so that sometimes he watched my awakening in order to +continue a discussion on some topic of science, poetry, or practical +life cut short by the chime of the small hours, he never lost his mild +and amiable temper.... The most striking feature of his handsome and +delicate appearance was uncommonly large and beautiful eyes. He never +entered a drawing-room without exciting the curiosity and sympathy of +the ladies." + +While the sheets of Motley's history were passing through the press in +1856, he paid a visit to Bismarck at Frankfort: + +"When I called," says Motley, "Bismarck was at dinner, so I left my +card, and said I would come back in half an hour. As soon as my card +had been carried to him (as I learned afterwards) he sent a servant +after me to the hotel, but I had gone another way. When I came back I +was received with open arms. I can't express to you how cordially he +received me. If I had been his brother, instead of an old friend, he +could not have shown more warmth and affectionate delight in seeing +me. I find I like him better even than I thought I did, and you know +how high an opinion I always expressed of his talents and +disposition. He is a man of very noble character, and of very great +powers of mind. The prominent place which he now occupies as a +statesman sought _him_. He did not seek it or any other office. The +stand which he took in the Assembly from conviction, on the occasion +of the outbreak of 1848, marked him at once to all parties as one of +the leading characters of Prussia.... + +"In the summer of 1851, he told me that the minister, Manteuffel, +asked him one day abruptly, if he would accept the post of ambassador +at Frankfort, to which (although the proposition was as unexpected a +one to him as if I should hear by the next mail that I had been chosen +governor of Massachusetts) he answered after a moment's deliberation, +yes, without another word. The king, the same day, sent for him, and +asked him if he would accept the place, to which he made the same +brief answer, 'Ja.' His majesty expressed a little surprise that he +made no inquiries or conditions, when Bismarck replied that anything +which the king felt strong enough to propose to him, he felt strong +enough to accept. I only write these details that you may have an idea +of the man. Strict integrity and courage of character, a high sense of +honor, a firm religious belief, united with remarkable talents, make +up necessarily a combination which cannot be found any day in any +court; and I have no doubt that he is destined to be prime minister, +unless his obstinate truthfulness, which is apt to be a +stumbling-block for politicians, stands in his way.... + +"Well, he accepted the post and wrote to his wife next day, who was +preparing for a summer's residence in a small house they had taken on +the sea-coast, that he could not come because he was already +established in Frankfort as minister. The result, he said, was three +days of tears on her part. He had previously been leading the life of +a plain country squire with a moderate income, had never held any +position in the government or in diplomacy, and had hardly ever been +to court." + + + + +L + +THE YOUTH OF GEORGE TICKNOR + + +George Ticknor was born in 1791. His father, he says, fitted him for +college. He never went to a regular school. President Wheelock, +Professor Woodward, and others connected with Dartmouth College, who +were in the habit of making his father's house their home in the long +winter vacations, took much notice of him; and the professor, after +examining him in Cicero _Orations_ and the Greek Testament, gave him a +certificate of admission before he was ten years old. "Of course," he +adds, "I knew very little, and the whole thing was a form, perhaps a +farce. There was no thought of my going to college then, and I did not +go till I was fourteen, but I was twice examined at the college (where +I went with my father and mother every summer) for advanced standing, +and was finally admitted as a junior, and went to reside there from +Commencement, August, 1805." He learned very little at college. "The +instructors generally were not as good teachers as my father had been, +and I knew it." He consequently took no great interest in study, +although he liked reading Horace, and had mathematics enough to enjoy +calculating the great eclipse of 1806, and making a projection of it +which turned out nearly right. To supply the deficiency in classical +acquirements with which he left college, he was placed under Dr. John +Gardiner, of Trinity Church, who was reputed a good scholar, having +been bred in the mother country under Dr. Parr. + +"I prepared at home what he prescribed, and the rest of my time +occupied myself according to my tastes. I read with him parts of Livy, +the _Annals_ of Tacitus, the whole of Juvenal and Persius, the +_Satires_ of Horace, and portions of other Latin classics which I do +not remember. I wrote Latin prose and verse. In Greek I read some +books of the _Odyssey_, I don't remember how many; the _Alcestis_; and +two or three other plays of Euripides; the _Prometheus Vinctus_ of +AEschylus; portions of Herodotus, and parts of Thucydides,--of which +last I only remember how I was tormented by the account of the plague +at Athens. This was the work of between two and three years." + +After a year's experience in law, he decides to give up his profession +and goes to Europe in order to study at Goettingen. On reaching +Liverpool his first introduction is to Roscoe, and then on his way to +London he stops at Hatton to visit Dr. Parr, who astonished him not a +little by observing, "Sir, I would not think I had done my duty if I +went to bed any night without praying for the success of Napoleon +Bonaparte." + +In London Mr. Ticknor formed a friendship with Lord Byron; two men +more unlike in every respect can hardly be conceived of, and it is +amusing to think of Byron impressing his visitor as being "simple and +unaffected," or of his speaking "of his early follies with +sincerity," and of his own works "with modesty." It is amusing, too, +to hear that as Lady Byron is going out for a drive, "Lord Byron's +manner to her was affectionate; he followed her to the door, and shook +hands with her, as if he were not to see her for a month." The +following curious anecdote shows that Byron was no less unpatriotic in +his views than Dr. Parr himself. Mr. Ticknor is calling upon him, and +Byron is praising Scott as the first man of his time, and saying of +Gifford that no one could have a better disposition, when,-- + +"Sir James Bland Burgess, who had something to do in negotiating Jay's +Treaty, came suddenly into the room, and said abruptly, 'My lord, my +lord, a great battle has been fought in the Low Countries, and +Bonaparte is entirely defeated.' 'But is it true?' said Lord Byron, 'is +it true?' 'Yes, my lord, it is certainly true; and an aid-de-camp +arrived in town last night, he has been in Downing Street this morning, +and I have just seen him as he was going to Lady Wellington's. He says +he thinks Bonaparte is in full retreat towards Paris.' After a moment's +pause, Lord Byron replied, 'I am sorry for it;' and then, after another +slight pause, he added, 'I didn't know but I might live to see Lord +Castlereagh's head on a pole. But I suppose I sha'n't now.' And this +was the first impression produced on his imperious nature by the news +of the battle of Waterloo." + +But Byron is not Mr. Ticknor's only London friend, for we read of a +breakfast with Sir Humphry Davy, a "genuine bookseller's dinner" with +Murray, and a visit to the author of _Gertrude of Wyoming_. + +Goettingen, however, is the object of his journey, and at Goettingen +he remains for the next year and a half. If he does not learn to scorn +the delights of society, he has at least the resolution to live the +laborious days of the earnest student. He studies five languages, and +works twelve hours in the twenty-four. Greek, German, theology, and +natural history seem chiefly to claim his attention, but he is also +busy with French, Italian, and Latin, and manages at the same time to +keep up his English reading. He is much amused with the German +professors, and describes them with no little humor. There is +Michaelis, who asks one of his scholars for some silver shoe-buckles, +in lieu of a fee. There is Schultze, who "looks as if he had fasted +six months on Greek prosody and the Pindaric meters." There is +Blumenbach, who has a sharp discussion at a dinner-table, and next day +sends down three huge quartos all marked to show his authorities and +justify his statements. + +Here is another interesting anecdote given in Ticknor's _Memoirs_: + +"When I was in Goettingen, in 1816, I saw Wolf, the most distinguished +Greek scholar of the time. He could also lecture extemporaneously in +Latin. He was curious about this country, and questioned me about our +scholars and the amount of our scholarship. I told him what I +could,--amongst other things, of a fashionable, dashing preacher of +New York having told me that he took great pleasure in reading the +choruses of AEschylus, and that he read them without a dictionary! I +was walking with Wolf at the time, and, on hearing this, he stopped, +squared round, and said, 'He told you that, did he?' 'Yes,' I +answered. 'Very well; the next time you hear him say it, do you tell +him he lies, and that I say so.'" + +During a six weeks' vacation there is a pleasant tour through Germany, +and at Weimar Mr. Ticknor makes the acquaintance of Goethe, who talked +about Byron, and "his great knowledge of human nature." + +And now in the November of 1816, there comes an intimation that +Harvard College wishes to recall Mr. Ticknor to his old home, and give +him the professorship of French and Spanish literature. It was a +matter of difficulty for him to make a final decision, and a year +passes before he determined to accept the charge, and a year and a +half more before he enters upon its duties. + +Meanwhile he leaves Goettingen, visits Paris, Geneva, and Rome, and +then goes on to Spain.... When in Spain, Mr. Ticknor is busy learning +Spanish and collecting Spanish books, and here he lays the groundwork +for that special literary distinction for which he is now so widely +known.--Adapted from the _Athenaeum_ and _Quarterly Review_. + + + + +LI + +FITZ-GREENE HALLECK + + +Fitz-Greene Halleck died at a ripe old age in 1867. On the evening of +February 2d, 1869, Bryant delivered an address on the life and +writings of Halleck. The address was given before the New York +Historical Society and was printed the next day in the _New York +Evening Post_. Here is an interesting extract from the address: + +"When I look back upon Halleck's literary life I cannot help thinking +that if his death had happened forty years earlier, his life would +have been regarded as a bright morning prematurely overcast. Yet +Halleck's literary career may be said to have ended then. All that +will hand down his name to future years had already been produced. Who +shall say to what cause his subsequent literary inaction was owing? It +was not the decline of his powers; his brilliant conversation showed +that it was not. Was it, then, indifference to fame? Was it because he +had put an humble estimate on what he had written, and therefore +resolved to write no more? Was it because he feared lest what he might +write would be unworthy of the reputation he had been so fortunate to +acquire? + +"I have my own way of accounting for his literary silence in the +latter half of his life. One of the resemblances which he bore to +Horace consisted in the length of time for which he kept his poems by +him that he might give them the last and happiest touches. He had a +tenacious verbal memory, and having composed his poems without +committing them to paper, he revised them in the same manner, +murmuring them to himself in his solitary moments, recovering the +enthusiasm with which they were first received, and in this state +heightening the beauty of the thought or of the expression. I remember +that once in crossing Washington Park I saw Halleck before me and +quickened my pace to overtake him. As I drew near I heard him crooning +to himself what seemed to be lines of verse, and as he threw back his +hands in walking I perceived that they quivered with the feeling of +the passage he was reciting. I instantly checked my pace and fell +back, out of reverence for the mood of inspiration which seemed to be +upon him, and fearful lest I should intercept the birth of a poem +destined to be the delight of thousands of readers. + +"In this way I suppose Halleck to have attained the gracefulness of +his diction, and the airy melody of his numbers. In this way I believe +he wrought up his verses to that transparent clearness of expression +which causes the thought to be seen through them without any +interposing dimness, so that the thought and the phrase seem one, and +the thought enters the mind like a beam of light. I suppose that +Halleck's time being taken up by the tasks of his vocation, he +naturally lost by degrees the habit of composing in this manner, and +that he found it so necessary to the perfection of what he wrote that +he adopted no other in its place. + +"Whatever was the reason that Halleck ceased so early to write, let us +congratulate ourselves that he wrote at all. Great authors often +overlay and almost smother their own fame by the voluminousness of +their writings. So great is their multitude, and so rich is the +literature of our language, that for frequent readings we are obliged +to content ourselves with mere selections from the works of best and +most beloved of our poets, even those who have not written much. It is +only a few of their works that dwell and live in the general mind. +Gray, for example, wrote little, and of that little one short poem, +his _Elegy_, can be fairly said to survive in the public admiration, +and that poem I have sometimes heard called the most popular in our +language." + + + + +LII + +THE AUTHOR OF THANATOPSIS + + +Thanatopsis may be said to be the most remarkable poem written by an +American youth. "The unfailing wonder of it is," writes an American +critic in a magazine article, "that a boy of seventeen could have +written it; not merely that he could have made verse of such +structural beauty and dignity, but that the thoughts of which it is +compacted could have been a boy's thoughts. The poem seems to have +been written while he was at his father's house in Cummington, in the +summer of 1811, before he had definitely begun the study of law. Fond +as he had been of showing his earlier effusions to his father and +others, the consciousness of having done something different and +greater must have come upon him at this time, for it was only by +accident, six years after the writing of _Thanatopsis_, that his +father chanced to find it and the poem now called _An Inscription Upon +the Entrance to a Wood_, among some papers in a desk the boy had used +while at home. Dr. Bryant read them with amazement and delight, +hurried at once to the house of a neighbor, a lady of whose sympathy +he felt sure, thrust them into her hands, and, with the tears running +down his cheeks, said, 'Read them; they are Cullen's.' + + [Illustration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT + From a photograph from life] + +"Now it had happened only a short time before, that Dr. Bryant had +been asked in Boston to urge his son to contribute to the newly +established _North American Review_, and had written him a letter on +the editor's behalf. Here was the opportunity of a proud father. +Without telling his son of his discovery or his purpose, he left the +poems one day, together with some translations from _Horace_ by the +same hand, at the office of _The North American_. The little package +was addressed to his editorial friend, Mr. Willard Phillips, of whom +tradition tells us that as soon as he read the poems he betook himself +in hot haste to Cambridge to display his treasures to his associates, +Richard H. Dana and Edward T. Channing. 'Ah, Phillips,' said Dana, +when he had heard the poems read, 'you have been imposed upon. No one +on this side of the Atlantic is capable of writing such verse.' But +Phillips, believing Dr. Bryant to be responsible for it, declared that +he knew the writer, and that Dana could see him at once if he would go +to the State House in Boston. Accordingly the young men posted into +town, and Dana, unconvinced after looking long and carefully at Dr. +Bryant in his seat in the Senate, said, 'It is a good head, but I do +not see _Thanatopsis_ in it.'" + +Bryant is never thought of as a humorist, and his poetry is devoid of +playfulness. But in this letter to his mother, in which he announces +his marriage with Frances Fairchild, we have evidence that Bryant had +a strong sense of humor. + + DEAR MOTHER: I hasten to send you the melancholy intelligence + of what has lately happened to me. + + Early on the evening of the eleventh day of the present month + I was at a neighboring house in this village. Several people + of both sexes were assembled in one of the apartments, and + three or four others, with myself, were in another. At last + came in a little elderly gentleman, pale, thin, with a solemn + countenance, pleuritic voice, hooked nose, and hollow eyes. It + was not long before we were summoned to attend in the + apartment where he and the rest of the company were gathered. + We went in and took our seats; the little elderly gentleman + with the hooked nose prayed, and we all stood up. When he had + finished most of us sat down. The gentleman with the hooked + nose then muttered certain cabalistic expressions, which I was + too much frightened to remember, but I recollect that at the + conclusion I was given to understand that I was married to a + young lady by the name of Frances Fairchild, whom I perceived + standing by my side, and I hope in the course of few months to + have the pleasure of introducing to you as your daughter-in-law, + which is a matter of some interest to the poor girl, who has + neither father or mother in the world. + +Next to _Thanatopsis_ the most widely-known and admired of Bryant's +work is _To a Waterfowl_. There are two very interesting stories +pertaining to this much quoted poem, one relating to the origin of the +poem, the other recording its effect on two fastidious young +Englishmen, Hartley Coleridge and Matthew Arnold. + +Bryant was a young man with no assurance as to what the future might +have in store for him. He was journeying over the hills to Plainfield +to see whether there might possibly be an opening for a young lawyer. +It was the 15th of December, 1816, and we can imagine that the gloom +of the gathering twilight helped to deepen the youth's despondency. +But before the glimmering light of evening had given place entirely to +the dark of night, the sky was transfigured with the bright rays of +the setting sun. The New England sky was flooded for a moment with +seas of chrysolite and opal. While young Bryant stopped to enjoy the +brilliant scene, a solitary bird made its way across the sky. He +watched it until it was lost in the distant horizon, and then went on +with new courage as he thought the thoughts so beautifully expressed +in the poem which he wrote after he reached the house where he was to +stay for the night. + +The incident in regard to Matthew Arnold is related by Godwin in a +letter to Bigelow: + +"Once when the late Matthew Arnold, with his family, was visiting the +ever-hospitable country home of Mr. Charles Butler, I happened to +spend an evening there. In the course of it Mr. Arnold took up a +volume of Mr. Bryant's poems from the table and turning to me said, +'This is the American poet, _facile princeps_'; and after a pause, he +continued: 'When I first heard of him, Hartley Coleridge (we were both +lads then) came into my father's house one afternoon considerably +excited and exclaimed, 'Matt, do you want to hear the best short poem +in the English language?' 'Faith, Hartley, I do,' was my reply. He +then read a poem _To a Waterfowl_ in his best manner. And he was a +good reader. As soon as he had done he asked, 'What do you think of +that?' 