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32X

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY:

BITS OF GOSSIP ABOUT BOOKS

AND

THOSE WHO WRITE THEjV.:

GEOEGE STEWAET, Jr.,

AUTHOR OF THB 8T0RT OF THB QRBAT mB ,N 8T. JOHN, N,B.

ST. JOHN, N. B:

R. A. H. MORROW.

1878,

^mmsmn^

S6?

Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1877, by
Belford Bros., in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture, at Ottawa.

PRINTED AND BOUND Bt

HUNTER, ROSE & GO.,

TORONTOk

ar 1877, by
, at Ottawa.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES,

''THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE,"

I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME,

»7

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P Lf

)C-7

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5- J«SJ' £!< if

i^ ?o(

PEEFACE

>»•

These sketches were prepared at intervals in my leisure
for Belford's Magazine. I had an idea that in the form
in which they are cast, I could say some things which
could not be said in any other way. Lest some might
mistake my meaning, I will explain the object I had in
view at the time I sent the first paper of the series to the
printers. The old Professor, the reader will observe, is not
always a mere talker, but must be considered in the light
of a lecturer. The younger men are his foils. Occa-
sionly they take part in the conversations, but only in a
way that serves to assist the older man in giving utter-
ance to his thoughts about the authors and works which
come under review. The papers are largely suggestive,
and though made up of talks, there is little actual dis-
cussion in them. I have preferied to say just what I
thought of living authors and their works, and while

PREFACE.

often critical, the sketches are for the mont part personal.

In my choice of subjects, I have selected such of the

great names in literature as please me the best, and this

may account for the appreciative character, I may say

warmth, of my estimates of their genius. It was not my

intention to make a book of these papers at first, but my

publishers willing it otherwise, I yield to their desires.

If anything I have said will cause the reader to turn to

the pages of the great geniuses who have enlightened an

age, and read the delightful poems, sketches and stories

which they have given us, I shall feel more than satisfied

with the work I have done.

The Author,

CIOJSTTI^NTS.

^♦-«

PAGE
Carlyle jv

Emerson ^ 24,

Holmes -o

Lowell ^..

Longfellow q.

WhITTIER j^oQ

Bryant 1^,

161

HOWELLS jg .

Aldrioh 224

. \

^.1

■7 1 ^^^^

ERRATA.
Prtfeoe-" an age " rtiould read, " our age".
P««c 65- "Elaine "should read, "Eliana".

20—" a could be " should read, " could be".
'I 20-" The Robers " should read, " The Robbers",
38-" Carljiu ' shou' " .■,,i, «« Carlile".
S4-" Johnson " ihould read, " In Jchnson's day".

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

-•-♦♦-

No. 1. CARLYLE.

It was a chill November evening, and the fire crackled
and blazed from the great square old-fashioned fire-place
in the old Professor's library. A thousand little elfish
figures played about the hearthstone, and peered curiously
out at the old man as they hopped from ingle to ingle, and
danced with impish glee in the ruddy flame. The Pro-
fessor sat back in his cosy easy chair, nodding dreamily
over a book. The room was full of books — heavy tomes
of science and philosophy, graceful volumes of poetry, and
quaint editions of gentle Izaac and querulous Pepys. The
Professor's weak spot was literature, and he loved to read
and talk about his favourites in the great world of letters.
He had invited his two nephews, Frank and Charles, to
meet him in the library, and chat over books, and the men
and women who write them. The young men were glad
of the opportunity, so that they might exchange ideas
with their uncle, and learn something about half -forgotten
writers and their works.

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

1 ',

It was eight o'clock before the "boys " came in, and
after the customary greeting, they sat down, and Charles
asked his uncle what he was reading.

" I am reading," said the Professor, "the 'Sage of Chel-
sea ;' that grand old author who for more than sixty years
has charmed and delighted the world. There is a fascin-
ation about him which I cannot resist, and would not if I
could. With all his faults he is the Master. He is a
mental paradox, the chief in irony and the heavier form
of sarcasm. He has a firm unwavering belief in himself,
and an inner consciousness of his own grandeur and great-
ness. He writes as vigorously, and his expressions are
as terse and unmistakable to-day as they were half a
century ago, when he charmed us in the pages of the old
Edinlmrgh Revietv. His meanings are not always plain,
and the trick he has of using misknown and foreign words
mar to some extent his writings ; but in spite of that he
is still the head in criticism, biograi)hy, and history. His
literature is a man's literature ; his thoughts are a man's
thoughts ; his brain is the brain of an intellectual giant — -
a brainful Magog. He appeals to the intellect in every-
thing he says."

" Does he not dislike poetry ?" asked Cliarles.

" No, 1 think not. Not real poetry, such as Pope and

CARLYLE.

Milton and Byron wrote ; not the grand odes of Words-
worth, nor the delicious songs of Keats, nor the sonnets of
Shakespeare. These he loves. There is life in them ;
they awaken thought. Some of his finest essays have
been about poetry and poets. He has done more to intro-
duce the poetry of Goethe and Schiller into England than
any other man ; and he has not been unmindful of the
lessons taught by Burns. His review of Lockhart's life
of the poet is one of the best of his papers. He wi'ote it
in 1828, and since that time a hundred literary men have
followed in his wake, and used his images in their own
criticisms. He has left nothing to be said on the subject.
He has exhausted it. It is written in better style than
Sartor Resartiis, and not so jerky as his Latter-Day
Pamphlets. The language is simpler, the sentences are
less involved than usual, and the thought is nowhere con-
fused. I think I can remember the closing words of the
panegyric, without getting down the volume from the
shelf. Yes, I have it. I have read it often, and it seems
fresher and more beautiful with every successive reading.
He says : — ' In pitying admiration, he lies enshrined in all
our hearts, in a far nobler mausoleum than that one of
marble ; neither will his Works, even as they are, pass
away from the memory of men. While the Shakespeares

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country
of Thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous
pearl-fishers on their waves ; this little Valclusa Fountain
will also arrest our eye : For this also is of Nature's own
and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths
of the earth, with a full gTishing current, into the light of
day ; and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of
its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines.'"

" Capital, capital ! " cried Frank. " There's true poetry
in that."

" I think," said Charles, " that it is as a reviewer and
critic that Carlyle appears to the better advantage. While
he is not so cold-blooded as Jeffrey, nor so remorseless as
Macaulay, he cuts keenly, and kills his game as the French
tragedians do their actors — behind the scenes. He shoots
with the silent air gun, and the unfortunate victim of his
shafts finds himself hit almost before he begins to realize
it. He is more incisive than Sydney Smith, and strikes
quicker ; but he bears no malice." •

" Why is it that Carlyle is so intensely German ? He
sees a thousand beauties in Goethe, but nothing in Vol-
taire. The ponderous literature of Germany unfolds the
purest gems, diamonds of the first water ; the literature of
France is composed of nobodies."

CARLYLE.

" I am afraid the philosopher does not comprehend
French literature, or understand Voltaire, or Rousseau, or
Janin. He is so strongly Teutonic in his predilections, so
intensely German in his likes and dislikes, that the light,
feuilletonistic style of the French is too mercurial, too
dazzling to retain his attention long enough for him to
study it. He cannot bestow any praise on the southern
thinker. I think Carlyle is hasty in forming his opinion,
and his observations on Voltaire are incorrect and injudi-
cious. In his Critical and Miscellaneous Essays he thus
delivers himself in speaking of the French author : —

" * He reads History not with the eye of a devout Seer,
or even a Cuitic ; but through a pair of mere anti-catholic
spectacles. It is not a mighty drama, enacted on the
theatre of Infinitude, with Suns for lamps and eternity as
a background; whose author is God, and whose purport
and thousand-fold moral lead us up to the * dark with
excess of light ' of the Throne of God ; but a poor weari-
some debating-club dispute, spun through ten centuries,
between the EncyclopSdie and the Sorhonne. God's uni-
verse is a larger patrimony of St. Peter, from which it
were well and pleasant to hunt out the Pope. * ♦ *
The force necessary for him wa« nowise a great and
noble one ; but a small, in some respects a mean one, to

warn

wmm

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

be nimbly and seasonably put in use. The Ephesian
Temple, which it had employed many wise heads and
strong arms, for a life time to build, could be 'M,'n,-built by
one madman, in a single hour.' "

" The French return the compliment," said Frank.
" Taine dubs Carlyle ' a Mastodon, a relic of a lost family,'
and his style he calls * magnificence and mud/ "

" I grant you he does," said the Professor; " but Taine
speaks noble words for the grim Scotchman. His estim-
ate is on the whole quite correct, and he strives very hard
to understand him. Carlyle, you know, does not always
make himself understood. He takes it for granted that
his readers are of equal intellectual calibre to himself ;
that they comprehend every allusion he makes ; that they
have read everything he has read, and thought what he
has thought. He is a literary mammoth — a king among
his fellows, like Johnson a hundred years ago. He com-
mands silence when he speaks, but he has no Goldsmith
to chide, or Garrick to worry, or servile Boswell to chron-
icle his every movement and saying. He prefers the soli-
tude of his home to the glare and glitter of the club-room.
The garish lights disturb his mind. He is nervous,
fidgetty, and ill at ease in repose. His peculiar tempera-
ment makes him always active ; he cannot remain quiet.

CARLYLE.

He was nearly eighty when he sent out his last work, and
yet his style was vigorous, and his mind had undergone
no change in force. It was as brilliant as when he wrote,
half a century ago, his delightful sketch of Richter in the
Great Review, and won his first spurs in ' Auld Reekie.'
An English writer a few years ago thought Carlyle had
written himself out, and advised, actually advised, the
hardy sage of Ecclefechan to retire from an active life,
because he published a silly letter on the French-German
war. But the hale old prophet was not dead yet, and his
well-prepared history of the Norse Kings of eld shows
that he is capable of much good work for some years to
come. He is determined to die with harness on his back.
The same indomitable energy which characterized that
other eminent reviewer. Lord Brougham, is the distin."
guishing feature in Cailyle. His writings fill more than
twenty large volumes, and embrace almost every class
of letters, biography, history, science, philosophy, physiol-^
ogy, metaphysics, etc. Every thought is stamped with
his own sign-manual ; his individuality is on every page.
There is no mistaking the authorship. Every one recog-
nises at a glance the quaint, misknown philology, the cur-
ious phraseology, the almost savage witchery which gleams
and glistens and intoxicates the reader at every turn. A

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

tinge of sadness pervades the semi-joviality of his chapters ;
and it has a terrible effect on the reader. His French
Revolution is a huge diorama of ghastly events, and the
volumes are peopled with fearful apparitions and ghost-like
spectres. The horrors of the Bastile, as painted by Carlyle,
make us shudder with fear and rouse us to a frenzy. In
no other work has he displayed so much dramatic power,
or written with such tremendous effect. It stands alone
an enduring monument to his genius. It is a pity, from
an artistic point, that he should descend to vulgarities and
crude allusions so frequently throughout this wonderful
work. It is at once the production of the trag3dian and
the buffoon; the grand story of ' Paradise Lost' begun by a
Milton and finished by a Balzac. Carlyle delights in con-
trasts. His whole literary career is one immense contrast ;
and the more violent the contrast the better it suits him."
" Do you consider his French Revolution his gieatest
work ? "

" No. I think Frederic the Great is his chef d'oeuvre.
He spent more real labour on it. It was in full sympathy
with his feelings that he commenced the work. He almost
worshipped the valorous Prussian, and he loved to paint
his successes in the field, and tell the story of his life in the
palace. He has developed in this life a wonderful power

CARLYLE.

of description, and a rare degree of penetration. The his-
tory is full of Carlyle's extravagances of style, rough say-
ings, and involved metaphor ; but for all that there are
elo(j[uent passages throughout which almost surpass the
warm periods of Macaulay. The battle of Leuthen, for
instance, is skilfully drawn and admirably described; and
his portrait of the great general is really sublime. He is
melodramatic, too, and I fear a trifle inconsistent. He
affects, you know, to despise man- worshippers, the hero
worshipper, and yet he is a great offender in this very re-
spect himself Again he thunders anathemas against
affectation in his essay on Richter, and he is affected him-
self, not in one book only, but in all his books. I make
no exception. The sin of affectation appears in a more or
less aggravated form in every page of Carlyle. I think
his whole style is affected. His veiy inelegance is put on."
" What you take for affectation, I think, is originality.
Carlyle will take advice from no one. He hates humbugs
and shams : he loves truth. He has no policy in shaping
his essays. He is not the word-painter that Ruskin is,
but he is a more vigorous reasoner, and a far more forcible
writer. His style is better than Hume's or Stuart Mill's.
He is a man of strong loves, amounting almost to tender-
ness. While his opinions are not always correct, they are

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

it '

■lii

always manly and outspoken and honest. A good deal of
his strength will be found in The Latter-Day Pamphlets,
a volume which should be in every library."

" I have read the Pamphlets, and discovered that Carlyle
is humorous, but his humour takes a practical turn. He
indulges in a sort of philosophic raillery, a mixture of
earnest and sport, severely playful I should call it."

" I would rather term it more severe than playful," said
Frank. " Carlyle is never playful. He writes with
audacity, sometimes irreverently, but always boldly, even
recklessly. He is an active author, a producer, a moulder
of thought, an inventor. He is a hard author to read ;
and his slang — intellectual slang, classical slang — is abom-
inable."

" He is the first German scholar in England, is he
not ? "

"Yes. Thimm, who wrote those ahnirable volumes,
The Literature of Germany, considered Carlyle so. He
it was who pronounced the life of Schiller, which Carlyle
published in The London Magazine, a ' perfect classic'
His Sartor Resartus, however, is the best of his lesser pub-
lications. You will find much that is humorous in that.
It was a good while before the Sage could find anyone
willing to publish it. It went a-begging from one pub-

CARLYLE.

lisher to the other, till the Regina folks, after many mis-
givings, consented to take it. He was living in his quiet
old home in Chelsea when that work came out, a near
neighbour to Daniel Maclise the artist. I think it is full
of good things, notably the chapter entitled ' Tailors.
Swift has written nothing that can eclipse this : —

" ' An idea has gone abroad, and fixed itself down into
wide-spreading rooted error, that Tailors are a distinct
species of physiology, not Men, but fractional Parts of a
Man. Call anyone a Schneider (Cutter, Tailor), is it not
in our dislocated, hood- winked, and indeed delirious con-
dition of society, equivalent to defying his perpetual,
fellest enmity ? The epithet Schneider-mdssiy (tailor-
like J, betokens an otherwise unapproachable degree of
pusillanimity : we introduce a Tailor's Melancholy, more
opprobrious than any leprosy, into our Books of Medicine ;
and fable I know not what of his generating it by living
on Cabbage. Why should I speak of Hans Sachs (himself
a shoemaker or kind of Leather-Tailor), with his Schneider
mit dem Panier? Why of Shakespeare in his Taming of
the Shrew, and elsewhere ? Does it not stand on record
that the English Queen Elizabeth, receiving a deputation
of eighteen tailors, addressed them with a 'Good morning,
gentlemen both V Did not the same virago boast that she

^ 70^

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

had a Cavalry Regiment whereof neither horse nor man
a could be injured — her Regiment, namely, of Tailors on
Mares ? Thus everywhere is the false word taken for
granted, and acted on as an indisputable fact.' And again
in the chapter ' Prospective,' the philosopher says : 'Clothes,
from the king's mantle downwards, are emblematic not of
want only, but of manifold cunning — Victory over want.'
Some one said that Carlyle's wit reminded him of the
German baron, who was discovered leaping on tables, and
explained to an anxious inquirer the cause of this action
by saying tliat he was learniny to he lively."

" What I admire in Carlyle is his independence : his
fearless advocacy of right, and denunciation of wrong. It
was well for him that he did not live in the time of Pope.
He never could be servile. His proud spirit would rebel
against the custom that made Genius stoop to Wealth.
The mind that painted so gorgeously the life of the au-
thor of ' The Robers,' could not endure the man whose
only attribute was the possession of gold or the accident
of an aristocratic birth. He could not pander to a de-
based nobility, nor give up his opinions for fear of offend-
ing a vile state minister, who had the ear of kings and the
power of armies at his beck. One can fanc3'' in Carlyle
the courage of a Cromwell. Indeed he is a literary Crom-

CAULYLK.

well. He has, however, no finesse. He would never make
a diplomatist. He is toe open. He would say, if he
thought so, with Galileo, the world moves ; but he would
take no oaths to the contrary before he said so. He. is a
believer in unity. He would cement man to man. He
would bind, if he could, the whole human race togetlier.
His range of thought is not uniform. He groups to-
gether, with shocking taste, the lowest as well as the
highest things. He is a Dickens and a Thack eray rolled
into one, if I might be allowed the phrase."

" What a grand preacher he would have made — a second
Chalmers ! "

" He narrowly escaped being a minister. His parents
intended him for the Church, but he preferred the priest-
hood of the writers of books to the priesthood of the
ministry. Had he entered the Church, what sermons
would he have preached : as rugged in thought as his own
native Grampians ! He would indeed have been another
Chalmers, or perhaps a Knox. He would have fulmined
over Scotland as Milton's ' old man eloquent fulmined
over Greece.' He would have swayed audiences with the
same majestic eloquence which he employed so well in his
inaugural address at Glasgow, ^when he was made Lord

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Rector. The Church has lost a great man. I do not be-
lieve his philosophy is Pantheistic."

" Yet he is a great doubter. I never could quite under-
stand why it was he preferred to take the gloomy side so
often ; why he loved to interrupt the joyous thoughts
which ran freely through hopeful, sanguine minds, with
some rough objection or sneering cynicism. Even genial
Leigh Hunt felt ill at ease in the Thinker's company
He would demolish at a blow the thousand little footless
fancies which the imaginative and pleasant essayist rattled
off in his delightful conversation. Carlyle always took a
taciturn view, and threw cold water on many a joyously
conceived project which grew in the brain of Hunt. The
bright, glorious starlight which the lively essayist seemed
to think, in his delicious way, was all joy and gladness,
and contained voices which sung an eternal song of hope
in the soul of man, Carlyle considered a sad sight. The
brilliant stars would yet become gaunt graves, for all
living things must die and have an end."

" I remember that story : and how Hunt sat on the
^•teps and hrM his sides with laughter, when Carlyle looked
up at the heavens and thundered out, in unmistakably
br ^d Scotch, ' Ech, but it is a sad sight ! ' Hunt was im-
mensely tickled over it, but it was Carlyle all over. He

CARLYLE.

would quarrel with the heavens if he thought they were
not doing right, I firmly believe."

" What position do you think Carlyle will hold in
letters ? "

" I consider him the foremost thinker of the age ; and
his place is at the head of our philosophers and historians.
He is our soundest modern author. With all his pecu-
liarities, he is a Saul among his contemporaries,"

" How would you rank him beside America's Thinker,,
Emerson ? "

" I admire Emerson very much, and consider him second
only to Carlyle. I have something to say about Emerson,
but we had better reserve him for our next meeting. He
must have an evening to himself."

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

No. 2. EMERSON.

li;

The next evening the little club met bright and early.
There was a roaring lire on the hearth, and the snow was
coming down handsomely. Baker's portrait of Bryant
had come in from the bookseller's, and the trio expended
much admiration over it. Certainly it is a clever per-
formance. The portrait almost speaks. The expression
is magnetic, and attracts at once. Mr. Baker is a thorough
artist, and his work always leaves his hands in a finished
state. His Longfellow was very faithful ; his Bryant is
not less so. He seems to catch his subjects in their best
moods, and his pictures resemble perfect crayons. Every
line is drawn with exquisite taste. " I wish," said the
professor, as he laid the print carefully away, " that Baker
would give us Emerson some time. What a splendid face
is his for a picture ! So full of intelligence, so thoroughly
human and sincere."

"Yes," said Charles, catching the old man's fervour,
" Baker could do him full justice. I think, however, it is
the intention to include him in this gallery of American

EMERSON.

poets. When the series is completed, it will form a very
delightful set of portraits."

" We were speaking," said Frank, " at our last meeting,
of Carlyle and Emerson. Do you believe that Emerson
copies Carlyle, as some say he does ? "

" No," said the Professor, " Emerson is an independent
thinker. He has nowhere copied Carlyle, but has thought
for himself; and though sometimes his ideas appear simi-
lar to the Scotch Thinker's, on certain subjects, the analyst
will find a wide difference when he comes to make a cri-
tical examination. Emerson's imagination is more deli-
cate, his language is less harsh, his imagery is more
rounded, more perfect. He is never common-place nor
coarse. He never offends. He is never boorish, nor vul-
gar, nor ridiculous. His sentences are always carefully
turned, and he never shocks you with a ribald jest. Like
Higginson, he thinks that an essay may be thoroughly de-
lightful without a single witticism, while a monotone of
jokes soon grows tedious. Mr. Emerson is a philosopher,
— a rapid thinker, not quite as deep or as ponderous as
X)arlyle, and a keen analyzer of the myriad works of na-
ture. His is a speculative mind, and his temperament is
sanguine and warm. He is too fervent for some minds ;

and the man who reads Herbert Spencer is very apt to
B

■1

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

look coldly down on Emerson. He is not congenial in his
atmosphere. The sun is too bright, and with a growl he
hastens away, and seeks the shady side, and finds solace
in the study of sociology and kindred topics. It is dif-
ferent with the ardent admirer of Swinburne, with his
thousand graceful, glowing, floating images, for he meets
with a responsive soul in the Concord dreamer. And yet
Swinburne is in uowise like Emerson. They differ widely,
rather. The Victorian poet is all sensuality, and his heroes
and heroines are clothed in the thinnest gauzy fabrics, and
his poetry is of the age of Edmund Spenser and the
matchless * Faerie Queene.' Emerson, on the contrary,
exhibits no such traits in the witching verselets he has
written. Then why should the same minds find so much
that is in common between them ? Why do they yearn for
each other ?"

" Because, I take it, both men are so sincere in their
work. Both present their own individuality in every
page. Both are equally warm, hot-blooded if you will.
Both treat their subjects with the same degree of vigour.
They lift them up till they stand out boldly and prom-
inently on their mental canvasses, like a portrait of
Raphael's or a face like Rembrandt's. They stay in the
mind. They remain fixed. We cannot banish them from

EMERSON.

our thoughts. ' Atalanta ' lives in our memory like a
pleasant, delightful dream, and we feel all the satisfying
ecstacy which sweet music gives, as the mellow strain
floats all around us. When Michael Angelo struck the
marble block in histoiic Florence three centuries ago, and
a figure filled with life sprang into existence, and aston-
ished even old Rome itself, all the world proclaimed the
tidings that a great genius was born among men. In a
lesser degree that genius enters largely into Emerson's
composition. His mind is surcharged with it. It must
have vent. It must find an out-going channel. If it be
true that, according to Rahel, the world can be astonished
wHh the simple truth, then Emerson has long ago accom-
plished this feat. He has astonished the world, for the
simple truth, charmingly told, delights the reader of his
voluminous works at every turn."

"I grant you Emerson has genius, but he has no passion
Swinburne possesses both genius and passion, but his pas-
sion is much the greater force. They differ, too, in the
mode of construction, in the building of those edifices
which charm mankind. Emerson's structure is filled with
libraries and quaint books. Swinburne builds only spac-
ious halls and pretty alcoves ; and rare bits of statuary
meet the eye at every turn, and curious bronzes of curious

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

I ii'.

pattern cunningly hid in nooks and out-of-the-way places,
appear in view at odd times. Emerson is an instruc-
tor — an educator. Swinburne is only a sweet singer, a
graceful bard, a nineteenth century Minnesinger."

" Emerson mistrusts a good deal. I think more so in
his poetiy than in his prose, though it deadens his other-
wise beautiful essays somewhat. He is often hopeful,
never quite gloomy, though many times distrustful, and I
think suspicious. It is the one thing from which I would
nave his works free. He has no right to demolish the
fanciful castle or the rich vase his delicious imagination
conjures up for our enjoyment. He destroys the illusion
at a blow, and the reader, after being lifted up almost to
the third heaven, is let down again, not easily, but with
a force that knocks all the sentiment out of him for a
twelve month at least."

"You think there is too much romance and reality about
Emerson, then."

" Not too much, but enough. Emerson is in every
respect a genuine American author, — the first to set at
defiance Sydney Smith's query, ' Who reads an American
book V the first to direct his thoughts to his own country;
the first to \&y the foundation of a new English literature;
the first to -w > 'out the things of his own land. He as-

EMERSON.

tonished everyone, and provoked some shai-p ridicule when
he published his modest lines to a ' Humble Bee.' The sub-
ject and treatment were laughed at by the same people
who giggled over Wordsworth's homely verses — by those
who took Scott {is their model, and recognised no one else.
Emerson, however, whose mind was not as weak as Keats's
or as sensitive as Byron's, heeded not his critics, nor the
advice of Sir Fretful's good-natured friends, but continued
elaborating and dressing up home incidents, home skies,
home sky-larks and home nightingales, and home life.
He did not expect to find in a new country those romantic
and pleasant spots which abound everywhere in the three
kingdoms beyond the sea, by the dull Rhone and sparkling
Rhine. The rich scenery of the Hudson was as dear to
him and to Irving, as the legendary water of the great
German river is to the Teuton. He took the commonest
things which he found by the wayside, or the river-side,
or the brook -side, and he was artist enough to know how
to lay on his colours with the best effect. It was hard to
change the old ideas about poetry. It was difficult to
upset the old theories about such things. Everyone read
Byron and Scott. Few had known Washington AUston
as a poet. Some remembered him as an artist, and all
looked to the mother country for their readhig. Even

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

1 1 1
i 'I

! I

Irving is more of an English author than he is an Ameri-
can. Cooper's Indian tales were new, and had little
acceptance at first. It took years to change the minds of
the people ; but a change did come at last, and then
Emerson began to be understood. His readers caught his
meaning. They realized all at once Emerson's position.
The half -forgotten * Humble Bee ' became an idyl ; and if,
as Halleck says, * to be quoted is to be famous,' Emerson
soon got to be famous, for the * Humble Bee ' was quoted
from one end of the land to the other. Its position in
literature to-day is undeniable."

" Have you ever seen that other poem of his, ' The
Snow-storm ?' I think it is singularly beautiful."

" Yes," said the Professor, " I once heard the poet Long-
fellow recite it. It was in the early autumn and the leaves
were just turning, and the wind rustled the half -brown
half -green maple leaves across the lawn, in old Cambridge.
The poet was sitting in his library, and the talk had been
of Emerson, when the * Snow-storm ' chanced to be men-
tioned. The old poet leaned back in his library chair, and
seemingly inspired, repeated slowly the marvellous lines
in a rich, clear voice. The effect on us both was electrical,
and for some moments afterwards neither of us spoke a
word. It semed to me like a new reading of an old,

EMERSON.

The

familiar passage from some well-thumbed page. I saw
new beauties that I had not perceived before, and even
now I never look upon a snow-storm, as it comes
down in its fleecy folds, whirling lightsomely through the
air in dcliglitfui uncertainty of destination, but Emerson's
gi-and words i ing into my ears like the sound of silver
bells, and I find myself going softly over the metrical
numbers :

" ' Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow ; and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight ; the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end-
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fire-place, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north- wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry, evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake or tree or door :
Speeding, the myriad-handed ; his wild work
So fanciful, so savage ; naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ;
A swan- like form invest? the hidden thorn ;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,

ill

]'U 1

32 KVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Maugre the fanner'w Highs ; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work.
The frolic architecture of the snow.'"

" It is indeed gorgeously set, and I do not wonder at
your enthusiasm. Emerson aj^pears to say more in a little
space than any other American poet. Look for instance
at his shoft poem of * Letters.' The whole story is told in
six brief lines. I admire that other bit of his, * Brahma,'
very much. It is fantastic, but very pretty."

" He never writes unintelligently or incomprehensively.
His system precludes his doing so. He prunes and prunes,
alters, amends and corrects. He labours hard t*^ make
himself thoroughly intelligible. He is a man of unwearied
literary industry, of tremendous endurance and untiring
patience. Thoughts which may have reached the public
before, and through other channels, become new and
piquant after they pass through the mental filter of Emer-
son. He adds a bit here, he lops off a bit there, and then
develops the whole, till the thought becomes unmistaka-
bly Emersonian. He has been known to re-write a single

EMERSON.

.sentence twenty times before he was satisfied with it. He
retouches as much as Tennyson, and works as hard as
Bulwer used to do in his young days. Everything which
he publishes, therefore, is complete."

" He differs from Tennyson in that respect then, for the
laureate is never complete. He is constantly altering,
and every new edition of his poems is like an entirely new
work."

" Though I have great admiration for Emerson as a poet,
I think that it is in the capacity of an essayist that his
fame will rest. He has been called the American Carlyle.
This is unjust to Emerson, and hardly fair to Carlyle. Both,
however, have been called Pantheists, and perhaps that is
the similarity people affect to see in them. For my part
I see a considerable difference."

** There is width in Emerson's thought, wisdom in the
bent of his mind, and his style is epigrammatic and beau-
tiful. He is not quick in humour, and he often appears
listless and dreamy. This is more noticeable in his essays,
which are models of elegant writing, and condensed
thought. Some discussion has arisen regarding Emerson's
religious belief. He has been misrepresented a good deal,
and some pei*sons unhesitatingly charge him with being

EVFNINGS [N THE LinilAllY.

an unbeliever and little better than an infidel. He is a
Transcendentalist, is he not ? "

*' Yes, he is a professor of the New Faith, a strong apostle
of Transcendentalism in its wider sense. He was one of the
famous circle of Boston scholars, who followed the teach-
ings of Kant and the German philosophy. They often met
at good old Dr. Channing's for intellectual intercourse, but
the great preacher's health was breaking up, and he felt
unable to take the lead in this * newness' of thought
movement. He gradually yielded to the bolder students
and scholars, and the sessions were then held at George
Ripley's house. Ripley soon became prominent as a leader
in Transcendentalism. His mind was acute and liberal.
He was fettered by no dogmas or creeds. His culture was
unquestioned, and his literary power was considerable. A
good digester of books, he was an able and fearless critic,
and his reviews were always distinguished by their com-
prehensiveness and breadth. He understood thoroughly
the canons of criticism, and his opinions of men and books
always ranked high. Ever kindly towards authors, he
was just to his readers, and never uttered an uncertain
sound. This humanity gave him power, and helped to
make the fine reputation which he holds to-day among
literary men of every shade. Ripley was the originator

EMERSON.

of the Brook Farm project. The plan wa,s conceived in his
library. Anionij the active memberH was Nathaniel Haw-
thorne, who speaks of the Arcadian experiment somewhere
in his note-books, and refers to it slightly in his delicate
Bllthedale Roiiutncc. Eraerson visited the company fre-
quently, and often t<'ilked over topics with them ; and in
almost every way he gave the idea countenance, but he
never was a regularly enrolled member of the organization.
He was ^vith it, but not of it. Even Theodore Parker,
whose sympathies were entirely with the Farm, belonged
not to it, and Margaret Fuller was merely a guest."

