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diff --git a/old/68683-0.txt b/old/68683-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 2c7a71c..0000000 --- a/old/68683-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13466 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of American literary masters, by Leon H. -Vincent - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: American literary masters - -Author: Leon H. Vincent - -Release Date: August 4, 2022 [eBook #68683] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN LITERARY -MASTERS *** - - - - - -Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_; boldface -text is enclosed in =equals signs=. - - - - - AMERICAN - LITERARY MASTERS - - BY LEON H. VINCENT - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1906 BY LEON H. VINCENT - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - _Published March 1906_ - - - - - TO - GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY - - - - -PREFACE - - -_The nineteen men of letters whose work is reviewed in this volume -represent an important half-century of our national literary life. The -starting-point is the year 1809, the date of “A History of New York by -Diedrich Knickerbocker.” No author is included whose reputation does -not rest, in part, on some notable book published before 1860._ - -_Readers of modern French criticism will not need to be told that -the plan of dividing the studies into short sections was taken from -Faguet’s admirable “Dix-Septième Siècle.”_ - -_I am indebted for many helpful criticisms to Mr. James R. Joy, to -Miss Mary Charlotte Priest, and especially to Mr. Lindsay Swift of the -Boston Public Library._ - - _L. H. V._ - -_January 23, 1906._ - - - - -_Contents_ - - - WASHINGTON IRVING - - I. _His Life_ 3 - - II. _His Character_ 10 - - III. _The Writer_ 13 - - IV. _Early Work: Knickerbocker’s History, Sketch Book, - Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller_ 14 - - V. _Historical Writings: Columbus, Conquest of Granada, - Mahomet_ 20 - - VI. _Spanish Romance: The Alhambra, Legends of the Conquest - of Spain_ 24 - - VII. _American History and Travel: A Tour on the Prairies, - Astoria, Life of Washington_ 27 - - - WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT - - I. _His Life_ 35 - - II. _His Character_ 44 - - III. _The Literary Craftsman_ 46 - - IV. _The Poet_ 50 - - V. _Latest Poetical Work: The Iliad and the Odyssey_ 58 - - - JAMES FENIMORE COOPER - - I. _His Life_ 65 - - II. _His Character_ 72 - - III. _The Writer_ 74 - - IV. _Romances of the American Revolution: The Spy, Lionel - Lincoln_ 75 - - V. _The Leather-Stocking Tales and Other Indian Stories_ - 77 - - VI. _The Sea Stories from The Pilot to Miles Wallingford_ - 82 - - VII. _Old-World Romance and New-World Satire: The Bravo, The - Heidenmauer, The Headsman, Homeward Bound, Home as - Found_ 89 - - VIII. _Travels, History, Political Writings, and Latest - Novels_ 93 - - - GEORGE BANCROFT - - I. _His Life_ 101 - - II. _His Character_ 108 - - III. _The Writer_ 110 - - IV. _The History of the United States_ 113 - - - WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT - - I. _His Life_ 123 - - II. _His Character_ 128 - - III. _The Writer_ 130 - - IV. _The Histories_ 132 - - - RALPH WALDO EMERSON - - I. _His Life_ 147 - - II. _His Character_ 157 - - III. _The Writer_ 159 - - IV. _Nature, Addresses, and Lectures_ 160 - - V. _The Essays, Representative Men, English Traits, - Conduct of Life_ 166 - - VI. _The Poems_ 176 - - VII. _Latest Books_ 182 - - - EDGAR ALLAN POE - - I. _His Life_ 189 - - II. _His Character_ 198 - - III. _The Prose Writer_ 201 - - IV. _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque_ 203 - - V. _The Critic_ 211 - - VI. _The Poet_ 215 - - - HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW - - I. _His Life_ 221 - - II. _His Character_ 228 - - III. _The Poet_ 230 - - IV. _Outre-Mer, Hyperion, Kavanagh_ 233 - - V. _Voices of the Night, Ballads, Spanish Student, Belfry - of Bruges, The Seaside and the Fireside_ 236 - - VI. _Evangeline, Hiawatha, Miles Standish, Tales of a - Wayside Inn_ 240 - - VII. _Christus, Judas Maccabæus, Pandora, Michael Angelo_ - 245 - - VIII. _Last Works_ 249 - - - JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER - - I. _His Life_ 255 - - II. _His Character_ 264 - - III. _The Poet_ 266 - - IV. _Narrative and Legendary Verse_ 269 - - V. _Voices of Freedom, Songs of Labor, In War Time_ 273 - - VI. _Snow-Bound, Tent on the Beach, Pennsylvania Pilgrim, - Vision of Echard_ 277 - - - NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE - - I. _His Life_ 287 - - II. _His Character_ 293 - - III. _The Writer_ 296 - - IV. _The Short Stories: Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an - Old Manse, The Snow-Image_ 298 - - V. _The Great Romances: Scarlet Letter, House of the Seven - Gables, Blithedale Romance, Marble Faun_ 302 - - VI. _Latest and Posthumous Writings: Our Old Home, - Note-Books, Dolliver Romance_ 314 - - - HENRY DAVID THOREAU - - I. _His Life_ 321 - - II. _His Character_ 325 - - III. _The Writer_ 327 - - IV. _The Books_ 328 - - - OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES - - I. _His Life_ 337 - - II. _The Man_ 341 - - III. _The Writer_ 344 - - IV. _The Autocrat and its Companions, Over the Teacups, Our - Hundred Days in Europe_ 345 - - V. _The Poet_ 349 - - VI. _Fiction and Biography_ 352 - - - JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY - - I. _His Life_ 359 - - II. _His Character_ 365 - - III. _The Writer_ 367 - - IV. _The Histories_ 369 - - - FRANCIS PARKMAN - - I. _His Life_ 379 - - II. _His Character_ 383 - - III. _The Writer_ 385 - - IV. _Early Work: Oregon Trail, Conspiracy of Pontiac, - Vassall Morton_ 387 - - V. _France and England in North America_ 390 - - - BAYARD TAYLOR - - I. _His Life_ 401 - - II. _His Character_ 407 - - III. _The Artist_ 409 - - IV. _Poetical Works_ 410 - - - GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS - - I. _His Life_ 417 - - II. _The Man_ 423 - - III. _The Writer and the Orator_ 424 - - IV. _Nile Notes of a Howadji, Prue and I, Trumps_ 427 - - V. _The Easy Chair_ 430 - - VI. _Orations and Addresses_ 433 - - - DONALD GRANT MITCHELL - - I. _His Life_ 439 - - II. _The Author and the Man_ 442 - - III. _The Writings_ 444 - - - JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 451 - - I. _His Life_ 453 - - II. _Lowell’s Character_ 461 - - III. _Poet and Prose Writer_ 463 - - IV. _Poems, The Biglow Papers, Fable for Critics, Vision of - Sir Launfal_ 465 - - V. _Under the Willows, The Cathedral, Commemoration Ode, - Three Memorial Poems, Heartsease and Rue_ 469 - - VI. _Fireside Travels, My Study Windows, Among my Books, - Latest Literary Essays_ 474 - - VII. _Political Addresses and Papers_ 479 - - - WALT WHITMAN - - I. _His Life_ 485 - - II. _The Growth of a Reputation_ 490 - - III. _The Writer_ 492 - - IV. _Leaves of Grass_ 494 - - V. _Specimen Days and Collect_ 503 - - VI. _Whitman’s Character_ 504 - - - - -I - -_Washington Irving_ - - -REFERENCES: - - [=E. A. Duyckinck=]: _Irvingiana, a Memorial of Washington - Irving_, 1860. - - =W. C. Bryant=: _A Discourse on the Life, Character, and Genius - of Washington Irving_, 1860. - - =Pierre M. Irving=: _The Life and Letters of Washington Irving_, - 1862–64. - - =C. D. Warner=: _The Work of Washington Irving_, 1893. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Scotch and English blood flowed in Washington Irving’s veins. His -father, William Irving (whose ancestry has been traced by genealogical -enthusiasts to De Irwyn, armor-bearer to Robert Bruce), was a native -of Shapinsha, one of the Orkney Islands; his mother, Sarah (Sanders) -Irving, came from Falmouth. - -At the time of his marriage William Irving was a petty officer on an -armed packet-ship plying between Falmouth and New York. Two years -later (1763) he gave up seafaring, settled in New York, and started -a mercantile business. He enjoyed a competency, but like other -patriotic citizens suffered from the demoralization of trade during -the Revolution. His character suggested that of the old Scotch -covenanter. Though not without tenderness, he was in the main strict -and puritanical. - -Washington Irving was born in New York on April 3, 1783. He was the -youngest of a family of eleven, five of whom died in childhood. Irving -could perfectly remember the great patriot for whom he was named. He -was much indebted to the good old Scotchwoman, his nurse, who, seeing -Washington enter a shop on Broadway, darted in after him and presented -her small charge with ‘Please your Excellency, here’s a bairn that’s -called after ye!’ ‘General Washington,’ said Irving, recounting the -incident in after years, ‘then turned his benevolent face full upon me, -smiled, laid his hand on my head, and gave me his blessing.... I was -but five years old, yet I can feel that hand upon my head even now.’ - -Up to the age of fifteen Irving attended such schools as New York -afforded. He was not precocious. He came home from school one day (he -was then about eight) and remarked to his mother: ‘The madame says I am -a dunce; isn’t it a pity?’ - -Two of his brothers had been sent to Columbia College; that he was -not, may be attributed partly to ill health, partly to an indolent -waywardness of disposition and to the indulgence so often granted -the youngest member of a large family. Always an inveterate reader, -he contrived in time to educate himself by methods unapproved of -pedagogical science. He decided on a legal career and entered the -office of a well-known practitioner, Henry Masterton. During the two -years he was there he acquired some law and attained ‘considerable -proficiency in belles-lettres.’ He studied for a time with Brockholst -Livingston (afterwards judge of the Supreme Court), and later with -Josiah Ogden Hoffman. - -As a boy Irving had always ‘scribbled’ more or less, and in 1802 he -scribbled to some purpose, contributing the ‘Jonathan Oldstyle’ letters -to the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ a paper founded and edited by his brother -Peter Irving. His ambitions seemed likely to be frustrated by poor -health, and a trip abroad was advised. He went to the Mediterranean, -visited Italy, and spent a little time in France and England. The -journey was not without adventures. He saw Nelson’s fleet on its way -to Trafalgar; his boat was overhauled by pirates near Elba; and in -Rome he met Madame de Staël, who almost overpowered him by her amazing -volubility and the pertinacity of her questioning. - -On his return home Irving passed his examinations (November, 1806), and -was admitted to the bar with but slender legal outfit, as he frankly -confessed. He was enrolled among the counsel for the defence at the -trial of Aaron Burr at Richmond. There was no thought of taxing his -untried legal skill; he was to be useful to the cause as a writer in -case his services were needed. - -Law gave place to literature. Irving and J. K. Paulding projected a -paper, _Salmagundi_, to be ‘mainly characterized by a spirit of fun and -sarcastic drollery.’ William T. Irving joined in the venture. The first -number appeared on January 24, 1807. The editors issued it when they -were so minded, and after publishing twenty numbers, brought it to an -almost unceremonious close. - -The following year Peter and Washington Irving began writing a -burlesque account of their native town, a parody on Mitchill’s _A -Picture of New York_. Peter was called to Liverpool to take charge of -the English interests of Irving and Smith, and it fell to Washington -to recast the chapters already written and complete the narrative. -The book outgrew the design (as is the tendency of parodies), and was -published on December 6, 1809, as _A History of New York from the -Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich -Knickerbocker_. It was received by the New York Historical Society, to -whom it was dedicated, with astonishment, and by the old Dutch families -with mingled emotions, among which that of exuberant delight was not in -every case the most prominent. - -For two years Irving conducted the ‘Analectic Magazine,’ published in -Philadelphia. During the exciting months which followed the British -attack on Washington (August, 1814), he was military secretary to the -governor of New York. Being of adventurous spirit, he welcomed with -joy the prospect of accompanying his friend Stephen Decatur on the -expedition to Algiers. Disappointed in this and unable to get the -fever of travel out of his blood, he sailed for England (May, 1815), -intending nothing more than a visit to his brother in Liverpool and to -a married sister in Birmingham. - -Peter Irving had been ill, and in consequence his affairs had fallen -into disorder. Washington undertook to disentangle them. He was -unsuccessful. To the intense mortification of the brothers they were -compelled to go into bankruptcy (1818), and Washington began casting -about for a way to supplement his slender income. He refused an -advantageous offer at home, and determined to remain in England. A -literary project had taken shape in his mind, and he proceeded to carry -it out. - -In May, 1819, Irving published the first part of _The Sketch Book -of Geoffrey Crayon_, containing five papers, one of which, ‘Rip Van -Winkle,’ is a little masterpiece. The attitude of the public towards -this venture convinced Irving that he might live by the profession of -letters. _The Sketch Book_ was followed by _Bracebridge Hall, or the -Humorists_ (1822), and by the _Tales of a Traveller_ (1824). This last -date marks a period in Irving’s literary life. - -The years which Irving spent abroad had their anxieties, their -depressions, their dull days, their long periods of drudgery. It is -a temptation to dwell on their pleasures and their triumphs. Irving -was fortunate in his friendships. He knew Scott, Campbell, Moore, and -Jeffrey, and had the amusement on one occasion of seeing his visiting -list revised by Rogers. He met Mrs. Siddons, marvelled at Belzoni, was -amused by the antics of Lady Caroline Lamb, breakfasted at Holland -House, and visited Thomas Hope at his country seat. In Paris he was -presented to Talma by John Howard Payne, ‘the young American Roscius -of former days,’ who had now ‘outgrown all tragic symmetry.’ He became -(in time) persona gratissima to John Murray, his English publisher; and -to be dear to one’s publisher must always be accounted among the great -rewards of literature. - -At the instance of Alexander Everett, the American Minister to Spain, -Irving, in February, 1826, went to Madrid to translate Navarrete’s -forthcoming collection of documents relating to Columbus. He presently -abandoned the plan for a more grateful task, the writing of an -independent account of the discovery of America, based on Navarrete, -and on ample materials supplied by the library of Rich, the American -consul at Madrid. To this he devoted himself with immense energy. The -work was published in 1828, and was soon followed by the _Conquest of -Granada_ and _Voyages of the Companions of Columbus_. - -In 1829 Irving became Secretary of the American Legation in London. -The Royal Society of Literature voted him one of their fifty guinea -gold medals, in recognition of his services to the study of history. -The honor, distinguished in itself, became doubly so to the recipient -because the other of the two awards for that year was bestowed on -Hallam. In June, 1830, the University of Oxford conferred on Irving the -degree of LL. D. In April, 1832, he sailed for America. He had been -absent seventeen years. - -After travels in various parts of the United States, including a long -journey to the far West with the commissioner to the Indian tribes, -Irving settled near Tarrytown. His home was a little Dutch cottage -‘all made up of gable ends, and as full of angles and corners as -an old cocked hat.’ Familiarly called ‘The Roost’ by its inmates, -this ‘doughty and valorous little pile’ is known to the world as -‘Sunnyside.’ With the exception of the four years (1842–46) he passed -in Spain as Minister Plenipotentiary, ‘Sunnyside’ was Irving’s -abiding-place until his death. - -His later writings are: _The Alhambra_, 1832; _The Crayon Miscellany_ -(comprising _A Tour on the Prairies_, _Abbotsford and Newstead -Abbey_, and _Legends of the Conquest of Spain_), 1835; _Astoria_ -(with Pierre M. Irving), 1836; _Adventures of Captain Bonneville, -U. S. A._ (edited), 1837; _Life of Goldsmith_, 1849; _Mahomet and his -Successors_, 1849–50; _The Chronicles of Wolfert’s Roost_, 1855; _The -Life of Washington_, 1855–59. - -Attempts were made to draw Irving into political life. He was offered -a nomination for Congress; Tammany Hall ‘unanimously and vociferously’ -declared him its candidate for mayor of New York; and President Van -Buren would have made him Secretary of the Navy. All these honors -he felt himself obliged to refuse. He accepted the Spanish mission -(offered by President Tyler at the instance of his Secretary of State, -Daniel Webster), because he believed himself not wholly unfitted for -the charge, and because it honored in him the profession of letters. - -Irving’s intellectual powers were at perfect command up to the -beginning of the last year of his life. Then his health began to fail -markedly, and the final volume of his _Washington_ cost him effort he -could ill afford. He died suddenly on November 28, 1859, and was buried -in the cemetery at Sleepy Hollow. - - -II - -IRVING’S CHARACTER - -Irving was broad-minded, tolerant, amiable, incapable of envy, quick to -forget an affront, and always willing to think the best of humanity. -His tactfulness was due in part to his large experience of life, but -more to the possession of a nature that was sweet, serene, frank, -and unsophisticated. For Irving was no courtier; he could as little -flatter as practise the more odious forms of deceit. His gifts of irony -and ridicule, supplemented with an extraordinary power of humorous -delineation, were never abused. It might be said of him, as of another -great satirist, that ‘he never inflicted a wound.’ - -His modesty was excessive. It is impossible to find in his writings -or his correspondence any hint that he was inclined to put unusual -value on his work. Grateful as he was for praise, it would never have -occurred to him that he had a right to it. With all his knowledge of -the world he was singularly diffident. Moore hit off this trait when he -said that Geoffrey Crayon was ‘not strong as a lion, but delightful as -a domestic animal.’ - -Not his least admirable virtue was a spirit of helpfulness where his -brother authors were concerned. Irving was ‘officious’ in the good -old sense of the word, glad to be of service to his fellows, untiring -in efforts to promote their welfare. He could praise their work, too, -without disheartening qualifications. The good he enjoyed, the bad he -put to one side. And he never forgot a kindness. A publisher who had -once befriended him, though fallen on evil days, found himself still -able to command some of Irving’s best manuscripts. - -Criticism never angered Irving. Personal attacks (of which he had his -share) were suffered with quiet dignity. He rarely defended himself, -and then only when the attack was outrageous. He could speak pointedly -if the need were. His reply to William Leggett, who accused him in -‘The Plain Dealer’ of ‘literary pusillanimity’ and double dealing, -is a model of effectiveness. One paragraph will show its quality. -Imputing no malevolence to Leggett, who doubtless acted from honest -feelings hastily excited by a misapprehension of the facts, Irving -says: ‘You have been a little too eager to give an instance of that -“plain dealing” which you have recently adopted as your war-cry. Plain -dealing, sir, is a great merit when accompanied by magnanimity, and -exercised with a just and generous spirit; but if pushed too far, and -made the excuse for indulging every impulse of passion or prejudice, it -may render a man, especially in your situation, a very offensive, if -not a very mischievous member of the community.’ - -Something may be known of a man by observing his attitude at the -approach of old age. Irving’s beautiful serenity was characteristic. -People were kind to him, but he thought their kindness extraordinary. -He wondered whether old gentlemen were becoming fashionable. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -Irving’s prose is distinguished for grace and sweetness. It is -unostentatious, natural, easy. At its best it comes near to being a -model of good prose. The most striking effects are produced by the -simplest means. Never does the writer appear to be searching for an -out-of-the-way term. He accepts what lies at hand. The word in question -is almost obvious and often conventional, but invariably apt. - -For a writer who produced so much the style is remarkably homogeneous. -It is an exaggeration to speak of it as overcharged with color. There -are passages of much splendor, but Irving’s taste was too refined to -admit of his indulging in rhetorical excesses. Nor is the style quite -so mellifluous as it seemed to J. W. Croker, who said: ‘I can no more -go on all day with one of his [Irving’s] books than I could go on all -day sucking a sugar-plum.’ The truth is that Irving is one of the most -human and companionable of writers, and his English is just the sort to -prompt one to go on all day with him. - -Yet there is a want of ruggedness, the style is almost too perfectly -controlled. It lacks the strength and energy born of deep thought and -passionate conviction, and it must be praised (as it may be without -reserve) for urbanity and masculine grace. - - -IV - -EARLY WORK - -_KNICKERBOCKER’S HISTORY_, _SKETCH BOOK_, _BRACEBRIDGE HALL_, _TALES OF -A TRAVELLER_ - -The dignified appearance of Diedrich Knickerbocker’s learned work, -the quiet simplicity of the principal title, and the sober dedication -gave no hint to the serious-minded that they were buying one of -the most extraordinary books of humor in the English language. The -deception could not last long, but it is to be hoped that on the day of -publication some honest seeker after knowledge took a copy home with -the intent to profit at once by its stores of erudition. - -On a basis of historical truth Irving reared a delightfully grotesque -historical edifice. The method is analogous to that children employ -when they put a candle on the floor that they may laugh at the odd -shadows of themselves cast on wall and ceiling. The figures are -monstrous, distorted, yet always resembling. Nothing could be at once -more lifelike and more unreal than Irving’s account of New Amsterdam -and its people under the three Dutch governors. - -Here is a world of amusement to be had for the asking. One reader will -enjoy the ironical philosophy, another the sly thrusts at current -politics, a third the boisterous fun of certain episodes, such as the -fight between stout Risingh and Peter Stuyvesant, the hint of which -may have been caught from Fielding’s account of how Molly Seagrim -valorously put her enemies to flight. But the book will always be most -cherished for its quaint pictures of snug and drowsy comfort, for its -world of broad-bottomed burghers, amphibious housewives, and demure -Dutch damsels wooed by inarticulate lovers smoking long pipes, and for -the rich Indian summer atmosphere with which the poet-humorist invested -the scenes of a not wholly idyllic past. - -_The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon_ is in one respect well named; it -has the heterogeneous character that we associate with an artist’s -portfolio. Notes of travel, stories, meditations, and portraits are -thrown together in pleasant disorder. A paper on ‘Roscoe’ is followed -by the sketch entitled ‘The Wife,’ and the history of ‘Rip Van Winkle’ -is succeeded by an essay on the attitude of English writers towards -America. In another sense the volume is not a mere sketch-book, -for each sketch is a highly finished picture. Here is often a -self-consciousness radically unlike the abandon of the _History of -New York_. At times Irving falls quite into the ‘Keepsake’ manner. A -faint aroma as of withered rose leaves steals from the pages, a languid -atmosphere of sweet melancholy dear to the early Nineteenth Century. - -Other pages are breezy enough. The five chapters on Christmas at -Bracebridge Hall, the essay on ‘Little Britain,’ on the ‘Mutability -of Literature,’ and that on ‘John Bull’ are emphatically not in the -‘Keepsake’ vein. Of themselves they would have sufficed to redeem -_The Sketch Book_ from the worst charge that can be brought against a -piece of literature,--the charge of being merely fashionable. But the -extraordinary vitality which this book has enjoyed for eighty-five -years it owes in the main to ‘Rip Van Winkle’ and ‘The Legend of Sleepy -Hollow.’ Written in small form, embodying simple incidents, saturated -with humor, classic in their conciseness of style, these stories are -faultless examples of Irving’s art. - -Irving dearly loved a lovable vagabond, and Rip is his ideal. The story -is told in a succession of pictures. The reader visualizes scenery, -character, incident, the purple mountains, the village nestling at -their feet, the ne’er-do-weel whom children love, the termagant wife, -the junto before the inn door, the journey into the mountains, the -strange little beings at their solemn game, the draught of the fatal -liquor, the sleep, the awakening, the return home, the bewilderment, -the recognition,--do we not know it by heart? Have we not read the -narrative a hundred times, trying in vain to penetrate the secret of -its perfection? Something of the logic of poetry went into the creation -of this idyl. We are left with the feeling that Irving himself could -not have changed a word for the better. - -‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is etched with a deeper stroke, is -broader, more farcical. There is no pathos, but downright fun and -frolic from the first line to the last. The audacious exaggeration -of every feature in the portrait of Ichabod Crane is inimitably -clever. The schoolmaster gets no pity and needs none. And the reader -is justified in his unsympathetic attitude when later he learns that -Ichabod, instead of having been carried off by the headless Hessian, -merely changed his quarters, and when last heard of had studied law, -written for the newspapers, and gone into politics. - -In _Bracebridge Hall_ Geoffrey Crayon returns to the English country -house where he had spent a Christmas, to enjoy at leisure old manners, -old customs, old-world ideas and people. Never were simpler materials -used in the making of a book; never was a more entertaining book -compounded of such simple materials. The incidents are of the most -quiet sort, a walk, a dinner, a visit to a neighboring grange or to a -camp of gypsies, a reading in the library or the telling of a story -after dinner. The philosophy is naïve, but the humor is exquisite and -unflagging. - -The reader meets his old friends, the Squire, Master Simon, old -Christy, and the Oxonian. New characters are introduced, Lady -Lillycraft and General Harbottle, Ready-money Jack, Slingsby the -schoolmaster, and the Radical who reads Cobbett, and goes armed with -pamphlets and arguments. Among them all none is more attractive than -the Squire. With his scorn of commercialism, his love of ancient -customs, his good-humored tolerance of gypsies and poachers, with his -body of maxims from Peacham and other old writers, and his amusing -contempt for Lord Chesterfield--these and other delightful traits make -Mr. Bracebridge one of the most ingratiating characters in fiction. - -_Bracebridge Hall_ contains interpolated stories, the ‘Stout -Gentleman,’ the ‘Student of Salamanca,’ and the finely finished tale of -‘Annette Delabarre.’ The papers of Diedrich Knickerbocker are not yet -exhausted; having furnished Rip and Ichabod to _The Sketch Book_ they -now contribute to _Bracebridge Hall_ the story of ‘Dolph Heyliger.’ - -The _Tales of a Traveller_, a medley of episodes and sketches, is -divided into four parts. In the first part the Nervous Gentleman of -Bracebridge Hall continues his narrations. These adventures, supposed -to have been told at a hunt dinner, or at breakfast the following -morning, are intertwined, Arabian Nights fashion, story within story. -They are grotesque (the ‘Bold Dragoon,’ with the richly humorous -account of the dance of the furniture), or weird and ghastly (the -‘German Student’), or romantic (the ‘Young Italian’). - -The second part, ‘Buckthorne and his Friends,’ displays the seamy side -of English dramatic and literary life. Modern realism had not yet been -invented, and it is easy to laugh over the sorrows of Flimsy, who, in -his coat of Lord Townley cut and dingy-white stockinet pantaloons, -bears a closer relation to Mr. Vincent Crummles than to any one of the -characters of _A Mummer’s Wife_. - -Part third, the ‘Italian Banditti,’ is in a style which no longer -interests, though many worse written narratives do. But in the last -part, ‘The Money-Diggers,’ Irving comes back to his own. He is again -wandering along the shores of the pleasant island of Mannahatta, -fishing at Hellegat, lying under the trees at Corlear Hook while a Cape -Cod whaler tells the story of ‘The Devil and Tom Walker.’ Ramm Rapelye -fills his chair at the club and smokes and grunts, ever maintaining a -mastiff-like gravity. Once more we see the little old city which had -not entirely lost its picturesque Dutch features. Here stands Wolfert -Webber’s house, with its gable end of yellow brick turned toward the -street. ‘The gigantic sunflowers loll their broad jolly faces over -the fences, seeming to ogle most affectionately the passers-by.’ -Dirk Waldron, ‘the son of four fathers,’ sits in Webber’s kitchen, -feasting his eyes on the opulent charms of Amy. He says nothing, -but at intervals fills the old cabbage-grower’s pipe, strokes the -tortoise-shell cat, or replenishes the teapot from the bright copper -kettle singing before the fire. ‘All these quiet little offices may -seem of trifling import; but when true love is translated into Low -Dutch, it is in this way it eloquently expresses itself.’ - -Had Irving’s reputation depended on the four books just now -characterized, it would have been a great reputation and the note of -originality precisely what we now find it. But there was need of work -in other fields to show the catholicity of his interests and the range -of his powers. - - -V - -HISTORICAL WRITINGS - -_COLUMBUS_, _CONQUEST OF GRANADA_, _MAHOMET_ - -The _Life and Voyages of Columbus_ is written in the spirit of tempered -hero-worship. It is free from the extravagance of partisans who make -a god of Columbus, and from the skeptical cavillings of those who -apparently are not unwilling to rob the great explorer of any claim he -may possess to virtue or ability. As Irving conceives him, Columbus -is a many-sided man, infinitely patient when patience is required, -doggedly obstinate if the need be, crafty or open, daring in the -highest degree, having that audacity which seems to quell the powers -of nature, yet devout, with a touch of the superstition characteristic -of his time and his belief. - -On many questions, fine points of ethnography, geography, navigation -and the like, Irving neither could nor did he presume to speak finally. -History has to be rewritten every few years wherever these questions -are involved. But the letters of Columbus, the testimony of his -contemporaries, the reports of friend and enemy, throw an unchanging -light on character. The march of science can neither dim nor augment -that light. Irving was emphatically a judge of human nature. He needed -no help in making up his mind what sort of man Columbus was. Modern -scholars with their magnificent scientific equipment sometimes forget -that cartography, invaluable though it is, is after all a poor guide -to character. And yet, by the testimony of one of those same modern -scholars, Irving’s life of the Admiral, as a trustworthy and popular -résumé, is still the best. - -One often wishes Irving had been less temperate. The barbarous tyranny -of the Spaniards over the Indians of Hispaniola stirs the reader to -deepest indignation. He longs for such treatment of the theme as -Carlyle might possibly have given. Here is need of thunderbolts of -wrath like unto those wielded by the Jupiter Tonans of history. But -taken as a whole, the book has extraordinary virtues. It is a clear, -full, well-ordered, picturesque, and readable narrative of the great -explorer’s career. There is no better, nor is there likely to be a -better. He who has time to read but one book on the discoverer of -America will not go amiss in reading this one. He who proposes to read -many books on the subject may well elect to read Irving’s first. - -The supplementary _Voyages of the Companions of Columbus_ narrates -the adventures of Ojeda, that dare-devil of the high seas, of -Nicuesa, of Vasco Nuñez, of Ponce de Leon. Though wanting the unity -of the preceding volumes, these narratives are of high interest, and -for vigor, animation, and picturesqueness must rank among the most -attractive examples of Irving’s work. - -While making collateral studies bearing on the life of Columbus, Irving -became so captivated with the romantic and chivalrous story of the fall -of Granada that he found himself unable to complete his more sober -task until he had sketched a rough outline of the new book. When the -_Columbus_ was sent to the press, Irving made a tour of Andalusia, -visited certain memorable scenes of the war, and on his return to -Seville elaborated his sketch into the ornate and glowing picture known -as _A Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, by Fray Antonio Agapida_. - -The book is commonly described as romance rather than history. It was -written with a view to rescuing the ancient chronicle of the conquest -from the mass of amatory and sentimental tradition with which it was -incrusted, and of presenting it in its legitimate brilliancy. Irving -believed, too, that the world had forgotten or had failed to realize -how stern the conflict was. In the fifteenth century it was regarded -as a Holy War. Christian bigot was arrayed against Moslem bigot. -Atrocities of the blackest sort were perpetrated and justified in the -name of religion. The title-page says that the narrative is taken from -the manuscript of one Fray Antonio Agapida. The brother is an imaginary -character, a personification of monkish zeal and intolerance. When the -slaughter of the infidels has been unusually great, Fray Antonio makes -his appearance, like the ‘chorus’ of a play, and thanks God with much -unction. Through this mouth-piece Irving gives ironical voice to that -sentiment it is impossible not to feel in contemplating the barbarities -of a ‘holy’ war. A few readers were disturbed by the fiction of the -old monk. They ought to have liked him. He is an amusing personage and -comes too seldom on the stage. - -The _Life of Mahomet and his Successors_ has been spoken of as -‘comparatively a failure.’ If a book which sums up the available -knowledge of the time on the subject, which is written in clear, pure -English, which is throughout of high interest, in other words, which -has solidity, beauty, and a large measure of the literary quality--if -such a book is comparatively a failure, one hardly knows what can be -the critic’s standard of measurement. Irving was not acquainted with -Arabic. He drew his materials from Spanish and German sources. Yet it -is not too much to say that no better general account of Mahomet and -the early caliphs has been written. - - -VI - -SPANISH ROMANCE - -_THE ALHAMBRA_, _LEGENDS OF THE CONQUEST OF SPAIN_ - -For three or four months Irving lived in the ancient Moorish palace -and fortress known as the Alhambra. In his own phrase he ‘succeeded -to the throne of Boabdil.’ The place charmed him beyond all others in -the Old World. His craving for antiquity, his love of the exotic, his -passion for romance, his delight in day-dreaming were here completely -satisfied. He loved the huge pile, so rough and forbidding without, -so graceful and attractive within. The splendor of its storied past -intoxicated him. He roamed at will through its courts and halls, -steeping himself in history and tradition. He was amused at the life -of the petty human creatures, nesting bird-like in the crannies and -nooks of the vast edifice. To observe their habits, record their -superstitious fancies, listen to their tales, sympathize with their -ambitions or their sorrows, was occupation enough. The history of -the place could be studied in the parchment-clad folios of the Jesuit -library. As for the legends, they abounded everywhere. The scattered -leaves were then brought together in the volume called _Tales of the -Alhambra_. - -It is a Spanish arabesque. No book displays to better advantage the -wayward charm of Irving’s literary genius. Whether recounting old -stories of buried Moorish gold and Arabian necromancy, or describing -the loves of Manuel and bright-eyed Dolores, or extolling the grace -and intelligence of Carmen, he is equally happy. There was a needy -and shiftless denizen of the place, one Mateo Ximenes, who captured -Irving’s heart by describing himself as ‘a son of the Alhambra.’ A -ribbon-weaver by trade and an idler by choice, he attached himself to -the newcomer and refused to be shaken off. If it was impossible to -be rid of him, it was equally impossible not to like him. Life was -a prolonged holiday for Mateo during Geoffrey Crayon’s residence. -Whatever obligations he had, of a domestic or a business nature, were -joyfully set aside that he might wait upon the visitor. He became -Irving’s ‘prime-minister and historiographer-royal,’ doing his errands, -aiding in his explorations, and between times unfolding his accumulated -treasures of legend and tradition. He was flattered by the credence -given his stories, and when the reign of el rey Chico the second came -to an end, no one lamented more than Mateo, left now ‘to his old brown -cloak, and his starveling mystery of ribbon-weaving.’ - -Though not published until after Irving’s return to America, _The -Legends of the Conquest of Spain_ is a part of the harvest of this same -period. The book describes the decline of the Gothic power under Witiza -and Roderick, the treason of Count Julian, the coming of the Arabians -under Taric and Muza, and the downfall of Christian supremacy in the -Spanish peninsula. Irving was a magician in handling words, and this -volume is rich in proof of it. Here may be found passages of the utmost -brilliancy, such as the description of Roderick’s assault upon the -necromantic tower of Hercules, and the opening of the golden casket. - -The _Legends_ serves a double purpose. As a book of entertainment pure -and simple it is unsurpassed. It is also a spur to the reader to make -his way into wider fields, and to learn yet more of that people whose -history could give rise to these beautiful illustrations of chivalry -and courage. - - -VII - -AMERICAN HISTORY AND TRAVEL - -_A TOUR ON THE PRAIRIES_, _ASTORIA_, _LIFE OF WASHINGTON_ - -The list of Irving’s writings between 1835 and 1855 comprises eight -titles. Two of these books have been commented on. The others may be -despatched in a paragraph, as the old reviewers used to say. - -_Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_ is an aftermath of the English -harvest of impressions and experiences. The _Life of Goldsmith_, -based originally on Prior’s useful but heavy work, and rewritten -when Forster’s book appeared, is accounted one of the most graceful -of literary biographies. _Wolfert’s Roost_ is a medley of delightful -papers on birds, Indians, old Dutch villages, and modern American -adventurers, together with a handful of Spanish stories and legends. - -There is a group of three books dealing with American frontier life -and western exploration. The first of these, _A Tour on the Prairies_, -shows how readily the trained man of letters can turn his hand to any -subject. Who would have thought that the prose poet of the Alhambra -was also able to do justice to the trapper and the Pawnee? _Astoria_ -(the first draft of which was made by Pierre M. Irving) is an -account of John Jacob Astor’s commercial enterprise in the Northwest. -Irving was amused when an English review pronounced the book his -masterpiece. He had really taken a deeper interest in the work than -he supposed possible when Astor urged it upon him. _Bonneville_ in a -manner supplements _Astoria_, and was written from notes and journals -furnished by the hardy explorer whose name the book bears. - -It was fitting that Irving should crown the literary labors of forty -years with a life of Washington. He had a deep veneration for the -memory of the great American. The theme was peculiarly grateful to -him. He seems to have regarded the work as something more than a -self-imposed and pleasant literary task--it was a duty to which he was -in the highest degree committed, a duty at once pious and patriotic. -Though he had begun early to ponder his subject, Irving was nearly -seventy when he commenced the actual writing; and notwithstanding -the book far outgrew the original plan, he was able to bring it to a -successful conclusion. - -Three quarters of the first volume are devoted to Washington’s -history up to his thirty-second year. It is a graphic account of the -young student, the surveyor, the envoy to the Indians, the captain -of militia. Irving shows how it is possible to present the ‘real’ -Washington without recourse to exaggerated realism. The remainder -of the volume is given to an outline of the causes leading to the -Revolution, to the affair of Lexington and Concord, the Battle of -Bunker Hill, Washington’s election to the post of commander-in-chief, -and the beginning of military operations around Boston. The next three -volumes are a history of the Revolutionary War, with Washington always -the central figure. The fifth volume covers Washington’s political -life, and his last years at Mount Vernon. - -Of two notable characteristics of this book, the first is its -extraordinary readableness. To be sure the Revolution was a great -event, and Irving was a gifted writer. Nevertheless for a historian who -delights in movement, color, variety, the Revolutionary War must often -seem no better than a desert of tedious fact relieved now and then by -an oasis of brilliant exploit. Irving complained of the dulness of many -parts of the theme. Notwithstanding this he brought to the work so much -of his peculiar winsomeness that the _Washington_ is a book always to -be taken up with pleasure and laid down with regret. - -The second notable characteristic is the freedom from extravagance -either of praise or of blame. The crime and the disgrace of Arnold do -not color adversely the historian’s view of what Arnold was and did -in 1776. No indignant partisan has told with greater pathos the story -of André. Nothing could be more temperate than Irving’s attitude -towards the Tories, or, as it is now fashionable to call them, the -Loyalists of the American Revolution. He could not deny sympathy to -these unfortunates who found themselves caught between the upper and -lower millstones, a people who in many cases were unable to go over -heart and soul to the cause of the King, and who found it even more -difficult to espouse the cause of their own countrymen. Even the -enemies of Washington, that is to say, the enemies of his own political -and military household, are treated with utmost fairness. - -For Washington himself, Irving has only admiration, which, however, -he is able to express without fulsome panegyric. He dwells on the -great leader’s magnanimity, on his evenness of temper, his infinite -patience, his freedom from trace of vanity, self-interest, or sectional -prejudice, his confidence in the justness of the cause, and his trust -in Providence, a trust which faltered least when circumstances were -most adverse. Irving admired unstintedly the warrior who could hold -in check trained and seasoned European soldiers with ‘an apparently -undisciplined rabble,’ the ‘American Fabius’ who, when the time was -ripe, was found to possess ‘enterprise as well as circumspection, -energy as well as endurance.’ - -The personal side of the biography is not neglected, but no emphasis is -laid on particulars of costume, manners, speech, what Washington ate -and drank, and said about his neighbors. Irving could have had little -sympathy with the modern rage for knowing the size of a great man’s -collar and the number of his footgear. The passion for such details is -legitimate, but it is a passion which needs to be firmly controlled. In -brief, throughout the work emphasis is laid where emphasis belongs, on -the character of Washington, who was the soul of the Revolutionary War, -and then on the moral grandeur of that great struggle for human rights. - - * * * * * - -A historian of American literature says: ‘Irving had no message.’ He -was not indeed enslaved by a theory literary or political; neither was -he passionate for some reform and convinced that his particular reform -was paramount. But he who gave to the world a series of writings which, -in addition to being exquisite examples of literary art, are instinct -with humor, brotherly kindness, and patriotism, can hardly be said not -to have had a message. - -Irving rendered an immense service to the biographical study of -history. Columbus, Mahomet, the princes and warriors of the Holy War, -are made real to us. Nor is this all. His books help to counteract that -tendency of the times to make history a recondite science. History -cannot be confined to the historians and erudite readers alone. Said -Freeman to his Oxford audience one day: ‘Has anybody read the essay -on Race and Language in the third series of my Historical Essays? It -is very stiff reading, so perhaps nobody has.’ And one suspects that -Freeman rejoiced a little to think it was ‘stiff reading.’ - -Nevertheless the public insists on its right to know the main -facts. And as Leslie Stephen says, ‘the main facts are pretty well -ascertained. Darnley was blown up, whoever supplied the powder, and the -Spanish Armada certainly came somehow to grief.’ That man of letters is -a benefactor who, like Irving, can give his audience the main facts, -expressed in terms which make history more readable even than romance. - -Irving perfected the short story. His genius was fecundative. Many -a writer of gift and taste, and at least one writer of genius, owes -Irving a debt which can be acknowledged but which cannot be paid. -Deriving much from his literary predecessors, and gladly acknowledging -the measure of his obligation, Irving by the originality of his work -placed fresh obligations on those who came after him. - -With his stories of Dutch life he conquered a new domain. That these -stories remain in their first and untarnished beauty is due to Irving’s -rich humor and ‘golden style,’ and to that indescribable quality of -genius by which it lifts its creations out of the local and provincial, -and endows them with a charm which all can understand and enjoy. - - - - -II - -_William Cullen Bryant_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =G. W. Curtis=: _The Life, Character, and Writings of William - Cullen Bryant_, Commemorative Address before the New York - Historical Society, 1878. - - =Parke Godwin=: _A Biography of William Cullen Bryant_, 1883. - - =John Bigelow=: _William Cullen Bryant_, ‘American Men of - Letters,’ 1890. - - =W. A. Bradley=: _William Cullen Bryant_, ‘English Men of - Letters,’ 1905. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -The author of ‘Thanatopsis’ was born at Cummington, a village among -the hills of western Massachusetts, on November 3, 1794. Through his -father, Doctor Peter Bryant, a physician, he traced his ancestry to -Stephen Bryant, an early settler at Duxbury; through his mother, Sarah -Snell, he had ‘a triple claim’ to ‘Mayflower’ origin. - -Doctor Bryant was a many-sided man. He collected books, read poetry -(Horace was his favorite), wrote satirical verse, was a musician and -something of a mechanic. He was an ardent Federalist, a member of the -Massachusetts legislature for several terms, and then of the senate. -He possessed in high degree the art of imparting knowledge. Medical -students thought themselves fortunate in being allowed to study under -his direction. Doctor Bryant’s father and grandfather were both -physicians, and he hoped that his second-born (who was named in honor -of the Scottish practitioner, William Cullen) would follow in the -ancestral footsteps. - -Bryant began to make verses in his eighth year. At ten he wrote an -‘address’ in heroic couplets, which got into newspaper print. The -boy used to pray that he might write verses which would endure. A -political satire, _The Embargo or Sketches of the Times_, ‘by a youth -of thirteen,’ if not in the nature of evidence that the prayer had been -answered, so delighted Doctor Bryant that he printed it in a pamphlet -(1808). A second issue containing additional poems was brought out the -next year. To this the author put his name. - -Bryant was taught Greek by his uncle, the Reverend Thomas Snell -of Brookfield, and mathematics by the Reverend Moses Hallock of -Plainfield. He entered the Sophomore class at Williams College in -October, 1810, and left the following May. He was to have spent the two -succeeding years at Yale, but the plan had to be abandoned for want of -money. Some time during the summer of 1811 ‘Thanatopsis’ was written in -its first form and laid aside. - -The poet began reading law with Judge Samuel Howe of Worthington, -who once reproached his pupil ‘for giving to Wordsworth’s _Lyrical -Ballads_ time that belonged to Blackstone and Chitty.’ He continued his -studies under William Baylies of Bridgewater, was admitted to the bar -at Plymouth in August, 1815, practised awhile at Plainfield, and then -removed to Great Barrington. The lines ‘To a Waterfowl’ were written -the night of the young lawyer’s arrival in Plainfield. - -He made progress in his profession and was called to argue cases -at New Haven and before the supreme court at Boston. The intervals -of legal business were given to poetry. Bryant’s father urged him -to contribute to the new ‘North American Review and Miscellaneous -Journal,’ the editor of which was an old friend. The young lawyer-poet -seeming indifferent to the suggestion, Doctor Bryant carried with -him to Boston two pieces he had unearthed among his son’s papers, -namely, ‘Thanatopsis’ in its first form, and ‘A Fragment’ now called -‘Inscription at the Entrance of a Wood.’ Both were printed in the -‘Review’ for September, 1817. Other poems followed, together with three -prose essays (on ‘American Poetry,’ on ‘The Happy Temperament,’ and on -the use of ‘Trisyllabic Feet in Iambic Verse’). He also contributed -poems to ‘The Idle Man,’ Richard Henry Dana’s magazine, and the ‘United -States Literary Gazette.’ - -In June, 1821, Bryant married Miss Frances Fairchild of Great -Barrington. In April of this year he had been invited to give ‘the -usual poetic address’ before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard. -‘The Ages’ was written for this occasion and publicly read on August -30. At the instance of his Boston friends, Bryant printed ‘The Ages’ -with seven other pieces in a little pamphlet entitled _Poems_. - -Never in love with the law, the poet began to regard it with aversion. -He was intellectually restless and took to play-writing. A farce, -‘The Heroes,’ in ridicule of duelling, was sent to his friends, the -Sedgwicks, in New York, who admitted its merits but doubted its chances -of success on the stage, Bryant, at the suggestion of Henry Sedgwick, -made two or three visits to the city in search of congenial work. He -thought he had found it when he undertook to edit ‘The New York Review -and Athenæum Magazine,’ a periodical made by amalgamating ‘The Atlantic -Magazine’ with the older ‘Literary Review.’ Bryant wrote to a friend -that it was a livelihood, ‘and a livelihood is all I got from the law.’ - -The editor of the ‘Review’ was active in various ways. He studied the -Romance languages, gave a course of lectures on poetry before the -Athenæum Society (1825), and annual courses on mythology before the -National Academy of the Arts of Design (1826–31). He was amused with -New York life; Great Barrington had not been amusing. He published -verse and prose in his own review and helped Sands and Verplanck edit -their annual, ‘The Talisman.’ Somewhat later he edited _Tales of the -Glauber Spa_ (1832), the joint work of Sands, Leggett, Paulding, Miss -Sedgwick, and himself.[1] - -The ‘Review’ suffered from changes in the business management, and -Bryant’s prospects became gloomy. At this juncture (1826) he was -invited to act as assistant to William Coleman, editor of the ‘New -York Evening Post.’ In 1828 he became ‘a small proprietor in the -establishment,’ and when Coleman died (July, 1829) Bryant assumed the -post of editor-in-chief and engaged as his assistant William Leggett, a -young New Yorker who had shown a marked ability in conducting a weekly -journal called ‘The Critic.’ ‘I like politics no better than you do’ -(Bryant had written to Dana), ‘but ... politics and a bellyfull are -better than poetry and starvation.’ - -His theory of the journalist’s function is well known. ‘He regarded -himself as a trustee for the public.’[2] Party was much, and Bryant was -a strong Democrat, but the people were greater than party. - -Bryant’s handling of public questions belongs to political history. His -lifelong fight against a protective tariff, his defence of Jackson’s -policy respecting nullification and the United States Bank, his -maintenance of the right to discuss slavery as freely as any other -subject about which there is a difference of opinion, his insistence -that the question of giving the franchise to negroes in the state -of New York be settled on its merits and as a local matter with -which neither Abolitionist nor slave-holder had anything to do, his -determined stand against the annexation of Texas and enlargement of -the area of slavery, his position on a multitude of questions which -in his life as a public censor he found it necessary to defend or to -attack--are fully set forth in the two biographies by his coadjutors. - -From 1856 Bryant acted with the Republican party, giving his cordial -support to Frémont and to Lincoln. He was a presidential elector in -1861. He advocated the election of Grant in 1868, and again in 1872, -the latter time reluctantly ‘as the best thing attainable in the -circumstances.’ - -To secure the independence and detachment that would enable him to -judge measures fairly, Bryant avoided intercourse with public men, kept -away from Washington, took no office, and was otherwise singular. In -this way he at least secured a free pen. As to the tone of the comments -on men in public life, Bryant approved the theory of a brother -editor who maintained that nothing should be said which would make it -impossible for him who wrote and him who was written about to meet at -the same dinner-table the next day. It is not pretended, however, that -he was uniformly controlled by this theory. What was the prevailing -idea of his journalistic manner may be known from Felton’s review of -_The Fountain_, in which he marvels that these beautiful poems can -be the work of one ‘who deals with wrath, and dips his pen daily in -bitterness and hate....’ - -Since 1821 no collection of Bryant’s verse had been made. Then after -ten years he gathered together eighty-nine pieces, including the eight -which had appeared in the pamphlet of 1821, and issued them as _Poems_, -1832. Through the friendly offices of Irving the book was reprinted -in England with a dedicatory letter to Samuel Rogers. Notwithstanding -favorable notices, both English and American, Bryant was despondent. -‘Poetic wares,’ he said, ‘are not for the market of the present day ... -mankind are occupied with politics, railroads, and steamboats.’ But -he found it necessary to reprint the volume in 1834 (with additional -poems), and again in 1836. - -His work in prose and verse after 1839 includes _The Fountain and -Other Poems_, 1842; _The White-Footed Deer and Other Poems_, 1844; -_Poems_, 1847; _Letters of a Traveller_, 1850; _Poems_, 1854; _Letters -from Spain_, 1859; _Thirty Poems_, 1864; _Letters from the East_, -1869; _The Iliad of Homer, translated into English blank verse_, 1870; -_The Odyssey_, 1871–72; _Orations and Addresses_, 1873; _The Flood of -Tears_, 1878. - -The introduction to the _Library of Poetry and Song_ is from Bryant’s -pen, as is also the preface to E. A. Duyckinck’s (still unpublished) -edition of Shakespeare. His name appears as one of the authors of _A -Popular History of the United States_ (1876), together with that of -Sydney Howard Gay, on whom fell the burden of the actual writing. It is -unfortunate that no adequate reprint of Bryant’s political leaders has -been made. As much ought to be done for him as Sedgwick did for Leggett. - -Bryant found relief from the strain of editorial work in foreign -travel. He was abroad with his family in 1834–36, visiting France, -Italy, and Germany. He did his sight-seeing deliberately, spending a -month in Rome, two months at Florence, three months in Munich, and -so on. He had been four months at Heidelberg, when, says one of his -biographers (in phrases which he never learned from Bryant), ‘His -studious sojourn at this renowned seat of learning was interrupted by -intelligence of the dangerous illness of his editorial colleague,’ and -he returned home. During a visit to England in 1845 Bryant met Rogers, -Moore, Herschel, Hallam, and Spedding, heard one of his own poems -quoted at a Corn Law meeting, where among the speakers were Cobden and -Bright, and carried a letter of introduction to Wordsworth from Henry -Crabb Robinson. He made yet other journeys to Europe and to the East. - -Notable among Bryant’s public addresses were the orations on Cooper -(1852) and Irving (1860) delivered before the New York Historical -Society. He was a founder and the third president of the Century -Association, first president of the New York Homœopathic Society, -president of the American Free Trade League, and member of literary -and historical societies innumerable. He held no public office, but -as time went on it might almost be said that an office was created -for him--that of Representative American. He seemed the incarnation -of virtues popularly supposed to have survived from an older and -simpler time. He was a great public character. The word venerable -acquired a new meaning as one reflected on the career of this eminent -citizen who was born when Washington was president, who as a boy had -written satires on Jefferson, and who as a man had discussed political -questions from the administration of John Quincy Adams to that of -Hayes. Other men were as old as he, Bryant seemed to have lived longer. - -‘And when at last he fell, he fell as the granite column falls, smitten -from without, but sound within.’[3] His death was the result of an -accident. He gave the address at the unveiling of the statue of -Mazzini in Central Park. Though wearied with the exertion and almost -overcome by the heat, he was able to walk to the house of a friend. -As he was about entering the door he fell backward, striking his head -violently against the stone step. He never recovered from the effects -of this fall, and died on June 12, 1878. - - -II - -BRYANT’S CHARACTER - -We seldom think of Bryant other than as he appears in the Sarony -photograph of 1873. With the snowy beard, the furrowed brow, the sunken -but keen eyes, a cloak thrown about the shoulders, he is the ideal poet -of popular imagination. Thus must he have looked when he wrote ‘The -Flood of Years,’ and it is difficult to realize that he did not look -thus when he wrote ‘Thanatopsis.’ We do not readily picture Bryant as -young or even middle-aged. - -Parke Godwin saw him first about 1837. He had a ‘wearied, almost -saturnine expression of countenance.’ He was spare in figure, of medium -height, clean shaven, and had an ‘unusually large head.’ He spoke with -decision, but could not be called a copious talker. His voice was -noticeably sweet, his choice of words and accuracy of pronunciation -remarkable. When anything was said to awaken mirth, his eyes gleamed -with ‘a singular radiance and a short, quick, staccato but hearty -laugh followed.’ He was more sociable when his wife and daughters were -present than at other times. Bryant’s reserve was always a conspicuous -trait. - -Under that prim exterior lurked fire and passion. ‘In court he often -lost his self-control.’ It was thought that Bryant might keep a promise -he once made of thrashing a legal opponent within an inch of his life -(‘if he ever says that again’) though the man was twice his size. Not -long after he became editor-in-chief of the ‘Post’ Bryant cowhided a -journalistic adversary who had bestowed upon him by name, ‘the most -insulting epithet that can be applied to a human being.’[4] It was the -only time his well-schooled temper outwitted him. - -His friendships were strong and abiding. He had an inflexible will and -a keen sense of justice, so keen that it drove him out of the law. No -thought of personal ease or advantage could turn him from a course he -had mapped out as right. He was generous. His benefactions were many -and judicious, and the manner of their bestowal as unpretending as -possible. - -Bryant’s ‘unassailable dignity’ was a marked trait of character. He -refused an invitation to a dinner given Charles Dickens by a ‘prominent -citizen’ of New York. ‘That man,’ said Bryant, ‘has known me for -years without asking me to his house, and I am not going to be made a -stool-pigeon to attract birds of passage that may be flying about.’ - -He was perfectly simple-minded, incapable of assuming the air of famous -poet or successful man of the world. Doubtless he relished praise, but -he had an adroit way of putting compliments to one side, tempering the -gratitude he really felt with an ironical humor. - - -III - -THE LITERARY CRAFTSMAN - -Bryant was a deliberate and fastidious writer. His literary executors -could never have said of him that they found ‘neither blot nor erasure -among his papers.’ His copy, written on the backs of old letters -or rejected manuscripts, was a wilderness of interlineations and -corrections, and often hard to decipher. - -Famous as he was for correctness, it seems a mere debauch of eulogy to -affirm that all of Bryant’s contributions to the ‘Evening Post’ do not -contain ‘as many erroneous or defective forms of expression’ as ‘can be -found in the first ten numbers of the _Spectator_.’ But there is little -danger of overestimating his influence on the English of journalism -during the forty years and more that he set the example of a high -standard of daily writing. He was sparing of advice, though in earlier -days he could not always conquer the temptation to amuse himself over -the English of his brother editors.[5] It has been denied that he had -any part in compiling the famous ‘index expurgatorius,’ but it is not -unreasonable to suppose that this list, embodying traditions of the -editorial office, had his approval. Bryant was for directness and -precision in writing. Ideas must stand on their merits, if they have -them, for such phrasing will define them perfectly. - -His prose style may be studied in his books of travel and his -addresses. The literary characteristic of _Letters of a Traveller_ and -its companion volumes is excessive plainness, a homely quality like -that of a village pedagogue careful not to make mistakes. One is often -reminded of the honest home-spun prose of Henry Wansey’s _Excursion to -the United States_. - - -Turning to the volume of _Orations and Addresses_, the reader finds -himself in another world. Bryant’s memorial orations are among the -best of their kind, stately, uplifting, and at times even majestic. -They belong to a type of composition which lies midway between oratory -and literature and unites certain characteristics of each. Written -primarily to be heard, and adapted to public utterance, they are also -meant to be read. They must stand the test of the ear and then that of -the eye. The listener must find his account in them as they come from -the lips of the orator, and he who afterward turns at leisure the pages -of the printed report must be satisfied. Bryant’s speeches are markedly -‘literary;’ and though oratorical they are wholly free from bombast. -Poet though he was, he built no cloud-capped towers of rhetoric. - -Coming now to his verse, we find that his poetic flights, though lofty, -were neither frequent nor long continued. Apparently he was incapable -of writing much or often. This seems true even after allowance is made -for his busy and exacting life as a journalist. For years together he -composed but a few lines in each year. - -His theory fitted his own limitations. Bryant maintained that there is -no such thing as a long poem, that what are commonly called long poems -are in reality a succession of short poems united by poetical links. -The paradox grows out of the vagueness attaching to the words ‘length’ -and ‘poem.’ Exactly what a poem is, we shall never know. That is a -shadowy line which divides poetry from verse. And there is no term so -unmeaning as length. When does a poem begin to be long--is it when the -poet has achieved a hundred verses or a thousand, when he has written -six cantos or twelve? - -To say, as Bryant is reported to have said, that ‘a long poem is no -more conceivable than a long ecstasy,’ is to make all poetry dependent -on an ecstatic condition. And it reduces all poetic temperaments to the -same level. Why may not poetry be an outcome of ‘the true enthusiasm -that burns long’? - -Bryant showed skill in handling a variety of metrical forms; it is -unsafe to say that he excelled only in blank verse. With declared -partisanship for the short poem, he nevertheless did not cultivate the -sonnet. Up to the time he was fifty-eight years of age he had written -but twelve, and for some of these he apologized, saying, ‘they are -rather poems in fourteen lines than sonnets.’ - -Comparing the length of his life with the slenderness of his poetical -product, we are tempted to bring against this eminent man the charge -of wilful unproductiveness. This reluctance, or inertia, or whatever -it may be called, has helped to give the impression of a lack of -spontaneity. We are aware of the effort through the very exactness -with which the thing has been done. Bryant resembled certain pianists -who plead as excuse for not playing, a lack of recent practice. When -after repeated urgings one of the reluctant brotherhood ‘consents to -favor us,’ he plays with precision enough but rarely with abandon. The -conscious and over-solicitous artist shows in every note. - -If much writing has its drawbacks, it also has its value. And the poet -who sings frequently cannot offer as a reason for not performing, the -excuse that his lyre has not been out of the case for weeks, and that -in all probability a string is broken. - - -IV - -THE POET - -The fine stanzas entitled ‘The Poet’ contain Bryant’s theory of his -art. The framing of a deathless poem is not the pastime of a drowsy -summer’s day. - - No smooth array of phrase, - Artfully sought and ordered though it be, - Which the cold rhymer lays - Upon his page with languid industry, - Can wake the listless pulse to livelier speed, - Or fill with sudden tears the eyes that read. - - The secret wouldst thou know - To touch the heart or fire the blood at will? - Let thine own eyes o’erflow; - Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill; - Seize the great thought, ere yet its power be past, - And bind, in words, the fleet emotion fast. - - * * * * * - - Yet let no empty gust - Of passion find an utterance in thy lay, - A blast that whirls the dust - Along the howling street and dies away; - But feelings of calm power and mighty sweep, - Like currents journeying through the windless deep. - -This is flat contradiction of the idea that entirely self-conscious and -self-controlled art can avail to move the reader. Bryant pleads for -deepest feeling in exercise of the poetic function; it is more than -important, it is indispensable. Of that striking poem ‘The Tides,’ he -said ‘it was written with a certain awe upon me which made me hope that -there might be something in it.’ The poem proved to be one of Bryant’s -noblest conceptions. Yet a lady of ‘judgment’ told one of Bryant’s -friends, who of course told him, that she did not think there was much -in it. - -Nature appeals to Bryant in her broad and massive aspects. ‘The -Prairies’ is an illustration. Gazing on the ‘encircling vastness’ for -the first time, the heart swells and the eye dilates in an effort to -comprehend it:-- - - Lo! they stretch, - In airy undulations, far away, - As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell, - Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed, - And motionless forever. - -As the poet looks abroad over the vast and glowing fields, there sweeps -by him a vision of the races that have peopled these solitudes and -perished to make room for races to come. It is magnificent even if -it is not scientific. In the sense it gives of the spaciousness of -the prairies with the myriad sounds of life projected on the great -elemental silence, it is a true American poem. - -‘A Hymn of the Sea’ is another illustration of that largeness of view -characteristic of Bryant. Each thought is lofty and far-reaching. The -cloud that rises from the ‘realm of rain’ shadows whole countries, the -tornado wrecks a fleet, whirling the vast hulks ‘like chaff upon the -waves:’-- - - These restless surges eat away the shores - Of earth’s old continents; the fertile plain - Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down, - And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets - Of the drowned city. - -He conveys the idea not only of spaciousness but of endless duration in -the lines describing the coral worm laying his ‘mighty reefs,’ toiling -from ‘age to age’ until - - His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check - The long wave rolling from the southern pole - To break upon Japan. - -Certain lines in ‘A Forest Hymn’ are also remarkable for the sense they -give of vast reaches of time, stretching not forward but backward into -eternity:-- - - These lofty trees - Wave not less proudly that their ancestors - Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost - One of earth’s charms: upon her bosom yet, - After the flight of untold centuries, - The freshness of her far beginning lies - And yet shall lie. - -The ‘Song of the Stars,’ though not one of Bryant’s happiest -poems,--the hypercritical reader feeling that the ‘orbs of beauty’ and -‘spheres of flame’ might have made a more appropriate metrical choice -for their song,--shows none the less the poet’s strength in dealing -with nature in the large. The lines ‘To a Waterfowl’ are magical in -part by virtue of the impression they make of immense distance. With -the poet’s penetrating vision we can see the solitary way through the -rosy depths, the pathless coast, and the one bit of life in - - The desert and illimitable air. - -Bryant’s mind readily lifts itself from the minute to the massive, as -in the poem ‘Summer Wind,’ a fine example of the crescendo effects he -knew so well how to produce. In a few lines he gives the sensation -of heat, closeness, exhaustion, and pictures the plants drooping in -a stillness broken only by the ‘faint and interrupted murmur of the -bee.’ His thought then sweeps upward to the wooded hills towering in -scorching heat and dazzling light, and then still higher to the bright -clouds, - - Motionless pillars of the brazen heaven-- - Their bases on the mountains--their white tops - Shining in the far ether.... - -The poet never wearies of this majestic pageantry of the natural world. -In ‘The Firmament,’ in ‘The Hurricane’ (imitated from Heredia), in -‘Monument Mountain,’ his chief thought is to translate the reader to -his own lofty vantage-ground. - -But Nature is not merely a spectacle, it has a power to heal and -invigorate. Life loses its pettiness when one leaves the city and -seeks the forest. The holy men who hid themselves ‘deep in the woody -wilderness’ perhaps did not well-- - - But let me often to these solitudes - Retire, and in thy presence reassure - My feeble virtue. Here its enemies, - The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink - And tremble and are still. - -The poet finds inspiration not alone in the terror of the storm, the -majesty of the forest, the gray waste of ocean, the mystery of the -night of stars, but in the humbler things, the rivulet by which he -played as a child, the violet growing on its bank, the hum of bees, -the notes of hang-bird and wren, the gossip of swallows, and the gay -chirp of the ground squirrel. ‘The Yellow Violet’ and the lines ‘To the -Fringed Gentian’ spring from this love of the unobtrusive charms of -Nature. Less familiar than these, but a faultless example of Bryant’s -art, is ‘The Painted Cup:’-- - - ... tell me not - That these bright chalices were tinted thus - To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet - On moonlight evenings in the hazel bowers, - And dance till they are thirsty. - -The poet will not call up ‘faded fancies of an ‘elder world.’ If the -fresh savannahs must be peopled with creatures of imagination, it may -be done without borrowing European elves:-- - - Let then the gentle Manitou of flowers, - Lingering among the bloomy waste he loves, - Though all his swarthy worshippers are gone-- - Slender and small, his rounded cheek all brown - And ruddy with the sunshine; let him come - On summer mornings, when the blossoms wake, - And part with little hands the spiky grass, - And touching, with his cherry lips, the edge - Of these bright beakers, drain the gathered dew. - -Bryant wrote poems of freedom. The earlier of these, ‘The Song of -the Greek Amazon,’ the ‘Massacre at Scio,’ the ‘Greek Partisan,’ and -‘Italy,’ voice his sympathy with the oppressed nations of the Old -World, the ‘struggling multitude of states,’ that ‘writhe in shackles.’ - -Among his later poems on the same theme, ‘Earth,’ ‘The Winds,’ ‘The -Antiquity of Freedom,’ and ‘The Battle Field’ are representative. -The first three with their many stately lines show how spontaneously -his thought, even when nature is not the subject, grows out of the -contemplation of nature and then returns to such contemplation as to -a resting place. ‘The Battle Field,’ the expression of a noble faith -in the outcome of ‘a friendless warfare,’ contains the most inspiring -of his quatrains, as it is one of the best contributions made by an -American poet to the stock of quotable English verse:-- - - Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; - The eternal years of God are hers; - But Error, wounded, writhes with pain, - And dies among his worshippers. - -His patriotic poems are few in number, but Bryant’s reticence must -be taken into account. Coming from him, the verses mean more than if -they came from another. Two of the best are ‘Oh Mother of a mighty -Race’ and ‘Not Yet.’ The second of these, written in July, 1861, has a -finely imaginative stanza in which are pictured the dead monarchies of -the past eager to welcome another broken and ruined land among their -number:-- - - Not yet the hour is nigh when they - Who deep in Eld’s dim twilight sit, - Earth’s ancient kings, shall rise and say, - “Proud country, welcome to the pit! - So soon art thou like us brought low!” - No, sullen group of shadows, No! - -To the same year belong the spirited verses ‘Our Country’s Call:’-- - - Strike to defend the gentlest sway - That Time in all his course has seen. - - * * * * * - - Few, few were they whose swords of old - Won the fair land in which we dwell; - But we are many, we who hold - The grim resolve to guard it well. - Strike, for that broad and goodly land, - Blow after blow, till men shall see - That Might and Right move hand in hand, - And glorious must their triumph be! - -Such was the temper of men who had looked with philosophic composure -and curiosity on the movements of the sometimes well-nigh frenzied -abolitionists. The blow at the integrity of the nation fired their cool -patriotism to white heat. - -What lightness of touch Bryant had is shown in that exquisite lyric -‘The Stream of Life.’ He could be conventional, as in the love poem -where he celebrates ‘the gentle season’ when ‘nymphs relent,’ and very -sensibly advises the young lady ’ere her bloom is past, to secure her -lover.’ He was not strong in wit or humor. The verses ‘To a Mosquito’ -might have been read with good effect to a party of well-fed clubmen -after dinner, but finding them in the same volume with ‘A Forest Hymn’ -gives one an uncomfortable surprise, like finding a pun in Lowell’s -_Cathedral_. That Bryant could write agreeable narrative verse, ‘The -Children of the Snow’ and ‘Sella’ bear witness. That he is at his best -in meditative poems, lofty characterizations of Nature, grand visions -of Life and Death, is proved by hundreds of felicitous verses which -have become an inalienable part of our young literature. - -He never really excelled the work of his youth. Bryant will always be -known as the author of ‘Thanatopsis.’ This great vision of Death is his -stateliest poem and his best, the most felicitous of phrase and the -loftiest in imagery. Written by a stoic, magnificently stoical in tone, -it offers but a stoic’s comfort after all. Perhaps this is a secret of -its popularity, on the theory that while professed pagans are few the -instinct towards paganism still exists, and most among those who say -least about it. - - -V - -LATEST POETICAL WORK - -_THE ILIAD_ AND _THE ODYSSEY_ - -The collected edition of Bryant’s poems of 1854 contains a handful of -translations, twelve from the Spanish, four from the German, one each -from the French, the Provençal, the Portuguese, and the Greek. In 1864 -a translation of the fifth book of the _Odyssey_ was printed in the -volume entitled _Thirty Poems_. The praise which it called out gave -Bryant the impulse to further experiments of the same sort; and after -the death of his wife (in 1866), when the necessity was upon him of -forgetting his grief so far as possible in some engrossing work, he -undertook a version of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ entire. - -He gave himself methodically to the task, translating about forty -lines a day. Later he increased the daily stint to seventy-five lines. -He chose blank verse because ‘the use of rhyme in a translation is a -constant temptation to petty infidelities.’ - -Bryant retained the misleading Latin forms of proper names. Worsley -says: ‘Not even Mr. Gladstone’s example can now make Juno, Mercury, -and Venus admissible in Homeric story.’ But Worsley confessed his own -inability to write Phoibos, Apollôn, and Kirké. Bryant’s argument -for his course looks specious: ‘I was translating from Greek into -English, and I therefore translated the names of the gods, as well as -the other parts of the poem.’ Probably he had an affection for the old -nomenclature, a sentiment like Macaulay’s, who ‘never could reconcile -himself to seeing the friends of his boyhood figure as Kleon, and -Alkibiadês, and Poseidôn, and Odysseus.’[6] - -An enthusiastic admirer of Bryant declares that in the opinion of -‘competent critics’ his versions of Homer ‘will hold their own with -the translations of Pope, Chapman, Newman, or the late Earl Derby.’ -Much depends on the question of what a ‘competent critic’ is, and which -one of several competent critics is to be taken as final authority. -Competent critics, who, by the way, seldom agree, have a habit of -agreeing on anything sooner than the merits of a version of Homer. -And when one remembers the fearful attack made by Matthew Arnold on -Newman (‘Any vivacities of expression which may have given him pain I -sincerely regret’)--he may well hesitate to take as a compliment the -statement that Bryant will ‘hold his own’ with Newman. - -The question of the higher merit of the poem rests with the experts -at last. Pessimists all, they are discouragingly hostile to metrical -versions of the _Iliad_. Yet the most uncompromising of them would -hardly deny a lay reader the privilege of enjoying Homer, in so far as -possible, through the medium of Bryant’s blank verse. They might even -be persuaded to admit that this version has a peculiar adaptability to -the needs of the public; that the clarity and beauty of the English, -the dignified ease of the measure, the sustained energy and vigor of -the performance as a whole, fit Bryant’s Homer in a high degree to -the use for which it was intended. The argument from popularity, that -always unsafe and often vicious argument, has a measure of force here. -Granting that Homer in any honest translation is better than no Homer -at all, may not the uncompromising scholars be called on to rejoice -that this more than honest, nay, this admirable translation of the -_Iliad_ has sold to the extent of many thousands of copies? Where there -are so many buyers, there must be readers not a few. - - * * * * * - -Bryant was one of those unusual men who have two distinct callings. -Much surprise has been expressed at his apparent ability to carry on -his functions of journalist and poet without clash. But is it true, or -more than superficially true, that he did so carry them on? To be sure, -he wrote his editorial articles at the newspaper office and his verses -elsewhere, but this is a mere mechanical distinction. A man of Bryant’s -depth of conviction and passionate temperament does not throw off care -when he boards a suburban train for his country home. - -The history of Bryant’s inner life has not been written, perhaps -cannot be. This is not to imply that his character was enigmatic and -mysterious, but merely to emphasize the fact of his extraordinary -reserve. More than most self-contained men he kept his own counsel. -Such a history would show how deep his experience of the world had -ploughed into him, and it might explain in a degree the remote and -stoical character of his verse. - -Bryant’s poetical work as a whole has an impassive quality often -described as coldness. Partly due to his genius and accentuated by the -excessive retouching to which he subjected his verse, it grew in still -larger measure out of his determination not to impart to his verse -any of the feverishness of spirit consequent upon a life of political -warfare. The poet held himself wonderfully in check, as a man of iron -will allows no mark of the strong passion under which he labors to -show in his face. Bryant was rarely betrayed into so much of personal -feeling as flashed out in that bitter stanza of ‘The Future Life:’-- - - For me the sordid cares in which I dwell, - Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll; - And wrath has left its scar--that fire of hell - Has left its scar upon my soul. - -While the detachment was not complete, Bryant undoubtedly kept his -poetic apart from his secular life in a way to command admiration. -This he accomplished by extraordinary self-restraint. As a part of the -varied and long-continued discipline to which he subjected himself, -the self-restraint made for character. The question, however, arises -whether the poetry did not, in certain ways, suffer under the very -discipline by which the character developed. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [1] Bryant’s contributions were the stories entitled ‘Medfield’ - and ‘The Skeleton’s Cave.’ As originally planned the book was - to have been called _The Sextad_, but Verplanck, who would - have made the sixth author, withdrew. - - [2] John Bigelow. - - [3] W. C. Bronson. - - [4] Bryant’s apology to the public for his course, together with - Leggett’s statement as an eye-witness, will be found in the - ‘Evening Post’ of Thursday, April 21, 1831. Neither the - guarded account of the episode in Godwin’s _Bryant_, nor the - brief notice in Haswell’s _Reminiscences of an Octogenarian_ - is quite accurate. - - [5] As in an ironical leader commending journalists who refuse to - say that a man ‘was drowned,’ a dangerous innovation, and, - ‘to preserve the purity of their mother tongue,’ stick to - time-honored metaphors and say that the man ‘found a watery - grave.’--‘Evening Post,’ August 17, 1831. - - [6] G. O. Trevelyan. - - - - -III - -_James Fenimore Cooper_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =W. C. Bryant=: _A Discourse on the Life, Character, and Genius - of James Fenimore Cooper_, 1852. - - =T. R. Lounsbury=: _James Fenimore Cooper_, ‘American Men of - Letters,’ fourth edition, 1884. - - =W. B. Shubrick Clymer=: _James Fenimore Cooper_, ‘Beacon - Biographies,’ 1900. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - - -James Cooper was the eleventh of the twelve children of William and -Elizabeth (Fenimore) Cooper, of Burlington, New Jersey. He was born -in that picturesque town by the Delaware on September 15, 1789. The -name James, given him in honor of his grandfather, had also been -borne by his first American ancestor, who is said to have come from -Stratford-on-Avon, in 1679. In fulfilment of a promise to his mother -(whose family had become extinct in the male line), the novelist, in -1826, changed his name to Fenimore-Cooper. - -At the close of the Revolutionary War, William Cooper acquired large -tracts of land on Otsego Lake in New York, settled there in 1790, -founded the village still known as Cooperstown, and built for himself -a stately home to which he gave the name of Otsego Hall. He was the -first judge of the county and a member of Congress, a man of strong -character and agreeable address.[7] - -Cooper’s boyhood was passed amid picturesque natural surroundings, -on the edge of civilization, the scene of _The Deerslayer_ and _The -Pioneers_. He attended the village school, prepared for college with -the rector of St. Peter’s Church, Albany, entered Yale in the second -term of the Freshman year (Class of 1806), and was dismissed in the -Junior year for some boyish escapade the nature of which is unexplained. - -It was decided that he should enter the navy. There was then no -training school, and boys took the first lessons in seamanship in the -merchant marine. Cooper spent a year before the mast in the ‘Sterling,’ -sailing from New York to London, thence to Gibraltar, back to London, -and from London to Philadelphia. His experiences are set forth in the -early chapters of _Ned Myers_. The ‘Sterling’ lost two of her best -hands by impressment as soon as she reached English waters. Cooper’s -indignation at these outrages afterwards found voice through the lips -of Ithuel Bolt in the story entitled _Wing-and-Wing_. - -He was commissioned midshipman on January 1, 1808, and served awhile -on the ‘Vesuvius.’ In the following winter he was one of the party -sent to Oswego to build a brig for the defence of the lake, and became -acquainted with the regions described in _The Pathfinder_. In the -summer of 1809 he had charge of the gun-boats on Lake Champlain, and in -the autumn was ordered to the sloop of war ‘Wasp.’ - -He left the service on his betrothal with Miss Susan DeLancey of -Mamaroneck, New York, whom he married on January 1, 1811. For a few -years he lived the life of a landed proprietor, dividing his time -between Cooperstown, Scarsdale, and Mamaroneck. The dulness of a -novel he was reading aloud to his wife provoked him to say that he -could write a better one himself. Challenged to prove it, he produced -_Precaution_ (1820), a story of English life, following conventional -lines. It was apprentice work. The effort of composition taught Cooper -that he could write, but not that he could write well. He had no -conceit of the book, and refused it a place in his collected writings. - -In 1821 _The Spy, a Tale of the Neutral Ground_, was published; its -unqualified good fortune made Cooper a professed man of letters. From -that time on until his death, twenty-nine years later, he produced -books with uninterrupted regularity. - -_The Spy_ was followed by _The Pioneers, or the Sources of the -Susquehanna_, 1823; _The Pilot, a Tale of the Sea_, 1824; _Lionel -Lincoln, or the Leaguer of Boston_, 1825; _The Last of the Mohicans, -a Narrative of 1757_, 1826. But one of this group of four can be -pronounced a failure and two have had a success almost phenomenal in -the history of letters. - -Cooper shared the American passion for seeing foreign lands. The -proceeds of authorship enabled him to carry out a plan he had formed of -spending some time abroad. With his family and servants (a party of ten -in all), he set sail from New York on June 1, 1826. He proposed to be -gone five years. He overstayed that time by two years and five months. -From May, 1826, to about January, 1829, he held the ‘nominal position’ -of American consul at Lyons. His journeyings were made in a leisurely -way after the fashion of the time. Eighteen months were spent in Paris -and the vicinity, four months in London, and a few weeks in Holland, -Belgium, and Switzerland. The winter of 1828–29 was passed in Florence, -and was followed by a voyage to Naples. After spending some months at -Sorrento and Naples, he settled in Rome for the winter of 1829–30. -Thence to Venice, Munich, Dresden, and finally back to Paris. - -He published while abroad _The Prairie_, 1827; _The Red Rover_, 1828; -_Notions of the Americans, Picked up by a Travelling Bachelor_, 1828; -_The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish_, 1829; _The Water-Witch, or the Skimmer -of the Seas_, 1830; _The Bravo_, 1831; _The Heidenmauer, or the -Benedictines_, 1832; _The Headsman, or the Abbaye des Vignerons_, 1833. - -In November, 1833, Cooper returned to America. That and several ensuing -winters were passed in New York, the summers in Cooperstown. Later he -made Otsego Hall his permanent home. - -He soon became embroiled in quarrels with the press. While in Paris -his defence of Lafayette’s position in what is known as the ‘Expenses -Controversy’ had provoked from his native land criticism which Cooper -resented. He angered a part of the inhabitants of Cooperstown by making -clear to them that Three Mile Point (a wooded tract on the lake, long -used by the villagers as a picnic ground) was not theirs, as they -maintained, but a part of the Cooper estate. With no thought of robbing -them of their pleasure park, he insisted on their understanding that -they enjoyed its use by favor and not by right. - -For this the country papers assailed him. Combative by nature, Cooper -brought suits for libel and recovered damages. The novel spectacle of -an author baiting the newspapers ‘caused remark.’ The city press joined -in the attack, the ‘Courier and Enquirer,’ the ‘New York Tribune,’ -the ‘Albany Evening Journal,’ edited by Thurlow Weed, who once said -apropos of his skill in stirring up litigation: ‘There is something in -my manner of writing that makes the galled jades wince.’ Verdicts were -given in Cooper’s favor. More libels followed, more suits were brought, -more damages recovered. A cry arose that the liberty of the press was -endangered. Cooper did not think so. He was a bulldog; when he had once -fastened his teeth in a Whig editor, nothing could make him let go. He -continued his prosecutions until he made his detractors respect him. It -took about six years to do it. Bryant has described with grim humor the -novelist’s warfare with that leviathan the Press: ‘He put a hook into -the nose of this huge monster,’ said Bryant admiringly.[8] - -This warfare disturbed Cooper’s peace of mind, but in no wise -interrupted his literary activity. The following list records by -no means all that he wrote after 1834, but will suffice to show -his right copious and often happy industry. Besides ten volumes of -travels, Cooper published: _A Letter to his Countrymen_, 1834; _The -Monikins_, 1835; _The American Democrat_, 1838; _Homeward Bound, or -the Chase_, 1838; _Home as Found_, 1838; _The History of the Navy of -the United States of America_, 1839; _The Pathfinder, or the Inland -Sea_, 1840; _Mercedes of Castile, or the Voyage to Cathay_, 1840; -_The Deerslayer, or the First War Path_, 1841; The _Two Admirals_, -1842; _The Wing-and-Wing, or Le Feu-Follet_, 1842; _Wyandotté, or the -Hutted Knoll_, 1843; _Ned Meyers, or a Life before the Mast_, 1843; -_Afloat and Ashore, or the Adventures of Miles Wallingford_, 1844; -_Miles Wallingford_ (the second part of _Afloat and Ashore_), 1844; -_Satanstoe, or the Littlepage Manuscripts_, 1845; _The Chainbearer, or -the Littlepage Manuscripts_, 1846; _Lives of Distinguished American -Naval Officers_, 1846; _The Redskins, or Indian and Injin_, 1846; _The -Crater, or Vulcan’s Peak_, 1847; _Jack Tier, or the Florida Reefs_, -1848; _The Oak Openings, or the Bee Hunter_, 1848; _The Sea Lions, or -the Lost Sealers_, 1849; _The Ways of the Hour_, 1850. - -_The Spy_ was dramatized and played successfully.[9] Dramatizations -were also made of _The Pilot_, _The Red Rover_, _The Water-Witch_, -_The Pioneers_ (‘The Wigwam, or Templeton Manor’), and _The Wept of -Wish-ton-Wish_ (‘Miantonomah and Narrahmattah’). An original comedy, -‘Upside Down, or Philosophy in Petticoats,’[10] was withdrawn after -four performances. No satisfactory account exists of Cooper’s earnings -by literature. It is believed that in the later years he was obliged to -write, if not for the necessities of life, at least for the comforts -and luxuries. - -The hostility provoked by his energetic criticisms subsided in time. -There was even a project on foot in New York to pay him the compliment -of a public dinner as a proof of returning confidence. His untimely -illness put to one side the question of honors of this poor sort. - -Cooper died at Otsego Hall on September 14, 1851. - - -II - -HIS CHARACTER - -Cooper was a democrat in theory but not in practice. The rude -‘feudalism’ in which his boyhood was passed fostered the aristocratic -sentiment. A residence abroad, in the obsequious atmosphere with which -the serving classes invest any one who has the appearance of wealth, -aggravated it. No one could have been more heartily ‘American’ than -Cooper; but he made distinctions and his countrymen abhorred the -distinctions. - -Pride of this not unreasonable sort may go hand in hand with genuine -modesty. Cooper was more unpretentious than his enemies were willing to -allow. With a reputation that would have opened many doors he made no -capital of it; he had no mind ‘to thrust himself on all societies.’ - -He was never slow to make use of the inalienable American privilege -of speaking one’s mind. In 1835 the theory of the entire perfection -of the American character was seldom challenged, at least by a native -writer. That Cooper should entertain doubts on the subject was thought -monstrous. It was resented in him the more because of his manner. -Opinions quite as radical might have been uttered wittily and the -end accomplished. Cooper had little wit. His touch was heavy and he -was in dead earnest. He lacked neither courage, nor honesty, nor -highmindedness, nor generosity, nor yet judgment (if his temper was -unruffled), but he was entirely wanting in tact, and largely wanting in -geniality of the useful, if superficial, sort, which lessens the wear -and tear of human intercourse. - -A philosopher divides famous men into two classes: those who are -admired in their own homes (as well as in the world), and those who are -admired anywhere but at home. Cooper belonged to the first class rather -than the second. This proud, irascible, contentious, dogmatic man of -letters enjoyed the unswerving loyalty and deep affection of every -member of his family. And from this his biographer argues an essential -sweetness of nature. - -Cooper somewhere says: ‘Men are as much indebted to a fortuitous -concurrence of circumstances for the characters they sustain in this -world, as to their personal qualities.’ It was his ill-luck to have -the accidents of his character often mistaken for the character itself. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -Cooper’s English at best, though fluent and spirited, is without grace; -at worst it is clumsy and intractable. This writer of world-wide fame -is singularly wanting in literary finish. He is not careless but -colorless, not slovenly but neutral. He succeeds almost without the aid -of what is commonly called ‘style.’ He is read for what he has to say, -not for the way in which he says it. There are surprises in store for -the reader, but they are not to be found in the perfect word, the happy -phrase, or the balance of a sentence, but always in the unexpected turn -of an adventure, in a well-planned episode abounding in incident, in -the release of mental tension following the happy issue out of danger. -As was said of another copious writer, ‘he weaves a loose web;’ one -might add that it is often of coarse fibre. In few writers of eminence -is form so subservient to contents. The defect was due to haste, to -the natural and lordly contempt of a spontaneous story-teller for the -niceties of rhetoric. - -IV - -ROMANCES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION - -_THE SPY_, _LIONEL LINCOLN_ - -Life in that unhappy strip of country known during the Revolution as -‘the neutral ground,’ Westchester County, New York, is the subject -of _The Spy_. Here frequent and bloody encounters took place between -skirmishers from the opposing armies. Marauding bands, ostensibly -‘loyal’ or ‘patriotic,’ though often composed of banditti, made life a -misery and a terror to peaceably inclined householders. Cooper wrote -from first-hand traditions. The family of his wife had been loyalists, -and the most famous of Westchester County raiders was a DeLancey. - -The chief character is Harvey Birch, the Spy. Professing to be in the -employ of the British, he is the most trusted of Washington’s secret -agents. His devotion to his chief is a passion, almost a religion. -Mean of appearance, niggardly in his mode of life, he is capable of -the last degree of personal sacrifice. His patriotism is of the most -exalted kind, since it can have no proportionate reward. He must live -(perchance die) detested by the people for whom he risks his life -daily. Cooper makes us deeply interested in this uncouth being, who, -persecuted to the point of despair, and even brought to the gallows, -finds always a way of escape. Birch gambled with his life in stake. -It was a desperate throw when he destroyed the bit of paper signed by -Washington. - -The romantic hero of the story is Peyton Dunwoodie, a youth whose ‘dark -and sparkling glance’ played havoc with the hearts of impressionable -ladies. But Peyton was true, and loved but one. More to the modern -taste are the humors of Lawton and Sitgreaves, of Sergeant Hollister -and Betty Flanagan. ‘Mr. Harper’ is impressive, and the mystery of his -character well sustained. The ladies of ‘The Locusts’ have the quaint -charm inseparable from other-day manners and costume. To be sure one of -them, who seems likely to die of love, is mercifully killed by a random -bullet, and another becomes a maniac. Novel-readers wanted a deal for -their money in 1821. But Frances Wharton is a likable little creature, -though her talk does not in the least resemble that of Miss Clara -Middleton. - -As an Irish bishop said of _Gulliver’s Travels_, the book contains -improbabilities. The device of a masque which converts young Henry -Wharton into the counterfeit presentment of an old gray-headed negro is -far-fetched. _The Spy_ was not intended to be a realistic novel. - -Cooper projected another story on the background of the Revolution. -_Lionel Lincoln_, for all the work put on it, was not a success. It had -merits among which the merit of spontaneity is not conspicuous. Had the -failure been less apparent, the novelist might have been tempted to -continue the ‘Legends of the Thirteen Republics.’ - - -V - -THE LEATHER-STOCKING TALES AND OTHER INDIAN STORIES - -A French critic once remarked that nothing was so like a _chanson -de geste_ as another _chanson de geste_. Readers have deplored the -fact that nothing was so like a Leather-Stocking tale as another -Leather-Stocking tale. But _The Pioneers_, the first of the series in -order of composition, bears little resemblance to the others, and as -a picture of life in a New York village at the end of the Eighteenth -Century has a historical value. The narrative is firm in texture. -The characters are thirty in number, and every man in his humor. The -Judge, Cousin Richard, Mr. Grant the clergyman, all the town oddities, -Monsieur Le Quoi, Major Hartmann, Doolittle, Kirby, and Benjamin -are real and humanly interesting. The dialogue is fresh, racy, and -appropriate. There is no effort at compression; winter evenings were -long in 1824. - -The book holds one by the scenes and characters rather than by the -‘fable.’ The mystery of ‘Edwards,’ and the coming to life of old Major -Effingham, are well enough; but the strength of the story is in the -episodes, such as that where Hiram Doolittle, supported by Jotham -and Kirby, tries to serve the warrant on Natty Bumppo, in the trial -of the old hunter, or the capital scene where Natty is put into the -stocks, and the chivalrous major-domo, Benjamin, insists on sharing his -punishment, and cheering the heart-broken old man with comfortable and -picturesque words. Presently Doolittle came to enjoy the fruit of his -victory. Venturing too near, he found himself in the tenacious grasp of -the irate major-domo. Benjamin’s legs were stationary, but his fists -were free, and he proceeded to work away with ‘great industry’ on Mr. -Doolittle’s face, ‘using one hand to raise up his antagonist, while -he knocked him over with the other;’ he scorned to strike a fallen -adversary. - -_The Pioneers_ would merit a high place in American fiction were -it only on account of that original character, Natty Bumppo, or -‘Leather-Stocking.’ He is natural, easy, attractive. In the other books -(always excepting _The Prairie_), there is more of invention. Putting -it in another way, the first Natty Bumppo is like a study from life, -while the others often leave the impression of being studies from the -first study. - -By changing the background, the costume, the accessories, and making -his hero younger or older, Cooper found him available for more exciting -dramas than that played in Templeton. - -Leather-Stocking next appears as ‘Hawkeye,’ the scout, in _The Last -of the Mohicans_, a narrative based on the massacre of Fort William -Henry in 1757, and, all things considered, the most famous of Cooper’s -novels. It is an out-and-out Indian story, good for boys and not -bad for men, being vigorous, brilliant, and packed with adventure. -The capture, by a band of Montcalm’s marauding Iroquois, of the two -daughters of the old Scottish general, their rescue by Hawkeye, -Chingachgook, and Uncas, their recapture, the pursuit and the thrilling -events in the Indian villages, form the staple of a book which without -exaggeration may be called world-renowned. - -If _The Last of the Mohicans_ suffers from one fault more than another, -it is from a superabundance of hair-breadth escapes. The novelist heaps -difficulties on difficulties, all of which appear insurmountable, and -are presently surmounted with an ease that makes the reader half angry -with himself for having worried. - -As might have been expected, in growing younger Natty has grown -theatrical; he appears too exactly at the critical moment to perform -the deed of cool bravery expected of him. It could hardly be otherwise; -_The Last of the Mohicans_ is a romance, and in romances such things -must be. Chingachgook, that engaging savage, has for so many years met -the romantic ideal of the American Indian that it is unlikely he will -ever be disturbed in his place in the reader’s esteem. His rôle of -white man’s friend was played in _The Prairie_ by Hard-Heart, the young -Pawnee chief. - -_The Prairie_ has an originality all its own. This strange and sombre -tale brings together an oddly assorted group of people, some of -whom--the squatter and his family in particular--are drawn with rude -strength. There are weak points in the plot. The carefully guarded tent -with its hidden occupant is a poor device for compelling attention. Dr. -Battius, endlessly talkative about genus and species, is a tiresome -personage. The justification of the story as a work of art is to be -sought in the descriptions of the ‘desert,’ in the impressions given of -immeasurable distance and illimitable space, the abode of mystery and -terror. The passages describing the stampede of a herd of buffalo, the -night surprise of the trapper and his friends by the Sioux, the escape -of Hard-Heart from the torture-stake, are all done with a masterly -stroke. - -Natty Bumppo figures in _The Prairie_ as an old man of eighty-seven. -His eye has lost its keenness of vision and his hand its steadiness. -But the heart is undaunted (‘Lord, what a strange thing is fear!’) and -the mind fertile in expedients. At times the trapper appears in almost -superhuman proportions; he is mythical, like a hero of antiquity. -The attachment between the ancient hunter and his dog is exquisitely -described. In the beautiful account of Leather-Stocking’s last hour no -touch is more poetic than that where the dying man discovers that the -faithful Hector is dead. He will not say that a Christian can hope to -meet his hound again; but he asks that Hector be buried beside him; no -harm, he thinks, can come of that. - -Thirteen years after the publication of _The Prairie_ appeared _The -Pathfinder_, and one year after that _The Deerslayer_. The series was -now complete, forming ‘something like a drama in five acts.’ _The -Pathfinder_ shows Natty in mature manhood, and (for the comfort of -all who require this test of their heroes of fiction) a victim of -unrequited love. Exposed to the wiles of the most treacherous of all -Mingos, Cupid, the quondam hunter, hunted in turn, takes defeat like -the man he is. In _The Deerslayer_ the chronicle is completed with a -group of scenes from Natty’s youth. On the shores of Otsego Lake, while -defending old Hutter’s aquatic home, the young man learns the first -lessons in the art of war. - -Cooper wrote yet other Indian stories. Two may be taken note of in this -section: _The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish_, a narrative of the Connecticut -settlements in ‘King Philip’s’ time, and _Wyandotté_, an episode of -frontier life in 1775. The latter is realistic. Cooper was on his own -ground and knew the Willoughby Patent and the Hutted Knoll much as -he knew ‘Templeton’ and Otsego Lake. _The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish_ is -pure romance. In spite of the labored speech of the Puritan settlers -and the metaphorical flights of Metacom and Conanchet, the story is -enthralling. That is a genuinely pathetic scene where Ruth Heathcote -seeks to awaken in the mind of Narramattah, her lost daughter, now the -wife of the Narragansett chief, some faint memory of her childhood, -and the account of Conanchet’s death at the hands of the Mohicans is a -strong and dramatic piece of writing. - - -VI - -THE SEA STORIES - -FROM _THE PILOT_ TO _MILES WALLINGFORD_ - -_The Pilot_ is an imaginary episode in the life of John Paul Jones. -Cooper has given his hero a poetic character. ‘Mr. Gray’ applies -science to the problem before him up to the critical moment, and then -trusts to intuition, to his genius, and finds wind and wave owning -him their master. The new note is in the vivid descriptive passages, -couched in terms of practical seamanship, but so graphically put -that the most ignorant of lubbers can be depended on to read with a -quickened pulse. Notable among these are the rescue of the frigate from -the shoals, and the fight between the ‘Alacrity’ and ‘Ariel.’ - -There is much human nature in the speech of the men if not of the -women. The dialogue between Borroughcliffe and Manual would not shame -books more celebrated for humor than _The Pilot_. Vast refreshment -can be found in the racy and picturesque talk of Long Tom Coffin, the -most original character in Cooper’s gallery of seamen; also in that -of Boltrope, who from an early ‘prejudyce’ against knee-breeches (he -somehow always imagined Satan as wearing them) never became fully -reconciled to the ship’s chaplain until that worthy left off ‘scudding -under bare poles’ and garbed himself like other men. Dillon, the -lawyer, is too obviously the scoundrel. As the ‘Cacique of Pedee,’ -however, he serves a good end. His kinsman, Colonel Howard, walks the -stage with dignity, a worthy specimen of the loyalist of the American -Revolution, and typical of the class for whom Cooper had much sympathy. - -The young women are far from being lay figures. They have beauty, -intelligence, courage, even audacity. That they are too perfect in -feature, form, manner, was a defect common to all fiction of the time; -the art of making a heroine of a plain woman was in its infancy. -Cooper, who could describe a girl, had always a deal of trouble to -make her talk. Did he never listen to the conversation of those -interesting creatures known, in the parlance of his day, as ‘females’? -Would Alice Dunscombe, meeting her lover after a separation of six -years, have used the phrases Cooper put into her lips? All these young -women might with justice have complained that the speaking parts -assigned them were not representative. But they were at the author’s -mercy and did as they were told. - -Cooper’s principal biographer, to whom we are all vastly indebted, says -that ‘the female characters of his earlier novels are never able to do -anything successfully but faint.’ This is unfair. Katherine Plowden, -a brunette beauty, whom Professor Lounsbury has allowed himself to -forget, goes habited _en garçon_ to seek her lover, and does not faint -when she finds him, only laughs like the gay Rosalind she is. - -The story of ‘Mr. Gray the pilot’ is good, but _The Red Rover_ -is better. Cooper gave the public something new in pirates. The -old-fashioned corsair, in theatrical phrase, looked his part. He swore -horribly, was awful to behold, black-whiskered, visibly blood-stained, -a walking stand of arms, like the monsters described in Esquemeling’s -_Buccaneers of America_. Unlike L’Olonnois, of evil memory, the -captain of the ‘Dolphin’ is almost a Brummell; his cabin is a boudoir, -and he has the wit to eschew the old-fashioned device of skull and -cross-bones. One is inclined, however, to laugh when the pirate ‘throws -his form on a divan’ and bids music discourse. The Rover was somewhat -given to posing, and in moments of deep thought wore a ‘look of faded -marble.’ - -There is nothing fantastic in Wilder, the young captain, and nothing to -be desired in his handling of the ‘Royal Caroline.’ The description of -the flight before the strange cruiser is a splendidly nervous piece of -writing. From the moment when the Bristol trader disentangles herself -from the slaver’s side in the harbor of Newport until she becomes -a wreck on the high seas and the diabolical pursuer passes like a -hurricane, the interest is cumulative. - -The book has its quota of garrulous old salts, some of whom talk too -much, others not enough. ‘Mister Nightingale’ promises well, but has -little of value to say after his discourse anent the quantity of sail -a ship may carry in a white squall off the coast of Guinea. The reader -will find amusement in the other characters, notably Fid and that -strange being, Scipio Africanus. - -_The Water-Witch_ concerns a mysterious and beautiful smuggling -brigantine with a wonderful gift for eluding Her Majesty’s revenue -cruiser under command of Captain Ludlow. The time is the close of Lord -Cornbury’s administration, the scene, New York harbor and the adjacent -estuaries. The story is fantastic and melodramatic, and the dialogue -stilted, even for Cooper. Compared with _The Red Rover_, a romance like -_The Water-Witch_ is hard reading. With such characters as Alderman Van -Beverout, Alida de Barbérie, and ‘Seadrift’ with her epicene beauty, it -is not surprising that _The Water-Witch_ should have been dramatized. - -_The Two Admirals_ is an engaging picture of manly affection. He who -has made the acquaintance of Sir Gervaise Oakes and his friend Richard -Bluewater is to be congratulated, for a more sterling-hearted pair of -worthies is seldom to be found. Other pleasant company may be had for -the asking; the aged baronet Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, hospitable to -excess, bemoaning the inconvenience of not having a satisfactory heir, -and wondering why his brother never married, though he had never given -himself the trouble to undergo the discipline of wedlock. Agreeable -in their several ways are Mildred Dutton, Wycherly Wychecombe the -young Virginian, and Galleygo the top man turned steward, he of the -picturesque language. The story has a conventional plot, and one is -supposed to be eager to know the validity of the Virginian’s claim to -the ancient estate of the Wychecombes. The plot is in danger of being -forgotten when Cooper carries his people to sea, and describes the -action between French and English fleets off Cape la Hogue. - -_Wing-and-Wing_ relates the adventures of a French privateer in -the Mediterranean in 1798. One has not to read far before becoming -enamoured of the diabolical little lugger and her audacious captain. -As creatures of romance go, the good-humored and handsome Raoul -Yvard (alias ‘Sir Smees’) is real and attractive. His arguments -with Ghita (they talk theology not at all after the manner of Mrs. -Humphry Ward’s characters) move one to turn the pages hurriedly. Raoul -may be forgiven; Ghita drove him to it, being orthodox and fond of -proselyting. One can always take refuge with the vice-governatore and -the podestà. These worthies are long-winded, but it were unfair to call -them dull. - -Ithuel Bolt, that long-legged, loose-jointed son of the Granite State, -is new in Cooper’s gallery of seamen. He makes an interesting figure -in the wine-shop at Porto Ferrajo, his chair, creaking under his -weight, tipped back on two legs against the wall, the uprights digging -into the plaster, his knees apart, ‘you fancy how,’ and his long -arms over the backs of neighboring chairs, giving him a resemblance -to a spread eagle. Next to the wine of the country, which he abuses -while succumbing to its influence, he detests the saints. Filippo, -the Genoese sailor, undertakes a feeble defence. Says the Yankee: ‘A -saint is but a human--a man like you and me, after all the fuss you -make about ’em. Saints abound in my country, if you’d believe people’s -account of themselves.’ Cooper says that Bolt, after his return to -America, became a deacon. This is no more incredible than the statement -that he also became a teetotaler. - -The pages of old reviews would probably show how Cooper’s delineation -of Englishmen affected English readers. Our cousins over the water -must have been difficult if they quarrelled with the spirit in which -the portraits of Cuffe, Griffin, Winchester, and Clinch were painted, -all being good men and true in their various capacities. In describing -Nelson and the ‘Lady Admiraless’ the novelist undertook a difficult -task. He was adroit enough to avoid bringing the famous beauty too -often on the stage. - -_Afloat and Ashore_ and _Miles Wallingford_ form a continuous story -of almost a thousand pages. There is a mixture of love and adventure, -the love being depicted as Cooper usually does it, neither better nor -worse, and the sea-episodes as only Cooper could do them. - -A capital passage in _Afloat and Ashore_ is that describing the -encounter with the savages off the coast of South America. Even more -spirited are those chapters of _Miles Wallingford_ in which the young -captain of the ‘Dawn’ relates how he was overhauled successively by a -British man-of-war, a French privateer, and a piratical lugger, and how -he escaped them all only to be wrecked at last in the Irish Sea. Among -a dozen or so of characters Marble is a typical Cooper seaman, a man -of many resources, as witness how he outwitted Sennit. He was patriotic -too, and on his first visit to London was chagrined at being obliged to -admit that St. Paul’s was better than anything they had in Kennebunk. - - -VII - -OLD-WORLD ROMANCE AND NEW-WORLD SATIRE - -_THE BRAVO_, _THE HEIDENMAUER_, _THE HEADSMAN_, _HOMEWARD BOUND_, _HOME -AS FOUND_ - -_The Bravo_ was the first of a group of stories on themes suggested -to their author during his stay on the Continent. It deals with -Venetian life during the decline of the Republic. Jacopo Frontoni, the -reputed bravo, becomes party to the iniquitous system which conceals -crimes committed in the interest of the oligarchy, by throwing the -suspicion on himself, all to the end that he may save his aged father, -unjustly imprisoned by the state. Under this odium Jacopo lives until -life becomes unendurable. At the moment he is meditating flight he -is himself enmeshed in the toils and dies by the hand of the public -executioner. A power which holds that it can do no wrong has a short -way with servants who might betray its tortuous policy. - -Jacopo comes too near to being a saint. He would have been more -lifelike had he been guilty of one at least of the twenty-five murders -laid at his door. Even a hired assassin of the Fifteenth Century might -show filial piety. - -His fate more or less involves that of the old fisherman of the -lagoons, Antonio, a representative of that helpless, oppressed class -which is without rights save the right of being punished if it does -not obey. Antonio is a nobly pathetic character, one of the finest to -which Cooper’s imagination has given being. His patience, his love for -the grandchild taken from him by the state to serve in the galleys, his -courage in pleading before the Doge and even in the dread presence of -the Council of Three that the boy may be given back to him until he has -been formed in habits of virtue, are strong and beautiful traits. - -Violetta and Don Camillo furnish the love motive, without which a -romance of Venice were barren. We sympathize with them and rejoice in -their escape. More than this the author could not ask. - -That the story contains anachronisms admits of no doubt. It may be -that the arraignment of the oligarchy is too unrelieved. On the other -hand, the virtues of the narrative are many. The movement is rapid, the -sentences clear, the various strands of interest artfully woven, and -the conclusion inevitable and dramatic. - -_The Heidenmauer_ deals with the manners and the antagonisms of the -time when the schism of Luther was undermining the Church. Far less -engrossing than its predecessor and weighted with a cumbrous style, -the book has its right valiant warriors and militant churchmen, its -burghers, peasants, and other dramatis personæ of German romance. There -are characters like Gottlob and old Ilse whose speech is always fresh -and agreeable. The French abbé is voluble and might have been wittier. -That one does not sit down to a table spread with an intellectual feast -like that served in _The Monastery_ or _The Abbot_, is no reason for -disdaining the fare served in _The Heidenmauer_. - -In _The Headsman_ we follow the story of a highborn girl who has given -her heart to a young soldier of fortune only to discover in him the son -of that most loathed of beings, the official executioner of Berne. The -office is hereditary, and were the youth’s real condition known the -odious duties would in time fall on him. It is a foregone conclusion -that Sigismund shall be found to be of noble birth, and Adelheid’s -reward proportioned to the greatness of her soul. This is but one -thread of a fairly complicated and romantic plot. The interest of the -narrative is well sustained and the denouement unanticipated. None of -these three romances is, strictly speaking, a novel of purpose, and -the least attractive deserves friendlier critical treatment than is -commonly accorded it. - -In the same group may be placed _Mercedes of Castile_, which, if -it cannot hold the attention by reason of the loves of Don Luis de -Bobadilla and Mercedes, and the fate of the unfortunate Ozema, may be -read (by whoever can take history well diluted with fiction) for the -story of Columbus’s first voyage. - -_The Monikins_ contrasts the ways of men with the ways of monkeys, -much to the disadvantage of men. Really it is no duller than some of -the professed satire of the present day; it is merely longer and more -desperately serious. - -_Homeward Bound_ and _Home as Found_ form two parts of a single -novel. The satire of the first part is forgotten in the movement -of the narrative, the sea-chase, the wreck off the African coast, -the fight with the Arabs. The second part is a diatribe on New York -and Cooperstown in particular, and America in general. The chief -characters, the Effinghams, mean well, but ‘they have an unfortunate -manner,’ and their disagreeable traits are not so piquant as to be -entertaining. Steadfast Dodge, the editor, is almost as unreal as -the Effinghams. Captain Truck is a genuine brother man, resourceful -as master of the ‘Montauk,’ and not helpless when figuring (without -his connivance) as a great English author, at Mrs. Legend’s literary -soirée. - -Horatio Greenough had the ‘Effingham’ books in mind when he wrote to -Cooper: ‘I think you lose hold on the American public by rubbing down -their shins with brickbats as you do.’ - - -VIII - -TRAVELS, HISTORY, POLITICAL WRITINGS AND LATEST NOVELS - -Cooper was a giant of productivity. Some brief comment has been made -on twenty-three of his novels. It is impossible in the limits of this -study to do much beyond giving the titles of his remaining books. - -_The History of the Navy of the United States of America_ begins with -‘the earliest American sea-fight’ (May, 1636), when John Gallop in a -sloop of twenty tons captured a pinnace manned by thieving Indians, -and closes with the War of 1812. The noteworthy features of the book -are accuracy, independence, severity of style, and freedom from -spread-eagleism. The brief _Chronicles of Cooperstown_, written in a -plain way, has the natural interest attaching to the subject and the -author. - -_A Letter to his Countrymen_, partly autobiographical, is absorbing -in its bitter earnestness. _The Travelling Bachelor_ purports to be -the letters of a cosmopolite, a man of fifty, to various members -of his club, recounting his travels in the United States. The book -is historical, statistical, argumentative. It treats of government, -manners, art, literature, of fashions in dress and of peculiarities of -speech. As an attempt on the part of a man of strong prejudices to take -an objective view of his own country, it is singularly interesting. -Were its seven hundred closely printed pages lightened with humor or -relieved by any grace of expression, _The Travelling Bachelor_ would be -a vastly entertaining work. - -_The American Democrat_ is a collection of short essays, forty-five in -number, on the American republic, liberty, parties, public opinion, -property, the press, demagogues, the decay of manners, individuality, -aristocrat and democrat, pronunciation, slavery, etc., etc. The -tone of the comments is intentionally censorious, and often proves -exasperating. Having been long absent from America, Cooper found -himself to a certain degree ‘in the situation of a foreigner in his own -country.’ On this account he was prepared to note peculiarities. Praise -and blame are mingled. _The American Democrat_ sets forth high ideals, -as may be seen, for example, in the suggestive essay on party. The book -is courageous but wanting in suavity. - -_Sketches of Switzerland_ and _Gleanings in Europe_, comprising ten -volumes in the original editions, are studies of Continental and -English life. They contain a multitude of spirited, pungent, and true -observations. Lacking the ‘antiseptic of style,’ the books are no -longer read. - -Between 1845 and 1850 Cooper published eight novels. Three of the -eight, _Satanstoe_, _The Chainbearer_, and _The Redskins_, are -narratives supposed to be drawn from the ‘Littlepage Manuscripts.’ -The first is not only the best, but is also one of the most genial of -all Cooper’s novels. Corny Littlepage had attractive friends, such -as the mettlesome youth Guert Ten Eyck, a splendid specimen of the -free-handed, royally generous Dutch-American. Jason Newcome, on the -other hand, embodies Cooper’s never latent hostility to New England. -The pictures of old days in New York and Albany are brilliant and -highly finished, and the encounter with the Indians in Cooper’s most -spirited vein. - -_The Crater_ is a history of the adventures of Mark Woolston of -Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who was shipwrecked on a -volcanic island in the Pacific, and with the able seaman Bob Betts -set himself to solve the problem of existence. What with gardening, -poultry-raising, boat-building, tempests, earthquakes, exploration -of neighboring islands, colonization, savages, and pirates, the book -resolves itself into one of the infinite variations of _Robinson -Crusoe_. After twenty-nine chapters of this sort of thing comes an -absurd and irrelevant conclusion. - -All the later novels, _Jack Tier_, _The Sea Lions_, _Oak Openings_, and -_The Ways of the Hour_, are hard reading, yet the least happy of them -has passages betraying the master’s hand. _The Sea Lions_ stands out by -virtue of the powerful descriptions of an Antarctic winter; but neither -Captain Spike’s mission to the gulf, nor the revelation of fat, profane -Jack’s true station and sex, nor yet the malapropisms of Mrs. Budd (she -would say ‘It blew what they call a Hyson in the Chinese seas’), can -make _Jack Tier_ more than tolerable. - - * * * * * - -Cooper’s greatest achievements were his stories of the sea and the -forest. His real creations are sailors, backwoodsmen, old soldiers, -and Indians. Whether his red men are conceived in the spirit of modern -ethnological science can matter but little now. They are neither -so close to Chateaubriand’s idealized savage, nor so far from the -real Indian as is generally believed. That Cooper had no skill in -representing contemporary society is plain enough; but the failure -of _Home as Found_ need not have been as complete as it was. Haste -and anger must bear the blame of that literary disaster. Where he -deals with manners of the past, as in _Satanstoe_, he is often most -felicitous. With his novel of _The Bravo_ he was in line with the -Romantic movement. How far he comprehended that movement, or was -influenced by it, is a more intricate problem. - -Modern literature can show but few authors more popular than Cooper. He -has been praised extravagantly; but the fact that Miss Mitford thought -him as good as Scott ought not to prejudice us against him. And he has -been damned without measure; but over against Mark Twain’s unchivalrous -attack on his great fellow countryman may be set the royally generous -tributes of Balzac and of Dumas. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [7] Judge Cooper’s _A Guide in the Wilderness_, Dublin, 1810, was - reprinted in 1897 with an introduction by J. F. Cooper [the - Younger], throwing much light on the manners of the times and - the character of his ancestor. - - [8] One of the most extraordinary of the suits arose from - criticism of the _Naval History_. Cooper had refused to take - the popular side of a heated controversy and to join in - assailing Elliott, Perry’s second in command at the Battle - of Lake Erie. The suit, against Stone of the ‘Commercial - Advertiser,’ was settled by arbitration, and in Cooper’s - favor. Lounsbury’s _Cooper_, pp. 200–230. - - [9] Park Theatre, New York, March, 1822. - - [10] Burton’s Theatre, New York, June, 1850. - - - - -IV - -_George Bancroft_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =W. M. Sloane=: ‘George Bancroft in Society, in Politics, in - Letters,’ ‘The Century Magazine,’ January, 1887. - - =S. S. Green=: ‘George Bancroft,’ _Proceedings of the American - Antiquarian Society_, April 29, 1891. - - =A. McF. Davis=: ‘George Bancroft,’ _Proceedings of the American - Academy of Arts and Sciences_, vol. xxvi, 1891. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -The Bancrofts have been settled in America since 1632. Among the -historian’s ancestors were men of marked traits of character. -Bancroft’s grandfather, a farmer of Essex County, Massachusetts, had -such a reputation for piety and judgment that he was called on to act -as an umpire in the bitter dispute between Jonathan Edwards and his -church at Northampton. - -The father of the historian, Aaron Bancroft, a pioneer of American -Unitarianism, was for fifty years pastor of the Second Church of -Worcester. His distinguishing trait was ‘a deep-seated abhorrence of -anything like mental slavery.’ He was an ardent student of American -history and the author of an _Essay on the Life of George Washington_ -(1807), a popular book in its own day and well worth the reading in -ours. George Bancroft thought ‘that his own inclination toward history -was due very much to the influence of his father.’ - -There is a story (probably apocryphal) that in his youth Aaron Bancroft -fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill. During Shays’s Rebellion, when -the insurgent officers proposed to quarter themselves in private -houses at Worcester, the minister guarded his own door and told a -group of officers who approached that they were rebels, and that ‘they -would obtain no entrance to his house but by violence.’ The officers -immediately rode away. - -George Bancroft was born at Worcester on October 3, 1800. He prepared -for college at Phillips Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, and was -graduated at Harvard in 1817. Edward Everett, the newly appointed -professor of Greek, who was then studying at Göttingen, urged -President Kirkland to send some graduate of marked powers to Germany -with a view to his preparing himself to teach at Harvard. The choice -fell on Bancroft. He spent two years at Göttingen and obtained his -doctorate. Among his professors were Heeren, Dissen, Eichhorn, and -Blumenbach; Heeren’s influence was the most profound and the most -lasting. His range of studies was wide, including, as it did, history, -German literature, Greek philosophy, natural history, Scripture -interpretation, Arabic, Syriac, and Persian. - -From Göttingen, Bancroft went to Berlin, where he heard the lectures of -Savigny, Schleiermacher, and Hegel, and made the acquaintance of Voss, -W. von Humboldt, and F. A. Wolf. He had the fortune to meet Goethe -once at Jena, and again at Weimar. After leaving Berlin he studied -for a time at Heidelberg under Von Schlosser. In Paris he met Cousin, -Constant, and A. von Humboldt. He travelled in Switzerland and Italy, -and spent the winter of 1821–22 at Rome, where he made the acquaintance -of Niebuhr and Bunsen. At Leghorn the following spring he was one of -a party of Americans who gathered to meet Byron when the poet visited -the ‘Constitution,’ the flagship of the American squadron. Bancroft -afterwards called on Byron at Montenero, and was presented to the -Countess Guiccioli. - -In the fall of 1822 Bancroft became a tutor of Greek at Harvard. The -following year he resigned his position, not to enter the ministry in -accordance with his father’s wishes, but to become a schoolmaster. He -joined his friend, Joseph G. Cogswell (the directing spirit in the -enterprise), in founding a school for boys at Round Hill, Northampton. -Emerson, then a youth of twenty, heard Bancroft preach at the ‘New -South’ in Boston soon after his return from Germany, and was ‘delighted -with his eloquence.’ ‘He needs a great deal of cutting and pruning, -but we think him an infant Hercules.’ Emerson deplored Bancroft’s new -departure, ‘because good schoolmasters are as plenty as whortleberries, -but good ministers assuredly are not, and Bancroft might be one of the -best.’ - -On the eve of leaving Cambridge, Bancroft published, under the title of -_Poems_, a volume of correct if not inspired verse. At Northampton his -literary activity found more sober expression in text-books, in papers -for the ‘North American Review’ and Walsh’s ‘American Quarterly,’ and -in a careful translation of Heeren’s _Politics of Ancient Greece_ -(1824). At the celebration of Independence Day at Northampton in 1826, -Bancroft was the orator. He chanted the present glory of America, -predicted a golden future, and declared his faith in a ‘determined -uncompromising democracy.’ These notes were to be heard again and often -in his great history. - -Round Hill, though prosperous in many ways, was not a success -financially, nor were the partners wholly congenial. After seven years -Bancroft withdrew from the school and began writing the book on which -his fame rests. In 1834 appeared the first volume of _A History of -the United States from the discovery of the American continent to the -present time_. The second volume was published in 1837, the third in -1840. - -The historian removed to Springfield and became prominent in state -politics. He was an ardent Democrat and a strong opponent of slavery. -Elected without his knowledge to the legislature, he refused to take -his seat; he also declined a nomination to the senate. It is said that -he took this attitude with respect to office-holding out of deference -to the feelings of his wife, Sarah (Dwight) Bancroft, who came of -a prominent Whig family. Mrs. Bancroft died in 1837.[11] Appointed -Collector of the Port of Boston by President Van Buren, Bancroft held -the office from 1838 to 1841, and administered its affairs with a -thoroughness theretofore unknown, and in a way incidentally to reflect -great credit on the profession of letters. - -In 1844 Bancroft was the Democratic candidate for governor of -Massachusetts and polled a large vote, but was defeated by George N. -Briggs. A year later he became Secretary of the Navy under President -Polk. In the exercise of his duties he gave the order to take -possession of California, and as acting Secretary of War the order to -General Taylor to occupy Texas. - -During his secretaryship Bancroft founded the United States Naval -Academy at Annapolis. This he brought about not by asking Congress to -authorize its establishment, but by so interpreting the powers granted -him under the law that he was able to set in operation a school for -the training of midshipmen and offer it to Congress for approval. Once -the school was established and its usefulness proved, there was no -difficulty in securing funds for adequate equipment. The Academy was -formally opened on October 10, 1845. - -From 1846 to 1849 Bancroft was minister to England. There were -important diplomatic problems to be solved, but his triumphs were -chiefly literary and social. He accumulated a rich store of documents, -and on his return to America made his home in New York and devoted -himself anew to the _History_.[12] The fourth volume appeared in 1852; -the fifth in 1853; the sixth in 1854; the seventh in 1858; the eighth -in 1860; the ninth in 1866; the tenth and concluding volume in 1874. -His _Literary and Historical Miscellanies_ appeared in 1855. - -When the New York Historical Society celebrated the close of the first -half-century of its existence (1854), Bancroft was the orator. His -address on that occasion, ‘The Necessity, the Reality, and the Promise -of the Progress of the Human Race,’ has been pronounced the best -exposition of his historical creed.[13] - -Bancroft was a strong Union man and during the Civil War acted with -the Republican party. He declined a nomination to Congress from the -eighth district of New York (October, 1862), on the ground that a -multiplication of candidates would leave the result very much to -chance; there should be a union, he urged, of all those ‘who feel -deeply for their country in this her hour of peril.’ At the close -of the war he was chosen to pronounce the eulogy on Lincoln before -Congress (February, 1866). - -President Johnson, in 1867, appointed Bancroft minister to Prussia. -Later he was accredited to the North German Confederation, and in -1872, following current political changes, to the German Empire. He -brought about that notable treaty whereby Germans who had become -citizens of the United States were freed from allegiance to the land -of their birth. Never before by a ‘formal act’ had the principle of -‘renunciation of citizenship at ‘the will of the individual been -recognized.’ England followed Germany’s example and gave over her -claim of indefeasible allegiance. Another diplomatic triumph was the -settlement of the North-western boundary dispute. While in Germany -Bancroft celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation -at Göttingen. The University gave him an honorary degree, and -congratulations were showered on him from scholars, statesmen, princes, -and men of letters. - -After nearly eight years of service Bancroft was recalled from the -German mission at his own request. He lived in Washington during the -winter months and spent the summers at Newport as had long been -his habit. The work of his later years included two revisions of -the _History_ (1876 and 1884), a _History of the Formation of the -Constitution of the United States_ (1882), _A Plea for the Constitution -of the United States of America, wounded in the House of its Guardians_ -(1886), and a sketch of the public life of Martin Van Buren (1889). - -Bancroft died in Washington on January 17, 1891. - - -II - -HIS CHARACTER - -Bancroft’s character was fashioned on a large scale. His mental horizon -was broad, his power to plan and carry out a vast undertaking was -commensurate with the reach of his vision. There was little in his -habit of thought to suggest the narrowness so often associated with the -name of scholar. Yet he had the infinitely laborious powers of the mere -scholar. He could toil with unflagging energy day by day or year by -year. - -The magisterial note in his historical writings is due not alone to the -subject or to the literary manner, but also to the deliberate tenacity -of purpose with which the historian wrought. Such a work is the -product, not of feverish spasms of intellectual activity, but of even -and steady effort. - -Bancroft has been accused of a want of enthusiasm in receiving critical -observations on his work. It is a question whether historians (more -than philosophers) are wont to receive with rapture proofs that they -are possibly in the wrong. Bancroft’s tone of controversy is perhaps -less peculiar to himself than is commonly asserted. However, it must be -kept in mind that he had a ‘strong nervous personality.’ - -Emerson described the greeting he had from Bancroft in London. When -he presented himself at the minister’s door, ‘it was opened by Mr. -Bancroft himself in the midst of servants whom that man of eager -manners thrust aside, saying that he would open his own door for me. -He was full of goodness and talk.’ Other accounts of him give an -impression of much stateliness of manner tempered by affability. Still -others convey the idea that he was always artificial, and sometimes -playful with a playfulness that bordered on frivolity. A friend[14] -professed to detect in Bancroft’s bearing marks of the man of letters, -diplomat, politician, preacher and pedagogue, one trait superimposed on -another. But the blend of characteristics was charming.[15] - - -III - -THE WRITER - -The charge brought against Bancroft of having embellished his themes -with ‘cheap rhetoric’ is unjust. Rhetorical the historian undoubtedly -was, but the rhetoric was not cheap. It had the merit of sincerity; -it was the result of an honest effort to present important facts and -comments in becoming garb. - -In 1834 the style thought appropriate to historical writing was -markedly oratorical. Historians addressed their readers. A pomp of -expression, something almost liturgical, was held seemly if not indeed -of last importance. Reading their works, one involuntarily calls up a -vision of grave gentlemen in much-wrinkled frock-coats, making stilted -gestures, and looking even more unreal than their statues which now -terrify posterity. Bancroft was affected by the prevailing drift -towards oratorical forms. At times one is tempted to exclaim: ‘This was -not meant to be read but to be heard.’ - -Take for example this passage on Sebastian Cabot: ‘He lived to an -extreme old age and loved his profession to the last; in the hour of -death his wandering thoughts were upon the ocean. The discoverer of -the territory of our country was one of the most extraordinary men of -his age; there is deep cause for regret that time has spared so few -memorials of his career. Himself incapable of jealousy, he did not -escape detraction. He gave England a continent, and no one knows his -burial place.’ - -Not to enter into the question whether this is good, or indifferent, or -even bad writing, it is sufficient to note that the passage in question -belongs to spoken discourse rather than to literature. It appeals to -us, if at all, through the medium of the ear rather than the eye. - -Take for another example the comparison of Puritan and Cavalier: -Historians have loved to eulogize ‘the manners and virtues, the glory -and the benefits of chivalry. Puritanism accomplished for mankind -far more. If it had the sectarian crime of intolerance, chivalry had -the vices of dissoluteness. The knights were brave from gallantry of -spirit; the puritans from the fear of God. The knights were proud of -loyalty, the puritans of liberty. The knights did homage to monarchs, -in whose smile they beheld honor, whose rebuke was the wound of -disgrace; the puritans, disdaining ceremony, would not bend the knee -to the King of kings. The former valued courtesy; the latter justice. -The former adorned society by graceful refinements; the latter founded -national grandeur on universal education. The institutions of chivalry -were subverted by the gradually increasing weight, and knowledge, and -opulence, of the industrious classes; the puritans, relying on those -classes, planted in their hearts the undying principles of democratic -liberty.’ - -Passages such as these are often employed as a rhetorical flourish -at the end of a chapter. They are analogous to what actors call -‘making a good exit.’ In Bancroft they constitute for pages together -the prevailing rather than the exceptional form. The reader, whether -conscious of it or not, is kept on a strain. At last he grows -uncomfortable. He wishes the historian would cease to declaim, would -come down from the rostrum, throw aside his academic robes, and be -neighborly and familiar. - -This _History_ was so long in the writing that Bancroft’s style changed -materially. The opinion prevails that his diction improved as the -work proceeded, that the later volumes are uniformly less inflated, -strained, and ‘eloquent’ than the earlier ones. It is true that he -made innumerable revisions of the text. The changes were not always -improvements. Sometimes in rewriting a sentence he made it less -energetic. Strong expressions were softened. A plain old-fashioned word -would be taken out; often it carried the whole phrase with it. Whether -the literary or the historical sense dictated the change in question -cannot always be determined. - -Bancroft’s diction is manly and forceful, but it lacks natural grace -and suppleness; it is flexible as chain armor is flexible, but not -as is the human body. It may be doubted whether he is ever read for -literary pleasure. Nevertheless, scattered through these twelve volumes -are hundreds of passages well worth the study of those who enjoy an -exhibition of mastery in the use of words. - - -IV - -_THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES_ - -One does well to read Bancroft in the tall, wide-margined, and almost -sumptuous volumes of the original editions. The page is open and -inviting. Both text and notes have a personal flavor very diverting at -times. There is no question as to the usefulness of an attractive page -in works of this sort. Political histories should be made easy, not by -picture-book methods, but by the legitimate arts of good printing. - -The work is generously planned. Twelve octavo volumes are required to -bring the narrative down to the ratification of the constitution.[16] -Three volumes, comprising nearly fifteen hundred pages, are given to -the Colonial period alone. - -Bancroft announced his theory of historical writing in the preface of -1834. He was to be controlled always by ‘the principles of historical -scepticism,’ and his narrative was to be drawn ‘from writings and -sources which were contemporaries of the events that are described.’ -Nothing commonly supposed to belong to American history was to be -retained merely because it had been unchallenged by former historians. - -The treatment, as shown in these volumes on the Colonial period, is -in perfect accord with the author’s conception of the dignity of the -subject. The matter is as stately as the manner. Bancroft writes -history as a lord high chamberlain conducts a court function. He feels -that during the ceremony of discovering a world and planting a nation -there should be no unseemliness, certainly no laughter or disturbance. - -The characters go through their evolutions like well-drilled courtiers. -So stately are they as to appear scarce human. Homely and familiar -traits are almost completely suppressed. The founders of America, as we -see them looming in the pages of Bancroft, are not men but incarnate -ideas. They are the embodiment of principles and virtues. Winthrop is -enlightened conservatism, Vane is generous impetuosity, Roger Williams -is liberty of conscience. Strive how we will to bring these men nearer, -to make them tangible, the effort is not wholly successful. These -figures of the past, like the characters of a morality-play, persist in -remaining personified ideas. - -As a reaction against ‘classical’ history comes history of the -gossiping school. ‘Thanks to you,’ said Brunetière, welcoming Masson -to the French Academy, ‘we now know the exact number of Napoleon’s -shirts.’ Bancroft was not interested in the spindles and shoe-buckles -of the Puritans. Many people are, but they must find elsewhere the -gratification they seek. Whoever wishes at any time absolutely to -escape anecdotage, homely detail, and piquant gossip, has it always -in his power to do so; he can read Bancroft’s three volumes on the -Colonial period and dwell among abstractions. - -Even if not at this stage of his career the most human of writers, -Bancroft is a comforting historian to return to, after having dwelt -for a while with those who instruct us how low and mercenary in -motive, how impervious to liberal ideas, were the men who planted -English civilization in America. Historical iconoclasts all, they are -frightfully convincing. Some of their arguments lose a degree of force -as it dawns on the reader that Seventeenth-century men are being judged -by Nineteenth-century standards. When Bancroft wrote, the habit of -abusing the ancestors had not become deep-seated. - -Turning from the Colonial period, the historian takes up the period -of the American Revolution. Seven volumes are required for telling -the story. The logical arrangement is by ‘epochs.’ They are four in -number: ‘Overthrow of the European Colonial system,’ ‘How Great -Britain estranged America,’ ‘America declares itself independent,’ ‘The -Independence of America is acknowledged.’[17] - -General histories must treat of many things, the doings of authorized -and representative assemblies and the doings of the mob, skirmishes, -battles by land and sea, diplomatic intrigues, party combinations, -political and military plots, the characters of the actors in the -historic drama, and the setting of the stage on which they played. -While doing all parts of his task with workmanlike skill, a historian -will be found to excel in this thing or in that. Bancroft’s accounts of -military operations are always clear, energetic, and often extremely -readable. He could not, like Irving, ‘render you a fearful battle in -music,’ but he never made the mistake of supposing that he could. He -had not the graphical power of Parkman, but he had enough for his -purposes. - -His character sketches of the men who figured in the struggles for -American independence are among the best parts of his writing. The -patriots and their friends in England and on the Continent are too -uniformly creatures of light, but their opponents are not represented -as necessarily creatures of darkness. If Bancroft could be more than -fair to his own side, he was incapable of being wholly unfair to the -other. His tendency is to regard human character as all of a piece, -fixed rather than fluctuating. Men (politicians included) have been -known to grow in virtue as they grow in years. Bancroft was over -complacent in his attitude towards frenzied impromptu Revolutionary -gatherings whose motives could not always have been so guiltlessly -patriotic and disinterested as he represents them.[18] He was but -little versed in the psychology of mobs. - -Forceful at all points, Bancroft was singularly impressive in dealing -with history as it is made in parliaments and conventions, in council -chambers, cabinets, and courts of law. He was born to grapple with -whole state paper offices. He knew the secret of subordinating a vast -amount of detail to his main purpose. An important part of the American -Revolution took place in Europe. Bancroft’s capital merit consists in -his having brought the event into its largest relations. The story -as he told it did not merely concern the uprising of a few petty -quarrelsome colonies, it became an important chapter in the history of -liberty. Not for an instant did he permit himself to lose sight of that -‘idea of continuity which gives vitality to history.’ - -It is wonderful how through these seven volumes everything bends to -one idea; how it all becomes part of a demonstration, a detail in the -history of that spirit which, acting through discontent, led first to -local outbreak and resistance, then to concerted action and war, and -finally to the birth of a new nation. - -The crown of Bancroft’s work is the story of how the states parted with -so much of their individuality as stood in the way of union, and then -united. Two volumes would seem to afford room for full and leisurely -treatment. But in fact the historian only accomplished his task by -enormous compression. Often the substance of a speech had to be given -in a sentence, and the deliberations of days in a few paragraphs. -The marshalling of facts, the grasp of the subject in detail and as -a whole, are extraordinary. Bancroft notes what forces led to union -and what opposed it. He marks the shifting of public sentiment, the -trembling of the balance, but he grants himself few privileges of the -sort called literary. Seldom dramatic or picturesque in this portion of -his narrative, he is at all times logically exact and magisterial. - - * * * * * - -There is a peculiar fitness in the word ‘monumental’ applied to -Bancroft’s work. It has solidity, strength, durability, a massive and -stately grandeur. It is a book which the modern reader finds it easy -to neglect; but he puts it in his library and never fails to commend -it to his friends, with a hypocritical expression of surprise at their -not being better acquainted with it. The truth is, we are spoiled by -more attractive historians. Macaulay, Froude, and Parkman have made us -indolent, fond of verbal comforts and disinclined to effort. We demand -not only to be instructed but to be vastly entertained at the same -time. Bancroft certainly instructs; it would be difficult to prove that -he also entertains. - -His tone of confident eulogy is often condemned. On the whole, this -is a merit rather than a fault. Doubtless he admired too uniformly -and too much. Many writers have taken pleasure in showing that his -admiration was misplaced. And thus a balance is kept. It is a fortunate -thing for American literature that Bancroft’s vast work, destined to -so wide an influence, and the fruit of such immense labor, should -have been conceived and written in a generous and hopeful spirit. The -English reviewer who on the appearance of the first volume praised the -historian because he was ‘so fearlessly honest and impartial’ might -also have praised him because he was so fearlessly optimistic. This too -requires courage. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [11] Bancroft was twice married. His second wife was Mrs. - Elisabeth (Davis) Bliss. - - [12] For an account of the privileges he enjoyed in making his - collections see _Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of - America_, vol. viii, p. 477. - - [13] W. M. Sloane. - - [14] T. W. Higginson in ‘The Nation,’ January, 1891. - - [15] Bancroft’s characteristics as a young man are admirably - brought out in the recently printed selection from his - letters and journals, edited by M. A. DeWolfe Howe. - ‘Scribner’s Magazine,’ September and October, 1905. - - [16] Two volumes of the original edition correspond to one volume - of the ‘author’s last revision,’ 1883–85. - - [17] In the ‘last revision’ Epoch Four is divided into unequal - parts and the titles are reworded: Epoch first, ‘Britain - overthrows the European colonial system,’ 1748–63; Epoch - second, ‘Britain estranges America,’ 1763–74; Epoch third, - ‘America takes up arms for self-defence and arrives at - independence,’ 1774–76; Epoch fourth, ‘America in alliance - with France,’ 1776--80; Epoch fifth, ‘The People of America - take their equal station among the powers of the earth,’ 1780 - to December, 1782. - - [18] J. F. Jameson speaks of Bancroft’s ‘tendency to - conventionalize, to compose his American populations of - highly virtuous Noah’s-ark men.’ _History of Historical - Writing in America_, 1891, p. 108. - - - - -V - -_William Hickling Prescott_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =George Ticknor=: _Life of William Hickling Prescott_, 1864. - - =Rollo Ogden=: _William Hickling Prescott_, ‘American Men of - Letters,’ 1904. - - =H. T. Peck=: _William Hickling Prescott_, ‘English Men of - Letters,’ 1905. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -The Prescotts are an ancient family as antiquity is reckoned in the -United States. The first Anglo-American of that name, John Prescott, -an old Cromwellian soldier, took up residence in this country about -1640, and after living awhile at Watertown, Massachusetts, made a -permanent home for himself at Lancaster, then a frontier settlement. -When thieving Indians plundered him, it is said that he used to put on -helmet, gorget, and cuirass, and start in pursuit. Being a powerful man -and stern of countenance, his terrific appearance in his armor had a -salutary effect on the red men. - -Jonas Prescott, a son of the old warrior, settled at Groton, -Massachusetts, and there the family history centres for more than a -hundred years. They were a vigorous race, useful and conspicuous in -the military and civil affairs of the colony. - -William Hickling Prescott, the historian, was born in Salem, -Massachusetts, on May 4, 1796. His father, Judge William Prescott, was -a man of eminent abilities, esteemed for his great legal acquirements -and beloved for his personal worth. His mother, Catharine Hickling, a -daughter of Thomas Hickling of Boston, was distinguished for energy -and benevolence, as well as for a certain gayety of temperament, a -trait which she transmitted to her famous son. The grandfather of -the historian was Colonel William Prescott, founder of the town of -Pepperell, who, on the night of June 16, 1775, with his force of a -thousand men, threw up a redoubt on Bunker (Breed’s) Hill, and on the -following day defended it until defence was no longer possible. - -Prescott was drilled in the classics by one of old Parr’s pupils, the -Reverend Doctor John Gardiner, rector of Trinity Church, Boston. He -was an insatiable reader of books; but it were idle to assume that his -interest in Spanish history and literature took its first impulse, as -has been asserted, from the reading of Southey’s translation of _Amadis -of Gaul_. - -He entered Harvard College in the Sophomore year and was graduated in -1814. A misfortune befell him early in his course which changed his -whole life and made enormous demands on his philosophy and courage. -In one of the frolics attending the breaking up of commons, when small -missiles were flying about the room, Prescott was struck full in the -left eye with a hard crust of bread. The sight was instantly destroyed, -and he lived for years in apprehension of what, fortunately, never -overtook him, total blindness. - -He began the study of law, but illness and consequent weakening of the -power of vision put an end to it. In search of health and diversion he -went abroad. After spending some months in the Azores, in the family of -his maternal grandfather, Thomas Hickling, then United States consul -at St. Michael’s, he visited Italy, France, and England. In London he -consulted eminent oculists, who were able, however, to give him but -little encouragement. - -Shortly after his return home he married Miss Susan Amory of Boston, -whose maternal grandfather, Captain Linzee, was in command of a British -sloop of war at the outbreak of the Revolution, and had cannonaded -the redoubt on Bunker Hill. In 1821 Prescott planned a course of -literary study. Beginning oddly enough with grammars and rhetorics, he -followed this preliminary reading with a wide survey first of English -literature, then of French and Italian. German he tried and gave up. -With his enfeebled sight he could do but little of the actual reading -for himself; the bulk of it had to be done for him. - -Prescott’s literary life was peculiar in that he prepared himself to -become a man of letters with no definite conception of what he would -write about. He was not, like the literary heroes of whom we read, so -possessed of his subject from boyhood that all the ancient neighbors -distinctly recall early evidences of his predilection. His first -impulse towards the studies in which he won renown came from George -Ticknor. To help Prescott pass away his time Ticknor read to his -friend the lectures he had been giving to advanced classes at Harvard, -lectures which formed the basis of his _History of Spanish Literature_. -This was in 1824. Prescott became enthusiastic over the study of -the Spanish language and history. A year later he was thinking what -brilliant passages might be written on the Inquisition, the Conquest of -Granada, and the exploits of the Great Captain. After balancing Italian -and Spanish subjects against each other, he decided, not without -misgivings, on a history of Ferdinand and Isabella, and early in 1826 -wrote to Alexander H. Everett, United States minister at Madrid, asking -his help in collecting materials. - -Three and a half years of study preceded the writing of the first -chapter; ten and a half years in all were required to make the book. -Its enthusiastic reception from scholars and public alike led Prescott -to take up cognate subjects. The list of his writings is brief, but, -taking into account the difficulties involved, one may say without -exaggeration that Prescott’s historical works represent a labor little -short of titanic. - -The _History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic_ -appeared in 1837. It was followed by _The Conquest of Mexico_, 1843; -_Critical and Historical Essays_, 1845 (consisting chiefly of papers -reprinted from the ‘North American Review’); _The Conquest of Peru_, -1847; _The History of Philip the Second_, 1855 (left unfinished at the -author’s death). To this list of important works may be added a brief -continuation of Robertson’s _Charles the Fifth_, and a _Memoir of -Abbott Lawrence_. - -Prescott’s life was without marked external incident. His surroundings -were ideal. Having inherited a fortune, he could give himself to -toilsome literary undertakings with no care for the financial result. -He took satisfaction in the thought of having refuted Johnson’s dictum -that no man could write history unless he had good eyes. - -Early in 1858 Prescott was stricken with apoplexy, but so far recovered -as to be able to resume work on the _History of Philip the Second_. A -second attack (January 27, 1859) ended in his death. - - -II - -PRESCOTT’S CHARACTER - -To those who knew him in varying degrees of intimacy, whether as -friends, neighbors, or chance acquaintance, Prescott seemed the -incarnation of urbanity, thoughtfulness, good humor. To us who know -him only through the story of his life he seems notable for his heroic -qualities. - -He had enormous courage and force of will. That other men have -performed great tasks under like difficulties cannot lessen the glory -of his individual achievement. Handicapped by partial blindness, he -wrote history, a type of literature which makes the most exacting -demands on the physical powers. - -Had Prescott’s genius inclined him towards poetry or fiction, the -heroic element in his literary life would have been less noteworthy. -In general a novelist is not expected to read; what is chiefly -required of him in the way of preparation is, that he shall observe, -feel, and occasionally think--but not read; much reading makes a dull -story-teller. The novelist gleans material as he walks the street. For -his purpose an hour of talk with ‘a set of wretched un-idea’d girls,’ -as Doctor Johnson half affectionately, half pettishly, called them, is -worth ten hours over a book. History is another matter. The historian -must often read a thousand pages in order to write one. And the work -of preparation is indescribably exhausting; there is so much detail -to set in order, so many documents to be consulted, such a wilderness -of notes to be arranged, compared, and fitted into place. The task, -difficult under the best conditions, must seem endless to any one with -an imperfect sense. - -A man with good eye-sight is like a man with the free use of his legs, -he goes where he pleases. But a scholar with defective vision is an -invalid in a wheeled chair. Prescott, being denied one of the greatest -conveniences of study, was forced to try expedients. With most writers -pen and ink are an indispensable aid to composition. Prescott used -memory instead. Not only was the knowledge accumulated, arranged, and -weighed, but it was put into literary form, the paragraphs measured and -the sentences polished before the actual writing was begun. Prescott -often carried in his head, for days at a time, the equivalent of sixty -pages of printed text, and on occasion, seventy-five pages. Only by -reflecting on the difficulties met and overcome can the amateur of -literature arrive at a conception of Prescott’s indomitable courage. - -Add to force and persistency of purpose another notable trait, -a passion for nobility of character. Prescott, unwearied in -self-examination, studied his own moral nature as he studied the pages -of his manuscript, that he might weed out the faults. The methods he -employed to this end were often whimsical, and even childlike; but in -their touching simplicity lies the best proof of the genuineness of the -motive that prompted them. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -Prescott gave unusual measure of time and thought to the problem of -expression. With a view to grounding himself in the technical part of -literature, he invoked the aid of those now forgotten worthies, Lindley -Murray and Hugh Blair--how greatly to his advantage would be difficult -to say. Books of this sort are so often disfigured by a vicious or, -what is worse, a commonplace style that it is a question whether one -does not lose by example all that he gains by precept. - -Escaping these influences, Prescott took up the chief English authors, -beginning with Ascham, Sidney, Bacon, Browne, Raleigh, and Milton. -His mind was constantly on the alert to discover by what means these -masters produced their effects. His journals show how painstaking he -was in these studies, with what intense interest he turned the problem -of the art of expression over and over in his mind. - -When he came to print, it was observed first of all that he had a -‘style.’ The self-conscious literary workman was plainly visible. -Prescott had evidently aimed to produce certain effects through the -balance of his periods, the choice of his words, the length and -structure of his sentences. Every one said: ‘He is an artist.’ Praise -could not have been more aptly bestowed. Among many eminent artists in -words Prescott was one of the most conscientious. - -But the literary style of the _Ferdinand and Isabella_ had the defect -of being too apparent. One often found himself taking note of the -manner of expression before he took note of the thought. The panoply of -words glittered from afar. It was brilliant but metallic, magnificent -but artificial. - -The criticism of his first book taught Prescott the futility of -worrying about style--after one has worried sufficiently. He was no -less anxious to improve; he noted the mannerisms into which he had -fallen, resolved to correct them, and that was the conclusion of the -whole matter. He stopped dwelling overmuch on the fashion of his -writing, and at once gained in ease and naturalness. After ten years -of labor he had mastered the materials of his art. His workmanship -improved to the last. The volumes of the _History of Philip the Second_ -have literary characteristics so gracious as to add sharpness to the -regret that this noble work had to be left unfinished. - - -IV - -THE HISTORIES - -The _Ferdinand and Isabella_ is not a formidable book for size. A timid -reader, shrinking from fifteen hundred pages of any literature but -fiction, need not fear mortgaging too much of his time in the perusal. -Compared with a reading of Freeman’s _Norman Conquest_ or Carlyle’s -_Frederick_, his task is light. - -In an introductory section Prescott traces the growth of Castile and -Aragon, with their dependencies, up to the time when Ferdinand and -Isabella come on the stage of history. Perhaps there is a lack of -detail here and there. One would like to know the steps of the process -by which the Spaniards regained the territory from which they had been -driven by the Saracenic invasion of the Eighth Century. Bitter as were -the jealousies and quarrels of the various petty states, they made -common cause against the Mohammedans. They hated the hereditary enemy -both as infidels and usurpers. Hatred fostered the national spirit. - -The history proper is divided into two parts. The first has chiefly -to do with the internal policy of Ferdinand and Isabella. It was the -period when law displaced anarchy. The law might be severe or even -unjust, but it was at all events law. Here is shown how the power -of the nobles was curbed, warring factions pacified, banditti of all -sorts kept within bounds, and that too whether they lived in castles or -lurked in dark corners, heresy suppressed in a truly rigorous fashion, -above all the national ideal strengthened. To use a homely figure, -Ferdinand and Isabella took up the problem of national housekeeping and -handled it as it had never been handled before. A reign of order and -economy was inaugurated. Thieving servants were put under restraint -or discharged, poachers were apprehended, and the gypsies who had -impudently camped on the best part of the estates were driven off. -A government which for years had run at loose ends was now under -masterful control. - -The second part illustrates the foreign policy of the two monarchs. -Having made a nation out of an assemblage of turbulent states, -Ferdinand and Isabella were enabled to take a conspicuous place among -the sovereigns of Europe. By good fortune in war and in discovery, by -diplomatic shrewdness and religious zeal, their influence was felt -throughout Europe and over the seas. Spain was no longer isolated. Her -name carried weight; her will was respected. - -Much of the narrative proceeds by divisions each of which might have -been printed as a monograph. A certain amount of space is given to the -Inquisition, so much to the war in Granada, so many chapters to the -history of Columbus, so many to the colonial policy, to the Italian -wars, to the life of Gonsalvo of Cordova, to the career of Cardinal -Ximenes. - -While in no sense neglecting the constitutional side of the problems -before him, the historian’s bent is to the biographical and pictorial -phases of the reign. On these he dwells with satisfaction and often in -detail. To him history is a pageant. The rich coloring of the period -first attracted Prescott; he can hardly be blamed for painting his -canvas in lively hues, for so he conceived the design. Neutral tints -and dull tones are wholly wanting. The blackness of certain events only -serves to bring out in stronger relief the resplendent brightness of -virtuous acts and the goodness of noble characters. Torquemada offsets -Isabella; the cruelty of war is forgotten in the splendor of chivalric -deeds. - -It is not a history of the people of Spain. The people are not -forgotten; the struggle of the commons for recognition, for justice, -for the right to be themselves and express their individuality--these -things are taken into account. But the work belongs rather to that -older school of history which concerns itself for the most part with -wars and royal progresses, with the intrigues of councillors, the -machinations of prelates, the rivalries of great houses and powerful -orders. - -The _History of the Conquest of Mexico_ is of about the same length as -its predecessor. The narrative, simpler in some ways and more vivacious -in others, is gorgeously colored throughout. Prescott was disturbed -by the picturesqueness of his own treatment. ‘Very like Miss Porter’ -and ‘Rather boarding schoolish finery’ were his comments on certain -chapters. - -The first of the seven ‘books’ into which the work is divided contains -an account of Aztec civilization. Sixty years have elapsed since these -pages were written, during which time American archæology has made -great advances. That the value of Prescott’s introduction is not wholly -destroyed is due to the healthy sceptical spirit which controlled his -work. - -The story has every element of romance. A young Spanish gentleman, -handsome, witty, daring, an idler in college and a libertine, joins -the army of adventurers in the New World. For ten or fifteen years he -leads the life of men of his class. He becomes a planter in Hayti and -varies the monotony of watching Indians till the soil by suppressing -insurrections of their brother Indians. - -He goes to Cuba as secretary to the governor of that island, quarrels -with his chief, makes his peace, and quarrels with him again. Thrown -repeatedly into prison, he escapes with the ease of a Baron Trenck. -Reconciled to the governor, he is appointed to lead an expedition into -the newly discovered kingdom of Mexico. On this venture he stakes -his every penny. With five hundred soldiers he proposes to subdue the -natives; two priests go along to convert the natives as fast as they -are subdued. His sailors number one hundred and ten; his pilot had -served under Columbus. - -Arriving on the coast, he secretly scuttles his ships, all but one, -that there may be no retreat, and then begins that wonderful march to -the great city of the Aztecs. He fights by craft as well as by physical -force. The jealousy of mutually hostile tribes helps to win his -battles. Superstition comes to his aid, for the Spaniards are thought -to be gods, and the horses they bestride carry terror into the hearts -of the natives. - -At length he makes his entry into the city of flowers, and takes up -his abode there, Cortés and his little army of four hundred and fifty -Spaniards, with twice as many native allies, among sixty thousand -cannibals. Boldness marks every step of his course. He seizes the -native ‘king,’ suppresses plots with rigor, and proves his divinity -by tearing down one of the sacrificial pyramids and planting the -cross in its stead. Leaving a lieutenant in command, he hastens back -to the seashore to transact military business there. The lieutenant -precipitates a quarrel and slaughters Indians by the hundred. Cortés -returns and finds his work must be done again. This time it is -thoroughly done. Every step of his progress is marked with blood, and -the story of _la noche triste_ and the siege of Mexico are among the -most romantic passages in the history of the New World. - -In estimating men Prescott aimed to employ the standard of their day. -When Cortés lifts up his hands, red with the blood of the miserable -natives, to return thanks to Heaven for victory, the historian does -not permit himself to forget that this savage Spaniard was a typical -soldier of the Cross. ‘Whoever has read the correspondence of Cortés, -or, still more, has attended to the circumstances of his career, will -hardly doubt that he would have been among the first to lay down his -life for the Faith.’ According to Prescott, the charge of cruelty -cannot be brought against Cortés. ‘The path of the conqueror is -necessarily marked with blood. He was not too scrupulous, indeed, in -the execution of his plans. He swept away the obstacles which lay in -his track; and his fame is darkened by the commission of more than one -act which his boldest apologists will find it hard to vindicate. But he -was not wantonly cruel. He allowed no outrage on his unresisting foes.’ -The historian likens the Spaniard to Hannibal in his endurance, his -courage, and his unpretentiousness. - -Later scholarship has assailed portions of _The Conquest of Mexico_ -with needless asperity. Prescott could hardly be expected to avail -himself prophetically of archæological facts not known until thirty -years after his time. Nor was his faith in the early Spanish accounts -of the Conquest quite as childlike and uncritical as it is sometimes -represented. Historians are the most substantial of men of letters; but -they now and then build card houses which topple down under the breath -of a single new fact. And they take a very human delight in blowing -over one another’s structures. For which reason the reading of history -is a fearful joy, like skating on thin ice. The pleasure is intense so -long as nothing gives way. Perhaps the layman is unreasonable in his -demand for knowledge that shall not require too frequent revision. He -can at least read for pleasure, hoping that a part of what he reads is -true, and holding himself prepared to relinquish the parts he likes -best when the time comes. - -In the _History of the Conquest of Peru_ the author brings fresh proof -that whatever may be said of his morals, the Spanish soldier cannot -be over-praised for his valor. Pizarro was a marvel of courage and -endurance. Fanaticism, which explains much in his character, does not -explain where such tremendous physical power came from. And he had the -true theatrical bravado of the Sixteenth-century adventurer. Add to -the native histrionic gifts of the Latin race a special training, such -as life in the New World gave, and men like Ojeda, Balboa, Cortés, and -Pizarro come into existence quite naturally. They did wonders in the -coolest possible way, and with a fine sense of the pictorial aspect of -their undertakings. Pizarro, drawing a line from east to west on the -sand with his sword and calling on his comrades to choose each man what -best becomes a brave Castilian (‘For my part I go to the south’), is -a figure for romantic drama. An Englishman equally daring would have -been more or less awkward in a pose of this sort, but the Spaniard was -perfectly at home. Of what clay were these men compounded that they -could imagine such exploits and succeed in them too? - -The performance of Pizarro was less splendid than that of Cortés -and the man himself less interesting. The conqueror of Mexico was a -gentleman; not so the hard soldier who subdued the kingdom of the -Incas. His was a violent career, steeped in blood, and ending in -assassination. Not only was Pizarro without fear, but of two courses -he seized upon the more dangerous as the better suited to his genius. -Too ignorant to sign his own name, he could control not alone the -brutal soldier but as well the lawyer and the priest. Aside from his -masterfulness there was little to admire in his character. Brute -force excites wonder, but the exhibition of it becomes wearisome at -last. To Prescott ‘the hazard assumed by Pizarro was far greater -than that of the Conqueror of Mexico.’ Otherwise the man was a mere -bungler upon whom Fortune, with characteristic levity, chanced for a -time to smile. Prescott describes him in a sentence: ‘Pizarro was -eminently perfidious.’ Furthermore, the conqueror of Peru was not -original; he repeated what he had learned from Balboa and Cortés. Had -he chanced upon a country less rich and civilized, it may well be -doubted whether he would have made any considerable figure in history. -The argument from gold was entirely conclusive in those days; just as -at the present time an undertaking is said to ‘succeed’ if it pays -financially. Manners have improved, but ideals of ‘success’ are pretty -much what they were four hundred years ago. When Pizarro extorted from -the wretched Atahualpa a promise to fill a room twenty-two feet by -seventeen to the height of nine feet with gold, his place in history -was assured. The swineherd had become immortal. - -Strange is it that the name of Francisco Pizarro should be a household -word while that of his brother Gonzalo is but little known and seldom -repeated. Yet there are few episodes in the history of Spanish -colonization more striking than the story of Gonzalo Pizarro’s march -across the Andes and the discovery of the river Amazon. It is a tale of -horror and suffering to which only the pen of a Defoe could do justice. -Gonzalo not only survived the fearful journey, but had strength enough -left to head a party for revolt against the viceroy, Blasco Nuñez, and -the execution of the Ordinances. Like a true Pizarro, this conqueror -died a violent death. He was beheaded; it seemed the only fitting way -for one of that family to take his departure from life. The Pizarros -used to behead their victims and then show themselves conspicuously at -the funeral. When it came their turn to die, they were treated with -scantier courtesy. - -_Philip the Second_ was Prescott’s most ambitious work. Though -but a fragment, the fragment is of noble dimensions, being longer -by many pages than the _Ferdinand and Isabella_. The narrative is -extraordinarily vivid. Few pages can match for interest those in which -are described Philip’s coming to Flanders and his assumption of power -at the hands of his father Charles the Fifth. Here are exhibited at -their best the much-praised qualities of Prescott’s style. His prose -grew better as he grew older. - -The characters stand out like the figures of a play: the great princes, -Charles the Fifth, Philip, Mary of England, and Elizabeth; the great -warriors and statesmen, Guise, Montmorency, Alva, Egmont, and William -of Orange; noble ladies like Margaret of Parma and the beautiful -Elizabeth of France. The events were of high and tragic importance, -for during this reign was to be settled the great question of freedom -of thought and the right to worship God as the conscience and the -reason dictated. The very contrasts of costume came to the aid of the -historian in dealing with this romantic age. It would seem as if the -writer must be picturesque in spite of himself. - -The modern reader, whatever be his natural bent, finds himself impelled -by the critical spirit of the times into distrusting all history which -is not technical and hard to grasp. Prescott’s books are incorrigibly -‘literary’ and therefore more or less under suspicion. Because they -are attractive, it is taken for granted that they are unsound. Certain -unhappy beings have gone so far as to slander them outright by calling -them romances. But this is mere impatience with the kind of historical -writing which Prescott’s work exemplifies. He was a master of the art -of narrative; and history which stops with narrative is in the minds of -severe students little better than the more vicious forms of literary -idleness, such as poetry and fiction. Prescott gratifies his reader’s -curiosity about the past, but is not over solicitous to ‘modify his -view of the present and his forecast of the future.’ In other words, he -is well content to look at the surface of history, leaving it to others -to look below the surface and philosophize on what they find there. - -Nevertheless these brilliant volumes have a value which is something -more than literary even if it be a good deal less than scientific. -It is perhaps not extravagant to pronounce them an indispensable -propædeutic to the study of Spanish-American history. They cannot be -displaced by works which ‘go much deeper into the subject.’ Depth -is not what is at all times most needed. We need stimulus, and -encouragement to face the discipline awaiting us in deep books. He who, -having read Prescott, was content to read no farther would be an odd -sort of student; but not so odd as he who labored under the impression -that Prescott was a historian whom he could afford to do without. - - - - -VI - -_Ralph Waldo Emerson_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =G. W. Cooke=: _Ralph Waldo Emerson, his Life, Writings, and - Philosophy_, fifth edition, 1882. - - =O. W. Holmes=: _Ralph Waldo Emerson_, ‘American Men of Letters,’ - 1885. - - =J. E. Cabot=: _A Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emerson_, third edition, - 1888. - - =Richard Garnett=: _Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson_, ‘Great - Writers,’ 1888. - - =E. W. Emerson=: _Emerson in Concord_, 1889. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -The clerical profession was in a manner hereditary in the Emerson race. -With a single exception there was a minister in each of six generations -descending from Thomas Emerson of Ipswich, Massachusetts. For this one -lapse compensation was made; another generation furnished the colony -with three ministers. - -For nearly a century and a half the history of the family has centred -in Concord, Massachusetts. The house known as the ‘Old Manse’ was -built in 1765 by William Emerson, the young minister of the First -Church. Gentle in spirit, he was an ardent patriot and in Revolutionary -times won the name of the ‘fighting parson.’ He came honestly by -his militant temper, being a grandson of the famous Father Moody who -distinguished himself at the siege of Louisburg as a preacher, fighter, -and iconoclast. - -Besides the gift of eloquence, William Emerson inherited from his -father (the Reverend Joseph Emerson of Maiden) a love of literature. -This he apparently bequeathed to his son, William, who in turn -transmitted it to his son, the author of _Conduct of Life_ and -_Representative Men_. - -Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston on May 25, 1803. His father, -minister of the First Church of that city, was a man of vigorous -intellect, fond of society, and, judging from one of his letters, -endowed with a caustic wit. His mother, Ruth (Haskins) Emerson, was -distinguished for her high-bred manners and tender thoughtfulness. - -Severity on the part of parents was thought good for boys in that -day. Ralph never forgot how his father ‘twice or thrice put me in -mortal terror by forcing me into the salt water, off some wharf or -bathing-house; and I still recall the fright with which, after some -of these salt experiences, I heard his voice one day (as Adam that of -the Lord God in the garden) summoning me to a new bath, and I vainly -endeavoring to hide myself.’ - -Left a widow in 1811, with five boys to educate, Mrs. Emerson was -forced to heroic exertions. Her sacrifices made a deep impress on the -mind of the most famous of those boys. - -From the Boston Latin School, Emerson went to Harvard College and was -graduated in 1821 ‘with ambitions to be a professor of rhetoric and -elocution.’ After a period of school-teaching, a profession towards -which his attitude was unequivocal (‘Better saw wood, better sow -hemp, better hang with it after it is sown, than sow the seeds of -instruction’), he began his theological studies at Harvard and in due -time was ‘approbated to preach.’ Ill health drove him South for a -winter (1826–27), where he saw novel sights, and made the acquaintance -of Achille Murat, son of the quondam King of Naples. Emerson had Murat -for a fellow traveller from St. Augustine to Charleston: ‘I blessed my -stars for my fine companion, and we talked incessantly.’ - -On March 11, 1829, Emerson was ordained as colleague of Henry Ware -in the Second Church of Boston and a little later ‘became the sole -incumbent.’ He resigned this advantageous post of labor (September, -1832) because of doubts about the rite of the Lord’s Supper and the -offering of public prayer. To many observers his career seemed wilfully -spoiled by himself. - -With impaired health and in despondency and grief (he had but recently -lost his young wife)[19] Emerson tried the effect of a year abroad. He -sailed from Boston and arrived at Malta on February 2, 1833. Thence he -proceeded to Syracuse, Taormina, Messina, Palermo, and Naples. After -visiting the other chief cities of Italy, he journeyed to Paris, which -he admired none the less because he felt out of place there; ‘Pray -what brought you here, grave Sir?’ the moving Boulevard seemed to say. -But he had the opportunity of hearing Jouffroy at the Sorbonne, and -of paying his respects to Lafayette. In London he saw Coleridge. At -Edinburgh he learned Carlyle’s whereabouts, visited him, and found -him, ‘good and wise and pleasant.’ He was unfortunate in his trip to -the Highlands (‘the scenery of a shower-bath must be always much the -same’). He called on Wordsworth at Rydal Mount. In early October he was -back at home. - -The future was uncertain. Emerson was reluctant to give up the -ministry, and preached from time to time as the chance presented -itself. For some weeks he supplied Orville Dewey’s church in New -Bedford, but when it was intimated that on Dewey’s resignation he might -be invited to succeed him, Emerson made the impossible conditions that -he should neither administer the Communion, nor offer prayer ‘unless he -felt moved to do so.’ He supplied the pulpit of the Unitarian church in -Concord during three months of the pastor’s illness and for three years -preached to the little congregation in East Lexington. - -Having cut himself off from the only ‘regular’ mode of life that -seemed open to him, Emerson took up the irregular vocation of lecturer. -During the winter following his return from Europe, he had lectured -before the Boston Society of Natural History. Beginning in January, -1835, he gave a course on ‘Biography’ consisting of six lectures: -‘Tests of Great Men,’ ‘Michelangelo,’ ‘Luther,’ ‘Milton,’ ‘Fox,’ and -‘Burke.’ During succeeding winters he gave ten lectures on ‘English -Literature’ (1835–36), twelve lectures on ‘The Philosophy of History’ -(1836–37), ten lectures on ‘Human Culture’ (1837–38), ten lectures on -‘Human Life’ (1838–39), ten lectures on ‘The Present Age’ (1839–40). He -was now fairly engaged in his new calling. - -Meantime he had fixed on Concord for his permanent home, bought a house -there, married Miss Lydia Jackson of Plymouth, and begun that career of -which one of his biographers has humorously complained, ‘a life devoid -of incident, of nearly untroubled happiness, and of absolute conformity -to the moral law.’ - -In 1836 there was published anonymously a little volume entitled -_Nature_. It was Emerson’s first book. His influence as a man of -letters begins at this point. The succeeding volumes consisted in part -of lectures which, having stood the test of public delivery, were -now recast in essay form. Not every essay, however, had its first -presentation as spoken discourse. - -On formal public occasions Emerson was often invited to give the -address. There was authority in his utterances. That he was not -unlikely to say something revolutionary seemed to make it the more -important that he should be heard often. He gave the Historical Address -at Concord at the Second Centennial Anniversary, the Phi Beta Kappa -Oration at Harvard on ‘The American Scholar’ (August, 1837), and the -Address before the Senior Class in Divinity College (July 15, 1838), -which brought down on him the wrath of Andrews Norton and a shower of -remonstrances from Unitarian ministers who, however, loved him too much -to be angry with him. - -At the time of the Divinity Hall Address the so-called Transcendental -movement was in full progress. The movement grew in part out of -informal meetings held by a group of liberal thinkers with a view -to protesting against the unsatisfactory state of current opinion -in theology and philosophy, and looking for something broader and -deeper.[20] - -Transcendentalism was an intellectual ferment. Having a philosophical -and religious significance, it was also notable for its effect on -social, educational, and literary matters. Emerson defined it as -faith in intuitions. It has been called an ‘outburst of Romanticism -on Puritan ground.’ Certain historians connect it with German -transcendental philosophy. That it was indigenous to New England -appears to be the sounder view. According to a high authority,[21] -‘Emerson’s transcendentalism was native to his mind.... It had been in -the life and thought of his family for generations.’ He was certainly -regarded as the heresiarch. - -Like most complex movements Transcendentalism had a grotesque side. -The enthusiasts, in their anxiety to be emancipated from old formulas, -fell victims to ‘the vice of the age,--the propensity to exaggerate -the importance of visible and tangible facts.’ Emerson laughs at them -a little: ‘They promise the establishment of the kingdom of heaven and -end with champing unleavened bread or dedicating themselves to the -nourishment of a beard.’ - -The movement had an ‘organ,’ a quarterly magazine called ‘The Dial,’ -the first number of which appeared in July, 1840. George Ripley was the -business manager, Margaret Fuller the editor. It came under Emerson’s -care two years later, and in 1844 was abandoned. An audience large -enough to support the organ could not be found. - -Transcendentalism coincided chronologically with several plans for -bettering the condition of the world. ‘We are a little wild here with -numberless projects of social reform. Not a reading man but has his -draft of a new community in his waistcoat pocket. I am gently mad -myself.’[22] - -Emerson was sympathetic with the community experiments at ‘Brook Farm’ -and ‘Fruitlands,’ but not to the extent of joining them. He approved -every wild action of the experimenters, nevertheless he had a work of -his own. - -The work consisted in bringing his thought to his public by means -of lectures. He was not overfond of the medium of communication. -‘Are not lectures a kind of Peter Parley’s story of Uncle Plato, -and a puppet show of the Eleusinian mysteries?’ he asks. It is not -recorded what he thought of that kind of lecturing which may best be -described in Byron’s phrase--‘to giggle and make giggle.’ He frankly -(but unenviously) admired the speaker who could produce instantaneous -effects, moving the audience to laughter or tears. His own gifts -were of another sort. When ‘the stout Illinoisian’ after a short -trial walked out of the hall Emerson’s sympathies were with him: -‘Shakespeare, or Franklin, or Esop, coming to Illinois, would say, I -must give my wisdom a comic form,...’ - -Urged thereto by his generous friend Alexander Ireland of the -Manchester ‘Examiner,’ who took on himself all the business -responsibilities, Emerson (in 1847) made a lecturing trip to England. -He spoke in Manchester, Edinburgh, London, and elsewhere. The lectures -were ‘attacked by the clergymen,’ and the attacks met with ‘pale though -brave defences’ by Emerson’s friends. After a few weeks in Paris, -then in the throes of the revolution, the lecturer returned by way of -England to America. - -The crisis in the anti-slavery conflict was approaching. Emerson, in -spite of his philosophical attitude towards reformers, became more -and more identified with the Abolitionists. During a political speech -at Cambridge he was repeatedly hissed by students. According to an -eye-witness, he ‘seemed absolutely to enjoy it.’ As late as 1861 he -was received with marked hostility by the audience which gathered at -the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. ‘The Mob -roared whenever I attempted to speak, and after several beginnings -I withdrew.’ The breaking out of the war in a way relieved him. Now -people knew where they stood. - -His chief source of income was cut off for a time. The public was -not in the mood for lectures such as his. Later he found it possible -to resume his courses, and he continued to lecture effectively until -within a few years of his death. - -Emerson’s principal books are: _Nature_, 1836; _Essays_, 1841; -_Essays_, ‘second series,’ 1844; _Poems_, 1847; _Miscellanies_, -1849 (lectures and addresses, together with a reprint of _Nature_); -_Representative Men_, 1850; _English Traits_, 1856; _Conduct of Life_, -1860; _May-Day and Other Pieces_, 1867; _Society and Solitude_, 1870; -_Letters and Social Aims_, 1876; _Lectures and Biographical Sketches_, -1884; and _Natural History of Intellect_, 1893. He edited a number -of Carlyle’s books, contributed several chapters to the _Memoirs of -Margaret Fuller Ossoli_ and compiled a poetic anthology, _Parnassus_, -1875. _The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson_ -(edited by C. E. Norton), 1883, contains two hundred of Emerson’s -letters. - -In 1863 Emerson was one of the ‘visitors’ to the Military Academy at -West Point. In 1866 he was Phi Beta Kappa orator at Harvard, and the -following year received from his college the degree of LL. D. - -From 1867 to 1879 he was an overseer of Harvard. In 1870, before a -little audience of students from the advanced classes, he gave a course -on the ‘Natural History of Intellect,’ the subject in the handling of -which he had hoped to write his master work. One of the surprises of -his later life was his nomination for the office of Lord Rector of -Glasgow University by the independent party (1874). There were two -other candidates. Emerson polled five hundred votes. Disraeli was -victor with seven hundred votes. - -Emerson’s memory failed gradually, but the defect was not much noticed -until after the shock consequent on the burning of his house (1872). -A trip to Egypt did much to restore his health and he never lost the -‘royal trait of cheerfulness.’ He died, after a brief illness, on April -27, 1882. - - -II - -EMERSON’S CHARACTER - -The praise which Emerson gives to character at the expense of -luxurious surroundings was sincere. His own tastes were very simple. -‘Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them -one’s self, so as to have something left to give, instead of being -always prompt to grab?’ Acknowledging himself enmeshed in the -conventionalities of ‘civilized’ life and no more responsible than his -fellow victims, he nevertheless did what he could to follow out his -theory. He would at least not be one of the infirm people of society, -who, if they miss any one of their comforts, ‘represent themselves as -the most wronged and most wretched persons on earth.’ Emerson did not -live in the woods on twenty-seven cents a week, but he had no objection -to a friend’s living that way if the friend found it profitable. For -himself he would not be ‘absurd and pedantic in reform.’ - -No characteristic is more marked than his spirit of tolerance. It was -not of a smooth, purring sort, growing out of eagerness to please or -unwillingness to offend, but rather an aggressive tolerance. Emerson -would not merely grant to every man ‘the allowance he takes,’ but would -even force him to take it. He was patient with the most obnoxious of -reformers. And he could be tolerant with those who could tolerate -nothing. - -With pronounced and original views he had little solicitude to impose -his views on others. He was without egotism. To state the truth as he -apprehended it and to let the world come to his ideas if the world -could and would, contented him. But he had no quarrel with the order of -things. His good humor and smiling patience are manifest in everything -he has written. - -Emerson held firmly to the doctrine of the brotherhood of man, yet with -no touch of the unctuous fraternizer. He had the rebuffs that all must -encounter who try to break down the partition wall between classes. -In an attempt to solve, according to the Golden Rule, the problem of -a servant’s status in the household, he was thoroughly beaten and -laughingly acknowledged it. He did his share, but the servant refused -to fraternize. - -He was a good citizen, an excellent neighbor, prompt in the -acknowledgment of all homely duties. His was a large-souled, benignant, -and gracious nature. There was something healing in his mere presence, -though no word was spoken. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -Emerson gave sound advice on the art of writing, like a professor of -rhetoric. He commended the sentences that would stand the test of the -voice. This is applying physiology to literature. He laughed at the -habit of exaggeration, though he also said, ‘The superlative is as -good as the positive if it be alive.’ His rules are excellent, and if -followed must give distinction to whatever page of writing they are -applied. But while they go no deeper than other suggestions, they point -out the obvious characteristics of his style. - -For example, Emerson thought clarity all-important. He aimed at it, -and attained it. He believed in the use of the right word, and was -dissatisfied unless it could be found. The right word is always -illuminating, and as a result Emerson’s English is full of surprises. -Even when the term employed shocks by its unexpectedness, we presently -feel that after all the choice was not grotesque. In practice Emerson -was no spendthrift of words, that currency which loses weight and value -in the ratio of one’s prodigality, but delighted in economy. No doubt -his style is aphoristic--that is a natural result of writing aphorisms. -But if no less aphoristic, it is far more logical than is commonly -reported. The want of sequence in Emerson’s work has been exaggerated, -often to the point of absurdity. - -There are writers who have two distinct literary styles, as they have -two faces, one to be photographed in, and one for natural wear. Emerson -had one style, which was dual-toned, each tone taking the color of his -prevailing thought, and each shading imperceptibly into the other. A -dozen pages picked at random from his best essays will hardly fail to -show how sublimated his diction could be at times. Then does it come -near to the line dividing poetry from prose, from which it presently -falls away to the level of everyday need. Poetic as Emerson’s diction -frequently is, it is always controlled. On the other hand, when it -sinks to plain prose it never loses the air of distinction and breeding. - - -IV - -_NATURE, ADDRESSES, AND LECTURES_ - -In the introduction of his first book, _Nature_, Emerson announces -his favorite doctrine, the necessity of seeing the world through our -own eyes, of being original, not imitative. He then proceeds with his -interpretation. Nature not only exalts man, giving him a pleasure so -tonic that it admonishes to temperance, but also renders him certain -services. They may be classified under Commodity, Beauty, Language, -and Discipline. The first, albeit the lowest, is perfect in its kind; -men everywhere comprehend the ‘steady and prodigal provision’ that has -been made for their comfort. Beauty is the second, and meets a nobler -want. ‘Nature satisfies by its loveliness,’ and ‘without any mixture of -corporeal benefit.’ ‘Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp -of emperors ridiculous.’ This is not enough, there must be a spiritual -element. Such element is found in the will and virtue of man. An act -of truth or heroism ‘seems at once to draw to itself the sky as its -temple.’ Beauty in Nature also becomes an object of the intellect. It -reforms itself in the mind, leads to a new creation, and hence Art. - -Nature is the source of language, words being the signs of natural -facts. But ‘every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.’ -In brief, ‘the world is emblematic.’ Nature is a discipline of the -understanding, devoting herself to forming the common-sense. Nature -is the discipline of the will, after which she becomes the ally -of Religion. In short, so great is the part played by Nature in -disciplining man that the ‘noble doubt’ perpetually arises ‘whether -the end be not the Final Cause of the Universe; and whether nature -outwardly exists.’ - -What then? It makes no difference ‘whether Orion is up there in heaven -or some god paints the image in the firmament of the soul.’ Culture -has the uniform effect of leading us to regard nature as a phenomenon, -not a substance. Nature herself gives us the hint of Idealism. The -poet teaches the same lesson. The philosopher seeking, not Beauty, but -Truth, dissolves the ‘solid seeming block of matter’ by a thought. -Intellectual science begets ‘invariably a doubt of the existence of -matter.’ Ethics and religion have the same effect of degrading ‘nature -and suggesting its dependence on spirit.’ - -Back of all nature, then, is spirit. ‘The world proceeds from the same -spirit as the body of man. It is a remoter and inferior incarnation of -God.’ At present man has not come into his whole kingdom. He depends on -his understanding alone. Let him apply all his powers, the reason as -well as the understanding. - -Brief as it is, this little book shows to perfection the richness of -Emerson’s thought, his skill in the apothegm, his economy of phrase, -the poetic cast of his mind, and the beauty of his diction. - -Nine addresses and lectures are printed along with _Nature_ in the -definitive edition of Emerson’s writings. The first is the Phi Beta -Kappa Oration, ‘The American Scholar,’ in which Emerson sounds with -resonant tone that note of independence so marked in all his teaching. -It was time, he thought, for the ‘sluggard intellect’ of America to -‘look from under its iron lids’ and prove itself equal to something -more than ‘exertions of mechanical skill.’ We have been too long the -bond slave of Europe. - -True emancipation consists in freedom from the idea that only a few -gifted ones of the earth are privileged to learn truth at first hand. -Let us not be cowed by great men. - -Emerson notes three influences acting upon the scholar. First, nature, -always with us and taking the impress of our minds. Second, books, -which, noble as they are in theory, have their danger: ‘I had better -never see a book than be warped by its attraction clean out of my own -orbit.’ Third, life, everything which is the opposite of mere thinking. -‘If it were only for a vocabulary the scholar would be covetous of -action. Life is our dictionary.’ - -Above all, he praises the obscure scholar who without hope of visible -reward, reckoning at true value the seesaw of public whim and fancy, -patient of neglect, patient of reproach, ‘is happy if he can satisfy -himself alone that this day he has seen something truly.’ - -‘The Divinity Address,’ as it is called, was thought in its day nothing -short of outrageous radicalism. The now well-known Emersonian plea for -a noble individuality is made in terms the most inspiring. He bewails -the helplessness of mankind. ‘All men go in flocks to this saint or -that poet, avoiding the God who seeth in secret.’ Emerson would drive -out the spirit which prompts a man to content himself with being ‘an -easy secondary to some Christian scheme, or sectarian connection, or -some eminent man.’ He would have men follow no one leader, however -distinguished or gifted, but seek truth at first hand, know God face to -face. And while he grants that nothing is of value in comparison with -the soul of a good and great man, even a great man becomes a source of -danger if we propose to rest in the shadow of his achievement rather -than develop our own gift. - -‘The Method of Nature’ is a rhapsody in praise of the spontaneous and -unreasoning as over against the logical and definite. Nature looks -to great results, not to little ones, to the type rather than the -individual. - -In ‘Man the Reformer’ Emerson preaches another favorite doctrine, the -necessity of manual work. There is nothing fanciful in his view. He -did not set himself against division of labor. He did not insist that -every man should be a farmer ‘any more than that every man should be a -lexicographer.’ His ‘doctrine of the Farm’ is that ‘every man ought to -stand in primary relations with the work of the world.’ - -This address should be read in connection with the one on ‘The Times,’ -which supplements it. The ideal reformer is not he who has some cause -at heart in comparison with which all other causes are naught. The -reformer is the ‘Re-maker of what man has made; a renouncer of lies, a -restorer of truth and good, imitating that great Nature which embosoms -us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past.’ - -A reading of this address ought to be followed by a reading of the one -entitled ‘The Conservative.’ As he had advised reformers of the danger -to which they were exposed, he now warns conservatives not to forget -that they are the retrograde party. By their theory of life sickness is -a necessity and the social frame a hospital. Yet in a planet ‘peopled -with conservatives one Reformer may yet be born.’ - -In the lecture on ‘The Transcendentalist’ Emerson comes to a tempered -defence of his own. He defines the new movement; it is merely Idealism -as it shows itself in 1840--an old thing under a new name. He is very -patient with the Transcendentalists, whose chief idiosyncrasy is that -they have ‘struck work.’ ‘Now every one must do after his kind, be -he asp or angel, and these must.’ American literature and spiritual -history will profit by the turmoil. This heresy will leave its mark, as -any one will admit who knows ‘these seething brains, these admirable -radicals, these talkers who talk the sun and moon away.’ - - -V - -_THE ESSAYS_, _REPRESENTATIVE MEN_, _ENGLISH TRAITS_, _CONDUCT OF LIFE_ - -When the _Essays_ appeared, Emerson found a larger audience. He now -spoke through the medium of a recognized literary form. If all readers -do not read essays, they at least know what they are and stand in -no fear of them. Some buyers may have been tempted by the table of -contents. Titles such as ‘Self-Reliance,’ ‘Compensation,’ ‘Friendship,’ -‘Heroism,’ had an encouraging sound and promised useful advice. - -In the essay on ‘History,’ Emerson reaffirms the doctrine of the unity -of human nature. There is ‘one mind,’ history is its record. What we -possess in common with the men of the past enables us to comprehend and -interpret the actions of the men of the past. The facts must square -with our own experience. - -The theme is continued in ‘Self-Reliance.’ As there is one mind common -to all men, and as what belongs to greatness of the Past belongs also -to us, it is suicide to descend to imitation. ‘Speak your latent -conviction and it shall become the universal sense.’ The whole essay -is a glowing exhortation to men to live largely and stand on their own -feet, facing the world with the nonchalance begotten of health, good -humor, and the sense of possession. - -In ‘Compensation’ the essayist notes those inexorable forces by which -a balance is kept in the world, the laws by virtue of which ‘things -refuse to be mismanaged long.’ In ‘Spiritual Laws’ he shows the -importance of living the life of nature. Let no man import into his -mind ‘difficulties which are none of his.’ The essay on ‘Love’ is a -prose poem in honor of that passion which ‘makes the clown gentle, and -gives the coward heart.’ Following it is the essay on ‘Friendship’ -with its austere definitions. ‘I do not wish to treat friendships -daintily, but with roughest courage.’ ‘Friendship implies sincerity, -and sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only -to the highest rank.’ - -Emerson writes on ‘Prudence’ in order to balance those fine lyric -words of Love and Friendship with words of coarser sound. Prudence -considered in itself is naught; but recognized as one of the conditions -of existence, it deserves our utmost attention. It keeps a man from -standing in false and bitter relations to other men. Emerson had -no patience with people who, because they have genius or beauty, -expect an exception of the laws of Nature to be made in their case. -Notwithstanding their gifts, they must toe the mark. - -‘Heroism,’ the eighth essay in this volume, contains a definition of -the hero which does not coincide with the popular conception. We are -so accustomed to seeing our heroes crowned with wreaths and overwhelmed -with lecture engagements the day following the act of valor that we -are surprised to read: ‘Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of -mankind.’ Emerson gives a new turn to the old phrase ‘the heroic in -everyday life.’ Life, he says, has its ‘ragged and dangerous front.’ It -is full of evils against which the man must be armed. ‘Let him hear in -season that he is born into a state of war.’ To this ‘militant attitude -of the soul’ Emerson gave the name of heroism. In its rudest form it is -‘contempt for safety and ease.’ - -To some readers the essay on ‘The Over-Soul’ is at once the clearest -and the most darkened, the plainest and the most enigmatic of the -essays in this book. But there is no misapprehending the value of this -effort to put, not in rigid scientific terms, but in glowing and lofty -imagery, the dependence of man on the Infinite, the marvel of that -Immensity which is the background of our being. ‘From within or from -behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that -we are nothing, but the light is all.’ It is the universal mind by -which all being is enveloped and interpenetrated. - -The essay on ‘Circles’ contains this thought: Outside every circle -another may be drawn. Opinion seeks to crystallize at a certain limit, -to insist that there is nothing beyond. The soul bursts these barriers -to set new limits, which in turn are good only for a time. Man must -therefore keep himself always open to the conception of a larger -circle. Let him ‘prefer truth to his past apprehension of truth.’ - -How to seek truth is the subject of the next essay, ‘Intellect,’ a -tribute to the spontaneous action of the mind. We do not control our -thoughts but are controlled by them. All we can do is to clear away -obstructions and ‘suffer the intellect to see.’ Pursue truth and it -avoids you. Relax the energy of your pursuit and it comes to you; yet -the pursuit was as necessary as the subsequent relaxation. - -In the final essay, on ‘Art,’ the large, simple, and homely elements -are praised, the qualities which appeal to universal human nature. In -the paintings of the Old World one thinks to be astonished by something -new and strange, and he is struck by the familiar look. He is reminded -of what he had always known. - -The second series of _Essays_ treats of ‘The Poet,’ ‘Experience,’ -‘Character,’ ‘Manners,’ ‘Gifts,’ ‘Nature,’ ‘Politics,’ of ‘Nominalist -and Realist;’ there is also a lecture on ‘New England Reformers.’ -Emerson notes the shallow nature of a theory of poetry busied only with -externals. Neither is that poetry which is written ‘at a safe distance -from our own experience.’ The poet is representative. ‘He stands among -common men for the complete man, and apprises us not of his wealth but -of the commonwealth.’ - -‘Experience’ is in praise of a mode of life which consists in living -without making a fuss about it, filling the time, taking hold where one -can and exhausting the possibilities. Only fanatics say it is not worth -while. ‘Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, to-day. Let us treat -the men and women well; treat them as if they were real; perhaps they -are.’ - -‘Character’ and ‘Manners’ are related studies. There is a moral order -in the world. Nothing can withstand it. ‘Character is this moral order -seen through the medium of an individual nature.’ Society has raised -certain artificial distinctions. But they must be recognized. Society -is real, and grows out of a genuine need. ‘The painted phantasm Fashion -casts a species of derision on what we say. But I will neither be -driven from some allowance to Fashion as a symbolic institution, nor -from the belief that love is the basis of courtesy.’ - -‘Gifts’ is a fine bit of paradox. ‘The gift, to be true, must be the -flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to my flowing unto him. -When the waters are at level, then my goods pass to him, and his to -me.’ To give useful things denies the relation. Hence the fitness of -beautiful things. - -There is bold imagery in the essay on ‘Nature.’ ‘Plants are the young -of the world, but they grope ever upward toward consciousness; the -trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted -to the ground. The animal is the novice and probationer of a more -advanced order. The men though young, having tasted the first drop from -the cup of thought, are already dissipated: the maples and ferns are -still uncorrupt; yet no doubt when they come to consciousness they too -will curse and swear.’ Thus does Emerson describe that glimpse he had -of a ‘system in transition.’ - -A healthy optimism pervades the essay on ‘Politics.’ In spite of -meddling and selfishness the foundations of the State are very secure. -‘Things have their laws, as well as men; and things refuse to be -trifled with.’ By a higher law property will be protected. The same -necessity secures to each nation the form of governing best suited -to it. Yet all forms are defective. Good men ‘must not obey the laws -too well.’ Perfect government rests on character at last. There are -dreamers who do not despair of seeing the State renovated ‘on the -principle of right and love.’ - -_Representative Men_ consists of lectures on Plato, Swedenborg, -Montaigne, Shakespeare, Napoleon, and Goethe, together with an -introduction on the ‘Uses of Great Men.’ - -Plato is the man who makes havoc with originalities, the philosopher -whose writings have been for twenty-two hundred years the Bible of the -learned, but who has his defects. Intellectual in aim, and therefore -literary, he attempts a system of the universe and fails to complete it -or make it intelligible. - -Swedenborg is the representative of mysticism, great with its power, -weak with its defects. - -Out of the eternal conflict between abstractionist and materialist -arises another type of mind, one that laughs at both philosophies -for being out of their depth and pushing too far. He is the sceptic, -Montaigne, for example. The type was peculiarly grateful to Emerson, -admiring as he did a man who talked with shrewdness, was not literary, -who knew the world, used the positive degree, never shrieked, and had -no wish to annihilate time and space. - -Shakespeare meets our conception of the Poet, ‘a heart in unison -with his time and country,’ whose production comes ‘freighted with -the weightiest convictions and pointed with the most determined aims -which any man or class knows of in his times.’ He demonstrated the -possibility of translating things into song. The ear is ravished by -the beauty of his lines, ‘yet the sentence is so loaded with meaning -and so linked with its foregoers and followers, that the logician is -satisfied.’ And he had the royal trait of cheerfulness. - -In Napoleon we have ‘the strong and ready actor’ who in the ‘universal -imbecility, indecision, and indolence of men’ knows how to take -occasion by the beard. His life is an answer to cowardly doubts. -Emerson calls Napoleon ‘the agent or attorney of the middle class of -modern society.’ It was he who showed what could be done by the use -of common virtues. His experiment failed because he had a selfish and -sensual aim. In the last analysis Napoleon was not a gentleman. - -Goethe is the other phase of the genius of the age. There is a -provision for the writer in the scheme of things. Nature insists on -being reported. To Man the universe is something to be recorded. -The instinct exists in different degrees. One has the power to ‘see -connection where the multitude sees fragments.’ Lift this faculty to a -high degree and you have the great German poet who well-nigh restored -literature to its primal significance. ‘There must be a man behind the -book.’ ‘The old Eternal Genius who built the world has confided himself -more to this man than any other.’ Goethe is the type of culture. Here, -too, is his defect. For his devotion is not to pure truth, but to truth -for the sake of culture. - -_Representative Men_ was succeeded by _English Traits_, a volume in -which Emerson taught his countrymen more about England than they had -hitherto known or fancied. Histories, statistical reports, treatises on -British art and British manufactures, are useful and sometimes dreary -reading; they give us facts heaped on facts. It is a relief to put -them down and take up _English Traits_ in order to learn what we have -been reading about. - -Through Emerson’s eyes we can see this little island ‘a prize for the -best race,’ its singular people, chained to their logic, willing ‘to -kiss the dust before a fact,’ strong in their sense of brotherhood, -yet fond each of his own way, incommunicable, ‘in short every one of -these islanders an island in himself.’ They have a ‘superfluity of -self-regard’--which is a secret of their power; they are assertive, -crotchety, wholly forgetful of ‘a cardinal article in the bill -of social rights,’ that every man ‘has a right to his own ears;’ -nevertheless Emerson concludes (and an Englishman would assure him no -other conclusion was possible) they are the best stock in the world. -Here is the typical islander as Emerson paints him. ‘He is a churl with -a soft place in his heart, whose speech is a brash of bitter waters, -but who loves to help you at a pinch. He says no, and serves you, and -your thanks disgust him.’ - -There are paragraphs and chapters on the Aristocracy, the Universities, -Religion, Literature, and the Press, that is, the ‘Times.’ Every page -glitters with wit. Every apothegm contains the full proportion of -truth and untruth which sayings of that sort are wont to contain. Says -Emerson: ‘The gospel the Anglican church preaches is, ‘“By taste are ye -saved.”’ Yet the more one reflects on this monstrous statement, the -more is he astonished at the amount of truth in it. - -The volume entitled _Conduct of Life_ has a fine rough vigor. Here -are displayed to advantage Emerson’s robust habit of mind, searching -analysis, vivacity and picturesqueness of expression, epigrammatic -skill, homely plain sense, and lofty idealism. The first essay, ‘Fate,’ -is an energetic and striking performance. One needs the optimism of -its last paragraphs to counteract the grim terror of the earlier ones. -Seldom has the relentless ferocity of Circumstance, Fate, Environment, -been set forth in terms equally emphatic. The companion essay, ‘Power,’ -is a study of the influence of brute force (and its compensations) in -life and history. Emerson shows the value of the ‘bruiser’ in politics, -trade, and in society. This leads to the third subject, ‘Wealth.’ Money -must be had if only to buy bread. Nature insults the man who will -not work. ‘She starves, taunts, and torments him, takes away warmth, -laughter, sleep, friends and daylight, until he has fought his way to -his own loaf.’ But what men of sense want is power, mastery, not candy; -they esteem wealth to be ‘the assimilation of nature to themselves.’ - -To all this there must be a corrective; it is discussed in the essay -on ‘Culture.’ Nature ruins a man to gain her ends, makes him strong -in things she wants done, weak otherwise, and then robs him of his -sense of proportion so that he becomes an egotist. Culture restores the -balance. Culture rescues a man from himself, ‘kills his exaggeration.’ -The simpler means to it are books, travel, society, solitude; and there -are nobler ones, not the least of which is adversity. The discussion -is continued in the practical essay on ‘Behavior’ and lifted to the -highest plane in the essay on ‘Worship.’ The whole state of man is a -state of culture, ‘and its flowering and completion may be described as -Religion or Worship.’ For all its beauty this chapter will not please -many people. They may take refuge in ‘Considerations by the Way,’ which -shows the ‘good of evil,’ or in the fine essay on ‘Beauty’ or the -ironical little closing piece called ‘Illusions.’ - - -VI - -THE POEMS - -Many paragraphs in _Nature_ and the _Essays_ struggle in their prose -environment as if seeking a higher medium of expression. Emerson’s -command of poetic materials was extraordinary, though it fails to -justify the claims sometimes made for him. He could be wilfully -careless in respect to technique. There are moments when no cacophonous -combination terrifies him. Then will he say his say though the language -creak. - -He had published freely in ‘The Dial,’ where he met his own little -audience, but when the question arose of putting his verses in -the pretentious form of a book Emerson hesitated. Only after much -deliberation, continued through four years, did he come finally to a -decision. - -His capital theme is Nature, ‘the inscrutable and mute.’ ‘Woodnotes,’ -‘Monadnock,’ ‘May-Day,’ ‘My Garden,’ ‘Sea-Shore,’ ‘Song of Nature,’ -‘Nature,’ ‘The Snow Storm,’ ‘Waldeinsamkeit,’ ‘Musketaquit,’ ‘The -Adirondacs,’ are varied renderings of the subject. Among the lines -which haunt the memory, take for example this description of the sea:-- - - The opaline, the plentiful and strong, - Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, - - * * * * * - - Purger of earth, and medicine of men; - Creating a sweet climate by my breath, - Washing out harms and griefs from memory, - And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, - Giving a hint of that which changes not. - -Splendid imagery and rich coloring mark the fine passages in ‘May-Day’ -describing the advance of summer:-- - - As poured the flood of the ancient sea - Spilling over mountain chains, - Bending forests as bends the sedge, - Faster flowing o’er the plains,-- - A world-wide wave with a foaming edge - That rims the running silver sheet,-- - So pours the deluge of the heat - Broad northward o’er the land, - Painting artless paradises, - Drugging herbs with Syrian spices, - Fanning secret fires which glow - In columbine and clover-blow, - - * * * * * - - The million-handed sculptor moulds - Quaintest bud and blossom folds, - The million-handed painter pours - Opal hues and purple dye; - Azaleas flush the island floors, - And the tints of heaven reply. - -Leaving to one side the mere external shows of the world, and calling -in science to aid imagination, the poet strikes out stanzas like these -from the ‘Song of Nature:’-- - - I wrote the past in characters - Of rock and fire the scroll, - The building in the coral sea, - The planting of the coal. - - And thefts from satellites and rings - And broken stars I drew, - And out of spent and aged things - I formed the world anew; - - What time the gods kept carnival, - Tricked out in star and flower, - And in cramp elf and saurian forms - They swathed their too much power. - -‘Hamatreya,’ the exquisite ‘Rhodora,’ and the musical allegory ‘Two -Rivers’ are important as showing the part played by Nature in Emerson’s -verse. - -Certain poems repeat (or anticipate) the ideas of the essays. ‘Brahma,’ -for example, is an incomparable setting of the doctrine of the -universal soul or ground of all things:-- - - Far or forgot to me is near; - Shadow and sunlight are the same; - The vanished gods to me appear; - And one to me are shame and fame. - -‘The Sphinx’ announces, in a sphinx-like manner it must be -acknowledged, though with rare beauty in individual lines, the doctrine -of man’s relation to all existences, comprehending one phase of which -man has the key to the whole. ‘Uriel’ is a declaration of the poet’s -faith in good out of evil. ‘The Problem’ teaches the imminence of the -Infinite:-- - - The hand that rounded Peter’s dome - And groined the aisles of Christian Rome - Wrought in a sad sincerity; - Himself from God he could not free; - He builded better than he knew;-- - The conscious stone to beauty grew. - -Rich in thought and abounding in genuine poetic gold are ‘The -World-Soul,’ ‘The Visit,’ ‘Destiny,’ ‘Days’ (Emerson’s perfect poem), -‘Forerunners,’ ‘Xenophanes,’ ‘The Day’s Ration,’ and the ‘Ode to -Beauty.’ - -‘Merlin’ and ‘Saadi’ treat of the poet and his mission. The one is a -protest against the tinkling rhyme, an art without substance; the other -exalts the calling of the bard, but warns him that while he has need of -men and they of him, the true poet dwells alone. Together with these -suggestive verses should be read the posthumous fragment originally -intended for a masque.[23] - -Of his occasional and patriotic poems the ‘Concord Hymn,’ sung at the -dedication of the battle monument in 1837, must be held an imperishable -part of our young literature. The winged words of the first stanza are -among the not-to-be-forgotten things, and there is rare beauty in the -second stanza:-- - - The foe long since in silence slept; - Alike the conqueror silent sleeps; - And Time the ruined bridge has swept - Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. - -For the Concord celebration of 1857 Emerson wrote the ‘Ode’ beginning - - O tenderly the haughty day - Fills his blue urn with fire; - -and for the ‘Jubilee Concert’ in Music Hall, on the day Emancipation -went into effect, the ‘Boston Hymn,’ with the bold stanzas:-- - - God said, I am tired of kings, - I suffer them no more; - Up to my ear the morning brings - The outrage of the poor. - - Think ye I made this ball - A field of havoc and war, - Where tyrants great and tyrants small - Might harry the weak and poor? - -The best of Emerson’s patriotic poems is the ‘Voluntaries,’ containing -the often quoted and perfect lines:-- - - So nigh is grandeur to our dust, - So near is God to man, - When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, - The youth replies, _I can_. - -The personal poems are ‘Good-Bye,’ ‘Terminus,’ ‘In Memoriam,’ ‘Dirge,’ -and ‘Threnody.’ The last of the group is the poet’s lament for his -first-born, the ‘hyacinthine boy’ of five years, who died in 1842. It -is hardly worth the while to compare these exquisite verses with some -other poem born of intense sorrow with a view to determining whether -they are greater, or less. Their wondrous beauty is as palpable as it -is unresembling. - -Comparisons little befit Emerson the poet. His muse was wayward. -Extreme eulogists do him injury by applying to him standards that were -none of his. They forget how he said of himself that he was ‘not a -poet, but a lover of poetry and poets, and merely serving as a writer, -etc., in this empty America before the arrival of poets.’ For the -extravagancies of the extremists the tempered admirers find themselves -regularly lectured, as if they were children who must have it explained -to them that Emerson was not a Keats or a Shelley, or a Hugo. - -Emerson as frequently gets less than he deserves as more. What -niggardly praise is that from the pen of an eminent living English -man of letters who can only suppose that Emerson ‘knew what he was -about when he wandered into the fairyland of verse, and that in such -moments _he found nothing better to his hand_!’ But the ‘Threnody,’ -‘Monadnock,’ ‘May-Day,’ ‘Voluntaries,’ and ‘The Problem,’ whatever -else may be true of them, are not the work of a man who found nothing -better to his hand. - - -VII - -LATEST BOOKS - -Five volumes remain to be commented on. The first, _Society and -Solitude_ (so called after the initial paper), is a group of twelve -essays entitled ‘Civilization,’ ‘Art,’ ‘Eloquence,’ ‘Domestic Life,’ -‘Farming,’ ‘Works and Days,’ ‘Books,’ ‘Clubs,’ ‘Courage,’ ‘Success,’ -and ‘Old Age.’ They have mostly a practical bent. That on ‘Books’ -doubtless gives an account of Emerson’s own reading, adequate as -far as it expresses his literary preferences, inadequate respecting -completeness. For example, Emerson must have read George Borrow, of -an acquaintance with whom he repeatedly gives proof, but these lists -contain no mention of _Lavengro_ or _Romany Rye_. Here too will be -found his famous heresy about the value of translations, but not so -radically stated by Emerson as it is sometimes stated by those who -propose to attack Emerson’s position. - -_Letters and Social Aims_ (a volume forced from him by the rumor -that an English house proposed to reprint his early papers from ‘The -Dial’) covers topics as diverse as, on the one hand, ‘Social Aims,’ -‘Quotation and Originality,’ ‘The Comic,’ and on the other, ‘Poetry and -Imagination,’ ‘Inspiration,’ ‘Greatness,’ ‘Immortality.’ There are also -essays on ‘Eloquence,’ ‘Resources,’ ‘Progress of Culture,’ and ‘Persian -Poetry.’ - -_Lectures and Biographical Sketches_ consists of nineteen pieces, -among which will be found ‘Historic Notes of Life and Letters in New -England,’ ‘The Superlative,’ and the brilliant sketches of Thoreau, of -Ezra Ripley, and of Carlyle. - -_Miscellanies_ (not to be confounded with the volume of 1849 bearing -the same title) contains a number of papers and addresses on political -topics, and is indispensable to the student of Emerson’s life. Here -will be found his speeches on John Brown, on the Fugitive Slave Law, on -Emancipation in the West Indies, on American Civilization, on Lincoln, -and that inspiring lecture, ‘The Fortune of the Republic.’ - -_Natural History of Intellect and Other Papers_ is made up of lectures -from the Harvard University course (1870–71) and earlier courses, and a -sheaf of papers from ‘The Dial,’ mostly on ‘Modern Literature.’ He who -deplores the curtness of the note on Tennyson in _English Traits_ will -be glad to seek comfort in this earlier tribute. Yet the comfort may -prove to be less than he would like. - - * * * * * - -Emerson’s audience is large and varied. Let us consider a few among the -varieties of those who are attracted by his genius and the charm of -his personality. - -To certain hardy investigators Emerson is not a mere man of letters -whose thought, radiantly clothed, takes the philosophical form, he is -a philosopher almost in the strict sense. They find a place for him in -their classification. They know exactly what ideas, derived from what -pundits, have come out with what new inflection in his writings. They -have done for Emerson more than he could do, or perhaps cared to do, -for himself; they have given him a system. - -All this is important and valuable. No little praise is due to results -worked out with so much courage and critical acumen. Whether the -conclusions are quite true is another question. - -Doubtless, too, there are readers who, taking their cue from the class -just mentioned, find their self-love flattered as they turn the pages -of the _Essays_ and the _Conduct of Life_. Not only, in spite of -dark sayings here and there, does ‘philosophy’ prove easier and more -delightful than they were wont to think, but their estimate of their -own mental powers is immensely enlarged. - -There are the critics of letters whose function is interpretative, and -whose influence is restraining. Solicitous to do their author justice, -they are above all solicitous that injustice shall not be done him -by overpraise. They bring proof that Emerson was not a precursor of -Darwin, that he was inferior to Carlyle, that he was not a poet, that -he was never a great and not always a good writer, that he was apt -to impose on his reader as a new truth an old error in ‘a novel and -fascinating dress,’ that he was even capable of writing words without -ideas. - -But the motives which draw and bind to him the great majority of -Emerson’s readers are connected with literature rather than philosophy -or criticism. A prerogative of the man of letters is to be read both -for what he says and for the way he says it. In the case of Emerson his -thought may not be divided from the verbal setting. ‘He can never get -beyond the English language.’ ‘No merely French, or German, or Italian -reader will have the least notion of the magic of his diction.’[24] - -Perhaps in the long run they get the most out of Emerson who read -him not for stimulus, for his militant optimism, for the shock his -fine-phrased audacities give their humdrum opinions, for his uplifting -idealism (all of which they are sure to get and profit by), but who -read him for literary pleasure, for downright good-fellowship, and -for the humor that is in him. That he attracts a large audience of -this (seemingly) unimportant class is enough to show how little danger -there is that Emerson will be handed over to the keeping of the merely -erudite and bookish part of the public. - -It is well to remember that he had no intention of being so disposed -of. When he said, ‘My own habitual view is to the well being of -students or scholars,’ he was careful immediately to explain that he -used the word ‘student’ in no restricted sense. ‘The class of scholars -or students ... is a class that comprises in some sort all mankind, -comprises every man in the best hours of his life.’ He pictures the -newsboy entering a train filled with men going to business. The morning -papers are bought, and ‘instantly the entire rectangular assembly, -fresh from their breakfast, are bending as one man to their second -breakfast.’ This was Emerson’s student body, this was the audience he -aimed to reach. - -Did he reach this body? It is believed that he did, if not always -directly, then vicariously. He was compelled as a matter of course to -speak in his own way--the impossible thing for him was to do violence -to his genius. Emerson invented the phrase, ‘the man in the street.’ -Now it is notorious that the man in the street cares little about -the ‘over-soul.’ The mere juxtaposition of the two expressions is -comic. But Emerson did not talk of the over-soul all the time. He -had a Franklin-like common-sense and a pithiness of speech which are -captivating. Perhaps in magnifying his idealism we have neglected to do -justice to his mundane philosophy. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [19] Ellen (Tucker) Emerson was but twenty years of age at the - time of her death. Emerson first saw her in December, 1827. - They were married about two years later. - - [20] Cabot: _Emerson_, i, 244. - - [21] G. W. Cooke: _An Historical and Biographical Introduction to - accompany_ THE DIAL _as reprinted in numbers for The Rowfant - Club_ [Cleveland], 1902. - - [22] Emerson to Carlyle, Oct. 30, 1840. - - [23] ‘The Poet,’ printed in the appendix of the definitive edition - of Emerson’s _Poems_. - - [24] Richard Garnett. - - - - -VII - -_Edgar Allan Poe_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =R. W. Griswold=: ‘Memoir of the Author’ prefixed to the _Works - of Edgar A. Poe_, vol. iii, 1850. - - =E. C. Stedman=: _Edgar Allan Poe_, 1881. - - =J. H. Ingram=: _Edgar Allan Poe, his Life, Letters, and - Opinions_, 1880. - - =G. E. Woodberry=: _Edgar Allan Poe_, ‘American Men of Letters,’ - fourth edition, 1888. - - =J. A. Harrison=: _Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe_ [1902–03]. - - =Emile Lauvrière=: _Edgar Poe, sa Vie et son Œuvre, étude de - psychologie pathologique_, 1904. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Poe was of Irish extraction. His great-grandfather, John Poe, came -to America about 1745 and settled near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. John -Poe’s son David (known in the annals of Baltimore as ‘old General -Poe’) rendered notable services to his country during the Revolution. -Lafayette remembered him well and during a visit to Baltimore in 1824 -asked to be taken to the place where Poe was buried. ‘Ici repose un -cœur noble,’ said Lafayette as he knelt and kissed the old patriot’s -grave. - -Of General Poe’s six children, the eldest, David, was to have been bred -to the law, but his tastes led him first to the amateur and then to the -professional stage. He married a young English actress, Mrs. Elizabeth -(Arnold) Hopkins. They had three children, William, Edgar, and -Rosalie. Edgar (afterwards known as Edgar Allan) was born in Boston, -Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809. - -The young family suffered the petty miseries incident to the life of -strolling players, and became at one time very poor. The circumstances -of David Poe’s death and the place of his burial are unknown. When Mrs. -Poe died at Richmond, Virginia, in December, 1811, Edgar was taken by -Mrs. John Allan, the wife of a highly respected merchant of that city, -and was brought up as a child of the house. - -The Allans were in England from 1815 to 1820. During this time Poe was -placed at Manor House School, Stoke Newington. He afterwards attended -the English and Classical School in Richmond and on February 14, 1826, -matriculated at the University of Virginia. His connection with the -University ceased in December of the same year. He left behind him a -reputation for marked abilities, but he is said to have lost caste by -his recklessness in card playing. Allan positively refused to pay the -youth’s gambling debts, which amounted to twenty-five hundred dollars. - -Placed in Allan’s counting-house, Poe was unhappy and rebellious, and -finally disappeared. He declared in after years that he went abroad to -offer his services to the Greeks. What he really did was to enlist in -the United States army under the name of Edgar A. Perry. During the -summer of 1827 he was with Battery H of the First Artillery at Fort -Independence, Boston. In August of that year he published _Tamerlane -and Other Poems, by a Bostonian_. The edition was small and the -pamphlet has become one of the rarest of bibliographical curiosities. - -Battery H was sent to Fort Moultrie, South Carolina, in October, 1827, -and a year later to Fortress Monroe, Virginia. At some time during this -period Poe must have made his whereabouts known to the Allans. Mrs. -Allan, who was tenderly attached to Poe, may have succeeded in bringing -about an understanding between the youth and his foster father. When -she died (in February, 1829) Poe lost his best friend. - -Allan, however, did what he could to forward the young man’s newest -ambition, which was to enter the Military Academy at West Point. He -paid for a substitute in the army and wrote letters to men who were -influential in such matters, with the result that Poe was enrolled at -the Academy on July 1, 1830. He gave his age as nineteen years and five -months. His prematurely old look led to the invention of the story that -the appointment was really procured for Poe’s son, but the son having -died the father had taken his place. - -While the question of the appointment was pending, Poe spent some -time in Baltimore and there published his second volume of verse, _Al -Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems_ (1829). - -The accounts of his life at the Academy are not so divergent as -to be contradictory. One classmate noted the youth’s censorious -manner: ‘I never heard him speak in terms of praise of any English -writer, living or dead.’ Excelling in French and mathematics, Poe by -intentional neglect of military duty brought about his own dismissal. -He was court-martialled and left West Point on March 7, 1831. He had -previously taken subscriptions among his friends for a new book of -verse. It was published in New York (1831) under the title of _Poems_, -‘second edition,’ and was dedicated to ‘the U. S. Corps of Cadets,’ who -are said to have been disappointed at finding in its pages none of the -local squibs with which the author had been wont to amuse them. - -Poe is next heard of in Baltimore, where he seems to have made his -home with his father’s sister, Mrs. Maria Clemm, a widow with one -child, Virginia. In 1833 ‘The Saturday Visiter’ of Baltimore offered -two prizes--one hundred dollars for a story, fifty for a poem. Poe -submitted a manuscript volume entitled ‘Tales of the Folio Club,’ and -was given one award for his famous ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’ Had not -the conditions of the contest precluded giving both prizes to the -same person, he would have received the other award for his poem ‘The -Coliseum.’ - -Through John P. Kennedy, one of the judges in the contest, Poe came -into relations with T. W. White, the proprietor of ‘The Southern -Literary Messenger,’ published at Richmond. His contributions were -heartily welcomed. White then invited Poe to become his editorial -associate. The offer was accepted and Poe went to Richmond. Mrs. -Clemm and Virginia followed, and in May, 1836, Poe was married to his -cousin. A private marriage is said to have taken place at Baltimore the -preceding September. - -The arrangement entered into by White and Poe was most propitious. -The proprietor of the ‘Messenger’ had obtained the services of a -young man with a positive genius for the work in hand,--a young man -who was able to contribute such tales as ‘Berenice,’ ‘Morella,’ ‘Hans -Pfaall,’ ‘Metzengerstein,’ besides poems, miscellanies, and caustic -book-criticisms. On the other hand, Poe had, if a small, at least a -regular income. He could not buy luxury with a salary of five hundred -and twenty dollars, but it was a beginning, and an increase was -promised. Moreover, he was in the hands of a man who regarded him -with affection no less than admiration. Unfortunately the arrangement -was not to last. Poe had become the victim of a hereditary vice.