'I am not sure but you are right, Hartley, is it your +father's?' was my reply. 'No,' he rejoined, 'father has written +nothing like that.' Some days after he might be heard muttering to +himself, + + The desert and illimitable air, + Lone wandering but not lost." + + + + +LIII + +CURTIS AND HAWTHORNE AT THE BROOK FARM + + +The social experiment known as the Brook Farm enterprise is one of the +most interesting episodes in American literature. Mrs. Ora G. Sedgwick +is one of the many writers who have written about the place and its +inhabitants. She went there in June, 1841, and lived for some time at +the Hive, the principal community edifice. She was then but a girl of +sixteen, but the impressions on her youthful mind were strong enough +to enable her recently to describe her life there. As to Curtis she +has this to say: + +"The arrival of George William Curtis, then a youth of eighteen, and +his brother Burrill, two years his senior, was a noteworthy event in +the annals of Brook Farm, at least in the estimation of the younger +members. I shall never forget the flutter of excitement caused by Mr. +Ripley's announcing their expected coming in these words: 'Now we're +going to have two young Greek gods among us.' ... On a bright morning +in May, 1842, soon after Mr. Ripley's announcement, as I was coming +down from the Eyrie to the Hive, I saw Charles A. Dana with two +strange young men approaching my 'magic gate' from the direction of +the Hive. Arriving at the gate before me, Mr. Dana threw it open with +the flourish peculiar to his manner, and stood holding it back. His +companions stood beside him, and all three waited for me to pass +through. I saw at a glance that these must be 'the two young Greek +gods.' They stood disclosed, not like Virgil's Venus, by their step, +but by their beauty and bearing. Burrill Curtis was at that time the +more beautiful. He had a Greek face, of great purity of expression, +and curling hair. George too was very handsome--not so remarkably as +in later life, but already with a man's virile expression. + +"About George William Curtis there was a peculiar personal elegance +and an air of great deference in listening to one whom he admired or +looked up to. There was a certain remoteness (at times almost +amounting to indifference) about him, but he was always courteous. His +friends were all older than himself, and he appeared much older in +manners and conversation than he was in years; more like a man of +twenty-five than a youth of eighteen." + +Mrs. Sedgwick also gives us a charming glimpse at the great American +novelist, Hawthorne: + +"I do not recollect Hawthorne's talking much at the table. Indeed, he +was a very taciturn man. One day, tired of seeing him sitting +immovable on the sofa in the hall, as I was learning some verses to +recite at the evening class for recitation formed by Charles A. Dana, +I daringly took my book, pushed it into his hands, and said, 'Will you +hear my poetry, Mr. Hawthorne?' He gave me a sidelong glance from his +very shy eyes, took the book, and most kindly heard me. After that he +was on the sofa every week to hear me recite. + +"One evening he was alone in the hall, sitting on a chair at the +farther end, when my room mate, Ellen Slade, and myself were going +upstairs. She whispered to me, 'Let's throw the sofa pillows at Mr. +Hawthorne.' Reaching over the bannisters, we each took a cushion and +threw it. Quick as a flash he put out his hand, seized a broom that +was hanging near him, warded off our cushions, and threw them back +with sure aim. As fast as we could throw them at him he returned them +with effect, hitting us every time, while we could hit only the broom. +He must have been very quick in his movements. Through it all not a +word was spoken. We laughed and laughed, and his eyes shone and +twinkled like stars. Wonderful eyes they were, and when anything witty +was said I always looked quickly at Mr. Hawthorne; for his dark eyes +lighted up as if flames were suddenly kindled behind them, and then +the smile came down to his lips and over his grave face. + +"My memories of Mr. Hawthorne are among the pleasantest of my Brook +Farm recollections. His manners to children were charming and kind. I +saw him one day walking, as was his custom, with his hands behind his +back, head bent forward, the two little Bancrofts and other children +following him with pleased faces, and stooping every now and then with +broad smiles, after which they would rise and run on again behind him. +Puzzled at these maneuvers, I watched closely, and found that +although he hardly moved a muscle except to walk, yet from time to +time he dropped a penny, for which the children scrambled." + + + + +LIV + +HAWTHORNE AND THE SCARLET LETTER + + +On June 8, 1849, Hawthorne walked out of the Salem Custom House--a man +without a job. Taylor's Whig administration had come in, so our +Democratic friend, Mr. Hawthorne, walked out. The job he left was not +in our modern eyes a very lucrative one, it was worth $1,200 a year +and Hawthorne had had it for three years. But he went out "mad," for +he knew he had not meddled in politics and he thought that as an +author--even if he was the "most obscure man of letters in +America"--he was entitled to some consideration. + +And then there were the wife and children! As he walked home to tell +them the doleful news, he was much depressed by thoughts of them. He +had paid his old debts; but he had saved nothing. He seemed to lack +money, friends, and influence. He had written to a friend in +Boston,--"I shall not stand upon my dignity; that must take care of +itself.... Do not think anything too humble to be mentioned to me. The +intelligence has just reached me, and Sophia has not yet heard it. She +will bear it like a woman,--that is to say better than a man." What a +noble tribute to woman's fortitude! Hawthorne's belief in the +sustaining love of his wife reminds us of a tradition which says that +he never read a letter from his wife without first washing his hands. +To him the act was sacred, and like a priest of old before handling +the symbols of love he performed the rites of purification. + +His son tells us how the wife met the news with which he greeted her +on his arrival at home, "that he had left his head behind." She +exclaimed, "Oh, then you can write your book!" And when he with the +prudence of a practical man wanted to know where the bread and rice +were to come from while he was writing the book, she like all good +wives--of olden times, at least--brought forth a "pile of gold" which +she had saved from the household weekly expenses. When the pile of +gold had been subjected to mathematical accuracy it dwindled to $150, +but it was enough to tide over immediate wants. + +It was in the early winter that James T. Fields, the publisher who +plays such a prominent part in the early history of American +literature, descended upon the quiet Salem household like the +"godmother in a fairy story." Fields has told the story of his visit: +"I found him alone in a chamber over the sitting-room of the dwelling; +and as the day was cold, he was hovering near a stove. We fell into +talk about his future prospects, and he was, as I feared I should find +him, in a very desponding mood. 'Now,' said I, 'is the time for you to +publish, for I know during these years in Salem you must have got +something ready for the press.' 'Nonsense,' said he, 'what heart had I +to write anything, when my publishers have been so many years trying +to sell a small edition of the _Twice-told Tales_.' I still pressed +upon him the good chances he would have now with something new. 'Who +would risk publishing a book for me, the most unpopular writer in +America?' 'I would,' said I, 'and would start with an edition of 2,000 +copies of anything you would write.' 'What madness!' he exclaimed. +'Your friendship for me gets the better of your judgment.' 'No, no!' +he continued, 'I have no money to indemnify a publisher's losses on my +account.' I looked at my watch, and found that the train would be soon +starting for Boston, and I knew that there was not much time to lose +in trying to discover what had been his literary work during these +last few years in Salem. I remember that I pressed him to reveal to me +what he had been writing. He shook his head and gave me to understand +that he had produced nothing. At that moment I caught sight of a +bureau or set of drawers near where we were sitting; and immediately +it occurred to me that hidden in that article of furniture was a story +or stories by the author of _Twice-told Tales_; and I became so +positive of it that I charged him vehemently with the fact. He seemed +surprised, I thought, but shook his head again; and I rose to take my +leave, begging him not to come into the cold entry, saying I would +come back and see him again in a few days. I was hurrying down the +stairs when he called after me from the chamber, asking me to stop a +moment. Then quickly stepping into the entry with a roll of MS. in his +hands, he said: 'How in heaven's name did you know this thing was +there? As you found me out, take what was written, and tell me, after +you get home and have time to read it, if it is good for anything. It +is either very good or very bad--I don't know which!' On my way to +Boston I read the germ of _The Scarlet Letter_." + +Hawthorne's original plan was to write a number of stories, of which +this particular one was to be the longest. He was going to call his +book of tales, _Old-Time Legends: together with Sketches, Experimental +and Ideal_,--a title which Woodberry calls "ghostly with the +transcendental nonage of his genius." Fields urged that the tale be +made longer and fuller and that it be published by itself. So the +original plan was changed, as was also the title. This was wise, for +the cumbersome original title would have killed any book, but the +present title is nothing short of a stroke of genius. + +About this time Hawthorne's friends, under the leading of Hillard, +sent a kind letter and a considerable sum of money. Hawthorne +replied,--"I read your letter in the vestibule of the Post Office; and +it drew--what my troubles never have--the water to my eyes; so that I +was glad of the sharply-cold west wind that blew into them as I came +homeward, and gave them an excuse for being red and bleared." After +saying it was sweet to be remembered, but bitter to need their aid, he +concludes,--"The money, dear Hillard, will smooth my path for a long +time to come. The only way in which a man can retain his self-respect, +while availing himself of the generosity of his friends, is by making +it an incitement to his utmost exertion, so that he may not need their +help again. I shall look upon it so--nor will shun any drudgery that +my hand shall find to do, if thereby I may win bread." + +Four days after this letter was written, on February 3, 1850, he +finished _The Scarlet Letter_. He writes to a friend saying he read +the last scene to his wife, or rather tried to read it, "for my voice +swelled and heaved, as if I were tossed up and down on an ocean as it +subsides after a storm." Mrs. Hawthorne told a friend that her husband +seemed depressed all during that winter. "There was a knot in his +forehead all the time," said his wife. One day he told her he had a +story that he wished to read to her. He read part of the work one +evening. The next evening he continued. His wife followed the story +with intense interest. Her excitement arose until when he was reading +near the end of the book, where Arthur and Hester and the child meet +in the forest, Mrs. Hawthorne sank from her low stool to the floor and +said she could endure no more. Hawthorne stopped and said in +wonder,--"Do you really feel it so much? Then there must be something +in it." + +Mrs. Hawthorne relates that on the day after the MS. was delivered to +Fields, this publisher returned and when admitted to the house caught +up her boy in his arms and said,--"You splendid little fellow, do you +know what a father you have?" Then he ran upstairs to talk to +Hawthorne, calling to her as he went that he had sat up all night to +read the story. Soon her husband came down and walked about the room +with a new light in his eyes. + +Early in April the book was issued in an edition of 5,000 copies; this +was soon exhausted, and Hawthorne was well started on that career of +literary fame which led Mr. Hamilton W. Mabie, a hundred years after +the birth of Hawthorne, to call him "the foremost literary artist of +America." + +_The Scarlet Letter_, as Hawthorne himself tells us, is a story of +"human frailty and sorrow." It is the story of one who has brooded +long and faithfully upon the problem of evil. In it we read that man +is the master of his fate. The great difference between ancient and +modern literature is this: the old dramatists seem to believe that +somewhere there is a power above and beyond the control of man, a +blind, unreasoning force that seems to play with man as the football +of chance. Whatever may be done by man will prove unavailing if Fate +or Destiny has decreed otherwise. Out of such a philosophy of life +comes the story of OEdipus. The modern conception is that expressed by +Shakspere: + + The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, + But in ourselves, that we are underlings. + +Still later Henley in his one great poem has expressed the thought +with vigor,-- + + Out of the night that covers me, + Black as the pit from pole to pole, + I thank whatever gods there be + For my unconquerable soul! + +With unfaltering aim Hawthorne shows that each character works out its +own destiny. That man is helpless, the sport of gods, the football of +Fate, is disproved by the patient transformation in the character of +Hester. + +Some one has well characterized _The Scarlet Letter_ as "a drama of +the spirit." It is a story such as only one who had brooded deeply on +the problem of evil could write. Hawthorne was a "solitary brooder +upon life." Every one who knew him testified to this impression. When +William Dean Howells, a young man from Ohio, knocked at the door of +the Wayside Cottage, a letter of introduction in his hand, and a +feeling of hero-worship in his heart, he was ushered into the presence +of the great romancer, who advanced "carrying his head with a heavy +forward droop" and with pondering pace. His look was "somber and +brooding--the look of a man who had dealt faithfully and therefore +sorrowfully with that problem of evil which forever attracted and +forever evaded Hawthorne." + +Hawthorne impressed all who met him with his reserve and shyness. Many +stories are told to illustrate this quality. Hawthorne was once a +visitor at a club where a number of literary men had gathered. The +taciturnity of Hawthorne was more impressive than the loquacity of the +witty Holmes. After Hawthorne had left Emerson said, "Hawthorne rides +his dark horse well." George William Curtis relates this anecdote: + +"...I recall the silent and preternatural vigor with which, on one +occasion, he wielded his paddle to counteract the bad rowing of a +friend who conscientiously considered it his duty to do something and +not let Hawthorne work alone, but who with every stroke neutralized +all Hawthorne's efforts. I suppose he would have struggled until he +fell senseless rather than to ask his friend to desist. His principle +seemed to be, if a man cannot understand without talking to him, it +is quite useless to talk, because it is immaterial whether such a man +understands or not." + +Hawthorne's father was a man of the sea, a man of few words, and it is +sometimes said that the romancer inherited his shy and reserved +disposition from his father. But his mother was not behind the father +in reserve. After her husband's death she shut herself up in +Hindoo-like seclusion and lived the life of a hermit for more than +forty years. + +Hawthorne gives us an interesting account of his boyhood in an +autobiographical note to his friend Stoddard. "When I was eight or +nine years old, my mother, with her three children, took up her +residence on the banks of the Sebago Lake, in Maine, where the family +owned a large tract of land; and here I ran quite wild ... fishing all +day long, or shooting with an old fowling-piece; but reading a good +deal too, on the rainy days, especially in _Shakspere_ and _The +Pilgrim's Progress_." + +More pertinent as to his habits of loneliness is the following account +of how he lived for nine or ten years after his graduation from +Bowdoin. "I had always," he writes, "a natural tendency (it appears to +have been on the paternal side) toward seclusion; and this I now +indulged to the utmost, so that, for months together, I scarcely held +human intercourse outside of my own family, seldom going out except at +twilight, or only to take the nearest way to the most convenient +solitude, which was oftenest the seashore.... Having spent so much of +my boyhood and youth from my native place, I had very few +acquaintances in Salem, and during the nine or ten years that I spent +there, in this solitary way, I doubt whether so much as twenty people +in the town were aware of my existence." + +Such was the solitariness of the youthful Hawthorne. Is it surprising +that in the fiction of the mature man there should be a pervading +sense of remoteness, of silences that fascinate, of mysteries that +charm? + + + + +LV + +MAX MUeLLER'S RECOLLECTIONS OF EMERSON, LOWELL, AND HOLMES + + +Living at Oxford, writes Max Mueller, I have had the good fortune of +receiving visits from Emerson, Dr. Wendell Holmes, and Lowell, to +speak of the brightest stars only. Each of them stayed at our house +for several days, so that I could take them in at leisure, while +others had to be taken at one gulp, often between one train and the +next. Oxford has a great attraction for all Americans, and it is a +pleasure to see how completely they feel at home in the memories of +the place. The days when Emerson, Wendell Holmes, and Lowell were +staying with us, the breakfasts and luncheons, the teas and dinners, +and the delightful walks through college halls, chapels and gardens +are possessions forever.... + +I do not wonder that philosophers by profession had nothing to say to +his (Emerson's) essays because they did not seem to advance their +favorite inquiries beyond the point they had reached before. But there +were many people, particularly in America, to whom these rhapsodies +did more good than any learned disquisitions or carefully arranged +sermons. There is in them what attracts us so much in the ancients, +freshness, directness, self-confidence, unswerving loyalty to truth, +as far as they could see it. He had no one to fear, no one to please. +Socrates or Plato, if suddenly brought to life in America, might have +spoken like Emerson, and the effect produced by Emerson was certainly +like that produced by Socrates in olden times. + +What Emerson's personal charm must have been in earlier life we can +only conjecture from the rapturous praises bestowed on him by his +friends, even during his lifetime.... And his influence was not +confined to the American mind. I have watched it growing in England. I +can still remember the time when even experienced judges spoke of his +essays as mere declamations, as poetical rhapsodies, as poor +imitations of Carlyle. Then gradually one man after another found +something in Emerson which was not to be found in Carlyle, +particularly his loving heart, his tolerant spirit, his comprehensive +sympathy with all that was or was meant to be good and true, even +though to his own mind it was neither the one nor the other.... + +Another eminent American who often honored my quiet home at Oxford was +James Russell Lowell, for a long time United States minister in +England. He was a professor and at the same time a politician and a +man of the world. Few essays are so brimful of interesting facts and +original reflections as his essays entitled _Among my Books_. + +Lowell's conversation was inexhaustible, his information astonishing. +Pleasant as he was, even as an antagonist, he would occasionally lose +his temper and use very emphatic language. I was once sitting next to +him when I heard him