" Poor Margaret Fuller ! I remember once seeing a
portrait of this ill-fated and brilliant lady, the most
delightful conversationalist of her time. She was a friend
of Carlyle, and for many years held the post of reviewer
for Horace Greeley, The picture represented her as ex-
tremely haggard and worn. Her intellect was too soon
developed ; a prodigy in her younger days, she grew
to womanhood shattered in constitution and broken
down in health. The likeness was a good one of the
woman as she was, but it gave no idea of the fine mind
which she possessed. Mr. George W. Curtis gave the por-
trait to Dr. Holmes, who knew Margaret Fuller well She
was thoroughly acquainted with Greek, Latin, and Ger-

.!'

1 i

EVENINGS IN TEIE LIBRARY.

man, and her papers about Goethe won universal
admiration. A wonderful mimic, she gained the applause
of children, and the terror of grown persons. Her peculiar
manner made a disagreeable impression on strangers, and
she had many jealous rivals. Mr. Emerson's first meeting
with her is described as curious. He was instantly re-
pelled, and thought he could never like her. He was
disappointed. As soon as the first impression wore off,
and he began to perceive her extraordinary powers of
mind, and intellectual superiority over other women, he
was gradually drawn towards her, and for ten years their
friendship remained firm and unbroken. She formed
conversation classes in Boston in 1839, and the most intel-
lectual women of the city regularly attended. Miss Fuller,
as president, opened every meeting with an extempore
address, and then the conversation followed in the form of
a discussion. Miss Fuller entertained rather lofty ideas
of her own abilities. She once said, ' I now know all the
people worth knowing in America, and I find no intellect
comparable to my own.' For two years she edited Tlie
Dial — a quarterly journal devoted to recondite and trans-
cendental literature — and then resigned her post to Mr.
Emerson. She afterwards went on the Tribune as book

reviewer.

EMERSON.

" I always undei'stood that Margaret Fuller was unfitted
for that position, inasmuch as she could only write when
she felt like it, and needed ample time for everything she
did in a literary way."

" She was unfit, so far as rapid work was concerned, but
she always wrote wich a degree of polish and finish that
was the delight of all readers, and her estimates of books
were generally correct in the main. Horace Greeley knew
she could do nothing hastily, and he humoured her ac-
cordingly, and allowed her to work in her own leisurely
way. Emerson always maintained a profound respect for
her, and wrote a life of her some years ago, in conjunction
with Charming and Clarke."

" We were speaking of Emerson's religion, and you be-
gan by saying he was a Transcendental ist. There are
several forms of this belief. What does he believe ? "

" Emerson's religion is what might be called a * reason-
able ' religion. It is severely intellectual, yet founded on
a simple faith. He investig-ites the ndracles of the Bible,
and finds them to be merely a compilation. He takes
nothing for granted, but examines everything for himself.
He believes man's nature to be gooa, and only sometimes
bad. He believes in the elucidations of science. His reli-
gion is partly scienuuc, but not altogether. He believes

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

with Ocfcavius Frothingham, that infidels of all kinds are
earnest men, are conscientious students, are zealous in-
quirers after truth, and not merely scoffers at religious
teachings. He is a liberal thinker. He loves the good
which he finds in Voltaire, and in Paine, and in Carlyle,
and in Bolingbroke, and rejects that which is not good in
them. He does not worship the rising sun. He has
praise and help for endeavour, if the endeavour be rightly
conceived. He admits with Talleyrand, that ' nothing
succeeds like success,' but he has a good word to say to
him who tries to do right, though he fail in the end, and
fall by the way-side. The wish to do well receives his
encouragement. He is a helper. He does not keep to
himself his vast learning, but he opens wide the intellec-
tual door of his mind, and gives freely to all who seek them,
the great, glorious truths and thoughts which come rush-
ing from the teeming stores of his brain-shop. He gives
out what he has taken in. He has digested the crude
thought, and now it comes forth and goes forward into the
world, clad in the warm Emersonian garb. He has marked
it for his own. It is bright in the wonderful colouring it
has r'^ceived. It is strong in a marvellous individuality.
It is simple, for he has told the story in simple though
^rueat language. Emerson does not believe in infallible

EMERSON.

dogmas, nor the iron sway of any creed. He bases his
faith upon knowledge, and motive forms a part of his re-
ligion. He is as firm as Carlyle in his hatred of hypo-
crisy, deceit, and insincerity, and is as vigorous in denounc-
ing every form of vice and fraud. He cultivates Sociality^
and would form brotherhoods among his people for the
development and fosterment of homelike meetings, where
all could gather round the board and feast on intellectual
preserves. He would impress all with the golden truths
' love one another.' He respects the old theology because
of its f»n;iq^ir '. but he does not believe in it. He holds
advanced ideas. And yet Emerson's ancestors, for many
generations, were sternly and inflexibly orthodox. He
was the last one, and he broke away from the old schools
He looked for ' more light,' he sought out new truths, he
has discovered a new way, an untrodden path. He is the
apostle of a new Faith."

" But wasn't Emerson a Unitarian Minister ? "
" Oh, yes. TIar v<.s in 1829. But he resigned his
charge in two or thit yo?rs. He differed from his con-
gregation, and his views underwent a change on some
points. He considers the whole theory of revelation to be
incorrect. He is not dogmatic, narrow, or exclusive. He
believes the wc 'd began at the beginning, and that a

III

i I

r II

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

gradual development has year by year taken place, till
events took a new shape. The seed grew into a plant, the
plant put forth buds, and the rose blossomed and sprang
into life in all beauty, loveliness, and strength. Super-
natural interposition he considers obsolete. He wants in
the place of old mysteries, darkness and superstitions,
light, order, righteousness, goodness, and, as near as possi-
ble, perfection in individual man. He would have no one
bigoted or dogmatic. He would have boundless charity
and openness of heart for all. He woulc^ Live liberality in
its ample sense. He would nail down thv, judiced im-
pressions of the narrow minded Zealot who deemed every
one who differed from him to be a scoffer and an infidel.
He even places his faith before charity, for charity is
secondary, and a man's charity, sometimes, is confined solely
to his own Church. Out of that pale, his charity is un-
charitableness itself. He cherishes the sentiment of
brotherhood, and guards it with a jealous care. He takes
every man at his best, and always looks at t'^xe motives
which actuate the being. He does justice to all. He
would put God in their hearts. He believes in a bright
religion. He peoples his faith with beautiful, delightful
things. His imageries are always fanciful and pretty.
He would not follow a man that was all sadness and sor-

41 H

'-^

EMERSON.

row. He wants life in the Church, LIFE in the sermon,
LIFE in the preacher's life. He detests religious contro-
versies. There is no Christianity or religion in them.
They are only petty squabbles, and they breed malice and
hatred."

" He holds high ideas regarding ma i and his future,
too, I believe, and that no religion, no matter what its tenets
are, is infallible ? All creeds are the necessary and struc-
tural action of the human mind. A new faith, purer than
any which exists with us now, is to come, and in time
will supersede all others. The French Transcendentalists
admire Emerson very much, and some of his works have
been translated into French, and circulate widely in
France. I have even met some people, on the other hand,
who would not read Emerson, because they were told he
was an unbeliever."

" The world is full of such people. Most of them are

beings who are afraid to think for themselves ; who must

keep on in the old beaten track ; who denounce every one

who believes differently from them. They are generally

ignorant men, who are filled with superstition. Some

few, however, boast of a pretty fair education, and love

the Georgics of Virgil and revel in the adventures of the

pious ^neas, and the songs of the blind Greek, and yet
c

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

it: j

reject Shelley because he was frail in his religious belief ;
because some who knew no better, called him an Atheist."
" Perhaps," said Charles, smiling, " they affect to read
Homer in order to be counted among the learned men of
the time. I once knew of a man who bought all the old
classics, ^schylus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, Plo-
tinus, and the like, and had them all bound uniformly,
merely for show ; some of them he did not even open after
they came home from the binder's, and of the contents of
those which he did open he knew absolutely nothing. He
had Pope's Homer and Derby's Iliad in his case, and when
Bryant's Translation came out, it remained for days on
his library table, for visitors to look at. Some of the
leaves were even turned down in places. He once im-
ported an expensive set of Balzac, in antique and rare
binding, but he never read a line of the wonderful French
novelist in his life. Tt is fashionable, perhaps, to assume
a virtue if you have it not ; and it may be the conect
thing to speak slightingly of Emerson, if you don't quite
understand him. It is fashionable to call him an unbe-
liever and a sceptic. Even the great humanitarian,
Charles Dickens, did not escape in this respect. His re-
ligion troubled a good many people, and the beautiful
prose poem of * The Cluistmas Carol ' did not make them

1^ i

EMERSON.

IS belief ;

Atheist."

t to read

1 men of

1 the old

des, Plo-

liformly,

pen after

n tents of

ing. He

nd when

days on

le of the

3nce im-

md rare

French

assume

coriect

't quite

n unbe-

litarian,

His re-

3autiful

e them

quite change their prejudiced views. They knew so well
that he was not a Christian. And yet Dickens lived a
pure, guileless life. The story of Tiny Tim and old Mar-
ley's Ghost, and the loving words in which Dickens speaks
of his Saviour, stand as proofs against the aspersions of
hypocritical howlers who helped so much to embitter the
declining years of his life. No one escapes these ' goody *
persons. Genial, whole-souled Thackeray suffered, Haz-
litt was traduced, and some have been found who even
doubt gentle Greenleaf Whittier, a man whose whole life is
blameless. They are the insects who hide themselves in
the blankets of society, and, in the words of the Satirist,
' feed upon better flesh than their own.' "

" Apart from his religious teachings, Emerson is a very
pleasant Essayist. He delights in picturesque phraseo-
logy, and he seems to love to watch the growth of thought,
as with exquisite fancy he develops his subject. I know
of no book that pleases me more than the series of essays
called ' Society and Solitude.' Emerson's most felicitous
thoughts are here. His article on Eloquence, his paper on
Boohs, his elegant treatise on AH, are of themselves gems
of literary composition. One never tires of reading them.
They are so thoroughly finished, and come with such
grace and ease from the author, that to peruse them is

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

'All

ft*' ■'■■

like reading some favourite ifoeniyWonhworiKs Excursion
for instance, or Goldsmith's Traveller. His lecture on
Eloquence concludes thus grandly :

" ' Eloquence, like every other art, rests on laws the most
exact and determinate. It is the best speech of the best
soul. It may well stand as the exponent of all that is
grand and immortal in the mind. If it do not so become
an instrument, but aspires to be somewhat of itself, and
to glitter for show, it is false and weak. In its right ex-
ercise, it is an elastic, unexhausted power, — who has
sounded, who has estimated it ? — expanding with the ex-
pansion of our interests and affections. Its great masters,
whilst they valued every help to its attainment, and
thought no pains too great which contributed in any man-
ner to further it; — resembling the Arabian warrior of
fame, who wore seventeen weapons in his belt, and in per-
sonal combat used them all occasionally ; — yet subordi-
nated all means ; never permitted any talent — neither
voice, rhythm, poetic power, anecdote, sarcasm — to appear
for show ; but were grave men, who preferred their integ-
rity to their talent, and e^t 3emed that object for which
they toiled, whether the prosperity of their country, or
the laws, or a reformation, or liberty of speech or of the

EMERSON.

press, or letters, or morals, as above the whole world, and
themselves also.'"

" Doesn't Emerson resemble Thoreau a little ?"
"Thoreau resembles Emerson you mean. He was
brought up alongside of Emerson and Hawthorne in Con-
cord, and his writings at first were undeniably cast from
the Emersonian mould. They were a good deal like the
philosophers; they ran in the same groove, and appeared
to be similar in every way. Unpleasant people said he
borrowed largely from Carlyle and Emerson, and did so
without credit. Any way he did write remarkably like
his neighbour ; so much so indeed, that Mrs. Thoreau, the
mother of the hermit, once said to a lady friend that * Mr.
Emerson wrote very much like her son.' This was ex-
ceedingly delicious, when it is remembered that the re-
verse of this was the case. T^ oreau was something of a
pretender, a semi-charlatan in literature. He was a good
deal of the showman, and there was a vast amount of pre-
tence about him. His life was a sham — a mockery. He
essayed to be a hermit, and went off into the woods to re-
side. He wanted to study nature, away from the haunts
of men. He wanted to commune with himself, so he shut
himself up in the woods, and awaited daily the hamper of
toothsome provisions which his kind mother sent him,

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

He had thus the life of a hermit without any of ita incon-
veniences or discomforts. While in the woods he made
some wonderful discoveries, some of them quite equal to
Mr. Jack Horner's ; the most notable of these were, the
habits of the sc^uirrel, which he was foolish enough to
print. Thoreau, however, before his death, published
some clever things, but f 3w people believed in him, and
he was always looked upon with suspicion. He held
some ' advanced ' views, and possessed some originality,
but he was so affected and unreal with it all, that few
were found willing to believe in him, or in his philosophy.
He has left behind some admirers, and they pretend to
think Thoreau was ill-used and misjudged, but the circle
is very small indeed."

" Now I rather like Thoreau, and think you are too
severe on him, because he committed a few errors in his
youth. He did not steal from Emerson, but only bon*owed
some of his thoughts. The language in which he framed
them was his own He had an original mind, and the
writings of his latter days are exceedingly happy. His
thought, too, is vigorous, and his style is certainly terse if
not delightful. I think you are hasty in denouncing
Thoreau in so wholesale a manner. He was a man of

EMERSON.

good parts, and he will be remembered as one of Concord's
gi'eat men."

" Well, have it as you will, perhaps I am a little preju-
diced, but I hate plagiarism in any form. And next to
that sin, I detest affectation, and Thoreau had that fault
if he hadn't the other. In England Thoreau has few
readers, while Emerson is almost as nmch appreciated as
Carlyle and Matthew Arnold. Indeed the men of the
Carlyle school of thought rank Emerson as one of them-
selves. They hold some, though not all, characteristics in
common. A few years ago Emerson went over to Eng-
land, and visited a number of his old friends. His health
was not good, and he appeared jaded and worn. His
manner was still sweet and gentle, however, and his con-
versation was as brilliant as it was a quarter of a century
before. He was with Thomas Hughes a good part of the
time, and when the author of those glorious Tom Brown
books was made President of the London Working-men's
College, Mr. Emeison attended the inauguration and made
a short speech. He was greeted with a burst of applause
so hearty and genuine that the building fairly shook. In
the course of his remarks he made some excellent hits,
and these were well taken by the audience. Here he met
the sturdy stroke-oar of the Oxford crew, Mr. Darbishire,

EVENIN(JS IN THK LIIJIIARY.

.j^»^'

!!!

who pulled against the Harvards, and woi-sted them.
This gentleman pleased Emerson very much. He was
frank, oft-hand, and highly cultured, and good-humoured
withal. By a happy ({notation in resonant Greek, he won
at once the esteem of Emerson, who appreciated the say-
ing, * neither a ship nor a tower was strong unless there
were men in it.' Mr. Darbishire was the Professor of
Physiology of the Working-men's College at this time.
Hawthorne was the other great American who had visited
this seat of learning with Mr. Hughes, during the Presi-
dency of its founder, the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice*
brother-in-law to Mr. Hughes. The story-teller's speech
on that occasion was in his felicitous style. Indeed he
was more unreserved than usual, and spo'vC with epigram-
matic pungency and fulness. He quite warmed up before
his hearers, and every one seemed greatly pleased with
him and his eftbrt. His fame was then at its height, and
his books were beginning to be read in England. When
it was known that he was the author of the charming pen
pictures which had interested so many, there was much
enthusiasm, and the novelist received a perfect ovation at
the close of his address.

" A little over three years ago Mr. Emerson returned
home from his European trip, refreshed in mind and in

•' .''(1

•.ni

EMERSON.

ed them.

He wa8
Linioured
, he won
tlie say-
Ms there
essor of
s time,
visited

Presi-
aiirice,
speech
leed he
igram-
before
1 with
t, and
When
gpen
much
on at

irned
d in

body. A few days after his arrival he gave an informal
reception at his pleasant home in Concord. The attend-
ance was large, for all wanted to do him homage. All
wanted to welcome the kindly poet, whose big, throbbing,
generous heart took them all in. Little children sat upon
his knee, and others played about him on that genial day
in June. Boys and girls romped before him on the fresh
^lass, and happy men and women vied with one another
in paying their respect. They saw not the philosopher
and bard, but one of themselves only. A simple-minded
man and true friend. It was a day not to be forgotten,
but always to be remembered."

*' On the lecture platform, Mr. Emerson is sometimes ec-
centric, and his manner is apt to startle the strnnger who

not fandliar with his peculiarities. If his audiences
. ..uw him it is all right, but if they do not, he very soon
drives them into little fits of impatience, and every one
speedily grows nervous and excited, not so much from what
he says, but on account of the way in which he says it.
His lectures are usually prepared on small slips of paper,
and occasionally these become separated or entangled in
sopje way. The lecturer, nothing daunted, stops short
and deliberately proceeds to sort his papers out. When
they suit him, he goes on with his discourse until another

'J.:

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

mishap occurs. This happens quite often, but no one
seems to mind it, and the audience waits patiently till he
is ready to continue on again."

** I should think an accident of this kind would bother
him greatly."

" It does not appear to. At all events he keeps right
on, just as if nothing had gone amiss. I love to hear him
lecture. His voice is full and round, and his utterance is
distinct and musical. He has always a pleasant way with
him on the platform, and he is so earnest and real and
convincing, that he has the audience with him from the
start, and he keeps them till the end. He never gets
flighty, nor soars upward with a burst of eloquence like
Car, enter or Chapin, but is rather measured in his style,
and depends more on his sincerity and the elegance of his
phraseology than upon oratorical tricks. His lectures are
properly talks, and are effective from their very simplicity.
He is one of the most popular platform celebrities in New
England, and his addresses at the Boston Radical Club are
models in their way. Emerson's reasoning faculties are
very great. He has many friends and disciples among all
classes of society, and his influence in both hemispheres,
among educated people particularly, is wide-spread. He
holds liberal views on all subjects, and the vast amount of

EMERSON.

learning which he is able to bring to bear on them gives
weight and effect to his opinions. He is one of the
American authors who will live. He has such a happy
way of saying charming things, that he is endeared to
eveiy heart, and every one loves him for the good and
noble deeds which he is always doing. He is almost as
many-sided as the wit, humorist, essayist, novelist and
logician, Wendell Holmes."

" Let us consider Holmes at our next meeting. I have
just been reading for the third time his Guardian Angel.

" And I, his Autocrat for the fourth — by all means let
us have the Doctor."

" Very well, Holmes will occupy our third evening."

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

No. 3. HOLMES.

" Holmes," said the Professor, the next evening, as he
drew down the blinds and turned up the light, " seems
never to grow old. Though he is running past the sixties,
and nearing the seventies, he writes as humorously and
with as much frerhness and vivacity as he did in '32, He
is renewing his youth. It was only the other day he
gave us the third of his great series, and since then a hun-
dred delightful poems and songs have come from his pen.
Nor does he wiite in the slow and measured style of Tom
Campbell, the most musical of all poets, but his verses
come like flashes of lightning, dazzling, bright, and lighting
up everything around them. Campbell's soqgs read as if
they cost him no eifort, the rhythm is so even and smooth ;
but no poet took more pains with his work than did
the author of Tlie Pleasures of Hope. His Last Man,
one of the most beautiful yoems in the language, and an
honour to any age, cost the bard many hours of hard
•labour and thought. Holmes writes with a freedom that
is surprising. When the inspiration is upon him he can
go on and on unchecked, at a fabulous rate of speed. He

HOLMES.

is the only poet living who can do things to order, at short
notice, and do them well. If a grand dinner be given,
Holmes must supply the poem. If a banquet be held,
Holmes writes the song. If a festival be announced.
Holmes furnishes the ode or delivers the oration. And
whether it be a poem, a song, an ode or an address, the
effort is a noble one, and fit to take its place beside any-
thing which we have in our literature. He is always
.lappy in these. His post-prandial speeches, too, are as
elegant as those 'after-dinner talks across the walnuts and
the wine,' which Dickens loved so well to deliver, and
Thackeray so aptly conceived and failed so often to ex-
press. Poor whole-souled Thackeray 1 What a relish
there was to the remark he made to Dickens one evening,
when on an occasion of this kind, after several failures,
he sat down, not at all disconcerted or uneasy, and
whispered, ' Dickens, I am sorry for you.' * What for ? '
said the Novelist. ' Because you have lost, just now,
one of the finest speeches you ever heard in your life.'
And no doubt he did, for Thackeray could conceive very
fine things, even if he was sometimes bothered in the
uttering of them."

" We have numerous examples in literature of failures
of this kind," said Charles. " Was it not Garrick who said

li \

fiVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

of Goldsmith that he wrote like an angel and talked like
poor poll ? What a strange anomaly is here. The Vicar
of Wakefield is a model of clear and elegant composition,
yet its author could not make so small a thing as an after-
dinner speech, in those grand old companies of scholars »
wits and authors, which boasted of a Johnson, a Burke, a
Reynolds, a Sheridan, and a Garrick."

" Perhaps Goldsmith was awed into silence on account
of the brilliancy of the company he was in," said Frank.
" A man would require considerable nerve to face such a
gathering, and everyone snubbed Goldsmith pretty much
as he pleased. He even took slights from so mean a man
as Davies. Do you know I think Holmes writes very
much like Goldy. The same literary sunshine seems to
glow in the pages of both. The broad humanity of the
one shines out in the other, and both appeal directly to
the heart and common sympathy of mankind, The coarse-
ness of Goldsmith is typical of the age in which he lived,
and Holmes reminds us in his writings of Goldsmith, with
the vulgar element left out."

" The only resemblance I can see between them," said
Charles, " is that both men have written charming books,
as both have an inexhaustible supply of humour. Holmes
is so original in himself that he is really like no one but

HOLMES.

himself. Some one has compared him to Shakespeare's
ideal Pux;k, who wanted to put a girdle round the earth in
forty minutes ; and Miss Mitford, again, likens him to the
great Catholic John Dryden, or the keen-witted author of
The Dunciad. For myself, I see in him a concentration
of all that is beautiful in literature. When I grow weary
of trying to find good things in the new books, I turn
with relief to Holmes. When old Pepys becomes tire-
some, and the old books afford me no pleasure, I pick up
an odd volume of The Autocrat or The Professor, and
straightway the worry leaves my mind, and a comforting
solace is afforded me. He has been a most careful editor
of his own works, and not a line could be expunged from
his pages without creating a real loss to letters. He has
written three great books. Hazlitt, in his Round Table,
never uttered more felicitous things than Holmes does in
these wonderful books, books which go directly to the
heart, books as full of dainty things as ever Charles Lamb
gave us in his Elaine, or Hunt printed in his elegant Seer,
or Coleridge talked in his Friend."

" I must join in your enthusiasm Charles," said the
Professor. "Holmes is more than a pleasant talker. He is a
deep thinker, but when he gives utterance to his thoughts
he invests then\ with such healthy and good-natured play-

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Ill

fulness, that they are never dull or tedious. He has an
exuberant fancy, and the philosophy which he teaches is
of the speculative form. One must be healthy and strong
to read Max Muller or Carlyle, but you can read Holmes
at any time, on a sick-bed or in the convalescent's chair.
The delicious raillery, the hundred teasing, playful fancies,
the noisy fun and graceful imagery which abound all
through his writings, make him a welcome visitor at all
times and at all seasons. You never grow weary of
Holmes, as you do sometimes of Raskin or Talfourd,
agreeable as those essayists are. Holmes popularizes
thought. The same easy-flowing diction characterizes
his work, whether the subject be literary, scientific, or
social. The sermons he finds in stones are not common-
place or unprofitable to listen to. He clothes everything
he touches in his warm glowing style, and the more one
reads of this genial author the better he understands and
likes him. His sentiment is as tender as Dickens's, and
his wit is higher and more enduring, and of a superior
mould to that of the author of Pickwick. As a novelist
he is not as dramatic as Dickens is, nor has he as much
imagination, but his characters are completer and more
perfectly formed, and they grow with ten-fold more natu-
ralness. Dickens's creations in the whole range of his

HOLMES.

literature, with a few exceptions perhaps in Copperjield,
are exaggerations, and often caricatures, but one sees no-
thing of this element in Holmes. If his plots are slender*
and the construction of his narratives is not as ingenious
as Scott's, his story-telling is as charming, and his individ-
uality is quite as striking. The dash which he has, and
which Bulwer has not, makes us forget that Holmes lacks
the strong inventive faculty so necessary in works of
fiction. His Msie Venner is one of the most fascinating
novels of our time. It is even more entertaining as a stoiy
than The Guardian Angel, and it is a novel with a pur-
pose. One cannot lay it down until he finishes it. The
character-grouping is excellent, and the incidents are so
intense, the dialogue so sprightly, the humour so keen
— at times as grotesque as Hood's — the philosophy so
evenly balanced, and the moral so healthful, that no one
should miss reading it the second time. Ik Marvel's
Reveries of a Bachelor is a book which should be read at
a sitting, and Elsie Venner is a book of that class. It
chaims, delights, and instructs. It is Holmes' snake story,
and much that is curious and debatable will be found in it."
"Perhaps," said Frank, " there is more philosophy and
depth in Elsie Venner, but for my own part I give The
Guardian Angel the preference. Look at the character-

'■\

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I! 1 '

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

drawing in that story. Have you not met a score of
* Gifted Hopkins's,' half-a-dozen * Byles Gridleys,' and no
end of ' Myrtle Hazards ?' If you haven't, I have. I
once mortally offended a young poetic asv)irant who sent
me some verses of his to read. They were addressed to
that very unpoetic subject, the ' Fog Horn,' and rnonotone
rhymed with ozone, and it was full of queer metres and
strange comparisons. I sent the verses back to him, after
keeping them a reasonable time, with the remark that
they reminded me of some of * Gifted Hopkins's ' efforts in
the same line. He asked me who Mr. Hopkins was, and
I referred him to the book. He never troubled me again,
so I presume he discovered the doctor's poet. The book is
full of vigorous writing, and Holmes's peculiar humour
appears at every turn. That point is irresistible, I think,
where the good old man confounds the two Scotts, Sir
Walter, who wrote Ivanhoe, and the author of the Bible
Commentary, together."

" I must, notwithstanding what you say, adhere to the
view I have first expressed. Elsie Venner is the more
powerful tale. I can easily see your reason for pre-
ferring Holmes' last story. An incident drew it more near
to your heart and mind. 'Gifted Hopkins' and the young
poet whom you certainly treated a_little ungenerously,

HOLMES.

the
lore
ipre-
lear

isly,

made an impression on you, so you never think of Dr.
Hohnes vvithout thinking of * Gifted Hopkins.' Your
judgment is influenced almost unconsciously to yourself,
The influencing force is of course small, but nevertheless
it is quite strong enough to change the bent of youi- mind.
Give the two books to any one who has never read either,
or to one who had undergone no experience similar to
yours, and unquestionably he would decide in favour of
the snake story. That is my idea about it. Both, how-
ever, are capital stories, and illustrate well Dr. Holmes'
happy method of telling a story. His Breakfast-series,
however, are his principal works, and they are destined
to live a long while."

" Yes, are they not splendid ? What a wealth of enjoy-
able reading they contain, and what a mine of originality
do they not develop? The prose is crisp, chatty, and
nervous, the poetry is oriental in its magnificence and luxu-
riance. Though there is much in common between him
and Keats in their likes and dislikes, Holmes writes no-
thing of a sensuous character. He does not think as
Byron or Shelley, or the florid author of Endymion did.
His fancies are like mettlesome steeds eager for a wild
gallop across country. Keats walked timidly and list-
lessly along bye-paths and narrow lanes, singing softly to

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

himself all the while. Holmes revels in wide ficMs, and
delights in leaping oceans and foaming cascades. He
stops sometimes to pick a flower, or rest by some limpid
stream, or bask in some grateful sunshine, but these are
the oases in his journey. He loves the majestic trees of the
forest, and takes delight in painting, in his own grand way,
the life of the sturdy oak, the stately poplar, the many-
tinted maple, and the noble elm. The trees, those giant
sentinels of the wood, are to him, as they were to Irving
and Garvie, objects of admiration and love, and he never
tires of giving us exquisite and fanciful descriptions of
them. What is more charming than his walk with the
schoolmistress when they went out to look at the elms,
and he talked little bits of philosophy to her, and watched
the coming and going of the roses on her cheek. Or what
is more delicious than that other talk of his at the break-
fast-table, about oaks and elms and forest trees ? I feel
almost like saying that Holmes is greater in his descrip-
tion of quiet nature than in his other writings ; and when
1 think of what he has done in other walks I must pause."

" Do you think the last of the set, The Poet, is equal
to the first two of the seriefs, The Autocrat and The
Professor ? "

" Of course I do. The Poet exhibits the doctor with

HOLMES.

ith

many of liis |)()wers wholly matured. His fancy is as rich
as ever. I can see no difference. It may be because 1
have advanced in years, with the doctor, since The Auto-
crat was written, and as his mind changed, so did mine,
unknown to myself. The change comes gradually in us,
and we do not perceive it ourselves. The Poet, to my mind,
is the riper book. It is disposed to look more charitably
on mankind. It doesn't notice little things, and is not so
apt to criticise, as Frank, for instance, was when his friend
immortalized the ' Fog Horn.' It is the fashion, you
know, this year, to speak of the good old times, and de-
preciate everything that is of late growth. There are men
who cry out that Punch has lost its piquancy, and sigh
for the days which gave us John Leech to come back
again. They see no genius in Tenniel, no humour in Du
Maurier, even if all his women do look alike ; and they
miss the sparkling wit of Jerrold, and the pleasantries of
Mark Lemon. They want Thackeray's thumb-nail sketches
again, and they wish to hear Tennyson call Bulwer the
* padded man who wore the stays ' once more. But who
believes Punch has ceased to be witty ? 2' lie Autocrat
was published twenty years ago. It was the f rst of its
kind. The idea was new, and it was so good that many
people thought Holmes could never equal those bright

KVKNINfJS IN THK LIHIIAIIY.