[25] -Whether he drank much or little is of less consequence than the fact -that after a period of indulgence he was wholly unfitted for work. -Once when Poe was temporarily in Baltimore, White wrote him that if -he returned to the office it must be with the understanding that all -engagements were at an end the moment he ‘got drunk.’ Kennedy explained -Poe’s leaving the ‘Messenger’ thus: He was ‘irregular, eccentric, and -querulous, and soon gave up his place.’ - -From Richmond, Poe went to New York, attracted by some promise in -connection with a magazine. He lived in Carmine Street, and Mrs. Clemm -contributed to the family support by taking boarders. In July, 1838, -was published _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym_. A month later Poe -removed to Philadelphia. - -He contributed to annuals and magazines and had a hand in a piece of -hack-work, _The Conchologist’s First Book_ (1839). This same year he -became assistant editor of ‘Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and American -Monthly,’ a periodical owned by the actor, William E. Burton, and held -his position until June, 1840. The irregularity and querulousness -which Kennedy had remarked led to misunderstandings. How the two men -differed in policy becomes plain from a letter to Poe in which Burton -says: ‘You must, my dear sir, get rid of your avowed ill feelings -towards your brother authors.’ There was a quarrel, and Poe, who -had some command of the rhetoric of abuse, described Burton as ‘a -blackguard and a villain.’ - -The year 1840 was notable in the history of American letters, for then -appeared the first collected edition of Poe’s prose writings, _Tales of -the Grotesque and Arabesque_. The edition, of seven hundred and fifty -copies, was in two volumes and contained twenty-five stories, among -them ‘Morella,’ ‘William Wilson,’ ‘The Fall of the House of Usher,’ -‘Ligeia,’ ‘Berenice,’ and ‘The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion’. - -Poe, a born ‘magazinist,’ cherished the ambition of editing a -periodical of his own in which, as he phrased it, he could ‘kick -up a dust.’ He secured a partner and actually announced that ‘The -Penn Magazine’ would begin publication on January 1, 1841. Compelled -to postpone his project, he undertook the editorship of ‘Graham’s -Magazine,’ a new monthly formed by uniting the ‘Gentleman’s,’ which -Graham had bought, and ‘The Casket.’ From February, 1841, to June, -1842, Poe contributed to every number of the new magazine, printing, -among other things, ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue,’ ‘The Mystery of -Marie Rogêt,’ and ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ Griswold succeeded -him in the editorial chair. Poe gave as a reason for resigning his -place ‘disgust with the namby-pamby character of the magazine.’ In the -hope of bettering his fortune, he sought a place in the Philadelphia -Custom House, but was unsuccessful. - -Notwithstanding frequent set-backs, he had it in his power at any -time to attract public notice. In 1843 he won a hundred-dollar prize -for his story ‘The Gold-Bug,’ printed in the ‘Dollar Newspaper,’ and -he lectured with success on ‘The Poets and Poetry of America.’ But -the field was barren and Poe determined on going to New York. Within -a week after his arrival in that city (April, 1844) he printed in -‘The Sun’ his famous ‘Balloon Hoax.’ In October he began work on ‘The -Evening Mirror,’ Willis’s paper, and on January 29, 1845, ‘The Raven’ -appeared in its columns and was the poetical sensation of the day. The -next month he lectured on American Poetry in the library of the New -York Historical Society. Dissatisfied with the ‘Mirror,’ he accepted -a proposition from C. F. Briggs to become one of the editors of ‘The -Broadway Journal.’ Later Poe became the sole editor, and for a brief -time enjoyed the ambition of his life, the control of a paper of his -own. He is said to have doubled the circulation in the four months -during which he filled the editorial chair. Unfortunately he lacked -capital and could by no means secure it. ‘The Broadway Journal’ -stopped publication. - -While editing the ‘Journal’ Poe was invited to read an original -poem before the Boston Lyceum. He gave a juvenile piece, and when -criticised, defended himself with curious want of tact. That he might -lose no opportunity to alienate his contemporaries, he began publishing -in ‘Godey’s Lady’s Book’ a series of papers entitled ‘The Literati,’ -in which he gave free rein to his propensity to ‘kick up a dust.’ The -irony of his situation might well excite pity. He who most loathed a -combination of literature and fashion plates was driven for support to -the journals which made such a combination their chief feature. - -At the close of 1845 was published _The Raven and Other Poems_, the -first collected edition of Poe’s verse. Occasionally the poet was seen -at literary gatherings, where he left the most agreeable impression by -his manner, appearance, and conversation. But his fortunes steadily -declined, and in 1846, after he had moved to Fordham, a suburb of New -York, he fell into desperate straits. His frail little wife, always an -invalid, grew steadily worse. An appeal was made through the journals -in behalf of the unfortunate family. Mrs. Poe died on January 30, 1847. -Her husband’s grief was so poignant that it is with amazement one reads -of the strange affairs of the heart following this event. - -Recovering from the severe illness which followed his wife’s death, -Poe resumed work. He lectured and he wrote. _Eureka_ was published -early in 1847. The consuming desire to own and edit a magazine was no -less consuming, and he made some progress towards founding ‘The Stylus.’ - -The summer of 1849 Poe spent in Richmond and was received with -cordiality. He proposed marriage to Mrs. Shelton of that city, a -wealthy widow, somewhat older than himself, and was accepted. On the -last of September he started for New York to get Mrs. Clemm and bring -her to Richmond. He was found almost unconscious on October 3 at -Baltimore, in a saloon used as a voting place, was taken to a hospital, -and died at five o’clock on the morning of October 7, 1849. - - -II - -POE’S CHARACTER - -Poe’s wilfulness in marring his own fortunes bordered on fatuity. -At an age when men give over youthful excesses merely because they -are incongruous, he had not so much as begun to ‘settle down.’ The -appropriate period for sowing wild oats is brief at best. Nothing -justifies an undue prolongation. It were absurd to take the lofty -tone with a man of genius because at the age of seventeen he carried -to extreme the indulgences characteristic of the youth of his time, -or because at eighteen he ran away from a book-keeper’s desk to join -the army. Impulsiveness and vacillation are not wholly bad things at -eighteen; but at thirty they are ridiculous. - -Poe’s abuse of liquor and opium has long been well understood, and -the question of his responsibility handed over to the decision of the -medical faculty. If many of his troubles sprang from this abuse, many -more arose out of his unwillingness to recognize the fact that he was -a part of society, not an isolated and self-sufficient being. As a -genius he was entitled to his prerogative. He was also a man among men -and under the same obligations to continued fair dealing, courtesy, -patience, and forbearance as were his fellows. In these matters he was -notoriously deficient. No one could have been more eager for praise -and sympathy than Poe. He asked for both and received in the measure -of his asking. Men of influence helped him ungrudgingly. They lent him -money, commended his work, defended him at first from the criticism -of those who thought they had suffered at his hands; but it was to no -purpose. By his perversity and capriciousness (as also by an occasional -display of that which in a less highly endowed man than he would have -been called malevolence) Poe alienated those who were most inclined to -befriend him. Nevertheless he wondered that friends fell away. - -With a powerful mind, a towering imagination, a natural command of the -technical part of literature, which he improved by tireless exercise, -and with no little spontaneity of productive energy, Poe remained a boy -in character, self-willed, spoiled, ungrateful, petulant. The sharper -the lash of fortune’s whip on his shoulders, the more rebellious he -became. - -The affair of the Boston Lyceum illustrates Poe’s singular disregard -of what is expected of men supposed to know the ways of the world. A -Southern paper commenting on this affair said that Poe should not have -gone to Boston. The implication was that as Poe had been attacking the -New Englanders for years he could not expect fair treatment. Poe had -indeed often attacked the ‘Frogpondians,’ as he enjoyed calling them, -and they invited him to come and read an original poem on an occasion -of some local importance. This may have been a mark of innocence on the -part of the ‘Frogpondians;’ it can hardly be construed as indicative -of narrowness or prejudice. Poe accepted their hospitality apparently -in the spirit in which it was offered, read one of his old poems, -and declared afterward that he wrote it before completing his tenth -year, and that he considered it would answer sufficiently well for -an audience of Transcendentalists: ‘It was the best we had--for the -price--and it _did_ answer remarkably well.’ - -The episode is of no importance save as it illustrates Poe’s attitude -towards the game of life. Poe expected other men to play the game -strictly according to the rules, for himself he would play the game -in his own way. And he did. But he could not go on breaking the rules -indefinitely. They who had his real interest at heart told him as much. -Simms, the novelist, wrote Poe in July, 1846, that he deeply deplored -his misfortunes--‘the more so as I see no process for your relief but -such as must result from your own decision and resolve.’ The letter -should be read in its entirety. It does honor to the writer’s manly -nature, and it throws no little light on the enigmatic character of Poe. - - -III - -THE PROSE WRITER - -Poe’s genius was essentially journalistic. In his prose writing he -aimed at an immediate effect, and he knew exactly how to produce it. -The journalist does not in general write with a view to the influence -his paragraph will produce week after next. The paper will have -disappeared week after next, if not day after to-morrow. Though his -theme be the eternal verities, the journalist must write as if he had -but the one chance to speak on that subject. He will therefore be -direct, positive, clear, seeking to persuade, convince, irritate, amuse. - -The most obvious characteristics of Poe’s style are found in his -clarity, his vividness, his precision, in the dense shadows and the -high lights, in the hundred unnamed but distinctly felt marks of the -journalistic style. Whatever he proposes to do, that he does. There is -no fumbling. Even his mysteries are as certain as the stage effects in -a spectacular drama; they seem to come at the turning of an electric -switch or the inserting of a blue glass before the lime light. In -reality the process is much more complicated. Other magicians have -essayed to produce like effects by turning the same switch, with -disastrous result. - -Poe was a diligent seeker after literary finish. He was painstaking, -and would polish and retouch a paragraph when to the eye of a good -judge there was nothing left to do by way of improvement. ‘He seemed -never to regard a story as finished.’[26] - -He was over emphatic at times, and like De Quincey, many of whose -irritating mannerisms he had caught, made a childish use of italics. -But he had no need of these adventitious supports. It was enough for -him to state a thing in his inimitable manner. While his vocabulary was -for the most part simple, he was not without his verbal affectations. -He loved words surcharged with poetic suggestion. A lamp never hangs -from the ceiling, it ‘depends.’ One of his favorite words is ‘domain.’ -The black ‘tarn’ which mirrors the house of Usher he could have called -by no other term. ‘Lake,’ or ‘pond,’ or ‘pool’ would not have done. The -word must be remote, suggestive, mysterious. - -His style often glows with prismatic colors, but the colors seem to be -refracted from ice. There is no warmth, no sweetness, no lovable and -human quality. All the pronounced characteristics of Poe’s style are -intensely and coldly intellectual. It is easier to admire his use of -language than to like it. - - -IV - -_TALES OF THE GROTESQUE AND ARABESQUE_ - -By virtue of his journalistic gift, Poe resembled the author of -_Robinson Crusoe_. He could not, like Defoe, have become general -literary purveyor to the people, but he was quite ready to profit by -what was uppermost in the public mind. _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon -Pym_ is an illustration, as it is also a good example of Poe’s art in -its most mundane form. It recounts the adventures of a runaway lad at -sea. Mutiny, drunkenness, brawling, murder, shipwreck, cannibalism, -madness, are the chief ingredients of the book. It is minute, -circumstantial, prolix, matter of fact. The air of verisimilitude is -increased by an alternation of episodes of thrilling interest with -tedious accounts of how a cargo should be stowed, and the object -and method of bringing a ship to. Only at rare intervals does Poe’s -peculiar genius flash out. - -As the longest of his writings the _Narrative_ has a peculiar value. By -it we are able to get some notion of his power for ‘sustained effort,’ -to use a phrase that always irritated him. That power was certainly -not great; perhaps it was never fairly tested. _The Journal of Julius -Rodman_ is a second attempt at the same kind of fiction. Poe was less -happy in descriptions of the prairie than of the sea; the interest of -the _Journal_ is feeble. - -In these fictions the author holds fast to tangible things. Pym and -Rodman might have had the adventures they recount. In another group of -stories Poe leavens fact with imagination. Such are ‘The Balloon Hoax,’ -‘The Unparalleled Adventure of one Hans Pfaall,’ ‘A Descent into the -Maelström,’ and the ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’ Real or alleged science -is compounded with the elements of wonder and mystery. And with these -elements comes an increase of power. - -Poe, who was never backward in giving himself the credit he thought -his due, often failed to understand where his own most marvellous -achievements lay. In ‘Hans Pfaall’ he claimed originality in the -use of scientific data. Had his stories only this to recommend them, -they would long since have been forgotten. Nothing so quickly becomes -old-fashioned as popular science. The display of knowledge about aerial -navigation in ‘Hans Pfaall’ perhaps made a brave show in 1836, but it -is childish now. A Hans Pfaall of the Twentieth Century would descend -on Rotterdam in a dirigible balloon, and if questioned would be found -to entertain enlightened views on storage batteries. Poe talked glibly -about sines and cosines and brought noisy charges of astronomical -ignorance against his brother writers, but it was not in these things -that his genius displayed itself, it was rather in the way this -wonder-worker makes one aware of the illimitable stretches of space, -the appalling vastness, the silence, the mystery, terror, and majesty -of Nature. He is the clever craftsman in his account of how the Dutch -bellows-mender started on his aerial travels. But when in two or three -paragraphs Poe conveys a sense of height so terrific that the plain -fireside reader, indisposed to balloon ascensions, grasps the arms of -his chair and clings to the floor with the toes of his slippers lest -he fall--then does he display a power with which popular science has -nothing to do. - -This is true of ‘A Descent into the Maelström.’ What scientific fact -went into the composition of the piece appears to have been taken from -the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, but the valuable part, the sense of -life and movement, the crash of the storm, the roar of the waves, the -shriek of the vortex, like the cry of lost souls, all this is not to be -found in encyclopædias. The story can be read any number of times and -its magical power felt afresh each time. But the first reading cannot -be described by so tame a phrase as a literary pleasure, it is an -experience. - -Another masterpiece is the ‘MS. Found in a Bottle.’ The din of the -storm is not easily got out of one’s ears. With the unnamed hero of the -tale we ‘stand aghast at the warring of wind and ocean’ and are chilled -by the ‘stupendous ramparts of ice, towering away, into the desolate -sky.’ - -In another group of stories, ‘The Gold-Bug,’ the gruesome ‘Murders -in the Rue Morgue,’ ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt,’ and ‘The Purloined -Letter,’ the author fabricates mysteries for the express purpose of -unravelling them afterwards. Poe, who seldom attempts the creation of a -character, actually created one in the person of his famous detective. -Dupin is a living being in a world peopled for the most part with -shadows. - -Poe professed not to think much of his detective stories. The -‘ratiocinative’ tale is not a high order of literary achievement. Poe -shares the honors accruing from the invention of such puzzles with -Wilkie Collins, Gaboriau, and the ‘great ‘Boisgobey,’ and they in turn -with the most sensational of sensation mongers. - -‘The Gold-Bug’ afforded the author a vehicle for giving expression -to his delight in cryptography, at the same time he availed himself -of the perennial human interest in the prospect of unearthing buried -treasure. ‘The Mystery of Marie Rogêt’ was based on a contemporary -murder case. It contains a minimum of that in which Poe often revelled, -namely physical horror, and a maximum of the ratiocinative element. -‘The Purloined Letter’ is in lighter vein, and illustrates the comedy -side of Dupin’s adventures. Chevalier and minister cross swords with -admirable grace, but no blood is drawn. - -The masterpiece of the group is ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue.’ -Genuinely original, blood-curdling, the story depends for its real -force not on the ingenious unravelling of a frightful mystery, but on -the sense of nameless horror which creeps over us as little by little -the outré character of the tragedy is disclosed. We realize that in -the dread event of being murdered one might have a choice as to how it -was done. The predestined victim might even pray to die by the hands -of a plain God-fearing assassin and not after the manner of Madame -L’Espanaye. - -Of the stories classified as tales of conscience, ‘William Wilson,’ -‘The Man of the Crowd,’ ‘The Imp of the Perverse,’ ‘The Tell-Tale -Heart,’ and ‘The Black Cat,’ the first is not only the best, but -is also one of the best of all stories in that genre. The image of -bodily corruption is not present and the interest is held by perfectly -legitimate means. ‘The Black Cat’ is a fearful and repulsive piece, -and at the same time characteristic. Poe hesitated at nothing when it -came to working out his theme. He who had such absolute control of the -materials of his art too seldom practised reticence in exhibiting the -gruesome details of a scene of cruelty. - -‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ is a representative story, if not -absolutely the best illustration of Poe’s genius. The motive of -premature burial haunts him here as often elsewhere. But the emphasis -of this tragedy of a race is laid where it belongs, in the terror of -the thought of approaching madness. Poe wrote many stories which can be -described each as the fifth act of a tragedy. It may be doubted whether -he surpassed ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.’ - -‘Berenice,’ ‘Ligeia,’ and ‘Morella’ are highly successful experiments -in the realm of the morbidly imaginative, and might be grouped -under Browning’s discarded title of ‘Madhouse Cells.’ The themes -are monstrous, and are only saved from being absurd by the author’s -consummate ability to carry the reader with him. Poe could scale a -fearful and slippery height, maintaining himself with the slenderest -excuse for a foot-hold. A dozen times you would say he must fall, and -a dozen times he passes the perilous point with masterly ease. In the -hands of a lesser artist than he, how utterly absurd would be a scene -like that in ‘Ligeia’ where the opium-eater watches by the bedside of -his dead wife. - -‘Metzengerstein’ and ‘A Tale of the Ragged Mountains’ are stories -of metempsychosis. ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ and ‘Hop-Frog’ turn on -the motive of revenge. ‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ an episode of the -Inquisition, is a study of the preternatural acuteness of the mind -while the body undergoes torture. ‘The Assignation’ is a Venetian tale -of love and intrigue, and would have been conventional enough in the -hands of any one but Poe. The most powerful story in the group is ‘The -Red Death,’ a lurid drama of revelry in the midst of pestilence. - -Difficult as are the themes, and skilful as is the handling, these -tales are in a way surpassed by the extraordinary group of romances in -which Poe describes the meeting of disembodied spirits. ‘The Power of -Words,’ ‘The Colloquy of Monos and Una,’ and ‘The Conversation of Eiros -and Charmion’ are excursions into a world unknown to the rank and file -of literary explorers, a world where the most adventurous might well -question his ability to penetrate far. In these supermundane pieces, in -the prose-poems ‘Silence’ and ‘Shadow,’ in ‘Ligeia,’ and in ‘The Domain -of Arnheim,’ Poe’s art is indeed magical. - -Poe seems to have been fully persuaded in his own mind that he had -the gift of humor. The extravaganzas and farcical pieces bulk rather -large in his collected writings. In too many of them the author cuts -extraordinary mental capers in the most mirthless way. ‘The Literary -Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.,’ ‘How to write a Blackwood Article’ and its -sequel, ‘A Predicament,’ satires all on the ways of editors and men -of letters, are examples of Poe’s manner as a humorist. The rattling -monologue and dry, hard, uncontagious laughter of a music-hall comedian -is the nearest parallel. The effect is wholly disproportionate to the -bewildering activity of the performer. - -In farces like ‘The Spectacles,’ ‘Loss of Breath,’ and ‘The Man that -was Used up,’ the motives would be revolting were not the characters -manifestly constructed of wood or papier-maché. The figures are neither -more nor less than marionettes. If Madame Stephanie Lalande (aged -eighty-one) dashes her wig on the ground with a yell and dances a -fandango upon it, ‘in an absolute ecstasy and agony of rage,’ it is -what may be expected in a pantomime. Whoever wishes to laugh at the -hero of the Bugaboo and Kickapoo campaign, when he is discovered sans -scalp, sans palate, sans arm, leg, and shoulders, is at liberty to do -so, but he must laugh as do children when Punch beats his wife. - -There is no question of the vivacity displayed in these pieces. -‘Bon-Bon,’ ‘The Duc de l’Omelette,’ ‘Lionizing,’ ‘Never bet the Devil -your Head,’ ‘X-ing a Paragrab,’ ‘Diddling Considered as one of the -Exact Sciences,’ ‘The Business Man,’ and ‘The Angel of the Odd’ are -sprightly with an uncanny sprightliness. It must always be a matter for -astonishment that Poe could have written them. The mystery of their -being read is explained by the taste of the times. - -On the other hand, ‘The Devil in the Belfry’ is genuinely amusing. The -description of the peaceful estate of the pleasant Dutch toy village -of Vondervotteimitiss, where the very pigs wore repeaters tied to -their tails with ribbons, and the sad story of the destruction of all -order and regularity by the advent of the foreign-looking young man -in black kerseymere knee-breeches, are most agreeably set forth. This -extravaganza is not only the best of Poe’s humorous sketches, but ranks -with the work of men who were better equipped and more gifted in such -work than was Poe. - - -V - -THE CRITIC - -Poe brought into American criticism a pungency which it had hitherto -lacked. He was entirely independent, and had urbanity companioned -independence the value of his critical work would have been greatly -augmented. He could praise with warmth and condemn with asperity; -he could not maintain an even temper. Swayed by his likes and his -dislikes, he was but too apt to grow extravagantly commendatory -or else spiteful. ‘He had the judicial mind but was rarely in the -judicial state of mind.’[27] He was not unwilling to give pain, and -easily persuaded himself that he did so in a just cause. There was a -pleasurable sense of power in the consciousness of being feared. Yet -the pleasure thus derived can never be other than ignoble. A man of -Poe’s genius can ill afford to waste his time in attacking other men -of genius whose conceptions of literary art differ from his own. Still -less can he afford to assail the swarm of petty authors whose works -will perish the sooner for being let alone. Of all harmless creatures -authors are the most harmless and should be allowed to live their -innocent little lives. But Poe took literature hard, and authors had a -disquieting effect on him. - -Accused of ‘mangling by wholesale,’ Poe denied the charge, declaring -that among the many critiques he had written during a given period of -ten years not one was ‘wholly fault-finding or wholly in approbation.’ -And he maintained that to every opinion expressed he had attempted -to give weight ‘by something that bore the semblance of a reason.’ -Is there another writer in the land who ‘can of his own criticisms -conscientiously say the same’? Poe prided himself on an honesty of -motive such as animated Wilson and Macaulay. He denied that his course -was unpopular, pointing to the fact that during his editorship of -the ‘Messenger’ and ‘Graham’s’ the circulation of the one had risen -from seven hundred to five thousand, and of the other ‘from five to -fifty-two thousand subscribers.’ ‘Even the manifest injustice of a -Gifford is, I grieve to say, an exceedingly popular thing.’[28] - -Poe’s critical writings take the form of reviews of books -(‘Longfellow’s Ballads,’ ‘Moore’s “Alciphron,”’ ‘Horne’s “Orion,”’ -‘Miss Barrett’s “A Drama of Exile,”’ ‘Hawthorne’s Tales,’ etc.), -polemical writings (‘A Reply to “Outis”’), essays on the theory of -literary art (‘The Poetic Principle,’ ‘The Rationale of Verse’), brief -notes (‘Marginalia’), and short and snappy articles on contemporary -writers (‘The Literati’). - -His theory of literary art may be studied in the lecture entitled ‘The -Poetic Principle,’ where he maintains that there is no such thing -as a long poem, the very phrase being ‘a contradiction of terms.’ A -poem deserves its title ‘only inasmuch as it excites by elevating the -soul.’ This excitement is transient. When it ceases, that which is -written ceases to be poetical. Poe even sets the precise limit of the -excitement--‘half an hour at the very utmost.’ - -He then attacks ‘the heresy of The Didactic,’ protesting against the -doctrine that every poem should contain a moral and the poetical merit -estimated by the moral. ‘The incitements of Passion, or the precepts of -Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may be introduced into a poem with -advantage, but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down -in proper subjection to that Beauty which is the atmosphere and the -real essence of the poem.’ - -Poe then proceeds to his definition of the ‘poetry of words,’ which -is, he says, ‘_The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty_.’ Its sole arbiter -is Taste. ‘With the Intellect, or with the Conscience, it has only -collateral relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever -either with Duty or with Truth.’ - -In his concrete criticism Poe never hesitated to prophesy. ‘I most -heartily congratulate you upon having accomplished a work which will -_live_,’ he wrote to Mrs. E. A. Lewis. Of some poem of Longfellow’s he -said that it would ‘not live.’ Possibly he was right in both cases, but -how could he know? Here is shown the weakness of Poe’s critical temper. -He affirmed positively that which cannot positively be affirmed. - -He was a monomaniac on plagiarism, forever raising the cry of ‘Stop -thief.’ Yet Poe, like Molière, whom he resembled in no other -particular, ‘took his own’ whenever it pleased him to do so, and he was -not over solicitous to advertise his sources. He was in the right. If -poets advertised their sources, what would be left for the commentators -to do? Poe hinted that Hawthorne appropriated his ideas, and he -flatly accused Longfellow of so doing. He was punished grotesquely, -for Chivers, the author of _Eonchs of Ruby_, accused Poe (after the -latter’s death, when it was quite safe to do so) of getting many of his -best ideas from Chivers. - - -VI - -THE POET - -Poe’s claim to mastership in verse rests on a handful of lyrics -distinguished for exquisite melody and a haunting beauty of phrase. -That part of the public which estimates a poet by such pieces as find -their way into anthologies regards Poe primarily as the author of ‘The -Bells’ and ‘The Raven.’ If popularity were the final test of merit, -these strikingly original performances would indeed crown his work. -After sixty years, neither has lost in appreciable degree the magical -charm it exerted when first the weird melody fell upon the ear. Each -is hackneyed beyond description; each has been parodied unmercifully, -murdered by raw elocutionists, and worse than murdered by generations -of school-children droning from their readers, about the ‘midnight -dreary’ and the ‘Runic rhyme.’ But it is yet possible to restore in a -measure the feeling of astonished delight with which lovers of poetry -greeted the advent of these studies in the musical power of words. - -The practical and earnest soul will find little to comfort him in the -poetry of Poe. It teaches nothing, emphasizes no moral, never inspires -to action. The strange unearthly melodies must be enjoyed for the -reason that they are strange and unearthly and melodious. The genius of -the poet has travelled - - By a route obscure and lonely, - Haunted by ill angels only, - Where an Eidolon, named Night, - On a black throne reigns upright, - -and we can well believe that it comes - - From an ultimate dim Thule,-- - From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, - Out of Space--out of Time. - -Wholly out of space and time was he who wrote ‘Dreamland,’ ‘The City -in the Sea,’ ‘The Haunted Palace,’ ‘Israfel,’ ‘The Sleeper,’ and -‘Ulalume.’ It is idle to ask of these poems something they do not -pretend to give, and it can hardly be other than uncritical to describe -them as ‘very superficial.’ They are strange exotic flowers blooming -under conditions the most adverse, a fresh proof that genius is -independent of place and time. - - * * * * * - -In Poe’s work as a whole there is unquestionably too much of brooding -over death, the grave, mere physical horrors. Since his genius lay that -way, he must be accepted as he was. But it is permitted to regret, if -not the thing in itself (the domain of art being wide), at least the -excess. Poe speaks of certain themes which are ‘too entirely horrible -for the purposes of legitimate fiction. These the mere romanticist must -eschew, if he do not wish to offend or to disgust.’ And having laid -down this doctrine, Poe goes on to relate the story of ‘The Premature -Burial.’ It turns out a vision. But the narrator affirms that he was -cured by the experience, that he read no more ‘bugaboo tales--_such as -this_. In short I became a new man and lived a man’s life.’ Without -assuming that Poe spoke wholly from the autobiographical point of view, -we may believe the passage to contain a measure of his actual thought. - -We may claim for him a more important place in our literature than do -his radical admirers whose fervent eulogy too often takes the form -of the contention that Poe was greater than this or that American -man of letters. His strong, sombre genius saved the literature from -any danger of uniformity, relieved it at once and forever from the -possible charge of colorlessness. That strangeness of flavor which a -late distinguished critic notes as a mark of genius is imparted by -Poe’s work to our literary product as a whole. Here indeed was ‘the -blossoming of the aloe.’ - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [25] ‘... There is one thing I am anxious to caution you against, - & which has been a great enemy to our family, I hope, - however, in yr case, it may prove unnecessary, “A too free - use of the Bottle” ...’ William Poe to E. A. Poe, 15th June, - 1843. Harrison’s _Poe_, vol. ii, p. 143. - - [26] G. E. Woodberry. - - [27] E. C. Stedman. - - [28] ‘Reply to “Outis.”’ - - - - -VIII - -_Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =Samuel Longfellow=: _Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_, second - edition, 1886, and _Final Memorials of ... Longfellow_, 1887. - - =W. D. Howells=: _Literary Friends and Acquaintance_, 1900. - - =G. R. Carpenter=: _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_, ‘Beacon - Biographies,’ 1901. - - =T. W. Higginson=: _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_, ‘American Men of - Letters,’ 1902. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -The Longfellows are descendants of William Longfellow of Horsforth -in Yorkshire, who came to New England ‘about 1676,’ settled in -Newbury, and married Anne Sewall, a sister of Samuel Sewall, the first -chief-justice of Massachusetts. ‘Well educated but a little wild’ -is one of several illuminating phrases used to describe this young -Yorkshireman. He joined the expedition against Quebec under Sir William -Phipps (1690) and perished in a wreck on the coast of Anticosti. -One of his sons, Stephen, a blacksmith, had a son who was graduated -at Harvard, became a schoolmaster in Falmouth (Portland), and held -important offices in the town government. His son, the third Stephen, -grandfather of the poet, was judge of the court of common pleas, and -representative of his town in the legislature. - -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born at Portland, in the District -of Maine, on February 27, 1807. He was the second son of Stephen -Longfellow, a prominent lawyer, conspicuous in political life, a member -of the Massachusetts legislature, and afterwards, when Maine acquired -statehood, a representative for his state in Congress. The mother of -the poet, Zilpah (Wadsworth) Longfellow, was a daughter of General -Peleg Wadsworth, whose adventures during the Revolution bordered on -the romantic. Through the Wadsworths the poet was a descendant of John -Alden and Priscilla Mullens. - -At the age of thirteen Longfellow printed in the Portland ‘Gazette’ -his boyish rhymes on ‘The Battle of Lovell’s Pond.’ He studied at -private schools and at the Portland Academy, entered Bowdoin College, -Brunswick, Maine, in the Sophomore year, and was graduated in 1825, the -fourth in a class of thirty-eight. That he stood so high seemed to him -‘rather a mystery.’ Before leaving college he had begun contributing -to the ‘United States Literary Gazette,’ a new bi-monthly, published -in Boston and edited by Theophilus Parsons. In one year seventeen of -his poems appeared in the ‘Gazette,’ for which payment was made at the -rate of two dollars a column. Five of these early poems were reprinted -in _Voices of the Night_. - -At the Commencement of 1825 the trustees of Bowdoin had determined to -establish a professorship of modern languages. The chair was promised -Longfellow when he should have fitted himself for it by study abroad. -He sailed from New York in May, 1826, provided by George Ticknor with -letters of introduction to Irving, Eichhorn, and Southey. He travelled -in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, mastered the Romance languages, -planned certain prose volumes, and announced to his sister Elizabeth -that his poetic career was finished. In August, 1829, he was back in -America. - -His appointment being confirmed and the stipend fixed at eight hundred -dollars (together with another hundred for services as college -librarian), Longfellow entered on his duties. During the next five and -a half years he corrected bad French and Italian exercises, heard worse -viva voce translations, in brief, was a pedagogue in all homely and -trying senses of the word. With any one save a born drill-master the -class-room soon loses novelty. In spite of the knowledge that he was -useful in a chosen field of work, more than happy in his home-life (he -had married, in 1831, Miss Mary Storer Potter of Portland), Longfellow -felt the narrowness of his surroundings. Bowdoin was a little college -and Brunswick a village. The young professor was ambitious. In his own -phrase, he wanted a stage on which he could ‘take longer strides and -speak to a larger audience.’ At one time he thought of buying the Round -Hill School, and visited Northampton to look over the ground. Fortune -had something better in store for him. Ticknor was about to resign the -chair of modern languages at Harvard, and proposed as his successor -Longfellow, whose translation of the _Coplas_ of Manrique (1833) had -attracted his notice. The position was formally offered and accepted; -it was understood that Longfellow was to spend a year and a half in -Europe before taking up his work. - -Accompanied by his young wife, Longfellow crossed the ocean in April, -1835, and passed the summer in Stockholm and Copenhagen, studying -the Scandinavian languages. In the autumn he was in Holland. Mrs. -Longfellow died the last of November. Longfellow went to Heidelberg for -the winter, and to Switzerland and the Tyrol for the spring and summer, -and in December (1836) was at Cambridge preparing his college lectures. - -He lodged at the famous colonial mansion in Brattle Street known -as Craigie House, in a room that had once been Washington’s. When -Longfellow first applied, old Mrs. Craigie, deceived by his youthful -appearance, told him that she had ‘resolved to take no more students -into the house.’ Craigie House passed into the possession of Worcester, -the lexicographer. Worcester sold it to Nathan Appleton, whose daughter -Longfellow married in 1843. It then became the property of Mrs. -Longfellow. - -At Harvard the exactions of work were not like those in the smaller -college, strictly pedagogical. Longfellow had time for literature -and for society. The years were richly productive, as the following -bibliographical lists show. - -_Outre-Mer, A Pilgrimage beyond the Sea_, 1835; _Hyperion, a Romance_, -1839; _Voices of the Night_, 1839; _Ballads and Other Poems_, 1842; -_Poems on Slavery_, 1842; _The Spanish Student_, 1843; _The Waif, a -Collection of Poems_, 1845 (edited); _The Poets and Poetry of Europe_, -1845 (edited); _The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems_, 1846; _The -Estray, a Collection of Poems_, 1847 (edited); _Evangeline, a Tale -of Acadie_, 1847; _Kavanagh, a Tale_, 1849; _The Seaside and the -Fireside_, 1850; _The Golden Legend_, 1851; _The Song of Hiawatha_, -1855. - -After eighteen years of service at Harvard, Longfellow, in 1855, -resigned his professorship, handing over its responsibilities to a -worthy successor, James Russell Lowell. Released from academic duties, -he was able to give himself unreservedly to literary work. Even in -these new conditions he enjoyed less freedom than would be supposed. -Longfellow had become a world-famous poet and was compelled to pay -in full measure the penalties of fame. The demands on his time were -enormous. As his reputation increased there was a proportionate -increase in the army of visitors which besieged his door. The uniform -kindness of their reception encouraged hundreds more to come. - -The beautiful serenity of Longfellow’s domestic life was broken in upon -by a frightful tragedy. One July morning in 1861 Mrs. Longfellow’s -dress caught fire from a lighted match. It was impossible to save her, -and she died the following day. The poet never recovered from the shock -of her death. How crushing the blow was may be faintly conceived from -that poem, ‘The Cross of Snow,’ found among his papers after his death. - -During the last quarter century of his life Longfellow published the -following books: _The Courtship of Miles Standish_, 1858; _Tales -of a Wayside Inn_, 1863; _Flower-de-Luce_, 1867; _The New England -Tragedies_, 1868; _Dante’s Divine Comedy, a Translation_,[29] 1867–70; -_The Divine Tragedy_, 1871; _Christus, a Mystery_, 1872;[30] _Three -Books of Song_, 1872; _Aftermath_, 1873; _The Masque of Pandora_, and -_Other Poems_, 1875; _Poems of Places_, 1876–79 (edited); _Kéramos and -Other Poems_, 1878; _Ultima Thule_, 1880. The posthumous volumes were -_In the Harbor_, 1882, and _Michael Angelo_, 1884. - -All the customary honors with which literary achievement may be -recognized were bestowed on Longfellow. Some were formal and academic, -scholastic tributes to scholastic achievement. Others were spontaneous -and popular, an expression of the heart. Two illustrations will suffice -to show the range of the poet’s influence. In 1869, during Longfellow’s -last journey in Europe, the degree of D. C. L. was conferred on him by -the University of Oxford. In 1879, when the tree which overhung ‘the -village smithy’ was felled, an armchair was made of the wood, and given -to the poet by the school-children of Cambridge. Both these tributes -were necessary. Each is the complement of the other. Taken together, -they symbolize the characteristics of the man and the artist. - -Of all American poets Longfellow reached the widest audience. And it -was with a feeling of personal bereavement that every member of that -vast audience heard the news of his death at Cambridge, on March 24, -1882. - - -II - -LONGFELLOW’S CHARACTER - -As a young man Longfellow was pretty much like other young men, fond -of society and fond of dress. At Cambridge the sober-minded were a -little disturbed by the brilliancy of his waistcoats. In the Thirties -it was permitted men, if they would, to array themselves like birds of -paradise. Longfellow appears in some degree to have availed himself -of the privilege. After a visit to Dickens in London in 1842 the -novelist wrote Longfellow that boot-maker, hosier, trousers-maker, and -coat-cutter had all been at the point of death. ‘The medical gentlemen -agreed that it was exhaustion occasioned by early rising--to wait upon -you at those unholy hours!’ An English visitor who saw Longfellow in -1850 thought him too fashionably dressed with his ‘blue frock-coat of -Parisian cut, a handsome waistcoat, faultless pantaloons, and primrose -colored “kids.”’ - -In middle age his social instinct was as strong as ever, but he cared -less for ‘society.’ He restricted himself to the companionship of his -friends, holding always in reserve time for his dependants, of whom he -had more than a fair share. - -Longfellow was large-hearted. He liked people if they were likable and -sympathized with them if they were unattractive or unfortunate. He was -open-handed, a liberal giver. Adventurers preyed upon him. He endured -them with patient strength. When their exactions became outrageous, -he made an effort to be rid of them. If unsuccessful, he laughed at -his own want of skill and resigned himself to be imposed on a little -longer. A weaker man would have sent these bores and parasites about -their business at once. - -Incapable of giving pain to any living creature, he could not -understand the temper which prompts another to do so. Fortunately the -violence or malignity of criticism had little effect on him. He could -even be amused by it. Of Margaret Fuller’s ‘furious onslaught’ on him -in the ‘New York Tribune,’ Longfellow said, ‘It is what ‘might be -called a bilious attack.’ - -He disliked publicity whether in the form of newspaper chronicle of -his doings or recognition in public places. He thought it absurd -that because Fechter had dined with him this unimportant item must -be telegraphed to Chicago and printed in the morning journals. Fond -as he was of the theatre, he sometimes hesitated to go because of -the interest his presence excited. It was thought extraordinary that -he was willing to read his poem ‘Morituri Salutamus’ at the fiftieth -anniversary of his class at Bowdoin. He was delighted when he found -he was to stand behind the old-fashioned high pulpit; ‘Let me cover -myself as much as possible. I wish it might be entirely.’ - -One trait of Longfellow’s character has been over-emphasized--his -gentleness. He was indeed gentle; but continual harping on that string -has created the impression that he was gentle rather than anything -else. In consequence we have a legendary Longfellow in whom all other -traits of character are subordinated to the one. His amiability, his -sense of justice, his entire freedom from selfishness and vanity, and -his genuine modesty, which led him even when he was right and his -neighbor wrong to avoid giving needless pain by intimating to the -neighbor how wrong he was--all contributed to hide the more forceful -and emphatic qualities. But the qualities were there. - -Nothing is easier than to multiply illustrations of this poet’s -gracious traits of character. Holmes epitomized all eulogy when he said -of Longfellow: ‘His life was so exceptionally sweet and musical that -any voice of praise sounds almost like a discord after it.’ - - -III - -THE POET - -Americans sometimes disturb themselves needlessly over the question -whether Longfellow was a great poet. It is absolutely of no importance -whether he was or was not. Of one thing they may be sure,--he was a -poet. Song was his natural vehicle of expression. He had a masterly -command of technical difficulties of his art. Language became pliant -under his touch. Taking into account the range of his metres, the -uniform precision with which he handled words, and the purity of his -style, Longfellow is eminent among American poetical masters. - -His sonnets are exquisite. His ballads, like ‘The Skeleton in Armor,’ -have no little of the fresh unstudied character which charms us in old -English ballad literature, a something not to be traced to the spirit -alone but to the technique as well. The twenty-two poems of ‘The Saga -of King Olaf’ show an almost extraordinary metrical power. - -It must also be remembered that Longfellow popularized for modern -readers the so-called English hexameter. _Evangeline_ was a metrical -triumph, considering it wholly aside from the innate beauty of the -story or the artistic handling of the incidents. The poet did not -foresee his success. In fact, as early as 1841, in the preface to his -translation of Tegnér’s _Children of the Lord’s Supper_, Longfellow -speaks of the ‘inexorable hexameter, in which, it must be confessed, -the motions of the English muse are not unlike those of a prisoner -dancing to the music of his chains.’ But here he was hampered by his -theory of translation, by his anxiety to render as literally as he -could the text of the original. When he took the matter into his own -hands and moulded the verse according to his own artistic sense, it -became another thing. Wholly aside from the pleasure _Evangeline_ has -given countless readers, it is something to have broken down prejudice -against the hexameter to the extent of drawing out an indirect -compliment from Matthew Arnold, whose self-restraint in the matter of -giving praise was notorious.[31] Scholars have by no means withdrawn -their opposition to the English hexameter. That a more liberal temper -prevails is largely due to Longfellow. - -_Evangeline_ had a stimulating effect on one English poet of rare -genius, Arthur Hugh Clough. A reading of the Tale of Acadie immediately -after a reperusal of the _Iliad_ led to the composition of _The Bothie -of Tober-na-Vuolich_.[32] - -Another of Longfellow’s triumphs was so great as to make it difficult -for any one to follow him. _Hiawatha_ succeeded both because of the -metre and in spite of it. Any one can master this self-writing jingle. -’Tis as easy as lying. One hardly knows how facile newspaper parodists -amused themselves before they got _Hiawatha_. Holmes explained the ease -of the measure on physiological grounds. We do not lisp in numbers, but -breathe in them. Did we but know it, we pass our lives in exhaling -four-foot rhymeless trochaics.[33] To write a poem in the metre of the -_Kalevala_ still remains, with all its specious fluency, an impossible -performance for any one not a poet. Thus Longfellow’s success had a -negative and restraining effect. He opened the field to whoever cared -to experiment with the hexameter, but closed it, for the present at -least, to any rhythmical inventions calculated however remotely to -suggest the metre of his Indian edda. - - -IV - -_OUTRE-MER, HYPERION, KAVANAGH_ - -The most popular of American poets first challenged public attention as -a writer of prose. _Outre-Mer_ is a group of pieces after the manner -of Irving. _Hyperion_ is a romance ‘in the old style,’ and shows the -influence of Jean Paul Richter. _Kavanagh_, published ten years after -_Hyperion_, is a novel. - -Neither of the first two books is marked by a buoyant Americanism. -_Outre-Mer_ does not, for example, suggest _A Tramp Abroad_, and -certainly Paul Flemming is no kinsman of ‘Harris.’ In other words, -Europe was as yet too remote to be made the subject of easy jest. Men -did not ‘run over’ to the Continent. The trip cost them dear in time -and money, and was not without the element of anticipated danger. -Travelling America was unsophisticated and viewed the Old World with -childlike curiosity. Foreign lands were transfigured in the romantic -haze through which they were seen. - -The chapters of _Outre-Mer_ were written by a man too intoxicated with -the charm of European life to be annoyed by the petty irritations that -worry hardened tourists. Rouen, Paris, Auteuil, Madrid, El Pardillo, -Rome in midsummer, afford the Pilgrim only delight. As in all books of -the kind there are interpolated stones, and in this book interpolated -literary essays. Every page betrays the student and the lover of -literature, who quotes Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne at Père la -Chaise, James Howell at Venice, and Shakespeare everywhere. - -_Hyperion_ is steeped in sentiment--almost in sentimentality. Such a -book could only have been written when the heart was young. It is a -mistake, however, to read the volume as an autobiography; the author -objected to its being so read. More important than the love story are -the romantic descriptions of the Rhine and the Swiss Alps and the -golden atmosphere enveloping it all. Both these books have a common -object, namely, to interpret the Old World to the New. - -When _Outre-Mer_ was published an admirer said that the author of -_The Sketch Book_ must look to his laurels. The praise implied was -extravagant, but not groundless. Longfellow’s prose has a measure of -the sweetness and urbanity which we associate with Irving. Both writers -are classic in their serenity, and if highly artificial at times never -absurdly stilted. They often appear in old-fashioned dress, but they -wear the costume easily and it becomes them. The modern reader, with a -taste dulled by high seasoning, marvels how the grandparents could find -pleasure in _Hyperion_. It would be to the modern reader’s advantage -to forswear sack for a while and get himself into a condition to enjoy -what so greatly delighted the grandparents. - -Besides a group of literary essays (published in his collected works -under the title of ‘Driftwood’) Longfellow wrote a novel of New England -life, _Kavanagh_, which suffered by coming too soon after _Evangeline_. -It seems colorless when placed beside the romantic tale of Acadie. Yet -one can well afford to take time to learn of Mr. Pendexter’s griefs, -and incidentally to become acquainted with Billy Wilmerdings, who was -turned out of school for playing truant, and ‘promised his mother, if -she would not whip him, he would experience religion.’ Hawthorne was -enthusiastic over _Kavanagh_; he, however, disclosed the secret of its -unpopularity when he said to Longfellow: ‘Nobody but yourself would -dare to write so quiet a book.’ - - -V - -_VOICES OF THE NIGHT, BALLADS, SPANISH STUDENT, BELFRY OF BRUGES, THE -SEASIDE AND THE FIRESIDE_ - -Longfellow served the cause of his art in two ways: first, he was an -original poet, having a genius which, if not profound, or brilliant, -or massive, or bewilderingly fresh and new, was eminently poetical and -eminently attractive; second, he was an enthusiastic interpreter of the -poetry of other lands through the medium of trustworthy and graceful -translations. - -In _Voices of the Night_, his earliest volume of verse, the -translations, from Manrique, Lope de Vega, Dante, Charles d’Orléans, -Klopstock, and Uhland, outnumber the original pieces almost two to one. -Their characteristic is fidelity in spirit and letter. They illustrate -the genius of a poet who found pleasure in giving wider audience to the -work of men he loved, and who did his utmost to preserve the singular -qualities of these men. - -Longfellow’s second volume, _Ballads and Other Poems_, contains only -four translations, but one of them is Tegnér’s _Children of the Lord’s -Supper_, in three hundred and fifty hexameter verses. _The Belfry of -Bruges_ contains a handful of translations from the German, including -a lyric of Heine’s done in a way to cause regret that Longfellow did -not put more of the _Buch der Lieder_ into English. In _The Seaside and -the Fireside_ is given entire ‘The Blind Girl of Castèl Cuillè’ by the -barber-poet Jasmin. - -The translations bulk so large and are so plainly a labor of love that -it would seem as if Longfellow regarded such work an important part of -his poetic mission. At the present time there is no need to urge the -translator to ‘aggrandize his office.’ He does so cheerfully. Sometimes -it is done for him. Are we not told that Fitzgerald was a greater poet -than Omar Khayyám? In 1840 the office had not grown so great. - -This interpretative work by no means ended when Longfellow’s fame as a -creative poet was at its height and there was every incentive to build -for himself. When compiling (with Felton’s aid) the _Poets and Poetry -of Europe_ he translated many pieces for the volume. He gave years to -reproducing in English the majesty of Dante’s verse, counting himself -fortunate if his transcript, made in all reverence and love, approached -its great original. This disinterestedness in the exercise of his art -is so greatly to his honor that praise becomes impertinent. Catholic -in his attitude toward workers in the field of poesy, Longfellow -recognized the truth of the line - - Many the songs, but song is one. - -Longfellow’s early verse had all the requisites for popularity; it is -clear, melodious, simple in its lessons, tinged with sentiment and -melancholy, dashed with romantic color, and abounding in phrases which -catch the ear and pulsate in the brain. The poet voices the longings, -regrets, fears, aspirations, the restlessness, or the faith, which go -to make up the warp and woof of everyday life. An allegory, a moralized -legend, a song, a meditation, a ballad,--these are what we find in -turning the leaves of _Voices of the Night_ or the _Ballads_. Here -is a certain popular quality not to be attained by taking thought. -‘A Psalm of Life,’ ‘Flowers,’ ‘The Beleaguered City,’ ‘The Village -Blacksmith,’ ‘The Rainy Day,’ ‘Maidenhood,’ ‘Excelsior,’ ‘The Bridge,’ -‘The Day is Done,’ ‘Resignation,’ ‘The Builders,’ are a few among many -illustrations of the type of verse which carried Longfellow’s name into -every home where poetry is read. The range of emotions expressed is -of the simplest. There is feeling, but no thinking. The robust reader -who perchance has battened of late on sturdy diet, like _Fifine at the -Fair_, hardly knows what to make of these poems, so little resistance -do they offer to the mind. The meaning lies on the surface. But it -is no less true that their essence is poetical. The one thing never -lacking is the note of distinction. The human quality to be found in -such a poem as the ‘Footsteps of Angels’ almost overpowers the poetic -element. Nevertheless the poetry is there, and by virtue of this -Longfellow’s early work lives. - -Other poems show his scholar’s love for the past. They express the -natural longing felt by an inhabitant of a crude new land for countries -where romance lies thick because history is ancient. ‘The Belfry of -Bruges’ and ‘Nuremberg’ are examples. Moreover Longfellow’s ballads -have genuine quality. ‘The Skeleton in Armor’ illustrates his study of -Scandinavian literature. ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ is based on an -actual incident which came under his notice. The criticism reflecting -on this ballad because the poet had never seen the reef of Norman’s -Woe, is superfine. Longfellow was born and reared almost within a -stone’s throw of the Atlantic. His knowledge of the ocean began with -his first lessons in life. His sea poems are distinctive. ‘The Building -of the Ship,’ ‘The Fire of Driftwood,’ ‘Sir Humphrey Gilbert,’ ‘The -Secret of the Sea,’ ‘The Lighthouse,’ ‘Chrysaor,’ and ‘Seaweed,’ -whether or not they deserve the praise Henley gives them, will always -be accounted among Longfellow’s characteristic pieces. - -Two other works may be noted in this section: the _Poems on Slavery_ -and a play, _The Spanish Student_. The first of these, though academic, -shows how early Longfellow took his rank with the unpopular minority. -_The Spanish Student_, a play based on _La Gitanilla_ of Cervantes, was -written _con amore_, and ‘with a celerity of which I did not think -myself capable.’ Longfellow had great hopes of its success, though -he seems not to have been ambitious for a dramatic presentation. The -success was to come through the reader. _The Spanish Student_ shows -that Longfellow could have written good acting plays had he chosen -to submit to the irritations and rebuffs which are the inevitable -preliminary to dramatic good fortune. - - -VI - -_EVANGELINE, HIAWATHA, MILES STANDISH, TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN_ - -_Evangeline_ and _Hiawatha_ mark the climax of Longfellow’s -contemporary popularity and may be regarded as the principal bulwarks -of his fame. There is an anecdote to the effect that Hawthorne, to -whom the subject of Evangeline was proposed, was not attracted by it, -while Longfellow seized on it eagerly. Such was the divergence of their -genius. Longfellow’s mind always sought the fair uplands of thought, -checkered with alternate sunshine and shadow; it did not willingly -traverse deep ravines, gloomy and mysterious, or haunted groves such as -those about which Hawthorne’s spirit loved to keep. The instinct which -led the one poet to reject the narrative was as infallible as that -which led the other to appropriate it. - -The tale of Acadie is engrossing in its very nature, and whether told -in prose or verse must always invite, even chain, the attention. It -is dramatic without being melodramatic. The characters are not mere -‘persons’ of the drama, they are types. Evangeline will always stand -for something more than the figure of an unhappy Acadian girl bereft -of her lover. As Longfellow has painted her, she is the incarnation of -beauty, devotion, maidenly pride, self-abnegation. So too of the other -characters, Gabriel, old Basil, Benedict; each has that added strength -which a character conceived dramatically is bound to have if it shall -prove typical as well. - -Longfellow gave himself little anxiety about the historic difficulties -of the Acadian question. It was enough for him that these unhappy -people were carried away from their homes and that much misery ensued. -He painted the French Neutrals as a romancer must. Father Felician was -not sketched from the Abbé Le Loutre, nor was life in the actual Grand -Pré altogether idyllic. - -_Evangeline_ aroused interest in French-American history. For example, -Whewell wrote to Bancroft to say that he feared Longfellow had some -historical basis for the story and to ask for information. - -In the Plymouth idyl of the choleric little captain who believed -that the way to get a thing well done was to do it one’s self, and -who exemplified his theory by having his secretary make a proposal of -marriage for him, Longfellow made one of his most fortunate strokes. -_The Courtship of Miles Standish_ showed the poetic possibilities in -the harsh, dry annals of early colonial life. The wonder is that so few -adventurers have cared to follow the path indicated. - -Bound up with the story of Priscilla and John Alden is a handful of -poems to which Longfellow gave the collective title of ‘Birds of -Passage.’ Here are several fine examples of his art: ‘The Warden of -the Cinque-Ports,’ ‘Haunted Houses,’ ‘The Jewish Cemetery at Newport,’ -‘Oliver Basselin,’ ‘Victor Galbraith,’ ‘My Lost Youth,’ ‘The Discoverer -of the North Cape,’ and ‘Sandalphon.’ It is a question whether in -these eight poems we have not a small but well-nigh perfect Longfellow -anthology. Certainly no selection of his writings can pretend to be -characteristic which does not contain them. - -_Hiawatha_ was not intended for a poetic commentary on the manners -and customs of the North American Indians, though that impression -sometimes obtains. It is a free handling of Ojibway legends drawn from -Schoolcraft’s _Algic Researches_ and supplemented by other accounts of -Indian life. The grossness of the red man’s character, his cruelty, his -primitive views of cleanliness, are wisely kept in the background, -and his noble and picturesque qualities brought to the front. The -psychology is extremely simple. This Indian edda must be enjoyed for -its atmosphere of the forest, its childlike spirit, and its humor. -Hiawatha was a friend of animals (when he was not their enemy), and -understood them even better than writers of modern nature-books. One -does not need to be young again to enjoy the account of Hiawatha’s -fishing in company with his friend the squirrel. The sturgeon swallows -them both, and the squirrel helps Hiawatha get the canoe crossways in -the fish, a timely service in recognition of which (after both have -been rescued) he receives the honorable name of Tail-in-air. In fact, -the poem abounds in observations of animal life which as yet await the -sanction of John Burroughs. - -Taking a series of poems on the half-real, half-mythical King Olaf, -adding thereto a group of contrasting tales from Spanish, Italian, -Jewish, and American sources, assigning each narrative to an -appropriate character, binding the whole together with an Introduction, -Interludes, and a Conclusion, Longfellow produced the genial _Tales of -a Wayside Inn_. The device of the poem is old, but it can always be -given a new turn. Adapted to prose as well as verse, it may be used ‘in -little,’ as Hardy has done in _A Few Crusted Characters_, or in larger -form, as in _A Group of Noble Dames_. - -No secret was made of the fact that the ‘Wayside Inn’ was the ‘Red -Horse Inn’ of Sudbury, Massachusetts, or that the characters, the -Sicilian, the Poet, the Student, the Spanish Jew, the Musician, and the -Theologian, were real people, friends of Longfellow.[34] - -The reader who takes up _Tales of a Wayside Inn_ knows by instinct -that he may not look for the broad and leisurely treatment, the wealth -of beauty and harmony, which characterize _The Earthly Paradise_ of -Morris. That need not, however, prevent him from enjoying the _Tales_ -on quite sufficient grounds. The poems are often too brief; some -are mere anecdotes ‘finished just as they are fairly begun.’ We are -prepared for a more generous treatment. - -Though not written for that complex and formidable entity ‘the -child-mind,’ two poems in the collection, ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’ and -‘King Robert of Sicily,’ are beloved of school-children and dear to -the amateur elocutionist. The most original of the tales is ‘The Saga -of King Olaf,’ drawn from the _Heimskringla_, and appropriately put -into the lips of the Musician. It is a poem redolent of the sea and the -forest. The theme was congenial to Longfellow, who loved ‘the misty -world of the north, weird and wonderful.’ - -Prompted by the good fortune of _Tales of a Wayside Inn_, the poet was -led to make additions to it. A second part appeared in _Three Books of -Song_, a third part in _Aftermath_. With these fifteen additional tales -the three parts were then collected into a single volume. - - -VII - -_CHRISTUS, JUDAS MACCABÆUS, PANDORA, MICHAEL ANGELO_ - -As early as 1841 Longfellow had conceived the idea of an ‘elaborate -poem ... the theme of which would be the various aspects of Christendom -in the Apostolic, Middle, and Modern Ages.’ In 1851 _The Golden Legend_ -appeared, with no word to indicate that it was the second part of a -trilogy. Seventeen years more elapsed and _The New England Tragedies_ -came from the press, to be followed three years later by _The Divine -Tragedy_. The three parts were then arranged in chronological order and -the completed work given the title of _Christus, a Mystery_. - -One may guess why the first part of the trilogy was the last to -be published. A bard the most indubitably inspired might question -his power to meet the infinite requirements of so lofty a theme. -Longfellow’s _Divine Tragedy_ has received less than due meed of -praise. It has an austere beauty. If a reader can be moved by the -Scripture narrative, he can scarcely remain unmoved by this reverent -handling of the story of the Christ. Through many lines the poet -follows the Scriptural version almost to the letter, bending the text -only enough to throw it into metrical form. Often the dialogue seems -bald and the transitions abrupt because the poet allows himself the -least degree of liberty. This severity and repression in the treatment -are one source of that power which _The Divine Tragedy_ certainly has. - -Part two, _The Golden Legend_, is a retelling of the story of Prince -Henry of Hoheneck. Here, Longfellow reproduces with skill the light -and color of mediæval life, if not its darkness and diablerie. The -street-preaching, the miracle-play in the church, the revel of the -monks at Hirschau, and the lawless gayety of the pilgrims are all -painted with a clear and certain touch, but in colors almost too pale, -too delicate. Longfellow had not the courage or the taste to handle -these themes with the touch of almost brutal realism they seem to -require. - -The third part of the trilogy, _The New England Tragedies_, consists -of two plays, _John Endicott_ and _Giles Corey of the Salem Farms_, -one dealing with the persecution of the Quakers, the other with the -witchcraft delusion. The first is the better. Edith Christison’s -arraignment of Norton in the church, her trial, punishment, her return -to the colony at the risk of her life, and the release of the Quakers -by the king’s mandamus, followed by Endicott’s death, are vigorously -depicted. The character of the governor is finely drawn, and the -last scene between Bellingham and Endicott is a strong and moving -conception. As he bends over the dead man, Bellingham says:-- - - How placid and how quiet is his face, - Now that the struggle and the strife are ended! - Only the acrid spirit of the times - Corroded this true steel. Oh, rest in peace, - Courageous heart! Forever rest in peace! - -The companion play, _Giles Corey_, shows what has been already -observed, how little adapted Longfellow’s genius was for dealing with -psychological mysteries. He could understand the mental conditions and -sympathize with persecutors and victims, but he could not reproduce the -uncanny atmosphere enveloping the witchcraft tragedies. _Giles Corey_ -is a finished study of a theme which might have been developed into a -powerful play. It is profitable reading, yet if one would be carried -back into the horrors of that time he must go to Hawthorne’s ‘Young -Goodman Brown’ and not to _Giles Corey_. Poets are notorious for taking -liberties with the facts of history. But according to the late John -Fiske, the poetical conception of Cotton Mather as set forth in _The -New England Tragedies_ is much nearer truth than the popular conception -of the great Puritan minister based on the teachings of historians. - -The little five-act play, _Judas Maccabæus_, is a piece of careful -workmanship, like everything to which Longfellow put his hand, and the -scene between Antiochus and Máhala rises into passionate energy. _The -Masque of Pandora_ was more to Longfellow’s taste, and if it does not -satisfy the classical scholar, who is proverbially hard to please, -it remains an attractive setting of one of the most attractive of -mythological stories. - -The dramatic poem, _Michael Angelo_, though not usually accounted -Longfellow’s masterpiece, better deserves that rank than certain more -popular performances. Besides being a lovely example of his art, it is -the expression of his maturest thought. He kept it by him for years, -working on it with loving care, adding new scenes from time to time -and weighing critically the value of those already written. Finally he -put it to one side, and to show that he had not entirely carried out -his idea, the words ‘A Fragment’ were subjoined to the title. It was -published after his death. - -_Michael Angelo_ is not a play, but a series of dramatic incidents -from the life of the great sculptor, illustrating his character, his -thought, his work, his friendships. Many passages display a strength -not commonly associated with Longfellow’s poetic genius. Little is -wanting to the delineation of Michael Angelo to create the effect of -massiveness. From the first monologue where he sits in his studio, -musing over his picture of the ‘Last Judgment,’ to the midnight scene -where Vasari finds him working on the statue of the Dead Christ, the -effect is cumulative. The other characters are no less skilfully -wrought. Vittoria Colonna is a beautiful conception, lofty yet human. -Equally attractive with a more earthly loveliness is Julia Gonzaga, -her friend, she to whom one to-day was worth a thousand yesterdays. -Titian, Cellini, the Pope and his cardinals, Vasari, Sebastiano, the -old servant Urbino, and the aged monk at Monte Luca effectively sustain -the parts assigned them, and unite to bring into always stronger relief -the character of the unique genius whom Longfellow has made his central -figure. - - -VIII - -LAST WORKS - -The translation of Dante was a difficult task to which Longfellow gave -himself for years with something like consecration. It is satisfactory -or it is not, according to the point of view. He who holds that verse -can never be translated into verse, and that a poem suffers least -by being rendered in prose, will make no exception in Longfellow’s -case. On the other hand, the reader who is not, and who has neither -the opportunity nor the power to become a scholar in Italian, owes -Longfellow an inestimable debt of gratitude. The unpoetic accuracy of -which some complain counts for a virtue. The translation remains, with -all that can be said against it, the work of a poet. - -As age came on, Longfellow’s own verse, instead of losing in charm, -the rather increased. _Kéramos_, _Ultima Thule_, and _In the Harbor_ -contain many of his loveliest and most gracious poems. ‘Not to be -tuneless in old age’ was his happy fortune. - - * * * * * - -His skill in the sentimental, homely, and obviously moral has blinded -not a few readers to the larger aspects of Longfellow’s work. -One wearies, no doubt, of the ethical lesson that comes with the -inevitableness of fate. But there is no need of impatience, Longfellow -does not invariably preach. Besides, all tastes must be taken into -account. Many prefer the ethical lesson, unmistakably put. - -Had Longfellow been more rugged, and had he been content to end his -poems now and then with a question mark (figuratively speaking) instead -of a full stop, there would have been much talk about the ‘depth of -his meaning;’ and had he been frankly suggestive on tabooed topics, -we should have heard a world of chatter about ‘the largeness of his -view’ and the surprising degree in which he was in ‘advance of his -time.’ Doubtless he lacked brute strength. Whitman could have spared -him a little of his own surplus, and neither poet would have been -the worse for the transfer. Nevertheless Longfellow had abundance of -power exerted in his own way, which was not the way of the world. What -preposterous criticism is that of Frederic Harrison, who characterizes -_Evangeline_ as ‘goody-goody dribble’! - -Perhaps Longfellow should be most praised for his exquisite taste. He -was refined to the finger-tips, a gentleman not alone in every fibre of -his being but in every line of his work. The poet of the fireside and -the people was an aristocrat after all. Generations of culture seem to -be packed into his verses. In a country where so much is flamboyant, -boastful, restless, and crude, the influence of such a man is of the -loftiest and most benignant sort. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [29] The first volume was printed in 1865 and sent to Italy in - commemoration of the six hundredth anniversary of Dante’s - birth. - - [30] _The Divine Tragedy_, _The Golden Legend_, and _The New - England Tragedies_ reprinted in order as parts of a trilogy. - - [31] Lectures _On Translating Homer_. - - [32] _Prose Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough_, p. 40. - - [33] Holmes: _Pages from an Old Volume of Life_. - - [34] Luigi Monti, T. W. Parsons, H. W. Wales, Israel Edrehi, Ole - Bull, Daniel Treadwell. - - - - -IX - -_John Greenleaf Whittier_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =W. S. Kennedy=: _John Greenleaf Whittier, his Life, Genius, and - Writings_, 1882. - - =S. T. Pickard=: _Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier_, - 1894. - - =Richard Burton=: _John Greenleaf Whittier_, ‘Beacon - Biographies,’ 1901. - - =T. W. Higginson=: _John Greenleaf Whittier_, ‘English Men of - Letters,’ 1902. - - =G. R. Carpenter=: _John Greenleaf Whittier_, ‘American Men of - Letters,’ 1903. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -John Greenleaf Whittier was born at East Haverhill, Massachusetts, on -December 17, 1807. His father, John Whittier, a farmer, was noted for -probity, sound judgment, and great physical strength. A man of few -words, he always spoke to the point, as when, in relation to public -charities with which he had officially to do, he said: ‘There are the -Lord’s poor and the Devil’s poor; there ought to be a distinction made -between them by the overseers of the poor.’ He had imperfect sympathy -with his son’s literary aspirations, but it were unjust to say that he -was wholly opposed to them. - -Whatever lack there may have been on this score was abundantly made -up to the youth by his beautiful and saintly mother. Abigail (Hussey) -Whittier was her husband’s junior by twenty-one years. From her the -poet inherited his brilliant black eyes, a physical trait (mistakenly) -supposed to have been derived from the old colonial minister, Stephen -Bachiler, that enterprising and turbulent spirit who came to America -at the age of seventy, founded cities, disputed the authority of the -clergy, and finally astonished friend and enemy alike by marrying for -the third time at the age of eighty-nine. - -Young Whittier was apparently destined to the toilsome life of his -farmer ancestors. He suffered under the ‘toughening process’ to which -New England country lads were formerly subjected, and became in -consequence a lifelong valetudinarian. - -With his frail physique and uncertain health the ‘Quaker Poet’ affords -a marked contrast, not alone to his own father, but to that mighty -ancestor Thomas Whittier, founder of the American family, who at -sixty-eight years of age was able to do his share in hewing the oak -timbers for a new house in which he proposed to pass his declining -days. The building was erected about 1688. Thomas Whittier enjoyed the -use of it until his death in 1696. Five generations of Whittiers were -harbored beneath its roof, and here the poet was born. Although not a -Quaker himself, Thomas Whittier was a friend of the Friends, and for -taking the part of certain unlicensed exhorters was for a time deprived -of his rights as a freeman. - -Whittier was early a reader and soon devoured the contents of his -father’s slender library. So insatiable was his thirst for books that -he would walk miles to borrow a volume of biography or travel. At the -age of fourteen he became fascinated with the poems of Burns, and under -their stimulus began to make rhymes himself.[35] On his first visit to -Boston he bought a copy of Shakespeare. Scott’s novels he borrowed, to -read them delightedly but with a troubled conscience. - -His poetic aspirations were encouraged by his elder sister, Mary, who, -without Whittier’s knowledge, sent the verses entitled ‘The Exile’s -Departure’ to the Newburyport ‘Free Press,’ a short-lived journal -edited by young William Lloyd Garrison. They appeared in the issue -of June 8, 1826. Whittier has described his emotions on first seeing -himself in print. The paper was thrown to him by the news-carrier. ‘My -uncle and I were mending fences. I took up the sheet, and was surprised -and overjoyed to see my lines in the “Poet’s Corner.” I stood gazing at -them in wonder, and my uncle had to call me several times to my work -before I could recover myself.’ - -Other poems were offered and accepted. Curious to see his contributor, -Garrison drove over from Newburyport to the Whittier farm. The bashful -country boy could with difficulty be persuaded to meet his guest. Then -began a lifelong friendship not uncheckered by differences without -which friendship itself lacks zest. - -Garrison urged on Whittier’s parents the importance of giving the -youth an education. Backed up by the influence of A. W. Thayer, editor -of the Haverhill ‘Gazette,’ who offered to take the lad into his own -home, Whittier got his father’s consent to his attending the newly -established Haverhill Academy. He paid for one term of six months by -making slippers, an art he learned from one of the farm hands, and for -another term by teaching school, which seemed to him a less enviable -mode of life than cobbling. - -The favor accorded his verse stimulated invention. During 1827–28 he -published, under assumed names, nearly a hundred poems in the Haverhill -‘Gazette’ alone. A plan for bringing out a collection of these fugitive -pieces under the title of _Poems of Adrian_ came, however, to nothing. - -Garrison, who had been doing editorial work in Boston for the Colliers, -publishers of ‘The Philanthropist’ and ‘The American Manufacturer,’ -advised their getting Whittier to take his place. Whittier edited the -‘Manufacturer’ from January to August, 1829, when he was summoned home -by the illness of his father. But he had had a taste of journalism and -politics, and relished both. From January to July, 1830, he edited -the Haverhill ‘Gazette.’ His newspaper work made him acquainted with -George Prentice of ‘The New England Review,’ published in Hartford. -When Prentice left Connecticut for Kentucky, where he was to spend six -months and write a campaign life of Henry Clay, he urged the owners -of the ‘Review’ to engage Whittier as his substitute. Whittier was -responsible for the conduct of the paper for a year and a half (July, -1830, to January, 1832). In spite of many drawbacks, his father’s -death, his own illness, a disappointment in love, the period of his -Hartford residence was the happiest and the most stimulating he had -yet known. He printed his first volume, _Legends of New England_, a -medley of prose and verse, edited _The Literary Remains of John G. C. -Brainard_ (the sketch of Brainard’s life prefixed to the volume throws -much light on Whittier’s reading), and brought out the narrative poem -_Moll Pitcher_, a story of the once famous ‘Lynn Pythoness.’ - -On his return to Haverhill he played his part in local politics -and was talked of for Congress. Somewhat later he was drawn into -the anti-slavery movement and for the next twenty-seven years this -was his life. He was a member of the legislature in 1835, and was -reëlected the next year; but in general terms it may be said that -in publishing _Justice and Expediency_, and in uniting himself with -the small, unpopular, and exasperating party of Abolitionists, he -sacrificed hope of political advancement. He gave to the cause time, -health, reputation, and when he had it to give, money. In company with -Abolitionist leaders and orators he encountered mobs and speculated -philosophically on the chance of losing his life. - -In 1837 he acted as a secretary to the American Anti-Slavery Society -in New York. From 1838 to 1840 he edited ‘The Pennsylvania Freeman,’ -published in Philadelphia. During an Abolitionist convention, -Pennsylvania Hall, in which were the offices of the ‘Freeman,’ was -sacked and burned by a pro-slavery mob. Whittier, disguised in a wig -and a long overcoat, mingled with the rioters and contrived to save -a few of his papers. It was a more dangerous rabble than that he -encountered during the George Thomson riot at Concord, New Hampshire, -three years earlier. Whittier once remarked that he never really feared -for his life, but that he had no mind to a coat of tar and feathers. - -A true son of Essex, he soon wearied of city life. ‘I would rather live -an obscure New England farmer,’ he said. ‘I would rather see the sunset -light streaming through the valley of the Merrimac than to look out -for many months upon brick walls, and Sam Weller’s “werry beautiful -landscape of chimney-pots.”’ - -He really had no choice in the matter, having been warned to give up -editorial work if he would keep his precarious hold on life. He obeyed -the warning. But with Whittier journalism was a disease. He had a -relapse in 1844, when he took charge of the ‘Middlesex Standard’ of -Lowell, and again, in 1845–46, when he was virtual editor of the ‘Essex -Transcript’ in Amesbury. - -No restriction was placed on his doing work at home. He wrote -unceasingly, prose and verse, reaching his literary audience through -the ‘Democratic Review’ and his audience of reformers through Bailey’s -paper, ‘The National Era,’ both published in Washington. Whittier was -corresponding editor of the ‘Era’ from 1847 to 1850, and printed in its -columns, besides political articles, such now famous poems as ‘Maud -Muller,’ ‘Ichabod,’ ‘Tauler,’ and ‘The Chapel of the Hermits.’ - -The list of Whittier’s chief publications up to the year 1857 contains -seventeen titles: _Legends of New England_, 1831; _Moll Pitcher_, -1832 (revised edition 1840); _Justice and Expediency_, 1833; _Mogg -Megone_, 1836; _Poems written during the Progress of the Abolition -Question_, etc., 1837 (unauthorized issue); _Poems_, 1838; _Lays of my -Home and Other Poems_, 1843; _The Stranger in Lowell_, 1845; _Voices -of Freedom_, 1846; _The Supernaturalism of New England_, 1847; -_Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal_, 1849; _Poems_, 1849;[36] _Old -Portraits and Modern Sketches_, 1850; _Songs of Labor and Other Poems_, -1850; _The Chapel of the Hermits and Other Poems_, 1853; _Literary -Recreations and Miscellanies_, 1854; _The Panorama and Other Poems_, -1856. - -The founding of the ‘Atlantic Monthly’ (1857) gave Whittier a more -assured place. His work was sought and the pay was generous. He became -an overseer of Harvard College in 1858. In 1860 the college made him a -Master of Arts, and in 1866 a Doctor of Laws. - -His home for many years was in Amesbury, the farm at East Haverhill -having been sold in 1836. After the death of his mother and younger -sister he passed much of his time with kinsfolk at the house known as -‘Oak Knoll,’ in Danvers. For all his admiration of women, Whittier -never married. He enjoyed allusions to a supposititious Mrs. Whittier. -Writing to his niece, Mrs. Pickard, about some friend who was unhappy -over political defeat, Whittier said: ‘I told him I had been in the -same predicament ... and got abused worse than he did, for I was -charged with ill-treating my wife!’ - -Whittier was a birthright member of the Society of Friends and -influential in their councils. His advice was much sought and freely -given in terms of blended modesty, good sense, and humor. - -During the last twenty years of his life Whittier published the -following volumes: _Home Ballads and Poems_, 1860; _In War Time and -Other Poems_, 1864; _National Lyrics_, 1865; _Snow-Bound_, 1866; _The -Tent on the Beach and Other Poems_, 1867; _Among the Hills and Other -Poems_, 1869; _Ballads of New England_, 1870; _Miriam and Other Poems_, -1871; _The Pennsylvania Pilgrim and Other Poems_, 1872; _Mabel Martin_, -1874; _Hazel-Blossoms_, 1875; _The Vision of Echard and Other Poems_, -1878; _The King’s Missive and Other Poems_, 1881; _The Bay of Seven -Islands and Other Poems_, 1883; _Saint Gregory’s Guest and Recent -Poems_, 1886; _At Sundown_, 1892. - -The honors accorded him on his seventieth, eightieth, and eighty-fourth -anniversaries gave Whittier much happiness. He was especially pleased -to learn that the bells of St. Boniface, in Winnipeg, Manitoba -(celebrated in his ‘Red River Voyageur’), were rung for him at midnight -of December 17, 1891. Said the poet in his letter to Archbishop Tâché: -‘Such a delicate and beautiful tribute has deeply moved me. I shall -never forget it.’ - -Nothing was left undone that the tenderest love and wisest solicitude -could do for his comfort. His last illness was brief. He died at -Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, on September 7, 1892. - - -II - -WHITTIER’S CHARACTER - -Whittier’s shyness was proverbial. Those who knew him also knew -that beneath that shyness was a masterful spirit. Evasion and -inconclusiveness on the part of those with whom he dealt would not -avail. Whittier wanted to know where public men stood and for what they -stood. A politician himself, he understood the art of dealing with -politicians. To a certain candidate he said: ‘Thee cannot expect the -votes of our people unless thee speak more plainly.’ Being in great -need of the votes of ‘our people,’ the candidate was compelled to speak -at once and to use the words Whittier put into his mouth. - -Another possessed of like skill in controlling men might have grown -despotic. Not so Whittier. Tactful and conciliatory, no grain of -selfishness was to be found in his composition. He worked for the cause -alone. - -His physical courage, of which there are abundant illustrations, -was fully equal to his moral courage. The nerve required to face a -disciplined enemy, as in war, is always admirable; one would not wish -to underestimate it. But it is a type of courage not difficult to -comprehend. A glamour hangs about the battlefield. Men are carried -on by the esprit de corps. They do wonders and marvel at their -own courage afterwards. Facing a mob is another matter. A mob is -an assassin; the last thing it wants is fair play. Whittier had no -experiences like those to which Bailey and Garrison were subjected, but -he had enough to try his mettle. - -He was one of the most modest of men, holding his achievements, -literary and otherwise, at far lower estimate than did the public. To -an anxious inquirer Whittier said that he did not think ‘Maud Muller’ -worth serious analysis. He asked for criticism on his verses, and was -not slow to act upon it when given. His open-mindedness is shown in -the way he accepted Lowell’s suggestion about the refrain of ‘Skipper -Ireson’s Ride.’ He defended himself when the criticism touched his -motives or impugned his love of truth. Charged with having boasted that -his story of ‘Barbara Frietchie’ would live until it got beyond reach -of correction, Whittier replied: ‘Those who know me will bear witness -that I am not in the habit of boasting of anything whatever, least -of all of congratulating myself upon a doubtful statement outliving -the possibility of correction.... I have no pride of authorship to -interfere with my allegiance to truth.’ - -He was a stanch friend, and a helpful neighbor. His filial piety was -deep--no trait of his character was more pronounced. He was the most -devoted of sons, the best of brothers. - -The seriousness of Whittier’s temper and mind was relieved by a keen -sense of humor which found expression in many engaging ways. His -letters written in young manhood are at times almost boisterously -mirthful. His humor grew subdued as he became older, but it never lost -its charm. Those who were nearest him realized how much it contributed -to making him the most companionable of men. - - -III - -THE LITERARY CRAFTSMAN - -‘I have left one bad rhyme ... to preserve my well known character in -that respect,’ says Whittier in a letter to Fields, his publisher. The -charge of laxity in rhymes was the one most often brought against him. -He labored under two capital disadvantages; he was self-taught and he -wrote always for a moral purpose. His objection to reprinting _Mogg -Megone_ grew out of the feeling, not that it was bad poetry,--though -he had no delusions about its artistic value,--but that it was not -calculated to do good. Ethics, rather than art, were uppermost in his -thought. There has never been question of his native power. He could -be exquisitely felicitous, but, having acquired the habit of writing -for a cause, of sacrificing nicety of phrase for vigor of thought -and rapidity of utterance, being eager always to strike a blow at -the critical moment, he found it difficult to write with a dominant -artistic motive. He wrote better (technically speaking) the older he -grew. It is difficult to realize as we listen to the rich strains of -his later years that Whittier could have been as inharmonious as he -often was in the first period of his poetic life. He confessed his -defect. To Fields he once said: ‘It’s lucky that other folks’ ears are -not so sensitive as thine.’ - -His variety of metres, if not great, was sufficiently ample to preclude -the feeling of sameness. His verse never comes laden with scholarly -suggestion in rhythm or thought, with the faint sweet echoes of -old-time poetry, as does Longfellow’s. Whittier was not ‘literary,’ -though he made a noble addition to the literature of his country. - -Whittier’s prose has been ignored rather than underestimated. It is -clear and forceful, often impassioned, and sometimes eloquent. Whether -a reputation could be based on it is another matter. Certainly it has -not been accorded the popular favor it deserves. Among a thousand -readers, for example, who know _Snow-Bound_ there are possibly two or -three who have read _Margaret Smith’s Journal_. - -Of the seven prose sketches in _Legends of New England_ not one was -thought by the author worth preserving. He also suppressed much of the -contents of the two volumes published some fifteen years after the -_Legends_. Both these later books, _The Stranger in Lowell_ and _The -Supernaturalism of New England_, ought to be reprinted as they came -first from Whittier’s hand. - -_The Stranger in Lowell_, a volume of more or less related essays, -is in part a record of impressions made on the author during a -brief residence in the new manufacturing town by the Merrimac. The -extraordinary growth of ‘The City of a Day’ was then, and is still, -a legitimate cause for wonder. All the eighteen papers are readable, -and that entitled ‘The Yankee Zincali’ is a little classic. Whittier’s -next volume of prose, _The Supernaturalism of New England_, consists of -nine chapters on witches, wizards, ghosts, apparitions, haunted houses, -charms, and the like. It is rather a wide survey of the subject, -from the Indian powahs to the Irish Presbyterians who settled in New -Hampshire in 1720, and brought with them, ‘among other strange matters, -potatoes and fairies.’ Whittier dwells on these traditions of his -country with deep interest and sets them forth with no little humor. It -is a fault of the book that he does not dwell on them at greater length. - -_Leaves from Margaret Smith’s Journal_ is an admirable study of -colonial New England in 1678. The style is sweet, the narrative -flowing, the characters, many of them historical, are consistent and -lifelike, and the tone of delicate irony running through the book -is most engaging. Genuinely illuminating to the student of manners -are such passages in the journal as those describing the ordination -of Mr. Brock at Reading, the meeting at the inn with a son of Mr. -Increase Mather, ‘a pert talkative lad’ abounding in anecdotes of the -miraculous, the antics of Mr. Corbet’s negro boy Sam, and the encounter -on the way back to Boston with the good old deacon under the influence -of flip. A strong and engrossing plot might have made the book more -popular, as it might also have been inconsistent with the artlessness -of what purports to be a young girl’s journal. - -_Old Portraits and Modern Sketches_ is a volume of character studies -of ancient worthies (such as Bunyan, Ellwood, Baxter, Marvell) and of -two or three moderns (like William Leggett, to whom Whittier pays a -generous tribute). _Literary Recreations and Miscellanies_ consists of -a reprint of material used in earlier books, together with a group of -reviews and other papers. - - -IV - -NARRATIVE AND LEGENDARY VERSE - -Whittier’s instinct drew him irresistibly to native themes. He believed -that the American poet should write about America. ‘New England is -full of Romance,’ he had said in his sketch of Brainard. ‘The great -forest which our fathers penetrated--the red men--their struggle and -their disappearance--the Powwow and the War-dance--the savage inroad -and the English sally--the tale of superstition, and the scenes of -Witchcraft,--all these are rich materials of poetry.’ And it is safe to -assume that Whittier never questioned the wisdom of his own choice of -subjects, though he was often dissatisfied with the treatment. - -Much of Whittier’s early verse died a natural death. More ought in -his opinion to have done so. He marvelled at the ‘feline tenacity of -life’ exhibited by certain poems and thought it flat contradiction of -the theory of the survival of the fittest. He destroyed every copy -of _Legends of New England_ that he could get his hands on. He would -have been glad to suppress _Mogg Megone_. ‘Is there no way to lay the -ghosts of unlucky rhymes?’ he asked, when the question was raised of -reprinting the story in the ‘blue and gold’ volumes of 1857. It had -appeared in the first collected edition (1849), and again in 1870; but -when the definitive edition was published (1888), _Mogg Megone_ was -consigned to ‘the limbo of an appendix,’ and printed in type small -enough to make the reading a torture. - -The plot is imaginary, but the characters are for the most part -historical. The outlaw Bonython sells his daughter to the Saco -chief Hegone, or, as he was commonly called, Mogg Megone. The girl -murders the savage as he lies drunk in her father’s hut. For Mogg had -boasted of killing her seducer. She flies to the settlement of the -Norridgewock Indians to confess to the Jesuit Sebastian Ralle, and is -repulsed by the angry priest, whose plans are thwarted by Megone’s -untimely death. Wandering about in agony, she sees the attack by the -English on Norridgewock, when Ralle was shot at the foot of the cross, -and later is found by Castine and his men, dead in the forest. The poem -is spirited and abounds in incident, but it is melodramatic. It lacks -the magic of Whittier’s art. Nevertheless he unjustly depreciated it. - -A better performance is ‘The Bridal of Pennacook,’ with its strongly -marked characters of Passaconaway, Weetamoo, and Winnepurkit, its -contrasting pictures of the rich Merrimac valley and the wild Saugus -marshes. Along with this story of Indian life may be read ‘The -Fountain’ and the musical stanzas of the ‘Funeral Tree of the Sokokis.’ -‘The Truce of Piscataqua’ and ‘Nauhaught, the Deacon’ are later poems -illustrating Indian character. - -Living in what had been for many years one of the border towns of -Massachusetts, Whittier was naturally drawn to themes, partly historic, -partly legendary, touching the struggles between French, English, and -Indians. ‘Pentucket’ commemorates Hertel de Rouville’s night attack on -Haverhill. ‘St. John,’ a ballad of Acadia, describes the sack of La -Tour’s fortress by his rival, D’Aulnay. ‘Mary Garvin’ and ‘The Ranger’ -are ‘border’ ballads. - -Now and then he rhymes ‘a wild and wondrous story,’ such as ‘The -Garrison of Cape Ann,’ which he found in the _Magnalia Christi_:-- - - Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the dual life of old, - Inward, grand with awe and reverence; outward, mean and coarse and cold; - Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull and vulgar clay, - Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web of hodden gray. - -A number of the poems turn on the witchcraft persecutions: ‘Mabel -Martin,’ ‘The Witch of Wenham,’ and the fine ‘Prophecy of Samuel -Sewall.’ In _The Tent on the Beach_ are two more: ‘The Wreck of the -Rivermouth’ and ‘The Changeling.’ - -Whittier was always ready to speak on the injustice of injustice. His -Quaker ancestors used to receive gifts of forty stripes save one. They -were martyrs for the cause of religious liberty. And the sufferings -of the New England Quakers was a subject always to the poet’s hand. -He contemplated the wrongs that had been righted and was grateful -therefor; but it was a part of his mission to teach his readers what -progress had been made since the days in which state and church united -to persecute a harmless if sometimes extravagant people. The lesson -may be found in such poems as ‘How the Women went from Dover’ and ‘The -King’s Missive.’ Whittier knew that injustice is always ridiculous, -and a grim humor plays at times about his treatment of events in that -dreadful day, as in the story of Thomas Macy. The most characteristic -setting of his general theme is to be found in the spirited ballad of -‘Cassandra Southwick.’ The incident is told dramatically by the heroine -herself, but the passion which glows through the verse is true Whittier. - - -V - -_VOICES OF FREEDOM_, _SONGS OF LABOR_, _IN WAR TIME_ - -The militant note in Whittier’s verse was sounded early. In 1832, when -he was twenty-five years old, he wrote the stanzas ‘To William Lloyd -Garrison.’ They were followed by ‘Toussaint L’Ouverture’ (1833), ‘The -Slave-Ships’ (1834), ‘The Hunters of Men’ and ‘Stanzas for the Times’ -(1835), ‘Clerical Oppressors’ (1836), and the stinging ‘Pastoral -Letter’ (1837). He was now fairly embarked on his mission. - -The brunt of his attack fell on supine Northern politicians, clerical -apologists, and anxious business men who feared agitation might injure -their Southern trade. Nothing was more abhorrent to Whittier than -traffic in human flesh. He marvelled that it was not abhorrent to every -one, and strove with all his power to make it so. America, in his -belief, was a by-word among the nations, forever prating of ‘liberty’ -while she bought and sold slaves. - -As he was the assailant of timid vote-seekers, money-getters, and -ministers who defended slavery ‘on scriptural grounds,’ so was Whittier -the eulogist of all who made sacrifices for the cause, or who, like -‘Randolph of Roanoke,’ a man with every traditional motive to cling to -the peculiar institution, testified against it. _Voices of Freedom_ -is a record of the guerilla warfare which Whittier waged during forty -years against slavery. With the additions he made to it in the progress -of the struggle, it became not only the largest division of his work -but one of the most notable. The history of Abolitionism is written -here. ‘The Pastoral Letter’ was Whittier’s response to the body of -Congregational ministers who deprecated the discussion of slavery as -tending to make trouble in the churches. ‘Massachusetts to Virginia’ -was called out by Latimer’s case. ‘Texas,’ ‘Faneuil Hall,’ and the -lines ‘To a Southern Statesman’ are a protest against the annexation of -territory ‘sufficient for six new slave states.’ ‘For Righteousness’ -Sake’ was inscribed to friends ‘under arrest for treason against the -slave power.’ The fine closing stanza deserves to be better known:-- - - God’s ways seem dark, but, soon or late, - They touch the shining hills of day; - The evil cannot brook delay, - The good can well afford to wait. - Give ermined knaves their hour of crime; - Ye have the future grand and great, - The safe appeal of Truth to Time! - -‘The Kansas Emigrants’ celebrates the Western advance, the coming of -the new Pilgrims, armed with the Bible and free schools. ‘Le Marais -du Cygne’ was written on hearing of the Kansas massacre in May, 1858. -‘The Quakers are Out,’ a campaign song (not included in the collected -writings), celebrates the Republican victory in Pennsylvania on the eve -of the National election:-- - - Away with misgiving--away with all doubt, - For Lincoln goes in, when the Quakers are out! - -Not the least notable among these poems is ‘The Summons,’ in which -the poet contrasts the quiet of summer with the distant tumult of -approaching war, and his knowledge of his place in the approaching -struggle with consciousness of his inability to act. - -The Voices of Freedom are often harsh and discordant. Lines were -written in hot haste and sent to press before the ink had time to -dry. The needs of the moment were imperative. There was little time -to correct and no time to polish. Had Whittier possessed a lyric gift -approximating that of Hugo or Swinburne, how wonderful must have been -his contribution to our literature. For the cause was great and his -devotion single. Much of the verse, however, is journalism. - -He rises easily to poetic heights. ‘Massachusetts to Virginia’ has a -magnificent swing and pulsates with passion. When Webster’s defection -spread anger, consternation, and grief through the ranks of the party -of Freedom, Whittier penned the burning stanzas to which he gave the -title ‘Ichabod.’ This anti-slavery poem was published in _Songs of -Labor_, and is justly accounted one of the loftiest expressions of -Whittier’s genius. - -_In War Time and Other Poems_ records the anxieties, fears, hopes, and -exultations incident to the great conflict between North and South. -Says the poet:-- - - ‘... our voices take - A sober tone; our very household songs - Are heavy with a nation’s griefs and wrongs; - And innocent mirth is chastened for the sake - Of the brave hearts that nevermore shall beat, - The eyes that smile no more, the unreturning feet!’ - -The volume contains ‘Barbara Frietchie,’ perhaps the most popular -ballad of the war, based on an incident told to Whittier by Mrs. -Southworth, the novelist. One must reconstruct the times to comprehend -the extraordinary effect produced by this dramatic little incident. -Iconoclasts have made havoc with the story. If their points are well -taken, we have one proof more of the superiority of legend over history -for poetic purposes. Other noteworthy poems in this volume are ‘Thy -Will be Done’ and the magnificent hymn ‘Ein Feste Burg ist Unser Gott.’ - - We wait beneath the furnace blast - The pangs of transformation; - Not painlessly doth God recast - And mould anew the nation. - Hot burns the fire - Where wrongs expire; - Nor spares the hand - That from the land - Uproots the ancient evil. - - -VI - -_SNOW-BOUND_, _TENT ON THE BEACH_, _PENNSYLVANIA PILGRIM_, _VISION OF -ECHARD_ - -The volume of 1860, _Home Ballads and Poems_, contained two perfect -examples of Whittier’s art, namely, ‘My Playmate’ and ‘Telling the -Bees.’ To inquire what far-off experiences in the poet’s life prompted -the making of these exquisite ‘ballads,’ as Whittier called them, were -idle, poets being proverbially given to the use of the imagination. -The music of the dark pines on Ramoth Hill could be no sweeter than -it is. The theme of either poem is common enough among bards, and -perennially attractive. ‘My Playmate’ and ‘Telling the Bees,’ together -with ‘Amy Wentworth’ and ‘The Countess,’ all show, though in varying -degrees, how pregnant with poetic suggestion were the scenes amid which -Whittier passed his life. Even that urban and aristocratic little poem -‘Amy Wentworth’ derives half its charm from the world of associations -called up by the fog wreaths, the pebbled beach, and the sweet brier -blooming on Kittery-side. - -The above-named poems, together with ‘The Barefoot Boy’ and ‘In -School-Days,’ suggest a phase of Whittier’s genius which found complete -expression in the ‘winter idyl,’ a picture of life in the old East -Haverhill homestead. - -_Snow-Bound_ was published in 1866. What the author thought of it we -now know: ‘If it were not mine I should call it pretty good.’ The -public decided for itself and bought copies enough to fatten Whittier’s -lean purse with ten thousand dollars. The enviously-inclined should -remember that the poet was nearly sixty when this happened to him. -A twelvemonth later _The Tent on the Beach_ was published and began -selling at the rate of a thousand copies a day. Whittier wrote to -Fields: ‘This will never do; the swindle is awful; Barnum is a saint to -us.’ - -Readers who find difficulty in comprehending the enthusiasm that -_Snow-Bound_ evoked must reflect that there are strange creatures in -the world who actually like winter. For them Whittier had a particular -message. He has reproduced the atmosphere of the New England landscape -under storm-cloud and falling snow with utmost precision. No important -detail is wanting, and no detail is emphasized to the injury of -the general effect. The exactness and simplicity of the touch are -wholly admirable. The result is as exquisite as the means to it are -unostentatious. - -_Snow-Bound_ is a favorite because of its homely, sweet realism, -because of the poetic glow thrown on old-fashioned scenes, because of -the variety of moods (which, lying between the extremes of playfulness -and deepest feeling, shade naturally from one to the next); and because -of the reverential spirit, the high confidence and trust. The poem -is autobiographical, but it needs no ‘key’ to give it interest. The -characters are types. - -In _The Tent on the Beach_ it is related how a poet,[37] a publisher -(who in this instance, contrary to the traditions of his race, is a -friend of the poet), and a traveller beguile an evening at the seaside -with the reading of manuscript verses from the publisher’s portfolio. -The tales, eleven in number, with a closing lyric on ‘The Worship -of Nature,’ are too uniformly sombre. The one called ‘The Maids of -Attitash’ is blithe enough, but the gray tints need even more relief. - -Whittier’s power in descriptions of sea and sky is displayed at its -best in this volume. One does not soon forget this stanza from the -prelude:-- - - Sometimes a cloud, with thunder black, - Stooped low upon the darkening main, - Piercing the waves along its track - With the slant javelins of rain. - And when west-wind and sunshine warm - Chased out to sea its wrecks of storm, - They saw the prismy hues in thin spray showers - Where the green buds of waves burst into white froth-flowers! - -Even better is the description of the breakers seen by twilight:-- - - ... trampling up the sloping sand, - In lines outreaching far and wide, - The white-maned billows swept to land, - Dim seen across the gathering shade, - A vast and ghostly cavalcade. - -The change from the mist and confusion of the brief tempest to the -clear after effect was never better rendered:-- - - Suddenly seaward swept the squall; - The low sun smote through cloudy rack; - The Shoals stood clear in the light, and all - The trend of the coast lay hard and black. - -_Among the Hills_, _Miriam_, and _The Pennsylvania Pilgrim_ come next -in order of publication. The first is a romance of New England country -life; the second is ‘Oriental and purely fiction;’ the third, partly -historical and partly imaginative, is an attempt to reconstruct life in -Penn’s colony towards the close of the Seventeenth Century. Whittier -said of _The Pennsylvania Pilgrim_: ‘It is as long as _Snow-Bound_, -and better, but nobody will find it out.’ The poet felt that too -little had been said in praise of the humanizing influences at work in -the colonies by the Schuylkill and the Delaware. The Pilgrim Father -here celebrated is Daniel Pastorius, who planted the settlement of -Germantown. He was the first American abolitionist. The poem abounds -in happy pictures of scenery, and in tenderly humorous sketches of the -quaint characters who found peace, shelter, and, above all, toleration, -under the beneficent rule of Pastorius. - -_The Vision of Echard_ will serve to introduce Whittier’s distinctively -religious poems. A characteristic performance, it admirably illustrates -his manner, diction, cast of thought. First, the scenes of great -natural beauty, where historical memories are overlaid and blended -with ideas of ceremonial pomp associated with formal religion; and -then, projected on this rich background, the dreamer and his dream. The -blended walls of sapphire in Echard’s vision ‘blazed with the thought -of God:’-- - - Ye bow to ghastly symbols, - To cross and scourge and thorn; - Ye seek his Syrian manger - Who in the heart is born. - - * * * * * - - O blind ones, outward groping, - The idle quest forego; - Who listens to His inward voice - Alone of him shall know. - - * * * * * - - A light, a guide, a warning, - A presence ever near, - Through the deep silence of the flesh - I reach the inward ear. - - * * * * * - - The stern behest of duty, - The doom-book open thrown, - The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear, - Are with yourselves alone. - -Whittier did not include ‘The Preacher’ among his religious poems. -This fine picture of the ‘great awakening’ might be so classified. -Also ‘The Chapel of the Hermits,’ ‘Tauler,’ and yet others. In general -the religious poems consist of meditations on sacred characters and -scenes, poetic settings of Biblical narrative, and reflective poems in -which Whittier gives voice to phases of his spiritual life, and above -all to a faith so broad that the distinctions of sect and creed are -lost in its catholic charity. ‘Questions of Life,’ ‘The Over-Heart,’ -‘Trinitas,’ ‘The Shadow and the Light,’ and ‘The Eternal Goodness’ are -the expressions of this lofty and inspiring side of his poetic genius. - -Whittier’s singing voice lost none of its flexibility but rather gained -as time went on. ‘The Henchman’ was a striking performance for a man of -seventy. ‘It is not exactly a Quakerly piece, nor is it didactic, and -it has no moral that I know of,’ observed Whittier. He must have known -that it had the moral of exquisite beauty. Indeed he admitted that it -was ‘not unpoetical.’ - -His last utterance was a little group of poems, _At Sundown_, having -for the controlling thought the close of life’s day. One of them, -‘Burning Drift-Wood,’ was the poet’s farewell; and with the quotation -of four of its stanzas we may bring to an end this brief survey of -Whittier’s work. - - What matter that it is not May, - That birds have flown, and trees are bare, - That darker grows the shortening day, - And colder blows the wintry air! - - The wrecks of passion and desire, - The castles I no more rebuild, - May fitly feed my drift-wood fire, - And warm the hands that age has chilled. - - * * * * * - - I know the solemn monotone - Of waters calling unto me; - I know from whence the airs have blown - That whisper of the Eternal Sea. - - As low my fires of drift-wood burn, - I hear that sea’s deep sound increase. - And, fair in sunset light, discern - Its mirage-lifted Isles of Peace. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [35] Whittier’s Autobiographical Letter, in Carpenter’s _Whittier_. - - [36] The first collected edition made with Whittier’s consent. - - [37] Whittier, J. T. Fields, and Bayard Taylor. - - - - -X - -_Nathaniel Hawthorne_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =Julian Hawthorne=: _Nathaniel Hawthorne and his Wife_, second - edition, 1885. - - =Horatio Bridge=: _Personal Recollections of Nathaniel - Hawthorne_, 1893. - - =G. E. Woodberry=: _Nathaniel Hawthorne_, ‘American Men of - Letters,’ 1902. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Among the passengers in the ship which brought Winthrop and Dudley to -the New World was William Hathorne, the ancestor of the novelist. A -man of character, versatile, naturally eloquent, and a born leader, he -rose to a position of influence in the colony. One of his sons, John -Hathorne, was destined to sinister renown as a judge at the trials for -witchcraft held at Salem in 1691. - -Daniel Hathorne, a grandson of the old witch judge, took to the -sea, and during the Revolutionary War served as a privateersman. He -had seven children. Nathaniel, his third son, also a sea-captain, -married Elizabeth Clarke Manning, and became the father of Nathaniel -Hawthorne, the novelist, who was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on July -4, 1804. - -Captain Hawthorne died at Surinam in 1808. The rigid seclusion in which -his widow lived after her husband’s death had a marked effect on her -son, quickening his sensibilities and at the same time clouding his -lively nature with a shadow of premature gravity. - -Hawthorne’s boyhood was passed partly at Salem, partly on the shores of -Sebago Lake, in Maine, where his grandfather Manning owned large tracts -of land. His reading for pleasure included Clarendon and Froissart, -to say nothing of that old-time boys’ delight, the Newgate Calendar. -The first book that he bought with his own money was Spenser’s _Faery -Queen_. At sixteen he had read _Caleb Williams_, _St. Leon_, and -_Mandeville_. ‘I admire Godwin’s novels and intend to read all of them.’ - -He entered Bowdoin College in the same class with Longfellow and -Franklin Pierce, and was graduated in 1825. For the next twelve years -he lived the life of a recluse in his own home at Salem, indulging his -passion for writing and for taking twilight walks. It was the period of -his literary apprenticeship. Later he was, as he says, ‘drawn somewhat -into the world and became pretty much like other people.’ In 1828 he -published, anonymously and at his own expense, a novel, _Fanshawe_. He -made some mystery about it, binding by solemn promises the few who -were in the secret of the authorship, not to betray it. The public was -indifferent to the book, and Hawthorne afterwards destroyed the copies -he could find. His early sketches and stories were published in annuals -such as ‘The Token,’ and in periodicals such as ‘The New England -Magazine,’ ‘Knickerbocker,’ and ‘The Democratic Review.’ For the most -part they ‘passed without notice.’ - -In 1837 appeared a volume of eighteen of these sketches and stories, -to which Hawthorne gave the title of _Twice-Told Tales_. An enlarged -edition, containing twenty-one additional stories, appeared in 1842. -Between the two, Hawthorne brought out a group of children’s stories, -_Grandfather’s Chair_, _Famous Old People_, and the _Liberty Tree_, all -in 1841, and _Biographical Stories for Children_, 1842. - -When Bancroft became Collector of the Port of Boston, he appointed -Hawthorne as weigher and gauger (1839). Thrown out by the change of -administration (1841), Hawthorne invested his savings in the Brook -Farm enterprise. This move (described by his latest biographer as ‘the -only apparently freakish action of his life’) was made in the hope of -providing a home for his betrothed, Sophia Peabody. He threw himself -with good humor into the life of the community, planted potatoes, cut -straw, milked three cows night and morning, and signed his letters to -his sister ‘Nath. Hawthorne, Ploughman.’ Reports circulated that the -author of the _Twice-Told Tales_ might be seen dressed in a farmer’s -frock, carrying milk to Boston every morning; also that he was ‘to do -the travelling in Europe _for the Community_.’ - -Brook Farm proved ‘thralldom and weariness,’ and Hawthorne abandoned -it, losing, as he later discovered, the one thousand dollars he had -invested. In July, 1842, he married and settled in the ‘Old Manse’ at -Concord. - -He had now enough and to spare of the leisure which a deliberate writer -finds indispensable. In a room overlooking the battlefield (the room in -which Emerson had written _Nature_) Hawthorne penned many of the tales -afterwards incorporated in _Mosses from an Old Manse_. The period of -his residence at Concord will always seem to those who have studied its -many charming records not undeserving the characterization of idyllic. -It was brought to a close in 1845, when there seemed a likelihood (made -a certainty the following year) of his becoming Surveyor of Customs -for the Port of Salem. Hawthorne held this post until June, 1849. His -removal gave him time for the working out of an idea that had possessed -him for many months, and which took shape in the form of his great -romance, _The Scarlet Letter_. - -From the spring of 1850 to the autumn of 1851 Hawthorne lived at Lenox -in the Berkshire Hills, and there wrote _The House of the Seven -Gables_. He then removed to West Newton, where, during the winter of -1851–52, he wrote _The Blithedale Romance_. In June, 1852, he took -possession of a house in Concord, which he had bought of Alcott. He had -but fairly settled himself in his new home (‘The Wayside’ he called it) -when his friend Franklin Pierce, now President of the United States, -made him consul at Liverpool. - -Hawthorne assumed his charge in July, 1853, and conducted its affairs -with energy and skill until September, 1857. The period of his English -residence was rich in experiences, of which social honors formed the -least part. The quiet, brooding observer had no wish to be lionized and -apparently discouraged the few well-meant advances that were made. He -once saw Tennyson at the Arts’ Exhibition at Manchester, and rejoiced -in him more than in all the other wonders of the place; but it was like -Hawthorne to have been content merely to gaze at the laureate without -presuming on his own achievements as ground for claiming acquaintance. - -After leaving Liverpool, Hawthorne spent two winters in Italy, where -_The Marble Faun_ was conceived. The greater part of the actual writing -was done in England, at Redcar on the North Sea. - -At this point it will be well to take note of Hawthorne’s principal -writings subsequent to the publication of the second edition of the -_Twice-Told Tales_. They are: _The Celestial Railroad_, 1843; _Mosses -from an Old Manse_, 1846;[38] _The Scarlet Letter_, 1850; _The House -of the Seven Gables_, 1851; _A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys_, 1852; -_The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales_, 1852; _The Blithedale -Romance_, 1852; _Life of Franklin Pierce_, 1852; _Tanglewood Tales_, -1853; _The Marble Faun, or the Romance of Monte Beni_, 1860;[39] _Our -Old Home_, 1863. - -The posthumous publications are: _Passages from the American Note-Books -of Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 1868; _Passages from the English Note-Books_ -..., 1870; _Passages from the French and Italian Note-Books_ ..., -1872; _Septimius Felton_, 1872; _The Dolliver Romance_, 1876; _Doctor -Grimshawe’s Secret_, 1883. - -In June, 1860, after an absence of seven years, Hawthorne returned -to ‘The Wayside.’ He felt the burden of the political situation now -culminating in civil war. With little sympathy for the cause of -Abolition, Hawthorne, when the conflict had actually begun, found it -‘delightful to share in the heroic sentiment of the time’ and to feel -that he had a country.[40] - -His health began to decline and he was spiritless and depressed. In -March, 1864, accompanied by his friend W. D. Ticknor, he started -southward, hoping for benefit from the change. Ticknor, who was -seemingly in perfect health, died suddenly in Philadelphia. Hawthorne -was unnerved by the shock. In May he undertook a carriage journey -among the New Hampshire hills with Pierce. The friends proceeded by -easy stages, reaching Plymouth in the evening of May 18. Hawthorne -was growing visibly weaker and Pierce had already determined that he -would send for Mrs. Hawthorne. Shortly after midnight he went into his -friend’s room. Hawthorne was apparently sleeping. He went again between -three and four in the morning. Hawthorne was dead. - - -II - -HAWTHORNE’s CHARACTER - -‘I am a man, and between man and man there is always an insuperable -gulf,’ said Kenyon in _The Marble Faun_. - -Hawthorne might have been speaking through Kenyon’s lips, so accurately -does the saying voice his private thought. He lived in a world apart. -No experience of custom-house, consulate, or farm could bring him -quite out of his world into the common world of men. Hawthorne had -more reason than Emerson to complain of the wall between him and -his fellow-mortals. When glib talkers were displaying no end of -conversational change, Hawthorne kept his hands in his pockets. He had -no mind to indulge in that form of matching pennies known as small talk. - -Observers have voiced their impressions of him in different ways; -their testimony is not discordant. The romantically inclined described -Hawthorne as mysterious. Plain people thought him queer. Even his -brother authors found him odd. Longfellow described Hawthorne as ‘a -strange owl, a very peculiar individual, with a dash of originality -about him very pleasant to behold.’ Yet Hawthorne was without a grain -of affectation, and took keen interest in the homely facts of life. His -books everywhere betray this interest. He who wrote that description -of his kitchen garden in _The Old Manse_ would seem to be just the -man to lean over the fence and talk cabbages and squashes with some -neighborhood farmer. And perhaps he did. - -He was not fond of men of letters as a class--which is not surprising. -The friends who stood close to him were not literary. Bridge was a -naval officer. Pierce was a politician, representative of a type for -which Hawthorne had contempt. Hillard was a lawyer, a man of the world. - -Hawthorne was not without his share of ‘human nature,’ as we say. -He had his prejudices, and they were sometimes deeply rooted. When -smarting under a sense of injustice he could wield a caustic pen. He -was a good hater, but not narrow-minded. He hated spirit-rapping, -table-tipping, and all the vulgar machinery and manifestations of a -vulgar delusion. He hated noise, brawling, and dissension. He loved his -home. His letters to his wife reveal a nature of exquisite delicacy. He -loved children, Nature, and he was chivalrous in his attitude towards -the animal creation. - -A trait of Hawthorne’s character comes out in the following incident. -He proposed to dedicate _Our Old Home_ to Franklin Pierce. This was -in 1863. The publishers, it is said, were filled with ‘consternation -and distress.’ The ex-president’s name was not one to conjure with. -Hawthorne explained his position: ‘I find that it would be a piece of -poltroonery in me to withdraw either the dedication or the dedicatory -letter.... If Pierce is so exceedingly unpopular that his name is -enough to sink the volume, there is so much the more need that an old -friend should stand by him. I cannot, merely on account of pecuniary -profit or literary reputation, go back from what I have deliberately -felt and thought it right to do.... As for the literary public, it must -accept my book precisely as I see fit to give it, or let it alone.’ - -Friendship sometimes has in it an element of perversity, and has been -known to delight in petty martyrdom. There was nothing of this in -Hawthorne. All he notes is that friendship is not a commodity. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -Hawthorne knew the secret of producing magical effects by quiet means. -He had perfect command of the materials by which are rendered the -half tones, the delicate shadings, the mysterious opalescent hues of -beautiful prose. Yet his manner is unostentatious and his vocabulary -simple. There are writers in whose work the feeling excited of -pleasurable surprise can be traced to a particular word glittering like -a diamond or a sapphire. With Hawthorne the effects are elusive, not -always to be apprehended at the moment. - -The beauty of his prose is best explained by the beauty of the ideas; -the natural phrasing serves but to define it, as physical loveliness -may be accentuated by simplicity of dress. Hawthorne’s thoughts, being -exquisite in themselves, make ornament superfluous. - -There is no trace of effort in his writing. _The Scarlet Letter_, for -example, reads as if it had come ‘like a breath of inspiration.’ Such -directness and precision of touch must always be a source of wonder -and delight, not alone to writers who fumble their sentences but to -skilled literary craftsmen as well. In Henry James’s admirable story -‘The Death of the Lion’[41] is a paragraph which suggests Hawthorne’s -manner. The regal way in which the famous novelist, Neil Paraday, adds -perfect sentence to perfect sentence is altogether like Hawthorne. - -Economy of phrase is one of his virtues. In Hawthorne there are no -wasted or superfluous sentences, not even a word in excess. Something -inexorably logical enters into his work, as in the poetic art. This -economy extends to his books as a whole. For stories so rich in ideas, -so heavy with suggestion, they are short rather than long. Yet the -movement is always leisurely. There is no haste or eagerness. A few -strokes of the pen, made with restful deliberation, serve to carry -the reader into the very heart of a tragedy. He cannot but admire the -superb strength which with so little visible effort could bring him so -far. - - -IV - -THE SHORT STORIES - -_TWICE-TOLD TALES_, _MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE_, _THE SNOW-IMAGE_ - -Hawthorne’s real entrance into literature dates from the publication -of the _Twice-Told Tales_, a series of harmoniously framed narratives -which have maintained their rank unmoved by the capriciousness of -popular taste. - -The sources are in part colonial history or historical legend and -tradition. ‘The Gray Champion’ is an incident of the tyranny of Andros. -‘The Maypole of Merry Mount’ celebrates the madcap revelries of the -first settlers at Wollaston. In ‘Endicott and the Red Cross’ Hawthorne -records a dramatic incident in the history of his native town, and -introduces, by the way, a motive that later was to develop into his -masterpiece. - -The ‘Legends of the Province House’ (‘Howe’s Masquerade,’ ‘Edward -Randolph’s Portrait,’ ‘Lady Eleanore’s Mantle,’ and ‘Old Esther -Dudley’) have their warp of historical truth, but the imaginative -element is dominant. ‘The Gentle Boy’ is Hawthorne’s sympathetic -tribute to the persecuted sect of the Quakers. ‘Sunday at Home,’ -‘Snow-Flakes,’ ‘Sights from a Steeple,’ ‘Footprints on the Seashore,’ -represent a type of literature which former generations enjoyed, and -which modern magazine editors would decline with energy and quite -perfunctory thanks. - -There are stories of horror and psychological mystery. The author of -‘Markheim’ might have chosen a theme like that treated in ‘Wakefield,’ -or in ‘The Prophetic Pictures.’ His handling would have been different. -We do not gladly suffer an obvious moral in these days. No one would -now dare to put ‘A Parable’ for the explanatory title of his narrative, -as Hawthorne has done in ‘The Minister’s Black Veil,’ or advise the -reader that the experiences of David Swan (if experiences those can be -called where a man sleeps and things _do not_ happen to him) argue ‘a -superintending Providence.’ - -In _Mosses from an Old Manse_ Hawthorne’s gain in power is marked. He -still ‘moralizes’ his legends; but the force of the conception and the -richness of the imagery drive the philosophy into the background. The -grim and uncanny humor of which Hawthorne had a masterful command is -displayed to the full in this book. No better illustration can be cited -than the scene where the old witch Mother Rigby exhorts the scarecrow, -she had so cunningly fashioned, to be a man. It is a grotesque, a -gruesome, and a mirth-provoking scene. - -Hawthorne had brooded long over the superstitious past with which -his own history was so singularly linked. Among the fruit of these -meditations was the story of ‘Young Goodman Brown.’ Like the minister -in the fearful narrative of ‘Thrawn Janet,’ Goodman Brown had been in -the presence of the powers of evil; but unlike the minister, he no -longer believed in virtue. - -_Mosses from an Old Manse_ also includes odd conceits such as ‘The -Celestial Railroad,’ a new enterprise built from the famous City of -Destruction, a ‘populous and flourishing town,’ to the Celestial City. -The dreamer in this modern Pilgrim’s Progress takes the journey under -the personal conduct of Mr. Smooth-it-away and notes with interest -the improvements in methods of transportation since Bunyan’s time. -Less ingenious but no less amusing are ‘The Hall of Fantasy,’ ‘The -Procession of Life,’ and ‘The Intelligence Office.’ Monsieur de -l’Aubépine loved an allegorical meaning. - -Between the _Twice-Told Tales_ and the _Mosses_ Hawthorne published -a group of children’s stories. _Grandfather’s Chair_ and the two -succeeding volumes consist of little narratives of colonial history, -in which our national exploits are celebrated in the tone of confident -Americanism so much deplored by Professor Goldwin Smith. There are -‘asides’ for grown people, as when Grandfather tells the children that -Harvard College was founded to rear up pious and learned ministers, -and that old writers called it ‘a school of the prophets.’ - -‘Is the college a school of the prophets now?’ asked Charley. - -‘You must ask some of the recent graduates,’ answered Grandfather. - -The _Wonder-Book_ and its sequel, the _Tanglewood Tales_, contain new -versions of old classical myths, the Gorgon’s Head, the Minotaur, -the Golden Fleece, and nine more. Here the adult reader has a chance -to feel the magic of Hawthorne’s art in a form where it seems most -tangible but is no less elusive. He will be astonished at the air of -reality given these old legends. - -The perfect example of his work in this genre (the child’s story) is -the initial fantasy of _The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales_. -Such complete interweaving of the imaginative and the realistic is -little short of marvellous. And yet there are people who say that -perfect art cannot subsist in company with a moral. They may be -commended to the account of the common-sensible man who in the goodness -of his heart brought the odd, glittering, little snow-fairy into the -house and put her down in front of the hot stove. - - -V - -THE GREAT ROMANCES - -_SCARLET LETTER_, _HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES_, _BLITHEDALE ROMANCE_, -_MARBLE FAUN_ - -In addition to being an engrossing narrative and in every way a supreme -illustration of Hawthorne’s art, _The Scarlet Letter_ is a study in -will power. Of the four human lives involved in this tragedy, that of -Hester Prynne is the most absorbing, as her character is the loftiest. -Carried to the place of shame, her dark Oriental beauty irradiates all -about her, and she bears herself like a queen. Her punishment is her -own, she will ask none to share it. Her sacrifice has been infinite, -but it asks nothing in return. She bears with regal patience slight -and insult, and that worst punishment of all, the wondering terror of -little children, who flee her approach as of an evil thing. - -Hawthorne has brought out with infinite skill the dreariness of the -years following the public disgrace when Hester has no longer the help -of a rebellious pride such as carried her almost exultantly through -the first crises of the dungeon and the pillory. With a refinement of -art the author adds one last bitter drop to Hester Prynne’s cup of -bitterness in the wasting away of her superb beauty. But as the lines -of her face hardened and the natural and external graces disappeared, -the great soul waxed greater, more capable of love and pity and -tenderness. She became a ministering angel whose coming was looked for -as if she had indeed been sent from Heaven. - -It was a singular fancy of Hawthorne’s to give Hester a child like -Pearl, precocious, fitful, enigmatic, a will-o’-the-wisp, more akin -to the ‘good people’ of legendary lore than to the offspring of human -men and women. This too was a part of Hester’s discipline, that this -_un_-human, elf-like creature should have sprung from her, with a power -transcending that of other children to mix pain with pleasure in a -mother’s life. - -Looking at Roger Chillingworth as he appears in his ordinary life, one -sees only the wise, benevolent physician, infinitely solicitous for the -welfare of his young friend Arthur Dimmesdale. Surprise him when the -mask of deep-thoughted benevolence is for the moment laid aside and it -is the face of a demon that one beholds. - -Without a grain of pity for his victim he probes the minister’s soul. -Morbidly eager, he welcomes every sign that makes for his theory of -a hidden, a mental rather than a physical sickness. He gloats with -malignant joy over the discovery that this spiritually minded youth -has inherited a strong animal nature. Here is a deep and resistless -undercurrent of passion which has led to certain results. An -unflinching and cruel analysis will make clear what those results have -been. Suspicion becomes certainty, but proof is still wanting. - -For terrible suggestiveness there are but few scenes in American -fiction comparable with that where Chillingworth bends over the -sleeping minister in his study and puts aside the garment that always -closely covered his breast. The poor victim shuddered and slightly -stirred. ‘After a brief pause, the physician turned away. But with what -a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror! With what a ghastly rapture, as -it were, too mighty to be expressed only by the eye and features, and -therefore bursting through the whole ugliness of his figure, and making -itself even riotously manifest by the extravagant gestures with which -he threw up his arms towards the ceiling, and stamped his foot upon the -floor! Thus Satan might have comported himself when a precious human -soul is lost to heaven and won into his kingdom. But what distinguished -the physician’s ecstasy from Satan’s was the trait of wonder in it!’ - -Dimmesdale is the deeply pathetic figure in this tragedy of souls. -Seven years of hypocrisy might well bring the unhappy man to the -pitiable condition in which he is found when the lines of interest -in the story draw to a focus. Day by day, month by month, his was a -life of lies. No course of action seemed open to the wretched minister -which did not involve piling higher the mountain of falsehood. To lie -and to scourge himself for lying--this was his whole existence. We -praise Hester Prynne’s courage. Not less extraordinary was Dimmesdale’s -wonderful display of will power. A weaker man would have confessed at -once, or fled, or committed suicide. The minister may not be accused of -stubbornly holding to his course from fear. He feared but one thing: -the shock to the great cause for which he stood, the shame that the -revelation of his guilt would bring upon the church, the loss of his -power to do good, the spectacle, for the eyes of mocking unbelievers, -of the ‘full-fraught man and best indued’ proved the guiltiest. This -were indeed ‘another fall of man.’ - -Incomparable as _The Scarlet Letter_ undoubtedly is, there are admirers -of Hawthorne’s genius who have pronounced _The House of the Seven -Gables_ the better story of the two. The judgment may be erroneous, it -is at least not eccentric. - -In handling the genealogical details of the first chapter, Hawthorne -showed a deft touch. The descendants of the proud old Colonel Pyncheon -are as clearly defined as if the name and station of each had been -enumerated. With no less ease does one follow the fortunes of the -humble house of Matthew Maule. This progenitor of an obscure race had -been executed for witchcraft. All of his descendants bore the stamp -of this event. They were ‘marked out from other men.’ In spite of an -exterior of good fellowship, there was a circle about the Maules, -and no man had ever stepped foot inside of it. Unfortunate in its -early history, this family was never other than unfortunate. It had -an inheritance of sombre recollections, which it brooded upon, though -unresentfully. - -Its life was linked with that of the proud house whose visible mansion -was founded on property wrested from the old martyr to superstition. -For Colonel Pyncheon had shown acrimonious zeal in the witchcraft -persecutions, and unbecoming speed in seizing on the wizard’s little -plot of ground with its spring of soft and pleasant water. Inseparable -as substance and shadow, wherever there was a Pyncheon there was also -a Maule. An endless chain of dark events depended from that crime -of witchcraft days. On the scaffold the condemned wizard prophesied -concerning his accuser: ‘God will give him blood to drink.’ Men shook -their heads when Colonel Pyncheon built the House of the Seven Gables, -on the site of Matthew Maule’s hut. They had not long to wait for the -fulfilment of the prophecy. The spring became bitter, and on the day -when the stately dwelling was first opened to guests Colonel Pyncheon -was found dead in his study, with blood-bedabbled ruff and beard. -Against this tragedy of old colonial days as a background Hawthorne -projects the later story of _The House of the Seven Gables_. - -In its simplest aspect the narrative concerns the persecution of -an unfortunate and weak representative of the Pyncheon family by a -powerful and unscrupulous representative. At intervals through the -centuries the spirit of the great Puritan ancestor made its appearance -in the flesh, as if the Colonel ‘had been gifted with a sort of -intermittent immortality.’ Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon stands as a modern -reincarnation of the old persecutor of witches. Clifford, his cousin, -is a victim of the law at one of those moments when the law seems -to operate almost automatically. Suspected of murder, he might have -been cleared had Jaffrey but told what he knew, the real manner of -their uncle’s death. This were to disclose certain of his own moral -delinquencies, and Jaffrey keeps silent. And thus it happens that, both -being in their young manhood, the one is incarcerated and the other -enters on a path leading to influence, wealth, and good repute. - -To the ‘somber dignity of an inherited curse’ the Pyncheons added yet -another dignity in the form of a shadowy claim to an almost princely -tract of land in the North. The connecting link, some parchment signed -with Indian hieroglyphics, had been lost when the Colonel died; but the -poorest of his race felt an accession of pride as he contemplated that -possible inheritance. And the richest of modern Pyncheons, the Judge, -was not proof against ambitious dreams excited by the same thought. - -Affecting to believe that Clifford knows where the lost document is -hidden, the Judge tries to force himself on his victim, who, made -almost an imbecile by long imprisonment, is now, after his release, -harbored in the House of the Seven Gables and cared for by his aged -sister Hepzibah and his fair young cousin Phœbe. And while the Judge -is waiting, watch in hand, for the terror-stricken Clifford to come to -him, Death comes instead. Maule’s curse is fulfilled in yet another -generation. The suspicion that would have fallen anew on Clifford is -averted by Holgrave. But Holgrave, as he chooses to call himself, is -the last living representative of the family of Maule the wizard. And -it was for one of the persecuted race to save the unhappiest member -of the family by which his own had suffered. Holgrave marries Phœbe -Pyncheon and the blood of the two families is united. - -Holgrave’s sole inheritance from his wizard ancestor, as he laughingly -explained, was a knowledge of the hiding-place of the now worthless -Indian deed. For this secret a Pyncheon had bartered his daughter’s -life and happiness in former years. - -The Judge Pyncheon of the story has been pronounced ‘somewhat of a -stage villain, a puppet.’ This may possibly be due less to Hawthorne’s -handling of the character than to the inherent weakness of the -hypocrite as presented in fiction or drama. The patrician old woman -turned shop-keeper is so perfect a study that praise of the delineation -is almost an impertinence. And there is the great silent but living and -breathing House of the Seven Gables, in the creation of which Hawthorne -expended the wealth of his powers. It will always be a question whether -in the spiritual significance he attaches to or draws from some -physical fact this great literary artist does not show his highest -power. And many a time one finishes the reading of this particular -book with the feeling that the House of the Seven Gables is the real -protagonist of the drama. - -In respect that it is a beautiful example of Hawthorne’s art _The -Blithedale Romance_ is deserving of all the praise lavished upon -it; in respect that it is a picture of Brook Farm it is naught. The -author himself freely admitted that he chose the socialist community -merely as a theatre where the creatures of his brain might ‘play their -phantas-magorical antics’ without their being exposed to the rigid test -of ‘too close a comparison with the actual events of real lives.’ - -The antics played are such as we witness daily when human puppets -are swayed by various passions of love, jealousy, self-will, pride, -humility, the instinct for art, or the instinct for reform. The bearded -Hollingsworth, whose ‘dark shaggy face looked really beautiful with its -expression of thoughtful benevolence,’ was, without being conscious -of it, a brutal egoist, capable of bending all people and all things -to the accomplishment of his idea. He illustrates the weakness of -strength, as Priscilla, so frail, nervous, and impressionable, -illustrates the strength of weakness. - -That Hawthorne intended to show in Coverdale the insufficiency of -the profession of minor poet to make anything of a man, we shall not -pretend; but his distrust of the worth of literature is well known. -Coverdale’s failure was no greater than Hollingsworth’s, and he at -least never played with hearts. - -Zenobia is at once the most human, the most attractive, and the most -pathetic figure in the drama. ‘But yet a woman,’ and too much woman, so -that her imperial beauty and grace, her wealth, her skill to command, -her magnetic charm, and her intellectual gifts were insufficient to -save her. No less regal in endowment than was Hester Prynne, she sank -under a burden infinitely lighter than Hester’s. Her nature was strong -but impulsive, and impulsiveness was Zenobia’s ruin. - -Rome is the scene of _The Marble Faun_, the longest of Hawthorne’s -romances, and in his opinion the best. The author professed to have -seen, in the studio of an American sculptor, Kenyon, an unfinished -portrait bust, certain traits of which led him to ask the history of -the original. This face, of a beautiful youth, might have been mistaken -for a not fortunate attempt to reproduce the roguish countenance -of the Faun of Praxiteles. The resemblance was external merely; the -beholder presently detected something inscrutable in the eyes, in -the whole expression, as if powers of the soul hitherto dormant were -awaking, and with the awakening had come anxiety, longing, grief, -remorse, in short a knowledge of good through a sudden apprehension of -evil. - -It was the portrait of a young Count of Monte Beni (known as -Donatello), whose family, an ancient one, was believed to have sprung -from the union of one of those fabled woodland creatures, half -animal, half god, and an earthly maiden. At long intervals the traits -defining the origin of the race were accentuated in a member of the -family. He was said to be ‘true Monte Beni.’ He lived on the border -line between two worlds, fearless and happy, but also unthinking, a -creature incapable of doing wrong because his life was free, natural, -instinctive. Such was Donatello. - -The idea of a creature who should unite the characteristics of the wild -and the human fascinated Hawthorne. The charm is elusive, and must be -elusive or it is no longer charming. Hawthorne warns us against letting -the idea harden in our grasp or grow coarse from handling. For this -reason (and not for the sake of petty mystification) Hawthorne will not -disclose the one physical trait which would have completed Donatello’s -resemblance to the Faun, the pointed, furry ears. The youth himself -will jest with his friends on the subject, but no more; the thick brown -curls are never brushed aside. - -So in Donatello’s attachment to Miriam, the mysterious beauty of the -story, there is something animal-like, at once pathetic and fierce. -Love does not awaken the intellect, however; the youth remains a child -until the wrathful moment when he holds the mad Capuchin, Miriam’s -persecutor, over the edge of the precipice, and reads in the girl’s -consenting eyes approval of the deed he is about to commit. At this -point Donatello’s real life begins. - -The crime is far-reaching in its consequences, blighting for weary -months the happiness of the gentle Hilda, a terrified eye-witness; -but is most sinister in its effect on Donatello, whose dumb agony and -remorse Hawthorne has painted with a strong but subdued touch. Perhaps -the most striking of the incidents at Monte Beni is that where the -wretched Donatello tries to call the wild creatures of the wood to him -as he had been used to do in the days of his innocence, and finds his -power gone, only some loathsome reptile coming at his bidding. - -Hilda is one of the triumphs of Hawthorne’s art. By what necromancy did -he contrive to invest a character so ethereal with life and interest? -For the type is by no means one that invariably attracts, and the -mere symbolism of the shrine, the doves, together with an innocence -which carries its own safeguard, might have been used unsuccessfully a -thousand times before being wrought by Hawthorne’s subtile power into -enduring form. - -Kenyon is a proof of the instinct Hawthorne had for avoiding the -realistic fact. One would fancy this a character which would take on -realism of its own accord, a character which could be depended on to -become human and bohemian, to smoke, swear, tell emphatic stories, and -yet be gentle and high-minded withal, like Bret Harte’s angel-miners. -But Kenyon is almost as shadowy as Hilda. - -Miriam with her rich dark beauty (making her in contrast with Hilda as -Night to Day) is the one strong human character, capable of infinite -pity and infinite devotion, a woman to die for--if the need were, and -such need is not uncommon in romances. The shadow of a nameless crime -hangs over her, from which, though innocent, she cannot escape. She -has warned Donatello of the fatality that attends her. She holds his -love in esteem so light as to be almost contempt until the moment when -he shows the force to grapple with her enemy; then love flames up in -her own heart. For her Donatello stains his hands with blood, suffers -agony indescribable, and then ‘comes back to his original self, with an -inestimable treasure of improvement won from an experience of pain.’ -And as Miriam contemplates him on the day before he gives himself up -to justice, she asks whether the story of the fall of man has not been -repeated in the romance of Monte Beni. - -The deficiencies and excesses of _The Marble Faun_ have been often -pointed out. The superabundance of guide-book description which -disturbed Sir Leslie Stephen was noted by Hawthorne as a defect and -apologized for in the preface. It is astonishing how it fits into place -when, after an interval of several years, one comes to re-read the -story. _The Marble Faun_ is a magical piece of work, its very enigmas, -mysteries, and its inconclusiveness tending to heighten the effect. And -it does not in the least detract from the enjoyment that one cannot -follow the author to the extent of believing it his best work. - - -VI - -LATEST AND POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS - -_OUR OLD HOME_, _NOTE-BOOKS_, _DOLLIVER ROMANCE_ - -_Our Old Home_ is a volume of twelve chapters on English life and -experiences. Acute, frank, sympathetic, modestly phrased, abounding -in humor, it may fairly be accounted one of the best of Hawthorne’s -works. The English are said to have been disturbed by a number of the -comments on their character and manners. If so, they must be as touchy -as Americans. _Our Old Home_ contains nothing that should offend, -unless indeed it be an offence to speak of one’s neighbor in any terms -not those of unmitigated eulogy. Hawthorne noted certain differences -between the national types of the two countries and gave an account of -them. But of any disposition to laud his own people at the expense of -their British cousins, the book contains not a trace. - -_Passages from the English Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne_ is the -raw material out of which was fashioned such a charming and perfect -literary study as _Our Old Home_. It is idle to dispute over the -question whether the fragmentary journalizings of an eminent author -should or should not be given to the public. They will always be given -to the public, and the public will always be grateful for them, even -though it has no deeper cause for gratitude than that involved in -satisfaction of mere curiosity. At all events, the passion for looking -into the work-shop of a great artist cannot be overcome. Perhaps this -most trivial form of hero-worship deserves countenance. - -The _Note-Books_ (English, Italian, and American) bear the same -relation to _Our Old Home_ that a man talking with his most trusted -friend bears to that same man when talking with an agreeable chance -acquaintance. In the one case he is wholly unguarded, in the other he -keeps himself in check even at the moment he seems most frank and -expansive. - -_The Dolliver Romance_ is one of a group of studies for an elaborate -narrative in which Hawthorne proposed to trace the fortunes of an -American family back to those of its English forebears. The idea of -connecting the obscure New England branch of the house with the proud -Old-World descendants by some vague claim on the ancestral estate is -almost too common in fiction. But Hawthorne seems to have been drawn -towards it by his life in the consulate at Liverpool, where he had -continually to check the exuberance of misguided fellow-countrymen who -had appropriated, in mind, not a few of the finest estates in England, -and only lacked faint encouragement to attempt entering on actual -possession. - -The idea of the Bloody Footstep was taken from a tradition connected -with Smithell’s Hall in Bolton-le-Moors, and Hawthorne went to see -what purported to be the mark made in the stone step by the unhappy -man about whose mysterious history the romance gathers. The quest and -discovery of an elixir of life is in itself a threadbare motive, but -could hardly have been commonplace under Hawthorne’s treatment. - -He was not to complete his design. The four versions of the story, _The -Dolliver Romance_, _The Ancestral Footstep_, _Septimius Felton_, and -_Doctor Grimshawe’s Secret_, furnish another glimpse into Hawthorne’s -literary studio, though we are warned not to infer that he always -worked in the way the existence of these fragments might suggest. - - * * * * * - -Hawthorne was the most gifted of our American romancers. In a certain -sense his field was a narrow one, but the soil was rich, and there -was magic in his husbandry. He himself once declared that he never -knew what patriotism was until he met an Englishman; that he was not -an American, New England was as big a lump of earth as he could hold -in his heart. The defect (if indeed it be a defect) was one of the -sources of his power. Hawthorne did indeed love New England, but to -suppose that he loved it with a blind and uncritical love is wholly -to misunderstand both the man and his work. He was the genius of his -little world. He knew its poetry and its prose, its mystery, charm, -beauty, and its repellent and sordid features. New England will have -no profounder interpreter, though it may be that as the superficial -characteristics of the people change, his transcripts of life will -increasingly take on the qualities of pure romance. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [38] Enlarged edition, 1854. - - [39] Published in England under the absurd title of - _Transformation_. Hawthorne wrote to Henry Bright: ‘Smith and - Elder do take strange liberties with the titles of books. I - wanted to call it the _Marble Faun_, but they insisted on - _Transformation_ which will lead the reader to expect a sort - of pantomime.’ - - [40] Letter to Horatio Bridge, May 26, 1861. - - [41] Henry James: _Terminations_. - - - - -XI - -_Henry David Thoreau_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =R. W. Emerson=: ‘Thoreau’ in the ‘Atlantic Monthly,’ August, - 1862. - - =W. E. Channing=: _Thoreau: the Poet Naturalist_, 1873. - - =F. B. Sanborn=: _Thoreau_, ‘American Men of Letters,’ 1882. - - =H. S. Salt=: _Thoreau_, ‘Great Writers,’ 1896. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Philippe Thoreau, of the parish of Saint Helier in the Isle of Jersey, -had a son John who emigrated to America and opened a store on the -Long Wharf in Boston. He married Jane Burns, daughter of a well-to-do -Scotchman from the neighborhood of Stirling. John’s son John, a -lead-pencil maker of Concord, Massachusetts, married Cynthia Dunbar, -daughter of the Reverend Asa Dunbar, of Keene, New Hampshire. Of their -four children Henry David Thoreau, the author of _Walden_, was the -third. He was born at Concord on July 12, 1817. - -After his graduation at Harvard in the Class of 1837, Thoreau taught -school, learned surveying and the art of making lead-pencils, and began -writing and lecturing. The episode in his life which gave him more -than a local reputation was his camping out by the shore of Walden -Pond. He spent two years and two months there studying how ‘to live -deliberately.’ His hut, built by himself, might have seemed bare and -cheerless to a victim of civilization. There was no carpet on the -floor, no curtain at the window. Every superfluity was stripped off and -life ‘driven into a corner’ in the hope of discovering what it was made -of. Thoreau sturdily resisted the efforts of friends and neighbors to -burden him with trumpery, refusing the gift of a door-mat on the plea -that it was ‘best to avoid the beginnings of evil,’ and throwing a -paper-weight out of the window ‘because it had to be dusted every day.’ - -He raised his own vegetables in a patch of ground near by, made his -own bread, and spent his leisure time in recording his observations -of nature and in writing his first book, _A Week on the Concord and -Merrimack Rivers_. When he was satisfied with this taste of life -‘reduced to its lowest terms,’ he went back to civilization. - -_A Week on the Concord and Merrimack_ was a failure, as publishers say; -meaning that it did not sell. Having published at his own expense, -Thoreau was financially embarrassed when seven hundred and fifty -copies of an edition of a thousand came back on his hands. He said to -a friend: ‘I have added several hundred volumes to my library lately, -all of my own composition.’[42] His second venture, _Walden_, was -more fortunate. He printed a few articles in the ‘Boston Miscellany,’ -‘Putnam’s Magazine,’ the ‘New York Tribune,’ ‘Graham’s Magazine,’ and -the ‘Atlantic Monthly,’ but at no time could he be said to live by -literature. - -His income from his lectures must have been small, and apparently -he made no effort to obtain engagements. He had an exalted idea of -what constitutes a good lecture, and was suspicious of oratory. He -told his English acquaintance Cholmondeley that he was from time to -time congratulating himself on his ‘general want of success as a -lecturer.... I do my work clean as I go along, and they will not be -likely to want me anywhere again.’ - -When Hawthorne was corresponding secretary of the Salem Lyceum, he -invited Thoreau in behalf of the managers to give them a lecture. The -invitation was accepted. The lecture must have had the fatal defect of -being ‘interesting,’ for Thoreau was asked to speak before the Lyceum a -second time the same winter. - -Thoreau was a radical Abolitionist and for six years refused to pay his -poll-tax, on the ground that the tax went indirectly to the support -of slavery. For this delinquency he was once lodged in the town-jail -over night. In 1857 he made the acquaintance of ‘one John Brown’ as -a Southern-born president of a Northern college naïvely describes -that terrible old man. When two years later news came of the desperate -attempt at Harper’s Ferry, Thoreau gave in a church vestry at Concord -his impassioned ‘Plea for Captain John Brown,’ which one of his -admirers regards as the most significant of his utterances. - -Of the twelve volumes forming his collected writings two only were -seen by Thoreau in book form. The remaining ten have been made up of -reprinted magazine articles or selections from journals and letters. -The list is as follows: _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_, -1849; _Walden; or, Life in the Woods_, 1854; _Excursions_ (edited by -R. W. Emerson and Sophia Thoreau), 1863; _The Maine Woods_, 1864; _Cape -Cod_, 1865; _Letters to Various Persons_ [with Poems], 1865; _A Yankee -in Canada, with Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers_, 1866; _Early Spring in -Massachusetts_, 1881; _Summer_, 1884; _Winter_, 1888; _Autumn_, 1892; -_Miscellanies_, 1894; _Familiar Letters of Henry David Thoreau_, 1894. - -Thoreau ‘travelled widely’ in Concord and made a few trips elsewhere. -Aside from his excursions to the Maine woods, the White Mountains, Cape -Cod, and Staten Island, he took no long journey until 1861, when he -went as far west as Minnesota. He was in ill health then, and a violent -cold terminating in pulmonary consumption brought about his death (May -6, 1862). It has been often mentioned as a strange fact that this -man who almost symbolized the out-of-door existence, who chanted its -praises, and who was unhappy unless he had at least ‘four hours a day -in the woods and fields,’ should have died, at the age of forty-five, -of exposure to the elements which (according to his whimsical -philosophy) were more friendly than man. - - -II - -THOREAU’S CHARACTER - -Without posing, Thoreau contrived somehow to gain the reputation of a -poseur. Because his nose was more Emersonian than Emerson’s, because -he lived for a time at Emerson’s house (where he was beloved by every -member of the family), and because he affected the Orphic and seer-like -mode of expression, he was called an imitator. Because he was a recluse -and a stoic, and because his letters were edited in a way to emphasize -his stoicism, he has been thought to lack the human and friendly -qualities. - -The charge of imitation has been refuted by those who knew him best. -‘Doubtless his growth was stimulated by kindred ideas. This is all that -can be granted. Utter independence, strong individuality distinguished -him. His one foible was, not subserviency, but combativeness, mainly -from mere love of fence when he found a worthy adversary, as his best -friends knew almost too well.’[43] - -In many ways Thoreau was much like other men. He was a devoted son, a -brotherly brother, a helpful neighbor, a genial companion. We have his -own word for it that he could out-sit the longest sitter in the village -tap-room if there were occasion. - -On the other hand, he was not ‘approachable’ in the common meaning -of the word. He puzzled many people. He could be angular, stiff, -remote, encrusted. Howells saw him in 1860, ‘a quaint stump figure of -a man.’[44] He sat on one side of the room, having first placed his -visitor in a chair on the other side. It was more difficult to get near -him spiritually than physically. He seemed almost unconscious of his -caller’s presence. - -Emerson edited Thoreau’s letters so as to present ‘a most perfect piece -of stoicism.’ It was the side of his friend’s character in which he -most rejoiced. The book should be read exactly as Emerson intended it -to be read. Later it should be supplemented by the _Familiar Letters_, -which brings into relief the affectionate and winning side of Thoreau’s -character. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -Thoreau was a painstaking student of the art of expression, but never -for its own sake, always as a means to an end. One may conclude that -it was not mere author’s vanity which led him to resent editorial -tampering with his manuscript. He had good reasons for believing that -neither Curtis of ‘Putnam’s’ nor Lowell of ‘The Atlantic’ could change -his text to advantage. The question was not one of mere nicety of -phrase, but of that subtile quality of style due to the inextricable -interweaving of the thought and the language in which the thought is -expressed. - -An out-of-doors writer, Thoreau’s power to produce was in direct ratio -of his intercourse with Nature. If shut up in the house he could not -write at all. When he walked he stored up literary virtue. He believed -that nothing was so good for the man of letters as work with the hands. -It cleared the style of ‘palaver and sentimentality.’ - -The fresh wild beauty of Thoreau’s style (when he is at his best) may -be praised without reserve. There is no danger of exaggerating its -perfect novelty and attractiveness; the danger is that we may take the -hint of these qualities for the reality. Thoreau could be commonplace -when he chose. - - -IV - -THE BOOKS - -Early in September, 1839, the Thoreau brothers, John and Henry, made a -voyage down the Concord and Merrimac rivers. The boat used was of their -own building. It was painted blue and green, had wheels by which it -could be dragged around the dams, and must have been as ugly as it was -useful. _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack_ records the unadventurous -adventures of the two young men both on this and other excursions. - -It is a medley of prose and verse, of homely common-sense and lofty -speculation. Side by side with realistic portraits of plain people, -farmers, fishermen, boatmen, and lock-keepers, are minute and exquisite -descriptions of the life of field, mountain, stream, lake, and air. -The literary allusions are many, and taken from sources as wide apart -as the poles, Shattuck (the historian of Concord) and Anacreon, Gookin -and Chaucer. Here is to be found the famous essay on Friendship, the -spirit of which may be partly divined from this sentence: ‘I could tame -a hyena more easily than my friend.’ - -The poetry in the volume is a stumbling-block to not a few readers. -Doubtless it has its virtues, but too often Thoreau’s poetry must be -forgiven for the sake of his prose. The stiff, almost self-conscious -air of _A Week on the Concord and Merrimack_ and the hobbling verse -help to explain the indifference of the author’s contemporaries to a -very original work. - -_Walden_, the second of Thoreau’s books, is the better of the two, -which does not mean that the first could be spared. The style is -easier, the flavor more racy, the spirit more humorous. The attitude of -the writer is characteristically provoking and pugnacious. The chapters -abound in audacities which at once pique and delight the reader. -This modern Diogenes-Crusoe, solving the problem of existence on an -improvised desert-island two miles from his mother’s door-step, is a -refreshing figure. - -Life in the woods fascinated Thoreau. _Walden_ is a tribute to this -fascination. In the absence of domestic sounds he had the murmur of the -forest, the cry of the loon, the ‘tronk’ of the frog, and the clangor -of the wild-goose. Society was plenty and of the best. His neighbors -were the squirrel, the field-mouse, the phœbe, the blue jay. Human -companionship was not wanting, for there were visitors of all sorts, -from the half-witted to those who had more wits than they knew what to -do with. Matter-of-fact people were amazed at the young man’s way of -living, lacking the penetration to see that he might live as he did -from the humor of it. When sceptics asked him whether he thought he -could subsist on vegetable food alone, Thoreau, to strike at the root -of the matter at once, was accustomed to say that he ‘could live on -board nails.’ ‘If they cannot understand that they cannot understand -much that I say.’ - -The Walden episode was an experiment in emancipation, and the book is a -challenge to mankind to live more simply and freely. Thoreau mocks at -the worship of luxury. ‘I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all -to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on -earth in an ox-cart, with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the -fancy car of an excursion train and breathe a malaria all the way.’ - -_Excursions_ is a collection of nine essays. Some of them are formal -and scientific with the Thoreau-esque flavor (‘Natural History of -Massachusetts,’ ‘The Succession of Forest Trees,’ ‘Autumnal Tints,’ -‘Wild Apples’), others are pure Thoreau (‘A Walk to Wachusett,’ ‘The -Landlord,’ ‘A Winter Walk,’ ‘Walking,’ ‘Night and Moonlight’). The -flavor of these ‘wildlings of literature,’ as a devotee happily calls -them, is as marked almost as that of _Walden_. They are, in fact, -_Walden_ in miniature. - -The _Maine Woods_ consists of three long essays, ‘Ktaadn,’ -‘Chesuncook,’ and ‘The Allegash and East Branch.’ They are readable, -informing, uninspired. In the degree in which he left himself out of -his pages Thoreau became as tame and conventional as the most academic -of writers. The strength of some men of letters lies in conformity. -Thoreau is strongest in non-conformity. - -_Cape Cod_ is far more characteristic than the _Maine Woods_. He who -likes the savor of salt and the tonic of ocean air will enjoy this book -whether he cares for Thoreau or not. It is interesting as an early -contribution to the history of Cape Cod folks by a historian who was -more of an enigma to the natives than they were to him. - -The best part of _A Yankee in Canada_ is not to be found in the -account of the excursion to Montreal and Quebec, but in the sheaf of -anti-slavery and reform papers bound up in the same volume. Here are -printed the address on ‘Slavery in Massachusetts,’ the paper on ‘Civil -Disobedience,’ containing the lively account of the author’s experience -in Concord jail, the two addresses on John Brown, the essay on ‘Life -without Principle,’ and the critical study of ‘Thomas Carlyle and his -Works.’ - -The four volumes named for the seasons are valuable for the light -they shed on Thoreau’s method as a writer, and his skill and accuracy -in reporting the facts of Nature. They are sure to be read by the -faithful, because the genuine Thoreau enthusiast can read his every -line. The rest of the world will be content to know him by two or three -of the twelve volumes bearing his name. _A Week on the Concord and -Merrimack Rivers, alden_, the _Familiar Letters_, and a few essays -from _Excursions_ and the Anti-Slavery papers ought to be sufficient. - - * * * * * - -No more than greater men of letters can Thoreau be disposed of in a -paragraph. Some of his pronounced characteristics can be, however. - -He was a paradoxical philosopher. To praise Nature at the expense of -civilized society, to eulogize the ‘perfection’ of the one and lament -the degradation of the other, to declare solemnly that church spires -deform the landscape, and that it is a mistake to do a second time -what has been done once,--these declarations give a wholly incomplete -but, so far as they go, not unjust idea of his manner. Taking Thoreau -literally is a capital way to breed a dislike for him. Grant him -his own manner of expressing his thought, make no effort to exact -conformity from so wayward a genius, and at once you are, as Walt -Whitman would say, ‘rapport’ with him. It is easy to exaggerate his -paradoxicalness. Say to yourself as you take up the volume: ‘Now let -us find out just how whimsical this fellow can be,’ and straightway he -disappoints by not being whimsical at all. - -If Thoreau’s praise of Nature at the expense of Society seems to -border on the absurd, one must bear in mind how complete and intimate -was his knowledge of what he praised. His love of forest, lake, hill, -and mountain, of beast and bird, was deep, passionate, unremitting. -He speaks somewhere of an old man so versed in Nature’s ways that -apparently ‘there were no secrets between them.’ This might have been -said of Thoreau himself. He could pay lofty tributes to the ‘mystical’ -quality in Nature; but he was not a mere rhapsodist, a petty village -Chateaubriand; he could come straight down to tangible facts and -recount every detail of the advent of spring at Walden. His power to -see and his skill in describing the thing seen unite to give the very -atmosphere of life in the woods. - -He was himself so complete an original and his literary attractiveness -is such that Thoreau numbers among his best friends not only those who -are nature-blind but the confirmed city-men as well, the frequenters -of clubs, the lovers of pavements and crowds. That some of the most -appreciative tributes to his genius should have come from these is but -one paradox the more in the history of him who (at times) delighted -above all else in the paradoxical. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [42] F. B. Sanborn: _The Personality of Thoreau_, p. 30. - - [43] Edward W. Emerson in the ‘Centenary’ Emerson, vol. x, p. 607. - - [44] _Literary Friends and Acquaintance_, p. 59. - - - - -XII - -_Oliver Wendell Holmes_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =W. Sloane Kennedy=: _Oliver Wendell Holmes_, 1883. - - =J. T. Morse, Jr.=: _Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes_, - 1896. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Holmes invented a phrase which became celebrated--‘the Brahmin caste of -New England,’ that is to say, an aristocracy of culture. The inventor -of the phrase belonged to the class. He was a son of the Reverend Abiel -Holmes, minister of the First Church of Cambridge and author of that -‘painstaking and careful work,’ the _American Annals_. - -Abiel Holmes (a great-grandson of John Holmes, one of the settlers of -Woodstock, Connecticut) was twice married. His first wife was Mary -Stiles, daughter of President Ezra Stiles of Yale College. Five years -after her death he married Sarah Wendell of Boston, who became the -mother of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Through the Wendells, Holmes was -related by one line of descent to Anne Bradstreet; by another to Evert -Jansen Wendell of Albany. - -The author of _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_ was born at -Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Harvard Commencement Day, August 29, 1809. -After a preliminary training at the Cambridgeport Academy (where he -had for schoolmates Margaret Fuller and Richard Henry Dana) Holmes -completed his college preparation at Phillips Academy, Andover, entered -Harvard in the class of 1829, and in due time was graduated. - -He had, or thought he had, an inclination to carry the ‘green bag,’ -and to this end spent a year at the Dane (now Harvard) Law School, in -Cambridge. He soon discovered a greater inclination towards medicine -and entered the private medical school of Doctor James Jackson, in -Boston. In 1833 he became a student at the École de Médecine in Paris, -and during two busy winters heard the lectures of Broussais, Andral, -Louis, and other teachers. - -In 1836 he began the practice of medicine in Boston. During the two -following years he competed for and won four of the Boylston Prizes. -Enthusiastic in his profession, he found the life of a general -practitioner not to his liking, and when, in 1838, the professorship -of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth College was offered him, he -was ‘mightily pleased.’ He held the position for two years (1839–40); -residence at Hanover was required for three months of each year. - -Some time before going to Hanover, Holmes was writing to his friend -Phineas Barnes, congratulating him on having entered into ‘the beatific -state of duality,’ and wishing himself in like case. ‘I have flirted -and written poetry long enough,’ he said, ‘and I feel that I am growing -domestic and tabby-ish.’ On June 15, 1840, he married Miss Amelia -Jackson, a daughter of Judge Charles Jackson of Boston. She was a young -woman of rare endowments. ‘Every estimable and attractive quality of -mind and character seemed to be hers.’[45] - -In 1847 Holmes was appointed Parkman professor of anatomy and -physiology in the Harvard Medical School. The multifarious extra cares -involved led him to say that in those early days he occupied not a -chair in the college but a settee. He held the position for thirty-five -consecutive years. - -The reputation which Holmes began early to build up through his -writings was partly literary, partly scientific, partly a compound -of both. Lovers of well-turned and witty verse knew him through his -_Poems_ (1836) and his metrical essays, _Urania_ (1846) and _Astræa_ -(1850). The public, always solicitous about its health, heard or -read the two lectures on _Homœopathy and its kindred Delusions_ -(1842). Physicians made his acquaintance through the _Boylston Prize -Dissertations_ (1836–37), and the _Essay on the Contagiousness of -Puerperal Fever_ (1843). - -Fame came to Holmes in 1857 when he began printing in the newly founded -‘Atlantic Monthly’ a series of papers entitled _The Autocrat of the -Breakfast-Table_. Reprinted as a book, it at once took its proper place -as an American classic, and now after forty-eight years its popularity -seems in no degree lessened. - -The following list contains the principal works upon which Holmes’s -reputation as a man of letters rests. A full bibliography must be -consulted if one would know the extent of his literary and scientific -activity: _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_, 1858; _The Professor -at the Breakfast-Table_, 1860; _Currents and Counter-Currents, with -Other Addresses_, 1861; _Elsie Venner_, 1861; _Songs in Many Keys_, -1862; _Soundings from the Atlantic_, 1864; _The Guardian Angel_, 1867; -_The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_, 1872; _Songs of Many Seasons_, 1875; -_Memoir of John Lothrop Motley_, 1879; _The Iron Gate and Other Poems_, -1880; _Pages from an Old Volume of Life_, 1883; _A Mortal Antipathy_, -1885; _Ralph Waldo Emerson_, 1885; _Our Hundred Days in Europe_, 1887; -_Before the Curfew and Other Poems_, 1888; _Over the Teacups_, 1891. - -Holmes’s life was without marked incident. His work at the Medical -School, his public lectures, social engagements, the normal and -agreeable responsibilities of home and society, filled the measure of -his days. The visit to England in 1886, when he was made a D. C. L. -by Oxford, a Litt. D. by Cambridge, and an LL. D. by Edinburgh, was -something like apotheosis, if the term be not too extravagant. - -He endured the evils consequent on old age with philosophic composure, -and it became at the last a matter of scientific curiosity with him to -see how long he could maintain life. He was spared a tedious illness, -and died an almost painless death on October 7, 1894. - - -II - -THE MAN - -Among the ‘Autocrat’s’ distinguishing traits was humanity. He has -recorded the feeling of ‘awe-stricken sympathy’ at first sight of the -white faces of the sick in the hospital wards. ‘The dreadful scenes in -the operating theatre--for this was before the days of ether--were a -great shock to my sensibilities.’ His nerves hardened in time, but he -was always keenly alive to human suffering. There is a note of contempt -in his reference to Lisfranc, the surgeon, who ‘regretted the splendid -guardsmen of the Empire because they had such magnificent thighs to -amputate.’ - -It was once said of Holmes that he was difficult to catch unless -he were wanted for some kind act. He lost no opportunity to give -happiness. In old age when flattery was tedious, and blindness -imminent, and the autograph hunter had become a burden, he patiently -wrote his name and transcribed stanzas of ‘Dorothy Q.’ or ‘The Last -Leaf’ for admirers from all parts of the earth. This was the smallest -tax on his good nature. For years he had been expected to act as -counsel and sometimes as literary agent for all the minor poets of -America. Many of these innocents conceived Holmes as automatically -issuing certificates to the virtue of their work. He was always kind -and invariably plain-spoken. To the author of an epic he wrote: ‘I -cannot conscientiously advise you to print your poem; it will be -an expense to you, and the gain to your reputation will not be an -equivalent.’ - -Holmes believed in the humanizing influences of good blood, social -position, and wealth. It was no small matter, he thought, to have a -descent from men who had played their parts acceptably in the drama -of life. He preferred the man with the ‘family portraits’ to the man -with the ‘twenty-cent daguerreotype’ unless he had reason to believe -that the latter was the better man of the two. His amusing poem, -‘Contentment,’ is not a jest, but a plain statement of his philosophy. - -Open-minded in literary and scientific matters, he was delightfully -conservative about places. He respected the country and loved the -town. A city man, he was also a man of one city. He professed to have -been the discoverer of Myrtle Street, the abode of ‘peace and beauty, -and virtue, and serene old age.’ Thus it looked to him as he explored -its ‘western extremity of sunny courts and passages.’ Holmes’s books -contain many proofs of his cat-like attachment to city nooks and -corners, his liking for odd streets, unexpected turns, and winding -ways. ‘I have bored this ancient city through and through, until I know -it as an old inhabitant of a Cheshire knows his cheese.’ - -Holmes enjoyed above all the sense of an undisturbed possession of -things. He complained of the march of modern improvement only when he -found himself improved out of one house and driven to take refuge in -another. He thought that a wretched state of affairs whereby a man was -compelled to move every twenty or thirty years. - -With his sunny nature Holmes found it difficult to be a good hater. He -had but two violent antipathies, Calvinism and homœopathy. On these he -concentrated the little measure of asperity he possessed, together with -a large measure of vigorous logic and frank contempt. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -In his characteristic prose style Holmes is easy, familiar, off-hand, -in short, conversational. He may have spent hours over his paragraphs, -but with their air of unpremeditation they give no sign of it. The -manner of his prose is well-bred but nonchalant. Yet there is always a -note of reserve. The Autocrat is less familiar than he seems. - -The conversational style permits abrupt turns, sudden transitions, -a pleasant negligence. It also has narrow limits; it cannot rise to -eloquence, and fine writing is apt to seem out of place. Holmes knew -pretty accurately the limits of his instrument. - -Like other practised writers, he varied his style to fit his subject. -And while a certain winsomeness is never wanting, it is less -apparent in the novels than in the ‘Breakfast-Table’ books, and in -the biographies than in the novels. Often he becomes business-like, -extremely matter of fact, clearly determined to make his point or to -solve his problem without waste of words or superfluous ornament. - -With respect to his verse we have been told that Holmes was a -‘consummate master of all that is harmonious, graceful, and pleasing in -rhythm and in language.’ Had the eulogist been speaking of Tennyson, -or Swinburne, or Shelley, he could have said little more. Holmes’s -verse is neat, precise, felicitous, often graceful, unmistakably -clever, abounding in pointed phrase and happy rhyme, but taken as a -whole it must be adjudged the poetry of a cultivated gentleman and a -wit rather than the poetry of a poet. - -Much of it has a distinctly old-fashioned air, contrasting oddly -with the freshness and ‘modernity’ of the poet’s prose. In his own -phrase Holmes ‘was trained after the schools of classical English -verse as represented by Pope, Goldsmith, and Campbell.’ The metrical -essays (_Poetry_, _Astræa_, _Urania_) show how strong was the -Eighteenth-century influence. The choice of metre cannot be questioned. -If audiences will have poetic dissertations, they probably suffer least -under the heroic couplet. It is easy to comprehend, and not difficult -to write; and the form of the verse tempts to cleverness. - - -IV - -_THE AUTOCRAT_ AND ITS COMPANIONS, _OVER THE TEACUPS_, _OUR HUNDRED -DAYS IN EUROPE_ - -The motto, ‘Every man his own Boswell,’ on the title-page of _The -Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_, is a key to the book. The conceit -has merits besides that of novelty. There is a world of humorous -suggestion in the idea of ‘doubling’ the parts of philosophic wit and -worshipping reporter. - -The scene is a Boston boarding-house with its more or less commonplace -people, the landlady, her daughter, her son Benjamin Franklin, the -young fellow called John, the old gentleman who sits opposite, the -poor relation, the divinity student, the schoolmistress, and the -Autocrat himself. They talk, listen, jest, laugh. Little by little the -commonplace characters grow attractive. Pleasant and lovable traits -come to light. There is pathos, sentiment, a deal of mirth, but little -action. The Autocrat marries the schoolmistress towards the close of -the book. So much likeness is there to an old-fashioned love story, and -no more. - -In general the characters interest less for what they say than for -what they prompt the Autocrat to say. He says many things, and all so -wise, so entertaining, so clever. When Holmes threw off these sparkling -paragraphs month by month, he could have had little idea what the index -would reveal. He glances from subject to subject, touching lightly -here and lightly there. Poetry, pugilism, horse-racing, theology, and -tree-lore are all equally interesting to him and to us. The reader is -not too long detained by any one thing. An infinite number of topics -are handled with effervescent gayety in a manner sometimes called -‘French.’ Holmes accused Emerson of want of logical sequence. That -was a master stroke. Open a volume of the Breakfast-Table series at -random and you chance on the oddest combinations of subjects, as -when a paragraph on insanity is followed by a paragraph on private -theatricals--perhaps a less illogical juxtaposition than at first sight -appears. Waywardness and inconsequence are among the principal charms -of _The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_. - -That a book so distinctively local in atmosphere and allusion should -have attained at once and kept to this day widespread popularity is a -little surprising. For local it is--provincial, as New Yorkers would -say. At all events, it is Bostonian to the last degree. The little -city, compact and picturesque, was not merely the background, the scene -of the breakfast-table episodes and conversations; the entire volume is -saturated with the atmosphere of Boston. To Holmes it was the one city -worth while, the city whose State House was Hub of the Solar System. By -his testimony (and who should know better?) you could not pry that out -of a Boston man if you had the tire of all creation straightened out -for a crowbar. - -The _Autocrat_ was followed by the _Professor_ and the _Poet_. The -critical history of sequels is well known. Seldom a complete failure, -they are rarely an unqualified success. Yet it is not easy to see -wherein _The Professor at the Breakfast-Table_ falls much below _The -Autocrat_. The book would be justified were it only for the pathetic -figure of Little Boston, to say nothing of Iris, the young Marylander, -the Model of all the Virtues, and the Koh-i-noor. It is something, -too, to have seen the landlady’s daughter appropriately wedded to an -undertaker, and the young fellow called John also married, and in -possession of ‘one of them little articles’ for which he had longed in -the days of bachelorhood, to wit, a boy of his own. - -_The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_, a storehouse of delightful -inventions, proved the least attractive of the three to the public. -But all of Holmes’s old-time skill returned when he wrote _Over the -Teacups_, his last book. The framework is simple but attractive, the -characters have genuine vitality and pique the reader by suggesting -that they must have been drawn from life. The Dictator is an old -friend. Number Five, the Tutor, the Counsellor, the two Annexes, Number -Seven, the Mistress and Delilah are agreeable acquaintances, and the -misfortune is ours if we do not know them as well as the figures of -_The Autocrat_. - -All these books are personal, known as such, and deriving half their -charm from the reader’s ability to recognize Holmes himself under -various disguises. In _Our Hundred Days in Europe_ the author speaks -_in propria persona_, and the volume may be described as a big printed -letter addressed to the writer’s friends, who, loving him as they do, -will rejoice in his happiness and his triumphs. - - -V - -THE POET - -The Autocrat’s poetical works contain a generous measure of what -elderly bards call their ‘juvenilia.’ We all understand the term. It -means verses which the bards in question would gladly have left in the -solitude of old magazines, and which admirers insist on dragging into -light,--poems that help to stock the school readers and speakers, and -which, because the copyright has expired by the unjust law of the land, -compilers of anthologies seize on and parade as representative. - -That Holmes suffers but little by the persistence of his ‘juvenilia’ -and ‘early verses’ is due to their frankly comic and grotesque -character. The reader is spared faded sentiment, and he is heartily -amused by the ingenuity of the conceits, the sparkle of the rhymes, the -satire, the epigrammatic wit. There is mirth still in that brilliant -essay in verbal gymnastics ‘The Comet’ (a dyspeptic’s dream), in ‘The -September Gale’ (a boy’s lament for his Sunday breeches, blown from -the line one fatal wash-day and never recovered), in ‘The Spectre Pig’ -(a parody on Dana’s ‘Buccaneer’), in ‘The Height of the Ridiculous,’ -‘Daily Trials,’ ‘The Treadmill Song,’ ‘The Dorchester Giant,’ ‘The -Music-Grinders,’ and the heartlessly funny poem entitled ‘My Aunt.’ - -Holmes was the readiest and the happiest of ‘occasional’ poets. No one -was so apt as he in meeting the needs of the moment, in brightening -with rhymed felicities the banquet, the class reunion, or in greeting -the distinguished stranger. He had rare skill in fitting the word -to the audience; it was impossible for him to be dull, and being -good-humored, it was difficult for him to say ‘No’ when committees were -importunate. Of his three hundred and twenty-seven poems, nearly one -half are poems of occasion. He wrote the greeting to Charles Dickens, -to the Prince Imperial, a poem for the Moore celebration, for the -dedication of the Stratford Fountain, for the two hundred and fiftieth -anniversary of the founding of Harvard College. His poems for the Class -of 1829, forty-four in number, reflect the history of the times as -well as the mood of the writer. The most famous of them is ‘The Boys’ -(1859). Its motive, that boy-nature never quite dies in the man, and -its defiant optimism were calculated to have rejuvenating effect on a -group of classmates then thirty years out of college. - -This art requires a quality of mind akin to that of the improvisatore. -Holmes was Boston’s poet laureate. His power to put an idea into -self-singing measure saved the battle-ship ‘Constitution,’ and did much -to save the ‘Old South’ Church. - -In his finer work there is a delicious blending of thoughtfulness and -humorous fancy. Only Holmes could have given the lines on ‘Dorothy Q.’ -their most original touch,--asking what would have been the result for -_him_ had prospective great-grandmother said ‘No’ instead of ‘Yes’:-- - - Should I be I, or would it be - One tenth another to nine tenths me? - -Half the pathos in that fragile and beautiful piece of workmanship, -‘The Last Leaf,’ derives from the humor, from the blending of laughter -and tears. Even in the exquisite piece, attributed to Iris, ‘Under the -Violets,’ a description of a young girl’s burial-place, the lighter -touch is not wholly wanting:-- - - When, turning round their dial-track, - Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, - Her little mourners, clad in black, - The crickets, sliding through the grass, - Shall pipe for her an evening mass. - -His highest flights are represented by ‘The Chambered Nautilus’ and -‘Musa,’ by the quaint and fanciful ‘Homesick in Heaven,’ and by the -simple and pathetic little lament entitled ‘Martha.’ His claim to the -name of poet must rest on these, on his fine setting of the romance of -Agnes Surriage, and on his tributes to Bryant and to Everett. - - -VI - -FICTION AND BIOGRAPHY - -Holmes wrote three novels. Although readable, original, based on a -thorough comprehension of the scenes described, the life, antecedents, -prejudices, habits, and manners of the people portrayed, nevertheless -they strike one as being experiments in fiction rather than true -novels. They may be classed with similar attempts by J. G. Holland and -Bayard Taylor. Each of these writers was a practised craftsman. The -trained man of letters can write a volume which he, his friends, his -publishers, the public, and many fair-minded critics agree in calling -a novel. But the book in question does not become a novel from having -been cast in the orthodox form. It resembles a novel more nearly than -it resembles anything else, nevertheless it is not a veritable novel. -Any reader can feel it, though he may not be able to say just where -the difference lies, or how there happens to be a difference. Many -a writer, it would seem, has only to continue his efforts to arrive -finally at the making of a true novel. He falls short because his mind -is working in an unwonted medium rather than because he lacks inventive -ability. - -If _Elsie Venner_ and _The Guardian Angel_ fail of being true novels, -they are at least highly successful studies in fiction and have given -and will continue to give a world of pleasure. If _A Mortal Antipathy_ -falls short of the excellence attained by the other two, it has at -least the virtue of having been written by a man who could not be -uninteresting, no matter what was his age or his humor. - -_Elsie Venner_ is a study in prenatal influences. The motive is -gruesome enough. A young woman, bitten by a snake, transmits certain -tendencies thus derived to her child. The subject was better adapted -to Hawthorne’s pen than to the Autocrat’s. A man of science knows -too much. Imagination is hampered. ‘What is’ and ‘What might be’ are -in perpetual conflict. A poet (such as Hawthorne essentially was) -throws science to the winds. Holmes goes at the problem in a brisk, -business-like way. Hawthorne would have treated it as a mystery, not -dragging it into broad light. - -_Elsie Venner_ was dramatized and staged. Holmes went to see it. What -he thought of the play at the time is not recorded, but in after years -he pronounced it ‘bad, very bad.’ - -_The Guardian Angel_ also deals with the question of heredity. The -problem of how many of our ancestors come out in us, and just how they -make themselves felt, was always fascinating to Holmes. There are no -snakes in this story to account for Myrtle Hazard’s peculiarities, but -something quite as enigmatical, namely, an Indian. One character in -_The Guardian Angel_ has come near to achieving immortality--Gifted -Hopkins, the minor poet, whose name was an inspiration. He represents -a harmless and much-abused race. The successful in his own craft -are even more impatient with him than the mockers among the laity, -probably because Gifted, in the innocence of his heart, desires to have -his verses read, and sends them to eminent poets under the mistaken -impression that they will be welcome. Holmes confessed that he had been -hard on Gifted Hopkins. - -The memoir of _John Lothrop Motley_, in addition to being a formal -record of personal history and literary achievement, is a spirited -defence of a proud, a gifted, and (in the biographer’s opinion) an -ill-used man, a man who, after years of successful public service, was -needlessly and wantonly humbled and mortified. Hence the note of fine -indignation which vibrates through the narrative. - -The life of _Emerson_ contributed by Holmes to the series of -‘American Men of Letters’ was a surprise to the public. To call for -judgment on the most transcendental of New England authors by the -least transcendental, to invite the poet of ‘The One-Hoss Shay’ to -pronounce on the poet of ‘The Sphinx,’ seems an odd if not a humorous -performance. Whoever suggested it did a wise thing, and the result of -the suggestion was a useful and agreeable piece of biographical writing. - -The work is thoroughly done, even to an analysis of the individual -essays. Who will, may view Emerson through the Autocrat’s eyes. They -had a close bond in their liking for the tangible facts of life. ‘Too -much,’ says Holmes, ‘has been made of Emerson’s mysticism. He was an -intellectual rather than an emotional mystic, and withal a cautious -one. He never let go the string of his balloon.’ - - * * * * * - -That we read Holmes on Emerson less for the sake of Emerson than for -the sake of Holmes suggests the possibility that we read all the -Autocrat’s books in the same spirit. Without question his work is of -value in the degree in which it reveals its author. He could not be -impersonal, he could not be dramatic. But he was fortunate in that he -could always be himself. He was one of the most delightful of men. And -being likewise one of the friendliest of writers he is most successful -when the form of his books, like _The Autocrat_ and _Over the Teacups_, -permits him, as it were, to bring his easy chair into the centre of -the room while we gather about him anxious to have him begin to talk, -hoping that he will be in no haste to leave off. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [45] J. T. Morse, Jr. - - - - -XIII - -_John Lothrop Motley_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =O. W. Holmes=: _John Lothrop Motley, a Memoir_, 1879. - - =G. W. Curtis= (edited): _The Correspondence of John Lothrop - Motley, D. C. L._, 1889. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Motley was born at Dorchester, Massachusetts, on April 15, 1814. His -great-grandfather, John Motley, came from Belfast, Ireland, early in -the Eighteenth Century, and settled at Falmouth, now Portland, Maine. -His father, Thomas Motley, a prosperous merchant of Boston, married -Anna Lothrop, daughter of the Reverend John Lothrop. The historian, the -second-born of their eight children, was named in honor of his maternal -grandfather. - -After a course of study under Cogswell and Bancroft at the Round Hill -School, Motley entered Harvard College and was graduated in 1831. He -was noted both at Northampton and Cambridge for intellectual brilliancy -rather than studiousness, for a regal manner which did not tend to make -him universally popular, and for rare personal beauty as was becoming -in a youth whose parents were reputed in their younger days ‘the -handsomest pair the town of Boston could show.’ He was a wit. ‘Give -me the luxuries of life and I will dispense with the necessaries,’ -is one of his best-known sayings. His passions were literary, he -admired Shelley and enjoyed the cleverness of Praed. Although fond of -versifying, he seems to have printed little or nothing. - -After graduation Motley spent two years (1832–33) at German -universities. He went first to Göttingen, where he made the -acquaintance of Bismarck. They were fellow-students the next year -at Berlin. ‘We lived in closest intimacy, sharing meals and outdoor -exercise,’ said Bismarck in a letter to Holmes. - -His period of foreign study having come to an end, Motley read law -in Boston and was admitted to the bar. In 1837 he married Miss Mary -Benjamin, a young woman noted for her beauty, cleverness, and an -open-hearted sincerity which ‘made her seem like a sister to those -who could help becoming her lovers.’[46] Two years after his marriage -Motley made his literary beginning by publishing a novel, _Morton’s -Hope, or the Memoirs of a Provincial_, and in 1849 he published yet -another, _Merry-Mount, a Romance of the Massachusetts Colony_. Neither -was successful. Perhaps the second failure was required to emphasize -the lesson taught by the first, that the author’s gifts were not for -imaginative work.[47] He was more fortunate with a group of three -essays printed in the ‘North American Review,’ one on ‘Peter the -Great’ (1845), one on ‘Balzac’ (1847), the third on ‘The Polity of the -Puritans’ (1849). - -The first subject was suggested to Motley during a residence of -several months in St. Petersburg as Secretary to the American Legation -(1841–42). This taste of diplomatic life seems not to have been wholly -relished. Motley’s wife could not accompany him, and homesickness and a -Russian winter conspired to drive him back to America. He gained some -knowledge of practical politics by serving a term in the Massachusetts -legislature (1849). Neither law, nor diplomacy, nor yet politics, -seemed at that time to offer a field in which he could work to best -advantage. More and more he was tending towards literature. So absorbed -had he become in the history of Holland that he felt it ‘necessary to -write a book on the subject, even if it were destined to fall dead -from the press.’ He had made some progress when he heard of Prescott’s -projected history of Philip the Second. Thinking it ‘disloyal’ not to -declare his ambition of invading a part of Prescott’s own domain, he -went to lay his plan before the elder historian. Prescott immediately -offered the use of books from his library and was in all ways cordial -and enthusiastic. - -It soon became evident that a history of Holland could not be written -in America. In 1851 Motley took his family and went abroad, and for -the next five years toiled unweariedly among the archives of Dresden, -The Hague, Brussels, and Paris. His energy and plodding patience -surprised the friends who remembered Motley for a brilliant young man -who heretofore had played industriously at work rather than actually -worked. ‘He never shrank from any of the drudgery of preparation,’ said -his daughter, Lady Harcourt, in after years. - -The three volumes of _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_ were at length -ready for the press. Motley was forced to publish at his own expense. -Notwithstanding hostile criticisms, the success was undeniable. The -book was immediately translated into French, German, and Dutch. Of -two French versions the one published in Paris was edited, with an -introduction, by Guizot. - -The historical series as we have it comprises nine volumes. The works -appeared in the following order: _The Rise of the Dutch Republic_, -1856; _History of the United Netherlands_, 1860–68; _The Life and -Death of John of Barneveld_, 1874. Motley’s plan included a history -of the Thirty Years’ War. But he was not to be granted length of days -sufficient for the writing of this ‘last act of a great drama.’ - -Among many scholastic honors which in the nature of things fell -to Motley’s share may be mentioned the conferring of the degree -of D. C. L. by Oxford, and the election to full membership in the -Institute of France. - -Shortly after the fall of Fort Sumter, Motley published in the London -‘Times’ two letters on the significance and justice of the war. They -had a marked effect in England and were reprinted in America. In June, -1861, the Austrian government having refused to accept the minister -sent to Vienna, Motley was accredited to the mission. After discharging -the duties of his office with marked ability during the four troubled -years of Lincoln’s administration, and through two years of Johnson’s, -he resigned because of an affront offered him by his own government.[48] - -During the political campaign of 1868 Motley gave an address in Music -Hall, Boston, on ‘Four Questions for the People at the Presidential -Election.’ On December 16, as orator at the sixty-first anniversary of -the New York Historical Society, he spoke on ‘Historic Progress and -American Democracy.’ In the spring of 1869 President Grant assigned -Motley to the English mission, and in July, 1870, recalled him. The -reasons given for this summary act have never been satisfactory -to Motley’s friends. It is a question for experts. If Motley’s -indiscretion (or offence) was great, his punishment was severe, and the -manner of it not undeserving of the epithet brutal.[49] - -Motley’s health is believed to have been affected by distress of mind -over the recall. But the real disaster of his latter years was the -loss of his wife. He survived her only two and a half years. His death -occurred at Kingston Russell, near Dorchester, England, on May 29, 1877. - -Dean Stanley in his tribute to Motley at Westminster Abbey used the -striking phrase, ‘an historian at once so ardent and so laborious.’ -J. R. Green, who heard the sermon, thought the phrase ‘most happy.’ -Said Green: ‘I should have liked Stanley to have pointed out the -thing which strikes me most in Motley, that alone of all men past and -present he knit together not only America and England, but that Older -England which we left on Frisian shores, and which grew into the United -Netherlands. A child of America, the historian of Holland, he made -England his adopted country, and in England his body lies.’ - - -II - -HIS CHARACTER - -Motley’s letters afford the best insight into his generous, -affectionate, richly endowed, and manly nature. They mirror his -complete happiness in the home circle, his chivalrous devotion to the -woman of his choice, his loyalty to his friends, and his passionate -love of native land. They do not show--nor was it intended by the -editor that they should--his fiery impatience, his quick resentment, -his sensitive pride, his occasional and pardonable bitterness. - -A dominant trait of Motley’s character was intensity of the patriotic -sentiment. Much was required of a ‘good American’ who, living in Europe -during the Civil War, frequented the circles Motley frequented--much -in the way of tact, patience, and, above all, courage and hopefulness. -Motley, who was far from being a placid, unreflecting optimist, had -need of all his philosophy as he saw everywhere proofs of satisfaction -in America’s misfortune. He had not only to meet a frank antagonism -which could be understood and dealt with, but a hostility which took -the galling form of suave assurances that his country was positively -going to the dogs, and on the whole it was a very good thing that -it was. If gentlemen did not exactly call on him for the purpose -of telling him so, they managed sometimes to leave that impression. -Motley’s services to his country in meeting every form of attack, -direct or insidious, in the spirit of high confidence, were very great. -The extent of his usefulness has not yet been fully measured. - -He was free from literary vanity and would have been quite unmoved had -his books come short of their actual fortune. His way of accepting the -real or the superficial tributes to success shows the man. Honorary -degrees, elections to learned societies, drawing-room lionizing, -passing compliments, were taken exactly for what they were worth. He -was as far removed from the absurdity of being elated by these things -as he was from the absurdity of pretending not to care. No one could -have been more alive to the significance of a degree from Oxford, yet -Motley seems to have got the most of comfort on that occasion from the -odd spectacle of the Doctors marching in the rain, and among them old -Brougham ‘with his wonderful nose wagging lithely from side to side as -he hitched up his red petticoats and stalked through the mud.’ - -The letters reveal so many pleasant traits as to make it difficult to -comprehend the hostility which pursued the writer. Holmes throws a -deal of light on that question by a single remark. Motley, he says, -‘did not illustrate the popular type of politician.’ The fact is, he -illustrated everything that was opposed to that type. An uncompromising -upholder of the democratic theory, a bitter foe of absolutism, a -eulogist of the people, Motley was himself an aristocrat to the -finger-tips. ‘He had a genuine horror of vulgarity in all its forms,’ -said one of his friends, and doubtless he showed it. An ‘instinctive -repugnance to bad manners and coarse-grained men’ was a trait -ill-suited to popularity. Motley’s high-bred bearing alone constituted -an offence. But he was incapable of so much policy as was involved -in pretending to a bonhomie that was unnatural to him. He had a -pliancy of nature fitted to the complex needs of a very complex social -organization, but that was not enough to satisfy all his exacting -countrymen. And among them were those who disliked him for being the -gentleman he was. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -The historian of the Dutch Republic writes as one who thinks nobly, -admires with enthusiasm, and hates without pettiness. ‘His thoughts -are masculine, full of argumentation,’ and as are his thoughts so is -his style. Often the language seems charged with his own energy and -chivalric impulsiveness. At such times the style is eager, mettlesome, -impetuous, it glows with intensity of feeling. - -Motley was not a ‘fine’ writer in the sense of being visibly scrupulous -about the choice of words and the balance of sentences. He impresses -one as of the opinion that a man can ill afford to give too much time -to the problem of expression. But he is far from being indifferent to -the reader. He is not merely willing, he prefers to please, provided -that in so doing he is not diverted from his main purpose. The -prevailing characteristics of his style are a natural dignity and a -manly negligence. - -He imparts vividness by means of detailed conversations among the -actors of the historic drama. These colloquies have at times the air -of being inventions of the historian, like the speeches in Xenophon. -Conscious that a device intended to give reality might affect the -sceptical mind quite otherwise, Motley more than once explained that -‘no historical personage is ever made, in the text, to say or write -anything, save what, on ample evidence, he is known to have said or -written.’ - -The reader who turns from Prescott to Motley at once discovers that the -younger historian weaves a dense, firm web. Appropriating an admirable -figure invented by Henry James and used with respect to Balzac’s style, -it may be said that if Motley’s work is not at every point cloth of -gold, it has at least a metallic rigidity. - - -IV - -THE HISTORIES - -The struggle of the Dutch for religious and political liberty was to -have been ‘only an episode’ in Prescott’s _Philip the Second_. Motley’s -broad treatment of the theme requires nine octavo volumes. _The Rise -of the Dutch Republic_ (in three volumes) covers the time between the -abdication of Charles the Fifth and the murder of William of Orange. -The _History of the United Netherlands_ (in four volumes) takes up the -narrative at the death of William and carries it on to the end of the -Twelve Years’ Truce. _John of Barneveld_, is ‘the natural sequel’ to -the two preceding works, and ‘a necessary introduction’ to the history -of the Thirty Years’ War. - -These works from first to last are marked by passionate admiration of -the spirit which makes for liberty. Admitting the turbulent character -of that spirit in the early history of the Netherlands, the historian -does not deplore it. Sedition and uproar meant life. ‘Those violent -little commonwealths had blood in their veins! They were compact of -proud, self-helping muscular vigor.’ And to Motley ‘the most sanguinary -tumults which they ever enacted in the face of day were better than the -order and silence born of the midnight darkness of despotism.’ - -The treatment then is strongly partisan. There is a fervor in the -account of the deeds and sufferings of those patriots who thought no -sacrifice too great if thereby the sum total of human liberty was -increased. - -Motley does not pretend that the leaders in this struggle were always -disinterested. The motives swaying humanity are wondrously complex. -But after all deductions are made, it was a struggle of light against -darkness, and with such a struggle it was possible to sympathize -unqualifiedly. There are cool-blooded critics who view such an attitude -with disdain. This, they say, is not the temper in which history should -be written. History must be calm, impartial, scientific. Perhaps -the reasonable reply is that history must be of many sorts and the -product of many types of mind; that one sort never really excludes -the other. Also it is well to remember that a great historical master -of our time,[50] and one whose creed was by no means narrow, pleaded -always for this deep and passionate motive in the work, and laughed at -the modern Oxford product which can balance questions but is able to -accomplish nothing. - -Motley’s historic canvas is crowded with figures. The eye is at first -drawn toward the personages, the military, ecclesiastical, and princely -chiefs, William of Orange (who is Motley’s hero), Egmont, Alva, and -Granvelle; but the eye does not rest on these alone. Surrounding them -are the multitudes of aspiring, suffering people becoming more and more -a preponderant force in the life of the nation, refusing to be disposed -of in the lump, or driven about like a flock of sheep to be sheared or -slaughtered at the whim of a monarch. - -Here lies Motley’s sympathy. His indignation flames out when misery -is brought upon thousands, by the caprice of kings or the selfishness -of secular and ecclesiastical politicians. Note his sarcasm on the -battle of Saint Quentin, a game in which ‘the players were kings and -the people were stakes--not parties.’ Note his fine scorn of that type -of government ‘which was administered exclusively for the benefit -of the government.’ Note his loathing for that type of vanity which -presumes to dictate how a man shall worship God. The temper in which -Motley writes is admirably epitomized in the picture of Caraffa, as -papal legate, making his entry into Paris, showering blessings upon -the people, ‘while the friends who were nearest him were aware that -nothing but gibes and sarcasms were falling from his lips.... It would -no doubt have increased the hilarity of Caraffa ... could the idea have -been suggested to his mind that the sentiments, or the welfare of the -people throughout the great states ... could have any possible bearing -upon the question of peace or war. The world was governed by other -influences. The wiles of a cardinal--the arts of a concubine--the -speculations of a soldier of fortune--the ill temper of a monk--the -mutual venom of Italian houses--above all, the perpetual rivalry -of the two great historical families who owned the greater part of -Europe between them as their private property--such were the wheels on -which rolled the destiny of Christendom. Compared to these, what were -great moral and political ideas, the plans of statesmen, the hopes of -nations? Time was to show.... Meanwhile a petty war for petty motives -was to precede the great spectacle which was to prove to Europe that -principles and peoples still existed, and that a phlegmatic nation of -merchants and manufacturers could defy the powers of the universe, and -risk all their blood and treasure, generation after generation, in a -sacred cause.’[51] - -The historian is a hard hitter. The enemies of liberty and their agents -are not spared. Philip, Granvelle, Alva, and a score besides are -characterized in withering terms. Of Philip, for example, Motley says: -‘It is curious to observe the minute reticulations of tyranny which he -had begun already to spin about a whole people, while cold, venomous, -and patient he watched his victims from the center of his web.’ The -historian is fiery in denouncing the tortuous and Machiavellian -politics of the Sixteenth Century. It was an age when honesty, plain -speaking, and respect for a promise had nothing to do with the conduct -of affairs of state. He who could lie most adroitly was the best man. -Granvelle fills his letters with innuendoes against Egmont and Orange, -all the while protesting that he would not have a hair of their heads -injured. It is he, according to Motley, who puts into Philip’s mind -the thoughts he is to think, almost in the words in which he is to -utter them. Philip had his own strength, but he was slow to come to a -conclusion. Granvelle knew how to clarify that muddy stream of ideas. - -The preceding work shows the Dutch states in the beginning and -progress of their struggle against the tyranny of Philip; the _United -Netherlands_ shows Holland as a rising hope of Protestantism, as a -nation to be reckoned with in the diplomacy of Europe. - -The Spanish king is still writing letters, still concocting schemes -for conquest, still enmeshing friends and enemies alike in a web -of falsehood. He is drawn off for the moment from his mission in -the Netherlands to extend his conquests elsewhere. These proposed -conquests have exactly one object--to enable the spirit of despotism -‘to maintain the old mastery of mankind.’ ‘Countries and nations being -regarded as private property to be inherited or bequeathed to a few -favored individuals, ... it had now become right and proper for the -Spanish monarch to annex Scotland, England, and France to the very -considerable possessions which were already his own.’ - -A picturesque episode of the attempt upon England was the Armada. -To this enterprise Motley gives one of his best and most thrilling -chapters. Equally fascinating is the account of the attempt upon -France, the battle of Ivry (when the white plume of Henry of Navarre -carried the hopes of all liberal-minded men), and the terrible siege of -Paris which almost immediately followed. ‘Rarely have men at any epoch -defended their fatherland against foreign oppression with more heroism -than that which was manifested by the Parisians of 1590 in resisting -religious toleration, and in obeying a foreign and priestly despotism.’ - -Perhaps there are not to be found in the historian’s works more -striking passages than those in which are described the last days of -Philip the Second. To Philip’s fortitude, in agony as poignant as -any he had visited upon his miserable victims, the historian gives -unstinted praise. The account, which rests upon documentary basis, -presents an accumulation of horrors from which a Zola or a Flaubert -might have learned a lesson. The king died with a clear conscience, -having upon his soul the blood of uncounted numbers of human beings, -and providing in his will that ‘thirty thousand masses should be said -for his soul.’ - -‘It seems like mere railing to specify his crimes,’ says Motley. -‘The horrible monotony of his career stupefies the mind until it is -ready to accept the principle of evil as the fundamental law of the -land.’ Motley’s conclusion is that Philip the Second of Spain was -Machiavelli’s greatest pupil. - -What remains of the book after Philip’s death lacks neither literary -interest nor historic value. But we have something akin to the feeling -which comes over us when the chief character in a play dies before the -last act; we question for a moment whether the interest will hold. That -dominant and sinister personality leaves a void which the exploits of -Prince Maurice hardly serve to fill. With these exploits, however, and -a discussion of the causes leading to the Twelve Years’ Truce, Motley -concluded the _History of the United Netherlands_. - -In the last of his three great works, _John of Barneveld_, Motley -gave full expression to his generous partisanship of all that seemed -to him to stand for the spirit of liberty. With a contempt for the -subtleties of theological speculation, the historian was by instinct -‘Remonstrant,’ that is, anti-Calvinistic, and found in Barneveld one of -his heroes. He has painted a wonderful picture of the old advocate’s -trial and death. Hounded daily by twenty-four judges, many of them his -personal enemies, compelled to rely on his powerful memory in reviewing -the events and explaining the acts of his forty-three years of public -service, denied books, denied counsel, denied a knowledge in advance -of the charges made against him, denied access to the notes of his -examination as it proceeded, denied everything suggested by the words -‘law’ and ‘justice,’ Barneveld came out of the ordeal so triumphantly -that the announcement of his sentence might well have moved him to say: -‘I am ready enough to die, but I cannot comprehend why I am to die.’ - -In characterization of men, in searching analysis of causes and -motives, in brilliant description, and in manly eloquence, Motley’s -_John of Barneveld_ equals its predecessors, while the note of passion -is if anything intensified by the bitter experiences through which the -historian had so recently passed. - - * * * * * - -A fitting postlude to Motley’s work as a whole may be found in the last -sentence of the _United Netherlands_. It makes clear the motives other -than scholarly and creative which led to the writing of these splendid -narratives. Says the historian: ‘If by his labors a generous love has -been fostered for that blessing, without which everything that this -earth can afford is worthless,--freedom of thought, of speech, and of -life,--his highest wish has been fulfilled.’ - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [46] O. W. Holmes. - - [47] _Merry-Mount_ is more readable than its predecessor. Such - characters as Sir Christopher Gardiner and his ‘cousin,’ - Thomas Morton with his hawks and his classical quotations, - Esther Ludlow and Maudsley, Walford the smith, Blaxton the - hermit, together with the human grotesques Peter Cakebread, - Bootefish, and Canary-Bird, repay one for the trouble he - takes to make their acquaintance. - - [48] For a defence of the part played by the Secretary of State in - this affair see John Bigelow’s paper entitled ‘Mr. Seward and - Mr. Motley,’ in the ‘International Review,’ July-August, 1878. - - [49] John Jay: ‘Motley’s Appeal to History,’ in the ‘International - Review’ for November-December, 1877. - - [50] J. R. Green. - - [51] _Dutch Republic_, i, 162. - - - - -XIV - -_Francis Parkman_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =Edward Wheelwright=: ‘Memoir of Francis Parkman, LL.D.,’ - _Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts_, vol. - i, 1895. - - =C. H. Farnham=: _A Life of Francis Parkman_, 1901. - - =H. D. Sedgwick=: _Francis Parkman_, ‘American Men of Letters,’ - 1904. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -The Parkmans are descendants of Thomas Parkman of Sidmouth, Devon, -whose son Elias settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in 1633. -Francis Parkman was a son of the Reverend Francis Parkman, pastor -for thirty-six years of the New North Church in Boston. Through his -mother, Caroline (Hall) Parkman, he was related to the famous colonial -minister, John Cotton. Two of his maternal ancestors used to preach -to the Indians in their own tongue. Parkman’s deep interest in the -‘aborigines’ may have been ‘partly inherited from these Puritan -ancestors.’ ‘It does not appear, however, that he ever learned their -language, and it may be regarded as certain that he never preached to -them.’ - -Born in Boston on September 16, 1823, Parkman prepared for college -at Chauncy Hall School and was graduated at Harvard in 1844. During -his college course he ‘showed symptoms of Injuns on the brain,’ as a -classmate phrased it. In 1841 he began those vacation wanderings which -gave him such an intimate acquaintance with the American wilderness. -Before taking his degree he had planned a book on the conspiracy of -Pontiac. The year after graduation he visited Detroit and other scenes -of the historic drama, collected papers, and, wherever it was possible, -‘interviewed descendants of the actors.’ - -At his father’s instance Parkman then entered the Dane Law School at -Cambridge and obtained his degree (1846), but took no steps to be -admitted to the bar. He studied by himself history, Indian ethnology, -and ‘models of English style.’ The passage in _Vassall Morton_ -describing the influence of Thierry’s _Norman Conquest_ in directing -the hero of the novel towards ethnological study, is thought to be -autobiographical. - -Having weakened his sight by immoderate reading, Parkman (in 1846) made -a journey to the Northwest, ‘partly to cure his eyes and partly to -study Indian life.’ He was accompanied by his friend Quincy Adams Shaw. -For some weeks he lived in a village of Ogillallah Indians, sharing -the tent of a chief and following the wanderings of the tribe in their -search for enemies and buffalo. The hardships of the life ruined his -health. His sight was made worse rather than better, and his first -book, _The Oregon Trail_ (1849), describing these western experiences, -had to be written from dictation.[52] It was followed by _The -Conspiracy of Pontiac_ (1851), and that by _Vassall Morton_ (1856), an -attempt at fiction. This ends the initial period of Parkman’s literary -life. - -In 1850 Parkman married Catharine, a daughter of Doctor Jacob Bigelow -of Boston. She is said to have been a woman of a sweet and joyful -disposition, having a keen sense of humor, and, above all, endowed -with ‘the high courage requisite to tend unfalteringly the pain and -suffering of the man she loved.’[53] It was a perfect union, but -unhappily it was not to last long. Mrs. Parkman died in 1858. - -The historian’s health steadily declined. For years together his chief -study was to keep himself alive. As a part of this study he took up -floriculture, and soon found himself absorbed in it for its own sake. -He became famous for his roses and lilies, and was the recipient of -prizes innumerable from horticultural societies.[54] Yet at no time -did he lose sight of his main object, the history of France in North -America. Little by little his store of materials accumulated. Even -when he was at his worst physically, some progress was made. It might -be only a step, but the step had not to be retraced. - -As his strength returned he began to travel. To renew his acquaintance -with the Indians he went to Fort Snelling in 1867. He was repeatedly in -Paris consulting archives and doctors. He visited Canada in 1873 and -explored over and over again the region between Quebec and Lake George. - -The great historical series to which its author gave the title of -_France and England in North America_ began to appear just at the close -of the Civil War. The volumes in the order of their publication are: -_The Pioneers of France in the New World_, 1865; _The Jesuits in North -America_, 1867; _The Discovery of the Great West_, 1869;[55] _The Old -Régime_, 1874; _Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV_, 1877; -_Montcalm and Wolfe_, 1884; _A Half-Century of Conflict_, 1892. - -The merits of this extraordinary series were recognized at once as -many and varied. It is a question to which of three types of reader -the books most appealed,--the scholar, who is bound to read critically -whether he will or no, the utilitarian in search of facts chiefly, or -the mere lover of literature. Each found what he was seeking in these -narratives, and each paid homage to the author in his own way. - -As is often true of historians far less notable than he, Parkman was -the recipient of academic honors, and was made a member of numerous -historical societies. The mere catalogue of these distinctions fills a -page of printed text. His membership of the Massachusetts Historical -Society and his degree of LL. D. from Harvard College (1889) will -serve as illustrations. Parkman was influential in helping to found -the Archæological Institute of America. He was one of the founders of -the St. Botolph Club in Boston, and its president during the first six -years of its existence. - -The history of France and England in North America was completed the -year before he died. Had time and strength been allowed him, he would -have recast the material in the form of a continuous narrative. There -might have been a gain in the new arrangement, as on the other hand -there might have been a loss. - -Parkman died at his home at Jamaica Plain, near Boston, on November 8, -1893. - - -II - -PARKMAN’S CHARACTER - -Parkman had prodigious will power and unequalled pertinacity. No -barrier to the accomplishment of his object was allowed to stand in -the way. He was beset by the demons of ill health, and their number was -legion. Unable to rout them by impetuous onslaught, he tired them out, -thinning their ranks, one by one. He was infinitely patient, full of -devices for outwitting the enemy. Beaten again and again, he stubbornly -renewed the fight. Threatened with blindness, he set himself to avoid -it, and did. Threatened with insanity, he declined to become insane. - -Nothing could be more admirable than the spirit in which he faced daily -torment. He was that extraordinary being, a cheerful stoic. Four times -in his life it was a question whether he would live or die. Parkman -admitted that once, had he been seeking merely his comfort, he would -have elected to die. That must have been the time when, in response to -his physician’s encouraging remark that he had a strong constitution, -Parkman said: ‘I’m afraid I have.’ In ordinary conditions of ill health -he was bright, cheery, philosophical, but when he suffered most he was -silent. At no time was he capable of complaining. - -Parkman loved to face the hard facts of life and was apt to admire -others in the degree in which they showed a like spirit. He had a -sovereign contempt for everything not manly and robust. He contradicted -with amusing emphasis the statement in some biographical notice that -he was ‘feeble.’ By his philosophy the militant attitude toward -life was the true one. He believed in war as a moral force; it -made for character both in the man and in the nation. ‘The severest -disappointment of his life was his inability to enter the army during -our civil war.’ - -He was wholly free from certain narrow traits which are too apt to -be engendered in a life devoted to books and authorship. Manly, -open-hearted, unspoiled, he neither craved honors nor despised them. -It has been remarked that while he was gratified by the recognition -accorded his work in high places, he was equally pleased with a letter -from ‘a live boy’ who wrote to tell him how much he had enjoyed reading -about Pontiac and La Salle. He himself kept to the last a certain -boyish frankness of mind and heart. The year before he died he wrote -to the secretary of the class of ’44: ‘Please give my kind regrets and -remembrances to the fellows.’ - -There have been not a few attractive personalities in the history of -American letters. Parkman was one of the most attractive among them. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -The style is clear and luminous. Short sentences abound, giving the -effect of rapidity. The mind of the reader never halts because of an -obscure term or some intricacy of structure. Neither is the page -spotted with long words ending in _tion_, and which coming in groups, -as they do in Bancroft, are like grit in the teeth. Parkman did not -attain the exquisite grace and composure which characterize Irving’s -prose, but he came nearer to it than did Prescott. The historian of -Ferdinand and Isabella had a self-conscious style. Agreeable as it is, -it reveals a man always on guard as he writes. In his most eloquent -passages Prescott is formal, precise, even stiff. - -Parkman’s style is wholly engaging. There is a captivating manner about -it, the result of his immense enthusiasm for his theme. Infinitely -laborious in the preparation, sceptical in use of authorities, -temperate in judgment, when, however, it comes to telling the story, -he allows his genius for narration a free rein, and the style, though -losing none of its dignity, is eager and almost impetuous. The -historian speaks as an eye-witness of all he describes. - -This explains Parkman’s popularity in large degree. Fascinating as the -subject is, the manner adds a hundred fold. He who reads Bancroft gets -a deal of information, for which he pays a round price. He who reads -Parkman gets facts, eloquence, philosophy, besides no end of adventure, -and for all this he pays literally nothing. - - -IV - -EARLY WORK - -_OREGON TRAIL_, _CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC_, _VASSALL MORTON_ - -_The Oregon Trail_ ranks high among books which, though sometimes -written for quite another purpose, are read chiefly for entertainment. -Such was _Two Years before the Mast_, such was _The Bible in Spain_, -that skilful work of a most accomplished poseur. - -In addition to its value as literature, _The Oregon Trail_ is a -trustworthy account of a no longer existent state of society. It is -a document. The range of experience was narrow, and the adventures -few, but so far as it goes the record is perfect; and when read in -connection with his historical work, the book becomes a commentary on -Parkman’s method. Here is shown how he got that knowledge of Indian -life and character which distinguishes his work from that of other -historical writers who touch the same field. The knowledge was utilized -at once in his next work. - -_The Conspiracy of Pontiac_ is the sort of book people praise by saying -that it is as readable as a novel. The comparison is unfortunate. So -many novels are disciplinary rather than amusing. One wishes it were -possible to say of them that they are as readable as history. - -Nevertheless it is quite true that the virtues supposed to inhere -chiefly in a work of fiction are conspicuous in this the first of -Parkman’s historical studies. _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_ is a story, -filled with incident and abounding in illustrations of courage, -craft, endurance, stubbornness, self-sacrifice, despair, triumph. The -plain truth shames invention. Pontiac lives in these pages describing -his towering ambition. So do the other actors,--Rogers, Gladwyn, -Campbell, Catharine the Ojibwa girl. The supernumeraries are strikingly -picturesque,--Canadian settlers, trappers, coureurs des bois, priests, -half-breeds, and Indians, the motley denizens of frontier and -wilderness. A forest drama played by actors like these is bound to be -absorbing were it only as a spectacle. - -One fact becomes apparent on taking up this book. History as Parkman -writes it is both dramatic and graphical, filled with action and -movement, filled with color, form, and beauty. With such an eye for -effect it is impossible for him to be dull. Open the volume at random -and the wealth of the author’s observations seems to have been showered -on that page. But the next page is like it, and also the next. - -The vivacity of youth explains much in this narrative. Parkman was -but twenty-six when he wrote _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_. Being -young, he was not afraid to be eloquent, to revel in descriptions of -sunrise and sunset, tempests, the coming of spring, the brilliant hues -of autumn foliage, the soft haze of Indian summer. His chapters are -richly enamelled with these glowing pieces of rhetoric. He is no less -brilliant in his martial scenes; the accounts of the Battle of Bloody -Bridge and of Bouquet’s fight in the forest are extraordinarily well -done. - -The historian is severe on writers who have idealized the Indian. -Here is one of Parkman’s own characterizations: ‘The stern, -unchanging features of his mind excite our admiration from their very -immutability; and we look with deep interest on the fate of this -irreclaimable son of the wilderness, the child who will not be weaned -from the breast of his rugged mother. And our interest increases when -we discern in the unhappy wanderer, mingled among his vices, the germs -of heroic virtues,--a hand bountiful to bestow, as it is rapacious to -seize, and, even in extremest famine, imparting its last morsel to -a fellow sufferer; a heart which, strong in friendship as in hate, -thinks it not too much to lay down life for its chosen comrade; a soul -true to its own idea of honor, and burning with an unquenchable thirst -for greatness and renown.’ Neither poet nor novelist really needs to -embroider such an account of the Red Man. - -This successful historic monograph was followed by an unsuccessful -novel, written, it is thought, for recreation. Without being an -autobiography, _Vassall Morton_ abounds in autobiographical passages. -Its failure was not of the kind that proves inability ever to master -the art of fiction. The loss to American letters however would have -been incalculable had Parkman’s genius for historical narrative been -sacrificed in any degree to novel writing. And this might have happened -had _Vassall Morton_ been a success. - - -V - -_FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN NORTH AMERICA_ - -The history of France in North America abounds in everything appealing -to the love of the heroic. Parkman writes in a spirit of frank and -contagious admiration. Himself of Puritan blood and appreciative of -the best in Puritan character, he makes the pale narratives of the -contentious little English republics seem colorless indeed when laid -beside his glowing pages. The great warriors, the brave and fanatical -priests, the adventurous rangers, and the iron-hearted explorers of New -France were born to be wondered at and extolled. Without assuming that -these men had a monopoly of virtue, Parkman scatters praise with a free -hand. - -The germ of this massive and beautiful work is contained in the -introductory chapters of _Pontiac_. Here is outlined the history of -French exploration, religious propagandism, and military conquest or -defeat up to the fall of Quebec. - -The first three narratives (_The Pioneers of France_, _The Jesuits_, -and _La Salle_) cover the period of inception. They abound in -illustrations of heroism, self-sacrifice, and missionary fervor. The -last three volumes (_Count Frontenac_, _A Half-Century of Conflict_, -and _Montcalm and Wolfe_) describe the struggle of rival powers for -supremacy. They are characterized mainly by illustrations of commercial -greed, ecclesiastical jealousy, personal and political ambition. Midway -in the series and related alike to what precedes and what follows is -the fascinating volume, _The Old Régime in Canada_. - -The title of the initial volume, _The Pioneers of France in the New -World_, exactly describes it. The ‘Pioneers’ are the Basque, the -Norman, and the Breton sailors who, from an almost unrecorded past, -crossed the sea yearly to fish on the banks of Newfoundland. They are -Jacques Cartier of St. Malo, who first explored the St. Lawrence, -Roberval, La Roche, and De Monts. Men of their time, they were both -devout and unscrupulous. Among them and their followers were grim -humorists. When, after the arrival of De Monts’s company in Acadia, a -priest and a Huguenot minister died at the same time, the crew buried -them in one grave ‘to see if they would lie peaceably together.’ - -Chief among the great names of this period is that of Samuel Champlain, -the ‘life’ of New France, who united in himself ‘the crusader, the -romance-loving explorer, the curious, knowledge-seeking traveller, -the practical navigator.’ Such a man has a breadth of vision and -strength of purpose in comparison with which the sight of common men is -blindness and their strength infirmity. - -The second narrative in the series, _The Jesuits in North America_, -is an amazing record of courage, fanaticism, indomitable will, -perseverance, and martyrdom. The book contains the gist of the famous -_Jesuit Relations_. A man may be forgiven for not wearying himself with -the tediousness of those good fathers who were often as long-winded as -they were brave. But he is inexcusable if he has not learned to admire -them through Parkman’s thrilling account of their physical sufferings -and spiritual triumphs. Those giants of devotion, Brébeuf, Lalemant, -Garnier, and Jogues, seem both human and superhuman as they move across -the stage of history. - -In _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_ we have a story of -zeal of another sort. La Salle is a pathetic figure. Yet to pity him -were to offer insult. He stood apart from his fellows, misunderstood -and maligned, but self-centred and self-sufficient. His contemporaries -thought him crack-brained; suffering had turned his head. They mocked -his schemes and denied the truth of the discoveries to which he laid -claim. His history is one of pure disaster. But no one of Parkman’s -heroes awakens greater sympathy than this silent man who found in -the pursuit of honor compensation enough for incredible fatigues and -sacrifices. - -_The Old Régime in Canada_ treats of the contest between the feudal -chiefs of Acadia, La Tour and D’Aunay, of the mission among the -Iroquois, of the career of that imperious churchman Laval, and then, -in a hundred and fifty brilliant pages, of Canadian civilization in -the Seventeenth Century. This section is a model of instructive and -stimulating writing, grateful alike to the student of manners and to -the amateur of literary delights. - -The last volume shows the construction of the ‘political and social -machine.’ The next, _Count Frontenac and New France_, shows the -‘machine in action.’ The period covered is from 1672 to 1698. -Frontenac’s collision with the order which controlled the spiritual -destinies of New France led to his recall in 1682. La Barre, who -succeeded Frontenac, was a failure. Denonville, the next governor, -could live amicably with the Jesuits, but religious fervor proved no -substitute for tact in dealing with the savages. There was need of a -man who could handle both Jesuits and Indians. At seventy years of age -Frontenac returned to prop the tottering fortunes of New France. One -learns to like the irascible old governor who was vastly jealous of his -dignity, but who, when the need was, could take a tomahawk and dance a -war-dance to the great admiration of the Indians and to the political -benefit of New France. - -The story of the struggle for supremacy is continued in _A Half-Century -of Conflict_.[56] That phase of the record relating to the border -forays is almost monotonous in its unvarying details of ambuscade, -murder, the torture-stake, and captivity. The French and their Indian -allies descended on the outlying settlements of New England with fire, -sword, and tomahawk. Deerfield was sacked, and the country harried far -and wide. - -In the mean time French explorers were advancing west and south. Some, -in their eagerness to anticipate the English, established posts in -Louisiana. Others, with a courage peculiar to the time rather than to -any one race, pushed beyond the Missouri to Colorado and New Mexico, to -Dakota and Montana, led on by mixed motives such as personal ambition, -love of gain, patriotism. - -A spectacular event of the period was the siege and capture of -Louisbourg by a force largely composed of New England farmers and -fishermen. The project was conceived in audacity and carried out with -astonishing dash and good humor. That was singular military enterprise -which in the mind of an eye-witness bore some resemblance to a -‘Cambridge Commencement.’ ‘While the cannon bellowed in the front,’ -says Parkman, ‘frolic and confusion reigned at the camp, where the men -raced, wrestled, pitched quoits, and ... ran after French cannon balls, -which were carried to the batteries to be returned to those who sent -them.’ - -The volumes entitled _Montcalm and Wolfe_ crown the work. With stores -of erudition, a finely tempered judgment, a practised pen, and taste -refined by thirty years’ search for the manliest and most becoming -forms of expression, Parkman gave himself to the writing of this his -masterpiece. The work is the longest as well as the best of the seven -parts. Every page, from the account of Céloron de Bienville’s journey -to the Ohio to the story of the fall of Quebec, is crowded with fact, -suggestion, eloquence. The texture of the narrative is close knit. The -early volumes are often disjointed. They resemble groups of essays. -Chapters are so completely a unit that they might be read by themselves -with little regard to what preceded or what was to follow. Not so the -_Montcalm and Wolfe_, which is a perfectly homogeneous piece of work. - -This series of narratives has extraordinary merits. Let us note a few -of them. - -Among Parkman’s virtues as a historian are clarity of view, a -singularly unbiased attitude, an eye for the picturesque which never -fails to seize on the essentials of form, color, and grouping, -extraordinary power of condensation, a firm grasp of details, together -with the ability to subordinate all details to the main purpose. But -other historians have had these same virtues; we must find something -more distinctive. - -History as Parkman conceived it cannot be based on books and documents -alone. The historian must identify himself with the men of the past, -live their life, think their thoughts, place himself so far as possible -at their point of view. Since he cannot talk with them, he must at -least talk with their descendants. But the nature of the ‘habitant’ -cannot be studied in the latitude of Boston, it must be studied -on the St. Lawrence. A city covers the site of ancient Hochelaga, -nevertheless the historian must go there, and under the same sky, with -many features of the landscape unchanged, reconstruct Hochelaga as it -was when Jacques Cartier’s eyes rested upon it in 1535. This indicates -Parkman’s method. When he visited a battle-field it was not as one who -aimed at mere mathematical correctness of description, but as an artist -whose imagination took fire at the sight of a historic spot, and who -had there a vision of the past such as would not come to him in his -library. - -Would we see Parkman in a characteristic rôle we should not go to -his literary workshop, but for example to the little town of Utica, -Illinois. There one summer night, sitting on the porch of the hotel, -Parkman described to a group of farmers gathered about, the location -of La Salle’s fort and of the great Indian town. The description was -based on what he had learned from books ‘nearly two hundred years old.’ -His improvised audience gave hearty assent to its accuracy. Parkman -was there to obtain accuracy of another sort. The next day he visited -all the localities which formed the background of the historic drama -and reconstructed the life of the time. This is but one instance among -hundreds which might be brought forward to show the pains he took. -Herein lay the distinctive feature of his method. He used imagination -not to embroider the facts of history, but to give to dead facts a -new life. A faculty of the mind which is supposed to vitiate history -becomes in Parkman’s hands a means for arriving at truth. - -Parkman was a fortunate man. He was happy in his choice of a subject. -The theme was a great one, worthy the pen of so profound a scholar and -so gifted a literary artist. To this theme he gave his life, working -with singleness of purpose and under incredible difficulties. No trace -of this suffering can be detected in the temper of his judgments, or -in the even flow and bright radiance of his narrative. He was not only -happy in his mastery of his subject, he was most happy in his mastery -of himself. Parkman’s life is a reproach to the man who, working amid -normal conditions of health and fortune, permits himself to complain -that there are difficulties in his way. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [52] _The Oregon Trail_ was first published serially in ‘The - Knickerbocker Magazine.’ - - [53] Sedgwick’s _Parkman_, p. 217. - - [54] His _Book of the Roses_ was published in 1866. - - [55] Later renamed _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_. - - [56] _A Half-Century of Conflict_ was not published until after - the _Montcalm and Wolfe_. The historian became fearful lest - some accident should prevent his completing the part of his - narrative towards which all his study had tended. - - - - -XV - -_Bayard Taylor_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =Marie Hansen-Taylor and H. E. Scudder=: _Life and Letters of - Bayard Taylor_, 1884. - - =A. H. Smyth=: _Bayard Taylor_, ‘American Men of Letters’ [1896]. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Bayard Taylor in 1841, when he was sixteen, contributed to the -Philadelphia ‘Saturday Evening Post’ the verses entitled ‘Soliloquy of -a Young Poet.’ In 1878, the year of his death, he was still planning -new literary enterprises, and in so far as declining health permitted, -carrying them out. If unwearied devotion through nearly forty years to -the literary life, great fecundity in production, much taste, no little -scholarship, and unquestioned sincerity in the exercise of his art -entitle one to be called by the honorable name of man of letters, who -is more deserving than the author of _The Masque of the Gods_? To be -sure, only a few of his many books are read. But Taylor is in no worse -case than many men who tower giant-fashion above him. They likewise -have written forty volumes and are known and measured by two or three. - -Taylor was partly of German, partly of English Quaker stock, and could -boast an ancestor (Robert Taylor) who had come to America with William -Penn. The fourth of the ten children of Joseph and Rebecca (Way) -Taylor, he was born at Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, on January 11, -1825. His education was got at the neighboring academies of Westchester -and Unionville. He was a rhymester at the age of seven, and had become -an industrious writer by the time he was twelve. - -Having no inclination towards school-teaching and still less towards -his father’s vocation, farming, Taylor was apprenticed to a printer. -He was presently seized with a passion for travel, and in 1844, with -one hundred and forty dollars in his pocket, payment in advance for -certain letters he was to write for Philadelphia journals, he set out -on a pedestrian tour of Europe. He had a few remittances from home. -Greeley promised to print some of his letters provided they were ‘not -descriptive’ and that before writing them the young traveller made sure -that he had been in Europe ‘long enough to know something.’ Seventeen -of Taylor’s letters appeared in the ‘Tribune.’ - -By rigid economy Taylor managed to get on. But one must have youth to -endure the hardships of such a journey. Especially must one have youth -if he proposes, as Taylor did, to walk from Marseilles to Paris in -the cold winter rains. The history of these two years of wandering is -recounted in _Views Afoot, or Europe seen with Knapsack and Staff_ -(1846). - -Taylor returned to America and took up journalism. Failing in an -attempt to make of the ‘Phœnixville Pioneer’ a paper according to his -ideal, he went to New York (December, 1847). After various experiences -he secured a place on the ‘Tribune,’ was rapidly advanced, and became -in time a stockholder. He was sent to California to report on the gold -discoveries. This journey furnished him with the matter for his second -book of travel, _El Dorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire_ (1850). - -His whole subsequent career is but a variation on the themes of 1846 -and 1850. He went everywhere,--to Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor -(1851–52); to Spain and India, then on to China, where he joined -Perry’s expedition to Japan (1853). He was in Germany, Norway, and -Lapland in 1856, in Greece in 1857–58, in Russia in 1862–63 (where for -a while he held the post of secretary of legation), in Switzerland, the -Pyrenees, and Corsica in 1868, and in Egypt and Iceland in the same -year (1874). - -All his adventures were transmuted into books: _A Journey to Central -Africa_, 1854; _The Lands of the Saracen_, 1854; _A Visit to India, -China, and Japan in the Year 1853_, 1855; _Northern Travel_, 1857; -_Travels in Greece and Russia_, 1859; _At Home and Abroad_, 1859; _At -Home and Abroad_, ‘second series,’ 1862; _Colorado_, 1867; _By-Ways of -Europe_, 1869; _Egypt and Iceland_, 1874. - -A part of the great success of these books was due to causes far -from literature. Doubtless, if written to-day, the volumes would be -read, but it were idle to suppose that they could have the vogue they -enjoyed in the Fifties. The American public of a half-century ago was -not nomadic. It had few ways of gratifying its thirst for knowledge -of foreign lands. Photographs were so expensive that one seldom ran -the risk of being obliged to sit down with a friend ‘just back from -Europe’ to admire such novelties as the Leaning Tower and the Bridge of -Sighs. The oxyhydrogen stereopticon was imperfect, the panorama clumsy -and ill-painted. Therefore the writings of a man who had the knack of -telling agreeably what he had seen were most welcome. The home-keeping -public enjoyed also hearing the traveller talk. When Taylor lectured -(for he became one of the most popular lecturers of the day) they -crowded the hall and thought two hours of him not long enough. - -Timeliness, however, does not explain all the success of _Views Afoot_ -and its companion volumes. Taylor was an excellent writer even when he -wrote most hastily. If his word-pictures were often highly colored, -they possessed, among other virtues, the great virtue of having been -painted on the spot. Through their aid one could really see what Taylor -had himself seen. - -But Taylor was a poet before he was a traveller. In 1844 he published -(under the patronage of R. W. Griswold, his first literary adviser) a -little volume entitled _Ximena, or, The Battle of the Sierra Morena, -and Other Poems_. It was followed by _Rhymes of Travel_ (1848) and _The -American Legend_, the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard (1850). To these -must be added _A Book of Romances, Lyrics, and Songs_, 1851; _Poems -and Ballads_, 1854; _Poems of the Orient_, 1854; _Poems of Home and -Travel_, 1855; _The Poet’s Journal_, 1862; _The Picture of St. John_, -1866; _The Masque of the Gods_, 1872; _Lars_, 1873; _The Prophet_, -1874; _Home Pastorals, Ballads, and Lyrics_, 1875; _The National Ode_ -(read by the author at the opening of the ‘Centennial’), 1876; and -_Prince Deukalion_, 1878. The great translation of Goethe’s _Faust_, -with the commentary, appeared in 1870–71. - -Not content with his commercial success as a writer of travels, and his -artistic triumphs in poetry, Taylor tried fiction. The first of his -four novels, _Hannah Thurston_ (1863), is in part a satire and shows in -their most disagreeable light the people who abhor meat and swear by -vegetables, the people who profess to hold communication with spirits, -the people who think other people ought not to buy and sell human -flesh, and so forth. - -_John Godfrey’s Fortunes_ (1864) embodies not a few of Taylor’s -journalistic experiences in New York. Here are glimpses of literary -society such as the soirées at the home of Estelle Ann Lewis, the -Mademoiselle de Scudéry of that time and place. _The Story of Kennett_ -(1866) is a Pennsylvanian study, a true and lively picture of a phase -of civilization which the author perfectly understood. _Joseph and his -Friend_ (1870) closed the series of efforts by which Taylor tried to -earn money enough to free him from the thraldom of the lecture platform. - -His other publications were _Beauty and the Beast, and Tales of Home_ -(1872), _The Echo Club_ (1876), the posthumous _Studies in German -Literature_ (1879), and _Essays and Studies_ (1880). - -Of Taylor’s private life a few important facts remain to be recorded. -The pathetic story of Mary Agnew, the beautiful girl whom he had loved -since they were school-children together, and whom he married on her -death-bed, is a romance which fortunately has been well told by both of -Taylor’s biographers. In 1857 (seven years after Mary Agnew’s death) -Taylor married Marie Hansen, daughter of Professor Hansen of Gotha, the -astronomer. How devoted and helpful she was to him during his arduous -life, and how loyal to his memory, are facts too well known to require -emphasis. - -The home at Kennett known as ‘Cedarcroft’ was built in 1859–60. Taylor -lavished on it both money and affection; and while for a few years it -gave him a deal of happiness, it proved in the end a burden he could -ill afford to carry. - -Robust and vigorous though he seemed in middle life, Taylor by -unremitting activity had sapped his powers. He gave no evidence of -declining literary ambition, but at fifty he was worn out by overwork. -A notable recognition of his worth came to him in 1878, when President -Hayes appointed him Minister to Germany. He was not to enjoy the honor -for long. In May, 1878, he took up the duties of his office, and on -the fifteenth of the following December he died while sitting in his -armchair in his library. - - -II - -HIS CHARACTER - -Ambition was a ruling motive in Taylor’s life. Yet there has seldom -been an ambition which, albeit as consuming as fire, was at the same -time so free from selfish and ignoble elements. - -Taylor aspired to fame through cultivation of the art of poesy. -This was the real object of his life. To gain this object he toiled -unceasingly and made innumerable sacrifices. Baffled in the attempt -to reach his ideal, he was a little comforted when he could persuade -himself that he had not fallen completely short of it. And there was -exceeding great reward in the knowledge that if wide recognition as -a poet was denied him, his friends, Whittier, Longfellow, Stoddard, -Boker, and Aldrich, knew for what he was striving and commended him in -no uncertain tones. - -Whittier described Taylor as one who loved ‘old friends, old ways, and -kept his boyhood’s dreams in sight.’ Life was intensely interesting -to Taylor. Although the zest of travel disappeared and his large -experience of the ways of men had had its customary disillusioning -effect, he never really lost his youthful enthusiasm. And it is -touching to find in his private correspondence the repeated proofs of -how inexhaustible was his fund of hope and of courage, and how quick he -was to recover after real or fancied defeat. - -Notwithstanding his successes, and he had his share of the good -things of life,--contemporary reputation, money of his own earning, -and friends,--Bayard Taylor remains, with all his manly qualities, -a somewhat pathetic figure in American letters. He led a restless -and turbulent mental existence, and died the victim of ambition and -overwork. - - -III - -THE ARTIST - -Taylor has been pronounced the most skilful of our metrists after -Longfellow. One illustration only can be given of his interest in the -mechanism of verse, and that is his poetic romance _The Picture of St. -John_. The poem was not published until sixteen years after its first -conception. Possibly its growth was a little retarded by the structural -peculiarities. - -The poem contains three hundred and fifty-five eight-line stanzas -(iambic pentameter) grouped into four books. The ‘ottava rima’ was -chosen as ‘better adapted for the purposes of a romantic epic than -either the Spenserian stanza[57] or the heroic couplet.’ But the -question with the poet was,--how to avoid the ‘uniform sweetness’ of a -regular stanza while obtaining the ‘proper compactness and strength of -rhythm’ which (in his belief) only a stanza could give. His device was -to allow himself freedom of rhyme within the stanza, and this ‘not to -escape the laws which Poetry imposes,’ but rather to impose a different -law in the hope that the form would ‘more readily reflect the varying -moods.’ When finally the poem was finished Taylor found that the three -hundred and fifty-five stanzas contained ‘more than seventy variations -in the order of rhyme.’ - -Only an enthusiast in the study of form would have undertaken the task -of reproducing _Faust_ in the original metres. Taylor’s success was so -great that his work as a translator has obscured his fame as a poet. -Doubtless so nearly perfect a version had been impossible without that -wonderful grasp of the spirit of the original. But it must not be -forgotten how much it owes to the years of study and practice Taylor -gave to the technique of his art. - - -IV - -POETICAL WORK - -In 1855 Taylor published a selection from his earlier books of verse -under the title _Poems of Home and Travel_. By this volume and its -companion, _Poems of the Orient_, he wished, so he said at the time, to -be judged. For all his other pieces he desired ‘speedy forgetfulness.’ - -_Poems of Home and Travel_ shows very well the range of Taylor’s -art. Here are rhymed stories (‘The Soldier and the Pard’ and -‘Kubleh’), graceful settings of classic or Indian legend (‘Hylas’ and -‘Mon-da-Min’), together with a pretty fancy from Shakespeare (‘Ariel -in the Cloven Pine’). A deeper chord is struck in poems of human love -and loss (‘The Two Visions’) and in poems expressing aspiration for the -ideal (‘Love and Solitude’), or in those which voice the poet’s joy in -a life of action and struggle (‘The Life of Earth’ and ‘Taurus’). There -is an ode, ‘The Harp,’ lamenting the silence of song in our America -where there is so much to sing. And there are yet other odes, songs, -and sonnets. - -_Poems of the Orient_ is a typical volume, full of color, warmth, -light, breathing the intoxication and glowing with the fantasy of that -great vague region we call ‘the East.’ The charm of the verses is very -pronounced. How much of what we relish in the volume is really the -spirit of the East can best be told by one who knows both the East and -the poems. Oriental lyrics and romances would be written otherwise -to-day. Taylor was partly under the thrall of that roseate view of the -Orient held by Thomas Moore and his contemporaries. Sir Richard Burton -has popularized a more realistic conception in which love and roses are -less prominent. The flavor of _Poems of the Orient_ may be known by -such pieces as ‘The Temptation of Hassan Ben Khaled,’ ‘Amran’s Wooing’ -(an Oriental version of young Lochinvar), ‘El Khalil,’ ‘Desert Hymn to -the Sun,’ and the popular ‘Bedouin Song.’ - -_The Poet’s Journal_, a group of twenty-nine lyrics connected by a -poetic narrative and divided into First, Second, and Third Evenings, -is plainly autobiographical. Its varying moods of despair and dumb -grief, followed by the stirrings of hope and ambition, and, under the -influence of awakened love, the triumph of the spirit to will and to -do, connect it with the most intimate passages in Taylor’s life. - -_The Picture of St. John_, an Italian romance, seems made for a -popularity it somehow never attained. The worldly ambition of the -artist transfigured by love, the death of the highborn girl who -sacrifices wealth and pride of place for her lover, the unwitting -murder of her child by his grandsire, and the redemption of the artist -after months of conflict with the Power that Denies--these are elements -in a work on which the poet lavished the best of his gifts. - -_Lars_, a Scandinavian study, an idyl of the vales and fiords of -Norway, illustrates Taylor’s cosmopolitanism. Passionately as he loved -the South, he could also exclaim with Ruth, - - I do confess - I love Old Norway’s bleak, tremendous hills, - Where winter sits, and sees the summer burn - In valleys deeper than yon cloud is high: - - * * * * * - - I love the frank, brave habit of the folk, - The hearts unspoiled, though fed from ruder times - And filled with angry blood. - -_Home Pastorals, Ballads, and Lyrics_ contains his fine studies of -Westchester County life, ‘The Quaker Widow,’ ‘John Reed,’ and ‘The Old -Pennsylvania Farmer,’ together with such happily conceived poems as -‘The Sunshine of the Gods,’ ‘Notus Ignoto,’ ‘Iris,’ ‘Implora Pace,’ and -‘Canopus,’ with its richly colored lines. - -Taylor wrote three dramatic poems, none of which his critics are -willing to admit is a success. _The Masque of the Gods_, a lofty -conception, fails (if indeed it is a failure), not through feebleness -of touch, but through brevity. So vast a design needs room to expand. -As it stands, the _Masque_ is a preliminary sketch of what might have -become in the hands of its creator a great canvas. It is something -that the poet has succeeded in awakening pity for the worn-out deities -terrified because of their loss of power, terrified even more by the -possibility that they have no principle of life and are only the -creatures of men’s brains. - -_The Prophet_ was a courageous dramatic experiment, and will always be -read with curiosity if not with pleasure. But to assume that Mormonism -is wholly unfitted for poetic drama is perhaps to assume too much. - -_Prince Deukalion_, written under the inspiration of _Faust_, is -another of those gigantic conceptions with which Taylor’s imagination -loved in later life to busy itself, as if eager to try its powers to -the uttermost. A theme like this, wholly removed from human interest, -dealing with titanic and mythical figures, is the most dangerous in -the whole range of possible subjects. Taylor rises so easily to a -high level of poetic achievement that it seems as if he must presently -touch some mountain peak. Yet he always leaves the impression of really -having the strength to do that in which he fails. He disappoints -through the very display of power. - - * * * * * - -His poetic work lacks idiosyncrasy, and to credit him with having given -rise to a ‘school’ is to be generous rather than just. His talent fell -just short of his ambition. A busy life with its multitude of cares -and interests left him too little time for brooding upon the great -themes he affected, and there was wanting the gift for relentless -self-criticism which operates almost like the creative power. None the -less his countrymen have not begun to discharge the debt of gratitude -they owe him. Taylor had great virtues. It should be imputed to him for -literary righteousness that he was willing to undertake the long poem. -He never, so far as is known, made the excuse our poets continually -offer, and which is almost infantile, that the general public does not -care for long poems,--as if a poet were under any obligation to the -general public. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [57] _The Picture of St. John_ was begun eleven years before - Worsley published his fine version of the _Odyssey_ in - Spenserian stanza. - - - - -XVI - -_George William Curtis_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =Parke Godwin=: _George William Curtis, A Commemorative Address_, - 1892. - - =J. W. Chadwick=: _George William Curtis, an Address_, 1893. - - =Edward Cary=: _George William Curtis_, ‘American Men of - Letters,’ 1894. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Henry Curtis, who sailed for New England from the port of London on -May 6, 1635, was the founder of the Curtis family in America. His -grandson, John Curtis of Worcester, was ‘a sturdy and open loyalist’ of -Revolutionary times whose personal character was as heartily esteemed -as his political principles were detested. - -George Curtis, a great-grandson of John, married Mary Elizabeth -Burrill, daughter of James Burrill, Jr., Chief-justice of Rhode Island. -Of their two sons George William Curtis was the younger. He was born in -Providence, Rhode Island, on February 24, 1824. - -With his brother James Burrill, his closest friend and almost -inseparable companion, he was sent to C. W. Greene’s school at Jamaica -Plain, near Boston, and remained there five years. He was afterwards -at school in Providence for four years. In New York, whither his -father had removed (in 1839) to become connected with the Bank of -Commerce, Curtis studied under private tutors and had some experience -of practical life in the counting-room of a German importing house. - -The education given the Curtis boys had also an irregular though -very agreeable side. They spent much of the time from 1842 to 1844 -as students at Brook Farm. The greater part of the two following -years they were at Concord, their object being to combine study and -out-of-door life, and above all to be near Emerson. Taking up residence -with one or other of several farmers whose local fame almost equalled -that of the Concord men of letters, they spent half of each day in farm -work and the other half in study or studious idleness. They were to be -found regularly at the Club which met on Monday evenings in Emerson’s -library and which numbered among its members Hawthorne, Thoreau, and -Alcott. - -In August, 1846, provided by his father with a sum of money sufficient -to give him what he called ‘a generous background,’ Curtis went abroad. -He planned to be gone two years, but the background was more than -generous and he did not return until 1850. He travelled leisurely -through France, Germany, Italy, and the East, made notes of what -he saw and used them partly in the form of letters to the New York -‘Courier and Enquirer’ and partly in the famous ‘Howadji’ books. His -literary plans were ambitious, including as they did a life of Mehemet -Ali, on which he worked for some years only to abandon it at last. - -On his return to New York he began writing regularly for the ‘Tribune,’ -and was associated with C. F. Briggs and Parke Godwin in the editorship -of ‘Putnam’s Magazine.’ When the magazine passed into the hands of Dix, -Edwards, and Company, Curtis put money into the firm. By their failure -he not only lost everything he had, but he also assumed a debt for -which he could not have been legally held and devoted the proceeds of -his lectures to paying it. He was eighteen years in ridding himself of -the burden. - -In 1854 he began printing the famous ‘Easy Chair’ papers in ‘Harper’s -Monthly,’ and in 1857 the department of ‘Harper’s Weekly’ called ‘The -Lounger.’ The latter was a frank imitation in part of the _Tatler_ and -_Spectator_, even to the letters from lady correspondents such as Nelly -Lancer, Sabina Griddle, and Xantippe. During the ten years following -his return from abroad Curtis published six books: _Nile Notes of a -Howadji_, 1851; _The Howadji in Syria_, 1852; _Lotus-Eating_, 1852; -_The Potiphar Papers_, 1853; _Prue and I_, 1857; _Trumps_, 1861. His -ambitions had hitherto been chiefly literary. To be sure, in 1856, -at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, he had given his -address on ‘The Duty of the American Scholar to Politics and the -Times,’ and had followed it with his oration on ‘Patriotism’ and -his lecture on ‘The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question.’[58] He -had taken the stump for Frémont in 1856, and been a delegate to the -Republican National Convention in 1860, where his courage, adroitness, -and impassioned eloquence had saved the platform at a moment when it -needed salvation. Nevertheless it may be said that the first ten years -of Curtis’s life as a writer and speaker were ‘literary’ with a strong -emphasis on politics, and that the last thirty years were political -with an undiminished interest in letters. - -On Thanksgiving Day, 1856, Curtis married Anna Shaw, a daughter of -F. G. Shaw, formerly of West Roxbury, and a sister of Colonel Robert -Gould Shaw. He had made her acquaintance at Brook Farm twelve years -earlier. There is a pretty reference to her in one of his letters to -Dwight written in 1844. Curtis had been in Boston for the day: ‘Anna -Shaw and Rose Russell passed me like beautiful spirits; one like a -fresh morning, the other like an oriental night.’ - -In 1863 Curtis became the political editor of ‘Harper’s Weekly’ with -the proviso that he was to have a free hand. He represented political -ideals than which there can be no higher; his discussions were marked -by absolute frankness, joined to perfect courtesy. The parts which -fell to him in the drama of political life were always important and -often conspicuous. He was a delegate both to National and to State -conventions, and a delegate-at-large to the convention for revising the -State constitution of New York. Although ‘nominated by acclamation’ -for Secretary of the State of New York (1869), he refused to serve. He -did allow his name to be presented for governor in the convention of -1870, supposing all to be in good faith; but when he discovered that -he was the victim of a trick,--the object being to defeat Greeley,--he -withdrew.[59] - -Next to Anti-slavery his favorite cause was that of Civil Service -reform. In 1865 he became ‘second in command’ to Thomas A. Jenckes of -Rhode Island, the pioneer in the movement. He was the head of the Civil -Service Commission appointed by President Grant in 1871. As president -of the New York Civil Service Reform Association and of the National -Civil Service Reform League, he did a work of immediate and lasting -value. - -In 1877 President Hayes offered Curtis his choice of the foreign -missions, supposing that he would elect to go to England. In refusing -the honor Curtis expressed the doubt whether ‘a man absolutely without -legal training of any kind could be a proper minister.’ Later the -German mission was urged on him, but he saw no reason to change his -former opinion. As an Independent, Curtis voiced opposition to machine -methods in the State campaign of 1879, and in 1884 broke with his party -and gave his support to Cleveland. - -Albeit he was not college bred, Curtis received a full share of the -honorary degrees which American colleges lavish every June upon those -who have acquired reputation. For the two years prior to his death he -was Chancellor of the University of New York. - -The literary work of his middle and later years remains for the most -part embedded in the files of ‘Harper’s Monthly.’ Three or four little -volumes of ‘Easy Chair’ papers (less than a tenth part of the whole -number of his contributions) were printed in 1893–94. Written to serve -an ephemeral purpose, these essays have a permanent value. It is -singular that there is no demand for more reprints of the work of a -writer whose journalism was better than most men’s books. Besides the -‘Easy Chair’ papers there were published posthumously _Orations and -Addresses edited by C. E. Norton_, 1894; _Literary and Social Essays_, -1895; _Ars Recte Vivendi_, 1898; _Early Letters of George William -Curtis to John S. Dwight, edited by G. W. Cooke_, 1898. - -Curtis died, after a long and painful illness, on August 31, 1892. - - -II - -THE MAN - -Of Curtis it may be said that his character is revealed in every line -of his writing and in every act of his public and private life. He -was gracious, winning, generous, quick to forgive, and slow to take -offence. Goodness as exemplified in not a few good men is alike painful -to those who possess it and to those on whom its influence is exerted. -Virtue as exemplified in him never wore the austere garb or the gloomy -countenance. - -At the time of Curtis’s defection from the Republican party incredible -abuse was showered on him, not only in the press but through anonymous -letters. He was much saddened by it, less from the personal point -of view than because of the revelation it gave of the meanness and -vindictiveness of human nature. Having thought too well of his fellows, -he suffered under the disillusionment, all of which goes to show how -optimistic at heart this disciple of Thackeray and writer of satires -was. And when Senator Conkling made a savage personal attack on him in -the New York State convention of 1877, Curtis seems to have had no -feeling towards his enemy but that of pity: ‘It was the saddest sight -I ever knew, that man glaring at me in a fury of hate and storming out -his foolish blackguardism.’ - -If Curtis’s career illustrates one thing above another, it is his -willingness to sacrifice mental ease and personal comfort for an ideal. -But the sacrifice was made with such good nature, such grace in the -acquiescence, that one forgets its extent, and even makes the mistake -of thinking that possibly it cost him little. Undoubtedly it cost him -much, this giving up of literature for politics, this putting aside of -all public honors because there was a nearer duty which could not be -neglected. - - -III - -THE WRITER AND THE ORATOR - -The author of _Nile Notes of a Howadji_ loved alliteration. In his -early books he amused himself with pleasant arrangements of words such -as ‘camels with calm, contemptuous eyes,’ or ‘lustrous leaves languidly -moving,’ or ‘slim minarets spiring silverly and strangely from the -undefined mass of mud houses.’ Note this description of the date-palm: -‘Plumed as a prince and graceful as a gentleman, stands the date; and -whoever travels among palms travels in good society;’ or this of the -sakias: ‘Like huge summer insects they doze upon the bank, droning a -melancholy, monotonous song. The slow, sad sound pervades the land--one -calls to another, and he sighs to his neighbor, and the Nile is shored -with sound no less than sand.’ - -Alliteration is a mark of youth. Employed to excess it has a cloying -effect, like that of diminished sevenths in music. Of minor rhetorical -arts it is the poorest, the most seductive, the most readily abused. -But we should miss it sadly from the ‘Howadji’ books. Removed from the -context these phrases quoted have an artificial sound, in their place -they blend perfectly. - -Curtis’s style grew less florid and sensuous after the early writings. -At all times it is singularly easy. One gets the impression that he was -a spontaneous writer. Great productivity is not possible when there -must be a constant retouching of phrases and paragraphs. The unlabored -nature of his writing may explain the light estimate Curtis put on it. -He is said to have been quite unwilling to reprint a volume of essays -from the ‘Easy Chair.’ That anything which came with so little effort -could be worth re-reading seemed not to occur to him. - -He was the orator almost as soon as he was the man of letters. A -rhetorician by taste and training, he knew the dangers of rhetoric and -in his oratory avoided them. Clarity and grace are the most obvious -characteristics of every sentence. Curtis could no more have been -awkward and heavy than he could have been obscure. - -He can hardly be praised enough for the ease and naturalness of his -allusions. We auditors grow restless when a speaker begins to cite -classical names. We fear our old friends Cicero and Catiline, Cæsar and -Brutus. We cannot away with Hannibal and Hamilcar. The ear has been -dulled by constant repetition. Curtis knew how to make the oldest of -these tiresome references seem new. All his allusions have an air of -freshness and spontaneity. One would suppose the declaimers had long -since exhausted the virtues of Spartacus. Curtis dared to make the old -gladiator accessory to his argument in a passage like this:-- - -‘Spartacus was a barbarian, a pagan, and a slave. Escaping he summoned -other men whose liberty was denied. His call rang clear through Italy -like an autumn storm through the forest, and men answered him like -clustering leaves.... He had no rights that Romans were bound to -respect, but he wrote out in blood upon the plains of Lombardy his -equal humanity with Cato and Cæsar. The tale is terrible. History -shudders with it still. But you and I, Plato and Shakespeare, the -mightiest and the meanest men, were honored in Spartacus, for his wild -revenge showed the brave scorn of oppression that beats immortal in the -proud heart of man.’ - -Nature had bestowed on Curtis gifts which, if not indispensable to a -speaker, are like free-will offerings as against tribute, and make -the pathway smooth. His commanding presence, his winning smile and -manner, his glorious voice, the air of high breeding, a self-possession -which when accompanied by unaffected good nature is one of the most -attractive traits--all combined to place him among the first of -American orators. He was properly said (in a phrase which through vain -repetition has almost lost its meaning) to ‘grace’ the platform. - - -IV - -_NILE NOTES OF A HOWADJI_, _PRUE AND I_, _TRUMPS_ - -‘In Shakespeare’s day the nuisance was the Monsieur Travellers who had -swum in a gundello,’ wrote Fitzgerald in a half-petulant, half-humorous -mood, ‘but now the bores are those who have smoked _tchibouques_ with a -_Peshaw_!’ He was speaking of _Eothen_. The fever for Eastern books was -at its height when Curtis went abroad in 1846. - -The _Nile Notes of a Howadji_ describes the four weeks’ flight of the -‘Ibis’ up the river to Aboo Simbel, and the ‘course of temples’ on the -return voyage. It is a book of impressions and rhapsodies, a glowing -record of travel in which realism struggles with poetry and is usually -worsted. It is a dream of the Orient, delightfully parsimonious as to -improving facts, and prodigal of whatever helps the home-keeping reader -to comprehend the witchery and fascination of the East. A few timid -souls were disturbed by ‘Fair Frailty’ and ‘Kushuk Arnem,’ which seem -innocent enough now, but the timid souls no doubt found peace in other -chapters, such as ‘Under the Palms.’ - -_The Howadji in Syria_ continues the record. The conditions are -changed. Instead of the dahabieh, the camel; for the Ibis was -substituted MacWhirter, whose exertions in trotting ‘shook my soul -within me;’ for the mud villages and mysterious temples of the Nile, -Jerusalem, Acre, Damascus. The temper of the book differs from that of -its predecessor. In this volume Curtis is poetical, in the other he was -a poet. The mocking American note is heard, as when the Howadji says -‘a storm besieged us in Nablous and a fellow Christian of the Armenian -persuasion secured us for his fleas, during the time we remained.’ -The Howadji has evidently undergone a measure of disenchantment. The -wonders of the East are less wonderful because less vague. In Egypt -there was intoxication, in Palestine and Syria there is curiosity, -mingled with amusement and contempt. The characteristic quality of the -second Howadji book is to be found in the descriptions of the cafés, -the bazaars, and in that most excellent account of the Turkish bath -(‘Uncle Kühleborn’), quite the best thing of the kind that has been -written. - -_Lotus-Eating_ is a series of journalistic letters on the Hudson, -Trenton Falls, Niagara, Saratoga, Newport, and Nahant, when Nahant was -‘a shower of little brown cottages fallen upon the rocky promontory -that terminates Lynn beach.’ Not in this wise do young men now write -for newspapers, with ornate periods and quotations from Waller and -Herrick. The book abounds in happy characterizations. At Saratoga ‘we -discriminate the arctic and antarctic Bostonians, fair, still, stately, -with a vein of scorn in their Saratoga enjoyment, and the languid, -cordial, and careless Southerners, far from precise in dress or style, -but balmy in manner as a bland Southern morning. We mark the crisp -courtesy of the New Yorker, elegant in dress, exclusive in association, -a pallid ghost of Paris--without its easy elegance, its _bonhomie_, -its gracious _savoir faire_, without the _spirituel_ sparkle of its -conversation, and its natural and elastic grace of style.’ And so it -runs on. - -_The Potiphar Papers_ is in another key. The placid observer, who, -in _Lotus-Eating_, quoted from De Quincey a delectable passage on -the poetry of dancing, is now a bitter satirist contemplating a -corps-de-ballet of society buds gyrating in the arms of the _jeunesse -dorée_. These ‘bounding belles’ and their admirers shock the observer -with a style of dancing which in its whirl, its ‘rush, its fury is -only equalled by that of the masked balls at the French opera.’ The -book is a new treatment (new in 1853) of the old subject of Vanity -Fair. The humor is severe. The touch is not light and the caustic -writing is not happy. Curtis was never a master of the whip of -scorpions. Nevertheless _The Potiphar Papers_ had a vogue. - -_Prue and I_ is a book of the sort Zola used to hate--literature -which ‘consoles with the lies of the imagination.’ It is the idyl -of contented obscurity, the poetic side of humble life. Delicately -wrought, light in texture, shot with charming fancies and dainty -conceits, having the grace that belongs to old-school manners, this -little prose poem is justly accounted its author’s masterpiece. - -Curtis wrote one novel, _Trumps_, and was disappointed in the result. -The book is readable, but not because it is a story. Many good -novelists are made, not born. _Trumps_ is the work of a novelist in the -making. - - -V - -THE EASY CHAIR - -The twenty-seven essays of the volume entitled _From the Easy Chair_ -show very well in brief compass the range of their author’s powers -in this form. Here are reminiscences of Browning and his wife, of -the Dickens readings in ’67, of Everett’s oratory and Jennie Lind’s -singing, of a lecture by Emerson and a recital by Gottschalk or by -Thalberg, of a night at the play-house with Jefferson, or a dinner at -the old (the _very old_) Delmonico’s, when that famous eating-house -stood at the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street. The flavor of -by-gone days is here. ‘It was a pleasant little New York,’ says the -essayist regretfully, being mindful of the charm which a lively small -city possesses, and which a big city, be it never so lively, somehow -lacks. - -Half the attractiveness of the ‘Easy Chair’ papers is due to their -seemingly unpremeditated character. Curtis was not writing a book, -nor was he proposing at some time, ‘in response to the earnest -solicitations of friends upon whose judgment I rely,’ to collect and -republish these fugitive leaves. He comes home after a little chat, -perhaps, with John Gilbert and sits down to tell us about it. Two -or three reflections suggested by the interview are thrown in quite -happily, and while we listeners are most absorbed and in no mood to -have him break off, Curtis rises, and with some pleasant little remark, -nods, and smiles, and is gone. And one of the listeners says, ‘I wish -we saw him oftener. He comes only once a month.’ - -The ‘Easy Chair’ papers are urban as well as urbane. Curtis was a city -man. We know that he had a summer home in ‘Arcadia’ and was happy -there, but his joy in city life is betrayed in almost every paper he -wrote. No passionate lover of nature, intent on fringed gentians and -purling brooks, penned that description of a gown--‘a mass of pleats -and puffs and marvelous trimmings, which, when profusely extravagant -upon the form of an elderly woman, always reminds me of signals of -distress hung out upon a craft that is drifting far away from the -enchanted isles of youth.’ - -Satirist though he is, Curtis in the ‘Easy Chair’ is always the gentle -satirist. He writes of the mannerless sex, of the people who rent boxes -at the opera because they can talk better there than at home, of the -taste of the town so greedy for minute details of the doings of the -rich and the fashionable, but there is no acerbity in his tone. Here -is an illustration of his manner. The Cosmopolitan of the ‘Easy Chair’ -talks with Mrs. Grundy, who proposes as a great boon to introduce -him to a very rich man. ‘“You say he is very rich?” “Enormously, -fabulously,” replied Mrs. Grundy, as if crossing herself.’ - -‘Trifles light as air’ would be a not inadequate description of -hundreds of the ‘Easy Chair’ papers. And they are quite as wholesome as -air. - - -VI - -_ORATIONS AND ADDRESSES_ - -Curtis’s biographer holds that the volume of reports and addresses on -Civil Service reform is ‘in some respects the most valuable of all -[his] writings.’[60] The entire collection of _Orations and Addresses_, -comprising over a thousand pages, is no less a manual of literary than -of civic virtues. A student of the art of expression can well afford to -make this book his vade mecum. Here is a body of practical illustration -of how to write and how to speak. The oration on ‘The Duty of the -American Scholar to Politics and the Times,’ delivered when Curtis was -thirty-two years of age, is an extraordinary performance. Few addresses -hold one in the reading like this. What it must have been in the -delivery we can but faintly imagine. It is another splendid proof that -literature and oratory may occupy a common ground, neither usurping -the other’s place. With the amplest use of oratorical arts the speaker -makes rhetoric subordinate to thought. It shows fully (does this -oration) one marked virtue of Curtis’s public discourse, its perfect -urbanity. His speeches were free from invective, from personalities of -any sort, from every feature born of mere impulse of the moment. If he -was ever tempted to give vigor and point to his phrase by means which -must afterward be regretted, temptation never got the better of him. - -The leading thesis of the Wesleyan College oration--that the scholar -is not the recluse, the pale valetudinarian, a woman without woman’s -charm, but a man--may not have been new; but the putting was fresh, -vivid, inspiring, eloquent. The oration may be compared with Emerson’s -utterances on the same theme. Emerson’s treatment is the more -philosophical; that of Curtis is the better adapted to public speech. - -Along with this oration should be read the address on ‘Patriotism,’ in -which Curtis defends the doctrine that where law violates the primary -conception of human rights it is our duty to disobey the law, and the -address entitled ‘The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question,’ in which -Curtis said, ‘Government is, unquestionably, a science of compromises, -but only of policies and interests, not of essential rights; and if of -them, then the sacrifice must fall on all.’ - -These three are but the beginning of a series of orations from among -which the great eulogies of Sumner and of Wendell Phillips, of Bryant -and of Lowell, may be chosen as the very crown of his work. - - * * * * * - -The critic (and there are such critics) who values almost lightly the -sentimental and poetic literary work of Curtis’s young manhood is -perhaps not entirely unjust; Curtis would have agreed with him. But -the critic would be unjust if he overlooked the value of this literary -training in giving an enormous increase of power. We shall never know -how much the editorial writer and political orator gained in clarity, -precision, beauty of style, effectiveness, by the penning of a series -of books in which for pages together he revels in the mere music of -words. The author of the address on Sumner was largely indebted to the -author of the _Nile Notes of a Howadji_ and _Prue and I_. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [58] When Curtis gave this address in Philadelphia (Dec. 15, 1859) - a mob armed with stones and bottles of vitriol attempted to - break up the meeting. Cary’s _Curtis_, pp. 126–129. - - [59] Cary. - - [60] Cary’s _Curtis_, p. 296. - - - - -XVII - -_Donald Grant Mitchell_ - - -REFERENCES: - - [=H. A. Beers=]: ‘Donald G. Mitchell’ in the _Cyclopædia of - American Biography_. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Donald Grant Mitchell, who won literary reputation under the name of -‘Ik Marvel,’ was born at Norwich, Connecticut, on April 12, 1822. -He is a son of the Reverend Alfred Mitchell, formerly pastor of the -Second Congregational Church of Norwich, and a grandson of Stephen Mix -Mitchell, an eminent jurist and member of the Continental Congress. -He prepared for college at John Hall’s school at Ellington, and was -graduated at Yale in 1841. - -Three years of life on a farm for his health gave him a bent towards -rural pleasures and occupations. In 1844, still in pursuit of health, -he visited England, the Isle of Jersey, France, and Holland. His -first book, _Fresh Gleanings, or a New Sheaf from the Old Fields of -Continental Europe_ (1847), was the literary fruit of this journey. - -Mitchell took up the study of law in New York, but found himself -physically unequal to a sedentary life. Moreover, France was on the -eve of revolution. The young law student thought it no time to dawdle -over Puffendorf, Grotius, and ‘the amiable, aristocratic Blackstone,’ -when there was a chance to see history made. He ‘threw Puffendorf, big -as he was, into the corner,’ and started for Paris, spent eight months -there, saw what he went to see, and described it in his second book, -_Battle Summer_ (1850).[61] - -His third literary venture was a periodical essay, _The Lorgnette, or -Studies of the Town, by an Opera-Goer_. It was published weekly for -six months, and sold by Henry Kernot, ‘a small bookseller up Broadway, -at the centre of what was then the fashionable shopping region.’ For -a time the secret of the authorship was well kept, Kernot being as -much in the dark as the public. To divert suspicion from himself, -Mitchell thought to bring out in a distant city, and under his own -name, something ‘of an entirely different quality and tone’ from _The -Lorgnette_. He failed in getting a Boston publisher, and _Reveries of -a Bachelor_, the book in question, was published by Baker and Scribner -in New York (1850). Its success led to the making of another series of -‘reveries.’ This was _Dream Life_, written in six weeks of the summer -and published in the fall of 1851. On these two books ‘Ik Marvel’s’ -reputation with the general reading public still rests. - -In May, 1853, Mitchell was appointed United States consul at Venice. On -the thirty-first of the same month he married Miss Mary F. Pringle, of -Charleston, South Carolina, and in June sailed for Italy. The account -of his induction into the consular office will be found in _Seven -Stories_. A lively and good-humored narrative, it is not to be read -without great amusement, together with a feeling of contempt for the -shabby way in which our glorious (and sometimes parsimonious) republic -used to treat its humbler officials. During the two years of his -consulship Mitchell collected materials for a history of the Venetian -Republic. The book is still unpublished, and presumably has been long -since abandoned. - -The days of his public service being at an end, Mitchell returned to -America and settled on an estate near New Haven (‘Edgewood’), where -since 1855 he has led the life of a man of letters and gentleman -farmer. In addition to the books already named, he has published: -_Fudge Doings_, 1855; _My Farm of Edgewood_, 1863; _Seven Stories_, -1864; _Wet Days at Edgewood_, 1865; _Doctor Johns_, 1866; _Rural -Studies_, 1867;[62] _About Old Story Tellers_, 1877; _The Woodbridge -Record_, 1883; _Bound Together_, 1884; _English Lands, Letters, and -Kings_, 1889–90; _American Lands and Letters_, 1897. - -For a time Mitchell was editor of the ‘Atlantic Almanac’ (1868–69), -and for one year (1869) editor of ‘Hearth and Home.’ He served as one -of the judges of industrial art at the Centennial Exhibition (1876), -and was a United States commissioner at the Paris Exposition of 1878. -He has lectured much on literature and art. Yale recognized his -achievements in letters by conferring on him, in 1878, the degree of -LL. D. - -He is one of the most attractive figures of our time, not alone -because of his unaffected goodness, his charm of manner, his literary -reputation, but because he is the last survivor of a group of writers -who in the Fifties made New York famous, and about whose association -there still clings a very attractive atmosphere of romance. - - -II - -THE AUTHOR AND THE MAN - -A critic who was given a copy of _Dream Life_ and asked to draw the -character of the author therefrom, might possibly come to conclusions -like these. ‘Ik Marvel,’ he would say, must be very generous, -sympathetic with respect to the lesser weaknesses of human nature, and -charitable towards the greater, or else this book is a falsehood from -beginning to end. He must be very manly, for in all its two hundred -pages there is not a cynical note or a sneer. He must be humorous, or -he could not have written the chapters on ‘A New England Squire’ and -‘The Country Church,’ to say nothing of the account of the loves of -Clarence and Jenny. He must be sentimental, or the chapter entitled ‘A -Good Wife’ had been an impossibility. - -At every point the book betrays its Puritan origin. ‘Ik Marvel’ is -a moralist. He makes a direct and constant appeal to the ethical -sentiment. In one of his prefaces he mentions the fact--doubtless an -amused smile played about his lips as he wrote the lines--that _Dream -Life_ has sometimes insinuated itself into Sunday-school libraries. -He hopes it has ‘worked no blight there.’ At all events, ‘there are -six days in the week ... on which its perusal could do no mischief.’ -Doubtless the moral lessons are commonplace enough, but their triteness -is relieved by the literary quality. Puritanism without its narrowness, -and sentimentalism controlled by humor and good sense, lie at the basis -of _Reveries of a Bachelor_ and _Dream Life_. The character of their -author is to be plainly if not completely read in these two books. - -The distinctive flavor of ‘Ik Marvel’s’ literary style may be got in -the pleasing volume entitled _Fresh Gleanings_. Limpidity, grace, ease, -are among the virtues of his prose. The fabric of words is light, airy, -richly colored at times, but not over colored. With due recognition of -his individuality it may be said that ‘Ik Marvel’ was a literary son of -‘Geoffrey Crayon.’ The sweetness, the leisurely flow of the narrative, -the unobtrusiveness of manner, all suggest Irving. Perhaps Mitchell -meant to acknowledge his literary paternity when he dedicated _Dream -Life_ to the author of _The Sketch Book_. But while we recognize this -debt to Irving it is most important that we do not exaggerate it. - -One marked exception must be made. There is no hint of Irving in -_Battle Summer_, an account of the Revolution of 1848, every page of -which echoes more or less distinctly the voice of Carlyle. So close is -the imitation at times as to awaken a doubt whether _Battle Summer_ was -not intended for a ‘serious parody.’ At all events, it is one of many -proofs of the strong hold the _History of the French Revolution_ had on -the minds of young men. - - -III - -THE WRITINGS - -_Fresh Gleanings_ is a volume of travel, written in a way to -persuade one of the uselessness of pictorial illustrations. Its -manner occasionally suggests Sterne’s _Sentimental Journey_, which -the young traveller may have been reading of late. Sentiment and -humor are agreeably blended. Under ‘Ik Marvel’s’ guidance one visits -Paris, Limoges, Arles, Nîmes, Montpellier, Rouen, carefully avoiding -the ‘objects of interest’ and learning much about the life. A less -courageous writer would have told us more and shown us less. - -Books like this always contain interpolated stories, told around the -inn fire, or over the half-cup at the café. The ‘Story of Le Merle,’ -‘An Old Chronicle of the City,’ ‘Hinzelmann,’ and ‘Boldo’s Story’ are -graceful, but so brief as to seem mere anecdotes. - -_The Lorgnette_, consisting of the lucubrations of one ‘John Timon,’ -is an amusing and instructive periodical. Not its least entertaining -feature is the account of the literary distempers of the day, the -Tupper fever, the Festus outbreak, the Jane Eyre malady, and the -Typee disorder, together with other literary epidemics. Neither _The -Lorgnette_ nor _Fudge Doings_ is now much read. But if the modern -cynic, who takes, possibly, a condescending attitude towards these old -satires on fashionable life, will but pick up a copy of _Fudge Doings_ -and try a few chapters, he will be forced to admit that if we should -not to-day think of writing satire in this manner, it may have been a -good way in 1855. Perchance in opening the volume at random he comes on -the account of the adventure of Wash. Fudge with the black domino. In -which case he will find himself betrayed into reading two chapters at -least, for he must needs take the trouble to learn how the affair ended. - -_Fudge Doings_ and _The Lorgnette_ may be looked on as a contribution -to the history of manners. By their aid one reconstructs the drama -of fashionable life in the mid-century, sees what was then thought -monstrous, and incidentally learns how simple the vices of the -grandfathers were. - -_Reveries of a Bachelor_ ushers one into a quaint and delightful world. -The reveries are of love--whether, in the words of Robert Burton -quoting Plotinus, ‘it be a God, or a divell, or passion of the minde.’ -The book is by no means compounded exclusively of moonshine and roses. -Some of the pictures are calculated to give a bachelor pause. Here -is Peggy who loves you, or at least swears it, with her hand on the -_Sorrows of Werther_. She is not bad looking, Peggy, ‘save a bit too -much of forehead.’ But she is ‘such a sad blue’ who will spend her -money on the ‘Literary World’ and the _Friends in Council_. - -By the severer standards of our day Peggy was not so much of a ‘blue.’ -None the less she is distinctly literary. She reads Dante and ‘funny -Goldoni’ and leaves spots of baby-gruel on a Tasso of 1680. She adores -La Bruyère; even reads him while nurse gets dinner and ‘you are holding -the baby.’ - -The vision presently becomes terrific and can only be dispelled by a -vicious kick at the forestick. Revery, misnamed idleness, has its -uses. Whatever else comes true, the Bachelor will not marry a young -woman who consoles her husband for an ill-cooked dinner by quotations -from the Greek Anthology. - -_Dream Life_ is also a collection of ‘reveries.’ Under the similitude -of the seasons, the author has pencilled little sketches of boyhood, -youth, manhood, and age. The temptation to the obvious in morals and -sentiment must have been great; but again Mitchell’s literary skill and -his humor carry him through successfully. - -_Seven Stories with Basement and Attic_ is a group of narratives -drawn from the author’s ‘plethoric little note books of travel.’ The -‘Basement’ is the introduction, the ‘Attic’ the conclusion. The first -story, ‘Wet Day at an Irish Inn,’ shows how, if he be observant, a man -may have adventures without taking the trouble to cross the street in -search of them. Three of the stories are French (‘Le Petit Soulier,’ -‘The Cabriolet,’ and ‘Emile Roque’); another is Swiss (the ‘Bride of -the Ice King’); yet another is Italian (‘Count Pesaro’), and all are -exquisite, written in a style which for sweetness and unaffected ease -is, if not a lost art, at all events a neglected one. It has been said -that our young men would not care to write in this fashion to-day; it -is a question whether our young men would be able to do so. - -One novel stands to ‘Ik Marvel’s’ credit, _Doctor Johns_, a story of -a New England country parsonage, well written because its author could -not write otherwise, faithful and exact because he knew the life, -yet going no deeper than other attempts to explain the New England -character, the externals of which are so easy to portray and the real -essence so baffling. - -Among the best of ‘Ik Marvel’s’ books are those dealing with rural -life. _My Farm of Edgewood_ sets forth the author’s adventures in -buying a country home, and his subsequent adventures in settling -therein and making life variously profitable. It is a successful -attempt to magnify the office of gentleman-farmer. The attractiveness -of the life is not over-emphasized, nor is it pretended that that is -legitimate farming which produces big crops regardless of expense. - -The picture as a whole is seductive in ways not to be referred to -the literary skill of the artist. It is odd enough how a lay-reader, -unused to carrots and cabbages, will follow every detail of Mitchell’s -experiment. Here must be some outcroppings of the primitive instinct. -Moreover, the book relates to home-making, a subject perennially dear -to the American heart. Our restlessness has never unsettled us in that -regard. - -_Wet Days at Edgewood_ is a companion volume. The days here celebrated, -nine in number, were made bright by readings about ‘old farmers, old -gardeners, and old pastorals.’ Rejoicing in the strong common sense -of ancient writers on husbandry, and in the quaint flavor of their -style, ‘Ik Marvel’ chats of Roman farm and villa life, recalling what -Varro and Columella had to say about the art of tilling the soil. He -takes pleasure in the reflection that ‘yon open furrow ... carries -trace of the ridging in the “Works and Days;” that the brown field of -half-broken clods is the fallow (Νεός) of Xenophon,’ and that ‘Cato -gives orders for the asparagus.’ - -Then he comes to modern times, to the days of Thomas Tusser, Sir Hugh -Platt, Gervase Markham, Samuel Hartlib, Jethro Tull, and William -Shenstone, men who farmed practically, or theoretically, or even -poetically. ‘Ik Marvel’ loves them all, even those whose enthusiasm was -in the ratio of their helplessness. No less dear to him is Goldsmith, -who wrote what passes for a rural tale and is not rural at all, but -comically urban, and Charles Lamb, who hated the country and gladly -avowed it. - -These are Mitchell’s principal works. Having read thus far, it were -a pity to overlook the two volumes on _English Lands, Letters, and -Kings_, and a greater pity to overlook the instructive and entertaining -_American Lands and Letters_. In brief, the reader who insists on -knowing ‘Ik Marvel’ only by _Reveries of a Bachelor_ does his author an -injustice and robs himself of many hours of literary delight. - -Sentimentalism will always manifest itself in literature in one -form or another. That there will be a return to the manner which we -associate with ‘Ik Marvel’ is not likely, yet it was sentimentalism -in its manliest form. The continued popularity of _Reveries of a -Bachelor_ suggests that Americans of to-day are not quite as cynical -and irreverent as they are sometimes painted, or as they love to paint -themselves. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [61] There were to have been two volumes of _Battle Summer_, - called respectively the ‘Reign of the Blouse’ and the ‘Reign - of the Bourgeoisie.’ Only the first was published. - - [62] Reprinted under the title _Out-of-Town Places_, 1884. - - - - -XVIII - -_JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =F. H. Underwood=: _The Poet and the Man: Recollections and - Appreciations of James Russell Lowell_, 1893. - - =E. E. Hale=: _James Russell Lowell and his Friends_, 1899. - - =H. E. Scudder=: _James Russell Lowell, a Biography_, 1901. - - =Ferris Greenslet=: _James Russell Lowell, his Life and Work_, - 1905. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -The Lowells of New England are descendants of Percival Lowell, a -prosperous Bristol merchant who came to America in 1639 and settled -at Newbury, Massachusetts. The family has been distinguished through -its various representatives for public spirit and business acumen as -well as for a devotion to letters. The grandfather of the poet, Judge -John Lowell, was author of the clause in the Bill of Rights abolishing -slavery in Massachusetts. One of his sons was founder of the great -manufacturing city on the Merrimac which bears his name. A grandson -established the Lowell Institute, a system of popular instruction by -free courses of lectures,--a system unique, in that it aims to bring to -its audiences representative scholars, chosen less for their skill in -the graceful but often specious art of public speaking than for solid -attainments. - -James Russell Lowell, the youngest son of the Reverend Charles -Lowell, minister of the West Church in Boston, was born at Cambridge, -Massachusetts, in the colonial mansion known as ‘Elmwood,’ on February -22, 1819. His mother, Harriet (Spence) Lowell, was a daughter of Keith -Spence, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.[63] - -Under William Wells (an English pedagogue of the old school) Lowell -prepared for college, entered Harvard, and after some disciplinary -tribulations was graduated with his class (1838). He studied law and -was admitted to the bar (August, 1840), but remained briefless during -the few months of his efforts to begin a practice. - -While waiting for clients, he busied himself with literature. He was -early a rhymer. At twelve years of age his skill in making verse -had astonished his schoolfellows, one of whom rushed home in great -excitement to announce that ‘Jemmy Lowell thought he was going to be a -poet.’ - -With the fearlessness of youth and in the hope of bettering himself -financially, Lowell, aided by his friend Robert Carter, started a -magazine, ‘The Pioneer.’ According to the prospectus, dated October -15, 1842, the editors proposed to supply ‘the intelligent and -reflecting portion of the Reading Public with a substitute for the -enormous quantity of thrice diluted trash, in the shape of namby-pamby -love tales and sketches, which is monthly poured out to them....’ Only -three numbers of ‘The Pioneer’ were issued.[64] The ‘Reading Public’ -was joined to its idols and declined to encourage ‘a healthy and manly -Periodical Literature.’ - -In 1841 was published _A Year’s Life_, Lowell’s first volume of verse; -it was followed by _Poems_ (1844), by a volume of prose, _Conversations -on Some of the Old Poets_ (1845), and by Poems, ‘second series’ (1848). - -The ‘Ianthe’ of _A Year’s Life_ was easily identified with Maria White, -the gifted and beautiful girl who, in December, 1844, became the poet’s -wife. The first year of their married life was passed in Philadelphia, -whither Lowell had taken his bride to protect her from the harsh New -England winter. Their financial resources were few, but of gayety and -courage there was no lack. Lowell aspired to live by his pen. What with -the small sums paid him (rather against his will) for editorial work -on ‘The Pennsylvania Freeman,’ what with the hardly larger sums for -contributions to ‘Graham’s Magazine’ and ‘The Broadway Journal,’ he -managed to subsist. - -Nevertheless, it seemed best for a number of reasons that the young -people return to Cambridge and make a common home at ‘Elmwood’ with -Lowell’s parents. In June of this year (1846) appeared ‘A Letter from -Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, editor -of the Boston Courier, inclosing a poem of his son, Mr. Hosea Biglow.’ -This was the first of _The Biglow Papers_, the initial attack of many -attacks Lowell was to make on slavery with the weapons of satire -and ridicule. During 1847 three more ‘papers’ were printed in the -‘Courier;’ the remaining five appeared in ‘The National Anti-Slavery -Standard.’ - -When the ‘Standard’ passed from the control of a board of editors into -the hands of Sydney Howard Gay, Lowell became a salaried contributor, -and for a time his name appeared as corresponding editor. He was -allowed a free hand. Abolitionist though he was, his abolitionism was -tempered with a deal of sympathy for slaveholders. And he had interests -which most reformers of the time lacked, a passionate love of letters, -for example. Hence it was that in the midst of leader-writing he was -penning _A Fable for Critics_ and _The Vision of Sir Launfal_. - -The winter of 1851–52 Lowell spent with his family in Italy, and the -following spring and summer in journeyings through France, England, -Scotland, and Wales. In October he sailed for home, having as ship -companions Thackeray and Arthur Hugh Clough. Just a year later Mrs. -Lowell died (October 27, 1853). For months afterward Lowell was in -‘great agony of mind, and he had to force himself into those laborious -hours which one instinctively feels contain a wise restorative.’[65] - -He abounded in literary plans, some of which (and among them a novel) -were never carried out, whereas others, his papers in ‘Putnam’s -Magazine’ and his lectures on English Poetry, before the Lowell -Institute, were in a high degree successful. Each lecture of the -Institute course had to be given twice, so great was the demand for -tickets. Lowell was very nervous over his first platform experience, -and not a little pleased when he found that he could hold the audience -an hour and a quarter (‘they are in the habit of going out at the end -of the hour’). The singular merit of the lectures led to his being -appointed to the chair of belles-lettres at Harvard, just resigned by -Longfellow. After a year’s study abroad the new professor entered on -his academic duties (September, 1856). - -In 1857 Lowell married Miss Frances Dunlap, of Portland, Maine. She -was a woman of reserved though gracious manners and rare beauty, who -through her serene temper and fine critical sagacity, together with -a keen sense of the humorous, exerted a most beneficent influence on -Lowell’s life. - -The burdens of college work were not so heavy as to prevent Lowell’s -assuming the editorship of ‘The Atlantic Monthly,’ a new literary -magazine with an anti-slavery bias. He held this post from 1857 to -1861, and proved to be one of the best of editors, though routine -was irksome to him, and the vagaries of contributors called for -more patience than he could at all times command. Two years after -leaving the ‘Atlantic’ he undertook to edit the ‘North American -Review’ in company with Charles Eliot Norton, on whom fell the chief -responsibilities. Lowell, for his part, contributed to the ‘Review’ -many notable papers on politics and literature. - -The Civil War called out much of Lowell’s most spirited prose and not a -little of his best poetry. A second series of _Biglow Papers_ appeared -in the ‘Atlantic,’ and for the commemoration of sons of Harvard who had -fought for the Union, Lowell wrote his magnificent _Commemoration Ode_. -This noble performance was literally an improvisation, written in a -single night. - -At this point we may take note of Lowell’s publications, subsequent -to the _Poems_, ‘second series.’ They are: _A Fable for Critics_, -1848; _The Biglow Papers_, 1848; _Fireside Travels_, 1864; _The -Biglow Papers_, ‘second series,’ 1866; _Under the Willows and Other -Poems_, 1869; _The Cathedral_, 1870; _Among My Books_, 1870; _My -Study Windows_, 1871; _Among My Books_, ‘second series,’ 1876; -_Three Memorial Poems_, 1877; _Democracy and Other Addresses_, 1887; -_Political Addresses_, 1888; _Heartsease and Rue_, 1888. - -There appeared posthumously _Latest Literary Essays_, 1891; _The Old -English Dramatists_, 1892; _Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by -C. E. Norton_, 1893; _Last Poems_, 1895; _The Anti-Slavery Papers of -James Russell Lowell_, 1902. - -Lowell resigned his professorship in 1872 and went abroad for two -years. Oxford conferred on him the degree of D. C. L. and Cambridge -that of LL. D.; it pleased him to regard the Cambridge degree ‘as in -a measure a friendly recognition of the University’s daughter in the -American Cambridge.’ In 1874 he returned home, and on the opening of -college was persuaded to resume his lectures. - -During the presidential campaign of 1876 Lowell became politically -active in ways new to him. He was a delegate to the Republican National -convention and a presidential elector. His fellow-townsmen had wished -him to accept a nomination for representative in Congress; but Lowell -refused, believing himself unqualified for the post. - -Not long after his inauguration President Hayes, at the instance of -W. D. Howells, offered Lowell the Austrian mission, an honor the poet -felt impelled to decline; when, however, it was learned that he would -be very willing to go to Spain, the appointment was made. He arrived -in Madrid on August 14, 1878. Two years later he was transferred to -England. Reappointed by President Garfield, he held this important -charge until the close of President Arthur’s administration. - -Few ministers have been as popular as he. And not the least factor of -his popularity in England was his sturdy patriotism. Lowell was the -author of the essay ‘On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners,’ an -essay which an ingratiating Anglican clergyman[66] says was meant to be -‘overheard’ in England. It were more exact to say that the essay was -meant to be heard, and heard distinctly. ‘They honor stoutness in each -other,’ said Emerson, noting the traits of the English people. And it -is not unreasonable to believe that they also admire the same virtue in -others. - -The summer of 1885 Lowell passed at Southborough, forty miles from -Boston, the home of his daughter, Mrs. Burnett. He made a number -of public addresses, gave a Lowell Institute course of lectures on -the ‘Old English Dramatists,’ argued the question of International -Copyright before a committee of the Senate, and is believed to have had -real influence in persuading representatives of this great country that -stealing is a sin. He found himself inveigled into an author’s reading, -and humorously bewailed his weakness in ever having written a line of -poetry. The demands upon him were enormous. It was now an effort for -him to do things, and if the grasshopper had not yet become a burden, -public occasions had, and more than once he was obliged to beg off from -keeping a promise inconsiderately made. - -He enjoyed being in England for the summer, and usually divided his -time between London and Whitby. The last of these visits took place in -1889. The ensuing winter he gave to a careful revision of his writings. -In the spring of 1890 he was ill for six weeks, and though he recovered -enough to be able to move about a little and to welcome his friends, -serious work was out of the question. He wrote two or three short -papers, and had strong inducements held out to him to write more, but -the time for writing was past, and he knew it. - -His sufferings during his last illness were great, but he bore them -like the man he was. Lowell died at ‘Elmwood,’ Cambridge, on August 12, -1891. - - -II - -LOWELL’S CHARACTER - -‘I am a kind of twins myself, divided between grave and gay,’ -said Lowell, in one of those rare moments when he condescended to -self-analysis. The duality of temperament here pointed at is one secret -of the fascination he exerted on all who were privileged to know him -intimately. The fascination was certainly great and the tributes to -it numerous. Lowell’s personality was so winning, and the man was so -genuine, human, and lovable, that it is difficult to speak of him in -terms having even the semblance of impartiality. Although strong-willed -and positive, not indisposed now and then to indulge himself in -the luxury of stubbornness, he was open-minded, wholly unselfish, -kind-hearted, affectionate, and gentle; and while he had his reserves -he was democratic in all the best senses of the word, for his democracy -sprang from the depths of his nature. Changeable in his moods, he could -be teasing, whimsical, irritating; but when he was most mocking and -perverse he was most delightful. - -There is something very attractive in Lowell’s attitude toward -literature and literary fame. Books were an essential part of his -life. He had mastered that difficult art of _reading_ as few men have -mastered it. He was rarely endowed as a poet and prose-writer. And yet -Lowell, the most complete illustration we have of the literary man, -showed no inclination to magnify the importance of letters. - -As to his individual achievements, he not only never thought of himself -more highly than he ought to think, but was the rather inclined to -place too low an estimate on the value of his work. Self-distrust -increased with years. Nevertheless, Lowell indulged himself in no -philosophy of despair. He had had much to be grateful for. ‘I have -always believed that a man’s fate is born with him, and that he cannot -escape from it nor greatly modify it’ (Lowell once wrote to his friend -Charles Eliot Norton) ‘and that consequently every one gets in the long -run exactly what he deserves, neither more nor less.’ Lowell goes on to -say that the creed is a ‘cheerful’ one; he might have added that it is -no less sensible and manly than it is cheerful. - -Whether he found his creed satisfactory at all times or was always -conscious that he had a creed, we cannot know, but he could be the -blithest of fatalists when it pleased him to be. - - -III - -POET AND PROSE WRITER - -Lowell’s prose is manly, direct, varied, flexible, generally -harmonious, abounding in passages marked by grace, beauty, and -sweetness, and capable of rising to genuine eloquence. In its -overflowing vitality and human warmth it is an adequate expression of -the man, imaging his mocking and humorous moods no less than his deep -sincerity, his strength of purpose, and his passion. Much of it has the -confidence and ease that go with successful improvisation. If Lowell -was ‘willing to risk the prosperity of a verse upon a lucky throw of -words,’ he was even more willing to take like chances with his prose. - -His thought ran easily into figurative form, and the making of metaphor -was as natural to him as breathing. He would even amuse himself with -conceits, for he loved to play with language, to force words into -shapes he might perchance have condemned had he found them in the work -of another. But if style is to be representative, this playfulness, -however annoying to Lowell’s critics, is a virtue. A Lowell chastened -in his English and wholly academic would not be the Lowell we rejoice -in. - -He practised the art of poetry in many forms and always with success. -Of everything he wrote you might say that it had been his study, though -you might refrain from saying that ‘it had been all in all his study.’ -In other words, as we read Lowell the question never arises whether or -not the poet is working in unfamiliar materials, but whether he might -not have given his product a higher finish, the materials and the form -remaining the same. He was no aspirant after flawless beauty. He wrote -spontaneously and was for the time wholly possessed by his theme. But -what he had written he had written; and if never content with the -result he at least compelled himself to be philosophical. He made a few -changes, to be sure, but (as was said of a far greater poet) he would -correct with an afterglow of poetic inspiration, not with a painful -tinkering of the verse. - -It is by tinkering with the verse, however (the ‘higher’ tinkering), -that perfection is attained. And he who wrote with evident ease so many -lovely and felicitous lines could as easily have bettered lines that -are wanting in finish. It was not Lowell’s way. Too much may not be -required of a man who often felt the utmost repugnance to reading his -own writings, once they were in print. - - -IV - -_POEMS_, _THE BIGLOW PAPERS_, _FABLE FOR CRITICS_, _VISION OF SIR -LAUNFAL_ - -Lowell’s first poetic flights were strong-winged. ‘Threnodia,’ ‘The -Sirens,’ ‘Summer Storm,’ ‘To Perdita, Singing,’ whatever their faults, -have a richness, a melody, a freedom of structure, an almost careless -grace, that are captivating. Here was no painful effort in production -with the inevitable result of frigidity and hardness. - -The poet’s gift matured rapidly. There is strength in such poems as -‘Prometheus,’ ‘Columbus,’ ‘A Glance behind the Curtain,’ rare beauty -in ‘A Legend of Brittany,’ ‘Hebe,’ and ‘Rhœcus,’ a mystical power in -the haunting lines of ‘The Sower,’ passion and uplift in ‘The Present -Crisis,’ ‘Anti-Apis,’ the lines ‘To W. L. Garrison,’ and the ‘Ode to -France,’ while in ‘An Interview with Miles Standish’ is a promise of -that satirical power which was presently to find complete expression in -_The Biglow Papers_. - -Early in his career Lowell announced his theory of the poet’s office, -which is to inspire to high thought and noble action, not merely to -please with pretty fancies and melodious verse. The ‘Ode,’ written in -1841, is an expression of his poetic faith. The ethical and reforming -bent in Lowell’s character was so strong as to make it difficult -for him, true bard though he was, to look on poetry as an art to be -cultivated for itself alone. - -Inspiriting as were stanzas like ‘The Present Crisis,’ Lowell’s power -became most effective in the anti-slavery struggle when the outbreak -of the Mexican War led to the writing of _The Biglow Papers_. Printed -anonymously in a journal, copied into other newspapers, the question of -their authorship much debated, these satires were at last adjudicated -to the man who wrote them, but not until he himself had heard it -demonstrated ‘in the pauses of a concert’ that he was wholly incapable -of such a performance. - -Of the characters of the little drama, Hosea Biglow, the country -youth, stands for the plain common-sense of New England, opposed to -the extension of slavery whatever the means employed, and above all -by legalized murder with an accompaniment of drums and fifes. The -Reverend Homer Wilbur acts as ‘chorus,’ and by his learned comments -surrounds the productions of the country muse with an atmosphere of -scholarship. Birdofredom Sawin is the clown of the little show. - -Many finer touches have become obscure by the lapse of time, and _The -Biglow Papers_ is now provided with historical notes; but the energy, -the spirit, and the unfailing humor of the work are perennial. Lowell -was most fortunate in his verbal felicities. Who could have foreseen -that so much danger lurked in a middle initial, or that a plain name -of the sort borne by the former senator from Middlesex contained such -comic potentialities? - - We were gittin’ on nicely up here to our village, - With good old idees o’ wut’s right an’ wut aint, - We kind o’ thought Christ went agin war an’ pillage, - An’ thet eppyletts worn’t the best mark of a saint; - But John P. - Robinson he - Sez this kind o’ thing’s an exploded idee. - -Lowell was surprised at his own success. What he at first thought ‘a -mere fencing stick’ proved to be a weapon. The blade was two-edged, and -the Yankees did well to fall back a little when he lifted it against -the enemy. For in writing _The Biglow Papers_ Lowell took real delight -in noting the oddities and laughing at the foibles of his own New -Englanders, a people whom he loved with all tenderness, but to whose -faults he was not in the least blind. - -In 1861 the little puppets were taken out of the box where they had -lain for fifteen years and furbished up for a new tragi-comedy. The -second series of _The Biglow Papers_ was read no less eagerly than the -first had been. Quite as brilliant as their predecessors, the later -poems are more impassioned, and in those touching on English hostility -to the North the satire is bitterly stinging. - -While the numbers of the first series were in course of publication -Lowell produced a rhymed primer of contemporary American literature -under the title of _A Fable for Critics_. It was an improvisation, -and therefore the buoyancy, the jovial off-hand manner, the impudence -even, were a matter of course and all in its favor. Often penetrating -and just in his criticisms, Lowell was invariably amusing, and in the -cleverness of the rhyme and word play quite inimitable. - -Two months after the appearance of the _Fable_ the popular _Vision -of Sir Launfal_ was published. Though undoubtedly read more for the -sake of the preludes than for the slight but touching story, it is -by no means certain that the preludes, brought out as independent -poems, could have won the number of readers they now have. In other -words, _The Vision of Sir Launfal_ has a unity which it seems on first -acquaintance to lack. - - -V - -_UNDER THE WILLOWS_, _THE CATHEDRAL_, _COMMEMORATION ODE_, _THREE -MEMORIAL POEMS_, _HEARTSEASE AND RUE_ - -‘Under the Willows’ is a poem of Nature in which the poet at no time -loses sight either of the world of books or of the world of men. If he -be driven indoors by the rigors of May, he is content to sit by his -wood-fire and read what the poets have said in praise of that inclement -month. Or if June has come and he can dream under his favorite willows, -his reveries gain a zest from the interruptions of the tramp, ‘lavish -summer’s bedesman,’ the scissors-grinder, that grimy Ulysses of New -England, the school-children, and the road-menders, - - Vexing Macadam’s ghost with pounded slate. - -It is a poem of thanksgiving in which the poet voices his gratitude for -the benediction of the higher mood and the human kindness of the lower. - -The volume to which ‘Under the Willows’ gives its name is typical. He -who prizes Lowell’s verse will hardly be content with any selection -which does not include ‘Al Fresco,’ ‘A Winter-Evening Hymn to my Fire,’ -‘Invita Minerva,’ ‘The Dead House,’ ‘The Parting of the Ways,’ ‘The -Fountain of Youth,’ and ‘The Nightingale in the Study.’ - -Its manner of contrasting To-Day with Yesterday, the genius that -creates with the spirit that analyzes, makes _The Cathedral_ an -essentially American poem. The minster in its ‘vast repose,’ - - Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff, - -must always seem a marvel to a dweller among temples of ‘deal and -paint.’ The poem is the meditation of a New-World conservative, -altogether catholic of sympathies, who holds no less firmly to the -past because, under the fascination of democracy, he breathes in the -presence of the ‘backwoods Charlemagne’ a braver air and is conscious -of an ‘ampler manhood.’ And what, he asks, will be the faith of -this new avatar of the Goth, what temples will the creature build? -Very beautiful, very suggestive, and in its shifting moods entirely -representative of the poet who wrote it must this fine work always seem. - -_The Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration_ (July 21, 1865) is -Lowell’s supreme achievement in verse. It breathes the most exalted -patriotism, a love of native land that is intense, fiery, consuming. -Though written in honor of sons of the University who had gone to the -war, the spirit of the _Ode_ is not local and particular. The poet -celebrates not individual deeds alone but the sum of those deeds, not -man but manhood:-- - - That leap of heart whereby a people rise - Up to a noble anger’s height, - And, flamed on by the Fates, not shrink, but grow more bright, - That swift validity in noble veins, - Of choosing danger and disdaining shame, - Of being set on flame - By the pure fire that flies all contact base, - But wraps its chosen with angelic might, - These are imperishable gains, - Sure as the sun, medicinal as light, - These hold great futures in their lusty reins - And certify to earth a new imperial race. - -The mingling of proud humility, tenderness, and reverence, the -throbbing passion and the exultant fervor of the concluding verses, -lift this ode to a high place in American poetry, it may be to -the highest place. To the many, however, the chief value of _The -Commemoration Ode_ lies in the stanza on Lincoln. So just as an -estimate of character, so restrained in its accents of praise, American -in all finer meanings of the word, splendid in its imagery and poignant -in the note of grief, this beautiful tribute to the great president is -final and satisfying. - -The first of the _Three Memorial Poems_ is an ‘Ode, read at the One -Hundredth Anniversary of the Fight at Concord.’ - -In the opening stanzas on Freedom the poet strikes the notes of -exultation fitting the time and the place, then passes to those -inevitable allusions which appeal to local pride (and Lowell handles -this passage with utmost skill), draws the lesson that must of -necessity be drawn from the ‘home-spun deeds’ of the men of old, makes -Freedom utter her warning to the men of the present, and, no prophet of -evil, closes in the triumphant spirit in which he began. - -‘Under the Old Elm’ is a magnificent tribute to a man so great that -there is need of odes like this to help us comprehend his greatness. -After calling up the scene when Washington, ‘a stranger among -strangers,’ stood beneath that legendary tree to take command of his -army, ‘all of captains,’ a motley rout, valorous deacons, selectmen, -and village heroes among others, more skilled in debating their -orders than obeying them, good fighters all, but ‘serious drill’s -despair,’--the poet chants those beautiful lines in which is drawn the -distinction between ‘Nation’ and ‘Country.’ The one is fashioned of -computable things, good each in its kind and important in its place:-- - - But Country is a shape of each man’s mind - Sacred from definition, unconfined - By the cramped walls where daily drudgeries grind; - An inward vision, yet an outward birth - Of sweet familiar heaven and earth; - A brooding Presence that stirs motions blind - Of wings within our embryo being’s shell - That wait but her completer spell - To make us eagle-natured, fit to dare - Life’s nobler spaces and untarnished air. - - You who hold dear this self-conceived ideal, - Whose faith and works alone can make it real, - Bring all your fairest gifts to deck her shrine - Who lifts our lives away from Thine and Mine - And feeds the lamp of manhood more divine - With fragrant oils of quenchless constancy. - When all have done their utmost, surely he - Hath given the best who gives a character - Erect and constant, which nor any shock - Of loosened elements, nor the forceful sea - Of flowing or of ebbing fates, can stir - From its deep bases in the living rock - Of ancient manhood’s sweet security.... - -And the poet longs for skill to praise him fitly whom he does fitly -praise in the stanzas that follow. It is a thoughtful, nobly eloquent, -and poetically beautiful characterization of the great Virginian, -and appropriately closes with a fine apostrophe to the historic -Commonwealth from which Washington sprang. - -The ‘Ode for the Fourth of July, 1876,’ though not lacking in forceful -lines and fine imagery, is the least happy of the three poems. -The questioning and critical mood is prominent. But the spirit of -confidence prevails and is voiced in the invocation with which the ode -concludes. - -Various notes are touched in the collection of eighty-eight poems to -which its author gave the title of _Heartsease and Rue_. Here are -verses new and old, grave and gay, satirical, humorous, sentimental, -and elegiac, epigrams, inscriptions, lyrics, poems of occasion, -sonnets, epistles, and, chief among them, the ode written on hearing -the news of the death of Agassiz. Whether, as has been asserted, ‘this -poem takes its place with the few great elegies in our language, gives -a hand to “Lycidas” and to “Thyrsis,”’ is a question to be decided -by the suffrages of many good critics, rather than by the dictum of -one. There is no doubt, however, that by virtue of its human quality, -depth of personal feeling, sincerity in the accent of bereavement, and -felicity of phrase, the ‘Agassiz’ will always stand in the first rank -of Lowell’s greater verse. - - -VI - -_FIRESIDE TRAVELS_, _MY STUDY WINDOWS_, _AMONG MY BOOKS_, _LATEST -LITERARY ESSAYS_ - -_Fireside Travels_ is so entertaining a book as to make one wish that -Lowell had chronicled more of his journeyings at home and abroad in -the same amusing style. Two of the six essays--‘Cambridge Thirty Years -Ago’ and ‘A Moosehead Journal’--take the form of letters addressed to -the author’s friend, ‘the Edelmann Storg’ (W. W. Story). The others are -grouped under the general title of ‘Leaves from my Journal in Italy and -Elsewhere.’ - -One spirit animates the pages of this book,--a love of plain people, -homely adventures, everyday sights and sounds. In a half-serious way -(as if to show that he knows how to ‘do’ a tempest in the mountains -or an illumination of St. Peter’s) Lowell throws in a number of -unconventional passages on entirely conventional themes. But the -strength of the book lies in the sympathetic and humorous accounts of -that protean animal Man, who, whether he showed himself in the guise -of a denizen of Old Cambridge, or of Uncle Zeb, who had been ‘to -the ‘Roostick war,’ or of the Chief Mate of the packet ship, or of -Leopoldo, the Italian guide, was more interesting to Lowell than any -other object of his study. - -Together with _Fireside Travels_ may be read ‘My Garden Acquaintance’ -and ‘A Good Word for Winter,’ from _My Study Windows_, gossipy -papers on Nature by one who looked on ‘a great deal of the modern -sentimentalism about Nature as a mark of disease ... one more symptom -of the general liver complaint.’ The sincerity of Lowell’s love of -birds, beasts, flowers, trees, the sky and the landscape, admits of no -question. Yet he approached Nature more or less through literature, as -was becoming in a man brought up on White’s _Selborne_; and he seems -his characteristic self when, having pulled a chair out under a tree, -he sits there with a volume of Chaucer in his hands, looking up from -the page now and then to watch his feathered neighbors, and make wise -and humorous comments on their doings. - -_Among My Books_ is a volume of literary and historical studies, six -in number, entitled respectively, ‘Dryden,’ ‘Witchcraft,’ ‘Shakespeare -Once More,’ ‘New England Two Centuries Ago,’ ‘Lessing,’ ‘Rousseau and -the Sentimentalists.’ All are in Lowell’s best manner, and the ‘Dryden’ -and ‘Shakespeare’ are particularly fine examples of those leisurely, -stimulating, and always brilliant literary studies which this scholar -knew so well how to write. - -Of the thirteen papers in _My Study Windows_ that on ‘Abraham -Lincoln’[67] and the one ‘On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners’ -have a political bearing; those on ‘A Great Public Character’ (Josiah -Quincy) and ‘Emerson the Lecturer’ are studies in personality; the -‘Library of Old Authors’ is an exercise in textual criticism, a -merciless arraignment of certain unfortunate editors; the ‘Carlyle,’ -‘James Gates Percival,’ ‘Thoreau,’ ‘Swinburne’s Tragedies,’ ‘Chaucer,’ -and ‘Pope’ are studies in literary history and interpretation. - -_Among My Books_, ‘second series,’ contains five essays. More than -a third of the volume is devoted to a study of ‘Dante,’ elaborate -and exhaustive--as the word ‘exhaustive’ might be used in speaking -of an essay not of a book. Then follows a most sympathetic essay on -‘Spenser,’ together with papers on ‘Milton,’ ‘Wordsworth,’ and ‘Keats.’ - -Of Lowell’s critical writings as a whole it may be said that better -reading does not exist; and among the virtues of these essays is their -length. Lowell would have been ill at ease in the limits of three or -four thousand words too often imposed by the editors of our current -magazines. He might even have been scornful of a public taste which -dictated to editors to dictate to their contributors limits so narrow. -Writing from the fulness of a well-stored mind, he liked room in which -to display his thought. Having much to say, he did not scruple to -take time to say it; but the time always goes quickly. He understood -perfectly the art of beguiling one into forgetting the hours as they -pass. - -These essays, so rich in critical suggestiveness, abound in -matter-of-fact knowledge. We read for information and get it. Lowell -shares with us the wealth of his acquaintance with books. His manner -is unostentatious. Macaulay staggers us with his array of facts and -his range of allusion. We are overwhelmed, intellectually cowed by the -display of knowledge. Lowell too astonishes, but only after a while. -Macaulay declaims at his reader, Lowell converses with him. All is so -easy, good-humored, and witty, that the reader for a moment labors -under the mistake of supposing that he is being instructed less than -he would like. Later he begins to count up his mental gains, and is -surprised at the display they make. - -Another obvious source of pleasure is the felicity of expression. -Lowell had the courage of his cleverness. Brilliancy was natural to -him. He defended the practice of piquant phrasing, maintaining that a -thought is not wanting in depth because it is strikingly put. Doubtless -he loved an ingenious turn for its own sake, but it would be difficult -to find an instance of his making a display of verbal vivacity to -conceal poverty of thought. - -These pages bear constant witness to Lowell’s passion for books, a -passion too genuine and deep-seated to admit of any doubt on his part -of the worth of literature. He had none of Emerson’s scepticism, who -held that if people would only think, they might do without books. -The dullest proser and most leaden-winged poet could not make Lowell -despair. - -A number of essays display no little of the severity which we have -learned to associate with reviewing after the manner of Jeffrey and -Lockhart. Yet these caustic passages were written by a man who said of -himself that he had ‘to fight the temptation to be too good-natured.’ -Priggishness was as absurd to him in scholarship and letters as -elsewhere, and he never lost a chance to give it a touch of the whip. -Happily there is little of this. Lowell was almost uniformly urbane, -gracious, reasonable. - -If his subject was a great one Lowell treated it in a great way; if -circumscribed and provincial he enlarged its boundaries--as in the -essay on ‘James Gates Percival,’ where a subject of small intrinsic -worth becomes a study of the American literary mind at one of its -periods of acute self-consciousness, useful historically and tending to -present-day edification. Needless to say, Lowell enjoyed handling this -topic. He liked to satirize the early American authors and critics, -solemn and important over their great work of inaugurating a New-World -literature and quite convinced that, since ‘that little driblet of the -Avon had succeeded in producing William Shakespeare,’ something unusual -was to be expected of the Mississippi River. - -Although Lowell’s standing as a critic rests on such writings as his -‘Dryden,’ ‘Shakespeare,’ ‘Chaucer,’ ‘Spenser,’ ‘Pope,’ and ‘Dante,’ the -amateur of good literature cannot afford to neglect anything to which -this fine scholar put his hand. - -The later volumes contain some of his most illuminating criticism -(notably in the ‘Fielding,’ ‘Don Quixote,’ ‘Gray,’ ‘Walton,’ and -‘Landor’), and his style seems the perfection of ease and suppleness. -Doubtless it is negligent now and then, but always with the winning -negligence of a master in the difficult art of expression. - - -VII - -_POLITICAL ADDRESSES AND PAPERS_ - -_The Anti-Slavery Papers_ consists of editorial articles reprinted -from ‘The Pennsylvania Freeman,’ and ‘The Anti-Slavery Standard.’[68] -Witty, ironical, and pungent, these fugitive leaves are of value for -the light they throw on the history of the struggle maintained by the -Abolitionists against their powerful enemies both in the North and in -the South, as well as for the idea they give of the militant Lowell at -a time when to conviction of the justness of the cause for which he -fought was added a measure of joyousness in the mere act of fighting. - -Of greater significance is the volume of _Political Essays_, twelve -papers written at intervals between 1858 and 1866. Designed for the -most part to serve an immediate purpose, and betraying in every page -the writer’s depth of feeling, intensity of patriotism, and strong but -not bigoted Northern convictions, these essays, by their acuteness of -insight, balanced judgment, admirable temper, and wealth of allusion, -as well as by their literary flavor and their occasional eloquence, -hold a permanent place not only among Lowell’s best writings but among -the best of the innumerable political papers called out by the Civil -War. - -Of Lowell’s later political utterances none is more notable than the -address on ‘Democracy,’ delivered at Birmingham in 1884, a cleverly -phrased and thoughtful speech in which the American minister defended -the democratic idea with logic as adroit as it was sound. That the -source of American democracy was the English constitution must have -been news to a part at least of his English audience. It was a happy -thought of Lowell’s to show how stable democracy might be as a system -of government. He made the argument from expediency, that ‘it is -cheaper in the long run to lift men up than to hold them down, and -that a ballot in their hands is less dangerous to society than a sense -of wrong in their heads.’ He would not have been Lowell had he not -also shown that a democracy has its finer instincts, or failed to -recognize the fact that as an experiment in the art of government it -must stand or fall by its own merits. And the whole address is strongly -optimistic, in its insistence that ‘those who have the divine right to -govern will be found to govern in the end.’ - -The address on ‘The Place of the Independent in Politics’ supplements -the Birmingham address. As Lowell before an English audience had dwelt -on ‘the good points and favorable aspect of democracy,’ so before a -home audience he discussed its weak points and its dangers. He thought -the system would bear investigation. At no time did he labor under the -mistake of supposing that democracy was a contrivance which ran of its -own accord. Parties there must be and politicians to look after them, -but it is no less essential that there should be somebody to look after -the politicians. The address is a plea for unselfishness in political -action. - - * * * * * - -Admirers of Lowell find it easy to believe that of all American -makers of verse he had the most of what is called inspiration. With -less catholic tastes he might have become a greater poet and would -undoubtedly have been a finer artist. But granting that it was a -matter of choice, and that Lowell had elected to make mastery in -verse (with all the sacrifices involved) the object of his life, how -serious then would have been the loss to criticism and to politics. The -Lowell we know, with his extraordinary mental vivacity, his grasp of a -multitude of interests that make for culture, is surely a more engaging -figure than the hypothetical Lowell of purely poetical achievement. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [63] Keith Spence was born at Kirkwall, Orkney. Mrs. Lowell had - Orcadian ancestors on both sides of the house, her maternal - grandfather, Robert Traill, having also come from Orkney. - - [64] January, February, and March, 1843. - - [65] Scudder. - - [66] H. R. Haweis: _American Humorists_. - - [67] The remarkable paper on Lincoln was afterwards transferred to - the volume of _Political Essays_. - - [68] January, 1845, to November, 1850. - - - - -XIX - -_WALT WHITMAN_ - - -REFERENCES: - - =John Burroughs=: _Notes on Walt Whitman as Poet and Person_, - second edition, 1871. - - =R. M. Bucke=: _Walt Whitman_, 1883. - - =W. S. Kennedy=: _Reminiscences of Walt Whitman_, 1896. - - =I. H. Platt=: _Walt Whitman_, ‘Beacon Biographies,’ 1904. - - -I - -HIS LIFE - -Walter Whitman (commonly known as Walt) was born at West Hills, a -village in Huntington Township, Long Island, on May 31, 1819. He was -a son of Walter Whitman, a carpenter and house-builder, who followed -his trade chiefly in New York and Brooklyn. The Long Island Whitmans -claim descent from the Reverend Zechariah Whitman, who came to America -in 1635, and settled at Milford, Connecticut. Zechariah’s son Joseph -crossed the Sound ‘sometime before 1660,’ and may have been the -original purchaser of the farm where successive generations of his -descendants lived, and where the poet was born. - -Blended with this English blood was that of a line of Dutch ancestors. -Whitman’s mother, Louisa Van Velsor, daughter of Cornelius Van Velsor -of Cold Spring Harbor, was of ‘the old race of the Netherlands, so -deeply grafted on Manhattan Island and in Kings and Queens counties.’ -The Van Velsors were noted for their horses, and in her youth Louisa -was a daring rider. - -Whitman’s education was such as a Brooklyn public school of the early -Thirties afforded. After a little experience as an office-boy he -learned to set type. To vary the monotony of life at the composing-case -he taught in country schools or worked at farming. Occasionally he -dabbled in literature, publishing tales and essays in the ‘Democratic -Review.’ In 1839 he started at Huntington a ‘weekly’ paper, the ‘Long -Islander,’ publishing it at such intervals as pleased him best. For a -time he edited the ‘Brooklyn Eagle’ (1848), diverting himself in the -intervals of journalistic work with ‘an occasional shy at “poetry.”’ - -Nomadic by instinct and of a curious and inquiring turn of mind, -Whitman, accompanied by his brother Jeff, made ‘a leisurely journey -and working expedition’ through the Middle States, down the Ohio and -Mississippi to New Orleans, returning in the same deliberate manner -by the Great Lakes, Lower Canada, and the Hudson. During his stay in -New Orleans (1849–50) he was an editorial writer on the’ Crescent.’ -In Brooklyn (1850–51) he edited and published a paper called ‘The -Freeman,’ then for three or four years he built and sold small houses. - -The first edition of the extraordinary and notorious _Leaves of Grass_ -(for which Whitman himself helped to set the type) appeared in 1855, -and was described by Emerson to Carlyle as ‘a nondescript monster, -which yet had terrible eyes and buffalo strength, and was indisputably -American.’ An enlarged edition appeared in 1856, to be followed by yet -a third in 1860. The sales were slow and the reviews for the most part -hostile and often abusive. - -There was some discussion in the Whitman family over the merits of -the book. The poet’s brother, George Whitman, said in after years: ‘I -remember mother comparing Hiawatha to Walt’s, and the one seemed to us -pretty much the same muddle as the other. Mother said if Hiawatha was -poetry, perhaps Walt’s was.’[69] - -In 1862 George Whitman was wounded at the first battle of -Fredericksburg. Walt went immediately to the front to care for him. -His sympathies were enlisted by the sight of the misery on every hand -and he became a volunteer army nurse, serving for three years in the -hospitals in Washington. ‘He saved many lives’ was the testimony of a -surgeon who had observed Whitman at his work. But his powerful physique -broke under the strain, and a severe illness followed. - -When he recovered, a clerkship was given him in the Department of the -Interior; he was presently removed on the charge (it is said) of having -written an indecent book.[70] A place was immediately found for him -in the Attorney General’s office, and this place he held until he was -stricken by partial paralysis early in 1873. - -From 1873 until his death Whitman lived in Camden, New Jersey, at first -making his home with his soldier brother, George, later setting up an -establishment of his own at 328 Mickle Street. He never married, having -an ‘overmastering passion for entire freedom, unconstraint; I had an -instinct against forming ties that would bind me.’ - -The following list of Whitman’s writings conveys no idea of the -interest attaching to them as bibliographical curiosities, but will -perhaps answer the needs of the student. - -_Leaves of Grass_, 1855 (second edition, 1856; third, 1860–61; fourth, -1867; fifth, 1871); _Walt Whitman’s Drum-Taps_ and its _Sequel_, -1865–66; _Democratic Vistas_, 1871; _After All not to Create Only_, -1871; _Passage to India_, 1871; _As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free_, -1872; _Memoranda during the War_, 1875–76; _Two Rivulets_ (prose and -verse), 1876; _Specimen Days and Collect_, 1882–83; _November Boughs_ -(prose and verse), 1888; _Good-Bye My Fancy_, 1891; _Calamus: A Series -of Letters ... to a young friend (Peter Doyle)_, 1897; _The Wound -Dresser_, 1898. - -The storm of opposition which greeted Whitman’s earlier work gradually -subsided, and he became a notable figure among contemporary men of -letters. He was invited to read original poems on public occasions, -such as the opening of the American Institute (1871), the Commencement -at Dartmouth College (1872), and the Commencement at Tufts College -(1874). In later years he enjoyed literary canonization in a small -way. Many pilgrims visited the bard in his unpoetical house in Camden. -Worshippers came from England to pay him homage and incidentally to -rail at Americans for neglecting one of their few geniuses, stolidly -ignoring the fact that they themselves had neglected not a few of their -many geniuses. And before Walt Whitman died (March 26, 1892) he had -tasted some of the delights of fame. - - -II - -THE GROWTH OF A REPUTATION - -Being prejudiced in favor of metre and rhyme, probably from long -experience of verse written in the conservative way, an old-fashioned -world did not welcome _Leaves of Grass_ with enthusiasm. A few -discerning spirits saw in Whitman the promise of mighty things. Emerson -greeted him ‘at the beginning of a great career;’ but when the poet had -these words from a private letter stamped in gilt capitals on the cover -of his next volume, Emerson (it is thought) was a little dismayed. - -Not only did the form of the poems offend, but the content as well. -There were lines calculated to disconcert even such people as were -not, in their own opinion, prudish. The lines were comparatively few -in number, but they were there in unabashed nakedness, and _Leaves of -Grass_, it may be assumed, often went on a top shelf instead of on -the sitting-room table along with innocuous poets like Tennyson and -Longfellow. - -Neglect and abuse raised up for Whitman in time a small battalion of -champions, fierce, determined, uncompromising, militant. Among them -were men whose attitude towards literature was catholic and liberal. -For the most part they were Whitmanites, hot as lovers, quarrelsome as -bullies, biting their thumbs at every passer-by. - -Literary championship has one good effect: it keeps the public, gorged -with novels of the day, from quite going to sleep. There is always -a chance that some open-minded reader will be stirred by the clash -of critical arms to look into the affair that is causing so great a -pother. Better to be advertised by the crowd of swashbucklers who -clattered about wearing Whitman’s colors than not to be advertised at -all. The public concluded that a man who could inspire loyalty like -this must be worth while. Whitman’s audience and influence grew. The -bodyguard pretty much lost the power to see virtue in any poet save its -own, but it had succeeded in arresting public attention. - -In 1876 a number of English admirers subscribed freely to the new -edition of Whitman’s writings and garnished their guineas with -comfortable words. The poet was sick, poor, discouraged, and by his own -grateful testimony this show of interest put new heart into him--‘saved -my life,’ he said. It might well have had that effect, since no less -names than those of Tennyson, Ruskin, Rossetti, and Lord Houghton -were to be found in the list of subscribers. Even Robert Buchanan, -who assailed with virulence the author of ‘Jenny,’ had no scruple in -bidding God speed to the author of the ‘Song of Myself’ and ‘Children -of Adam.’ - -A momentary set-back occurred in 1882, when Whitman’s Boston publisher -was threatened with prosecution. ‘The official mind’ declared that it -would be content if two poems were suppressed, the poems in question -resembling in some particulars the stories an English editor omitted -from the _Thousand-and-One Nights_, on the ground that they were -‘interesting only to Arabs and old gentlemen.’ Whitman refused to omit -so much as a word, and the book was transferred to a Philadelphia -publishing house. - -After 1882 Whitman found himself able to publish freely and without -the fear of the district attorney before his eyes. Since his death he -has been accorded a niche in the American literary pantheon, if we may -believe the critics, who now treat his work with the confidence which -marks their attitude towards Lowell or Longfellow. - - -III - -THE WRITER - -Unless indeed, as some maintain, Whitman got the suggestion of a -rhapsodical form from the once famous _Poems of Ossian_, he may be -said to have invented his own ‘verse.’ These unrhymed and unmetred -chants give a pleasure the degree of which is largely determined by the -reader’s willingness to allow Whitman to speak in his own manner and -wholly without reference to time-honored modes of poetic expression. -Such receptivity of mind is indispensable. - -Whitman called his rhapsodies ‘poems,’ ‘chants,’ or ‘songs’ -indifferently; the last term was a favorite with him, in later -editions; he has a ‘Song of the Open Road,’ a ‘Song of the Broad-Axe,’ -a ‘Song for Occupations,’ a ‘Song of the Rolling Earth,’ a ‘Song of -Myself,’ a ‘Song of the Exposition,’ a ‘Song of the Redwood-Tree,’ -‘Songs of Parting,’ and yet more songs. Obviously he used the word -without reference to the traditional meaning. Says Whitman: ‘... it is -not on _Leaves of Grass_ distinctively as _literature_, or a specimen -thereof, that I feel to dwell, or advance claims. No one will get at -my verses who insists upon viewing them as a literary performance, -or attempt at such performance, or as aiming mainly toward art or -æstheticism.’ Holding as he did that so long as ‘the States’ were -dominated by the poetic ideals of the Old World they would stop short -of first-class nationality, his own practice necessarily involved -getting rid, first of all, of the forms in which poetry had hitherto -found expression. - -That the structure of Whitman’s rhapsodies is determined by some law -cannot be questioned. After one has read these pieces many times, -he will find himself instinctively expecting a certain cadence. The -change of a word spoils it, the introduction of a rhyme is intolerable. -They who are versed in Whitman’s style can probably detect at once -a variation from his best manner. That his peculiarities in the -arrangement of words are very subtile is plain from a glance at the -numerous and generally unsuccessful parodies of _Leaves of Grass_. -The parodists have not grasped Whitman’s secret. Merely to write in -irregular lines and begin each line with a capital is to represent only -the obvious and superficial side. Whitman is inimitable even in his -catalogues. The ninth stanza of ‘I Sing the Body Electric’ reads like -an extract from a papal anathema, but it has the Whitmanesque quality; -no one can reproduce it. The imitations of Whitman are always amusing -and often ingenious, but they are not, like Lewis Carroll’s ‘Three -Voices,’ true parodies. - -Whitman probably did not know every step of the process by which he -attained his results. He was a poet who created his own laws and had no -philosophy of poetic form to expound. - - -IV - -_LEAVES OF GRASS_ - -A first impression of _Leaves of Grass_ is of uncouthness and blatancy, -together with something yet more objectionable. The writer would seem -to be a man fond of shocking what are called the proprieties, so frank -and egregious is his animalism, so overpowering his self-assertiveness. - -The author of _Laus Veneris_ accuses Whitman of indecency. The charge -is a grave one and emanates from a high source. The distinguished -English poet admits that there are few subjects which ‘may not be -treated with success;’ but the treatment is everything. This is ‘a -radical and fundamental truth of criticism.’ Whitman’s indecency then -consists not so much in the choice of the subject as in the awkwardness -of the touch. Or as Swinburne puts it with characteristic emphasis: -‘Under the dirty paws of a harper whose plectrum is a muck-rake any -tune will become a chaos of discords, though the motive of the tune -should be the first principle of nature--the passion of man for woman -or the passion of woman for man.’ - -But along with that first impression of Whitman’s verse as the product -of a strong, coarse nature, wilfully brutal at times, comes the no less -marked impression that the man is serenely honest, and animated by a -benevolence which helps to relieve the brutality of its most repulsive -features. At all events, Whitman is what Carlyle might have described -as ‘one of the palpablest of Facts in this miserable world where so -much is Invertebrate and Phantasmal.’ Whether we like him or not, -Whitman is by no means one of those neutral literary persons who are in -danger of being overlooked. - -In fact, the word ‘literary’ as applied to the author of _Leaves of -Grass_ is singularly inept. Whitman is not literary, that is to say he -is not a product of libraries. No meek and reverent follower of poets -gone before is this. ‘He has no literary ancestor, he is an ancestor -himself’--or at least takes the attitude of one. He is a son of earth, -a genuine autochthon, naked and not ashamed, noisy, vociferous, naïvely -delighted with the music of his own raucous voice. - -In that first great rhapsody, ‘Poem of Walt Whitman, an American,’[71] -we have the most characteristic expression of his genius. He proclaims -his interest in all that concerns mankind--not a cold, objective -interest merely, he is himself a part of the mighty pageant of life, -sympathetic with every phase of joy and sorrow, identifying himself -with high and low, finding nothing mean or contemptible. He states the -idea with a hundred variations, returns upon it, sets it in new lights, -enforces it. Every phenomenon of human life teaches this lesson. Every -pleasure, every grief, every experience small or great concerns him. He -identifies himself with the life of the most miserable of creatures:-- - - I am possess’d! - Embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering, - See myself in prison shaped like another man, - And feel the dull unintermitted pain. - -He carries the process of identification too far at times, leading to -results that would be disgusting were they not laughably grotesque. -Whitman makes no reservations on the score of taste. - -This doctrine of the unity of being and experience is comprehensive, -not limited to human life; the brute and insentient existences are -included as well. For a statement of Whitman’s creed take the poem -beginning: ‘There was a child went forth.’ If a busy man were ambitious -to know something about Whitman’s poetry and had only a minimum of time -to give to the subject (like Franklin when he undertook to post up on -revealed religion), one would not hesitate to commend to his notice -this poem as one of the first to be read. The theme is contained in -the four introductory lines. All that follows is an amplification of a -single thought:-- - - There was a child went forth every day, - And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became, - And that object became part of him for the day, or a certain - part of the day, - Or for many years or stretching cycles of years. - -Every object grows incorporate with the child, an essential inseparable -part of him,--the early lilacs, the noisy brood of the barnyard, -people, home, the family usages, doubts even (doubts ‘whether that -which appears is so, or is it all flashes and specks?’), the streets, -the shops, the crowd surging along, shadows and mist, and boats and -waves, - - The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-tint away - solitary by itself, the spread of purity it lies motionless in, - The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh - and shore mud, - These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who - now goes, and will always go forth every day. - -The idea has another setting in ‘Salut au Monde,’ Walt Whitman’s -brotherly wave of the hand to the whole world. It is a vision of -kingdoms and nations, comprehensive, detailed; it is geography and the -catalogue raised to the dignity of eloquence. Latitude and longitude -and the hot equator ‘banding the bulge of the earth’ acquire new -meaning in this strange chant. The poet hears the myriad sound of the -life of all peoples:-- - - I hear the Arab muezzin calling from the top of the mosque, - I hear the Christian priests at the altars of their churches, I hear - the responsive bass and soprano, - - * * * * * - - I hear the Hebrew reading his records and psalms, - I hear the rhythmic myths of the Greeks, and the strong legends - of the Romans, - I hear the tale of the divine life and the bloody death of the - beautiful God the Christ, - I hear the Hindoo teaching his favorite pupil the loves, wars, - adages, transmitted safely to this day from poets who wrote - three thousand years ago. - -The mountains, the rivers, the stormy seas, the pageant of fallen -empires and ancient religions, of cities and plains, all sweep past in -this survey of the world. And to all, salutation:-- - - My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the - whole earth, - I have look’d for equals and lovers and found them ready for me - in all lands, - I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them. - -The ‘Song of the Open Road,’ which may very well be read next, is a -challenge to a larger life than that which conventions, and modes, and -common social habits will permit:-- - - From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, - Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, - Listening to others, considering well what they say, - Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, - Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that - would hold me. - -It is no journey of ease to which the poet invites his followers; he -offers none of the ‘old smooth prizes:’-- - - My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion, - He going with me must go well arm’d, - He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry - enemies, desertion. - -Notable among Whitman’s best poems, and most important to an -understanding of him, is the ‘Song of the Answerer,’ that is to say, of -the Poet. He it is who puts things in their right relations:-- - - Every existence has its idiom, every thing has an idiom and a tongue, - He resolves all tongues into his own and bestows it upon men. - -The Answerer is quite other than the Singer--he is more powerful, his -existence is more significant, his words are of weight and insight:-- - - The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or - dark, but the words of the maker of poems are the general - light and dark, - The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality, - His insight and power encircle things and the human race, - He is the glory and extract thus far of things and of the human race. - -In that fine rhapsody ‘By Blue Ontario’s Shore’ Whitman restates his -doctrine while applying it to the need of his own America:-- - - Rhymes and rhymers pass away, poems distill’d from poems pass away, - The swarms of reflectors and the polite pass, and leave ashes, - Admirers, importers, obedient persons, make but the soil - of literature, - America justifies itself, give it time, no disguise can deceive it - or conceal from it, it is impassive enough, - Only toward the likes of itself will it advance to meet them, - If its poets appear it will in due time advance to meet them, there - is no fear of mistake, - (The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr’d till his country - absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb’d it.) - -‘By Blue Ontario’s Shore,’ from which these lines are taken, is a chant -for America. Patriotism is Whitman’s darling theme. Love of native -land, confidence in democracy, the self-sufficiency of the Republic and -the certainty of its future--with these ideas and with this spirit his -verse is charged to the full:-- - - A breed whose proof is in time and deeds, - What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections, - We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded, - We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves, - We are executive in ourselves, we are sufficient in the variety - of ourselves, - We are the most beautiful to ourselves and in ourselves, - We stand self-pois’d in the middle, branching thence over the world, - From Missouri, Nebraska, or Kansas, laughing attacks to scorn. - -America is safe, thought Whitman, so long as she does her own work in -her own way and cultivates a wholesome fear of civilization. - - America, curious toward foreign characters, stands by its own at - all hazards, - Stands removed, spacious, composite, sound, initiates the true use - of precedents, - Does not repel them or the past or what they have produced under - their forms, - - * * * * * - - These States are the amplest poem, - Here is not merely a nation but a teeming Nation of nations, - Here the doings of men correspond with the broadcast doings of the - day and night, - Here is what moves in magnificent masses careless of particulars, - Here are the roughs, beards, friendliness, combativeness, - the soul loves, - Here the flowing trains, here the crowds, equality, diversity, - the soul loves. - -One of the most magnificent of Whitman’s patriotic chants is that known -by its opening line, ‘As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free.’ He would be a -hardened sceptic who, after reading these superb and uplifting verses, -found himself still unconverted to some portion of the gospel of poetry -as preached by Walt Whitman. There is no resisting the man here, or -when he shows his power in pieces like ‘Proud Music of the Storm,’ -‘Passage to India,’ ‘The Mystic Trumpeter,’ ‘With Husky-Haughty -Lips, O Sea!’ ‘To the Man-of-War-Bird,’ ‘Song of the Universal,’ and -‘Chanting the Square Deific.’ - -Admirable, even wonderful, as these verses are, it may be after all -that the little volume called _Drum-Taps_ (together with its _Sequel_) -is Whitman’s best gift to the literature of his country. Vivid pictures -of battle-field, camp, and hospital, they are not to be forgotten by -him who has once looked on them. The ‘Prelude,’ ‘Cavalry Crossing a -Ford,’ ‘By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame,’ ‘The Dresser,’ the impressive -‘Vigil strange I kept on the field one night,’ and the no less striking -‘A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,’ together with -‘As toilsome I wander’d Virginia’s woods,’ the ‘Hymn of Dead Soldiers,’ -and ‘Spirit whose Work is Done,’--these and many more have accomplished -for Whitman’s reputation what the ‘Song of Myself’ and kindred poems -could not. - -In _Drum-Taps_ appeared the tributes to Lincoln, ‘O Captain, my -Captain,’ and the great lament beginning ‘When lilacs last in the -dooryard bloom’d.’ Here the poet rises to his supreme height. For -pathos and tenderness, for beauty of phrase, nobility of thought, and -a grand yet simple manner this threnody is indeed worthy of the praise -bestowed on it by those critics whose praise is most to be desired.[72] - - -V - -_SPECIMEN DAYS AND COLLECT_ - -Whitman’s prose in the definitive edition makes a stout volume of more -than five hundred closely printed pages. The title, _Specimen Days and -Collect_, gives an imperfect hint of the contents. Here are extracts -from journals kept through twenty years. Many bear a resemblance to -Hugo’s _Choses Vues_. Largely autobiographical and reminiscent, they -are vivid, picturesque, and far better in their haphazard way than a -good deal of formal ‘literature.’ Here are reprints of prefaces to the -several editions of _Leaves of Grass_, together with papers on Burns, -Tennyson, and Shakespeare, a lecture on Lincoln, a paper on American -national literature, and yet more ‘diary-notes’ and ‘splinters.’ He -who loves to browse in a book will find the volume of Whitman’s prose -made to his hand. The prose is of high importance to an understanding -of what, oddly enough, his poetry imperfectly reveals--Whitman’s -character. To know the man as he really was we must read _Specimen Days -and Collect_. - - -VI - -WHITMAN’S CHARACTER - -There is a certain uncanny quality in parts of Whitman’s verse. The -reiteration of particular phrases and words awakens an uncomfortable -feeling, a suspicion of not-to-be-named queernesses, to use no plainer -term. The constant translation of conceptions of ideal love into -fleshly symbols moves the reader to irreverence if not to disgust. -Whitman’s favorite image of bearded ‘comrades’ who kiss when they meet, -and who take long walks with their arms around each other’s necks, may -be ‘nonchalant’ but it is not agreeable. Somehow it does not seem as -if the doctrine of the brotherhood of man gained many supporters by so -singular a method of propagandism. - -When from time to time Whitman talked with Peter Doyle about his books, -Doyle would say: ‘I don’t know what you are trying to get at.’[73] It -is an ironical comment on the great preacher of the needs and virtues -of the average man that his poetry should have been handed over to -the keeping of those whose jaded taste makes them hanker after the -bizarre, after anything that breeds discussion, anything demanding -interpretation and defence. - -Yet no one doubts the sincerity of these faithful followers. -Whitmanites really like Whitman albeit they protest too much. It -is difficult to read him and not like him. Unfortunately the many -find it impossible to read him. Whitman prepares his feast, throws -open his doors, and bids all enter who will. A few come and by their -shrill volubility make it seem as if the dining-room were crowded. The -majority do not trouble to cross the threshold. They have heard that -the host serves queer dishes; it has even been reported that he is a -cannibal. - -This, or something very like it, has been Whitman’s fate. A taste for -his work must be acquired. He is the idol of cliques and societies, and -a meaningless name to the great people whom he loved, whose virtues he -chanted with confident fervor, and in whom he trusted unreservedly. - -Poetry so egoistic might be supposed to reveal the man. Strangely -enough, Whitman’s poetry, despite the heavy and continued accentuation -of the personal note, gives but a partial, a quite imperfect view of -the man himself. Whitman tells us so emphatically what he _thinks_ that -we are at a loss to know what he himself _is_. The great Shakespeare, -according to popular opinion, is veiled from us through his -extraordinary impersonality. Whitman accomplishes a not dissimilar end -by diametrically opposite means; he hides himself by over obtrusion of -the personal element. The case is not so common as to be undeserving -of study. As a method it has many drawbacks. - -Whitman has suffered at his own hands. The egoistic manner, -indispensable to his theory and not to be taken with literalness, is -nevertheless a stumbling-block. Instruct themselves how they will that -in saying ‘I’ the poet also means ‘You,’ that whatever Walt Whitman -claims for himself he also claims for every one else, readers somehow -lose hold of the thought and are amazed and angered by the poet’s -monstrous vanity. - -To this feeling the prose writings are an antidote. We learn in a few -pages how simple-minded, patient, and lovable this man really was; -how reverent of genius, how free from envy, undisturbed by suffering, -ill-repute, and delayed hopes. There was something at once pathetic -and noble in his patience, in his magnificent repose and stability. -The impersonal character of the tree and the rock, which he admired -so much, became in a measure his. He bided his time. The success of -other poets awakened no jealousy. He never called names, never picked -flaws in the work of his brother bards. The better we know him the more -dignified and lofty his figure becomes. - - -FOOTNOTES: - - [69] ‘Conversations with George W. Whitman,’ _In Re Walt Whitman_, - p. 36. - - [70] ‘... It is therefore deemed needful only to say in relation - to his [Whitman’s] removal, that his Chief--Hon. Wm. P. - Dole, Commissioner of Indian affairs, who was officially - answerable to me for the work in his Bureau, recommended - it, _on the ground that his services were not needed_. And - no other reason was ever assigned by my authority.’ Extract - from a letter from James Harlan to Dewitt Miller, dated Mt. - Pleasant, Iowa, July 18, 1894. - - [71] So called in the edition of 1856. In the edition of 1897 it - is entitled ‘Song of Myself.’ - - [72] See, for example, Stedman’s tribute in _Poets of America_. - - [73] _Calamus_, p. 27. - - - - -_Index_ - - - _Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, 9, 27. - - Abolitionists, 260. - - _Afloat and Ashore_, 71, 88. - - _Aftermath_, 226, 245. - - ‘Ages, The,’ Bryant’s Phi Beta Kappa poem, 38. - - Agnew, Mary, 406. - - _Alhambra, The_, 9, 24. - - Allan, Mr. and Mrs. John, befriend Poe, 190, 191. - - Allegiance, treaty with Germany concerning, 107. - - American Anti-Slavery Society in New York, Whittier secretary of, 260. - - _American Democrat, The_, 70, 94. - - _American Lands and Letters_, 449. - - American Loyalists, Irving’s attitude towards, 30; - in Westchester County, N. Y., 75. - - _American Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 292, 315. - - ‘American Scholar, The,’ Emerson’s Phi Beta Kappa oration, 152, 162. - - _Among My Books_, 458, 475, 476. - - _Among the Hills_, 263, 280. - - Amory, Susan, wife of William Hickling Prescott, 125. - - ‘Analectic Magazine,’ conducted by Irving, 6. - - André, Major John, Irving’s treatment of, 29. - - Anti-slavery movement, Whittier’s connection with, 259, 273–277; - Thoreau’s, 331; - Curtis’s, 420, 421; - Lowell’s, 456, 466, 479. - - _Anti-Slavery Papers_, Lowell’s, 459, 479. - - Appleton, Frances, wife of Longfellow, 225, 226. - - Archæological Institute of America, 383. - - Armada, the, 374. - - Arnold, Benedict, Irving’s treatment of, 29. - - Arnold, Matthew, 232. - - Astor, John Jacob, his commercial enterprise in the Northwest, the - subject of _Astoria_, 28. - - _At Sundown_, 263, 282. - - ‘Atlantic Monthly,’ founding of, and Whittier’s contributions to, 262; - Lowell editor of, 458. - - _Autocrat, The, of the Breakfast-Table_, 340, 345, 355. - - _Autumn_, Thoreau’s, 324, 331. - - - Bachiler, Stephen, 256. - - Bancroft, Aaron, father of George Bancroft, 101. - - Bancroft, George: his ancestry, 101; - education and foreign travel, 102; - tutor at Harvard, 103; - the Round Hill School, 103; - early works, 104; - political appointments, 105, 107; - founds United States Naval Academy, 105; - brings about treaty with Germany, 107; - last years, 107; - death, 108; - character, 108; - criticism of the History, 110–119. - - ‘Barbara Frietchie,’ remark of Whittier concerning, 265; - popularity of, 276. - - _Battle Summer_, 440, 444. - - _Belfry, The, of Bruges_, 225, 236. - - Benjamin, Mary, wife of John Lothrop Motley, 360; - her death, 364. - - Bigelow, Catharine, wife of Francis Parkman, 381. - - _Biglow Papers, The_, 456, 458, 466. - - Bismarck, his student life with Motley, 360. - - Bliss, Elisabeth (Davis), wife of George Bancroft, 105. - - _Blithedale Romance, The_, 291, 309. - - _Bonneville_, 28. - - _Book of the Roses_, 381 (note). - - Borrow, George, Emerson’s knowledge of, 182. - - Boston Lyceum, Poe’s appearance before, 197, 200. - - _Bracebridge Hall_, 7, 17. - - _Bravo, The_, 69, 89, 96. - - ‘Broadway Journal, The,’ Poe’s connection with, 196. - - Bronson, W. C., quoted, on Bryant, 43. - - Brook Farm, Emerson’s sympathy with, 154; - Hawthorne’s connection with, 289. - - Brown, John, Thoreau’s acquaintance with, 323. - - Bryant, Peter, father of William Cullen Bryant, 35. - - Bryant, Stephen, ancestor of William Cullen Bryant, 35. - - Bryant, William Cullen: his ancestry, 35; - early verses, 36; - education, 36, 37; - law practice, 37; - marriage, 38; - editorial work, 38–41; - political affiliations, 39, 40; - works published, 41; - travel, 42; - death, 43; - character, 44; - quarrel with an opponent, 45; - criticism of his work, 46–62; - his translations, 58; - quoted, on Cooper’s quarrel with the Press, 70. - - Burr, Aaron, Washington Irving among counsel for defence of, 5. - - Burroughs, John, 243. - - ‘Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and American Monthly,’ Poe’s - connection with, 194. - - Byron, George Gordon Noel, visits American flagship, 103. - - - Cabot, Sebastian, passage on, from Bancroft, 110. - - Cambridge (England), University of, confers degree on Holmes, 340; - on Lowell, 459. - - _Cape Cod_, 324, 331. - - Caraffa, Motley’s picture of, 371. - - Carlyle, Thomas, Emerson’s meeting with, 150; - correspondence with Emerson, 156; - quotation from, applied to Whitman, 495. - - _Cathedral, The_, 458, 470. - - Cavalier and Puritan, Bancroft’s comparison of, 111. - - _Chainbearer, The_, 71, 95. - - Champlain, Samuel, 392. - - Charles the Fifth, Prescott’s continuation of Robertson’s history of, - 127. - - _Children of the Lord’s Supper, The_, 231, 236. - - _Christus, a Mystery_, 226, 245. - - Civil Service reform, Curtis’s work for, 421. - - Clemm, Maria, 192, 194, 198. - - Clemm, Virginia, 192; - her marriage to Edgar Allan Poe, 193; - her death, 197. - - Clough, Arthur Hugh, effect on, of reading Evangeline, 232; - visits America, 457. - - Cogswell, Joseph G., 103. - - Columbus, Irving’s life of, 8, 20. - - _Commemoration Ode_, 458, 470. - - _Conduct of Life_, 156, 175. - - Conkling, Roscoe, his attack on Curtis, 423. - - _Conquest, The, of Granada_, 8, 22. - - _Conquest, The, of Mexico_, 127, 134. - - _Conquest, The, of Peru_, 127, 138. - - _Conspiracy, The, of Pontiac_, 381, 387. - - Constitution of the United States, history of, by Bancroft, 108. - - Cooper, James Fenimore: his ancestry, 65; - boyhood and education, 66; - enters the navy, 66; - marries and leaves the service, 67; - his first books, 67; - life abroad, 68; - return to America, 69; - quarrel with the Press, 69; - list of works, 70; - character, 72; - style, 74; - criticism of his works, 75–97. - - Cooper, William, father of James Fenimore Cooper, 65. - - Cortés, Prescott’s estimate of, 136. - - _Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV_, 382, 391, 393. - - _Courtship of Miles Standish, The_, 226, 242. - - Craigie, Mrs., her reception of Longfellow, 224. - - _Crater, The_, 71, 95. - - Croker, J. W., quoted, on Irving, 13. - - Curtis, George William: his ancestry, 417; - education, 418; - at Brook Farm and Concord, 418; - foreign travel, 418; - newspaper work, 419; - the ‘Easy Chair,’ 419; - books published, 419, 422; - orations, 420; - marriage, 420; - political work and Civil Service reform, 421; - character, 423; - style, 424; - criticism of his works, 427–435. - - Curtis family, 417. - - - Dante, Longfellow’s translation of, 226, 249. - - Davis, Elisabeth, wife of George Bancroft, 105. - - _Deerslayer, The_, 66, 71, 81. - - Defoe, Poe compared with, 203. - - De Lancey, Susan, wife of James Fenimore Cooper, 67; - her family, 75. - - ‘Democracy,’ 480. - - ‘Dial, The,’ 153. - - Dickens, Charles, dinner to, in New York, 46; - quotation from letter of, to Longfellow, 228; - greeting to, by O. W. Holmes, 350. - - _Divine Tragedy, The_, 226, 245. - - ‘Divinity Address,’ Emerson’s, 152, 163. - - _Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret_, 292, 316. - - _Doctor Johns_, 441, 448. - - _Dolliver Romance, The_, 292, 316. - - Doyle, Peter, quoted, on Whitman, 504. - - _Dream Life_, 440, 443, 447. - - _Drum-Taps_, 488, 502. - - Duelling, Bryant’s farce in ridicule of, 38. - - Dunlap, Frances, wife of James Russell Lowell, 457. - - Dutch life, Irving’s treatment of, 32. - - Duyckinck, E. A., 42. - - Dwight, Sarah, wife of George Bancroft, 105. - - - _Early Spring in Massachusetts_, 324, 331. - - ‘Easy Chair’ papers, 419, 422, 425, 430. - - Edinburgh, University of, confers degree on Holmes, 341. - - _El Dorado_, 403. - - _Elsie Venner_, 340, 352. - - _Embargo, The_, 36. - - Emerson, Ralph Waldo: his ancestry, 147; - boyhood, 148; - education, 149; - ordination and withdrawal from the ministry, 149, 150; - begins lecturing, 151; - settles in Concord, 151; - notable addresses, 152; - connection with Transcendental movement, 152; - lecture tour in England, 154; - position on slavery, 155; - list of his works, 155; - visitor to West Point and overseer of Harvard, 156; - nominated for Lord Rector of Glasgow University, 156; - death, 157; - character, 157; - criticism of his works, 160–186; - quoted, on Bancroft, 103, 109; - club meetings in his library, 418; - Holmes’s life of, 354. - - Emerson family, 147. - - _English Lands, Letters, and Kings_, 449. - - _English Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 292, 315. - - _English Traits_, 156, 173. - - _Evangeline_, 225; - metre of, 231; - stimulating effect of, on Clough, 232; - popularity of, 240. - - Everett, Alexander, influential in Irving’s going to Spain, 8. - - Everett, Edward, 102. - - _Excursions_, Thoreau’s, 324, 330, 332. - - - _Fable, A, for Critics_, 456, 458, 468. - - Fairchild, Frances, wife of William Cullen Bryant, 38. - - _Familiar Letters_, Thoreau’s, 324, 326, 332. - - _Fanshawe_, 288. - - _Faust_, Taylor’s translation of, 405, 410. - - Ferdinand and Isabella, Prescott’s history of, 127, 131, 132. - - ‘Fighting parson, the,’ 148. - - _Fireside Travels_, 459, 474. - - Fiske, John, cited, on Longfellow’s treatment of Cotton Mather in - _The New England Tragedies_, 247. - - Fitzgerald, Edward, 237. - - _French and Italian Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne_, 292, 315. - - Freeman, Edward A., quoted, 31. - - _Fresh Gleanings_, 439, 443, 444. - - ‘Frogpondians,’ 200. - - Frontenac, Count, in the New World, 393. - - _Fudge Doings_, 441, 445. - - Fuller, Margaret, 153; - Emerson’s _Memoirs_ of, 156; - her attack on Longfellow, 229; - schoolmate of Holmes, 338. - - - Gardiner, John, 124. - - Garnett, Richard, quoted, on Emerson, 185. - - Garrison, William Lloyd, his relations with Whittier, 257, 258. - - Gay, Sidney Howard, 42, 456. - - _Giles Corey of the Salem Farms_, 246. - - _Gleanings in Europe_, Cooper’s, 94. - - Godwin, Parke, quoted, on Bryant, 44. - - Goethe, Emerson’s estimate of, 173. - - ‘Gold-Bug, The,’ wins prize, 196. - - _Golden Legend, The_, 225, 245, 246. - - Goldsmith, Irving’s life of, 27; - reference to his work, 449. - - ‘Graham’s Magazine,’ Poe’s connection with, 195. - - _Grandfather’s Chair_, 289, 300. - - Greeley, Horace, his advice to Taylor on writing letters of travel, - 402. - - Green, John Richard, quoted, on Motley, 364. - - Greenough, Horatio, quotation from letter of, to Cooper, 93. - - Griswold, Rufus W., 196. - - _Guardian Angel, The_, 340, 352. - - _Guide, A, in the Wilderness_, 66 (note). - - _Gulliver’s Travels_, Irish bishop’s remark concerning, 76. - - - _Half-Century, A, of Conflict_, 382, 391, 394. - - _Hannah Thurston_, 405. - - Hansen, Marie, wife of Bayard Taylor, 406. - - Harlan, James, extract from letter of, concerning Walt Whitman’s - removal from government clerkship, 488 (note). - - ‘Harper’s Weekly’ and ‘Harper’s Monthly,’ Curtis’s connection with, - 419, 421, 422. - - Harrison, Frederic, his criticism of _Evangeline_, 251. - - Haweis, H. R., 460. - - Hawthorne, Nathaniel: his ancestry, 287; - boyhood and college life, 288; - his first book, 288; - collector of the Port of Boston, 289; - joins Brook Farm Community, 289; - marriage, 290; - Surveyor of Customs at Salem, 290; - consul at Liverpool, 291; - failing health and death, 293; - his character, 293; - style, 296; - criticism of his works, 298–317; - his refusal to write an Acadian story, 240. - - Hawthorne family, 287. - - ‘Haverhill Gazette,’ Whittier’s connection with, 258, 259. - - _Headsman, The_, 69, 91. - - _Heartsease and Rue_, 459, 473. - - _Heidenmauer, The_, 69, 91. - - Henry, Prince, of Hoheneck, the subject of _The Golden Legend_, 246. - - ‘Heroes, The,’ 38. - - _Hiawatha_, 225; - the metre of, 232; - popularity of, 240; - sources and purpose of, 242. - - _History, The, of the Navy of the United States of America_, 70, 93. - - _History of the United Netherlands_, 362, 369, 373. - - Holmes, Abiel, father of Oliver Wendell Holmes, 337. - - Holmes, Oliver Wendell: his ancestry, 337; - education, 338; - professor at Dartmouth College, 338; - marriage, 339; - professor at Harvard, 339; - contributions to the ‘Atlantic Monthly,’ 340; - list of his works, 340; - death, 341; - character, 341; - style, 344; - criticism of his works, 345–355; - his ‘occasional’ poems, 350; - his fiction, 352; - his biography, 354; - quoted, on Longfellow, 230; - his explanation of the ease of the metre of Hiawatha, 232. - - _Home as Found_, 70, 92, 96. - - _Home Ballads_, 263, 277. - - _Home Pastorals, Ballads and Lyrics_, 405, 412. - - _Homeward Bound_, 70, 92. - - _House, The, of the Seven Gables_, 290, 305. - - _Howadji, The, in Syria_, 419, 428. - - Howe, Judge Samuel, anecdote of, as Bryant’s instructor in law, 37. - - Howells, William Dean, his description of Thoreau, 326. - - ‘Hub of the Solar System,’ 347. - - _Hyperion_, 225, 233. - - - _In the Harbor_, 227, 250. - - _In War Time_, 263, 276. - - Indian life as shown in Cooper’s novels, 79–82; - in Hiawatha, 242; - in Parkman’s histories, 380, 387–389. - - Ireland, Alexander, arranges lecturing trip for Emerson in England, - 154. - - Irish Presbyterians in New Hampshire, 268. - - Irving, Peter, brother of Washington Irving, 5–7. - - Irving, Pierre M., makes first draft of _Astoria_, 27. - - Irving, Washington: his ancestry, 3; - childhood and education, 4; - early writings, 5–7; - Secretary of American Legation in London, 8; - Minister to Spain, 9, 10; - political opportunities, 9; - death, 10; - character, 10; - criticism of writings, 13–32; - assists Bryant, 41; - mention of Bryant’s oration on, 43; - reference to his style, 116. - - Irving, William, father of Washington Irving, 3. - - Irving, William T., brother of Washington Irving, 6. - - Ivry, battle of, 374. - - - _Jack Tar_, 71, 95. - - Jackson, Amelia, wife of O. W. Holmes, 339. - - Jackson, Lydia, wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 151. - - James, Henry, reference to his story, ‘The Death of the Lion,’ 297. - - Jameson, J. F., quoted, on Bancroft, 117 (note). - - _Jesuits, The, in North America_, 382, 391, 392. - - _John Endicott_, 246, 247. - - _John Godfrey’s Fortunes_, 405, 406. - - _John of Barneveld_, 363, 369, 375. - - ‘Jonathan Oldstyle’ letters, 5. - - Jones, John Paul, 82. - - _Journal, The, of Julius Rodman_, 204. - - _Judas Maccabeus_, 248. - - - _Kavanagh_, 225, 235. - - Kennedy, John P., 193, 194. - - _Kéramos_, 226, 250. - - _Knickerbocker’s New York_, 6, 14. - - - Lafayette, defended by Cooper, 69; - Emerson’s meeting with, 150; - visits David Poe’s grave, 189. - - Lamb, Charles, 449. - - _Lars_, 405, 412. - - _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_, 382, 391, 392. - - _Last, The, of the Mohicans_, 68, 79. - - _Leather-Stocking Tales_, 77–81. - - _Leaves of Grass_, 487, 490, 494, 503. - - _Legends of New England_, 259, 261; - Whittier’s opinion of, 267; - partial suppression of, 270. - - _Legends of the Conquest of Spain_, 9, 26. - - Leggett, William, his attack on Irving, 12; - assists Bryant in editing the ‘New York Evening Post,’ 39; - Whittier pays tribute to, 269. - - _Letter, A, to his Countrymen_, Cooper’s, 70, 93. - - _Letters and Social Aims_, 156, 182. - - _Letters of a Traveller_, 41, 47. - - _Letters to Various Persons_, Thoreau’s, 324. - - _Library of Poetry and Song_, Bryant’s connection with, 42. - - Lincoln, Abraham, Lowell’s tribute to, 471. - - Linzee, Captain, 125. - - _Lionel Lincoln_, 68, 77. - - Lisfranc, Jacques, Holmes’s feeling towards, 341. - - _Literary Recollections and Miscellanies_, Whittier’s, 262, 269. - - Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: his ancestry, 221; - education and early poems, 222; - professorship at Bowdoin, 223; - marriage, 223; - Harvard professorship, 224, 225; - death of his wife, 224; - occupancy of the Craigie House, 224; - second marriage, 225; - lists of books published, 225, 226; - death of Mrs. Longfellow, 226; - honors conferred on Longfellow, 227; - his death, 227; - character, 228; - poetical style, 230; - criticism of his works, 233–250. - - _Lorgnette, The_, 440, 445, 446. - - _Lotus-Eating_, 419, 429. - - Louisbourg, siege of, 394. - - Lowell, James Russell: his ancestry, 453; - education, 454; - starts ‘The Pioneer,’ 454; - first books, 455; - connection with ‘The National Anti-Slavery Standard,’ 456; - winter abroad, 456; - death of Mrs. Lowell, 457; - Harvard professor, 457; - second marriage, 457; - editor of Atlantic Monthly’ and ‘North American Review,’ 458; - list of books published, 458; - Minister to Spain, 459; - Minister to England, 460; - last years, 460; - character, 461; - style, 463; - criticism of his works, 465–482. - - Lowell family, 453. - - ‘Lynn Pythoness,’ 259. - - - _Mahomet and his Successors_, 9, 23. - - _Maine Woods, The_, 324, 330. - - ‘MS. Found in a Bottle,’ wins prize, 193. - - _Marble Faun, The_, 291, 310. - - _Margaret Smith’s Journal, Leaves from_, 262, 267, 268. - - _Masque, The, of Pandora_, 226, 248. - - _Masque, The, of the Gods_, 405, 413. - - Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, its treatment of Emerson, 155. - - Mather, Cotton, Longfellow’s treatment of, in _The New England - Tragedies_, 247. - - _Mercedes of Castile_, 71, 92. - - _Merry-Mount_, 360, 361. - - _Michael Angelo_, 227, 248. - - _Miles Wallingford_, 71, 88. - - _Miriam_, 263, 280. - - Mitchell, Donald Grant: his ancestry and education, 439; - his first book, 439; - consul at Venice, 441; - marriage, 441; - list of his books, 441; - editorial work and lecturing, 442; - his character and literary style, 442; - criticism of his works, 444–450. - - _Mogg Megone_, 261; - Whittier’s objection to reprinting, 266, 270. - - _Monikins, The_, 70, 92. - - Montaigne, as one of Emerson’s _Representative Men_, 172. - - _Montcalm and Wolfe_, 382, 391, 395. - - Moody, Father, 148. - - ‘Morituri Salutamus,’ anecdote of the reading of, at Bowdoin, 229. - - Morris, William, reference to his _Earthly Paradise_, 244. - - _Mortal Antipathy, A_, 340, 353. - - _Mosses from an Old Manse_, 290, 299. - - Motley, John Lothrop: his ancestry and education, 359; - foreign study, 360; - intimacy with Bismarck, 360; - admission to the bar, 360; - marriage, 360; - publication of novels and essays, 360; - Secretary to American Legation in St. Petersburg, 361; - member of Massachusetts legislature, 361; - residence abroad for historical study, 362; - scholastic honors, 363; - Minister to Austria, 363; - to England, 364; - death, 364; - his character, 365; - style, 367; - criticism of his histories, 369–376; - Holmes’s memoir of, 354. - - Murat, Achille, meets Emerson, 149. - - _My Farm of Edgewood_, 441, 448. - - _My Study Windows_, 458, 475. - - - Napoleon, Emerson’s estimate of, 172. - - _Narrative, The, of Arthur Gordon Pym_, 194, 203. - - ‘National Anti-Slavery Standard,’ Lowell’s connection with, 456. - - _Natural History of Intellect_, 156, 183. - - _Nature_, Emerson’s, 151, 155, 160, 176. - - _Ned Myers_, 66, 71. - - Netherlands, Motley’s history of, 362, 369, 373. - - ‘Neutral ground, The,’ 75. - - _New England Tragedies, The_, 226, 245. - - ‘New York Evening Post,’ Bryant’s connection with, 39. - - ‘New York Review and Athenæum Magazine,’ Bryant’s editorship of, 38. - - _Nile Notes of a Howadji_, 419, 427. - - ‘North American Review,’ Bryant’s early contributions to, 37; - Lowell’s connection with, 458. - - Norton, Andrews, his disagreement with Emerson, 152. - - - _Oak Openings, The_, 71, 95. - - ‘Old Manse, The,’ 147; - Hawthorne’s occupancy of, 290. - - _Old Portraits and Modern Sketches_, 262, 269. - - _Old Régime, The_, 382, 391, 393. - - ‘On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners,’ 460. - - _Oregon Trail, The_, 381, 387. - - Ossoli, Margaret Fuller. See Fuller, Margaret. - - Otsego Hall, home of the Coopers, 66, 69. - - _Our Hundred Days in Europe_, 340, 348. - - _Our Old Home_, 292; - anecdote of the dedication of, to Franklin Pierce, 295; - character of, 314. - - _Outre-Mer_, 225, 233, 234. - - _Over the Teacups_, 340, 348, 355. - - Oxford, University of, confers degree on Longfellow, 227; - on Holmes, 340; - on Motley, 363; - on Lowell, 459. - - - Parkman, Francis: his ancestry, 379; - education, 380; - interest in Indian life, 380; - first book, 381; - marriage, 381; - ill health, 381; - list of his works, 382; - honors, 383; - character, 383; - literary style, 385; - criticism of his works, 387–398. - - Parkman family, 379. - - Pastorius, Daniel, the subject of the _Pennsylvania Pilgrim_, 280. - - _Pathfinder, The_, 67, 71, 81. - - Paulding, J. K., 6. - - Peabody, Sophia, wife of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 289. - - ‘Penn Magazine, The,’ projected by Poe, 195. - - Pennsylvania Hall, sacking of, by a pro-slavery mob, 260. - - _Pennsylvania Pilgrim, The_, 263, 280. - - Phi Beta Kappa poem by Bryant, 38. - - Philip the Second, Bancroft’s history of, 127, 131, 141; - Motley’s treatment of, 372–375. - - _Picture, The, of St. John_, 405, 409, 412. - - Pierce, Franklin: his friendship with Hawthorne, 288, 293; - Hawthorne’s life of, 292. - - _Pilot, The_, 67, 71, 82. - - ‘Pioneer, The,’ Lowell’s magazine, 454. - - _Pioneers, The_, 66, 67, 71, 77. - - _Pioneers, The, of France in the New World_, 382, 391. - - Pizarro, Francisco, his exploits in Peru, 138. - - Pizarro, Gonzalo, his march across the Andes, 140. - - Plato, Emerson on, 171. - - Poe, Edgar Allan: his ancestry, 189; - adoption by the Allans, 190; - education, 190; - enters West Point, 191; - early writings, 192; - marriage, 193; - editorial work, 193; - lecturing, 196; - affair of the Boston Lyceum, 197, 200; - death of his wife, 197; - proposal of marriage to Mrs. Shelton, 198; - death, 198; - character, 198; - style, 201; - criticism of his works, 203–211; - his work as a critic, 211–215; - quality of his poetry, 215. - - _Poems of Home and Travel_, 405, 410. - - _Poems of the Orient_, 405, 411. - - _Poet, The, at the Breakfast-Table_, 340, 347. - - Poetry, quality, of, 49; - Bryant’s theory of, 48–50; - Poe’s, 213. - - _Poet’s Journal, The_, 405, 411. - - _Poets and Poetry of Europe_, 225, 237. - - _Potiphar Papers, The_, 419, 429. - - Potter, Mary Storer, wife of Longfellow, 223, 224. - - _Prairie, The_, 68, 80. - - _Precaution_, 67. - - Prentice, George, 259. - - Prescott, William Hickling: his ancestry, 123; - education, 124; - accident to his eyes, 125; - marriage, 125; - beginning of his literary work, 126; - list of his works, 127; - death, 127; - character, 128; - his style, 130; - criticism of his works, 132–143; - his aid to Motley, 361. - - Prescott family, 123. - - _Prince Deukalion_, 405, 413. - - _Professor, The, at the Breakfast-Table_, 340, 347. - - _Prophet, The_, 405, 413. - - _Prue and I_, 419, 430. - - Puritan and Cavalier, Bancroft’s comparison of, 111. - - ‘Putnam’s Magazine,’ Curtis’s connection with, 419; Lowell’s, 457. - - - ‘Quaker Poet,’ 256. - - Quakers, Longfellow’s treatment of, in _John Endicott_, 246; - relations of the Whittier family to, 257, 262, 272. - - - ‘Raven, The,’ 196, 215. - - _Red Rover, The_, 68, 71, 84, 86. - - _Redskins, The_, 71, 95. - - _Representative Men_, 155, 171. - - _Reveries of a Bachelor_, 440, 443, 446, 450. - - Ripley, George, 153. - - _Rise, The, of the Dutch Republic_, 362, 369. - - Rogers, Samuel, Bryant dedicates book to, 41. - - Round Hill School for Boys, Bancroft’s connection with, 103, 104; - Longfellow considers buying, 224; - Motley a student at, 359. - - - St. Boniface, Church of, Winnipeg, honors Whittier, 263. - - St. Botolph Club, Boston, Parkman’s connection with, 383. - - _Salmagundi_, 6. - - _Satanstoe_, 71, 95, 96. - - ‘Saturday Visitor, The,’ offers prizes, for which Poe competes, 192. - - _Scarlet Letter, The_, 290, 302. - - _Sea Lions, The_, 71, 96. - - _Seaside, The, and the Fireside_, 225, 237. - - _Septimius Felton_, 292, 316. - - _Seven Stories_, 441, 447. - - Shakespeare, Emerson’s estimate of, 172. - - Shaw, Anna, wife of George William Curtis, 420. - - Shays’s Rebellion, incident of, 102. - - Simms, William Gilmore, his advice to Poe, 201. - - _Sketch Book, The_, 7, 15, 234. - - _Sketches of Switzerland_, Cooper’s, 94. - - Smith, Goldwin, 300. - - Smithell’s Hall, Bolton-le-Moors, tradition connected with, 316. - - _Snow Image, The_, 292, 301. - - _Snow-Bound_, 263, 267, 278. - - _Society and Solitude_, 156, 182. - - _Songs of Labor_, 262, 276. - - ‘Southern Literary Messenger, The,’ Poe’s connection with, 193. - - _Spanish Student, The_, 225, 239. - - _Specimen Days and Collect_, 489, 503. - - _Spy, The_, 67, 71, 75. - - Stanley, Dean, quoted, on Motley, 364. - - Stedman, Edmund C., quoted on Poe, 212. - - Stephen, Leslie, quoted, 32. - - _Story, The, of Kennett_, 406. - - _Summer_, Thoreau’s, 324, 331. - - ‘Sunnyside,’ Irving’s home, 9. - - _Supernaturalism, The, of New England_, 261, 268. - - Swedenborg, Emanuel, 172. - - Swinburne, A. C., quotation from, applied to Whitman, 495. - - - Tâché, Archbishop, 263. - - _Tales of a Traveller_, 7, 18. - - _Tales of a Wayside Inn_, 226, 243. - - _Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque_, 195, 203–211. - - ‘Talisman, The,’ Bryant’s editorial work on, 39. - - _Tamerlane_, 191. - - _Tanglewood Tales_, 292, 301. - - Taylor, Bayard: birth and education, 402; - travels on foot, 402; - journalistic work, 403; - extensive travels, 403; - lists of his books, 403, 405, 406; - marriages, 406; - Minister to Germany, 407; - death, 407; - character, 407; - style, 409; - criticism of his poetical works, 410–414. - - Tennyson, Emerson’s attitude toward, 183. - - _Tent, The, on the Beach_, 263, 272; - Whittier’s remark on the popularity of, 278; - scheme of, 279. - - ‘Thanatopsis,’ 36, 37, 57. - - Thoreau, Henry David: his ancestry, 321; - early occupations, 321; - outdoor life, 322; - first book, 322; - lecturing, 323; - abolition sympathies, 323; - acquaintance with John Brown, 323; - list of his works, 324; - travels, 324; - death, 324; - character, 325; - criticism of his works, 327–333. - - _Three Books of Song_, 226, 245. - - _Three Memorial Poems_, 459, 471. - - Three Mile Point, Cooperstown, N. Y. controversy concerning, 69. - - Ticknor, George, his friendship with Prescott, 126; - resigns professorship in favor of Longfellow, 224. - - Tories of the American Revolution, Irving’s attitude towards, 29, 30. - - Transcendental movement, 152, 165. - - _Transformation._ See _Marble Faun_. - - _Travelling Bachelor, Notions of the Americans picked up by a_, 68, - 93. - - _Trumps_, 419, 430. - - Tucker, Ellen, wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 149. - - _Twice-Told Tales_, 289, 298. - - _Two Admirals, The_, 71, 86. - - - _Ultima Thule_, 227, 250. - - _United Netherlands, History of the_, 362, 369, 373. - - United States, Bancroft’s history of, 104, 110, 113. - - ‘United States Literary Gazette,’ Longfellow’s contributions to, 222. - - United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, founding of, 105. - - ‘Upside Down, or Philosophy in Petticoats,’ 71. - - - _Vassall Morton_, 380, 381, 390. - - _Views Afloat_, 402, 404. - - _Vision of Echard, The_, 263, 281. - - _Vision of Sir Launfal, The_, 456, 468. - - _Voices of Freedom_, 261, 274. - - _Voices of the Night_, 223, 236. - - _Voyages of the Companions of Columbus_, 8, 22. - - - _Walden_, 323, 324, 329, 332. - - Wansey, Henry, mention of his _Excursion to the United States_, 48. - - Ware, Henry, Emerson colleague of, 149. - - Washington, Irving’s life of, 28; - Lowell’s tribute to, 472. - - _Water-Witch, The_, 68, 71, 85. - - _Ways of the Hour_, 71, 95. - - Wayside Inn, the, 244. - - Weed, Thurlow, quoted, 69. - - _Week, A, on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_, 322, 324, 328, 331. - - _Wept of Wish-ton-Wish, The_, 68, 71, 81. - - _Wet Days at Edgewood_, 441, 448. - - Whewell, William, makes inquiries about _Evangeline_, 241. - - White, Maria, wife of James Russell Lowell, 455; - her death, 457. - - White, T. W., his association with Poe, 193. - - Whitman, Walt: his ancestry, 485; - education and early occupations, 486; - journeyings in the United States, 486; - publication of _Leaves of Grass_, 487; - work as army nurse and government clerk, 487; - life in Camden, N. J., 488; - list of his writings, 488; - subsidence of opposition, 489; - growth of his reputation, 490; - English admirers, 491; - his Boston publisher threatened with prosecution, 492; - criticism of his work, 492–496; - his character, 504; - mention of, in comparison with Longfellow, 250. - - Whitman family, 485. - - Whittier, John Greenleaf; his ancestry, 255; - boyhood, 256; - early writings, 257; - beginning of acquaintance with Garrison, 258; - attends Haverhill Academy, 258; - editorial work, 259–261; - beginning of anti-slavery work, 259; - encounters with mobs, 260; - love of country life, 260; - lists of his works, 261, 263; - contributions to ‘Atlantic Monthly,’ 262; - overseer of Harvard College, 262; - places of residence, 262; - death, 263; - character, 264; - his literary art, 266; - criticism of his works, 269–283; - his description of Bayard Taylor, 408. - - Whittier family, 255. - - _Wing-and-Wing_, 66, 71, 86. - - _Winter_, Thoreau’s, 324, 331. - - _Wolfert’s Roost_, 27. - - _Wonder-Book, The_, 292, 301. - - Worsley, Philip S., quoted, 58. - - _Wyandotté_, 71, 81. - - - Ximenes, Mateo, his association with Irving, 25. - - - _Yankee, A, in Canada_, 324, 331. - - _Year’s Life, A_, 455. - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes - - -Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a -predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they -were not changed. - -Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation -marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left -unbalanced. - -The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page -references. - -Transcriber removed redundant chapter headings. - -Lists of reference materials, originally printed at the bottom of the -first page of each biography, have been moved to just after the chapter -headings and labelled as “References:” by the Transcriber. - -Footnotes, originally printed at the bottoms of pages, have been -renumbered, collected, moved to the ends of their chapters, and -labelled as “Footnotes:” by the Transcriber. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN LITERARY MASTERS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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