stagger his neighbor, a young lady, by bursting +out with, "But, madam, I do not accept your major premise!" Poor +thing, she evidently was not accustomed to such language, and not +acquainted with that terrible term. She collapsed, evidently quite at +a loss as to what gift on her part Mr. Lowell declined to accept. + +Sometimes even the most harmless remark about America would call forth +very sharp replies from him. Everybody knows that the salaries paid by +America to her diplomatic staff are insufficient, and no one knew it +better than he himself. But when the remark was made in his presence +that the United States treated their diplomatic representatives +stingily, he fired up, and discoursed most eloquently on the +advantages of high thoughts and humble living.... + +I lost the pleasure of shaking hands with Longfellow during his stay +in England. Though I have been more of a fixture at Oxford than most +professors, I was away during the vacation when he paid his visit to +our university, and thus lost seeing a poet to whom I felt strongly +attracted, not only by the general spirit of his poetry, which was +steeped in German thought, but as the translator of several of my +father's poems. + +I was more fortunate with Dr. Wendell Holmes. His arrival in England +had been proclaimed beforehand, and one naturally remained at home in +order to be allowed to receive him. His hundred days in England were +one uninterrupted triumphal progress. When he arrived at Liverpool he +found about three hundred invitations waiting for him. Though he was +accompanied by a most active and efficient daughter, he had at once to +engage a secretary to answer this deluge of letters. And though he +was past eighty, he never spared himself, and was always ready to see +and to be seen. He was not only an old, but a ripe and mellow man. +There was no subject on which one could touch which was not familiar +to the autocrat of the breakfast table. His thoughts and his words +were ready, and one felt that it was not for the first time that the +subject had been carefully thought out and talked out by him. That he +should have been able to stand all the fatigue of the journey and the +constant claims on his ready wit seemed to me marvelous. I had the +pleasure of showing him the old buildings of Oxford. He seemed to know +them all, and had something to ask and say about every one. When we +came to Magdalen College, he wanted to see and to measure the elms. He +was very proud of some elms in America, and he had actually brought +some string with which he had measured the largest tree he knew in his +own country. He proceeded to measure one of our finest elms in +Magdalen College, and when he found that it was larger than his +American giant, he stood before it admiring it, without a single word +of envy or disappointment. + +I had, however, a great fright while he was staying at our house. He +had evidently done too much, and after our first dinner party he had +feverish shivering fits, and the doctor whom I sent for declared at +once that he must keep perfectly quiet in bed, and attend no more +parties of any kind. This was a great disappointment to myself and to +a great many of my friends. But at his time of life the doctor's +warning could not be disregarded, and I had, at all events, the +satisfaction of sending him off to Cambridge safe and sound. I had +him several days quite to myself, and there were few subjects which we +did not discuss. We mostly agreed, but even where we did not, it was a +real pleasure to differ from him. We discussed the greatest and the +smallest questions, and on every one he had some wise and telling +remarks to pour out. I remember one conversation while we were sitting +at an old wainscoted room at All Souls', ornamented with the arms of +former fellows. It had been at first the library of the college, then +one of the fellows' rooms, and lastly a lecture room. We were deep in +the old question of the true relation between the divine and human in +man, and here again, as on all other questions, everything seemed to +be clear and evident to his mind. Perhaps I ought not to repeat what +he said to me when we parted: "I have had much talk with people in +England; with you I have had a real conversation." We understood each +other and wondered how it was that men so often misunderstood one +another. I told him that it was the badness of our language, he +thought it was the badness of our tempers. Perhaps we were both right. +With him again good-by was good-by for life, and at such moments one +wonders indeed how kindred souls became separated, and one feels +startled and repelled at the thought that, such as they were on earth, +they can never meet again. And yet there is continuity in the world, +there is no flaw, no break anywhere, and what has been will surely be +again, though how it will be we cannot know, and if only we trust in +the wisdom that pervades the whole universe, we need not know. + + + + +LVI + +HOWELLS CALLS ON EMERSON, AND DESCRIBES LONGFELLOW + + +In 1860 William Dean Howells, now one of the foremost literary +influences in the English-speaking world, was a young man writing for +the _Ohio State Journal_ of Columbus. Several of his poems had been +kindly received and published by the _Atlantic Monthly_, so that the +young lady from New England who screamed with surprise at seeing the +_Atlantic_ on a western table and cried, "Why, have you got the +_Atlantic Monthly out here_?" could be met with, "There are several +contributors to the _Atlantic_ in Columbus." The several were Howells +and J.J. Piatt. But to be an accepted contributor to the _Atlantic_ +was not enough. Howells must see the literary celebrities of New +England. Emerson and Bayard Taylor he had seen and heard in Columbus, +but Longfellow, Hawthorne, Lowell, Holmes, and Whittier were the +literary saints at whose shrine he wished to burn the sacred incense +of his adoring soul. + +From Hawthorne he received a card introducing him to Emerson. Emerson +was then about sixty, although nothing about him suggested an old man. +After some conversation on general topics, Emerson began to talk of +Hawthorne, praising Hawthorne's fine personal qualities. "But his +last book," he added, reflectively, "is mere mush." This criticism +related to the _Marble Faun_. Of course, such a comment shocked +Howells, whose sense of literary values was much keener than +Emerson's. "Emerson had, in fact," writes Howells, "a defective sense +as to specific pieces of literature; he praised extravagantly, and in +the wrong place, especially among the new things, and he failed to see +the worth of much that was fine and precious beside the line of his +fancy." + +Then Emerson made some inquiry about a Michigan young man who had been +sending some of his poetry to Emerson. Howells was embarrassed to be +obliged to say that he knew nothing of the Michigan poet. Later +Emerson asked whether he had become acquainted with the poems of Mr. +William Henry Channing. Howells replied that he knew them only through +the criticism of Poe. + +"Whose criticisms?" asked Emerson. + +"Poe's," replied Howells. + +"Oh," Emerson cried after a thoughtful moment, "you mean _the jingle +man_!" + +This was a moment of confusion and embarrassment for Howells. Had the +vituperative pen of Poe ever thrown off more stinging criticism than +that? "_The jingle man!_" + +Emerson turned the conversation to Howells himself and asked him what +he had written for the _Atlantic_. Howells replied, and Emerson took +down the bound volumes and carefully affixed Howells' initials to the +poems. "He followed me to the door, still speaking of poetry, and as +he took a kindly enough leave of me, he said one might very well give +a pleasant hour to it now and then." This was a shock to Howells. "A +pleasant hour!" Howells was intending to consecrate all time and +eternity to it, and here is the Sage of Concord coolly speaking of +poetry as though it were some trifling diversion, like billiards or +whist. + +Later in life when Howells resided in Cambridge he had abundant +opportunity to become acquainted with Longfellow, whom in _Literary +Friends and Acquaintance_ he calls the "White Mr. Longfellow." + +"He was the most perfectly modest man I ever saw, ever imagined, but +he had a gentle dignity which I do not believe any one, the coarsest, +the obtusest, could trespass upon. In the years when I began to know +him, his long hair and the beautiful beard which mixed with it were of +iron-gray, which I saw blanch to a perfect silver, while that pearly +tone of his complexion, which Appleton so admired, lost itself in the +wanness of age and pain. When he walked, he had a kind of spring in +his gait, as if now and again a buoyant thought lifted him from the +ground. It was fine to meet him coming down a Cambridge street; you +felt that the encounter made you a part of literary history, and set +you apart with him for the moment from the poor and mean. When he +appeared in Harvard Square, he beatified if not beautified the ugliest +and vulgarest looking spot on the planet outside of New York. You +could meet him sometimes at the market, if you were of the same +provision-man as he, for Longfellow remained as constant to his +tradespeople as to any other friends. He rather liked to bring his +proofs back to the printer himself, and we often found ourselves +together at the University Press, where _The Atlantic Monthly_ used to +be printed. But outside of his own house Longfellow seemed to want a +fit atmosphere, and I love best to think of him in his study, where he +wrought at his lovely art with a serenity expressed in his smooth, +regular, and scrupulously perfect handwriting. It was quite vertical, +and rounded, with a slope neither to the right nor left, and at the +time I knew him first, he was fond of using a soft pencil on printing +paper, though commonly he wrote with a quill. Each letter was distinct +in shape, and between the verses was always the exact space of half an +inch. I have a good many of his poems written in this fashion, but +whether they were the first drafts or not I cannot say; very likely +not. Towards the last he no longer sent the poems to the magazines in +his own hand, but they were always signed in autograph. + +"I once asked him if he were not a great deal interrupted, and he +said, with a faint sigh, Not more than was good for him, he fancied; +if it were not for the interruptions, he might overwork. He was not a +friend to stated exercise, I believe, nor fond of walking, as Lowell +was; he had not, indeed, the childish associations of the younger poet +with the Cambridge neighborhoods; and I never saw him walking for +pleasure except on the east veranda of his house, though I was told he +loved walking in his youth. In this and in some other things +Longfellow was more European than American, more Latin than Saxon. He +once said quaintly that one got a great deal of exercise in putting on +and off one's overcoat and overshoes.... + +"He was patient, as I said of all things, and gentle beyond all mere +gentlemanliness. But it would have been a great mistake to mistake his +mildness for softness. It was most manly and firm, and of course, it +was braced with the New England conscience he was born to. If he did +not find it well to assert himself, he was prompt in behalf of his +friends, and one of the fine things told of him was his resenting some +things said of Sumner at a dinner in Boston during the old pro-slavery +times; he said to the gentlemen present that Sumner was his friend, +and he must leave their company if they continued to assail him. + +"But he spoke almost as rarely of his friends as of himself. He liked +the large, impersonal topics which could be dealt with, on their human +side, and involved characters rather than individuals. This was rather +strange in Cambridge, where we were apt to take our instances from our +environments. It was not the only thing he was strange in there; he +was not to that manner born; he lacked the final intimacies which can +come only of birth and lifelong association, and which make the men of +the Boston breed seem exclusive when they least feel so; he was +Longfellow to the friends who were James, and Charles, and Wendell to +one another. He and Hawthorne were classmates at college, but I never +heard him mention Hawthorne; I never heard him mention Whittier or +Emerson. I think his reticence about his contemporaries was largely +due to his reluctance from criticism: he was the finest artist of +them all, and if he praised he must have praised with the reservations +of an honest man. Of younger writers he was willing enough to speak. +No new contributor made his mark in the magazine unnoted by him, and +sometimes I showed him verse in manuscript which gave me peculiar +pleasure. I remember his liking for the first piece that Mr. Maurice +Thompson sent me, and how he tasted the fresh flavor of it and inhaled +its wild new fragrance." + + + + +LVII + +LONGFELLOW, THE UNIVERSAL POET + + +We have passed the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Longfellow, +and he still remains the favorite American poet. Not that Longfellow +is one of the great world poets; Longfellow himself would have been +offended with that eulogistic extravagance which would place him among +the few immortals. He is not a Homer, nor a Dante, nor a Shakspere. +No, he is not even a Wordsworth in philosophic insight into nature, +nor a Shelley in power to snatch the soul into the starry empyrean, +nor a Tennyson in variety and passion, nor a Milton in grandeur of +poetic expression. He is--only Longfellow. But that means he has his +own peculiar charm. It is idle to detract from the fame of one man +because he is not some one else. Roast beef may be more nutritious +than strawberries, but that is no criticism upon the flavor of the +strawberry. Longfellow is not Milton, but then neither is Milton +Longfellow: + + If I cannot carry forests on my back + Neither can you crack a nut. + +Of late years the critics have been finding fault with Longfellow. +They have said that really Longfellow is no poet. Frederic Harrison +calls Evangeline "goody, goody dribble!" and Quiller-Couch in his +anthology gives three pages to Longfellow and seven to Wilfred Scawen +Blunt--but who is Blunt? When I was in Berlin I found in a German +history of English and American Literature one-half a page devoted to +Longfellow and ten pages to Poe. Perhaps some of this criticism is but +the natural reaction following the extreme praise that ensued after +the death of Longfellow in 1882. + + [Illustration: HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW + From a wood engraving of a life photograph] + +But Longfellow is surviving all derogatory criticism. He is still the +poet with the universal appeal. It is altogether probable that he is +more widely read to-day than any other American poet. Even foreigners +still express their affection for this poet of the domestic +affections. In 1907 Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the English Ambassador +to the United States, made an address in which he made graceful +acknowledgement of his debt to this American poet: + +"I owe much of the pleasure of my life to American writers of every +shade of thought.... But I owe to one American writer much more than +pleasure. Tastes differ and fashions change, and I am told that the +poetry of Longfellow is not read as it used to be. Men in my own +country have asked me whether the rivers of Damascus were not better +than all the waters of Israel, whether Shakspere, and Milton, and +Shelley, and Keats were not enough for me, that I need go to +Longfellow. And Americans have seemed surprised that I did not speak +rather of Lowell and Bryant and others. Far be it from me to say a +word against any of them. I have loved them all from my youth up, +every one of them in his own way, and Shakspere as the master and +compendium of them all. No one, I suppose, would place Longfellow as a +poet quite on the same level with some of them. But the fact remains +that, for one reason or another, perhaps in part from early +associations, Longfellow has always spoken to my heart. Many a time, +in lands far away from the land he loved so well, I have sought for +sympathy in happiness and in sorrow-- + + Not from the grand old masters, + Not from the bards sublime, + Whose distant footsteps echo + Through the corridors of time-- + +but from that pure and gentle and untroubled spirit." + +Professor E.A. Grosvenor, of Amherst, years ago published an article +on Longfellow that was widely copied. It is an interesting account of +a conversation in 1879 on board the Messageries steamer _Donai_, bound +from Constantinople to Marseilles. On board many nationalities were +represented. The story is a fine illustration of the wide-spread +popularity of the American poet. + +"One evening, as we were quitting the Straits of Bonifacio, some one +remarked at dinner that, though Victor Hugo was born in Paris, the +earliest impressions of his life were received in Corsica, close to +which we were passing. Ten or twelve of us lingered after the meal was +finished to talk of the great French poet. One of the party spoke of +him as embodying, more than any other writer, the humanistic +tendencies of the nineteenth century and as the exponent of what is +best in humanity. + +"We had been talking in French, when the Russian lady exclaimed in +English to the gentleman who had last spoken, 'How can you, an +American, give to him the place that is occupied by your own +Longfellow? Longfellow is the universal poet. He is better known, too, +among foreigners than any one except their own poets! Then she +commenced repeating in rich, mellow tones: + + I stood on the bridge at midnight, + As the clocks were striking the hour, + And the moon rose over the city + Behind the dark church tower. + +I recall how her voice trembled over the words: + + And the burden laid upon me + Seemed greater than I could bear. + +and how it swelled out in the concluding lines: + + As the symbol of love in Heaven, + And its wavering image here. + +It was dramatic and never to be forgotten. Then she added, 'I long to +visit Boston that I may stand on the Bridge.' + +"In the company was an English captain returning from the Zulu war. He +was the son of that member of Parliament' who had been the chief +supporter of the claimant in the famous Tichborne case, and who had +poured out his money like water in behalf of the man whom he +considered cruelly wronged. The captain was a typical British soldier, +with every characteristic of his class. Joining our steamer at Genoa, +he had so far talked only of the Zulus and, with bitter indignation, +of the manner in which the Prince Imperial had been deserted by +British soldiers to be slain by savages. As soon as the Russian lady +had concluded he said: 'I can give you something better than that,' +and began in a voice like a trumpet: + + Tell me not in mournful numbers + Life is but an empty dream. + +His recitation of the entire poem was marked by the common English +upheaval and down-letting of the voice in each line; but it was +evident that he loved what he was repeating. + +"Then a tall, lank, gray-haired Scotchman, who knew no French, who had +hardly mingled with the other passengers, and who seemed always +communing with himself, suddenly commenced: + + There is no flock, however watched and tended, + But one dead lamb is there. + +He repeated only a few stanzas, but could apparently have given the +whole poem, had he wished. + +"For myself, I know that my contribution was _My Lost Youth_, +beginning + + Often I think of the beautiful town, + That is seated by the sea; + Often in thought go up and down + The pleasant streets of that dear old town + And my youth comes back to me. + +Never did the distance from an early home seem so great to one, New +England born, as in that strange company, gathered from many lands, +each with words upon the lip which the American had first heard in +childhood. + +"A handsome, olive-cheeked young man, a Greek from Manchester, +educated and living in England, said, 'How do you like this?' Then he +began to sing: + + Stars of the summer night, + Far in yon azure