■'I

If!

pages again. Then The Professor and the .story of Iris came
out a i'aw years later. Of course no one said it was infe-
rior to The Autocrat. The critics were in despnir. The se-
cond book was e((ual to the first. When The Poet joined
his brethren tlie same criticism was applied, but I doubt if
The Pod is at all behind either The Profennor or The Auto-
crat. All of these appeared originally in Ths Atlantic^*

" I remend)er once hearing Holmes describe the way in
which the tirst luimber of that magazine was got up. He
and some literary friends met together one evening in the
fall of 1857, at a well-known tavern in Boston. The com-
pany was a right royal one. It included Lowell, Emerson,
Hazewell, Motley, Trowbridge, Holmes, and, if I mistake
not, Longfellow. Putnam — a once prominent New York
magazine — had gone down, and there was no proper vehi-
cle for high-class literature then in existence. Messrs.
Phillips, Sampson & Co. were prominent publishers then
in Boston, and they were the publishers of The Atlantic
for two years, when Messrs. Ticknor & Fields took charge
of it. These eminent literary men of Cambridge and
Boston, on that eventful evening, decided to give New
England a magazine of which the country should feel
proud. Emerson contributed an essay and several short
poems, including ' Brahma.' Lowell furnished a poem ;

HOLMES.

(33

I'ge

I
ill

Trowbridge, an essay, I tliink ; and Holmes, tlie first num-
ber of his splendid creaticjn. The Autocrat of the Break-
fast-tahle. It was a grand success from the beginning.
That evening at the tavern was a convivial one, for 1 un-
derstood at the time, that one at least of the married men,
after he reached home, remembei'ed nothing next morning,
except that he 'had asked his wife the same question
several times during the night.' Holmes and the others
have written for the magazine ever since, and in 18G7 the
year's numbers of The Atlantic contained The Guardian
Amjel Notwithstanding the fact that every number of
lite Autocrat is thoroughly enjoyable, there was one num-
ber, the eleventh paper, in which Holmes even surpassed
himself. That issue contained three poems which have
passed into history, and which will live. Holmes has never
been so entirely successful since. At least one poem has
been gi*and ; but here were three, and all of them classics,
the famous ' One-horse Shay,' ' Contentment,' and ' Desti-
nation.' "

" I wonder why it is that so many good things have had
their origin in taverns. They were wayside inns, I sup-
pose."

' Yes. I can give no reason why the air of the tavern
si dd draw so many literary men together ; but it has

KVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

been the case for many years. Johnson, and even before
his time, in the age of Shakespeare, the men of letters met
in taverns and talked and drank, and sometimes wrote
their best things in them. But those places of refresh-
ment were different from the taverns of our day, and our
literary men have their club-rooms now t j meet and talk
in.

" Holmes's writings are full of quotable passages. He
has uttered as many wise saws as George Eliot. A book
of proverbs might easily be made from his works. It is a
wonder to me he lias never turned his attention t-o criti-
cism. He has all the attributes of a good critic'

" Oh, he is too good-natured for a literary butcher. His
mind is so delicate and his judgment so fine that very
little would please him. He would see a thousand faults
in a book. He dare not trust himself to criticise. He would
be too severe. His ideas of the niceties are drawn very
delicately, and I think he is wise not to say the cutting
things he can when he likes. Leech and the satirists of the
street organs have uttered nothing so bitter as this cou-
plet on The Mimic Orinders —

* Their discords sting through Bums and Moore,
Like hedgehogs dressed in lace.'

" What gems there are scattered here and there in ilie

)

HOLMES.

\lie

Autocrat. Listen to this: — 'Our brains are seventy -four
clocks, The Angel of Life winds them up once for all, then
closes the case, and gives the key into the hands of the
Angel of the Resurrection.

" 'Tic — tac ! tic-tac ! go the wheels of thought ; our will
cannot stop them ; they cannot stop themselves ; sleep
cannot still them ; niddness only makes them go faster ;
death alone can break into the case, and seizing the ever-
swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence at last
the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried
so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads.'

" How rich Holmes is in thoughts like these. His psy-
chological study on the relations of body and mind is one
of the best little treatises on this subject published. It
formed the oration before the Phi-Beta Kappa Society of
Harvard University, in 1870. It is full of great thoughts
in a condensed form, and the graceful stylo in which it is
written gives it a hold on the reader. It is a thin volume
in bulk, but a deep one in matter. Some pleasant sayings
and a few entertaining anecdotes, enliven it somewhat.
It contains a great amount of information in a little space.
Mechanism in Thought and Morals is a popular hand-book
of a very pleasant science."

" Yes, I have read it several times. It is a book you

jf«.i
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C)C)

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

cannot read all at once and get the sense of it. You
must study it a while, if you would read it with profit.
Holmes' quaint humour is very delightful in this book.
Witness his telling you to take a few whiffs of ether and
cross over into the land of death for a few minutes, and
come back with a return ticket ; to take chloroform, he
grimly adds, and perhaps get no return ticket ! I think
Holmes in some of these points is very like Tom Noel.
The same intermingling of the pathetic with the lively
frequently occurs. The grim humour of Noel's Pauper's
drive to the churchyard, in the old rickety one-horse
hearse, is the kind of humour we often meet in the Ameii-
can poet's books. One can almost fancy them using the
same figures and employing the same imagery. Noel has
the element of humour only, while Holmes is a wit as well
as a humori }t. The two qualities are not always identi-
cal. Dickens was a humorist. Douglas Jerrold was a
wit. Unite the qualities, a?id wit loses its severity. Divide
them, and we find that humour lias a heart. Wit has no
love for anyone. Humour has a wide humanity ; but wit
is cruel and stabs as with a poignard. Some cynics have
been great wits, but no cynics have ever been humorists.
Swift was deliberate, cold-blooded, and as calculating as a
literary ice-box. His heart was cold, unfeeling, callous ;

HOLMES.

)us ;

but his head was filled with the wildest, strangest, drollest
fancies that ever man could have. He was a wit, but
no humorist. Thackeray — warm-hearted, big-hearted
Thackeray, was a humorist in its amplest sense. The
Dean of St. Patrick's crushel his enemies with the rudest
sallies of wit. The true satirist uses a keen-edged razor.
Swift em})loyed a bludgeon. Of the two elements humour
is the grandest. It rises higher than wit. We like the
one. We are tricked sometimes with the other. Humour
is always genial, always gentle, always human. Wit is
the thorn, humour is the rose. We must be careful lest
we prick ourselves with the former. It will not bear
handling. No man ever made anything by bandying
words with Sam Foote, who was graceless enough to
wound the feelings of his best friends to raise a laugh.
Did he not reply to his mother's request for aid, when she
sent him word that she was in prison, with a 'dear mother,
so am I.' The wit respects no one. He is an Ishmael,
and his hand is raised ajjainst all mankind. He is one of
passions ; and malice and envy, and sometimes hatred too,
clatter and chatter at his heels. He likes to wander into
the sunshine, for there his blade becomes brighter. But
the warmth of the sun warms his intellect and his wits,
but not his heart. BurU)n was a man of wit and humour.

!R; I

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

The two elements were united in him, and he was a man
of much goodness of heart. Pope and Sydney Smith
said sharp things, but they said them good-naturedly, and
without malice. The quality of humour dulls the edge
of wit and takes the sting out of it. Holmes's wit is
genial^ the only wit we can admire, the only wit which
does not injure, the wit which consorts with humour, and
which forms the pungent faculty which we find in Tlie
Autocrat, in such large extent, and in such pleasing
variety."

" I think the love which Holmes has for Italian poetry
and story has had much to do with moulding his taste
and shaping his verse. The language of Dante and An-
gelo is liquid and mellow. Greek poetry glitters like the
reflection which snow sends back to the sun, but the poetry
of Rome and Florence is soft, low, sweet and musical, like
the magnificent peals of some sacred organ. The poetry
of the Greek is classic and intellectual, the poetry of Italy
is warm and comes from the breast. Homer could not
have written The Cotters Saturday Night, nor sung in the
strain of the great Tasso. Our sweetest heart-pictures
have come to us from lowly poets."

" A good many have, but not all. In support of your
arguiiient, you have Ned Farmer, who wrote the tender

HOLMES.

lur
ler

verses of Little Jim ; Burns, Tannahill, Hogg, Petofi, the
Magyar Hero, and some others ; but Longfellow, Tenny-
son, Aldricli, Lowell, Howells, Bryant, and many others
on the other side, have written fully as many descriptions
of humble homes and life as they have. What better
heart-piece do yo\i want than Holmes's splendid poem of
Bill (ind Joe ; it is natural and life-like. And then take

his family portrait, Z)oro^^2/ Q ,a poem with a history. I

saw the original portrait of Dorothy Quincy,and the cruel
hole in the hard old painting, which the soldier's bayonet
made almost a century ago. Again, take another of
Holmes's fine poems, 2^he Boys, in illustration of my argu-
ment. You will find it in The Professor, at the end of
the second paper. It exhibits Holmes's most playful
mood, and concludes with this verse :

' Th«n here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray,
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May ;
And when we have done with our life-lasting joys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, the Boys. ' "

" And, in the same work. Holmes writes a charming
poem of the heart, which he calls, felicitously. Under the
Violets. The sentiment of it is very beautiful, and it is
one of the tenderest poems in the language, and at the
same time one of the most graceful."

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY

" Holmes's personal poems, the one to Longfellow, on
his leaving for Europe, his tribute to a great man's gen-
ius, his splendid lines to Bryant, on the seventieth
birthday of that poet, in 1864, are the best efforts of the
kind since Ben Jonson wrote his ode to the memory of
the Swan of Avon. He is always saying pleasant things
about his friends, and writing charming notes to them,
as full of humour as his own delightful works. He is a
pleasant companion, and his splendid social qualities en-
dear him to every one. Lowell, in a neat distich, says of
Holmes :

* A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from which flit
The electrical tingles of hit after hit. ' "

" Holmes's lyrical pieces are among the best of his
compositions. They breathe the s})irit of true minstrelsy,
and are full of music. I have not touched upon his con-
tributions to medical science. His works in this branch
of literature are numerous, and his books have reached a
wide sale among medical men. His Homoeopathic war is
remembered as a vigorous onslaught on the Hahnemannian
votaries, and a total annihilation of the enemies of Allo-
pathy. The doctor is one of the most genial among men,
a delightful conversationalist, and quick in repartee. His
father was an author before him, and his history of the

HOLMES.

his

la
ir in
ian
llo-
eii,
is
he

Rebellion is one of the most exhaustive works extant on
the su Inject. This book is very scarce now, and out of
print, and in its day enjoyed a fine reputation.

" Holmes is a fine lecturer, and a few years ago had no
equal on the [tlatform. The V)oldness of his style, and his
happy mode of sayin^,' what he had to say, always gained
on his audiences ; and his popularity remained the same,
till of his own accord he gave up platform-speaking. Tra-
vel and exposure to night air interfered with his health,
and he was forced to give U}), what to him was always a
favourite pursuit. His medical lectures on anatomy and
surgery before the students of Harvard are not the least
delightful of his literary and professional performances.
His students love him, and always speak of him in
words of grateful and kindly remembrance. Holmes is
liberal in his religious belief. He cannot tolerate cant,
deceit, and hypocrisy. He is a man of ever-enduring hu-
manity, and true Christian charity. He holds no narrow
sectarian views, and he detests revivals, and considers
them the enemies of religion. He believes in no such
spasmodic bursts. The revival element thrives only
among the weak-minded and the ignorant. His is the
elevating Christianity which shines out gloriously in such
teachinirs as these :

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

•I I

' >

i^ l"

^!n

i 1

•

■\

1 J

' Yes, child of suflFering, thou mayest well be sure,
He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor ! '

or in this,

' You hear that boy laughing? — You think he's all fun ;
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done ;
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call.
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.'

or in this sweet memorial hymn which he wrote for the
services in memory of Abraham Lincoln,

' Be thou thy orphaned Israel's friend,

Forsake thy people never,
In One our broken Many blend.
That none again may sever !

Hear us, O Father, while we raise
With trembling lips our song of praise.
And bless thy name forever ! '

" Oliver Wendell Holmes's religion is contained in those
lines, and his principles breathe out in all his works. He
is a close reasoner."

" Do you like his style as well as you do Lowell's ?
You know you are an enthusiast over the New England
poet."

" I do like to read Lowell, but not more than Holmes.
The two writers differ very materially from one another.

HOLMES.

One should read both, and he will then have read two of
the most charming writers in the world. I think we can
hardly do better than discuss Professor Lowell at our next
meeting. That is, of course, if it be agreeable to the com-
pany."

*' Certainly, I'm willing."

" And I too. I must read his Court hi over atjain."

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

i.-i

;

No. 4. LOWELL.

" John Sheldon has told us that old friends are the
best, and that King James used to call for his old shoes,
because they were the easiest for his feet," said the pro-
fessor at the next a.isembly in the library, " and I have
asked you to consider Lowell to-night, because he is one
of my favourites. Perhaps I am selfish, but I love to talk
of the poet of Elmwood, and the delightful conceits which
people his brain, and the splendid literary work he has
performed. His is a superior genius, and every year gives
greater evidence of the growth and fertility of his won-
derful mind. He is one of that coterie of Boston scholars,
one of that famous Harvard class, which has enriched our
common literature, and which gives such splendid promise
for the future. Lowell, perhaps, is the most English of
them all in style, though the most thoroughly American
in his feeling and sentiments. He has given us little more
than half a dozen books, but these cover a wide range,
and not one of them has been written in vain. Three
volumes of essays, literary and social, one book of fire-side
travels, and a few books of poetry, complete his labours in

ill

LOWELL.

I the
;hoes,
5 pro-
have
is one
o talk
which
\ni has

irives

won-
holars,
ed our
romise
ish of
lerican
e more
range,
Three
re-side
ours in

••

letters. His writings show as wide scholarshij) as Addi-
son's and as much careful ohsi-rvance of nature. For
many yea<rs he has held the professorship of Belles Ldtres
in Harvard University, and his lectures before the classes
of that seat of learning, have been uusurpassed^for their
singular beauty of style and finish. [Here the nephews
exchanged quiet glances with one another. Surely tlie
professor was himself lecturing ; but they said nothing
and he went on.] Lowell is always telling us something
new. Even vof Shakespeare, and of Milton, and of Chaucer,
he can find something to say, not spoken of before by the
Hazlitts or the C^oleridges, or the Macaulays of literature.
He gives us intelligent criticisms and lucid explanations
of obscure passages. He brings to his aid the vast re-
sources of his well-trained mind, and he never writes a
line which he has not thoughtfully and carefully con-
sidered. This is why Lowell's opinions of books and au-
thors are so valuable, and he takes so high a place among
critics. In England, he holds ei^ual rank with Matthew
Arnold, whose book. Essays in Criticism, has become so
popular with all classes. It is very interesting ; but to
my mind, Lowell's last volume, the second series of his
delightful literary estimates, is superior to it. I like it
better than David Masson's work on the same subject

;iM

KVKNINOS IN THK I.IHHAUY.

The criticisiiiH are more finely drawn, the style is more
epigraininatic, and the delicate vein of satire which runs
through the work given it a certain freshness and vigour
which do not appear in the other. Professor Lowell's
book is partly biographical as well as critical, and his
notices of Keats and Wordsworth are admirably made.
Dante, Spenser, and Milton are the subjects of the other
essays. In the latter Mr. Lowell discusses Mjisson's life
of Milton, and gives us a deal more about Masson than I
would wisli, or than would seem necessary. Beyond this,
the estimate of the great poet is nobly done."

" What do you think of his Dante ? " said Charles. "He
seems to have expended considerable labour upon it."

" I am still in doubt over it. When I read it, it takes
such a hold on me that I cannot read anything else on
that day, and I would accord it the foremost place in the
book. The Italian's imagination is finely described. His
wealth of imagery is glowingly descanted on. His breadth
of mind and rich fancy are ably portrayed. Dante's poem
was to be didactic: but the exuberance of his warai fancy
made the change in his work, that places it beyond any
poem of similar scope in the language. When Dante
walked about the streets of Florence, men shuddered and
said to each other with blanched cheeks, ' There goes the

LOWKM,.

"He

takes

ilse on

n the

His
eadth
poem
fancy
|d any

ante

Id and

IS the

man who descended into Hell ! ' Tlie poem is a inarvelious
one, possibly t^ie greatest ever written, and Mr. Lowell's
criticism of the author's genius is one of his finest efforts.
On the whole, I think our author's sketcli of Spenser is
the best thing lie gives us in this book. He discusst's
this great genius, the greatest since CMiaucer, in the
leisurely and piquant style of Leigh Hunt, who never did
a thing in a hurry, or put himself out in the least. Spen-
ser is one of Lowell's favourite poets, and he never tires
of reading him or talking about him. His criticism is
more friendly than critical. He has said some pleasant
things in a pleasant style, about a pleasant author. It
was a labour of love with Lowell to write as he has done
about the author of The Faerie Queene. Mr. Lowell's
humour has full vent in this fresh and delightfid volume."
" He seems to have caught the mantle of Sainte-Beuve,
as it fell from the shoulders of the gi'eat French critic-
He has all his piquancy, freshness, fulness and suggestive-
ness. He has, too, his cautious insight, and exquisite way
of saying things. Whoever and whatever Mr. Lowell
writes about, forthwith the subject becomes Lowellized, if
I might say so. 1 can hardly go as far as Mr. Disraeli and
declare that our critics are those who have failed in litera-
ture and in ai-t. Lowell has not failed as an artist, and he

KVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

is one of our finest critics, Carlylc is not a failure as an
autlior, and lie is a ^reat critic, iviatthewi Arnold, Stod-
dard, Stednian,Howells, and I nii^^dit <fo on and enumerate
a hundred others who have become great in both fields of
literary labour, to illustrate this point. It is a mistake to
think ctheiwise. Many of our best critics have been poets-
Sir Walter Scott was a good reviewer in his day. Lowell's
otlier V(jlume, AmoiKj ray Bookti, is more general in tone
than the (me of which we have just been speaking. It
takes up the (piestion of ' Witchcraft ' — a fruitful theme
for New Englwiders to write about, and the (piestion re-
ceives a thorough examination at his hands. It is dis-
cussed in a good-tempered, moderate way, and a vast amount
of new light is brought to bear on the subject. Milton's
v-iontemporary, John Dryden, is another notable i-eview in
the book. Prof. Lowell's happy faculty of taking his
reader into his confidence, and uiaking him think as he
thinks, without apparent etibrt, largely enters here. All
the beauties of the Catholic bard are placed before the
reader, and he rises from the perusal of Lowell's estimate
of him with his soul full of Dryden, and his lips uttering
snatches of his verse. The same power of the critic ap-
pears in his criticisms of Shakespeare, of Leasing, and of
Rousseau, and we find the same delicate humour playing

LOWELL.

a prominent part in his pages. The diction is of the
choicest, and the sentences are turned with exquisite grace
and tact. Prof. Lowell's manner is probably his most
charming characteristic, and his satire is more like San\uel
Butler's than Swift's. It is as keen as that of the author
of Hudihras, and not so rancorous as that employed by
the Dean of St. Patrick's."

" A companion volume to Among my BooJy's is My Study
Windoios, and the essays in it are more social in Ume. My
Oarden Acquaintance is an admirable paper, and in every
way worthy of the author, while lovers of Chaucer will be
delighted with the painstaking examination into his works
which Professor Lowell furnishes. This paper is especi-
ally valuable to students of English literature. It is
written in better style than M. Taine's, and the beauties
of the first of English poets are presented to the reader in
simple and chaste language. Lowell always writes lightly
and cheerfully, and seemingly without effort. He was
the first editor of the Atlan'^t J^07*M//y, and at one time
he edited IVie North Aine) han Review — a journal of great
literary reputation. I have not (lip])ed into Fh'eside
Tt'd vein yet, but of Lowell's prose works, I think the s«»c-
ond volume of Among my Books is the best collection of
papers which lie has thus far written. He displa n in

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

that work the functions of a true critic, and the line which
he draws between the author and the reader is a very
marked one indeed. He writes independently, and weighs
well the defects as well as the beauties which belong to
every author. No true critic cuts and carves at random.
It is only your pretender who grudgingly bestows praise
as if the effort cost him pain, and who takes delight in
cutting up a victim merely to show his own cleverness. His
opposite, though better-natured, is still an unfair critic, and
his opinions soon lose weight with the general reader, who
likes to have the defects as well as the excellencies in
literature pointed out to him. The critic should be the
judge, and his decisions should be unbiassedly and impar-
tially made. Addison was the first English critic who
deserved the name in all its broad significance. His pa-
pers on Milton have never been surpassed, even by that
artist in letters, Macaiday. The Edinburgh Reviewer's
Milton is a series of beautiful paintings, warm-coloured
and rich in a glowing fancy. It is a pictorial view of the
great Captain of English Epic and his work. I might
almost call it an Italian estimate of the Paradise. Lost
Addison's wonderful papers upon the bard, which enriched
the Spectator — now a classic— will never be forgotten as
long as people read. They are models of clear reasoning

LOWELL.

ed
he

led

and clever analysis. They arc worded cautiously, and
the great poet's defects as well as his beauties are shown.
Since Addison's and Steele's day, the number of good
Clitics may be counted on one's fingers. In England and
Scotland, we have only had seven or eight, and in Ameri-
ca but three or four. Mr. Lowell is one of these. He
never utters an opinion at hap-hazard, or until his mind is
fully made up. His style is so good, and he can popidarize
thought so well, that anything he writes always finds
acceptance with people of any degree of intelligence, from
the lower to the higher order."

" I have sometimes met men who pretended to think
that Lowell injured his positi(jn as an author by writing
2 he Biijlow rop^'rs. They considered them unworthy of
him, and professed to see nothing to laugh at in them."

" When I meet men with no humour in their souls, who
would try to make you believe that their lives were made
up wholly of work and no play whatever, and who shud-
der at a joke and groan at a pun, I always think such men
are at least worth careful watching. Thi'y are even worse
than those creatures who are forever grinning and smiling.
They wear a mask for some craftily hidden purpos*' which
must sooner or later develop itself. I once knew a man
whose face was all pinched and screwed up, and he wore

■I ; I

EVKNlNdS IN THE LIBRARY.

1 :i

the most disagreeable and anxious expression I ever saw.
He always gave me the idea that it was caused by re-
morse for some concealed crime, and I found myself un-
consciously playing the detective, whenever my eyes fell
upon him. I was mistaken, however, for I found out
afterwards that the expression on his countenance was
caused by the twinges of rheumatism ; but I could never
(juite forget my first impressions. When a man gravely
tells me that the first American humorist has lowered
his dignity by stooping to humour and fun, and that he
should always write seriously, I begin to think that a good
many Dogbe)*rys are still to be found in the world. An old
Clitic once found fault with the grave-digger's scene in
II(f>ml<'t,'dn(\ considered itquite beneath Shakespeare's genius
and very unbecoming such a piece. It is pardonable only as
it gives rise to Handet's fine moral reflections, said he,
upon the infirmity of human nature. Such a man should
be condemned to read, for the remainder of his days, Hev-
veys MvdUatlons Among the Tombs, and the manuscript
edition of J<'nl''s Devotions."

" Th6 IHgloiv Papers have a merit of their own, as dis-
tinctive in its wav as the humour which abounds in the
comedies of Shakespeare. It is the only true type of the
typical New Englander. We have had nothing like it

LOWELt>.

8*^

fer-
iript

dis-

11 the

f the

ke it

l)efore or since. The flavour is truly Yankee. Sam Slick'
by our own Judj^e Haliburton, is a caricature, a gioss im-
possibility, rich in its way, curious as a work of art, fresh
as a new thing in literature, quaint in conception, and
interesting withal ; but as a specimen of Yankee drollery,
it is a complete failure. Hosea Biglow is not a caricature,
but a genuine living specimen of the man who lives in the
New England village of to-day. Mi*. Lowell is only the
historian, not the creator of this character. His own exqui-
site humour, of course, enriches the sketch, but the base
of the whole individuality is historic and real. Parson
Wilbur is the New England parson one can meet after a
drive of a few hours through the hamlets of Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, and Maine. Sam Slick never existed.
Hosea Biglow lives to-day in not so exaggerated a form
perhaps, but still he lives. To write these droll papers,
the author gave the subject a vast amount of study, and,
in one of his prefaces, he furnishes an exhaustive treatise
on Yankee woi'ds, which is as valuaUe as it is interesting.
The philologist, if In* cares to examine this treatise closely,
will find a near resemblance of the vernacuhir of New
England to the language of Chauct^r. Some of the words
are exactly the same. Tlie two series of papers, one be-
fore the Civil War in America, and the other while it

3 : ,1

EVENINOS TN THE MBRARY.

ra^od, stand alone the finest examples of American
humour extant, and worth a hundred Josh Billingses.
Ai-temus Wards, Orpheus 0. Kerrs, Mose Skinners,
Widow Bedotts, Mrs. Partingtons, Major Dowlings and
the rest of the tril)e. These Bujlow Pajyers were written
for a purpose, and they exercised a great deal of influence
in their day, and commanded the attention of statesmen
and philanthropists. The first set of papers were levelled
at the war in Mexico, and Professor Lowell unsparingly
criticises the laid on that country in the severest terms.
He denounces it as an unholy, oppressive, and cruel war,
and a disgrace to American civilization. He loses no
opportunity to employ his terrible powers of invective
and satin?, in these lampoons. His blade was a highly
polished Damascus steel, and everything yields beneath
its stroke, yay-j a man escapes the biting and bitter irony
of the satirist. From Winfield Scott down to the hum-
blest private in the ranks of the American soldiery, the
blows of Ids trenchant sword fall upon all alike. He be-
lieves in the potency of satire as a weapon which can
sweep all before it. The fire of the Biijlow Papers is not
contained in the (piaint spelling and curious phraseology
of the poet, but in the philosophical reflections of Parson
Homer Wilbur. The spice of the literary Biglow pudding

LOWELL.

fgy

inn;

i« to be found in the Rev. Homer's ciisp, natty notes, and
explanations, so remindful of Carlyle in his chatty days,
and so suggestive of Holmes's Breakfast Talks. Not the
least charming feature in these droll papers is the Par-
son's little scraps of learning which he is constantly intro-
ducing in his talks and letters. The only fault I can find
with Mr. Lowell is his killing off the Parson at an early
juncture of the second series. It is like parting with an
old friend."

"The second series appeared in 18G2, and were first
published in The Atlantic Monthly. The same delicious
and pungent humour characterizes the papers of this set.
The subject only is changed. One of his best things, The
Oourtin', was produced by the merest accident. The
introduction to his Biglow, first series, was running
through the press, when the printer sent him word that
there was a blank page left which must be filled. The
author sat down to his table and began writing another
fictitious notice of the press. He wrote it in verse, because
it would fill out more ([uickly antl cheaply, aiui ^hen sent
it oft' with a note to the compositor, to cut it oft when he
had enough to fill the gap. The book was printed, and
every one read the little pastoral which set forth so
humorously a New England courtship scene, and, noticmg

EVENINGS IN THE LIIIRARY.

I ?!i i

its incomplete state, the public mind craved for the balance.
To satisfy this demand, Professor Lowell, a short time
afterwards, completed the poem, and presented it to the
Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair. It is now con-
sidered one of the gems of his book. In an English edition
I once saw, strange to say, l^lie Courtin is left out, as well
as several of Mr. Lowell's best pieces, including the whole
of the introduction to the second series. This is unpar-
donal le, and I can tolerate abridgements less and less."

" I fully sympathize with you," said Frank, " clipping
a book is a gross imposition on the reader as well as the
author. I once sutiere<l that way in a book of Irving's. I
bought his sketches at a stall, and looked for the Stout
Gentleman and the StuAje Goiteh. Would you believe it,
neither of them were there ! We have considered Lowell
as a critic. He sometimes casts aside the pen of the critic,
the pencil of the caricaturist, and the lance of the satirist,
and writes with powerful earnestness of purpose and
trenchantness of will. He employs the most vigorous
phrases of our language, and every line stands like an Im-
perial Guard before the breastworks of a fortress. Not a
word falters, but t^ach part stands firm and preserves the
strength of the whole. We have also considered Lowell
as a humorist and satirist. He is a poet of liberal

LOWELL.

thought and delightful fancy. In his Fable for Crifica,
he passes in review almost every American bard of note.
There is a good deal of neat satire in these criticisms, as
sprightly in its way as Byron's attack on the Edinburgh
Reviewers, though hardly as spiteful, or Pope's raillery in
The D unclad. No opportunity is lost to give full scope
to the shafts of good-natured, even kindly ridicide. Mr.
Lowell never wounds when he is in play. He only strokes
the wrong way sometimes, but no one gets angry with
him. Eveiy one takes his satire in good j)art. He says
oftentimes some pleasant things about the points he de-
scribes. Emerson's words he likens to the 'gold nails in
temples to haug trophies on.' Bryant is ' a.s (piiet, as cool,
and as dignified as a smooth, silent iceberg, that never is
ignified.' Whittier's heart, he tells us in his glowing way,
' reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect,' and Haw-
thorne ' so earnest, so graceful, so solid, so fieet, is worth a
descent from Olympus, to meet.' Thus he descants upon
them all as they pass by, not sparing even himself when
his turn comes."

" Of his serious poetical performances, the one whi(;h to
my mind contains the greater depth of thought and
felicity of construction, is TJie Vision of Sir Laimfd.
The San Grael — that revered cup out of which, according

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

to tlic old romances, Jesus partook of the last supper with
His disciples — has afforded a noble theme to poets of
diff(uent ages. The keepers of this Holy Grail were al-
ways believed to be pure and chaste in action, word and
thought. For many years the cup remained in the i)OS-
session of the lineal descendants of Joseph of Arimathea,
till one of them broke the condition of his keepei'ship
and the Holy Grail passed away and was lost. The
Knights of Arthur's Court felt it a duty incumbent on
them from that time to make pilgrimages in search of it.
Tennyson has told us, in his warm cadences, the story of
this legend, and the finding of the cuj* at length by Sir
Galahad is, perhaps, the most delightful of the laureates
idyls. Prof. Lowell exhibits this idyllic power with great
fluency. Indeed, he is not far behind Tennyson in his
exquisite Vision of Sir Launfaly which is based upon this
story of King Arthur's days. There are bits in it which
remind us of the old masters of English vei*se, of George
Wither, of Heirick, and the rest. The prelude tv, the
second part is a noble specimen of healthy descriptive
vei*se, equal in every respect to any poem which we have^
Every line is an image. Every stanza sparkles and
crackles with the most eloquent description of the
season of jollity and good cheer ever penned. No

LOWELL.

poet lias better described the grand Cliristnias of the goo«l
old times than Lowell has in this metrical essay, fjet me
quote a little, and you will agree with me in my estimate
of this poem. I will read you a couple of veises, though
it is a poem which should be considered in its entirety.
Clipping it mars it, as it destroys everything else :

" * Within the hall are Hong and laughter,

The cheelcH of ChriHtmaH glow red and jolly,
And sprouting iH every corbel and rafter

With lightrtonie green of ivy and holly ;
Through the deep g\ilf of the chimney wide

Wallows the Yule-log's roaring tide ;
The broad flame-pennouH droop and Hap

And belly and tug au a flag in the wind ;
Like a locust shrills the imprisoned sap,

Hunted to death in its galleries blind ;
And swift little troops of silent sparks,

Now pausing, now scattering away as in fear.
So threading the soot-forest's tangled darks

Like herds of startled deer.' "

" I think," said Charles when the Professor laid down

his book, and removed his glasses, " that Lowell shows

more imagination in this poem than in any of his other

efforts. The story is extant, I know, but Lowell has only

used the frame-work in his Vision. The plot is his own,

and other knights than those of the Round Table of King
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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Arthur take part in the expedition in search of the mysti-
cal cup. The time too, is fixed subsequent to the reign of
Arthur. In this elegant work, Mr. Lowell teaches a broad,
healthful moral, and introduces a fine vein of sentiment."
"■ His wide scholarship is more noticeable, perhaps, in his
Cathedral. This poem was written, I think, during the
poet's visit to Florence, some half a dozen years ago. It
bears unmistakable evidence of the influence which
Italian poetry has had upon his mind. It illustrates the
poetry of Dante and Tasso, and the religion which one
finds in Rome and Florence, and indeed in the whole of
Southei-n Italy. The Church there is the great power. It
exerts an ever-widening influence, and all yield to its
sovereign sway. The people reverence religion more, and
its forms and ceremonies carry all men and women with
it. The great cathedrals with their grand oi-gans and
chanting choristers, and hundreds of priests and monks
and bishops, the brilliant array of archbishops and cardi-
nals, present a spectacle which lifts the soul and warms
the heart. The mind is in another atmosphere. The de-
lightful music sweeps in triumph through the air ; the
gorgeous costumes of the churchmen, the resonant voices
of the priests, the exercises of the white-robed boys before
the great altars, show us in indisputable language the

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LOWELL.

glories of that old religion of Rome which has its
home under no other sky. The air is changed there, the
churches, the monasteries, the convents, the poetry, litera-
ture, are all in one mould and from one common origin.
For centuries, Florence and Rome have been the great
seats of learning, of arts and of religion. An influence
has been created from these circumstances, and visitors of
every nationality have been more or less impressed by it.
Even Puritan John Milton felt this strange influence
when he called on Galileo. It would be curious indeed, if
Russell Lowell, in this nineteenth century, could not be
impressed by the magnificent surroundings in which he
found himself Under these circumstances he wrote his
great poem of The Cathedral, a work of the most delicate
poetic art and full of beauty of conception and idea."

"Another splendid poem of his is the memorial
tribute to Agassiz, also written, I think, abroad, in which
all of Lowell's generous characteristics appear. It is a
fine remembrance of a much-loved friend, as gorgeous in
its way as Tennyson's tribute to Hallam's memory, In
Memoriavi. It is a sweet, tender poem, not mawkishly
sentimental, but a vigorous outburst of genuine poetry,
every line of which breathes true aft'ection and reverence.
Mr. Lowell has not been more successful in any of his

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

writings tlian he has in his Agasdz. ii has the ring of
the true metal. The lines to William Lloyd Garrison, the
apostle of slave freedom, is a patriotic lyric, and I have
read no tenderer verses than those which Lowell wrotb to
the Memory of Hood, a poet with whom he held much
in common. Under the Willoius is a true Now England
pastora^ —delicate, refined, and musical. The story of the
scissors-grinder, a much-wandered man, who comes along
his way and sharpens his blade and chats awhile, is a
charming touch of nature, which Lowell aptly relates.
And then the children who come and rest by the tree
suggest some exquisite verses, which show how much the
tender-hearted bard loves the ' shrilling girls ' and boys
who cross his pathway. This little poem is full of good
things ; all of them gems. Lowell is always happy in the
bits he gives us about nature, which are as natural as the
subject is itself. His reputation will rest as a humorist
on his Bigloiv Papers, grim and full of satire as they are ;
and it is a pity he has resolved to give us no more of the
same. A third series, after more than a decade of years
has passed, would enlist a new and larger force of admirers.
As a poet, his Sir Launfal and The Cathedral will mark
his place in literature. Many of his minor poems and
sonnets do him infinite credit, and had he not written

LOWKLL.

are;

three or four gi'eat poems, these alone would entitle him
to rank among the chief of the poets of our age. Lowell
does not look the least like a poet. He has more of the
appearance of the severe critic, though his manner is kindly
and genial. His home in Cambridge is pleasantly situated
oft' the road, and the tall trees which are in front of the
house give the place a picturesque and beautiful appear-
ance. He calls his home Elm wood, a name that is singu-
larly appropriate. He is very hospitable and kind, and
every one loves him in return. He lives a little distance
beyond the house of Prof Longfellow, whom, by the way,
we had better discuss at our next evening meeting, before
we cross the river which separates Cand)ridge from
Boston."

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EVENINGS IN ''^HE LIBRARY.

No..-). LONGFKLlOW.

The Professor was turning over some engravings in his
portfolio the next evening, when Frank and Charles en-
tered the libraiy. He was looking at the charming face
of E^'angeline, holily saintly in its expression, and said,
" Twenty-five years make a great difference in a world's
literary history. I rememl)er the time in the days of the
Annuals, and Keepf^aken, Siud Yearly Visitors, which the
publishers used to give us, full of pretty pictures, and
harndess letterpress, when the poet and story-teller were
subservient to the artist and engraver. I recollect how
we used to buy these books and present them, with many
blushes and misgivings, to those dear ones, our sweet-
hearts. You boys were very young then, but it seems as
if it was only the other day that you sat by my side and
asked questions about the pictures, and teased me to read
you the stories, and tell you what the poetry meant. I
remember how gaudily bound these books were, and how
attractive the outside was, .and how dull the verses were,
and insipid the prose appeared. I have one — a fair average
copy of the series — on this table. Look at it. It was

(

LONGFELLOW.

given to your mother a (juarter of a century ago. See, it
is The Lady 8 Album for 18.51, The engravings are ratiier
good, indeed fully as well executed in those old times as
they could be to-day. The type too, is good and legible,
ard the volume, as a whole, is a creditable sj)ecimen of
book-making, but the reading matter is rubbish. We
have changed the order of things since then. The artist
has yielded to the })oet, and now geniuses like Mary Hal-
lock, Sol Etynge, and Birket Foster, illustrate the grand
thoughts of Longfellow, of Dickens, of Goldsmith, and of
Thomas Gray. The picture is poetized. The conception
of the poet is conceived again in the brain of the artist,
and with the idea before him he gives a pictorial illustra-
tion of that view as it occurs to him, or as his fancy paints
it. In the old days all the expense and labour were
lavished on the pictorial part of the book, and hack writers
were employed to write poetry and sketches to suit.
Dickens was once approached by Chapman and Hall, and
asked to furnish the vehicle for certain plates to be exe-:
cuted by Seymour, then at the height of fame. The
novelist, unknown and obscure as he was at the time, de-
murred at this, and suggested that it would be better for
the plates to arise naturally out of the text. After some
conversation, the publishers hesitatingly ado})ted his views.

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

and the famous P'lckwich Papers were written. I once
knew an ambitious magazine editor who contemplated
something of this kind. He heard that engravings could
be had at a very cheap price in Germany, after having
done duty once or twice in European publications. He
accordingly sent for some of these, and intended to intro-
duce them into the pages of his serial, and write the letter-
press himself to accommodate the circumstances of the
case. But the project failed. His magazine died before
the pictures came, and his readers were spared the inflic-
tion."

" But all of the Annuals you mention were not alike.
I have seen some that were interesting. The Irving
Offering, for instance, is quite clever, and the Bryant
Homestead Book is another. These contain some of the
gems of those fine writers, and the engravings are daintily
done and in excellent taste."

" The books you speak of are exceptions. I grant you
there are some very charming books occasionally issued
in the ' Annual ' form, but not many. I am not speaking
of the present day^ but only of the past. The Bryant
Book is only a volume of that poet, containing some of his
finest efforts, and illustrated by some choice pencils. It is
a modern book, and was published but the other day.

LONGFELLOW.

You see, the artisis illustrated the poet, not the poet the
ai-tists. The same may be said of The Itviikj Offering
Mr. Irving's fame was reached when that book came out,
and it is only a handsome copy of some of his sketches.
The artists followed him ; he did not follow the aitists.
It is no disparagement to the latter that it should be so.
All great painters choose their subjects, by common
consent, from some event which has happened, or from
some grand conception of the poet or historian, and they
show us how skilfully they can interpret that conception,
and how faithfully they can carry out that thought.
Maclise's greatest works illustrate a sea-fight, a meeting
of two veteran generals, a scene from Macbeth, and another
from Hamlet. The same with every painter, from the
earliest to the latest times. Some event furnished the
subject. The painter's originality lies in his conception
of his work. A sculptor should have a knowledge of
tailoring and millinery. He should be a good barber, aild
many great sculptors have been poets also. It is the tailor
which is in him which teaches him how to arrange the
drapery on his statue in the way in which it will look
the best, and give the highest effect. It is the barber in
his nature which arranges the coiflTure of his women, and
attaches the garland to the brow of his 01ymj)ian hero,

EVENINGS IN THE LIBllAllY.

11'.

If lie is not a barber, a tailor, and a milliner, he fails as a
sculptor, and a want ai)p«'ars in his work which destroys
its value as an a»sthetic performance, »ind lowers its value
in a money sense. Some landscape painters, who turn
out good work too, cannot paint figures. They are not
tailors, and the objects which they place in their pictures
often ruin the entire effect. A poet should have a know-
ledge of music and a correct idea of time. Without these,
his poetry nuist halt, and his feet grow uneven and slug-
gish. It is the melody which springs from every line of
Moore that delights us, and often catches us humming
over snatches of his songs. It is the quick-stepping num-
ber of Burns' verse which entrances us with his muse.
It is this organ of time and tune, which Longfellow has
in so wonderfully developed a state, wliich makes us love
his poetry so thoroughly, and enjoy it so heartily. Take,
as an example, his exquisite Psalm of Life which flows
on so musically. Ev ;ry word of it seems to grow more
pure and more rich with every successive reading. It
covers the whole ground of Wordsworth's ode, and teaches
us in a sublime way how to live and how to die. No one
can read it without feeling touched."

" Mr. Fields gives an interesting account of the origin
of this poem," said Frank, " I read it somewhere in a re-

L<>NGFELLOW.

port of one of his loctiuvs, I Uiink. The poet was sitting
between two windows, at a small ta]»le in liis c]iani])er,
looking out on a bi-ight siuniner morning in July, 1888.
He was busy with his feelings, and a})i)arcntly recovering
from some heavy weight of sorrow, when the beautiful
Psakn came into his n)ind, and with scarcely any effort
he jotted the lines down where he sat. His heart was
very full, and he ke})t the [)oem for many months before
giving it to the world. It was a voice from his inmost
heart, and he kept it. The line ' There is a reaper whose
name is death,' crystallized at once, without eftbrt, in the
poet's mind, says Mr. Fields, and he wrote it rapidly down,
with tears filling his eyes as he comj)Osed it."

" The poet-publisher has a wonderful collection of anec-
dotes, recollections, portraits, prints, letters and manu-
scripts, of all the famous authors for a hundred years back.
He has a letter of Charles Lamb's, and many curious
things of interest to a literary man. His lectures are full
of beauty, and his delightful Whispering Gallery Papers,
afterwards collected in the volume, Yesterdays With Au-
thors, contain facts and fancies about Hawthorne, Dickens,
Thackeray, and many others. Mr. Fields has met person-
ally all the great men of his time, and friends in England
and in Europe collected for him letters and sketches of

100

EVENIN(}S IN THE LIHllARY.

ill

the literaiy men and women who lived hefore his day.
One never tires of listonini; to his talk or readin*^ his
books. He gives the origin of most things of literary
character in them. Longfellow's fine hallad of Tlie Wreck
of the Hesperuj<, he tells us, was written in 1839. A storm
occurred the night before, and as the poet sat smoking his
pipe, about midnight, by the fire, the wrecked Hesperus
came sailing into his mind. He went to bed, but the
poem had seized him and he could not sleep. He got up
and wrote the celebrated verses. ' The clock was striking
three,' Longfellow himself says, ' when I finished the
last stanza.' The poem came into his mind by whole
stanzas, not by lines, and he wrote without let or hindrance."
" I think," remarked Charles, " that we take more inter-
est in an author's work when we know the circumstances
under \v^hich certain parts of it were composed. Next to
the Skeleton in Armourl think The Wreck of the Hesperus
the noblest ballad Longfellow has written. It smells of
the storm and of the sea, and the splendid story wb^* h
the pot t tells us of a father's death at the helm, and a
iiiaideL s fate on that dreadful night, is intensely drama-
tic in incident and description. What can be finer than
this ; —

LOXGFELLOW.

101

" He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast ;
He out a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.

If.

' ' O father ! I hear the church-bells ring,
say wliat may it be ? '
' 'Tia a fog-bell on the rock-bound coast !'- ■
And he steered for the open sea.

" ' father ! I hear the sound of guns,
say what may it be ? '
Hut the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he,

• Lashed to the ULn, all stiff and stark,
WiLu his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes,

" Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savfed she might be ;
And she thought of Christ who stilled the wave
On the Lake of Galilee.

# # # # *

*'At day-break, on the bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.

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102 EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

* The salt sea was frozen on her breast,

'i'he salt tears in her eyes ; ^ -''

And he saw her hair, like the brown sei weed,
On the billows fall and rise.

" Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow !
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's woe ? "

" The ] )allad is indeed striking," said the professor, " and
I don't wonder at Longfeilow's sleeplessness with such a
thought tearing through his brain. It is singular what an
effect his more vigorous poems have had upon his mind.
Thty seem to have come upon him with an almost mad-
dening energy, and refused quiet to him until they were
committed to paper. The Skeleton in Armour appeared to
him in 1849, as he was riding along the beach, at New-
port, on a summer's afternoon. A short time before that
a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken
and corroded armour. It made a profound impression on
the bard, and to it we are indebted for one of the most
glorious ballads of the age. The poet connected the skel-
eton with the Round Tower, usually known to the peo|)le
round-about as the Old Windmill. Now, the tower is
claimed by the Danes as the work of their early ancestors.
So great an authority as Professor Rafn inclines to this

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LONGFELLOW.

103

beli^, and boldly declares the structiiie to be a geimiiie
specimen o£ architecture built not later than the twelfth
century. This applies to the original building at New-
port only, and not to the * improvements ' that it has re-
ceived from time to time, since it was first erected. There
are several such alterations in the upper part of the build-
ing which cannot be mistaken, and which were probably
used in modern times for different purposes. The wind-
mill was a later alteration, but the base remains in all its
ancient glory. These are the materials which supplied
Longfellow with a theme for a ballad. The skeleton would
not be laid until the solitary horseman promised a poem.
In this we have the poet in his boldest vein, and eveiy
verse rings like the notes of the clarion. It is unques-
tionably his grandest and strongest piece of writing. The
masterly touches of the balladist remind us of some of
the great things one finds in Percy. One can take it up
at any time, but the old story always seems fresh and new,
and one never grows weary of the admirable lay. Long-
fellow has written scarcely more than four or five ballads,
but every one of them is a gem. The Elected Knight, from
a Danish legend, and the Luck of Edenhall, from the Ger-
man, with the two I have mentioned, form a quartette of
ballad rhyme hardly equalled by a poet of our century."

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KVENTNGS IN THE LIBRARY.

" I think no one can read Longfellow without being im-
pressed, I was going to say, saturated with his genius. It
is broad and expansive. Even in his simplest poems, bits
such as one finds in Tales of a Wayside Inn, which con-
tains so much that is beguiling and chrrming, one is struck
with the beauty and power of Longfellow's mind. He
never trifles with his muse, nor writes with an air of af-
fectation, such as we often see in poets of even good stand-
ing. He never sacrifices sense to sound, nor indulges in
rare words. His style is of the greatest simplicity, and
everyone can read Longfellow and understand him. He
never sends you scouring through old glossaries looking
for unknown terms, as Mr. Browning does much too fre-
quently, by the way, for his own reputation, nor does he
indulge in hidden meanings or obscure metaphors. He
accomplishes his purpose without theatrical aid and the
precarious effect of red fire. He does not clothe his char-
acters in the cast-off" garments which figured in the images
of the works of the old poets. He is a discoverer, for he
has found in the New World a race of people hitherto un-
described by the poet. He has gone into the forests and
wild woods, and learned the traditions and legends of the
red people of the land; and, in his own splendid way, with
the fire of his genius flashing from every verse, he has

LONGFELLOW.

105

■3

sung to us in undying numbers the Song of Hiawatha, a
poem which marks Longfellow's place in literature — a
work which will always live. It is a history of a race
that is fast passing away, a tribute perhaps which ought
to be paid by the Circassian to the man of Colour, to the
first owner of the territory. What an irresistible charm
there is in this beautiful story of Hiawatha and the lovely
Minnehaha, with its resonant but curious and unmistaka-
ble metre — a measure which is peculiarly Longfellowian,
and which will always be identified with him. With what
delight do we turn the wonderful pages of the volume and
read again the work, which stands alone, unlike anything
ever seen before. How full and sweet and tender are the
verses, and how much power and vigour the poet has con-
trived to concentrate into them. The song is divided into
parts, but each section may be read alone without injuring
the continuity of the whole. A slender thread binds the
sheaves together, but you can read the * wooing ' or the
' famine,' and stop there if you want to, for the story is
complete in every part. The public reader finds much
that is admirable in any of the songs, but to read them
on the platform as they should be read, — to read them
without relapsing into tedious sing-song, requires almost

as much genius as it required to write them in the first
o

IOC)

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

■ <

place. I shall never forgive a lady I once heard read 'The
Wooing,' whose ridiculous taste made her pronounce
' Minnie,' and laugh the 'ha-ha' outright. You can hardly
conceive how disastrous her performance was. The poem
was ruined, and her voice, as shrill as a chanticleer's on a
bright morning, grated on the ears of the auditors, harshly
and offensively. And this lady had some character as a
reader. I shall never forget her ; and she amazed me as
much as Mrs. Scott Siddons did, when she corrected
Tennyson, and altered Tom Hood. Would you believe it,
this lady actually changed the full meaning ' Christian
charity ' of Hood, to the meaningless * human charity ' of
her own mind. I think public reciters should be taught
that it is a crime punishable by law to mutilate a classic
author. But I suppose we must put up with their arro-
gance and bad taste ; and when we find our favourite lines
in Burns and Byron twisted and turned till we fail to re-
cognise them again, we must put it down to the superior
genius of the performers on the stage, and forgive them
as we have long ago learned to forgive the fantastic tricks
which Colley Gibber played with Shakespeare."

" You are hard on our platform celebrities," said Frank,
" but hardly more so than some of them deserve. They
are worse than bad actors, for these unfortunate knights

LONGFELLOW.

107

of the sock and buskin at least speak wliat is s(3t down
for them, and rarely dare to substitute their own lan-
guage for the author's, unless they are altogether be-
yond redemption. Old actors like Macready and For-
rest, the legends of the Green-room tell us, have
crushed young avspirants when through nervousness or
fright they forgot words and even lines sometimes in the
text, with a dark frown and a 'remember, sir, this is Shakes-
peare,' and the young actor seldom forgot the lesson in
after life. Had Mrs. Siddons — not the great one — been a
success on the stage, and served a proper apprenticeship
to it, she would not have had the hardihood afterwards to
offend our ideas of taste, by substituting her own weak
words for the grand utterances of the masters in litera.
ture."

" We were speaking of Longfellow's Hiawatha" said
Charles, " and I am a little curious to know, sir, if you
consider that the poet has put into it his best work. Has
he wi'itten it, like Tennyson has written his Idyls of Die
King, with, the intention of allowing his fame to rest there?
It is a coincidence that the two greatest poets of our day,
speaking the same language, but living under different
governments, should have each chosen a national subject
as the ground-work of their fame."

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EVENINaS IN THE LIBRARY.

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" Yes," observed the piofessor, " I see a coincidence, and
I think Longfellow himself thinks that Hiawatha is his
first work in power. Just notice how perfect it is in de-
ail, and how finished it is in execution ! There is not
a line in the whole work that could be removed with-
out being missed. It is a permanent contribution, not
only to the literature of the New World — and I think it
has a literature — but also to that great republic of letters
which extends throughout the whole globe. It is full of
pictures of fancy, sometimes of a weird nature, but always
anciful and airy. A certain grace, too, hovers about
always, and the strange fascination with which the songs
are surcharged n(iver leaves them. Longfellow has written
many exquisite things ; his muse takes a wide range, and
he has travelled a good deal, and has seen a great part of
the world. Of an observant nature, and of aesthetic and
delicate tastes, he has seen everything worth seeing, and
his glorious fancy and warm imagination have peopled his
brain with the most elegant and beautiful images. These he
has given to us in the shape of those poems and sonnets
and songs which have so enriched our common literature.
You meet with something striking in Longfellow when
you least expect it. He is always so felicitous, that you
sometimes think he will never give you anything rugged

LONGFELLOW.

109

and bold, and you get to expect only pretty fancies, clothed
in eloquent and sweet-sounding English. He seems to put
his whole life into his poems, as if they were but parts of
himself. His extensive reading and culture have brought
him into intimate acquaintance with the best writings of
the old world poets, and many of his sweetest lyrics and
idyls are given as translations from these bards."

" But Longfellow has given us many poems which are
not translations ; poems which are descriptive of scenes
and incidents in out of the way nooks and corners of the
old world. These are rich in imagery, and the drapery
which hangs about them is of the choicest texture, and
reminds one of an Eastern fabric. I cannot name them
all here, there are so many of them. Have you read Ga
denabbia, Monte Cassino, Awalji, The Old Bridge at
Florence — that delightful sonnet which speaks so elo-
quently — and that dainty bit, Tlie Songo River 1- Or
turn again the pages, and dip into those robust strains
which we find in the batch of verses called By the Seaside.
Here we have a stirring poem, as familiar as some of the
songs of Dibdin, the ever tresh Building of the Sfdp,
which has received the honour of quotation more than
any other of Longfellow's poems, and Sir Hvmiphreij Oil-
hert and The Lighthouse among the rest. But turn where

110

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRAllY.

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you will, our poet has left nothing untouched. By the
fireside we discover him telling some gentle story to a
gi'oup of enraptured inmates of the cottage. Perhaps it
is The Birds of Passage, or the tender Suspiria, or that
matchless gem, The Hanging of the Crane, which every
young wife should have by her, that we hear. And where
shall we get a finer burst of song than The Blind Oirl of
Castel-Guille, from the Gascon of Jasmin, which the poet
gives us so metrically, and which is full of his best figures ?
I think, more and more, that Longfellow's popularity is
greatei' than Tennyson's even in England. Away from the
towns and cities, in cottage homes, in hamlets, the sweet
singer of Cambridge is known and loved, and well-thumbed
volumes of his })oems show how much he is read and en-
joyed. His audiences are larger than the Laureate's. He
appeals to a wider circle. His humanity is not broader,
but his poetry has more soul in it, and it reaches the heart
quicker, and brings out the better nature which is in man.
His songs have been written for the people, for the labour-
ing classes, who work out in the fields and till the ground.
The songs of nature which he has written are for them,
and we find his works at their firesides, and hard, brown
hands tuin the leaves. Tennyson does not always reach
these homes. His books— *<imall and neat as they are, and

LONGFELLOW.

Ill

it takes a dozen of them to hold all his poems — are met
with in the parlours and drawing-rooms of the intelligent
upper classes who read ; but here, too, Longfellow has a
place, and his books find a welcome as hearty and as
genuine as the Laureate's own. Everyone who reads
Tennyson reads Longfellow also. Longfellow does not
belong to America only, but to the whole world. He is
more popular in England to-day than any other poet of
this century, and his great ode on the death of the War-
den of the Cinque Ports, originally prepared, I think, for
the old Patnam's Magazine, was pronounced superior to
Tennyson's ode on the same subject — though both are fine
compositions. His reputation has been earned by hard
work alone. No man has taken gi-eater pains with his
work, and he deserves every honour he has received. Poe,
long ago, called him a man of true genius, and Griswold
has written somewhere, ' of all our poets, Longfellow best
deserves the title of artist. He has studied the princi-
ples of verbal melody, and rendered himself master of the
mysterious affinities which exist between sound and sense,
word and thought, feeling and expression.' We take an
interest in Longfellow because he has made immortal a bit
of our own territory — the land of Evangeline. This is a
simple enough story, but as told by the poet it has Ix^corue

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112

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

a clas-sic. Every one is familiar with it, and I need at
this time do nothing more than merely refer to it in pass-
ing. Of course you have heard the origin of this legend ? "
'' No, tell it to us."

" Well, Longfellow has never been in Nova Scotia, and
the story that the old settlers in Acadia used to tell among
themselves was once recounted to Hawthorne in Longfel-
low's home, by a mutual friend who wished the novelist
to make it the subject of a romance. But for some reason
or other, Hawthorne did not grasp the idea with readiness,
and Longfellow begged the gentleman to tell the tale
again, and stand in the west and say what he saw. The
legend was icpeated, and Grand Pr6 was described mi-
nutely. The poet jotted down the words as they fell from
his visitor's lips, and asked a monopoly of the subject.
This was at once yielded to him, and in a little while one
of the poet's most delightful poems was published. He
has often felt an anxiety to visit the spot which his pen
had made so famous, and which has become a place of pil-
grimage by tourists, but, thus far, has not been able to ac-
complish the journey."

" What a faithful description of the place the poet has
gi ven. You could almost fancy that he had lived at Grand
Pr^ all his life. I see Longfellow has attempted the dra-

LONGFELLOW.

113

niatic form of composition. Do you think him successful
in this ? "

"His dramas are only beautiful poems, and hehas written
nothing suitable for the stage. His dramas could not be
acted. They lack motive power. The best of them all is
The Spanish Student, and this is certainly a drama which
has merit. It is cast in the Shakespeaiian mould, and the
wit in it is of the kind which we find in Touchstone. It
is grotesque and playful. There are eighteen characters
in the play, and these are conceived with more or less suc-
cess. Victorian and Hypolito are rather well executed.
The Count of Lara is the villain, only tolerably managed,
and Preciosa, a beautiful gipsy, is happily conceived.
Chispa, Victorian's servant, has all the spirit of the piece,
and he is a cleverly drawn personage. His wit is abund-
ant and quick, and when lie does not remind you of the
King's jester, he smacks strongly of Launcelot Gobbo. He
is the life of the drama, and though the plot is old, it is
not tedious. The dialogue is sprightly. There are some
prettily worded soliloquies, and a few songs and serenades
which give the play a Spanish flavour. As a whole. The
Spanish Student is a pleasant thing to read, and many of
the passages are quite graceful. In the same field Long-
fellow has pursued his work. In the form of the drama

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he haw woven together some very excellent ideas, and his
New England TrcujedieH are powerful porti-ayals of char-
acter, and the diction is full of energy. Johii Endicott is
the title of the first of these. It is descriptive of the old
times in New England when the Quakers were persecuted
and tormented. The colouring is exceedingly warm, and
while one could easily perceive the work to be Longfel-
low's, he has excluded a good many of his characteristics.
The two Endicotts, father and son, and Christisin, the
Quakeress, are painted with fine efiect, and John Norton
is drawn with some vigour. The incidents are good, and
the situations are managed with true conception of art.
In the other tragedies we have a glimpse of Salem witch-
craft. The title of it is Giles Covey. It is a more suc-
cessful assumption, in a dramatic point of view, than the
other. Indeed this is a powerful piece, and the situations
are very exciting and realistic. The spirit of the piece is
well carried out."

" Longfellow has thrown a good deal of his work into
the dramatic form, has he not ? I remember reading,
some years ago, his Oolden Legend, which then seemed to
me like one of the passion plays of Oberammergan ; and
there is another of the same class — The Divine Tragedy,
>vhich is even better dune than the Golden Legend, and

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115

descrihe.s the life and doith of HiriHt. I t1i()a<,'lit it .sin-
gularly faithful to the Scriptures as I had read them."

*• Chrlatus — A Mijatery, .stands outasa Herculean labour
of the poet. It has taken many years to ))ring his Chris-
tian poems to the state (if perff?ction in which they are
now. They show inspiration and boldness. This last
volume is one cf the noblest in our lan^^uage. It com-
prises all that Longfellow has done in this dir' ction, and in-
cludes The Divine Tnujedfj, 'The Golden Legend, and The Neiu
England Tragedies, with prelude, interludes, and finale —
a Christian's library ly a Christian poet. These books
place Longfellow in even a higher [)osition than he occu-
pied before as a world's poet. He has struck, through
them, a blow at popular prejudice, which falls with tre-
mendous force and crushing effect. They are the outcome
of a ripe and thoughtful mind. In Judas Maccaboius we
have a specimen of Longfellow's tragic skill. It is in five
acts, and in this compass we have a history of the subjec-
tion of the Jews. There are masterly touches in this pro-
duction, and it is written in fine spirit."

" A good many of the poet's songs have been set to
music. The Bridge is one of these, and also Beware, which
is very popular with singei-s. I .saw in an old number of

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

r 1

Fraser, I believe it was, this song rendered into Latin by
Dr. Maginn. Have you ever met with it ? "

" No, but if you remember it, I should like to hear it."
" Yes, I have it. 1 copied it at the time, and if you will
give me your attention I will read it.

" ' Eat virgo, — ne crede, pucr, cui perfida ridet, —
Nam bifrons ilia est, sivva et arnica simul ;
Corpore prteatanti, quil noii eat piilchrior ore,—
Te capit, improvidum, ludificatque, — Cave !

" ' En £jeminos, — ne crede, puer, cui perfida ridet, —
Subtiles oculos, quos habet ilia, vagos,
Dejicit, attollit, versut^ hue volvit et illuc, —
Te capit, improvidum, ludiiicatque, — Cave!