deeps, + Hide, hide your golden light! + She sleeps! + My lady sleeps! + Sleeps! + +So he rendered the whole of that exquisite serenade--dear to American +college students--with a freedom and a fire which hinted that he had +sung it at least once before on some more appropriate occasion. +Perhaps to some dark-eyed maiden of that elegant Greek colony of +Manchester it had come as a revelation, and perhaps she had first +heard it sung in front of her father's mansion and had looked down, +appreciative but unseen, from above. + +"The captain of the _Donai_ was not her regular commander, but an +officer of the national French navy, who was in charge only for a few +voyages. A thorough Frenchman, no one would have accused him of +knowing a word of any tongue, save his own. Versatile, overflowing +with wit and _bons mots_, it must have wearied him to be silent so +long. To our astonishment, in accents so Gallic that one discerned +with difficulty that he was attempting English, he intoned: + + Zee seds of neet fair valeeng fast, + Ven t'rough an Alpeen veelage past + A yout, who bore meed snow and eece + A bannair veed dees strange deveece + Excelsiorr! + +"'_Eh, voila_,' he exclaimed with satisfaction, '_J'ai appris cela a +l'ecole. C'est tout l'anglais que je sais._' + +"'_Mais, commandant_,' said the Russian lady, '_ce n'est pas l'anglais +du tout ce que vous venez de dire la._' + +"'_Ah, oui, madame, ca vient de votre Longfellow._' + +"None of the other passengers contributed, but already six +nationalities had spoken--Scotch, Russian, Greek, French, English, and +American. As we arose from the table and went up on deck to watch the +lights glimmering in Napoleon's birthplace, Ajaccio, the Russian lady +said: 'Do you suppose there is any other poet of any country, living +or dead, from whom so many of us could have quoted? Not one. Not even +Shakspere or Victor Hugo or Homer.'" + + + + +LVIII + +HENRY DAVID THOREAU + + +During his lifetime Thoreau published but two books,--_Walden_, and +the _Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_,--and these had but +limited sale while the author was living. Over seven hundred copies of +the _Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_ were returned, to +Thoreau by his publisher. Thoreau must have had a helpful sense of +humor, for after lugging the burden upstairs he complacently +remarks,--"I have now a library of nearly nine hundred volumes, over +seven hundred of which I wrote myself." In recent times a costly +edition of all Thoreau's writings has been published. He is one of the +rare spirits whose fame increases with the years. But of all his +voluminous writings _Walden_, so it seems to me, is the most readable, +the freshest, the most stimulating. Higginson says that it is, +perhaps, the only book yet written in America that can bear an annual +reading. + +_Walden_ is a record of Thoreau's sojourn for about two years in the +woods by Walden Pond. He went about two miles from his mother's door, +built a little house or hut, and there lived, reading his favorite +books, philosophizing, studying nature, and to a great extent +avoiding society. Some people have condemned him as selfish, others +have defended him. His best defense is his work. If anything so fresh +and readable as _Walden_ be the result, we might be willing to deny +ourselves the society of some of our urban friends, without charging +them with selfishness. Thoreau is sometimes called a "wild man"; in a +sense, he is untamed. He himself confessed,--"There is in my nature, +methinks, a singular yearning toward all wildness." Yet he was a true +lover of men. He hated slavery and went to jail rather than pay his +taxes, because he disbelieved in supporting a government that upheld +slavery. When his friend, the philosophic Emerson, peered into the +prison cell and said,--"Henry, why are you here?" the quick retort +was,--"Why are you not here?" + +It must be remembered that Thoreau lived in a time of social +experiment. Hawthorne had thrown in his lot for a brief time with the +Brook Farm idealists. Why should not Thoreau make an experiment of his +own? Why not live the simple life before Wagner wrote about it? He was +tired of the conventionalities of society, of the incessant +interruptions to steady thought. Society is naught but a conspiracy to +compel imitation. "The head monkey of Paris puts on a traveler's cap, +and all the monkeys in America do the same." So Thoreau moves out into +the woods by the side of Walden Pond. Before he can live there he must +build his house: + +"Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the +woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, +and began to cut down some tall arrowy pines, still in their youth, +for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it +is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an +interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe as he released his +hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it +sharper than I received it." + +His house, when finished, was ten feet wide and fifteen long. The +exact cost was twenty-eight dollars, twelve and one-half cents. In +_Walden_ he gives an itemized account of the cost. And then he adds, +with a twinkle of his eye, I think,--"I intend to build me a house +which will surpass any on the main street in Concord in grandeur and +luxury, as soon as it pleases me as much and will cost me no more than +my present one." + +Thoreau also finds some satisfaction that his house cost him less than +the year's rent of a college room at Harvard; for there the mere rent +of a student's room, "which is only a little larger than my own, is +thirty dollars each year, though the corporation had the advantage of +building thirty-two side by side and under one roof." + +In this book he gives a very interesting account of what his food cost +him during the eight months from July 4 to March 1. Here is his list: + + Rice $1.73-1/2 + Molasses 1.73 + Rye meal 1.04-3/4 + Indian meal .99-3/4 + Pork .22 + Flour .88 + Sugar .80 + Lard .65 + Apples .25 + Dried apple .22 + Sweet potatoes .10 + One pumpkin .06 + One watermelon .02 + Salt .03 + +"Yes," says he, "I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus +unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my +readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would +look no better in print." In this connection one may call to mind a +reported saying of Mrs. Emerson's to the effect that Henry never got +very far away from the sound of the dinner horn. It is not hard to +imagine that the hospitable Emerson often invited the kindred-spirited +Thoreau into his house for a warm and abundant dinner. Another writer +recently has advanced also this thought: Thoreau was not so much of a +selfish hermit as it might appear. He went into the woods to make his +house or hut a station on the underground railroad. If this be true, a +new and different light is thrown upon Thoreau's conduct. + +Thoreau was a great lover of nature and the things of nature loved +him. Dr. Channing gives us this glimpse of the man: + +"Thoreau named all the birds without a gun, a weapon he never used in +mature years. He neither killed nor imprisoned any animal, unless +driven by acute needs. He brought home a flying squirrel, to study its +mode of flight, but quickly carried it back to the wood. He possessed +true instincts of topography, and could conceal choice things in the +bush and find them again.... If Thoreau needed a box in his walk, he +would strip a piece of birch bark off the tree, fold it, when cut +straightly, together, and put his tender lichen or brittle creature +therein." + +Emerson supplements this picture with the following account of a visit +he once made to Walden: + +"The naturalist waded into the pool for the water plants, and his +strong legs were no insignificant part of his armor. On this day he +looked for the menyanthes and detected it across the wide pool; and, +on examination of the floret, declared that it had been in flower five +days. He drew out of his breast-pocket a diary, and read the names of +all the plants that should bloom that day, whereof he kept account as +a banker does when his notes are due.... He could pace rods more +accurately than another man could measure them with rod and chain. He +could find his way in the woods at night better by his feet than by +his eyes. He knew every track in the snow and on the ground, and what +creature had taken the path in the snow before him." + +Thoreau could write the most beautiful descriptions when he was so +inclined. Here is an exquisite description of a snowstorm. + +"Did you ever admire the steady, silent, windless fall of the snow, in +some lead-colored sky, silent save the little ticking of the flakes as +they touched the twigs? It is chased silver, molded over the pines and +oak leaves. Soft shades hang like curtains along the closely-draped +wood-paths. Frozen apples become little cider-vats. The old crooked +apple-trees, frozen stiff in the pale, shivering sunlight, that +appears to be dying of consumption, gleam forth like the heroes of one +of Dante's cold hells; we would mind any change in the mercury of the +dream. The snow crunches under the feet; the chopper's axe rings +funereally through the tragic air. At early morn the frost on +button-bushes and willows was silvery and every stem and minutest twig +and filamentary weed came up a silver thing, while the cottage smoke +rose salmon-colored into that oblique day. At the base of ditches were +shooting crystals, like the blades of an ivory-handled penknife, the +rosettes and favors fretted of silver on the flat ice. The little +cascades in the brook were ornamented with transparent shields, and +long candelabrums and spermaceti-colored fools'-caps and plated +jellies and white globes, with the black water whirling along +transparently underneath. The sun comes out, and all at a glance, +rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds start into intense life on +the angles of the snow crystals." + + + + +LIX + +THE LAST DAYS OF EDGAR ALLAN POE + + +There has been great difference of opinion concerning the genius of +Poe. His life also has been the subject of much controversy. By some +Poe is painted as a fiend incarnate, by others as a man more sinned +against than sinning. When Howells visited Emerson he was surprised to +hear the Concord Sage refer to Poe as the "jingle man," but then +Emerson himself had been treated rather contemptuously by Poe, and +that, together with Emerson's lack of appreciation of melody, may +account for the "jingle man" expression. + +It is not strange that Poe has been the subject of bitter criticism. +He himself was bitter and unjust in his criticisms of others. He once +wrote: "Bryant is not _all_ a fool. Mr. Willis is not _quite_ an ass. +Mr. Longfellow _will_ steal, but, perhaps, he cannot help it." The man +who will write like that must expect similar vituperation in return. +To have friends, a man must be friendly. Poe was lacking in those warm +human sympathies that attract our fellow-men. The human touch lacking +in his art is also lacking in his life. "Except the wife who idolized +him," writes Mr. Woodberry in his excellent Life of Poe, "and the +mother who cared for him, no one touched his heart in the years of his +manhood, and at no time was love so strong in him as to rule his life; +as he was self-indulgent, he was self-absorbed, and outside of his +family no kind act, no noble affection, no generous sacrifice is +recorded of him." + +In _Scribner's Magazine_, 1878, Mrs. Susan T. Weiss in writing of the +_Last Days of Edgar Allan Poe_, one of the most accurate accounts of +this period of the poet's life, gives us a more pleasing impression. +We quote the following extracts: + +It was a day or two after his arrival that Poe, accompanied by his +sister, called on us.... The remembrance of that first meeting with +the poet is still as vividly impressed upon my mind as though it had +been but yesterday. A shy and dreamy girl, scarcely more than a child, +I had all my life taken an interest in those strange stories and poems +of Edgar Poe; and now, with my old childish impression of their author +scarcely worn off, I regarded the meeting with an eager, yet shrinking +anticipation. As I entered the parlor, Poe was seated near the window, +quietly conversing. His attitude was easy and graceful, with one arm +lightly resting on the back of his chair. His dark curling hair was +thrown back from his broad forehead--a style in which he habitually +wore it. At sight of him, the impression produced upon me was of a +refined, highbred, and chivalrous gentleman. I use this word +"chivalrous" as exactly descriptive of something in his whole +_personnel_, distinct from either polish or high-breeding, and which, +though instantly apparent, was yet an effect too subtle to be +described. He rose on my entrance, and, other visitors being present, +stood with one hand on the back of his chair, awaiting my greeting. So +dignified was his manner, so reserved his expression, that I +experienced an involuntary recoil, until I turned to him and saw his +eyes suddenly brighten as I offered my hand; a barrier seemed to melt +between us, and I felt that we were no longer strangers.... + +While upon this subject, I venture, though with great hesitation, to +say a word in relation to Poe's own marriage with his cousin, Virginia +Clemm. I am aware that there exists with the public but one view of +this union, and that so lovely and touching in itself, that to mar the +picture with even a shadow inspires almost a feeling of remorse. Yet +since in the biography of a distinguished man of genius truth is above +all things desirable, and since in this instance the facts do not +redound to the discredit of any party concerned, I may be allowed to +state what I have been assured is truth. + +Poets are proverbial for uncongenial marriages, and to this Poe can +scarcely be classed as an exception. From the time when as a youth of +nineteen he became a tutor to his sweet and gentle little cousin of +six years old, he loved her with the protective tenderness of an elder +brother. As years passed he became the subject of successive fancies +or passions for various charming women; but she gradually budding into +early womanhood experienced but one attachment--an absorbing devotion +to her handsome, talented, and fascinating cousin. So intense was this +passion that her health and spirits became seriously affected, and +her mother, aroused to painful solicitude, spoke to Edgar about it. +This was just as he was preparing to leave her house, which had been +for some years his home, and enter the world of business. The idea of +this separation was insupportable to Virginia. The result was that +Poe, at that time a young man of twenty-eight, married his little, +penniless, and delicate child-cousin of fourteen or fifteen, and thus +unselfishly secured her own and her mother's happiness. In his wife he +had ever the most tender and devoted of companions; but it was his own +declaration that he ever missed in her a certain intellectual and +spiritual sympathy necessary to perfect happiness in such an union.... +He was never a deliberately unkind husband, and toward the close of +Mrs. Poe's life he was assiduous in his tender care and attention. Yet +his own declaration to an intimate friend of his youth was that his +marriage "had not been a congenial one;" and I repeatedly heard the +match ascribed to Mrs. Clemm, by those who were well acquainted with +the family and the circumstances. In thus alluding to a subject so +delicate, I have not lightly done so, or unadvisedly made a statement +which seems refuted by the testimony of so many who have written of +the "passionate idolatry" with which the poet regarded his wife. I +have heard the subject often and freely discussed by Poe's most +intimate friends, including his sisters, and upon this authority I +speak. Lovely in person, sweet and gentle in disposition, his young +wife deserved, doubtless, all the love that it was in his nature to +bestow. Of his unvarying filial affection for Mrs. Clemm, and of her +almost angelic devotion to himself and his interests, there can be no +question. + +Once in discussing _The Raven_, Poe observed that he had never heard +it correctly delivered by even the best readers--that is, not as he +desired that it should be read. That evening, a number of visitors +being present, he was requested to recite the poem, and complied. His +impressive delivery held the company spell-bound, but in the midst of +it, I, happening to glance toward the open window above the level roof +of the greenhouse, beheld a group of sable faces the whites of whose +eyes shone in strong relief against the surrounding darkness. These +were a number of our family servants, who having heard much talk about +"Mr. Poe, the poet," and having but an imperfect idea of what a poet +was, had requested permission of my brother to witness the recital. As +the speaker became more impassioned and excited, more conspicuous grew +the circle of white eyes, until when at length he turned suddenly +toward the window, and, extending his arm, cried, with awful +vehemence, "Get thee back into the tempest, and the night's Plutonian +shore!" there was a sudden disappearance of the sable visages, a +scuttling of feet, and the gallery audience was gone. Ludicrous as was +the incident, the final touch was given when at that moment Miss Poe, +who was an extraordinary character in her way, sleepily entered the +room, and with a dull and drowsy deliberation seated herself on her +brother's knee. He had subsided from his excitement into a gloomy +despair, and now, fixing his eyes upon his sister, he concluded: + + And the raven never flitting, still is sitting, _still_ is sitting, + On the pallid bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door; + And its eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming-- + +The effect was irresistible; and as the final "nevermore" was solemnly +uttered the half-suppressed titter of two very young persons in a +corner was responded to by a general laugh. Poe remarked quietly that +on his next delivery of a public lecture "he would take Rose along, to +act the part of the raven, in which she seemed born to excel." ... + +It is with feelings of deep sadness, even after the lapse of so many +years, that I approach the close of these reminiscences. + +Poe one day told me that it was necessary that he should go to New +York. He must make certain preparations for establishing his magazine, +the _Stylus_, but he should in less than two weeks return to Richmond, +where he proposed henceforth to reside. He looked forward to this +arrangement with great pleasure. "I mean to turn over a new leaf; I +shall begin to lead a new life," he said, confidently. He had often +spoken to me of his books,--"few, but _recherche_,"--and he now +proposed to send certain of these by express, for my perusal. "You +must annotate them extensively," he said. "A book wherein the minds of +the author and the reader are thus brought in contact is to me a +hundredfold increased in interest. It is like flint and steel." One of +the books which he desired me to read was Mrs. Browning's poems, and +another one of Hawthorne's works. I remember his saying of the latter +that he was "indisputably the best prose writer in America;" that +"Irving and the rest were mere commonplace beside him;" and that +"there was more inspiration of true genius in Hawthorne's prose than +in all Longfellow's poetry." This may serve to give an idea of his own +opinion of what constitutes genius, though some of Longfellow's poems +he pronounced "perfect of their kind." + +The evening of the day previous to that appointed for his departure +from Richmond, Poe spent at my mother's. He declined to enter the +parlors, where a number of visitors were assembled, saying he +preferred the more quiet sitting-room; and here I had a long and +almost uninterrupted conversation with him. He spoke of his future, +seeming to anticipate it with an eager delight, like that of youth. He +declared that the last few weeks in the society of his old and new +friends had been the happiest that he