" ' Auratai, — ne crede, puer, cui perfida ridet, —
Effusaj pendunt, colla per alba, comju.
Subridet bland6, loquitur mendacia fingens,--
Te capit, improvidum, ludificatque, — Cave.

" ' Candidior, — ne crede, puer, cui perfida ridet, —
Quam nix nectareua, qua,' cadit alba, sinus ;
Scit quando et quantum valeat monstrare puella, —
Te capit, improvidum ludificatque, —Cave !

♦' ' Nunc flores, — ne crede, puer, cui perfida ri'lot, —
Purpureoa docta coUigit ilia manu,

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LONGFELLOW. 117

Sertum aptil fingit, — capreje est tibi pileus, — arte, —
Te capit, improvidum, ludificatiiue, — Cave ! ' "

" What a curious fellow Maginn was, all learning and
grotesqueness, as hotblooded and erratic as Hook and at
times as quaint as Barham. He belonged to Cork, and
John Gait, the father of the Canadian Statesman, Sir A.
T. Gait, once wrote to Lady Blessington of him in this
way ; * Dr. Maginn is a man, Blackivood says, of singular
talent and good learning ; indeed, some of the happiest
things in the magazine have been from his pen.' He was
a great admirer of Longfellow, and respected his genii^s
and talents."

" Longfellow has met with the highest success as a trans-
lator. Familiar with most languages and possessed of the
keenest perceptions, he has been able to turn out excellent
work. Scattered through his poems one sees many pieces
from foreign tongues, all of them delightful compositions,
and distinguished alike for their literal following of the
original and great beauty in themselves. Longfellow's
reading has been so varied and wide that scarcely an old
legend exists which he has not ferreted out and turned to
account. In the by-ways of Europe he has found a vast
quantity of almost forgotten lore, and many of his best
poems owe their origin to some humble story or incident,

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

which reached him in various ways. Thus, foi* instance,
that remarkable French divine and preacher, Jacques
Bridaine, whose sermons produced terrible dismay among
his congregation, furnished in a disquisition the subject
matter of one of the poet's sublimest efforts. In a sermon
on Eternity, preached at St. Sulpice, in Paris, about 1754,
Bridaine compared Eternity to the poidulum of a clock,
which swayed ceaselessly, murmuring ; Toujour si jamais!
jamais ! toujours I Forever, never ; never, forever ! This
sermon caused great excitement at the time in Paris, and
people were driven in some cases into insanity by it. As
soon as Mr. Longfellow read it, he was struck with its
wonderful powt r, and the beautiful idea which it con-
veyed. But he could not get it out of his mind for sev-
eral days * Toujours ! jamais ! ja'mais ! toujours ! ' ran
in his head, and his mind turned constantly to it. He
had to use the idea, which haunted him like a nightmare,
and he wrote TJte Old Clock on the Stairs, and how much
we owe Bridaine for that exquisite poem which goes to
every heart !

" 'Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain and care,
And death and time shall disappear.
Forever there but never here

LONGFELLOW.

119

The horologe of eternity —
Sayeth this incessantly, —
" Forever — never !

Never^Forever I "

" You said just now that Longfellow was a literal trans-
lator. Is his magnificent work, Tlie Divina Commedia, of
Dante, a literal translation, or is it like Pope's Homer ? "

" It is almost word for word in the language of the great
Italian, the most faithful translation thus far written.
For a long time, Gary's Dante was the recognised author-
ity, and, so far back as 1809, The Worth American Review
pronounced it with confidence the most literal translation
in poetry in our language, and Prescott wrote in 1824 to
Gary : ' I think Dante would have given him a place in his
ninth heaven, if he could have foreseen his translation.
It is most astonishing, giving not only the literal corres-
ponding phrase, but the spirit of the original, the true
Dantesque manner. It should be cited as an evidence of
the compactness, the pliability, the sweetness of the Eng-
lish tongue.' In 1839, the year when Mr. Longfellow
published five passages from the Furgatorio, Gary's repu-
tation stood higher than it did in 1824, A recent writer,
G. W. Greene, well versed in the Italian language and
poetry, and competent in every way for the task, in a

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

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masterly review of Dante's Divina Gommedia, makes
comparisons between Gary and our poet, and unhesitat-
ingly states that Longfellow's work, with its fourteen
thousand two hundred and seventy-eight lines, corres-
ponds word for word with the original Italian ; and no
one claims that much for Gary. The leading scholars of
the day, Gharles Elliot Norton among the number, unite
in the assertion that Longfellow's translation is the only
pure English version of the Italian, and must be accepted
as the standard. Mr. Greene, in his estimate, has been
very careful and impartial, and his criticism will be read
by every candid reader with great pleasure. He makes
his points with admirable tact, and the long excerpts
which he introduces are the best authorities he could
have for his statements. Mr. Greene, in his review, shows
good scholarship and a thorough knowledge of his sub-
ject. No one can read Longfellow's Dante without a vast
deal of pride and pleasure. It is a grand work, and as we
have it, it reads like an English poem, and every page
bears on its face the imprint of genius."

" But Longfellow even does not .stop here. He is, be-
sides being a poet and a translator, a novelist of singular
excellence, and a prose essayist also. His poetic tastes
have aided him materially in the composition of his lesser,

LONGFELLOW.

121

though bright and attractive, writings in prose. No one
but a poet could have written Kavanagh — a story of
wonderful grace and delicacy, with just the faintest touch
of humour in it. It is full of pleasant things and delight-
ful conversations and descriptions. One is interested
from the start with the fortunes of Churchill the school-
master, of Kavanagh the preacher, and the two charming
girls, Alice and Cecile, while the smaller characters of the
tale are formed with equal tact. We have met a hundred
times with that fellow who sold linens and wrote poetry
for the village newspaper, and who spoke blank verse in
the bosom of his family ; and his sister is another charac-
ter, often seen in real life, and met at intervals ; and who
has not fallen in with Mr. Hathaway, who sighs for a na-
tive and national literature, and grows sanguine on the
subject of magazines ? And the young lady poet, and
poor Lucy, are all types of humanity equally as familiar.
How exquisite is the grouping of these individuals, and
how deliciously Longfellow brings out the peculiar traits
in each. The whole reads like a fascinating poem, and
one turns from it to Evangeline and back again without
losing a particle of the charm which enriches all of the
poet's writings."

"I have taken especial inteiest in the poet's pjost^

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRAKY.

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works. To me they seem like veritable poems, and
Kavanagh is a splendid picture of life in a New England
village. Apart from the story which forms the frame-
work of this tale, and brings out with good effect Long-
fellow's keen knowledge of mankind, Kavanagh is an ele-
gant piece of descriptive writing. The words are well
and aptly chosen, and while always felicitous, there is an
entire absence of that grandiloquent or redundant ver-
biage which grows so tiresome and dull in some authors.
One wants to read this tale in a leisurely way, and stop
now and then at a page, and drink in what the poet says.
What a tender bit of writing is that chapter which reveals
to Alice the story of the preacher's love for Cecile, and
the heroic beha,viour of the brave girl, in another chapter,
when her friend seeks her congratulations, and tells her of
her engagement. Lucy's sad death, Alice's illness and
death, the exquisite table-talk in the thirteenth chapter,
the glimpses we get now and then of Churchill's home,
and his wise sayings, the preacher's little study in the old
tower, and the bits of quiet philosophy and good-natured
raillery here and there, are unapproachable for beauty of
composition. One feels the subtle power of Longfellow,
the roraai; .. ^^nd it seems a pity that a man who can
write sue vhjs should have given us so few of them.

E'ltiikWiAP

LONGFELLOW.

123

ber,

Kavanagh and Hyperion seem to have cost the author
little trouble. They are written in the simplest lan^niage,
conceived with the truest genius, and executed in the
highest principle of art. That is why these tales, which
are merely plain narrative.^, captivate the reader on the
instant, and throw around him the spell of enchantment."

" But Longfellow is not only novelist and poet, but he
is also a very agreeable essayist. I think his short papers
are as pleasant in their way as some of Hazlitt's. In his
Driftvjood, he treats us to a variety of subjects, and all
of them are pungent and happy, and exhibit his scholarly
attainments to an eminent degree. Indeed Frithiof's
Saga is a notable paper and quite instructive. The legend
is well told, and the sketch we have of the work of Swe-
den's noblest poet, Esaias Tcgn^r, will make the reader
seek to know further of the good bishop whose poetic
genius and brilliant imagination place him in the front
rank of European bards."

" These Driftwood Papers were written some forty
years ago. Paris in the Seventeenth Century, which gives
a view of Louis XIV. and his court, Amjlo-Saxo7i Litera-
ture, and Twice-told Tales, l)elong to this serit's, and they
display clevei' analysis and fine workmanship. In the
pages devoted to Table Talk, there are some very bcauti-

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

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ful thoughts which contain a world of wisdom in a little
space : let me quote a few of the more piquant of these to
show you the bent of Longfellow's mind at thirty. He
says :

*' ' If you borrow my books, do not mark them ; for I
shall not be able to distinguish your marks from my own,
and the pages will become like the doors in Bagdad,
marked l)y Morgiana's chalk.'

" * Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful
bird-cages and toothpicks, if his brain had not been so
full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed. in
small things if they were not troubled with great
ambitions.'

" ' A torn jacket is soon mended ; but hard words bruise
the heart of a child.'

" ' Authors, in their prefaces, generally speak in a con-
ciliatory, deprecating tone of the critics, whom they hate
and fear ; as of old the Greeks spake of the Furies as the
Eumenides, the benign godesses.'

" ' Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, point-
ing out the beauties of a work, rather than its defects.
The passions of men have made it malignant, as the bad
heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose,
into an instrument of torture,'

LONGFELLOW.

125

" ' A thouMit often makes us hotter than fiie.'
" ' Some critics are like cliininey-sweeperH ; they put
out the fire below, or frighten the swallows from their
nests above ; they scrape a long time in the chimney,
cover themselves with soot, and bring nothing away but
a bag of cinders, and then swing from the top of the house
as if they had built it.'

" You see the kindly heartfulness of the poet in all
these, but underlying the whole there is the merest tinge
of satire, a sort of ofood-natured badinaije. Longfellow is
of too sensitive a nature to wound, knowingly, the feel-
ings of any one."

" * I think the satiric element, slight though it be, is the
spice of the essay. It is what that fine orator, Wendell
Phillips, would call the snapper of the whip. One enjoys
Hyperion in much the same way as Hawthorne's Marble
Faun is enjoyed. The talk about art in the latter is not
a whit behind the conversations which we get in some of
the chapters of Hyperion about Goethe, Tieck and Uhland
on literary matters generally. These scraps of talk, ele-
gant as they are as relations, reveal the poet-stoiy teller
as a critic, and we get his estimates of books and authors
in a very pleasant way. In that other book of his. Outre-

126

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

mer-h pilgrinia^'c beyond the sea, tlio saiiK^ felicitous
style appears in the ornate collection of essays which it
contains. They (lis])lay a cultured imagination, ample
reading, and critical observation. The sul)jects treated of
embrace a pleasing variety, and consist of literaiy, social,
and miscellaneous matters. Those who love to read the
old poetry of France, and who take delight in learning
more of those ancient minstrels who delighted and
charmed all Europe six or eight centuries ago, will find in
the Trouveres of Longfellow a seasonable dish for the
palate. The Troubadours, and the rich and quaint litera-
ture which belongs to them, afford the poet abundant
material, and he has made good use of his o])portunity.
He has engrafted into his paper the curious lore which
he has picked up in his travels through France, and he
has preserved much from f{\lling into decay which might
have been lost forever. In personal poems and sonnets,
we have many choice compositions from our bard's pen.
The most noteworthy of these is the [)oem written about
his truest friend, Charles Sumner, after that great states-
man's death. For a long term of years the friendship
which these men had for each other was unshaken, and
unaltered. On every side the senator saw old familiars
estranged from him, and once when he drove through

LONGFELLOW.

127

Beacon street in Boston, almost every resident closed his
house and shut his blinds. Only two gentlemen failed to
express themselves in this way, and it was through no
love of Sumner that one of them acted thus. He didn't
like to shut his doors on the young man, he said, and that
was all. But Longfellow, with that beaming generous
smile which his face always wears, that sure index of the
nobility of his character, stretched forth his hand, and
welcomed home again Charles Sunmer, whose virtues men
see now when it is too late. All through life this friend-
ship was kept up between the two kindred spirits. The
sonnets to Keats, Milton, Shakespeare, and Chaucer, are
the sublimest and most characteristic things we have from
Longfellow's pen. They are full of true poetry."

" Mr. Longfellow is an able editor, and his work in this
capacity has been voluminous. The Poets and Poet)^ of
Europe, contains all that is worth publishing in the form
of translation from the poets of Iceland, Portugal, Den-
mark, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy and other coun-
tries. In these volumes not only do we find Longfellow's
own translations, but also those of Lowell, Bayard Taylor,
Leland, Bryant, Rossetti, and many others. These books
have passed through several editions, and they are still
popular with readers. Recently Mr. Longfellow has un-

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(lertakon to supply inattei- for a new field of liti'iaturo.
Ho has edited an exijuisite series of })0()ks of poetry called
The Poems of Places. These cxhihit the masterpieces of
poetry, and no one; can take up a volume of this series
without reading it through. I'hc; poems are so well set
that they captivate the reader at once and insist on peru-
sal. All the favourite poems we knew long ago seem to
be included in this collection, and the editor has shown
good critical discrimination in making his selection from
the wealth of material at his command."

" Have you ever met Longfellow ? "

" Oh ! yes, I have met him several times. The first
time T saw him was at Harvard during the inauguration
of the present President, Charles W. Eliot. He is one of
the most genial of men, of easy manner and handsome
features. His conversations are tinctured with frcvshness
and originality, and his talks are as enjoyable as his poetry.
His library is a perfect museum of the curious in letters.
One case is filled with editions of his own books, and
there must be at this time very little less than a luindred
and fifty distinct editions. He preserves his manuscript
in most instances, and he has in this room in another case,
written like copper-plate, his chief poems, handsomely
bound. He was born in Portland, Maine, February 27,

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129

1JS07, ami is now seventy years of ajL;e. On tlu; occasion
of his birthday he received a ninnber of poems dedicatory
of the event. One — a sonnet of sonie merit — T will
quote : —

" ' Not Italy'H great poet held more dear,

Nor studied with more love his master's book,

Tlian I do humbly thine, where, as I look
A thousand beauteous images aj)i)ear,
Reflected on the page in colours clear.

The heart's most holy thoughts as oft a brook.

Displays the secrets of the misty nook.
Some leafy bough between denies the seer ;
For thou lov'st all the world, and seek'st to raise

Fresh hopes in man and cheer him to his goal,
A perfect life, but when he still obeys

His lower nature, thy prophetic soul
Peaceful trusts all to God with prayers and praise,

Who bids the eternal ages onward roll. '

" Longfellow is still vigorous in mind, and appears to
enjoy excellent health and spirits. His home is in Cam-
bridge, and the house he lives in is rendered historic as
the residence of Washington in the last century. But it
is getting late, and I think we had better put away our
books and papers for to-night, and vv^hen you come again
we will talk about that other singer, whose writings, too,
are loved by all mankind, that broad, charitable Christian,
poet and lyrist, John Greenleaf Whittier."

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No. 6. WHITTIER.

" I AM of the opinion," said the Professor to his nephews,
as they sat in the dining-room sipping their coffee after a
late dinner, and cracking jokes and walnuts together,
" that Whittier is, with admirable show of reason, the
poet of Patriotism. He is a true lyrist and a genuine
maker oi ballads for the people and of songs for the home-
ly. He seems to adopt that (juaint phrase of Andrew
Fletcher, who, in a letter to the Marquis of Montrose, re-
marked, that he knew a very wise man who believed that
if a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need
net care who should make the laws of a nation. He has
woven this maxim into his character so strongly, and so
thoroughly, that it has become a part of himself. He
breaks out into song at will, and all his songs and lyrics
are full of patriotism and freedom. An obscure writer in
a magazine once vulgarly said, that because Whittier was
a Quaker, and wore a broad-lnimmed hat, he could not be
a representative American poet. He seemed to forget
that a man does not alwjiys wear his characteristics on
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WHITTIER.

131

hat. Tlie reasoning of this critic is as fallacious as it is
silly. The American is eager, he says ; the Quaker is
subdued. Because Whittier does not boast and is not
loud-mouthed, this elegant writer declares the poet of
Amesbury to be no genuine American. Because Whittier
has written no long poem, which, in the opinion of John
Keats, was a sure test of the inventive power, our criticlays
down the rule that his imagination is poor, that there is
no variety to his verse, that his narratives halt, and he is
wearisome to a degree. This is wholesome denunciation,
truly, and quite refreshing to read in this day."
" Why, uncle, you are getting warm over it."
"And no wonder. I have spent very many hours turn-
ing over the leaves of his books of song, and drinking in
the exquisite touches of nature that come u])permost so
often in his evenly-turned verse. He strikes a note and
every fibre of the heart throbs. What splendid painting
there is in his winter idyl, Siuyw-Bonnd ? How gloriously
and yet how delicately does he (.lescribe a household which
we all recognise. It is not a poeui alone for an old man
like me to read. It is full of that joyousness of youth
and nerve, which ■ admirably suits the lusty young mind.
There are lines in it which make the blood rush to the
cheek. There are refrains in it which rouse the soul,ai»<l

132

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

there are quiet glimpses of gentle home-life which till the
mind with beautiful thoughts, and make the wanderer
from the homestead feel a longing and a sighing to be
back again to the old home he has left. It is a poem which
is best read when the blasts whistle without, and the
dancing snow fills the air. One enjoys it more when it is
bleakest, and it should be read before crackling blazing
logs, with the family group for listeners in some far off
cabin home. Scott says, Melrose Abbey should only be
viewed by moonlight, though in 1830, the wizard told Sir
John Bo wring that he never saw the Abbey after set of
sun. Whittier's picture of a winter in New England
should be read at night in the winter time, in some far-
mer's rugged house. In such a spot these lines would
ring out in grander measure :

:':

" ' The moon above the eastern wood
Shone at its full ; the hill-range stood
Transfigured in the silver flood,
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen,
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine
Took shadow, or the sombre green
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light.

WHITTIER.

Which only seemed where'er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

133

" ' Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-vdnged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat ;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught
The great throat of the chimney laughed,
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ;
And, for the winter fireside meet.
Between the andirons' straddling feet.
The mug of cider simmered slow.
The np'jles sputtered in a row,
And, cl<>r(; at hand, the basket stood
\'^ itl: i.'it; from brown October's wood.' "

"I agree with you, said Charles, "the picture is very
complete. I have been often struck witli its excellence.
It is in reality a view of the gentle poet's delightful home
in the legenda •} old town of Haverhill, Mass., where he
was born in i hVS. He has traced witli artistic fidelity

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

this sketch of his early home-life. The house, dark and
small in the landscape of snow, is his own. The rude-
furnished room, the andirons, the hearth, the house-dog,
the family circle, all complete a scene faithful to nature
itself. The poet has left nothing untouched. His magic
wand has turned everything to gold. With his pencil he
has filled in every figure, and has left 'is a true picture of
the home which is so full of poetic association and thought
Like Scott and Wordsworth, Whittier has done much to
familiarize his people with the beauty " ' he country in
which he lives. He has sung of his own Lvad, of its rivers
and streams, and of the deeds of glory which his own
countrymen have performed. Though a Quaker in his
religion, in conversation using the ' thee ' and ' thou '
with scrupulous fidelity, and in his dress wearing the con-
ventional cut though not always the colour, his poetry
assumes another sha])e and form. He sings in a bold, un-
trammelled key, vigorous, robust, and hardy. He is at
his best in his Songs of Freedom. Naturally shy, his
home at Amesbury is a quiet one. For many years, till
her death, the poet lived with his sister Elizabeth, whose
* Dream of Argyle ' is so full of fire and spirit, and whose
' Wedding V^eil ' is so tender and sweet."

" She has written verv little, has she not ? I remember

WHITTIER.

135

■

her lines on Lady Franklin, for they went the rounds of
the papers some years since. They were attributed at
one time to her brother, but afterwards I saw them again
with Elizabeth H. Whittier's name appended to them."

*' Yes, only a few of her poems have been published.
She was a very lovable woman, with pure and noble
thoughts, just the companion for a man like Whittier,
whose tastes are so simple, and whose ways are so quiet.
Their home was ever a happy one : the bard in his old
days is left alone, but many bright and sunny memories
remind him of the beautiful character that has passed
away."

" Let us adjourn to the library," said the Professor as he
finished his Marsala and arose from the table, " 1 have a
new picture to show you of Whittier, which 1 think you
will like. I received it yesterday, and a more speaking-
likeness I do not remember having seen before."

" Yes, the portrait is good, but Whittier in his poetry
is in nowise Whittier the man. His genius is varied.
He writes a war-song with the same sublimity as
he pens an evening hymn. His slave songs are among
his best compositions. One of the most powerful pro-
ductions in our language is his noble song of slaves
ir. the desert. Its origin may be traced to Richardson's

136

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Journal, undei- date 10th March, Ib-tG. On that evening
the female slaves were full of excitement, and singing, in
their strange, wierd fashion, the melancholy dirge which
they often chanted when in this mood. The song was in
the Bornou or Mandara language, and the word Rubee
was often named. Curious to know the purport of these
plaintive strains, Richardson asked Said, what the slaves
were singing about. The interpreter responded, ' They
mng o^ Rubee (God), and they ask from Him their Atka,
which means their cei-tificate of freedom.' 'O where are
we going, O God. The world is large, O God, Bornou was
a pleasant country, full of all good things ; but this is a
bad country, and we are miserable.' Over and over again
these poor creatures sang these words, wringing their
hands, till fatigue and suffering struck them down, and
then the silence of the desert remained unbroken for a
time. It was this sad story of anguish and pain that
;struck ii.v key-note, and wormed itself round the heart of
Whittier. Tt was this extract from a journal kept at
Sebah, Oasis of Fezzan, that impressed the poet with the
idea of writing a song that would ati'ect alike the stoutest
and the tenderest heart. One can fancy the despairing
look on the slave's face, as she asks her God, in her sim-
ple sing-song way, ' Wliere are wo going, ll.abee V "

WHITTIER.

137

iSt

" It is, iiKlced, vast in its sentiment and emotional
power ; but to be emotional is a characteristic of Whittier.
All of his poems breathe more or less of this feelin^^
Take, for example, the child songs. They are natural
and pretty. * Barefoot Boy ' is familiar to us all. It did
not need Mr. Prang, with his exquisite chromo, from East
man Johnson's painting, to immortalize him, for the peo-
ple all round the world had learned to repeat this poem
ye^rs before the artist chose him for a subject. How the
lines come flying back to us, and haven't we all seen, by
the trout-streams and V)rooks in the country, just such
barefoot boys, with turned-up pantaloons, and ' merry-
whistled tunes ! ' There is no mistaking him as he comes
leisurely over the hill towards us, and stands on the little
bridge near by, watching every movement that we niake.
This is a character poem, and reminds us, in several re-
spects, of those occasional touches of nature which we
find in the poetry of the old poet of Rydal Mount. In
many ways Whittier is another Wordsworth. He is fully
as homely, and as eager a lover of nature as the English
bard. He has written nothing like the ' Excursion,' as a
whole, but there are bits in his composition which sound
the same echoes."

"Speaking of the barefoot boy," said Frank, " reminds
I

138

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

iiie that tlioie is a ({uit't vein of sarcasm in tlie poet,whicli
requires circumstances to draw out to the full extent of
its richness, I remember a letter which Whittier wrote
once, whicli, while being eminently characteristic, was at
the same time s(j good in its way that I must tell you of it,
and of the reason of its appearing. A wretched imita-
tion of Prang's famous chromo was offered hy a cheap
periodical as a prize or pi-emium when chromos were ten-
dered as inducements for almost everything. It was a
paltry enough looking print, and the poet was horror-
stricken when he beheld it with his own endorsement
labelled thereon, lie had written to Mr. Prang of the
Prang chroiiio, 'your admirable chi'omo of the *' Barefoot
Boy " is a charming illustration of my little poem, and in
every way satisfactory as a work of art.' The wretched
imitation bore the words of the poet and were used as if
Mr. Whittier had written them of the chromo in question.
He was so disgusted at this base and wicked perversion
of the truth that he at once wrote a stirring letter to Mr.
Prang about it, and among other things he took occasion
to say the following, which I will read to you if you will: —
" * I have heard of writers who could pass judgment
upon woiks of art without ever seeing them, but the part
assigned me by this use of my letter to thee, making me

WHITTIER.

139

til:—

ment

part

th(^ critic of a thin<^ not in (^xisteiic*', a^Ms to tlirir in-
genuity the gift of prophecy. It seems to l>e hazardous
to praise anything. There is no knowing to what strange
uses one's words may be i)ut. Wlien a good deal younger
than I am now I addressed some laudatory lines to Henry
Clay, but the newspapers soon transferred them to Thomas
H. Benton, and it was even said that the saints of Nau-
voo made them do duty in the apotheo.sis of the Prophet
Joseph Smith. My opinions as an art-critic are not worth
much to the public, and, as they seem to be as uncertain
and erratic in their directions as an Austi'alian Boome-
rang, I shall, I think, be chaxy in future of giving them.
I don't think I should dare speak favourably of the Venus
de Medici, as I might expect to find my words affixed to
some bar-room lithograph of the bearded woman.' "

" Characteristic truly," liu.^'hed Charles, " but keen as a
Toledo blade and as cutting too. Whittier must have
smarted when he wrote that. He is so shy, and really in-
different to criticism, and even fame, that he must have
felt the provocation strongly to have nerved himself suffi-
ciently to write that letter."

" Yes, I grant you that, but it is one of the peculiarities
of the poet to fire up once in a while. Read his slavery
poems and ballads. Why, they actually breathe vengeance

140

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

on the slaA (i-l>ohler in every stanza. His whole frame
shakes and trembles as he writes. His veins stand out
in ridges and his natiii-e changes as if undergoing some
terrible action within.

' Woe then to all who grind
Their brethren of r. common Father down !

" And again in this spirited verse —

' What, ho ! — our countrymen in chains !
The whip on woman's shrinking flesh !
Our soil yet reddened with the stains

Caught from her scourging, warm and fresh !

* What ! mothers from their children riven !

What ! (iod's own image bought and sold !
Americans to market driven,
And bartered as the brute for gold ! '

" I could give you more splendid examples of his genius
and fire and spirit, for his poems are full of them, turn
where you will,' but these show well the working of his
mind and heart. With Phillips and Garrison, he early
linked his fortunes, and like them he saw his principles
triumph, and the slave liberated and free. He had many
obstacles to ride over, and many burdens to bear, but his
movement was a holy and just one, and he succeeded in

WHITTIER.

141

the end. His great songs of freedom rang through the
land, and many a weary heart, and down-trodden man
and woman found solace in those burning words of his,
which penetrated every nook and corner of the country,
and struggled to make themselves known and heard. His
tirst poem was sent anonymously to the apostle of the
anti-slavery cause, William Lloyd Garrison, who was then
editor of a paper. Whittier was teaching school, and the
two life-long friends met shortly after Whittier's poem
appeared in the journal. Garrison recognised the genius
of the young poet at once, and he soon found him an able
auxiliary in the fight. For a time the Quaker l)ard was
the hero of the hour. His songs were upon every lip.
His burning words were upon every tongue. He was the
thought of the day, the spirit of the movement, the pet of
the anti-slavery party, puny enough in those days, but
teri'ibly great in our day. He had no pretensions, no ex-
travagance of verbiage, and indulged in no literary ex-
cesses. His mind then was not severely classical, and he
wrote in a common tongue, and in a way that every one
could gi'asp his meaning and understand him. He indulged
in no idle metaphor, and he was sincere. He was free
from affectation, a vice so conmion with young poets."
"I have often heard Wendell Phillips speak of Whittiei",

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EVENINGS IN THE LIimARY.

;.i:J

said the Professoi*, "and lurneiiiher vvoll his telling mo
how tlioroHglily wi'apped u[) the poet was in tlie great
movement, and liow eagerly he watched the progress of
the party, and how prondly he felt when he read the
President's proclamation of the emancipation of the
coloured race. Mr. Phillips told me an incident once which
I may mention to show how high the party feeling ran a
few years ago. Whittier had entrusted him with tlie care
of a young coloured girl, who was almost white, and few
could tell her from a brunette. They travelled together
in the north, and in more than one hotel Mr. Phillips was
quietly taken to one side by the landlord, and politely
requested not to stop at his hotel whon he came that
way again, unless he was alone, as the other boarders
didn't like it. This is all changed now. One cannot but
admire the steady and lirave fight which these men made
and continued so well and so long."

" For several years I have known a stirring ode which
was very popular with Vermonters for years back. Un-
til lately its author was not known. I had noticed it in
the newspapers, but no name was to it, and though some
who i)rofessed to know, attributed its paternity to Ethan
Allen, the statement has been doubted. The ode is en-
titled, 'The Song of the Vermonters — I77l),'and it begins

wnrrriKu.

1 48

* Ho, all to tlic borders.' I learned only tlu' other day
that it was an old ottort of Mr. Whittier's, who wrott^ it
in 1834, and sent it anonymously to Biickin<4hain's Nnv
Erujland Mmidzine. For twenty-Hvi^ years it remained
unsuspected, and has never been included in any volume
of the poet's works. He was as a youth interested in the
.nstory of Vermont, and intlie fortunes and career of Ethan
Allen, and he was curious to see if liis poem would he re-
ceived and recof^nised as an ohlen timi; production, and
he saw his wish gratifiefl, though he never until lately
owned his fugitive. He still considers it the practical
joke of a hoy."

" Wliittier is not the tirst })oet who tinds liimself con-
frotited with the rough productions of his youthful pen,

iter he lias grown on in years. Such inciilents happen
every day, and even the Colossus of English littu-ature is
as well known by his verses on a lame duckling, as he is
by his * Lives of the Poets,' or ' The Adventures of Ras-
sellas. Prince of Abyssinia,' which as you may remember,
was largely quoted as real history by more than one Lon-
don journal during the Abyssinian war. With some au-
thors it is a favourite pastime to j^ublish their writings
anonymously. Some famous men have even sought to

deny them afterwards. Sir Walter Scott, it is said, once

144

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

denied having written ' Waveiley,' and it is a well-known
fact that the witty divine, Sydney Smith, positively stated,
that he did not write ' The Peter Plymley Letters.' Pope's
' Essay on Man/ first appeared anonymously, and it met
with but indifferent success. Mr. David Mallet, who in
his day was accounted a pretty good judge of poetry, a
poet himself and a dramatist also of no mean reputation,
dropped into Pope's room one day, and the conversation
turning on poetry, the bard asked the Scotsman carelessly,
if there was anything new. Mallet, whose name was
originally Mai loch, replied, that there was a new piece
out, an ' Essay on Man,' he thought it was, and which he
had ^ ? j ected idly, and seeing the utter inability of the
author, who had neither skill in writing nor knowledge of
the sul)ject, had tossed it away. Pope then told him that
it was he who had written the essay, and the author of
' The Dunciad ' was highly amused at the chagrin and
discomfiture of Mallet when he learned the secret of the
authorship."

" I have always thought," remarked Charles, ** that Mal-
let knew all the time that Pope had written the essay,
and only spoke in the way he did in order to draw the
poet out, and make him acknowledge his work. Mallet
was too clever and sharp a man to be deceived easily, and

WHITTIER.

145

Pope, who was a trifle vain, confessed too readily. It was
just like Pope to ask the question, so eager was he to hear
complimentary things said about himself, and when he
found the criticism likely to go against himself, he cut it
short by acknowledging his poem."

" No. I still incline to my own opinion ; Mallet was a
good critic in his way, but very apt to form a hasty judg-
ment, and as was his wont when he once formed an
opinion, he aXw&ya stuck to it, right or wrong. It was
like him to jump at the conclusion he formed, for he read
everything as rapidly as it came out."

" In regard to poets and their likings, it has often ap-
peared curious to me to notice the wide gulf of opinion
which exists frequently between author and reader in re-
gard to the relative merits of a piece of poetry. I have

seen it stated somewhere, unauthorized of course, that
Whittier does not like his poem of Maud Muller. That
may be so, but it will not prevent a groat many of his
admirers from doing so. I consider it one of the sweet-
est things which he has written. It is a simple enough
story, but it is a story for all that which makes an imme-
diate impression on the reader, and enlists his attention
at once. It is one of those live poems which is full of
naturalness and truth. Tbi' thoughts which the poet

140

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Wr.:

■ :

causes to arise in the breasts of the judge and of the
youthful maiden who raked the hay, are as exquisite in
their way and as delicately turned as anything we find
in the poetry of a realm. What finer or more neat touch
of nature can be imagined than the smiles of the lawyers
that day in court, when every now and then the judge
softly hummed to himself some old love tune ? It is a
story of what might have been, and it tells of two lives
in a sweet and sympathetic way. In a way which acts
on the heart of the reader, and one sighs because the judge
and Maud were so widely separated, and not in the end
united. The reader feels as if he would like to have been
in the fields that day when the judge came along and
witnessed the interview, when —

' He Hpoke of the grass and Howers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees ;

' Tlien talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the West would bring foul weather.

' And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown ;

' And listened, while a pleased surx")rise
Looked from her long-lasheil hazel eyes.' "

The whole story is deliciously set. It is a novel in a

WHITTTER.

147

short space. The measure is charming though not new.
The story is old, but it is freshly told. The language is
chaste. The })oet plays upon the heart, and I sometimes
find my eyes watering when I come to

* God pity them both ! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

'For of all sad words of tongue or pen.
The saddest are these : " It might have been ! "

' Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes ;

' And, in the hereafter, angels may
EoU the stone from the grave away !' "

" I do not believe," said the Professor, " that Whittier
is dissatisfied with this ballad. It is very pretty and very
real, and I should be sorry if Whittier thought otherwise.
It is a fine ballad in every way, but many will think
with Frank that * Mary Garvin ' cari-ies out the active
princii)les of this class of poetry better. Macaulay, in
those wonderful productions of his, sang of the glories of
ancient Rome, and the graceful and mtllifluous sweep of
his measure and evenness of his rhyme, have made his
poetry ever striking and brilliant. His numbers How
with majestic, aye, resistless rliythin, and every syllable

^1"

'■

148

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

strikes upon the ear with the sweetness of music. Now
Whittier has caught this style, which certainly did not
originate with Macaulay, but the brilliant essayist made
it his own for all that, and in his noteworthy ballad of
Mary Garvin, he gives full rein to his muse, and the easy
flowing metre clangs like the peals of a chime of silver
bells. It is a very happily-conceived old provincial tale,
with a glimmer of romance about it. The legend abounds
in glowing bits of descriptive writing."

" Mogg Megone is Whittier's longest poem, and one of
the earliest pieces from his pen. It abounds in crudities,
and beyond some delightful sketchy incidents, and a plea-
sant snatch of verse here and there, it is an unsatisfactory
performance, and not equal to the poet's reputation. Many
will read it for the romance which is in it, and the glimpse
which we catch of the red-man and his mode of life. But
there is an utter absence of that freedom of expression
which is so essentially the poet's own distinguishing char-
acteristic. One cannot help missing the delicate touches
which cro}) out everywhere in ' Mary Garvin,' in the 'Last
Walk in Autumn,' in the burial of Barbour, in that
thrilling chant, ' The Red River Voyageur.' "

" Or you might add those two poems, entitled, ' The
Sisters ; ' one after a picture by Barry is exceedingly

WHITTIER.

149

musical ami sweet, and the other, in the baUad form, is
quite vigorous and robust. Everyone who reads poetry
at all, will remember the story of Annie and Rhoda, who
lived near the great sea, and awoke one night, startled by
the sound of roaring and warring waters, and the noise of
huge waves climbing the rocky shore, and the swirling
wind and deep pattering rain. Annie was gentle and
timid, Rhoda bold and fearless. The former shuddered at
the blast and cried in fear, but Rhoda ordered her back to
bed, and said no good ever came of watching a storm.
But Annie still shrank down in terror, and above the din
and loud roar of the elements, she heard her name called,
and nearer and nearer it came on the winding blast of the
storm. It was the voice of a drowning man, and Estwick
Hall, of the Heron, was out in the fury of the tempest.
But Rhoda, who loved Hall of the Heron, said to Annie, —

' . . . . With eyes aflame,
Thou liest, he would never call thy name !

The

If he did, I would pray the wind and sea.
To keep him forever from thee and me ! '

Then roared the angry sea again, and another blast rode
on the gale, and a dying wail reached the startled ears of
the sisters. Hail of the Heron was dead ! The dramatic

PORBB

'it

> !li

■ill

150

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

effi'ct is wfill siistaiiiod in this balla*!, and the incident is
powerfully and skilfully drawn."

" In the dainty volume entitled ' Hazel Blossoms,'
there is a Ijright and trustful poem. It is addressed
to Conductor Bradley, who nobly sacrificed his own
life to save the lives of his passengers. ' Others he
saved, himself he could not save ! ' * Nay,' says the poet,
' his life "ioas saved ! ' The conceit is pretty, and the idea
is beautifully carried out, but for real excellence, in a
poetic sense, Whittier's * Sea Dream' is, unquestionably,
his masterpiece, though a mad, weird thing. ' A Mystery,'
is not far behind it. These gems reveal the richness of
the poet's mind, and the extraordinary breadth of his
imagery. They show also how true to nature he can be,
and how charming is the genius he displays in these
poems. His situations are delightful, his fancy is quaint
and piquant, and full of interest, and his versification,
though it sometimes labours, is generally smooth-flowing,
and happy. All that is tender and gentle in the poet
comes out with surprising fluency and beauty. Indeed,
in the poem of ' A Mystery,' Whittier grasps the Shadow
Subject of his verse with rare and wondrous skill. In
personal poetry he is the same true artist. His poem on
Bryant, his lines on Sumner, his vei-ses about his friend.

WHITTIER.

151

:ion,

the naturalist Agassiz, his delightful stanzas to James T.
Fields, author, poet and publisher, are simply exquisite
and rich. His lines to Ebenezer Elliott, the Corn Law
Rhymer, who was to England what Burns was to Scot-
land, are bold and vigorous. Every line snaps with fire.
It is a grand tribute to the memoiy oi the humble poet of
the poor, and a fitting sermon on his life and work.
Elliott's splendid and homely verses caught the popular
favour, and thousands of starving men and women sang
his songs in the streets. It was largely due to his untir-
ing labours that the detestable tax on bread was repealed,
and all Britain rang with his name, and many a prayer
was offered up for him in the dwellings of the poor and
lowly. He was a true reformer, and, like Whittier, be-
lieved in just laws and liberty for the people. No poet of
our time could have written such stirring lines as these to
Elliott, for no bard has seen as much sufiering as Whittier
has, and every verse of this magnificent ettbrt tingles with
feeling. No wonder is it that when men read this poem,
the eye sparkles and the cheek reddens, and the boiling
blood leaps in the veins, for it is an effort which tells a
story of broad and liberal humanity, and none can gain-
say its sentiments or deny its truth :

' Lay down upon his Sheaf's green verge
That brave old heart of oak,

;44i

;i|

I'll

152 EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

With fitting dirge from sounding forgo,

And pall of furnace smoke !
Where whirJfi the stone its dizzy rounds,

And axe and sledge are swung,
And, timing to their stormy sounds,

His stormy lays are sung.

• • * » *

* No soft lament nor dreamer's sigh

For him whose words were bread, —
The Runic rhyme and spell whereby
The foodless poor were fed I '

" We all remember the ringing ballad of ' The Three
Bells,' which came out first in Tlie Atlantic , and after-
wards ran the circle of the press. Few ballads have en-
joyed such popularity. It is the story of a stout ship,
safely riding through the gale, * over an awful ocean ; '
and the poet tells us in a clear-sounding metre, how all
souls were saved at last :

' Sail on. Three Bells, forever.

In grateful memory sail !
Ring on. Three Bells, of rescue,

Above the wave and gale !

' Type of the Love eternal.

Repeat the Master's cry ;
As tossing through our darkness

The lights of God draw nigh !;"

WHITTIER.

153

" Do you know the personages mentioned in the ' Tent
on the Beach,' in Whittier's volume, which came out in
1867 ? "

" Oh, yes, Whittier himself told me the names. The
first is James T. Fields, the second is the poet himself,
and the third

* * * Whoae Aral) face was tanned
By troi)ic sun and boreal frost ;
So travelled there was scarce a laud
Or people left him to exhaust,'

is Bayard Taylor, the poet, and author of ' Byways of
Europe.' The- lady's name I hold as a secret, and cannot
confide it even to you. These characters are ably sketch-
ed, and exhibit the peculiarities so common to each. Al-
most every poem of Whittiei's has a history. The ballad
for instance, of ' The New Wife and the Old,' is a curious
legendary thing, founded upon one of those wonderful
stories connected with the life of a celebrated General be-
longing to Hampton, N.H., an American Faust, whom
many believed to be in league with the devil. The Chapel
of the Hermits reveals an incident in the lives of Rousseau
and St. Pierre, the occasion being their visit to a hermit-
age, and while waiting for the monks to finish reciting

the beautiful Litanies of Providence Rousseau offered up
J

i ^ti

154

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

i!!

his fU'votioiis. Tho poem is finely rendered, and illus-
trates some of Whittier's tenets. So with his oth«'r poems.
They all mean sometliin^, and while his poetry sometimes
bears hardly on Roman (Jatholicism and its tt;achings, he
declares that he is no enemy of Catludics, but in order to
do them full justice he has, on more than one occasion,
exposed himself to the censures of people of his own faith
and Protestantism generally. He attributes some of the
severity of his language to the confession of the eloquent
Romisli Priest, Father Ventura, whom he declares to be
his authority for many statements which he has made at
times. For my part I do not at all like. Whittier's lines
to Pius IX. They are spirited enough, but rather too
over-drawn, and the poet seems to have accepted too
readily the ill that has 1 »een s|)oken of the venerable Pon-
tiff. In the sharp and ringing verycs entitled ' Gari-
baldi,' the poet aims another blow at the Mother Church,
which mars to some extent the beauty of the poem as a
whole, and makes it quite unpalatable to a churchman of
the Old Faith. I care very little for controversial poetry,
and I fain would wish Whittier had left unsaid much that
he has written in this way. He is too noble a poet, and
too gi-and a character, to leave behind him a single pro-
duct of his brain which might give offence to a reader.

whittip:r.

t " "

loo

His poetry is so impivssivo, liis thoughts arc so lofty, and
his genius so large and ripe, that every line he has given
us should live in our hearts and rejoice the souls of all
mankind. He is a poet of the world, and his poetry
should be for the world. In his New England verses he
shows us how great he can be, and how rich in invention
and in execution he is. The past of New England is re-
plete with subjects for the poet, and I hope yet to read
many more of Whittier's studies in this direction. He has
pleased us with many pleasant bits, and told us a goodly
number of stories and tales in verse, illustrating the early
life and traits of the Puritans and New Englanders, and
he should work his mine further and explore deeper, till
all the riches within his reach are brought forward. His
mission is clearly to develop this work."

" I think you are right ; the country is full of historic
lore and association, and no man of our century is more
fitted to portray the thousand legends in an acceptable
way than Whittier. In his poetry he has told us much
that we did not know before, and in his prose writings he
has added largely to the stock of knowledge. In a delight-
ful paper on Thomas Ellwood, the poet brings out a living
picture. No one can forget it. It is full of great truths
and characteristic touches. One can see the young Qua-

150

EVKNFNtJS IN THE LIimARY.

ker sitting at th(^ knee of Milton, reading and talking, at
Chalfont. All England is ringing with the coarse, satiric
metres of Cleveland, and Milton's master poem can scarcely
struggle into print. Ell wood takes the grand epic — the
siiblimest poem ever written — home with him one l)right
autumn day and reads it. It is inmanuscript, and written in
thatcurioushandof the blind bardand schoohiiaster. Younff
EUwood reads it af^ain and ayain. Then he returns to the
great Puritan, and together they talk it over and compare
its beauties. Thomas EUwood was the first critical reader
of Paradise Lost, and the humble young Quaker's sugges-
tion was the cause of Milton's other companion piece.
Paradise Regained. ' Sir,' said Milton, as he handed it to
him, ' this is owing to you, for you put it into my head
by the question you put to me at Chalfont, which before
I had not thought of.' EUwood met many famous people
in his day. George Fox and William Penn were fre-
quently his guests. His principal work, a poetical ver-
sion of the life of David, is to be found still, in some
libraries."

" You made some reference to Cleveland just now," said
Frank, " 1 have read nothing of his. Was he not a con-
temporary of Dick Lovelace ? " ^

" Yes, and also of Milton. He was noted for his loyalty

E !

WTITTTTKK.

10/

and lyrics. He luitcd Cromwoll, and liis definition of a
Protector is ono of the bits of witire wdncli will always
be remembered. Cromwell for<;ave him this as well as
other sins a^^ainst him in answer to a petition which the
lyrist wrote to him while in pi'is(jii, which, while he nsed
strong arguments to ett'ect his release, yet he in no wise
compromised himself, or abated a single jot of his princi-
ples as an adherent of the dynasty of King Cliarles. His
petition was ingeniously worded, and the re(|uest and re-
ply were honourable to both Protector and Poet. Neither
compromised his dignity. The cavalier lyrist was held
in higher estimation in his day than the Puritan ])oet, and
all London read edition after edition of his |)oetry, while
Milton was forgotten and neglected. The tables are turned
to-day, and few remember now the pet of the people who
lived so long ago. His style was coarse, for he wrote in
an age when women read little, but some of his lines are
refined enough in their way. His sonnet ii the memory
of Ben Jonson is the best of these, but his lines on Crom-
well exhibit his |)ower as a satirist, and show how bitter
and rancorous John Cleveland could be when he liked.
1 can quote it, I think. It runs in this way : —

' What's a Protector ? H c'h a stately thing,
That apes it in the nonage of a king ;

it f

I'm

158 FVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

A Tragic Actor.— Caesar in a clown,

He's a brass farthing stamped with a crown ;

A bladder blown, with other breaths puffed full ;

Not the Perillus, but Perillus' bull ;

^sop's proud ass veiled in the lion's skin ; v

An outward saint lined with a devil within ;

An echo whence the royal sound doth come,

But just as barrel-head soiuids like a drum ;

Fantcistic image of the royal head.

The brewer's with the king's arms quartered ;

He is a counterfeited piece that shows

Charles his effigies with a copper nose ;

In fine, he's one we must Protector call -

From whom, the King of Kings i)rotect us all.' "

" That is certainly a fino piece of irony and criticism.
I don't wonder at the cavalier's getting the ear of the
people. Whittier's other prose papers are ably written.
His John Bun^^an is a fine efi'ovt and not at all overdone.
His review of Longfellow's * Evangeline ' gives him a
chance to say a good deal about the expulsion of the French
settlers of Acadia from their homes round the Basin of
Minas, and he expresses himself in regard to the dark deed
in forcible and unmistakable language. Many readers
will admire the (juaint chapters of Margaret Smith's jour-
nal, which are given as a seriesi of letters supposed to
have been written about two hundred years ago and more.

WHITTIER.

159

As a whole, the diary is a remarkable piece of writing,
well sustained throughout, and only occasionally tedious.
The humour is delicate, and the character drawing, of
which we have a glimpse now and then, is as charming as
anything we have had from the poet. All through his
writings, whether poetic or cast in the prose form, Mr.
Whittier loses no opportunity to ventilate his views on
freedom, broad humanity, the rights of man and nobleness
of character and mind. His writings are always pure and
healthful. He panders to no tastes which are not noble,
and he writes in a free and elegant vein."

" I believe though, that Whittier, notwithstanding the
fact that hr, has written largely and well in prose, will be
better known hereafter as a poet. His poetry is remark-
able, and his warm nature sparkles in his verse, as though
his whole soul was in his work."

"Whittier is a poet who may be taken up at any
time and read. His poetry is bold and fanciful, and
the love of justice, which he strives to inculcate among
his fellow men, gives his writings a high aim and lofty
purpose. He goes through life quietly ; his method of
composition is slow, and his hospitable door is ever open
to the wayfarer and stranger. We have discussed him to-
night in many of his moods. We have left unsaid uiuch

', '

Hui

160

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

that inij^lit be .said of his goodness, and kindness, and
thoughtfiilness. We have spoken of him as a poet and
as a prose writer. There is much still left to say of him
as a man."

" It is past eleven, and in the delightful company of the
gentle Quaker, the time has slipped rapidly away. I did
not know it was so late. We must meet again, and at our
next assembly we will have Bryant for our guest."

1 1

I I

,1 i

BRYANT.

IGl

No. 7. BRYANT.

" No one," said the Professor, " can read a little of
Bryant. His poetry is as intoxicating as the pages of a
sensational romance. I literally gorge myself every
time I take up one of his volumes. I cannot be satis-
fied with simply reading ' The Ages,' ' Thanatopsis,' ' the
Hymn to Death,' * The Death of the Flowers,' or the en-
trancing ' Poorest Hymn,' but I must gc on until I come
to the last page. I am afraid that with regard to Bryant's
poetry I am a veritable gourmand. Do not think that
by this I mean he is not satisfying, for every poem is a
feast of itself. But I cannot resist the temptation when
his book is in my hand, to read on until I finish it. I
wouldn't dare take up Bryant after tea, for if I did I
would lose my whole night's sleep."

" I too have felt his wonderful power," said Frank.
" His simplest and shortest ])oems have many a time sent
me off musing among the clouds. His language is simple,
but not commonplace. You never catch him using foreign
words or phrases which belong to the schoolmaster.

1G2

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

If if

: mi

Bryant is no pedant. His poetry is as free as the woods
he describes so well. His diction is as charming as nature
itself. Indeed, he is the poet of nature, and the best of
his writings sing of the seasons, the elements, the flowers,
and the various phases of animal life. He is a true son
of the forest, and as he roams through the woods, he stops
now and then on his way to paint in rich colours, in un-
dying pigments, the beautiful scenes which meet his eye.
And he has an eye for the beautiful. An eye of keen
perception. An eye which takes in at a glance all that is
worth seeing. No tree, or shrub, or bit of sky escapes
him. Nothing crosses his path unperceived by him. In
liquid numbers that roll trippingly from the tongue, or in
that deep sounding blank verse, which he has almost made
his own, he tells of the marvellous works of nature.
Where shall we find a more rounded and perfect poem
than the Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood ? You
leave behind you care and sorrow and misery, and in this
calm retreat find a panacea for all your troubles. In this
cool shade you hear the very dashings of the tiny rivulet,
as it splashes over its bed of pebbly sands. You hear the
singing of the birds, and you witness the joys of an ideal
wood, such as Bryant alone can describe. This grand
poem celebrates a scene in the poet's old home in Cum-

BRYANT.

163

mington, and it was written only a little later than his
masterpiece, ' Thanatopsis.' "

" That was his first pooni, was it not ? "

" It was his first great poem. He wrote it at the age
of eighteen. He wrote respectable verse at the age of
eight, and when he was only thirteen, he published a
clever satire on Thomas Jefferson, which he called The Em-
bargo, This little work, of some thirty-six pages, passed
through two editions. It is (piite scarce, and I doubt if
you could obtain a copy now at any price. * Thanatopsis'
— the poem which did so much to bring Bryant into no-
tice, was not published until several years after it was
written. The poet left it among his papers till 1816
when it was sent by his father to Richard H. Dana,* along
with the piece, then called A Fragment, but which after-
ward received the name it has since been known by,
' The Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood.' Dana had
never met Bryant up to this time, and by some means or
other he conceived the idea that Br^^ant's father, Dr. Peter
Bryant, had written Thanatopsis, and the son had done

* The New York Post, apropos to the recent celebration of Mr. Dana's
ninetieth birthday, mentions the interesting coincidence that Mr. Bryant's
first poems were published in a review of which Mr. Dana was editor, and
Mr. Dana's first poems in a review of which Mr. Bryant was editor.

W l\

i "

1C4

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

the ' Fragment.' Dana was very an::ious t6 see tlio au-
thor of the famous poem, and as the Doctor was a mem-
ber of the State Legislature, the editor lost no time in re-
pairing to the Senate Chamber. He saw a very intellec-
tual-looking gentleman of dark complexion, thick eye-
brows, dark hair, finely developed forehead and handsome
features, but there was nothing which denoted the poetic
faculty about him. He was disappointed, surely this
could not be the new poet ! It was not until 1821, when
William CuUcn Bryant arrived in Cambridge to deliver
the ' Phi Beta Kappa ' poem at Harvard, that Dana dis-
covered the real author of ' Thanatopsis.' The life-long
friendship and actjuaintance of the two poets began here.
When the great poem was published Dana was principal
mend)er of the club which conducted the North American
Revieiu, and it was accordingly printed for the first time
in that publication. It was originally made to begin with
' Yet a few days, &c.,' and conclude with ' And make their
bed with me.' After Bryant's father died, the poet added
the present introduction and conclusion to his poem. As
Longfellow in Ins description of Grand Pr^ describes some
thing he has never seen, so Bryant talks grandly of

' 01(1 ocean'n gray and melancholy waste.'

BRYANT.

165

111-

iin-
re-
lec-
eye-
iome
oetic
this
wben
eliver

la dis-
e-long
1 here,
incipal
erican
st time
with
their
added

m. A^s
)e8 some

and of the * rolling Oregon,' at a time when he had beheld
neither. ' Thanatopsis ' is a most suggestive poem. It is
full of imagery and thought, and one cannot read it too
often. It awakens wonder at the subtlety of the poet's
mind, and provokes admiration of the genius which un-
bosoms itself in every line. One finds himself stopping
midway in the poem, to encpiire what manner of youth
this was whose knowledge of human kind was so sensi-
tive and keen, while he was yet in his teens. One must
pause to take in the grandeur of the thought which tears
through the sonorous stanzas. The boy of eighteen writes
with the fire and grasp of a man of iron soul, and with
the incisive knowledge of one who had learned well the
lessons of life with the passage of hurrying years. There
are few poems in any language, none certainly to be found
in the stanzas of Southern Poets, which breathe out so
much vigorous sentiment, such lofty scorn, and at the
same time reveal so much delicacy in feeling or betray
such tenderness as we find in this splendid work. It holds
a place second to no other on the same subject. Bryant
himself has not etjualled it even by his ' Hymn to Death,'
which he composed in 1825 when he was at New York
editipg the New York Revieio."

" That is the poem which opens so grandly in praise of

I--'

■ I

166

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

death, is it not, and ends with so much pathos and con-
tains the allusion to the poet's father ? "

" The very same. Bryant makes a vigorous defence in
behalf of the King of Terrors. He asks who are his
accusers.

'The living ! — they who never felt thy power,
And know thee not. The curses of the wretch
Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy haml
Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come,
Are writ among thy praises. But the good —
Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace,
Upbraid the gentle violence that took off
His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell ? '

And then in his own grand way, rich in the same fancy
which struggled in the mind of the exuberant Shelley,
our poet crowds his canvas with a masterpiece, and sings
anew a song which only the soul of a genius could inspire.
The very effort is a grand one. It is too much even for
him. He has overwrought himself. The strain was too
great, and he writes these touching lines as a conclusion.
It is here that one finds the allusion to his father. An al-
lusion full of filial love and reverence. An allusion which
further on in his works finds utterance again and again :

' Alas ! I little thought that the stern power,
Whose fearful praise I sang, would try me thus

BRYANT.

167

fancy
©lley,

sings

spire,
en for
las too

usion.
al-

which
[again :

Before the strain was ended. It must cease —

F\)r ho is in liis grave who taught my youth

The art of verse, and in the bud of life

Offered me to the Muses. Oh, out off

Untimely ! when thy reason in its ptrength,

Ripened by years of toil and studious search.

And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught

Thy hand to practise best the lenient art

To which thou gavest thy laborious days,

And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth

Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes

And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill

Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale

When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou

Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have

To offer at thy grave — this — and the hope

To copy thy example, and to leave

A name of which the wretched shall not think

As of an enemy's, whom they forgive

As all forgive the dead. Rest, therefore, thou

Whose early guidance trained my infant steps —

Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep

Of death is over, and a happier life

Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.

' Now thou art not— and yet the men whose gtiilt
Has wearied Heaven for vengeance — he who bears
False witness — he who takes the orphan's bread,
And robs the widow — he who spreads abroad

I
I

168 EVKNIN(iS IN THE LIBRARY.

Polluted hands in mockery of prayer,
Are left to cumber earth. Shuddering I look
On what ia written, yet 1 blot not out
The desultory numbers ; let them stand,
The record of an idle revery ! '

" In 1824, Mr. Bryant's sister died of coujumption, and
in 1827, in his poem ' To the Past,' the poet thus refers to
his father and that sister he loved so well —

■< >

' And then shall I behold
Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung.

And her, who still and cold,
Fills the next grave — the beautiful and young. '

and to the latter also, in * The Death of the Flowers,
written some time in the autumn of 1825,

' And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. '

" But all through his poetry, the same kindly sentiment
is seen. It is in this poem about the death of the flowers,
that the noble line which everyone quotes so often,
appears —

' The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year. '

and it s in this glorious conceit that we get a glimpse of

BRYANT.

1()1)

and

:s to

)wers,

ciment

lowers,

often,

the autumn time which can never be forgotten. The
poet .siglis for the fair young tlowers that have pasMud
away, and he stands in the thick wood and pronounces a
requiem over each. In review pass before him the wind-
tiower, the violet, the brier-rose, tlie aster and tlie other
delightful Inids and blossoms that in their time shed their
fragrance and exhibited their beauty and form for man's
delight. He has some tender woid for each, and he
likens the frost which fell upon them to the fall of the
plague on men. But he has written other poems about
this season of the year, that season in which the woods
become poetical and sad, and when the leaves are just be-
ginning to change their coat, when the maple is i)rettiest
and the ground is full of variegated leaves. He has gi ven
us two gems, ' Autumn Woods,' and a later poem, reveal-
ing the iine descriptive abilities of the poet, ' My Autumn
Walk.' This latter was written in October, 1864, after
the civil war, and it rings with a sort of restrained power,
as if the bard dared not trust himself to go as far as he
would wish. I will repeat the four lines which conclude
the poem, and they will enable you to observe their ring-
ing melody —

mpse of

* The leaves are swept from the branches ;
But the living buds are there,

170 KVENINGS FN THK LIIMJAUY.

With folded llovvcr and foliago,
To sprout ia a kinder air. ' "

" In all his songs of Nature, Bryant is ever the same
charming teacher. Whether he tells of spring and the
l)U(l(ling plants of sunmier, whose woodlands sing an<l
waters shout, of the autumn and its melancholy days, or
of winter with its storms and sullen threat ; he is as
natural in each as he is in them all. He exhausts his
subjects. Nature is his domain, and to describe her won-
drous works is his preiogative. Many of his best things
were written when he was very young."

" Yes. He was twenty-one and about to be admitted
to the bar, when he wrote his graceful poem ' To a Water-
fowl.' He was uncertain at the time where he should fix
liis abode, and the poem was suggested to his mind on
seeing a waterfowl flying northward in a sky crimson
with the setting sun. He kept it by him until 1818
when it was published for the first time in the North
American Revieiv. Two years after this he wrote his
beautiful ' Green River,' and in 1821 it was printed in
Dana's Idle Man, a short-lived but meritorious publica-
tion. Bryant was living near the Green River in Great
Barrington, Mass., at the time, and while there he wrote
more than twenty poems for the Boston Literary Gazette,

TIRYANT.

171

a periodical wliicli caino out twice ainontli. It was Ikmt

also that another of his «rri'at poems was composr*!, his

ever fresh and ])eautiful * Forest Hymn' which starts oH

with,

* The groves were God's first temples.'

Ho has written few pieces which can surpass tliis. There
is a matchless <jfrace and a wealtli of description al)Out it
quite Bryantic. It is full of thouglit, of suggestiveness
and true poetry. It is rich in allusion and com])aris()n.
As one reads this delightful liymn the words of Professor
Wilson have a deeper meaning, and all mankind will say
with him in regard to our poet, ' that it is indeed in the
beautiful that the genius of Bry.ant finds its prime delight.
He ensouls all dead insensate things in that deep and
delicate sense of their seeming life which they l)ieathe
and smile before the eyes " that love all they look upon,"
and thus there is animation and enjoyment in the heart of
the solitude.' He does more than this. I w^ould go farther
than Wilson in his estimate of Bryant. He is the poet
who creates images which rise up in our souls and fill our
minds and hearts with new, holy and inspiring thoughts.
Till we have read Bryant we know little of the beauties
of nature. We scarce know anything of the grand old
woods, of the birds, of the blossoms and the brooks. He

i 'A !