had known for many years, and +that when he again left New York he should there leave behind all the +trouble and vexation of his past life.... + +In speaking of his own writings Poe expressed his conviction that he +had written his best poems, but that in prose he might yet surpass +what he had already accomplished.... + +He was the last of the party to leave the house. We were standing on +the portico, and after going a few steps he paused, turned, and again +lifted his hat, in a last adieu. At the moment, a brilliant meteor +appeared in the sky directly over his head, and vanished in the east. +We commented laughingly upon the incident; but I remembered it sadly +afterward. + +That night he spent at Duncan's lodge; and as his friend said, sat +late at his window, meditatively smoking, and seemingly disinclined +for conversation. On the following morning he went into the city, +accompanied by his friends Dr. Gibbon Carter and Dr. Mackenzie. The +day was passed with them and others of his intimate friends. Late in +the evening he entered the office of Dr. John Carter, and spent an +hour in looking over the day's papers; then taking Dr. Carter's cane +he went out, remarking that he would step across to Saddler's (a +fashionable restaurant) and get supper. From the circumstance of his +taking the cane, leaving his own in its place, it is probable that he +had intended to return; but at the restaurant he met with some +acquaintances who detained him until late, and then accompanied him to +the Baltimore boat. According to their account he was quite sober and +cheerful to the last, remarking, as he took leave of them, that he +would soon be in Richmond again. + +... Three days after, a friend came to me with the day's issue of the +_Richmond Dispatch_. Without a word she pointed to a particular +paragraph, where I read,--"Death of Edgar A. Poe, in Baltimore." + +Poe had made himself popular in Richmond, people had become interested +in him, and his death cast a universal gloom over the city. His old +friends, and even those more recently formed, and whom he had +strangely attached to himself, deeply regretted him. Mr. Sully came to +consult with me about a picture of _The Raven_ which he intended to +make; and in the course of the conversation expressed himself in +regard to his lost friend with a warmth of feeling and appreciation +not usual to him. The two had been schoolmates; and the artist said: +"Poe was one of the most warm-hearted and generous of men. In his +youth and prosperity, when admired and looked up to by all his +companions, he invariably stood by me and took my part. I was a dull +boy at learning, and Edgar never grudged time or pains in assisting +me." In further speaking, he said, with a decision and earnestness +which impressed me, "It was Mr. Allan's cruelty in casting him upon +the world, a beggar, which ruined Poe. Some who had envied him took +advantage of his change of fortune to slight and insult him. He was +sensitive and proud, and felt the change keenly. It was this which +embittered him. By nature no person was less inclined to reserve or +bitterness, and as a boy he was frank and generous to a fault." In +speaking of his poems, Mr. Sully remarked: "He has an eye for +dramatic, but not for scenic or artistic effect. Except in _The +Raven_, I can nowhere in his poems find a subject for a picture." + +In closing these reminiscences, I may be allowed to make a few remarks +founded upon my actual personal knowledge of Poe, in at least the +phase of character in which he appeared to me. What he may have been +to his ordinary associates, or to the world at large, I do not know; +and in the picture presented to us by Dr. Griswold,--half maniac, half +demon,--I confess, I cannot recognize a trait of the gentle, grateful, +warm-hearted man whom I saw amid his friends,--his careworn face all +aglow with generous feeling in the kindness and appreciation to which +he was so little accustomed. His faults were sufficiently apparent; +but for these a more than ordinary allowance should be made, in +consideration of the unfavorable influences surrounding him from his +very birth. He was ever the sport of an adverse fortune. Born in +penury, reared in affluence, treated at one time with pernicious +indulgence and then literally turned into the streets, a beggar and an +outcast, deserted by those who had formerly courted him, maliciously +calumniated, smarting always under a sense of wrong and +injustice,--what wonder that his bright, warm, and naturally generous +and genial nature should have become embittered? What wonder that his +keenly sensitive and susceptible poetic temperament should have become +jarred, out of tune, and into harsh discord with himself and mankind? +Let the just and the generous pause before they judge; and upon their +lips the breath of condemnation will soften into a sigh of sympathy +and regret. + + + + +LX + +ARTEMUS WARD + + +Poor Artemus! says Haweis in his lecture on the American humorist, I +shall not see his like again, as he appeared for a few short weeks +before an English audience at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. + +Sometimes, as to looks, profoundly dejected, at others shy or +reproachful; nervously anxious to please (apparently), yet with a +certain twinkle at the back of his eye which convinced you of his +perfect _sang froid_, and one thing always--full, unescapably full, of +fun.... + +When Artemus arrived here in 1866 he was a dying man. + +I can see him now, as he came on the narrow platform in front of his +inferior panorama, and stole a glance at the densely packed room and +then at his panorama. + +His tall, gaunt, though slender figure, his curly light hair and large +aquiline nose, which always reminded me of a macaw; his thin face +flushed with consumption, his little cough, which seemed to shake him +to pieces, and which he said "was wearing him out," at which we all +laughed irresistibly, and then felt ashamed of ourselves, as well we +might; but he himself seemed to enjoy his cough. It was all part of +that odd, topsy-turvy mind in which everything appeared most natural +upside down! + +On first entering he would seem profoundly unconscious that anything +was expected of him, but after looking at the audience, then at his +own clothes, and then apologetically at his panorama, he began to +explain its merits. + +The fact is Artemus intended having the finest scenes that could be +painted, but he gave that up on account of the expense, and then +determined to get the worst as the next best thing for his purpose. + +When anything very bad came up he would pause and gaze admiringly at +the canvas, and then look round a little reproachfully at the company. + +"This picture," he would say, "is a great work of art; it is an oil +painting done in petroleum. It is by the Old Masters. It was the last +thing they did before dying. They did this, and then they expired. I +wish you were nearer to it so you could see it better. I wish I could +take it to your residences and let you see it by daylight. Some of the +greatest artists in London come here every morning before daylight +with lanterns to look at it. They say they never saw anything like it +before, and they hope they never shall again!" + +Certain curious brown splotches appearing in the foreground, Artemus +pointed gravely to them, and said: + +"These are intended for horses; I know they are, because the artist +told me so. After two years, he came to me one morning and said, 'Mr. +Ward, I cannot conceal it from you any longer; they are horses.'" + +Apropos of nothing he observed: + +"I really don't care for money; I only travel around to show my +clothes." + +This was a favorite joke of his. He would look with a piteous +expression of discomfort and almost misery at his black trousers and +swallowtail coat, a costume in which he said he was always most +wretched. + +"These clothes I have on," he continued, "were a great success in +America." And then quite irrelevantly and rather hastily, "How often +do large fortunes ruin young men! I should like to be ruined, but I +can get on very well as I am!" + +So the lecture dribbled on with little fragments of impertinent +biography, mere pegs for slender witticisms like this: + +"When quite a child I used to draw on wood. I drew a small cartload of +raw material over a wooden bridge, the people of the village noticed +me, I drew their attention, they said I had a future before me; up to +that time I had an idea it was behind me." + +Or this: + +"I became a man. I have always been mixed up with art. I have an uncle +who takes photographs, and I have a servant who takes anything he can +set his hands on." + +With one more example from his life among the Mormons, which, perhaps, +though brief, includes a greater variety of wit and humor than any +single passage I could select, I must conclude my memorial glimpses of +this incomparable and lamented humorist. + +"I regret to say that efforts were made to make a Mormon of me while I +was in Utah. + +"It was leap year when I was there, and seventeen young widows--the +wives of a deceased Mormon (he died by request)--offered me their +hearts and hands. I called upon them one day, and taking their soft, +white hands in mine--which made eighteen hands altogether--I found +them in tears. And I said 'Why is this thus?--what is the reason of +this thusness?' + +"They hove a sigh--seventeen sighs of different size. They said-- + +"'Oh, soon thou wilt be gonested away!' + +"I told them that when I got ready to leave a place I usually +wentested. They said--'Doth not like us?' + +"I said, 'I doth, I doth!' I also said, 'I hope your intentions are +honorable, as I am a lone child and my parents are far, far away!' + +"They then said, 'Wilt not marry us?' + +"I said, 'Oh no, it cannot was.' + +"Again they asked me to marry them, and again I declined. When they +cried-- + +"'Oh, cruel man: this is too much--oh, too much!' + +"I told them it was on account of the muchness that I declined." + + + + +LXI + +EDMUND GOSSE VISITS WHITTIER + + +In December of 1884, Mr. Edmund Gosse, one of the most distinguished +of English critics, visited Whittier at a house called Oak Knoll, in +Massachusetts, where he was then staying with friends. We quote brief +extracts from a report of that visit as published in _Good Words_, an +English magazine: + +"Doubtless in leafy season Oak Knoll may have its charms, but it was +distinctly sinister that December morning. We rang, and after a long +pause the front door opened slightly, and a very unprepossessing dog +emerged, and shut the door (if I may say so) behind him. We were face +to face with this animal, which presented none of the features +identified in one's mind with the idea of Mr. Whittier. It sniffed +unpleasantly, but we spoke to it most blandly and it became assured +that we were not tramps. The dog sat down, and looked at us; we had +nowhere to sit down, but we looked at the dog. Then, after many +blandishments, but feeling very uncomfortable, I ventured to hold the +dog in conversation while I rang again. After another pause the door +was slightly opened, and a voice of no agreeable timbre asked what we +wanted. We explained, across the dog, that we had come by appointment +to see Mr. Whittier. The door was closed a second time, and, if our +carriage had still been waiting, we should certainly have driven back +to Danvers. But at length a hard-featured woman grudgingly admitted +us, and showed us, growling as she did it, into a parlor. + +"Our troubles were then over, for Mr. Whittier, himself appeared, with +all that report had ever told of a gentle sweetness and dignified +cordial courtesy. He was then seventy-seven years old, and, although +he spoke of age and feebleness, he showed few signs of either; he was, +in fact, to live eight years more. Perhaps because the room was low, +he seemed surprisingly tall; he must, in fact, have been a little less +than six feet high. The peculiarity of his face rested in the +extraordinary large and luminous black eyes, set in black eyebrows, +and fringed with thick black eye-lashes curiously curved inward.... + +"His generosity to those much younger and less gifted than himself is +well known, and I shall not dwell on the good-natured things which he +proceeded to say to his English visitor. He made no profession, at any +time, of being a critic, and his formula was that such and such verse +or prose had given him pleasure--'I am grateful to thee for all that +enjoyment' was his charming way of being kind.... He spoke with great +emotion of Emerson--'the noblest human being I have known,' and of +Longfellow, 'perhaps the sweetest. But you will see Holmes,' he added. +I said that it was my great privilege to be seeing Dr. Holmes every +day, and that the night before he had sent all sorts of affectionate +messages by me to Mr. Whittier. The latter expressed great curiosity +to see Holmes's short _Life of Emerson_ which, in fact, was published +five or six days later.... Mr. Whittier greatly surprised me by +confessing that he was quite color-blind. He exemplified his condition +by saying that if I came to Amesbury I should be scandalized by one of +his carpets. It appeared that he was never permitted, by the guardian +goddess of his hearth, to go 'shopping' for himself, but that once, +being in Boston, and needing a carpet, he had ventured to go to a +store and buy what he thought to be a very nice, quiet article, +precisely suited to adorn a Quaker home. When it arrived at Amesbury +there was a universal shout of horror, for what had struck Mr. +Whittier as a particularly soft combination of browns and grays +proved, to normal eyes, to be a loud pattern of bright red roses on a +field of the crudest cabbage-green." + + + + +LXII + +PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF WHITTIER + + +In the _New England Magazine_ Charlotte Forten Grimke writes +entertainingly of Whittier. From this article we are permitted to +quote the following extracts: + +"And so it happened that, one lovely summer day, my friend and I found +ourselves on the train, rapidly whirling eastward, through the +pleasant old town of Newburyport, across the 'shining Merrimac,' on +our way to the poet's home in Amesbury. Arriving at the station, we +found Mr. Whittier awaiting us, and a walk of a few minutes brought us +to his house on Friend Street. Amesbury, a busy manufacturing town, +pleasantly situated on the Merrimac, impressed me at first as hardly +retired enough for a poet's home; for fresh in my recollection were +Longfellow's historic house, guarded by stately poplars, standing back +from the quiet Cambridge street, and Lowell's old mansion, completely +buried in its noble elms; and each of these had quite realized my +ideal of the home of a poet. But the little house looked very quiet +and homelike; and when we entered it and received the warm welcome of +the poet's sister, we felt, as all felt who entered that hospitable +door, the very spirit of peace descending upon us. The house was +then white (it was afterwards painted a pale yellow), with green +blinds, and a little vine-wreathed piazza on one side, upon which +opened the glass door of 'the garden room,' the poet's favorite +sitting-room and study. The windows of this room looked out upon a +pleasant, old-fashioned garden. The walls on both sides of the +fireplace were covered with books. The other walls were hung with +pictures, among which we noticed 'The Barefoot Boy,' a painting of Mr. +Whittier's birthplace in Haverhill, a copy of that lovely picture, +'The Motherless,' under which were written some exquisite lines by +Mrs. Stowe, and a beautiful little sea-view, painted by a friend of +the poet. Vases of fresh, bright flowers stood upon the mantelpiece. +After we had rested we went into the little parlor, where hung the +portrait of the loved and cherished mother, who some years before had +passed away to the 'Better Land.' Hers was one of those sweet, aged +faces which one often sees among the Friends,--full of repose, +breathing a benediction upon all around. There were other pictures and +books, and upon a table in the corner stood Rogers' 'Wounded Scout.' + + [Illustration: JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER + From a photograph] + +"At the head of the staircase hung a great cluster of pansies, purple +and white and gold. Mr. Whittier called our attention to their +wonderful resemblance to human faces,--a resemblance which we so often +see in pansies, and which was brought out with really startling +distinctness in this picture. + +"In the cool, pleasant chamber assigned to us, pervaded by an air of +Quaker serenity and purity, was a large painting of the poet in his +youth. This was the realization of my girlish dreams. There were the +clustering curls, the brilliant dark eyes, the firm, resolute mouth. +He looked like a youthful Bayard, 'without fear and without reproach,' +ready to throw himself unflinchingly into the most stirring scenes of +the battle of life. + +"We were at once greatly interested in Miss Whittier, and impressed by +the simplicity and kindness of her manner. We saw the soul's beauty +shining in her soft, dark eyes, and in the smile which, like her +brother's, was very winning, and we felt it in the music, of her +gentle voice and the warm pressure of her hand. There was a refreshing +atmosphere of unworldliness about her. She had rarely been away from +her home, and although her brother's fame obliged her to receive many +strangers, she had never, as she told us, been able to overcome a +shyness of disposition, except in the case of a very few friends. She +was naturally witty and original, and when she did shake off her +shyness, had a childlike way of saying bright things which was very +charming. She and her brother had lived together, alone since their +mother's death, and in their mutual devotion have been well compared +to Charles Lamb and his sister. + +"We spent a delightful evening in the garden-room in quiet, cheerful +talk. In society Mr. Whittier had the reputation of being very shy, +and he was so among strangers; but at times, in the companionship of +his friends, no one could be more genial. He had even a boyish +frankness of manner, a natural love of fun, a keen appreciation of the +humorous, which the sorrows and poor health of many years failed to +subdue. That night he talked to us freely of his childhood, of the +life on the old farm in Haverhill, which he has so vividly described +in _Snow-Bound_, and showed us a venerable book, _Davideis_, being a +history of David written in rhyme, the quaintest and most amusing +rhyme, by Thomas Ellwood, a friend of Milton. It was the first book of +'poetry,' he told us, that he read when a boy. He entertained us with +stories of people who came to see him. He had many very interesting +and charming visitors, of course, but there were also many exceedingly +queer ones, and these, he said with a queer smile, generally 'brought +their carpet bags!' He said he was thankful to live in such a place as +Amesbury, where people did not speak to him about his poems, nor think +of him as a poet. Sometimes he had amused himself by tracking the most +persistent of the lion-hunters, and found that the same individuals +went to Emerson and Longfellow and other authors, and made precisely +the same speeches. Emerson was not much annoyed by them; he enjoyed +studying character in all its phases. + +"Begging letters and begging visits were also very frequent, and his +sister told us that her brother had frequently been victimized in his +desire to help those whose pitiful stories he believed. One day he +received a letter from a man in a neighboring town, asking him for a +loan of ten dollars, and assuring him that he should blow his brains +out if Mr. Whittier did not send him the money. The tone of the letter +made him doubt the sincerity of the writer, and he did not send the +money, comforting himself, he said, with the thought that the man +really had no brains to blow out. 'I must confess, however,' he +added, 'I looked rather anxiously at the newspapers for the next few +days, but seeing no news of a suicide in the neighboring town, I was +relieved.' + +"His sister once told us of an incident which occurred during the war, +which pleased them very much. One night, at a late hour, the door-bell +rang, and her brother, on answering it, found a young man in an +officer's uniform standing at the door. 