172

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Ill li

shapes all the works of nature, and endows them with
fair proportions. He sees poetry in the tall grasses, songs
in the tiniest Howerets, hymns in the swirling winds and
soft music in the trees. He fashions, in his own eloquent
way the true poetry of the forest and glade, and when in
our walks through the woods we pluck a violet or an
aster, or resting, sit by some idle stream or pause at the
foot of an oak or a maple, the songs of Bryant till the air
all round about with their melody and sweetness. The
humblest blossom is immortalized in his verse, and he
sings in a tuneful key for all."

" I agree with you Charles," said the Professor, "Bryant
is truly the Poet of Nature, and he is a distinctive
American poet. Like Emerson and Longfellow he has
endeayoured to awaken interest in the things of his own
land. He is to America wliat Wordsworth, the old bard
of Rydal Mount, was to England. Indeed, the two poets
have somer ning in common. Bryant always loved to read
Wordsworth's clanging ballads. Mr. Dana relates in the
preface to a new edition of his Idle Man, the inlluence
which the English poet had upon Bryant when he read
his works for the first time. A thousand springs appeared
to rise up within him, and his whole being seemed to
change. He had seen few books of poetry, and Po|)e had

with

I and
luent
en in
or an
it the
he air
The
nd he

{ryant
ctive
le has
Ls own
1 bard
) poets
o read
in the
duence
ic read
peared
ned to
jpe had

BRYANT.

173

been the idol of his hfe ; but when he opened the new book
and read the delicious conceits of the lake-side dreamer,
he became at once a student of nature, and he sought the
woods and its surroundings, and resolved to paint new
and fresh scenes that all the world might read and enjoy.
He kept his pui-pose, and his brilliant pages tell us how
well he accomplished it. You have read his Apostrophe
to June, have you not ? It is a poem whici* will linger
longer in the memor^ than even ' Thanatoi)sis,' though,
of course, it is not so grand a theme. The measure in
which it is written has something to do with this. It is
in this creation that he speaks of the ' housewife bee and
butterfl}'',' and chants so charmingly of the ' songs of
maids beneath the moon,' and then he goes off, as is his
frequent wont, to saddening thoughts an<l dn'aiiis about
death and those who have only gone bt'forc I think he
makes these turns in his vci^se with admirable^ drlicacy
and feeling. This trait of his amounts aluiost to genius.
The old Greeks turned a rhyme deftly, but Ihyant turns
a whole thought, witness in proof of this, his ' Hynm to
Death,' his 'June,' and others of his pieces."

" Yes, r have notice*! this, and 1 trunk it a strong fea-
ture of his work. Thi- reader, unconsciously diifts al<»ng
in the direction which the poet leads. It is not a wander-

174

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

ing off from the subject, but merely a turn in the road,
and tlie travellers, reader and poet, seek, almost without
knowin<,^ its inviting pathway. And Br3'ant is a faithful
guide. He knows all the; cool retreats, all the delightful
shades, all the pleasant nooks and corners, and we can
follow him blindly, and drink in the sweets which his rich
pai-terre contains."

" I have found this more than once to be the case. I
love the way in which he takes us from one beautiful
thing of nature to another, from a flower to a tree, from
a singing oriole to some niml»le sipiirrel. When you read
Bryant, you are })n pared for something like this, and he
moves along so gradually, and takes you step by step so
delicately, that you hardly notice whither you are going
until you are so far out of the direct road that you can-
not reti'ace your steps. Do you remember reading his
* Indian at the Burial Place!' There is a good deal of
subdued fire in that poem. Bryant's Indian is a veritable
savage of the Cooper type, and he utters thoughts as
noble as any which the author of Deerslayer ever [)enned.
The warrior seeks the ancient l)urial place of his sires, and
chants a dirge on the spot fi'om which his wjisted race
withdrew long years before, aslianu'(l, wrak and crushed

HRYANT.

175

After recounting tlie stem hardships which his race has
endured, the red man utters this prophetic thought —

' But I behold a fearful sign,

To which the white men's eyes are blind !

Their race may vanish hence, like mine.
And leave no trace behind,

Save ruins o'er the region spread,

And the white stones above the dead,

' Before these fields were shorn and tilled,

Full to the l^rim our rivers flowed ;
The melody of waters filled

The fresh and boundless wood ;
And torrents dashed and rivulets played,
And fountains spouted in the shade.

' Those grateful sounds are heard no more,

The springs are silent in the sun ;
The rivers, by the blackened shore.

With lessening current run ;
The realm our tribes are crushed to get
May be a barren desert yet.' "

" The thought is a beautiful one," said Frank, " hut I
am iK'gimiing to hjse faitli in tlie Indian as a poetical
study. I see him a central figure of the romance only. 1
am losing my admiration for the noljlc ]>rave. Mayue
Keid in his way, Emerson Beniiutt in his, (Njojicr in his

170

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

i 1

i f

gi'and and powerful way, have lifted up the savage to a
great lieight, and they see a thousand noble characteris-
tics in him which do not exist at all. Your true Indian
is the dusky wan-ior, who appears in the pages of Park-
man, always savage, always cruel, crafty, stoical and
treacherous, occasionally brave and not often tit to be
trusted. Bryant's Indian is the savage of Cooper in a
modified form, and his mind is full of noble and excellent
thoughts."

" Yes, Frank," said the old Professor, " but I am very
glad Bryant has given us his Indian poems. They are
sad stories, but full of art in the telling. What could
take the place in our literature of his Indian Story, which
reveals an incident which may have happened ? What
is more ekxjuent, in any poetry, than the glimpse he gives
us of Maquon and his love ? The living figures of the
chief and his biide, and the grave of the dead destroyer,
form a picture that seems to breathe with life. The war-
rior sallies out in search of game, the red deer, for his
bride, and returns to find her absent. He sees strange
traces jdong the ground. His (piick eye tells him that
struggling hands have torn the vines from the walls, and
on the broken and bent sas.safvas he sees a tress of the
v/cU-known hair. He calls aloud, but no answer, save

WM^

to a
d'is-
idian
'ark-

and
bo be

in a
ellent

I very

gy are
could

which
Wliat

) irives

I of the
roycr,
|e war-
for his
Itrange
In that
ils, and
of the
T, save

RRYANT.

177

the echo of his own wild words, comes back. lie pauses
a moment, and the soft hum of the bee on the flower
breaks the teriible stillness. He grasps his war-axe and
bow, and sheaf of darts, and bounds away. He has no
time for idle grief, and the tears that would fain come
are brushed away. He seeks the print of strange feet,
and starts wildly on the trail. He discovers in his own
sagacious way the road taken by his enemy —

' And he darts on the fatal path more fleet
Than the bla.st that hurries the vapour and sleet
Oe'r the wild November day.'

"This is all the poet tells us of the chase, but it is enough
to rouse the imagination, and make us reflect. The next
three verses conclude the story, and we know that Ma-
quon's bride was stolen in the early summer, but it was
into the fall before she smiled at his hearth again, for in
a glowing and glorious measure Bryant says :

■ * But at length the maples in crimson are dyed,

And the grape is black on the cabin-side, —

' But far in the pine-grovt-, dark and cold,

Where the yellow leaf falls not,
Nt»r the autumn shinos in scarlet and gold,
There lies a hillock of frenh dark mould.

In the deepest gloom of the spot.

■Vi

■MnmnRapaMiMnpii

I *l!

I'i ■> ■

178 EVENINUS IN THE LIBllAHY.

' And the Indian girl« that panH that way,

Point out the ravisher'n gi-ave ;
And how soon to the bower she loved,' they say,
' Returned the maid that was borne away

From Maqnon, the fond and the brave.' "

" And again in his * Indian Girl's Lament,' we have
another charming bit of romance. Indeed I am more than
pleased that Bryant has included in his work these Indian
legends. Without them American poems would l)e in-
complete. And if his Indian is not real flesh and blood,
we are only sorry for it. I should be very sony if all his
characters were only i^leal creatures. I should be sorry
for mankind if this were so. I should be sorry, too, if
the incidents which he relates all through his writings
were untrue, for 1 think the world is better because these
poenr^ u'ere written, an<l if Bryant has not told us the
truth, where can we find it ? No, the world has long since
blessed the day wliich gave us the venerable poet. What
a privilege he enjoys. He has lived in two centuries. He
lias seen the old school of poetry pass away, and has wit-
nessed the dawn of the new. For sixty years and more
he has been the intimate of the great ones, who, on two
tiemispheres, have led tliought and scholarship and song.
He hur,. in hi.s turn, been a leader himself in all three. He

BRYANT.

179

have

i than

ndian

i)e in-

blood,

all his

i sorry
too, if

ritings

c these
us the
r since
What
>s. He
as wit-
l more
on two
1(1 song,
re. Hi*

wrote creditable stanzas before Byron died, and his name
rang through the four c^uarters of the globe long before
Coleridge ceased to write. The contemporary of Moore,
of Shelley the fanciful, of Wordsworth, of Keats, the
Hov/itts and the Lambs ; the life-long companion of Irv-
ing, of Cooper, of Cole and of Halleck, he has seen many
a poet blossom into song, live his l)iief life, and prss away
to the other world. He read the wonderful creations of
Scott as they came fresh from the press. He published a
volume of poems before Tennyson was born, and a second
edition of his poetry appeared when Longfellow was a
babe scarcely a year old. He began life young, and as a
child was as precocious as Macaiday, and as eager to read
as Whipple, who knew the ' Citizen of the World ' before
he was six. Like the gifted ' Barry C(n'nvvall ' who died
a short time ago, Bryant can stretch forth his hands and
touch the great men and women of two ages. He has
sung for each and knew them all. The melodious song
of ' Pitcairn's Island ' was written the year after Byron's
death, and about the .same time ' The Skies ' an<i tlie lines
to the moon appeared. The three are strong in Bryant's
characteristics, the latter espeeially so."

" Bryant has often assisted y<»ung writers, has lie not

180

EVENINGS IN THT: LIBRARY.

and frequently helped them on wHh his counsel and
advice ? "

" Yes, he is (jiiite nota))le in this way. Several au-
thors of the present day owe much to Br3^ant. One of
his proteges was Webber, the essayist and novelist. Web-
ber was a good critic also, and has left beliind him a
praise-worthy review of Hawthorne, his works and liter-
ary method, besides several other papers of lesser note,
Webl)er was in New York one day, and with the excep-
tion of Audulxm, he knew scarcely any one in the great
city. He had long been an admirer of Bryant's poetry,
and after a good deal of consideration he resolved to call
on the busy editor and poet, and with no other introduc-
tion than a manusci'ipt, present hiniself at the office. He
did so, and was cordially received. He found the poet in
one of his pleasantest moods, and was overjoyed at tlie
attention he received. The p(x^t took his papei-, pronnsed
to read it, ami invited the young literary as])irant t<j call
the next day. Webber went out into the street in a jjer-
fect transport of joy. He had seen Bryant, heard him
speak, and was to see him on the morrow again. His heart
was light, as you may imagine, and on the following day
he hastened to fulfil his engagement at an early hour. In
tliose ilays Mr. Bryant used to get down to his ollice by

HRYANT.

181

1 and

al au-

)ne of
Web-

hiiu a

il liter-

3r note.

: excep-

le great
poetry,

il to call
trodiic-

lice. He
poet in

(1 at the
nnnised
t to call
n a per-
ard Idm
lis heart
AinLT (lay
Iw^ur. In
ollice by

seven o'clock in the morning at the latest, and so by the
time young V\\'l>l)er ealled he was leady to see him. in
the meantime he had read the manuscript, and was so
much i)leased with it that as soon as its author entered
the room lie hegan to speak his praises of it. He handed
him a letter of introduction to Winchester, the publisher,
and the youth went on his way rejoicing. Winchester,
acting on Bryant's liint, at once engaged him to write a
series of papers on Texan Adventure, for his literary
journal. The Xew World. "

" I remember something of Webber. He wrote ' Old
Hicks, the Guide,' and a story, which I recollect was once
very popular with us at school. I think it was called
' The Shot in the Eye.' It was a wild thing, full of spirit,
energy, and adventure. W^as it not published in two
journals at the same time 1 I remember some talk about
it to that etiect."

" Yes, it was originally written for the Democratic Re-
view, O'SuUivan's publication. The manuscript was de-
livered to him, but after some weeks had passed it could not
be found, though it was really searched for diligently. Web-
ber waited for some months, and resolving to delay no
longer, he re-wrote the story and handed it over to the
Whig lieo'ieiv — a new magazine — and the tale came out

f 4

MMCBalMkM

I l\^

182

EVENINGS IN THE LIimARY.

in its second nninl«'r. ()'SulIiv;in, in tlu^ nKjantinic, acci-
dentally came across the long-lost manuscript, and he
^avo it out to the printers, without saying a word about
it to Wehber. That is how ' The Shot in the Eye ' came
to he publish(^d simultaneously in two American journals.
Webher was a curious fellow and always fond of adven-
ture. He went to (Central America on an expedition
which Walker counnan<led, and was killed there. He
married, in 1(S40, a Boston lady, who was clever with the
pencil, and many of hei- illustrations appeared in her
husband's boc^ks. Most of the pictures in The Hunter
Naturalist were executed by her. Webber was only
thirty-seven when he died, and in his lifetime knew sev-
eral eminent })eople, chief among whom were Bryant,
Audubon, Whipple, and others."

" Though not nuich given to humour, in his poetry,
Bryant has introduced the element into an occasional
poem of his. His humour is of the satiric kind and it is
very neat. His ' Ode to a Moscpiito ' is one of this class,
and it is delicately done. The mosquito, our poet calls
an ' otispring of the gods, though born of earth,' and start-
ing with this idea, he goes on to say, that Titan was his
sire, and the ocean nymph his nurse. The moaquito, you
see, is, therefore, a most respectable insect. He has been

BRYANT.

188

acci-
d he
ibout
came
rnalfl.
(1 ven-
dition
5. He
Lth the
in her
Hunter
IS only
w sev-
Biyant,

poetry,
casional
md it is
lis class,
oet calls
,nd start-
was his
aito, you
has been

brought up amid eKigant suiioiiiidings. In liis young
days he nestled softly in a cradle which swung bi^.'noath
the rushes, and here he rocked gently until his gauzy
wings grew strong. The poet handles this dainty thing
craefuUy and well, and he tells us how the air wafted him
along, and he traces his career through the forests and the
city. In Broadway the insect is invited to taste the ala-
baster necks, and aske<l to dine off the fresh cheeks and
chins of some young maids who throng the streets of the
city, and suck the bright blood which courses through the
transparent skin. But the insect knows too nmch for
that. What, says he, eat rouge, get p(iisone<l with China
bloom, and turn sick at the taste of Rowland's Kalydor.
No, no. He fortliM^th proceeds to bleed the poet himself,
but Bryant remonstrates at this, and tells him to try
elsewhere. He is gaunt and thin. Try, says the poet —

* Try some plump alderman, and suck the blood
Enriched by generous wine and costly meat ;

On well-tilled skins, sleek as thy native mud,
Fix thy light pump and press thy freckled feet.

Go to the men for whom, in ocean's halls,

The oyster breeds, and the green turtle sprawls.

' There corks are drawn, and the red vintage Hows
To fill the swelling veins for thee, and now

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184 EVENINGS FN THE LIBRARY.

The ruddy cheek and now the ruddier nose

Shall tempt thee, as thou flittest round the lirow.

And when the hour of sleep its quiet brings,
No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings.'"

" Surely," laughed Charles, '• no one but Bryant could
write thus of the inos([uito. I shall have greater- respect
for the offspring of the gods, ever after. Indeed 1 sliall
esteem it as an honour to be bitten by him, and when he
comes my way again, I will bare my arm and bid him
drink deep of the fountain within. Rowland, who make,*^
those splendid preparations which remove our freckles,
thicken our falling locks, and whiten our decaying teeth,
until we look young and fresh again, has been innnortal-
ized by the poets. Bryant here refers to his Kalydor, and
Byron sings glibly of his ' incomparable oil, Macassar.' "

" In personal poems, Bryant has given some real gems.
His sonnet to Cole, that great painter whom some deem
superior to Allston, written on the occasion of his depar-
ture for Europe, is in Bryant's freshest and skilfullest
mood. ' The Future Life,' ' The Life that Is,' and ' Octo-
ber, 1866,' are poems addressed to his wife, the latter after
her death. None can read these heart touches without
emotion. Every word breathes the deepest love and the
kindliest affection. Death has cast its gloom in the poet's

BRYANT.

185

could
•espect
1 shall
hen lie
3id him
) makef^
freckles,
Lg teeth,
iimortal-
dor, and
issar.' '
eal gems,
me deem
lis depar-
kilfullest
nd ' Octo-
atter after
s without
p, and the
the poet's

household many times, and we often see traces of his
march and the sorrow he has caused, in the poems which
tell so eloquently the story of the sweet singer's home
life."

" As a translator, Bryant has earned an excellent repu
tation. While in New York, in 1827, he took some pains
to acquire the Spanish langu ge, and several of the poems
contributed to the United States Revieiu, which grew
out of the old Neiv York Revieiu, were translations from
the Spanish, German, Latin, and Greek. 'Mary Magdalen'
is perhaps his more ambitious peiformance from the
Spanish, though some will prefer, on account of its ring
probably, 'The Alcayde of Molina.'"

" I have seen it somewhere stated that Brj^ant's trans-
lation of Homer was superior to Lord Derby's, and largely
in advance of Pope's. Is this true ?"

" Yes, I believe it is. You see Bryant, like Longfellow
in his Dante, has striven to preserve as much as possible
the exact language of his poet. He has overstepped no
bounds. Unlike Moore, who has given us so many de-
lightful songs from Anacreon, Bryant gives us -Homer,
while the Irish singer just lets us have the faintest glimpse
of the Greek poet. Bryant is very literal, but at the; same
time, his tianslation reads like a fresh poem, Tu \Hit'> by

186

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

p:i

began to translate the Iliad, and in December, 1871, his
great work was completed, and the Odyssey also. All
through his life one can see, especially in his later years,
the influence which Greek poetry has had upon his nund.
It has given a classical turxi to his poetry, and changed
the scope and current of his thought in several ways. The
leading critics, in estimating Bryant's translation of the
Iliad and the Odyssey, seem to consider that his triumphs
are even greater in the latter than in the former. Be this
as it may, no one can take up either without feeling im-
pressed with the wide scholarship and culture which are
displayed by the poet in these two notable books, works
wliicl) will stand alone as monuments of his skill and
taste and high cultivation. He has not wooed the muse
in vain, and, as a translator, lie is artistic, finished, and
thorough."

" Bryant has told, in his time, many stories of the heart,
but nothing that he has written will live longer than the
])oems which he has prepared for children. Two of them
are known tar and near. They were not written for any
special publication, but com})osed as the poet was moved
to write by the impulse of the moment. He kej^t them
fty him in manuscript t'oi- many weeks, an<l they first saw
the light in an edition of his poems. The first of these is

-*«a*«t3»4i

DRYANT.

187

). All
• years,
s uiind.
ihangetl
.ys. The
a of thti
^riuinpbs
. Be this
;eUng nn-
which are
ks, works
skill and
\ the iiiu«^
liished, and

If the heart,
ler than the
ro of them
^ten for any
was moved
a kept them
|iey first saw
;t of these is

' Bella's Fairy Slippers.' A child playing on the rivulet's
bank found one day a dainty pair of slippers, white as the
snow and spangled with twinkling points like stars. Her
name was wrought in silver on the edge, and full of joy
she showed them to her mother. But the prudent matron
bade her put them by and said :

' * * * 1 cfwiDot see thy name

Upon the border — only characters

Of mystic look and dim are there, like signs

Of some strange art ; nay, daughter, wear them not. '

" And little Sella hung them in the porch. But after
May has done, and Midsunniier had come, the child at
noon one day was missed, and though they sought for her
in her favourite haunts, by the gr'eat i-ock, and far along
the stream, none saw the little mai<l, .md two long days
passed by. And at the close of that sad second day —

• * * * with red eyes,

The mother sat within her home alone.'

"She turned, and with a shriek of joy she smw her Sella
by her side. The child had tried the tiny slippers on ;
they were sliaped so fairly to her feet ; and lo ! she was in
M moment transported. She tells her mother of the ad-
ventures she passed through, how she walked over the

3 1

188

EVENINGS IN THE LIBllAItY.

ocean's bed in company with sprites and fairies, and we
have a delicious bit of description here. But she grew
anxious to see her mother, and the poet tells us at last,
how her fair conductor led her home again, and how weary
was the journey upward. Arriving at her mother's door,
her guide kissed her tenderly, and she saw her face no
more. The story is one of the sweetest ever written, and
the allegory in the background teaches an interesting les-
son. The second child's poem is equally happy in descrip-
tion and in moral. It is the beautiful bit of nature which
Bryant calls his 'Little People of the Snow.' It was pub-
lished during the Christmas season of 1872, and the story
of the little elves is one of the most instructive and
beautiful in the whole range of juvenile literature. In it
we are told how a little child was beguiled into another
world, and Mi-. Bryant's description of this under-gi'ound
garden is full of form and beauty. These two poems are
sufficient in themselves to make a reputation for any poet,
even if he had written nothing else. It is of a class, too
which cannot fail to do a vast amount of good. Parents
would perform a judicious act in putting such poems as
these, along witli Dickens's 'Child's Dream of a Star,' in
the liands of their children."

'* You are I'ight, and the fact that such authors m

BRYANT.

189

nd we

1 grew
it last,
weary
's door,
face no
ten, and
ting les-
descrip-
ve which
was pub-
the story
itive and
ure. In it
,0 another
er-gi'ound
poems are
,v any poet,
a class, too
Parents
'h poeu\s as
a Star,' in

authoV'i ^

Howells, and Lonjj^fellow, and Tayloi-, an«l Tiowhridge,
and many others, have become pinveyorH for the literary
appetites of our children, seems to point to a splendid
future for coming generations of young readeis. Juvenile
libraries will no longer consist of trashy, goodey-goodey
books, written by namby-pamby and obscure writers, but
the shelves will be filled with the productions of the
masters in letters. The minds of children will grow
robust after a course of Bryant, Holmes, Aldrich and tlu»
rest."

" Sometimes Bryant has formed a poem in his head
long before he has put it in shape on paper. His Flood
of YeavH was written about a year ngo, some time after
the thought had been in his mind. At last he took it up
and made a poem of it."

"Bryant is sometimes indebted to actual incidents for
some of his poems, though most of his writings are the
outcome of his own ripe and vigorous thoughts. The
child's funeral — a pretty poem — happened oddly enough.
The author was in Europe, and an English lady in a letter
to him related an occurrence which was so curious, and at
the same time so interesting, that Bryant could not resist
the temptation to put the idea into verse. In the south
of Italy a little child had died, died when its little tongue

^It

190

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

to I

had just boo-un to lisp the names of those it loved the
lK^st :

' The father strove his stnijj;gliiiy grief to quell,

The mother wei)t as mothers used to weep,
Two little sisters wearied them to tell

When their dear Carlo would awake from sleep,'

" The fathei' <j^athered many flowers with which to
grace the little cor[)se, which was laid in an inner I'oom
upon his funeral couch.

' They laid a crown of roses on his head.

And murmured, " brighter is his crown above."

' They scattered round him, on the snowy sh et,

Laburnum' strings of sunny-coloured gems.
Sad hyacinths, and violets dim and sweet,

And orange-blossoms on their dark-green stems.'

" The solemn rites of blessing are performed, prayers
are said, and the stricken ones go into the room to take
the little body awa}^ to lay it in the earth below, when
lo, the baby greets them with a little cry, and they dis-
cover him sitting up and playing with his own funerai
wreath.

* The little sisters laugh and leap, and try
To climb the bed on which the infant lay.

And there he sits alive, and gayly shakes,
In his full hands, the blossoms red and white.

BRYANT.

101

, the

Lch to
room

prayers
I to take
)W, when

hey tlis-
n f unera,l

And smiles witli winking eyes, like (ine \vh<i wakes
-i From lonpf <leep slnmbers at the morninj,' liK^it.'

"The incident of itself is cliarminof enough, hut put into
such poetry as Bryant writes, it fortliwith resolves itself
into a classic, and is another chil(l-])oem of singular l)eauty
and expression."

" Apart from his poetry, Bryant is a prose writer of
singular elegance and heauty of style. His letters of a
traveller are models of pure writing, and show rare felicity
of thought and movement. The companion volume
' Letters from the East,' contains notes of a visit to Egypt
and Palestine. It is interesting to sit do\vn to-day and
read Bryant's European and American letters of forty
years ago. He writes from Pisa, Florence, Rome, Paris,
Venice, the Shetland Isles, London, Cuha, Florida, and
other places in different parts of the world. He chats
pleasantly about art, and men, and customs, and relates
incidents by the way which are (piite delightful, as much
on account of the changes which have taken place since
then, as by reason of the fund (^f information which they
possess. Bryant was one who went about Europe with
his eyes and ears open. Nothing worth recording seems
to have escaped him, and his letters are as fresh and
breezy as if they were given to the public for the first

EVKMN(JS IN THK l.limAIlY.

time t()-<lay. 'J'lic AiiK^ricaii Ititlers aw not so fresh, iiias-
niucli as tlie cliangos have been nioie sweeping in their
chaiactei- since Biyant wrote his chronicles, and they are
useful now only as impressions formed something less than
half a century agd, by a man with thought in his compo-
sition. His other volume of prose papers will always re-
tain its interest. It contains the orations, speeches and
addi-esses delivered at difierent times in the orator's
career."

" I have read them and must admire their polish and
finish," said Charles, " I know of no one who could write
anything like them, save Phillips, or Webster. Bryant
deals with his subjects pictorially and picturesquely.
Every sentence is j)erfectly formed, and his choice of lan-
guage is skilful and elegant. He has lived so long, and
knows so intimately, all the great personages of his time,
and is so thoroughly acquainted with everything which
belongs to his age, that he can talk intelligently and well
upon any topic which may arise. No one can speak more
eloquently than he, and utter such words of wisdom at
the unveiling of a statue of some eminent man ; no one
can preside at a public dinner with more dignity and
grace, and utter a more happy post-prandial Address than
Bryant. His words flow without hesitancy. His com-

BRYANT.

ion

in:vs-
their

>y are
s than

oiiip«>-
lys re-
?s and
)rator'B

sh and
d write
Bryant
jsquely.
; of lan-
»ng, and
lis time,
c which
ind well
sak more
isdom at
no one
nity and
less than
His com-

manding presence and chaste language awaken achni ration
in the breasts of his hearers. In the liook of orations
which bears his name, we have his remarks on Thomas
Cole, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Washington Irving, James F.
Cooper, Verplanck, Kossuth, Morse, Shakespeare, Scott,
besides speeches on a number of social subjects. His other
prose works consist chiefly of the editorship which he has
given to various books, the * Libi'ary of Poetry and Song,'
' Picturesque America,' Szc, and a novel, or rather a trans-
lation of a story from the Spanish of Carolina Coronado,
entitled Jarllla. Bryant has been connected with the
Evening Post since 1820, and in the issue of that journal
of November 13th, 1851, he wrote a ' History of the First
Fifty Years of its career. It was founded November IGth
1801, by William Coleman, a barrister. In 1829 Coleman
died, and William Leggett took his place in the paper.
The latter retired in 1836, when Mr. Bryant returned
from Europe and took charge. He has remained in that
position ever since, and the Post to-day is a very valuable
property.

" The venerable poet is a man of strong will, but a tender
heart. He is loved by all who know him personally. His
great and good qualities of head and heart endear him to
countless thousands. His poems reflect the purity of his
Ufe."

ill

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■ii

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..if

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KVKNINHS IN THK LIIJIUUY.

No. 8. H0WELL8.

" It was early in the Fall of 18(j8," said the professor, on
the followinf^ Monday evenino-, " and durini^" my stay in
Boston, that I first heard of Mr, Howells. He was one of
the editors of Tlie Atlantic, along with Mr. James T.
Fields, and he was usually s|)oken of, by the literary men
of Cambridge, as a Western man of culture, who possessed
abilities of the very highest order. He was the author of
two books, ' Venetian Life,' published in 18(55, in Lon-
don, and ' Italian Journeys,' which came out two years
later. These had a very g(X)d reputation, and, as gossipy
books of travel, they built up (piite a name for their
author. I was eag-er to read somethin<Tc of the new writer
who was steadily gaining a place in the affections and es-
teem of thoughtful people, and his last l)ook was accord-
'vci\!\y placed in my hands."

" That was his volume of travels in Italy, was it not ?
I remember reading in it a capital account of Pompeii,"
sai<l Frank.

" Yes, it is a very delightful book ; as sketchy in its cha-

racter as some of the memorable thini^s we find in Irvintj

;( ;

lloWKU.S.

lOo

or in L()n«4\>llo\v's Outvp Mcr. Vou can road about l*a<lua,
of IMsa, FV'rrara, and kindrctl places, and experience as
much deliirlit as if vou vvei'e visitinii* them. Since I liave
read Howells, I could not tliink of takino- a trip to Italy
without havin<jf a copy of his Ixjok with me. Under his
Ljuidance 1 would know just what was worth seeing, and
he would tell me too, what I had better on»it. His sketches
ai'c fresh, original, and picturesqnc. H(* overdoes nothing,
and his coloviring is so delicately done, anii his style is so
simple and at the same time so brillia"> , thai the reader is
comple^"^^ carried away with the perfect '>reeziness and
Uf which sparkle from every page of his i»ooks. His style
is his own ; it is new, bold, and vigorous. He never wea-
ries you with dry or stale platitudes. He <loes not tire
you with homilies or dull moralizings. He is an inde-
pendent thinker, and all his thoughts have a pleasurable
turn, a sort of wayward fancy, and you can imagine him
saying things, now and then, that Voltaire might have
envied. He is lively, full of (puiint, but not loud-voiced,
humour, a piquant humour, — a humour that Addison
would have delighted in, — a gaiety that was forever bub-
bling up in the mind of Macaulay. You see it in his Sub-
urban Sketches. You find it again as you run through
the pages of his ' Foregone Conclusion. You are re-

'■y.

196

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

minded of it at every pa^e almost of his exquisite comedy,
* Out of the Question ;' and you never forget it as you
read his ' Private Theatricals.' Indeed in all his writ-
ings this quality, which is part and parcel of himself,
stands boldly out. It is the central figure around which
all the lesser qualities of his mind gather and pay hom-
age. I notice it in Holmes, in Lowell, and sometimes in
Aldrich. Ho wells is a humorist of the first order, and a
satirist of a lower degree."