'Is this Mr. Whittier?' he +asked. 'Yes.' 'Well, sir,' was the quick reply, 'I only wanted to have +the pleasure of shaking hands with you.' And with that he seized the +poet's hand, shook it warmly, and rushed away, before Mr. Whittier had +recovered from his surprise. + +"In subsequent visits to Mr. Whittier, he was sometimes induced to +talk about his poems, although that was a subject on which he rarely +spoke. On my friend's once warmly praising _Maud Muller_, he said +decidedly that he did not like the poem, because it was too sad; it +ministered to the spirit of unrest and dissatisfaction which was only +too prevalent. With _My Psalm_ he felt much better satisfied, because +it was more hopeful. His favorite poets were Wordsworth and Burns. He +once showed us an autograph letter of Burns, which he prized very +highly, and a number of beautiful photographs of Scotch scenery, the +gift of a sturdy old Scotchman, a neighbor of his and also an ardent, +admirer of Burns. + +"Our conversation occasionally touched on the subject of marriage, and +I remember his asking us if we could imagine why there should be so +much unhappiness among married people, even among those who seemed to +have everything calculated to make them happy, and who really loved +each other. He said he had pondered over the subject a good deal, and +had finally concluded that it was because they saw too much of each +other. He did not believe it was well for any two human beings to have +too much of each other's society. We told him that, being a +much-to-be-commiserated bachelor, he was not competent authority on +that subject. + +"Among the most intimate of his friends were Mr. and Mrs. James T. +Fields, Colonel Higginson, Charles Sumner, and Bayard Taylor. To the +two latter, and also to Emerson, he has alluded very beautifully in +one of his most characteristic poems, _The Last Walk in Autumn_. + +"On visiting the poet after my return from the South, for a vacation, +I found a new inmate of the house, a gray and scarlet parrot, named +Charlie, a great pet of the poet and his sister, and far-famed for his +wit and wisdom. He could say many things with great distinctness, and +although at first refusing rather spitefully to make my acquaintance, +when I invited him to come into the kitchen and get his supper he at +once hopped upon my hand and behaved in the most amicable manner. It +was very comical to see him dance to a tune of Mr. Whittier's +whistling. His master told us that he would climb toilsomely up the +spout, pausing at every step or two to say, in a tone of the deepest +self-pity, 'Poor Charlie!' and when he reached the roof screaming +impertinently at the passers-by. The Irish children said that he +called them 'Paddies,' and threatened him with dire vengeance. Mr. +Whittier said he did not know; he 'could believe anything of that +bird.' Charlie's favorite amusement was shaking the unripe pears from +the trees in the garden; and when he saw Miss Whittier approaching, he +would steal away with drooping head, like a child caught in a naughty +action. This gifted bird afterwards died, and was much missed by the +poet, who alluded to him in the poem entitled _The Common Question_. + +"Mr. Whittier showed me a couple of stuffed birds which had been sent +to him by the Emperor of Brazil, after reading his _Cry of a Lost +Soul_, in allusion to the bird in South American forests which has so +intensely mournful a note that the Indians give it a name which +signifies a lost soul. The first birds which were sent did not reach +him, and the Emperor on hearing it sent two more. The bird is larger +than a mocking bird, and has sober gray plumage, very unlike the +bright-hued creatures usually seen in tropical forests. + +"The Emperor was a warm admirer of Mr. Whittier, and one of the first +persons for whom he inquired on reaching Boston was the poet. There +was some delay about their meeting and Dom Pedro became very +impatient. At last they met in a house in Boston. Dom Pedro expressed +great delight at meeting the poet, and talked with him a long time, +paying very little attention to any one else. On leaving, he asked Mr. +Whittier to accompany him downstairs, and before entering his carriage +threw his arms around the astonished poet and embraced him warmly. + +"Rare and beautiful were the qualities which met in Mr. Whittier: a +singularly unworldly and sweet disposition, and unwavering love of +truth and justice, a keen sense of humor, the highest type of +courage, and a firm faith in God's goodness, which no amount of +suffering ever shook. For years he was an invalid, a martyr to severe +headaches. He once told me that he had not for a long time written +anything without suffering. The nearest and dearest of his earthly +ties had been severed by death. But he never rebelled. His life +exemplified the spirit of resignation which is breathed throughout so +many of his poems. + + All as God wills, who wisely heeds + To give or to withhold, + And knoweth more of all my needs + Than all my prayers have told. + +"My husband and I made our last visit to him two years ago, at Oak +Knoll. He gave us his customary warm greeting and, although in +extremely feeble health, was as sweet and genial in spirit and as +entertaining in conversation as ever. He took us into his cosey little +library, and talked about his books and pictures and old friends, and +promised to send us his latest photograph,--which he afterwards did. +Fearing to weary him, we stayed but a short time. So frail he looked, +that in parting from him our hearts were saddened by the thought that +we might not look upon that dear face again. And so it proved. I shall +ever remember him as I saw him then, in his beautiful country home, +surrounded by devoted friends, awaiting calmly the summons to enter +into rest--in that serene and lovely old age which comes only to those +gifted ones whose lives are the embodiment of all that is noblest and +best and sweetest in their poetry. + +"Farewell, beloved, revered friend! Thou art gone to join the loved +ones who beckoned to thee from those blessed shores of Peace. To thee, +how great the gain! To us, how infinite the loss! But thy influence +shall remain with us. Still shalt thou + + ... be to other souls + The cup of strength in some great agony, + Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, + Beget the smiles that have no cruelty-- + Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, + And in diffusion ever more intense. + + + + +LXIII + +HENRY WARD BEECHER + + +It would be no compliment to call Henry Ward Beecher the American +Spurgeon. He may be that, but he is more. If we can imagine Mr. +Spurgeon and Mr. John Bright with a cautious touch of Professor +Maurice and a strong tincture of the late F.W. Robertson--if, I say, +it is possible to imagine such a compound being brought up in New +England and at last securely fixed in a New York pulpit, we shall get +a product not unlike Henry Ward Beecher.... + +Mr. Beecher was brought up in the country. His novel, _Norwood_--not +very readable, by the way, although full of charming passages--abounds +in woods and streams, hills and dales, and flowers. "The willows," he +tells us somewhere, "had thrown off their silky catkins, and were in +leaf; the elm was covered with chocolate-colored blossoms, the soft +maple drew bees to its crimson tassels." Would that all preachers and +writers used no more offensive and superfluous flowers of speech than +such as these.... + +When he wants to illustrate the comfort of a powerful, unseen, though +protective love, he tells us how, as a boy, he woke up one midsummer +night and listened, with a sense of half-uneasy awe, to the wild cry +of the marsh birds, whilst the moonlight streamed full into his room; +and then, as he grew more and more disturbed, he suddenly heard his +father clear his throat "a-hem," in the next room, and instantly that +familiar sound restored his equanimity. The illustration is simple, +but it hits the mark and goes home. His affectionate tributes to his +father and mother are constantly breaking forth in spite of himself. +"I thank God," he says, "for two things. First, that I was born and +bred in the country, of parents that gave me a sound constitution and +a noble example. I never can pay back what I got from my parents. Next +I am thankful that I was brought up in circumstances where I never +became acquainted with wickedness." How delightful it is to think of a +man who, without a taint of conscious insincerity, but simply out of +the fulness of his heart, can get up before four thousand people, and +say: + +"I never was sullied in act, nor in thought when I was young. I grew +up as pure as a woman. And I cannot express to God the thanks which I +owe to my mother, and to my father, and to the great household of +sisters and brothers among whom I lived. And the secondary knowledge +of those wicked things which I have gained in later life in a +professional way, I gained under such guards that it was not harmful +to me." ... + +He has a wonderful way of importing his leisure hours into the pulpit, +and making the great cooped-up multitude feel something of the joy and +freshness of his own exhilaration. One golden day above others seems +to have dwelt in his mind. He refers to it again and again. + +"When I walked one day on the top of Mt. Washington--glorious day of +memory! Such another day I think I shall not experience till I stand +on the battlements of the New Jerusalem--how I was discharged of all +imperfections; the wide far-spreading country which lay beneath me in +beauteous light, how heavenly it looked, and I communed with God. I +had sweet tokens that he loved me. My very being rose right up into +his nature. I walked with him, and the cities far and near of New +York, and all the cities and villages which lay between it and me, +with their thunder, the wrangling of human passions below me, were to +me as if they were not." + +Some of his sermons are full of vacation-rambles. He passes through +woods and gardens and plucks flowers and fragrant leaves, which will +all have to do service in Brooklyn Church; he watches the crowded +flight of pigeons from the treetops, and thinks of men's riches that +so make themselves wings and fly away. As he scales the mountains and +sees the summer storms sweep through the valleys beneath him, he +thinks of the storms in the human heart--"many, many storms there are +that lie low and hug the ground, and the way to escape them is to go +up the mountain sides and get higher than they are." + +Mr. Beecher's travels in Europe were not thrown away upon his ardent +and artistic temperament. He has stood before the great pictures to +some purpose, and has not failed to read their open secret. + +"Have you ever stood in Dresden to watch that matchless picture of +Raphael's, the 'Madonna di San Siste'? Engravings of it are all +through the world; but no engraving has ever reproduced the mother's +face. The Infant Christ that she holds is far more nearly represented +than the mother. In her face there is a mist. It is wonder, it is +love, it is adoration, it is awe--it is all these mingled, as if she +held in her hands her babe, and yet it was God! That picture means +nothing to me as it does to the Roman Church; but it means everything +to me, because I believe that every mother should love the God that is +in her child, and that every mother's heart should be watching to +discern and see in the child, which is more than flesh and blood, +something that takes hold of immortality and glory." + + --Selected from the _Contemporary Review_. + + + + +LXIV + +THE LONDON "TIMES" ON LOWELL + + +The London _Times_, sometimes nicknamed the _Thunderer_, was for many +years the most influential paper in the world. Emerson in his _English +Traits_ says, "No power in England is more felt, more feared, or more +obeyed." In view of the high position of this paper it is a matter of +interest to our American students of literature to read what this +paper had to say on the death of Lowell. + +Here follows the larger part of the editorial from the _Times_: + +The death of Mr. Lowell will probably be more keenly and widely felt +in England than would be that of any other American, or, indeed, of +any other man who was not a fellow-countryman of our own. To very many +in England it will be counted as a grave personal loss; and thousands +more will miss in him one whom through his writings they had admired, +felt with, laughed with, as with a friend. For a long time past, in +fact ever since he quitted the Legation, his long annual visits to +London have been regarded by a wide circle as one of the events of the +year, and he himself as one of the most valued guests. We had hoped +that this last June would again see him in his old London haunts, +bright, genial, interesting as ever; but a cruel fate decided that +this was not to be, and neither the Old World nor the New should know +him more. Never a strong man, he has succumbed, at a ripe age, it is +true, but prematurely, as all will think who knew how fresh his +intelligence and his sympathies were to the last. With him there +passes away one of the very few Americans who were the equals of any +son of the Old World--of any Frenchman or any Englishman--in that +indefinable mixture of qualities, which we sum up for want of a better +word, under the name of culture. How did he arrive at it? The answer +is, by natural gifts, by constant play of mind with mind in talk, and +by reading. On those who casually met Mr. Lowell in society, he +certainly did not make the impression of a book-worm, or of a man to +whom books were indispensable; but none the less is it true that +whenever official business was not too heavy, he invariably read for a +_minimum_ of four hours a day. This did not include the time that he +gave to ephemeral literature; it was the time that he spent in the +serious reading of books, generally old books. How many of us, not +professed students, can show a record as good, or half as good? He +read quickly, too, in various languages, his favorites being the +English of the Elizabethans, Spanish, old French, and modern French. +His excellent memory and wonderful assimilative power built up this +reading into the mental endowments that all the world admired. + +When Mr. Lowell came to England as the representative of the United +States under the last Republican administration, London felt a +sympathetic curiosity as to the author of the famous _Biglow Papers_ +and of so much excellent prose criticism. In a very short time the +feeling warmed into admiration and friendship. The official world +spoke well of the way in which the new minister performed his +duties--generally not very heavy, but always demanding tact and +prudence--of his position as minister. Menacing sounds, indeed, began +to be heard from across the ocean, when the Irish Fenians, who control +so much of the press of the United States, began to raise the cry that +Mr. Lowell sacrificed the interests of their dynamitard friends to a +brutal British government; but, as the Washington officials took no +notice, nobody here paid much attention to the matter. In social life, +the new minister began to be a power. He went everywhere--to the +houses of the great, to the houses of the men of letters, and to +places where such people most do congregate. His talk was excellent +give-and-take. He was neither a professional anecdotist, like another +famous American talker, Mr. Chauncey Depew, nor a man on the watch for +something to disagree with, like Mr. Blaine, nor even, as was his +admirable successor, Mr. Phelps, a man of long silences broken by +flashes of humor. Mr. Lowell seemed to know everything and have his +knowledge always to hand; he was quick in repartee; he mixed anecdote +with reflection in the happiest manner; he laughed at others' jests, +and they laughed at his. Still, one had to be a little careful with +him, for there were points on which he was extremely sensitive. +Nobody, for example, must talk in his presence of _Americanisms_, or +hint that the standard of language and literature observed in America +showed any deflection from the best standard of the race.... + +On one occasion Mr. Lowell was sorely tempted to make his permanent +home here. Just about the time of his ceasing to be minister, he was +seriously sounded as to his willingness to be nominated to the new +post of professor of English language and literature at Oxford. Had he +consented to stand, not even a board determined to sink literature in +philology could have passed over his claims. But he declined, for two +reasons. There were claims of family, over in Massachusetts, and, +greatly as he loved the mental atmosphere of England, he thought it +his duty not to accept a definitely English post. And the sense of +duty is strong in that old Puritan stock from which he sprang. + +... But the distinguishing feature of Mr. Lowell was his adding to +these high literary gifts the strong practical side which made of him +a social power and a diplomatist. Naturally, such a man made a mark by +his speeches, and happy was the audience, at the unveiling of a +monument or at a literary dinner, that had the privilege of listening +to Mr. Lowell. Seldom in England, where this kind of speaking is not +cultivated as an art, have we witnessed such a perfect union of +self-possession, sense, and salt. The speech on Henry Fielding, the +speech in which he compared the sound of London to "the roaring loom +of time," the address on Democracy--to mention but a few--will not be +easily forgotten. Nor will those who had the privilege of experiencing +it, in however slight a degree, forget the sweet affectionateness +which, in spite of an occasional irritability and over-sensitiveness, +was at the root of Mr. Lowell's character. Corrupt politicians +disliked him and feared the barbed arrows of his indignant wit; but he +goes to the grave mourned by all that is best in America, and he takes +with him the heart-felt regard as well as the admiration, of this +elder branch of our common English race. + + + + +LXV + +THE WRITING OF "AMERICA" + + +The Rev. Dr. Samuel F. Smith, author of _America_, died in Boston in +1895. On April 3, of the same year, he had received a grand public +testimonial in Music Hall in recognition of his authorship of +_America_. In the souvenir of that occasion Dr. Smith tells how he +came to write the poem that made him famous. + +"In the year 1831 William C. Woodbridge, of New York, a noted +educator, was deputed to visit Germany and inspect the system of the +public schools, that if he should find in them any features of +interest unknown to our public schools here they might be adopted in +the schools of the United States. He found that in the German schools +much attention was given to music; he also found many books containing +music and songs for children. Returning home, he brought several of +these music-books, and placed them in the hands of Mr. Lowell Mason, +then a noted composer, organist, and choir leader. Having himself no +knowledge of the German language he brought them to me at Andover, +where I was then studying theology, requesting me, as I should find +time, to furnish him translations of the German words, or to write +new hymns and songs adapted to the German music. + +"On a dismal day in February, 1832, looking over one of these books, +my attention was drawn to a tune which attracted me by its simple and +natural movement and its fitness for children's choirs. Glancing at +the German words at the foot of the page, I saw that they were +patriotic, and I was instantly inspired to write a patriotic hymn of +my own. + +"Seizing a scrap of waste paper, I began to write, and in half an hour +I think the words stood upon it substantially as they are sung to-day. +I did not know at the time that the tune was the British _God Save the +King_. I do not share the regrets of those who deem it an evil that +the national tune of Britain and America is the same. On the contrary, +I deem it a new and beautiful tie of union between the mother and the +daughter, one furnishing the music (if, indeed, it is really English), +and the other the words. + +"I did not propose to write a national hymn. I did not think that I +had done so. I laid the song aside, and nearly forgot that I had made +it. Some weeks later I sent it to Mr. Mason, and on the following +Fourth of July, much to my surprise, he brought it out at a children's +celebration in the Park Street Church, in Boston, where it was first +sung in public." + + + + +LXVI + +ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS AND HER FIRST STORY + + +Some years ago the author of _Gates Ajar_ told in an American magazine +how she began her literary career. From this account we quote: + +"The town of Lawrence was three miles and a half from Andover. Up to +the year 1860 we had considered Lawrence chiefly in the light of a +place to drive to.... Upon the map of our young fancy the great mills +were sketched in lightly; we looked up from the restaurant ice-cream +to see the hands pour out for dinner, a dark and restless, but a +patient, throng, used in those days, to standing eleven hours and +quarter--women and girls--at their looms, six days of the week, and +making no audible complaints; for socialism had not reached Lawrence, +and anarchy was content to bray in distant parts of the geography at +which the factory people had not arrived when they left school.... + +"...One January evening, we were forced to think about the mills with +curdling horror that no one living in that locality when the tragedy +happened will forget. + +"At five o'clock the Pemberton Mills, all hands being at the time on +duty, without a tremor of warning, sank to the ground. + +"At the erection of the factory a pillar with a defective core had +passed careless inspectors. In technical language the core had +'floated' an eighth of an inch from its position. The weak spot in the +too thin wall of the pillar had bided its time, and yielded. The roof, +the walls, the machinery fell upon seven hundred and fifty living men +and women, and buried them. Most of these were rescued, but +eighty-eight were killed. As the night came on, those watchers on +Andover Hill who could not join the rescuing parties, saw a strange +and fearful light at the north. + +"Where we were used to watching the beautiful belt of the lighted +mills blaze--a zone of laughing fire from east to west, upon the +horizon bar--a red and awful glare went up. The mill had taken fire. A +lantern, overturned in the hands of a man who was groping to save an +imprisoned life, had flashed to the cotton, or the wool, or the oil +with which the ruins were saturated. One of the historic +conflagrations of New England resulted. + +"With blanching cheeks we listened to the whispers that told us how the +mill-girls, caught in the ruins beyond hope of escape, began to sing. +They were used to singing, poor things, at their looms--mill-girls +always are--and their young souls took courage from the familiar sound +of one another's voices. They sang the hymns and songs which they had +learned in the schools and churches. No classical strains, no 'music +for music's sake,' ascended from that furnace; no ditty of love or +frolic, but the plain, religious outcries of the people: _Heaven is my +Home_, _Jesus, Lover of my Soul_, and _Shall we Gather at the River?_ +Voice after voice dropped. The fire raced on. A few brave girls still +sang: + + Shall we gather at the river, + There to walk and worship ever? + +"But the startled Merrimac rolled by, red as blood beneath the glare +of the burning mills, and it was left to the fire and the river to +finish the chorus. + +"At the time this tragedy occurred, I felt my share of its horror, +like other people; but no more than that. My brother, being of the +privileged sex, was sent over to see the scene, but I was not allowed +to go. + +"Years after, I cannot say just how many, the half-effaced negative +came back to form under the chemical of some new perception of the +significance of human tragedy. + +"It occurred to me to use the event as the basis of a story. To this +end I set forth to study the subject. I had heard nothing in those +days about 'material,' and conscience in the use of it, and little +enough about art. We did not talk about realism then. Of critical +phraseology I knew nothing, and of critical standards only what I had +observed by reading the best fiction. Poor novels and stories I did +not read. I do not remember being forbidden them; but, by that +parental art finer than denial, they were absent from my convenience. + +"It needed no instruction in the canons of art, however, to teach me +that to do a good thing, one must work hard for it. So I gave the best +part of a month to the study of the Pemberton Mill tragedy, driving to +Lawrence, and investigating every possible avenue of information left +at that too long remove of time which might give the data. I visited +the rebuilt mills, and studied the machinery. I consulted engineers +and officials and physicians, newspaper men, and persons who had been +in the mill at the time of its fall. I scoured the files of old local +papers, and from these I took certain portions of names, actually +involved in the catastrophe, though, of course, fictitiously used. +When there was nothing left for me to learn on the subject, I came +home and wrote a little story called "The Tenth of January,' and sent +it to the _Atlantic Monthly_, where it appeared in due time. + +"This story is of more interest to its author than it can possibly be +now to any reader, because it distinctly marked for me the first +recognition which I received from literary people." + + + + +LXVII + +SIDNEY LANIER + + +Next to Poe, Sidney Lanier ranks as the foremost of the poets of the +South. In character Lanier is one of the rarest and purest of souls. +His life was so chaste, his ideals so high, his devotion to his art so +unselfish that he has been called "the Sir Galahad among American +poets." Dr. Gilman, who in his capacity as president of Johns Hopkins +University had frequent opportunities to observe Lanier, who was an +instructor in this institution, has made the following comment,--"The +appearance of Lanier was striking. There was nothing eccentric or odd +about him, but his words, manners, ways of speech, were distinguished. +I have heard a lady say that if he took his place in a crowded +horse-car, an exhilarating atmosphere seemed to be introduced by his +breezy ways." + +He was born in Georgia in 1842. After graduation from a small college +in his native state and then serving as tutor for a short time, he +entered the Confederate army. During his war experiences, whether in +the field or in prison, he studied poetry and played the flute. These +two arts were his passions for life. While yet in his college days he +had acquired a fine reputation as a flute-player. At eighteen he was +said to be the best flute-player in Georgia. One of his college +friends at the time made record of his admiration in writing,--"Tutor +Lanier is the finest flute-player you or I ever saw. It is perfectly +splendid--his playing. He is far-famed for it. His flute cost fifty +dollars, and he runs the notes as easily as any one on the piano." + +The passionate love of his sensitive soul is revealed in this poetic +description of a visit to the opera: + +"I have just come in from the _Tempest_ at the Grand Opera House ... +and my heart is so full.... In one interlude between the scenes we had +a violin solo, adagio, with soft accompaniment by orchestra. As the +fair tender notes came, they opened like flower-buds expanding into +flowers under the sweet rain of the accompaniment. Kind heavens! My +head fell on the seat in front, I was weighed down with great loves +and great ideas and divine inflowings and devout outflowings, and as +each note grew and budded, and became a bud again and died into a +fresh birth in the next bud tone, I also lived these flower-tone +lives, and grew and expanded, and folded back and died and was born +again, and partook of the unfathomable mysteries of flowers and +tones." And at another time he writes in the same vein,--"'Twas +opening night of Theodore Thomas' orchestra at Central Park Garden, +and I could not resist the temptation to go and bathe in the sweet +amber seas of this fine orchestra, and so I went, and tugged me +through a vast crowd, and, after standing some while, found a seat, +and the baton waved, and I plunged into the sea, and lay and floated. +Ah! the dear flutes and oboes and horns drifted me hither and thither, +and the great violins and small violins swayed me upon waves, and +overflowed me with strong lavations, and sprinkled glistening foam in +my face, and in among the clarinetti, as among waving water-lilies +with plexile stems, pushed my easy way, and so, even lying in the +music waters, I floated and flowed, my soul utterly bent and +prostrate." Who has ever written more expressively of that ecstasy +that lays hold of the sensuous soul of the lover of fine music? + +Lanier is one of the heroic souls of song. Like Stevenson he was +cheery enough to jest about his poverty. His contest with the demon of +Want seems to have been fiercer even than was the warfare waged by the +gay romancer. Lanier wishes to meet Charlotte Cushman, but he is not +sure that he can; he must sell a poem or two to get the price of a +suitable new dress coat. "Alas," he writes to the lady herself, in +that gay spirit of humor which is the strong defense of some sensitive +souls, "with what unspeakable care I would have brushed this present +garment of mine in days gone by, if I had dreamed that the time would +come when so great a thing as a visit to _you_ might hang upon the +little length of its nap! Behold, it is not only in man's breast that +pathos lies, and the very coat lapel that covers it may be a tragedy." + +The poetic temperament is commonly supposed to be at variance with +domestic tranquillity. The domestic life of Lanier is a contradiction +to that popular belief. He ends one of his letters to his wife with +this petition,--"Let us lead them (the children) to love everything +in the world, above the world, and under the world adequately; that is +the sum and substance of a perfect life. And so God's divine rest be +upon every head under the roof that covers thine this night, prayeth +thy husband." + +In his letter to Gibson Peacock, January 6, 1878, we have a charming +picture of the delight of a man who has at last found a place to nest +his family, after some years of forlorn wanderings and uncertainties: + +"...I have also moved my family into our new home, have had a +Christmas tree for the youngsters, have looked up a cheap school for +Harry and Sidney, have discharged my daily duties as first flute of +the Peabody Orchestra, have written a couple of poems and part of an +essay on Beethoven and Bismarck, have accomplished at least a hundred +thousand miscellaneous nothings.... We are in a state of supreme +content with our new home; it really seems to me as incredible that +myriads of people have been living in their own homes heretofore; as +to the young couple with a first baby it seems impossible that a great +many other couples have had similar prodigies. Good heavens! how I +wish that the whole world had a home. + +"I confess that I am a little nervous about the gas bills, which must +come in, in the course of time; and there are the water rates, and +several sorts of imposts and taxes; but then the dignity of being +liable to such things is a very supporting consideration. No man is a +Bohemian who has to pay a water tax and a street tax. Every day when I +sit down in my dining-room--_my_ dining-room! I find the wish growing +stronger that each poor soul in Baltimore, whether saint or sinner, +could come and dine with me. How I would carve out the merry-thoughts +for the old hags! How I would stuff the big wan-eyed rascals till +their rags ripped again! There was a knight of old times who built the +dining-hall of his castle across the highway, so that every wayfarer +must perforce pass through; there the traveler, rich or poor, found +always a trencher and wherewithal to fill it. Three times a day in my +own chair at my own table, do I envy that knight and wish that I might +do as he did." + + + + +LXVIII + +THE STORY OF MARK TWAIN'S DEBTS + + +The story of "Mark Twain's Debts" is told in _The Bookman_ by +Frederick A. King. We are permitted to tell the story in Mr. King's +own words: + +An anecdote is recorded of Mark Twain and General Grant, who, in +company with William D. Howells, once sat together at luncheon, spread +in the General's private office in the purlieus of Wall Street, in the +days when war and statesmanship had been laid aside, and the hero of +battles and civic life was endeavoring to retrieve his scattered +fortunes by a trial of business. + +"Why don't you write your memoirs?" asked Mark Twain, mindful of how +much there was to record, and how eager would be the readers of such a +work. + +But the General with characteristic modesty demurred, and the point +was not pressed. This was several years before the failure of the firm +of Ward and Grant, which swept away the General's private fortune, +leaving him an old man, broken in health, and filled with anxiety +about the provision for his family after he should be gone. + +When the evil days at last came, some memory of the suggestion +dropped by his friend, the humorist--who could be immensely serious, +too, when need be--may have led to the task that, in added contention +with pain and suffering, constituted the last battle that the General +should fight. + +Whatever the influence moving General Grant to the final decision to +compose his memoirs, it happened, to his great fortune, that Mark +Twain again called, and found that the work he had long ago suggested +was at last in progress; but also that the inexperienced writer, +modestly underestimating the commercial value of his forthcoming work, +was about to sign away the putative profits. Fifty thousand dollars +offered for his copyright seemed a generous sum to the unliterary +General Grant, and it took the vehement persuasion of one who was +himself a publisher to convince him that his prospective publishers +would not hesitate at quadrupling that sum rather than lose the chance +of publishing the book. + +When the conjecture was proven true, the General with characteristic +generosity, withdrew the contract from his prospective publishers and +placed it in the hands of the firm that Mark Twain headed. All the +provisions were amply fulfilled; for when Mark Twain paid his last +visit to the stricken author at the place of sojourn on Mount +McGregor, he brought to the now speechless sufferer the smile of +happiness and satisfaction by saying: "General, there is in the bank +now royalties on advanced sales aggregating nearly $300,000. It is at +Mrs. Grant's order." + +The anecdote is given at this length because, taken in connection +with subsequent events dealing with General Grant's benefactor, it +points a forceful illustration of the irony of fortune. There came a +day when the very instrument by which Mark Twain was enabled to +provide a peaceful close to the life of a brave warrior, and to +guarantee affluence for his family, delivered himself a stroke that +dissipated his own fortune at a time when age is supposed to have +absorbed the vigor for a new grapple with destinies. + +In 1884 the publishing firm of C.L. Webster and Company was organized +to publish the works of Mark Twain. Of this firm Mark Twain was +president; but he took little active part in the management of its +affairs. Able to conceive in broad outlines successful policies, he +was singularly deficient in the power to handle the details of their +execution. On April 18, 1894, the firm whose business enterprises had +always figured in large sums through the immense popularity of the +author-publisher's own works, the _Memoirs of General Grant_, and the +_Life of Pope Leo_, made an assignment for the benefit of its +creditors. The bankrupt firm acknowledged liabilities approximating +$80,000. What in the ordinary view of commercial affairs would have +furnished but one item in the list of failures which record the +misfortunes of ninety per cent who engage in business, became in this +instance a notable case through the eminence of the chief actor. + +What might he have done? + +The law could lay claim upon his personal assets. To surrender these +possessions proved no act of self-sacrifice, considering his wife's +fortune, upon which the law had no claim. His wife, however, joined +him in the act of renunciation, and they stood together penniless. +Beyond this point there could be no legal, and, to many minds, no +moral responsibility for the debts of his firm. One can speculate upon +the force of the temptation to take advantage of the position. Mark +Twain was sixty years old, and ill at that. Having sacrificed all he +possessed to meet the demands of his creditors, he might justly claim +the benefit of what remained of capacity for wealth-producing labor. +His own words in reply to a slander which insinuated that he had set +to work again for his own benefit are splendid for inspiration and +honesty: + +"The law recognizes no mortgage on a man's brain, and a merchant who +has given up all he has may take advantage of the laws of insolvency, +and start free again for himself; but I am not a business man, and +honor is a harder master than the law. It cannot compromise for less +than a hundred cents on the dollar." + +... The great parallel case to the one here under examination is that +of Sir Walter Scott, who lost his all through the failure of his +printers, the Ballantynes, and between January, 1826, and January, +1828, earned for his creditors nearly L40,000. In the early stages of +this trial he suffered acutely from the attitude of his friends, and +he records in his diary how some would smile as if to say: "Think +nothing about it, my lad; it is quite out of our thoughts;" how others +adopted an affected gravity "such as one sees and despises at a +funeral," while the best bred "just shook hands and went on." + +How the world treated Mark Twain we learn from the speech at the +banquet given by the Lotus Club on his return from his arduous journey +around the world: "There were ninety-six creditors in all, and not by +a finger's weight did ninety-five out of the ninety-six add to the +burden of that time." + +"'Don't you worry, and don't you hurry,' was what they said." With the +courage of a man buffeted, but not beaten, he gathered himself up for +"one more last try for fortune and fair fame." In the latter part of +1895 he started out on a tour of the English-speaking countries of the +world to give lectures and readings from his own works. + +There were misgivings, of course, as to the success of the venture. +Here was a field not absolutely untried, but not hitherto cultivated +to the point of assured success. In 1873 he had made a lecture tour in +England and in 1885 had given platform readings in company with George +W. Cable. But age had sapped the zest for public appearance, and he +was skeptical of his power to move people with interest in his books. +Moreover, there was a further thing to be considered, a possible +impediment to success among the English colonies which he proposed to +visit. His popularity with Englishmen had never been great, owing to +the liberties he had taken with that nation's people in _Innocents +Abroad_. + +The latter apprehension was the more remote, however, for, starting +from New York, he had a continent to traverse before embarking for the +shores that held for him an uncertain welcome. To test his ability to +interest an audience, to "try it on the dog," as they say in +theatrical parlance, he subjected himself to the severest test +possible, crossed to Randall's Island and read before a company of +boys. Unsophisticated by the lecturer's reputation as a humorist, the +boys proved to be the organs of sincerest testimony to the permanence +of the old power to amuse, and the first public appearance in +Cleveland, Ohio, was undertaken with fewer misgivings. + +From Vancouver, Mark Twain sailed for Sidney and gave readings before +the English-speaking communities of Australia; then continued on to +Tasmania, New Zealand, Ceylon, India and South Africa. + +His fears as to his welcome among Englishmen were proved to be +groundless. In Australia, great as was his success as a lecturer, his +personal success outweighed even that, and the market on his books was +exhausted. We cannot follow him on this trip of mingled arduous labor +and personal satisfaction. The humorous reactions of his homely vision +upon the quaint, the bizarre, the pretentious, aspects of life in +remote parts of the world may be read in his own record of this +journey, _Following the Equator_. There are few things to record of +this great effort to pay his debts. + +In India he was taken ill, but the disease was not severe. In June, +1897, when he had circled the globe and had settled for a time in +London, cablegrams came from that city announcing his mental and +physical collapse. The English-speaking world was stricken with +sympathy, and the New York _Herald_ at once began a subscription fund +for his relief. The report was contradicted at once, but admiration +for the author's strenuous effort seemed to grow, and the _Herald_ +fund was assuming generous proportions when the following +characteristic message declining to accept the relief came from the +proposed beneficiary: + + I was glad when you instituted that movement, for I was tired + of the fact and worry of debt, but I recognized that it is not + permissible for a man whose case is not hopeless to shift his + burden to other men's shoulders. + +In November of the same year a report was circulated that he was out +of debt, but from Vienna, whither he had gone to live, came a laconic +cablegram nailing the optimistic impeachment: + + Lie. Wrote no such letters. Still deeply in debt. + +Nearly half of the original indebtedness needed to be paid, and here, +with scarcely an opposing voice in judgment, he might have waived the +claim upon himself for his firm's responsibilities, but he avowed that +he would pay dollar for dollar. + +The time of accomplishment was not long in coming. When the +undertaking was begun, it was with the resolution to clear up the debt +in three years. Allowing for the unexpected, it was feared it would +take four, then at the age of sixty-four a new start in life would be +open to the author, who might point to a considerable occupancy of +space on library shelves and regard a life work accomplished. It took +but two years and a half to pay the debt. He began the effort the +latter part of 1895 and finished it in the early part of 1898. + +His return to America and his home in 1900 was, in the unromantic +procedure of our self-conscious days, of the nature of a triumph. He +was formally welcomed by the Lotus Club, and, of course, as delicately +as might be, he was praised for his honesty. His reply to compliment +was a generous recognition of social virtue, which renders easier such +an effort as he made. + +Said he: + + Your president has referred to certain burdens which I was + weighted with. I am glad he did, as it gives me an opportunity + which I wanted. To speak of those debts--you all knew what he + meant when he referred to it, and to the poor bankrupt firm of + C.L. Webster and Company. No one has said a word about those + creditors. There were ninety-six creditors in all, and not by + a finger's weight did ninety-five out of the ninety-six add to + the burden of that time. They treated me well; they treated me + handsomely. I never knew I owed them anything; not a sign came + from them. + +The story is one of simple elements, and suits the prosaic character +of our age. It does not match Sir Walter's for romance. There was no +such brain-racking work; no forcing of the phantasmal multitude of the +poet's brain to dance to pay the expenses of the funeral; no mediaeval +castle to sacrifice; no tragic failure of the ultimate goal. What +there is of real romance seems obscured by the facts of more or less +safe speculation upon assured futures. It was a safe business venture. + +The hero was not unworthy of the praises which his peers at the Lotus +dinner were glad to lavish. Said St. Clair McKelway: + +"He has enough excess and versatility to be a genius. He has enough +quality and quantity of virtues to be a saint. But he has honorably +transmuted his genius into work, whereby it has been brought into +relations with literature and with life. And he has preferred warm +fellowship to cool perfection, so that sinners love him and saints are +content to wait for him." + + + + +LXIX + +HAMLIN GARLAND'S LITERARY BEGINNING + + +Hamlin Garland is one of the writers whose name suggests the great +Northwest. He was born in Wisconsin in 1860, went to Iowa and later to +Dakota, striving at an early age to wrest a living from the soil. At +ten years of age he plowed seventy acres of land. His vivid +descriptions of Western farm-life are not the results of reading and +casual observation, supplemented by a vivid imagination; they are the +products of actual experiences. + +In a personal interview with Mr. Garland, Frank G. Carpenter gives us +the following interesting particulars: + +"The conversation here turned to Mr. Garland's literary work, and he +told me how he was first led to write by reading Hawthorne's _Mosses +from an Old Manse_. This book so delighted him that he wanted to write +essays like it for a living, and he practised at this during the +intervals of his school-teaching and studying for years. It was not +until he was older that he attempted fiction or poetry. The story of +his first published article is a curious one. Said he: + +"'My first literary success was a poem which I wrote for _Harper's +Weekly_, entitled 'Lost in the Norther.' It was a poem describing a +blizzard and the feelings of a man lost in it. I received twenty-five +dollars for it.' + +"'That must have been a good deal of money to you then, Mr. Garland?' + +"'It was,' was the reply. 'It was my first money in literature, and I +spent it upon my father and mother. I paid five dollars for a copy of +Grant's _Memoirs_, which I sent father, and with the remaining twenty +dollars I bought a silk dress for my mother. It was the first silk +dress she had ever had.' + +"'When did you write your first fiction?' + +"'My mother got half of the money I received for that,' replied Mr. +Garland, 'as it was due to her that I wrote it. I had been studying in +Boston for several years, when I went out to Dakota to visit my +parents. The night after I arrived I was talking with mother about old +times and old friends. She told me how one family had gone back to New +York for a visit, and had returned very happy, in getting back to +their Western home. As she told the story, the pathos of it struck me. +I went into another room and began to write. The story was one of the +best chapters of my book _Main-Traveled Roads_. I read it to mother, +and she liked it, and upon telling her that I thought it was worth at +least seventy-five dollars, she replied: "Well, if that is so, I think +you ought to _divvy_ with me, for I gave you the story." "I will," +said I, and so, when I got my seventy-five dollars, I sent her a check +for thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents. I got many other good +suggestions during that trip to Dakota. I wrote poems and stories. +Some of the stories were published in _The Century_, and I remember +that I received six hundred dollars within two weeks from its editors. +It was perhaps a year later before I published my first book. It had a +good sale, and I have been writing from that day to this.' + +"Hamlin Garland spends a part of every year in the West. He has bought +the old home place where he was born in Wisconsin, and he has there a +little farm of four acres, upon which he raises asparagus, +strawberries, onions, and bushels of other things. His mother lives +with him. During my talk with him the other night he said: 'I like the +West and the Western people. I have been brought up with them, and I +expect to devote my life to writing about them. I spend a portion of +each summer on the Rocky Mountains, camping out. I like to go where I +can sleep in the open air and have elbow-room away from the crowded +city.'" + + + + +LXX + +STEPHEN CRANE: A "WONDERFUL BOY" + + +In 1900, Stephen Crane, while yet barely thirty, died. His early +passing away was widely regarded as a loss to American literature. In +England he was especially admired as a vigorous writer. His _The Red +Badge of Courage_ won him wide recognition as a keen analyst. Old +soldiers who read the story could not believe that it was written by a +boy who was born after the war had ended. By many critics his stories +of boyhood are considered the writings that shall be longest +remembered. Shortly before his death Mr. Crane wrote the following +letter to the editor of a Rochester daily: + +"My father was a Methodist minister, author of numerous works of +theology, and an editor of various periodicals of the church. He was a +graduate of Princeton, and he was a great, fine, simple mind. As for +myself, I went to Lafayette College, but did not graduate. I found +mining-engineering not at all to my taste. I preferred base-ball. +Later I attended Syracuse University, where I attempted to study +literature, but found base-ball again much more to my taste. My first +work in fiction was for the New York _Tribune_, when I was eighteen +years old. During this time, one story of the series went into the +_Cosmopolitan_. At the age of twenty I wrote my first novel--_Maggie_. +It never really got on the market, but it made for me the friendship +of William Dean Howells and Hamlin Garland, and since that time I have +never been conscious for an instant that those friendships have at all +diminished. After completing _Maggie_, I wrote mainly for the New York +_Press_ and for _The Arena_. In the latter part of my twenty-first +year I began _The Red Badge of Courage_, and completed it early in my +twenty-second year. The year following I wrote the poems contained in +the volume known as _The Black Riders_. On the first day of last +November I was precisely twenty-nine years old and had finished my +fifth novel, _Active Service_. I have only one pride, and that is that +the English edition of _The Red Badge of Courage_ has been received +with great praise by the English reviewers. I am proud of this simply +because the remoter people would seem more just and harder to win." + +In another letter to the same editor he writes about his literary +sincerity: + +"The one thing that deeply pleases me is the fact that men of sense +invariably believe me to be sincere. I know that my work does not +amount to a string of dried beans--I always calmly admit it--but I +also know that I do the best that is in me without regard to praise or +blame. When I was the mark for every humorist in the country, I went +ahead; and now when I am the mark for only fifty per cent of the +humorists of the country, I go ahead; for I understand that a man is +born into the world with his own pair of eyes, and he is not at all +responsible for his vision--he is merely responsible for his quality +of personal honesty. To keep close to this personal honesty is my +supreme ambition." + + + + +LXXI + +EUGENE FIELD + + +The general public will always remember Eugene Field as the author of +_Little Boy Blue_, the many friends of Field, in addition to their +memory of him as the charming poet of childhood, will always think of +him as the irrepressible prince of merry-makers. To perpetrate a joke +Field spared neither labor nor his friends. Many of his pranks were +mere whimsicalities, innocent pleasantries that hurt no one. He would +spend three hours in illustrating a letter to a friend, filling the +letter with gossipy trivialities and using six different kinds of ink +to make it look grotesque. + +During the last years of Field's too brief life he was importuned so +frequently for the facts concerning his career that he printed a brief +biography or _Auto-Analysis_, as he called it. This contains a +generous portion of fiction mingled with some fact. He begins his +autobiography with: + +"I was born in St. Louis, Mo., September 3, 1850.... Upon the death of +my mother (1856), I was put in the care of my (paternal) cousin, Miss +Mary Field French, at Amherst, Mass. + +"In 1865 I entered the private school of Rev. James Tufts, Monson, +Mass., and there fitted for Williams College, which institution I +entered as a freshman in 1868. Upon my father's death, in 1869, I +entered the sophomore class of Knox College, Galesburg, Ill., my +guardian, John W. Burgess, now of Columbia College, being then a +professor in that institution. But in 1870 I went to Columbia, Mo., +and entered the State University there, and completed my junior year +with my brother. In 1872 I visited Europe, spending six months and my +patrimony in France, Italy, Ireland, and Italy. In May, 1873, I became +a reporter on the St. Louis _Evening Journal_. In October of that year +I married Miss Julia Sutherland Comstock (born in Chenango Co., N.Y.), +of St. Joseph, Mo., at that time a girl of sixteen. We have had eight +children--three daughters and five sons." + +This is not all of the autobiography. There are about a thousand words +more. The reason Field attended three collegiate institutions is that +his mischievous pranks made him _persona non grata_ to the college +authorities. In after years the old historian of Knox College wrote: +"He was prolific of harmless pranks and his school life was a big +joke." + +The gay irresponsibility of Field is early illustrated in the reckless +manner in which he spent "six months and his patrimony" in Europe. In +1872 Field received $8,000, the first portion of his patrimony. He +proposed to a young friend, Comstock, the brother of Julia, whom he +later married, that they go to Europe. Field offered to bear all the +expenses of the trip. They went and for six months they had a glorious +time. Soon the money was gone; he telegraphed for more; was obliged +to sell the odd curios he had gathered to pay his way home. This +expenditure of his money in a trip abroad is not so unprofitable a +venture as it appears. The elder Field had left a fortune valued at +$60,000; Eugene's share was to be about $25,000. In two years he spent +about $20,000. His brother Roswell, more prudent, lived for several +years on his share but finally, owing to the depreciation of real +estate values, saw his fortune dwindle away. He is said to have envied +the shrewdness of Eugene in spending his money when he had it. + +Field had the highest respect for womankind. In his _Auto-Analysis_ he +writes: "I am fond of companionship of women, and I have no +unconquerable prejudice against feminine beauty. I recall with pride +that in twenty-two years of active journalism I have always written in +reverential praise of womankind." This respect for womankind, however, +did not prevent him from playing pranks upon his wife. On their +wedding journey he delighted to tease his young Julia by ordering at +Delmonico's "boiled pig's feet a la St. Jo." A few years later a +quartet was accustomed to meet at Eugene's home. Field did not sing +with the quartet but as a fifth member acted as reader or reciter in +their little entertainments. Eugene delighted to tease his wife by +walking into the parlor when the quartet was practicing at his home +and saying: "Well, boys, let us take off our coats and take it easy; +it's too hot." When this was done, Eugene would blaze forth in the +brilliancy of a red flannel undershirt, with white cuffs and collar +pinned to his shirt. + +When Carl Schurz was making his senatorial campaign in Missouri, Field +was sent with the party to report the meetings. Field, although +greatly admiring Schurz, took great delight in misreporting Schurz, +whose only comment would be: "Field, why will you lie so +outrageously?" One evening when a group of German serenaders had +assembled in front of the hotel to do honor to Schurz, Field rushed +out and pretending to be Schurz, addressed them in broken English. At +another time, at a political meeting, Field suddenly stepped out to +the front and began: + +"Ladies and Shentlemen: I haf such a pad colt dot et vas not bossible +for me to make you a speedg to-night, but I haf die bleasure to +introduce to you my brilliant chournalistic friendt Euchene Fielt, who +will spoke you in my blace." + +While in Denver Field worked upon the _Tribune_. Over his desk +hung,--"This is my busy day," and on the wall,--"God bless our +proofreader, He can't call for him too soon." In his office he kept an +old bottomless black-walnut chair. Across its yawning chasm he would +carelessly thrown old newspapers. As it was the only unoccupied chair +in the room, the casual visitor would drop unsuspectingly into the +trap. The angry subscriber who had come to wreak vengeance upon the +writer of irritating personalities could not withstand the apparently +sincere apologies which Field lavished upon his victim. It was so +humiliating to a man of Field's sensibilities to be obliged to receive +such important visitors in an office whose very furniture indicated +the poverty of the newspaper. + +In 1883 Field moved to Chicago, where the rest of his life was +passed. Mr. Stone, one of the proprietors of _The News_, had gone to +Denver to have a personal interview with Field, whose work had +attracted attention in the newspaper world. Field stipulated that he +was to have a column a day for his own use. The Chicago public soon +was attracted by the brilliant versatility of the writer of "Sharps +and Flats," the title of the column written by Field. + +Some months after Field had moved to Chicago he concluded that the +general public ought to know that he had arrived. It was a cold +morning in December. "So he arrayed himself in a long linen duster, +buttoned up from knees to collar, put an old straw hat on his head, +and taking a shabby book under one arm and a palm-leaf fan in his +hand, he marched all the way down Clark Street, past the City Hall, to +the office. Everywhere along the route he was greeted with jeers or +pitying words, as his appearance excited the mirth or commiseration of +the passers-by. When he reached the entrance to the _Daily News_ +office he was followed by a motley crowd of noisy urchins whom he +dismissed with a grimace and the cabalistic gesture with which +Nicholas Koorn perplexed and repulsed Antony Van Corlear from the +battlement of the fortress of Rensellaerstein. Then closing the door +in their astonished faces, he mounted the two flights of stairs to the +editorial rooms, where he recounted, with the glee of the boy he was +in such things, the success of his joke." + +Field had execrable taste in dress and he knew it. Consequently he +enjoyed presenting neckties to his friends. His biographer, Slason +Thompson, who worked in the same newspaper office, separated only by a +low thin partition, relates that in the afternoon about two o'clock +Field would stick his head above the partition and say,--"Come along, +Nompy, and I'll buy you a new necktie," and when Thompson would +decline the offer, Field would mildly respond, "Very well, if you +won't let me buy you a necktie, you must buy me a lunch," and off to +the coffee-house they would march, where the bill would be paid by +Thompson, for Field was indeed through life the gay knight he styled +himself, _sans peur and sans monnaie_. + + + * * * * * + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page x: Thackery replaced with Thackeray | + | Page 10: 'he became actor' replaced with | + | 'he became an actor' | + | Page 350: conconstituted replaced with constituted | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stories of Authors, British and +American, by Edwin Watts Chubb + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AUTHORS, BRITISH AND AMERICAN *** + +***** This file should be named 26910.txt or 26910.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/9/1/26910/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Jeannie Howse and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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