" You like his ' Venetian Life,' do you not ? "
" Oh yes, but there is something about his ' Italian
Journeys,' — an indescribable something, may be — that
always warms my heart towards it. It is a more finished
book than the other, and the author seems to write
with greater freedom, and with less restraint. Under-
stand me, this is only my own opinion, and I speak of
these two books only as the}^ strike me. Had I never
read * Italian Journeys" I would have been entranced with
' Venetian Life,' or perhaps had I read the latter first, it
may have been the same. A good deal depends upon the
frame of mind in which a man may be, to account for his
preference for a certain book. I was prepared to read an
enjoyable volume of travel, and of course I expected a
great deal. The first paje enlisted my sympathies. I had

HOWELLS.

197

iiedy,
1 you
writ-
mself,
which

hom-
Ties in

and a

Italian
J — that
inished
write
Under-
)eak of
I never
ed with

first, it
pon the
for his

read an
)ected a

s. I had

found an author who struck a chord which was in
unison with my own thoughts. A sympathetic current
was at once established, and as I read on I became more
and more pleased with the book I held in my hand. I
remember how I laid the work down, and glanced at the
clock that was ticking away in my room, and began to
think of Howells and the long journey he was taking to
Rome, and of his varied experiences there. And thus I
read and thought, and read again, until the dawn of a stiff*
October day broke, and the last words of the last sentence
tingled in my mind. 1 could get up no such enthusiasm
over ' Venetian Life,' which I read soon afterwards. Now
you understand why I have a preference. One is a gieat
work, the other is a good one."

" I should have thought Mr. Howells would have thrown
his chief strength on Venetian life. He lived in Venice
for several years. You know he was appointed about
sixteen years ago United States Consul there, and he re-
sided in a very romantic house, the famous palace in the
Casa Faliero, which looked out upon the waters of the
Grand Canal"

" Yes," said Charles, " he speaks of his residence there,
and tells how the Gondoliers used to pause and point out
the house where Marino b'alieio was born, and there in

1
if

198

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

';i

■'i !

i! I

that delightful and pleasant way of his, he says, ' for a
long time we clung to the hope that it might be so ; but
however pleasant it was, we were forced, on reading up
the subject a little to relinquish our illusion, and accredit
an old palace at Santi Apostoli with the distinction we
would fain have claimed for ours.' And so it is in all his
writings. Everything is going on smoothly enough, and
you are getting along finely, when suddenly you are off
the track again, or by the time you have looked out of
the window to see what has gone wrong, you are off
again at a tremendous pace. You had only arrived at one
of his stopping places, a way station where the author
paused to fire up. Ah yes, Unc;le, you will find without
unich search, many bits of excellent writing and colouring
in Venetian Life, and a good deal of vivid description
too."

" I grant you, you will. I have a preference for the other
that is all. Do you know 1 am a little curious to know
which of the two books Howells himself prefers. You
know he is quite a critic of his own writings, so severe in
fact, that it is related of him, somewhere, that in his con-
duct of Thi' Atlantic li'j has frequently rejected liis own
articles and poems, because, after a second reading, tliey
>vere not quite up to what he considered the mark,"

!' I

uammm

HOWELLS.

199

or a
but

; up

redit
n we
,11 his
., and
bi-e off
Qut of
\XQ off
at one
author
dthout
ouring
iption

other
o know
You
jvere in
lis con-
liis own
ng, they
k."

" I have heard the story, but accept it with many
grains. You say Howells is a severe critic. You are
mistaken. He is a strict critic, not a severe one. In the
whole range of his criticism I do not remember a harsh or
severe word, not even a severe allusion to an author or his
book. He is just, and his estimates of books are models
of critical writing, but he condemns in so gentlemanly
and polished a way that even an author whose work is
danmed, cannot take offence at his critic. He employ.', in
his criticisms none of the caustic language of Lowell.
He writes an adverse criticism more in sorrow tlian in a
spirit of s})itefulness or wrath. Neither does he damn
with faint praise. He has everything in his composition
which belongs to a just and good critic, and liis critical
work has, in consequence, great value. He s(^metimes
reminds one of Hazlitt, in the way in which he treats
books. Hazlitt you know always wrote with a certain
fearlessness that gave him a very formidable look, but in
his heart he was always kindly and disposed to be lenient.
Howells is much the same, with this difference, Hazlitt
was sometimes passionate and not a little prejudiced.
Howells is free from these blots on the critic's escutcheon.
He is never cynical, but always fair, always interesting,
and always delightful. He nevei cuts up a book for the

200

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

! r

mere love of the thing, as Jeffrey and Macaulay used to,
and he displays no crotchets, but constantly exhibits an
even temper. His criticisms are not the least important
of his magazine work."

" I was struck one day by reading in an Atlantic, a
notice which he had written of his friend, Bayard Taylor's
Echo Club, in which he took occasion to express an ad-
verse opinion on its merits and method. He was not
altogether pleased with the book, and said so. I thought
it rather strange, inasmuch as the Diversions had origi-
nally appeared in the very magazine which contained the
criticism."

"That is just what you might expect from a man of
Howells' disposition. He criticises the book, not the
writer. When he puts to paper his impressions of a
work, he banishes from his thoughts entirely, the name
of the author. He is always candid. For my part I
liked the ' Diversions' very much, and thought Taylor had
made some excellent ' hits' in his imitations of popular
poets, the one written after the manner of Joaquin Miller,
was to my mind, very felicitous, indeed they were all
good."

" That is the very thing Howells took umbrage at. He
did not say the iiiiitutions were not guo(l, only he ini-

UOWELLS.

201

ed to,
its an
)rtant

ntic, a
Btylor's
an ad-

rsis not

I .A.*-

i origi-
ned the

man of
lot the
of a
le name

part I

dor had

Dopular

Miller,

vere all

>i at. He
lu5 im-

plied the idea that they were not just the thing for a man
of Bayard Taylor's position to write. He thought Taylor
ought not to write parodies."

" Of Howells' prose writings he furnishes two exquisite
volumes, which cannot fail to interest and amuse Cana-
dians. These are, ' Their Wedding Journey/ and ' A
Chance Acquaintance,' both originally published in The
Atlantic, and afterwards appearing in several editions in
book form. Of the two I prefer, , A Chance Acquaintance,'
though the difference is not at all marked. The same
delicious raillery exists in each, the same delicate but keen
humour, the same sprightliness and vivacity, the same
enjoyable conversations appear in both, and enrich the
pages of each. 'I read the ' Acquaintance' on the steamer
from Montreal to Quebec, and was strongly tempted to go
for a sail on the Saguenay before I was quite through
with it. The authcjr's descriptions are fresh and neat.
He takes us over ground that we have travelled a thou-
sand times, personally, and in books, and Quebec, before
we read Howells, never ai)peared so intoxicatingly beauti-
ful and interesting as it did after we read his story of a
few days' stay in it. The popular author of * Maple Leaves/
Mr. J. M. LeMoine, once told me of a visit Mr. Howells had

paid him at his residence at Spencqr Grange, and how in-
M

■!■>£■>

202

KVKNINGS IN THE LIBRARY

teresting and aftaWc a gentleman the genial author was.
The two writers who have devoted so much attention to
the history of the Ancient Capital, strolled together up
the Audubon Avenue, and exchanged thoughts and senti-
ments on a beautiful sunmier afternoon. They stood
together on the little platform in the rear, where Audubon
and Parkman, and other famous ones have stood before^
and which overlooks the river, and told each other the
legends and stories of the place which had come down
through tradition. They passed through the Secret Gate,
along the passage which led the way to a favourite son's
grave, where the wife of a Governor of Quebec was to be
found Sunday after Sunday, strewing flowers several
years ago. He told me many things of Jlowells which I
cannot tell you here, but after my talk with LeMoine, I
took greater interest in Ho wells' books and learned to
like him and his writings more. Do you know, the more
you read of him the better you like him. He is a true
artist, and his very playfulness is a triumph of the art he
employs so well. You notice this to a large extent in his
* Acquaintance,' which is a healthy and invigorating book.
Howells never fills his stories with dry and unsatisfactory
characters. His people are always intelligent, and never
uninteresting. He makes them do and say natural things,

HOWELLS.

203

or was.
ition to
ther up
d senti-
y stood
.adubon
i before,
ither the
ne down
ret Gate,
rite son's
kva.s to be
s several
5 vvhicb 1
eMoine, I
earned to
the more
I is a true
he art he
,ent in his
Ann book,
itisfactory
and never
iral things,

and gets along very well with half a dozen or so. I never
read a story which keeps up the interest so w^ell as ' The
Acquaintance,' and the author carries you along in that
graceful way of his, which makes you regret it ever so
much when the end is reached."

" Yes, but I am disposed to quarrel with him for ending
'A Chance Acquaintance' in the way he does. T declare it
is quite tantalizing to have it end in the way it does. Mr.
Arbuton ought to have married that dear girl Kitty who
did so many things well, and is so good a character. I
was so interested in the story that when Arbuton gave
Kitty the cold shoulder I was so annoyed and angrj/
with him that I lost all patience. The character-drawing
is really excellent. The Colonel, Mrs. Ellison, Kitty,
Arbuton, even the people they meet on the steamboats
and in the towns and cities are all distinct types of peo-
plehood and persons one is very likely to meet in his
travels. The conversations are sprightly and interesting,
the situations, incidents and general grouping of the
events are managed with artistic skill, and the total
absence of plot and its concomitants shows how skilful
an artist Howells is. He has no heroes or heroines, his
characters are individuals who seem to exist in real life.
His puppets have brains, and while he sometimes steps

204

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRAHY.

down from the stage like Thackeray, and talks to the
reader about them, he does not interrupt the progress of
his story longer than a minute, when off they go again,
and the puppets are ready to do their master's bidding
and go on with the narrative. The spell in which you
are held is a very agreeable one. Howells is not sensa-
tional and while he is dramatic enough, his writings are
more of the comedy than the purely melo-dramatic type.
He has written one tragedy, full of pathos, and just a
little humour of the most delicate sort, but all else that
he has given us belong to comedy in its richest and
purest sphere. In ' Chance Acquaintance' he manages that
little affair of the heai't in a singularly touching way.
He tells the old, old story, which has come down to us
from beyond the time of Homer, in a fresh and striking
way. The tender passion is finely developed in his pages,
and we watch with curious interest the working of love
and its wonderful power over the human heart. Arbu-
ton and Kitty stand out from the rest, the two characters
in whom we have a common interest. We notice the
little movements which bring out the grand results, and
pause now and then to admire the skill of the novelist
as he gets his personages into ditticulties and extricates
them again, He holds his readers with a fascination

tmm.

to the

,'SS of

rross

) again,
bidding
ich you
it sensa-
Dings are
tic type,
id just a
else that
best and
ages that
ling way.
iwn to us
striking
is pages,
cr of love
Arbu-
haracters
lotice the
ults, and
3 novelist
jxtricatcs

^,sQinatiou

HOWELLS.

205

wliich is almost woird, and his fi«fnros wbilothoy perform
not always l)rilliantly, manage someliow to do very plea-
sant and interesting things now and then which is ahiiost
as good. The course of the courtship is admirably worked
up, and the way in which it culminates is the only re-
grettable thing in the whole story, the only disappointing
feature. Mrs. Ellison is well drawn, and her clever at-
tempt at match-making, her little talks with Kitty and
the Colonel, and Mr. Arbuton are all delightful features
of the story, which progresses with charming spirit. In-
deed it is in these touches of nature, in the gaiety of his
conversations, in the sprightfulness of his dialogue, in the
massing of his incidents, that he exhibits his strongest
and most striking characteristics. In his descrijition of
old Quebec and the hundreds of historic spots which ex-
ist in it, we have some rare specimens of word-painting,
many of them unsurpassed for rhetorical finish and beauty
of expression. We have fiction and history elegantly
grouped together on the same page. It is the same with '
* Their Wedding Journey.' "

" I have noticed that. It is even richer than the other
as a mere record of travel, as a simple account of a plea-
sant trip from Boston to New York and down the St.
Lawrence to the Ancient Capital. The same sprightliness

^■

I i

206

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

which pcTvados' *A Chance Ac(iiiaintance ' abounds in this
coinp?inion book. It is, if anything, more humorous ; cer-
tainly the vein of satire in some places lurks alarmingly
near. I know you will pardon me for (juoting a passage
or two, but this description of a hotel clerk is so natural
and true that you will like to hear it. Howells is only
relating your and my experience with these gentlemen,
and I think it is one of the most truthful things ever
written. Listen to this. Basil and Isal)el March have
arrived at Rochester and reached the hotel, and behold
presiding over the register the conventional American
hotel clerk :

" He was young, he had a neat moustache and well-
brushed hair ; jewelled studs sparkled in his shirt-front,
and rings on his white hands ; a gentle disdain of the
travelling public breathed from his person in the mys-
tical odours of Ylang-ylang. He did not lift his haughty
head to look at the wayfarer who meekly wrote his name
in the register ; he did not answer him when he begged
for a cool room ; he turned to the board on which the
keys hung, and, plucking one from it, slid it towards Basil
on the marble counter, touched a bell for a call-boy,
whistled a bar of Oifenbach, and, as he wrote the num-
ber of i/he room against Basil's name, said to a friend

noWKM.S.

207

i in thiH
as ; cer-
riningly
passage
, natural

s is only
sntlemen,
Lngs ever
,vcli hiive
Ld \)ehold
American

and well-
hirt-front,
lam of the
the mys-
i haughty
le his name
he begged
which the
rards Basil
la call-hoy,
the nuui-

bo a

friend

lonnf]^ing near him, as if resniiiinL; a conversation, ' Well,
she's a ^niglity pooty gul, anyway, CMiawley ! '

" When I reflect that this was a type of the hotel clerk
throughout the United States, that behind unnumbered
registers at this moment he is snubbing travellers into the
dust, and that they are suffering and perpetuating him, f
am lost in wonder at the national meekness. Not that T am
one to refuse the humble pie his jewelled fingers offer me.
Abjectly I take my key, and creep up-stairs after the call-
boy, and try to give myself the genteel air of one who has
not been stepped upon. But I think homicidal things all
the same, and I rejoice that in the safety of print I can
cry out against the despot whom I have not the pivsence
to defy."

" There, what do you think of that ? "
" Think, why it is excellent. I have read the passage
so often that I can quote it. I think when Ho wells says
he is not the hotel-clerk's equal, and adds quietly, ' few
men are,' his satire has reached the very climax. But this
is not the only good thing in ' Their Wedding Journey.'
It abounds in humour and bits of satire. Have you
read ' Suburban Sketches ? ' "

" Yes ; first as they came out in the Atlantic, and after-
wards in the book. What a powerful piece of writing the

lylm'

51'

til

!•

: V ?

ri •

208

EVENINGS IN THE LIBilARY.

'Sc(!nc' iy ? It is full of dramatic cncrj^'y and patlios, in
striking contrast to the author's other work ; the ' Door-
step Acquaintance,' which is very graceful ; * Mrs. Johnson,'
which is very amusing and funny; and the 'Romance of Real
Life,' which contains many touches of nature. ' A Day's
Pleasure,' in the same hook, is one of Howells' quaintest
sketches. It is full of humour, and ends pleasantly with
the finding of a little child. Mr. Hoppin, the artist, illus-
trates a phase in this picture very happily. All of these
sketches — and there are ten of them — are full of good
nature, and abound in lively and really brilliant speci-
mens of the author's genius. They are ' A Pedestrian Tour/

* Flitting,' which .sets forth theti'ials of moving-day, 'Some
Lessons from the School of Morals,' which criticises in
excellent taste a certain kind of theatrical entertainment
in vogue in Boston a few years ago, * Jubilee Days ' an
unctuous descrii)tion of Mr. Gilmore's monster concerts, and

* By Horse-car to Boston ' an exceedingly captivating and
bright paper. Some readers consider these sketches Mr.
Howells's best writings ; certainly all his natural charac-
teristics appear in them. He dresses in picturesque lan-
guage the commonest incidents which occur every day,
and even an organ grinder, a scissors shai'pener, and a
coloured servant, become poetized in his hands. The

^j ' waiL ,

HOWELLS.

200

i)s, ni
Door-
inson,'
i Real
Day's
aintcst
y with

t, illus-
)f these

r>f good
it speci-
al Tour,'
i^ 'Some

icises in
ainnient
ays' an
rts, and
ting and
hes Mr.
charac-
que lan-
ery day,
r, and a
ds. The

sketches are very eiijoyahle roadin;^^ and iiuiy Im- takm
up at any time, or lead aa the luimour takes one. Tliey
are of convenient length, and of sufHciently diversified
sentiments to he applicahle at any time."

" I notice Mr. Ho wells has written an acting comedy
which created a good impression on its first appearance.
Mr. Lawrence Barrett sustained :]ie leading role, and it
promises to he quite a success in wdiat we might call the
polite drama. Have you seen it acted ? "

" No, bu<^ I should like to. I read it as it ran through
the magazine. Indeed, the third part was only completed
the other day, and it is really only an earnest of what the
author can do in this department of literature. * A Coun-
terfeit Presentment' contains all the essentials of a neat
comedy, with just enough fun in it to keep an audience
amused, and sufiicient incident to inspire a keen interest
in the play as it proceeds. I can fancy Barrett, whom I
have seen do some very acceptable things on the stage,
sharing the honours with the author in placing this health-
ful comedy before the people. Author and actor are for-
tunate in each other. It is not often that an accor of Mr.
Barrett's sympathies and peculiar genius can be found,
who has so much in common with his author, and that, I
take it, is the reason of his recent success. He has the

i m\

W' ii)

ii 1'

f "

■J

)

.:"

210

EVENINGS IN THE IJHRARY

same nervous delicacy that Howells has, the same quality
of penetration, and much of his light, airy humour. These
go a great way in interpreting character, and I hope Mr.
Howells will always be as fortunate in having so good an
artist as Mr. Barrett is, to carry out on the stage the
thoughts which he puts on paper. ' Out of the Question,'
a little comedy, I read a few months ago. It is full of the
author's pleasant by-play, humour, and elegant fancy. I
hardly think it could be acted ; there is insufficient motion
in it, and it lacks in sustaining force, but as a mere story,
cast in the dramatic mould, it is very delightful reading.
Mr. Howells is one of the very few men who, to-day, can
write a short story. This comedy is perfect in detail, and
possesses all the features which one likes to see in a well-
told tale. The situations, often extravagant, are irresis-
tible, and the author in some places actually Avaits to see
if his characters cannot extricate themselves without his
aid. He seems to enjoy the discomfiture of some of them,
fully as nuich as his readers are apt to. The part in the
play which relates to Mr. Charles Bellingham's diplomacy,
is unequalled in our literature as a piece of calm, subdued
writing."

" Mr. Howells has written some campaign biographies,
a life of Abraham Lincoln, in 18G0, and a short time ago

iHfc

SSSSm

HOWELLS.

211

le quality
»ur. These
[ hope Mr.
so good an
stage the
; Question,'
i full of the
it fancy. I
jient motion
, mere story,
tful reading.
. to-day, can
n detail, and
iee in a well-
,t, are irresis-
Avraits to see *■
without his
jome of them,
,e part in the
's diplomacy,
;alm, subdued

[i\ biographies,
short time ago

a life of Rutherford B. Hayes, both works exhibitin2j his
easy-flowing diction and choice phraseology. His other
prose writings are confined to articles in the North Ame-
rican Review, the editorship of a number of clever books
of European biography, the reviews in The Atlantic, and
kindred literaiy performances. He is comparatively a
young man, scarcely turned forty, having been born in
Ohio, March, 1, 1837, we may therefore confidently expect
much fruiii him for many years yet, if he goes on produ-
cing such excellent work as he has turned out, with the
same wonderful rapidity. My first accjuaintance with his
writings was made while I was in New York. I picked
up in a bookseller's one day a thin volume of poetry called

* The Poems of Two Friends.' A few of them were by
Howells, the larger number by the singularly sweet singer,
John J. Piatt. I was at once captivated with the collec-
tion, and rememl)er one poem in particular, which seemed
to please me very nnich. It is written in the hexameter
form, that measure which is so musical when an artist
employs it, a measure which Longfellow has immortalized
in his " Evangeline," and of which he wrote to Barry
Cornwall, in 1847, the year of its publication, that he

* could write his tale of Acadia, as it is, in no other mea-
sure; indeed to have done so would have changed its eha-

212

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

> <" wk n

■ -' *

r Is *

'H !

ractor entin^ly." Howells employs this swcepiniif metro
with great skill in 'The Movers ;' every note is as clear
as a bell, and faultless in tone and execution. You can
hardly wonder at its taking hold of me as it did. The
poet calls it a sketch. To me it !s a pastoral of marvel-
lous beauty. One can almost see the white-tented waggon
moving slowly up the long hill-side road, bearing the
mother and children, while the father and his house-dog
trudge onward on foot. The time is April, and the poet
stops on the way to sing of the dewy awaking of the
day, and the blooming of the golden sun. He pauses by
the roadside, and with exquisite pathos and tenderness he
talks of the flowers and the birds, and all the other beau-
tiful things of nature. The sorrowful procession moves
on all the while, till the summit which overlooks the
valley is reached, when * trembling and spent, the horses
came to a stand-still unbidden.' The mother and children
dismount and stand by the father, and look back on the
beautiful valley they have left, and in the distance their
eyes seek the old home. Let me quote the few concluding
stanzas :

" ' Long together they gazed on the beautiful valley before them ;

Looked on the well-known fields that stretched away to the woodlands,
Where, in the dark lines of /green, showed the milk-white crest of the
dog-wood,

HOWELLS.

213

r metre

■>

as clear
¥"ou can
d. The
marvel-
. waggon
^ring the
lOUse-dog
the poet
12 of the
pauses by
derness he
ther beau-
iion moves
rlooks the
the horses
id children
ack on the
tance their
concluding

lem;

the woodlands,

lite crent of the

Snow of wild-plums in bloom, and crimson tints of the red-bud ;
Looked on the pasture fields where the cattle were lazily grazing, —
Soft, and sweet, and thin came the faint, far notes of the cow-bells, —
Looked on the oft-trodden lanes, with their elder and blackberry borders,
Looked on the orchard, a bloomy sea, with its billows of blossoms.
Fair was the scene, yet suddenly strange and all unfamiliar.
As «re the faces of friends, when the word of farewell has been spoken.

Long together they gazed ; then at last on the little log-cabin —
Home for so many years, now home no longer forever —
Rested their tearless eyas in the silent rapture of angiiish.
Up in the morning air no column of smoke from the chimney
Wavering, silver and azure, rose, fading and brightening ever ;
Shut was the door where yesterday morning the children were playing ;
Lit with a gleam of the sun the window stared up at them blindly.
Cold was the hearth-stone now, and the place was forsaken and empty.
Empty ? Ah no ! but haxinted by thronging and tenderest fancies.
Sad recollections of all that had been, of sorrow or gladness.

Still they sat there in the glow of the wide red fire in the winter.
Still they sat there by the door in the cool of the still summer evening.
Still the mother seemed to be singing her babe there to slumber.
Still the father beheld her weej) o'er the child that was dying.
Still the place was haunted by all the Past's sorrow and gladness !

Neither of them might speak for the thoughts that came crowding their

hearts so,
Till, in their ignorant trouble aloud the children lamented ;
Then was the sjmjU of silence dissolved, and the father and mother
Burst into tears and embraced, and turned their dim eyes to the Westi

ward."

™ll

.ill:

I'H i

M ^Ki

I i

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214

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

" Tills, recollect, was written when Mr. Howells was
barely in his twenty-second year. The poem always
affects me deeply. The pathos is of the very finest qual-
ity, and the lines have a touching significance. The
Novel's has always been a favourite of mine but not more
so than his other great poem called ' The Pilot's Story,'
which is simple enough in its way, and is a story told a
hundred times and more, an old story illustrating the
horrors of slavery, and, treating of the brutality which
once existed in the South. The frame-work of the story
is old, the incident is common, but the treatment is really
a piece of genius. Howells relates his incident in the
same ringing measure which he employs so well and so
skilfully in ' The Movers,' the noble hexameter form.
His language is eloquent, and he invests his poem with
real dramatic fire. The scene is laid on the Mississippi
and the time is the hour of slavery. The old pilot keep-
ing his hand on the wheel of the steamer, and his eye on
the globe of the Jack-staff relates an incident which ap-
pears to have made a marked impression on him. He
tells of a l)eautiful woman, an octoroon, probably, for she
had 'just enough blood from her mother darkening her
eyes and her hair to make her race known to a trader,'
and a man 'weakly, good-natured and kind, and weakly.

HOWELLS.

215

ills was
always
Bst qual-
;e. The
not more
;s Story;
)ry told a
ating the
ity which
I the story
nt is really
ant in the
«rell and so
leter form.

poem

with

Mississippi
pilot keep-
his eye on
kt which ap-
[n him. He
^bly, for she
[irkening her
to a trader,'
and weakly,

good-natured and vicious," who came aboard his boat at
Cairo from New Orleans. The man spent his time play-
ing monte in the cabin with a partj^ of gamblers, and as
they were men who ' never left their pigeons a single
feather to tly w4th/ the victim was very soon fleeced of
his money. The pilot, then a mere youngster, watched
the whole operation, and the reader is prepared for what
follows by the actions of the men soon after the last game
was played. I will quote some lines here to give you an
idea of the scope and purpose of tlie poem. The stranger
and one of the gamblers, a picturesque rascal with the
conventional long black hair and moustaches, the black
slouch hat drawn down to his eyes, etc., whisper together
mysteriously and earnestly, and after several furtive
glances and strange movements, they walk along to where
the woman was sitting, alone by the gangway, uncon-
scious of what it all meant when :

" ' Roused by the fall of feet, she turned, and beholding her master.
Greeted him with a smile that was more like a wife's than another's,
Rose to meet him fondly, and then, with the dread apprehension
Always haunting the slave, fell her eye on the face of the gambler,
Dark and lustful and fierce, and full of merciless cunning.
Something was spoken ao low that I could not hear what the words
were ;

^1 i

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21 G EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Only the woman started, and looked from one ^-o the other,
With imploring eyes, bewildered hands, and a tremor
All through her frame : I saw her from where I was standing, she
shook so.

' Say 1 is it so ?' she cried. On the week, white lips oi her master
Died a sickly smile, and he said, ' J^ouise, I have sold you ! '
God is my judge ! May I ne .^er see such a look of despairing.
Desolate angnish, as that which the woman cast on her master,
Griping her breast with her little hands, as if he had stabbed her,
Standing in silence a space, as fixed as the Indian woman
Carved out of wood, on the pilot-house of the old Pocahontas !
Then, with a gurgling moan, like the sound in the throat of the

dying,
Came back her voice, that rising, fluttered, through wild incoher-
ence,
Into a terrible shriek that stopped my heart while she answered : —
' Sold me ? sold me ? sold— And you promised to give me my free-
dom ! —
Promised me, for the sake of our little boy in Saint Louis !
What will you say to our boy, when he cries for me there in Saint

Louis ?
What will you say to our God ? Ah, you have been joking ! I see it !
No ? God ! God ! He shall hear it, and all of the angels in heaven —
JJven the devils in hell ! — and none will believe when they hear it.
Sold me !' — Her voice died away with a wail, and in silence
Down she sank on the deck, and covered her face with her lingers.'

" The nariative is admirably sustained, p,nd you can
judge how exciting the ppein becomes, and what terrible

HOWELLS.

217

ding, she

.er master

a!'

airing,
naster,
bbed her,

hontas !
iroat of the

nid incoher-

inswered :
ire my free-

ouis !

here in Saint

Ling I 1 see it '.
8 in heaven—
they hear it.
silence
h her fingers.'

id you can
hat terrible

havoc it plays with one's nerves. The poet breaks off at
this thrilling passage in his poem, and relieves the reader
for a moment from the spell in which he finds himself,
and the pilot pauses and listens to the salute of a boat
which is coming past him. A few lines of description
follow, all of them natural and vigorous, culminating in
these lines, which contain so happy and eloquent an allu-
sion:

'* 'Softly the sunset had faded, and now (*n the eastern horizon
Hung, like a tear in the sky, the beautiful star of the evening.'

" And then the old helmsman resumes his story, still
standing with his back to his auditors. I know you are
interested, and it would be unjust to the poet were I to
discontinue my quotation, or attempt to relate his denoue-
ment in my own language. I will, with your permission,
go on in the words of the poet :

" * All of us flocked round the woman. The children cried, and their

mothers
Hugged them tight to their breasts j but the gambler said to the

captain, —
* Put me off there at the town that lies round the bend of the river.
Here, you ! rise at once, and be ready now to go with me. '
Roughly he seized the woman's arm and strove to uplift her.

I? , '

■'M

I: : I i
I : f ■

^18 EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

She — tihe seemed not to heed him, hut rosij like one that is dream-
ing,

Slid from his grasp, and fleetly mounted the steps of the gangway,

Up to the hurricane-deck, in silence, without lamentation.

Straight to the stern of the boat, where the wheel was, she ran,
and the people

Followed her fast till she turned and stood at bay for a moment,

Looking them in the face, and in the face of the gambler.

Not one to save her, — not one of all the compassionate people !

Not one to save her, — of all the pitying angels in heaven!

Not one bolt of God to strike him dead there before her !

Wildly she waved him back, we waiting in silence and horror.

Over the swarthy face of the gambler a pallor of passion

Passed, like a gleam of lightning over the west in the night-time.

White, she stood, and mute, till he put forthhis hand to secure her,

Then she turned and leaped, — in mid air fluttered a moment, —

Down then, whirling, fell, like a broken-winged bird from a tree-
top,

Down on the cruel wheel, that caught her, and hurled her, and
crushed her.

And in the foaming water plunged her, and hid her forever. !'

VI.

Still with his back to us all the pilot stood, but we heard him
Swallowing hard, as he pulled the bell-rope for stopping. Then,

turning,
'This is the place where it happened,' brokenly whispered the pilot.
* Somehow, I never like to go by here alone in the night-time. '

IB i M Bi SiiW' t ffi m w i

intaaaeaaDBn

HOWELLS.

210

(Iream-
ngway,
she ran,
)ment,
ople 1

»rror.

jht-time.
secure her,

ent, —
rom a tree-

i her, and
ver. '.'

•dhim
mg. Then,

ed the pilot,
i-time.'

Darkly the Mississippi flowed by the town that lay iu the starlight,
('heerful with lamps. Below we could hear them reversing the en-
gines.
And the great boat glided Tip to the shore like a giant exhausted.
Heavily sighed her pipes. Broad over the swamps to the eastward
Shone the full moon, and turned our far-trembling wake into silver.
All was serene and calm, but the odorous breath of the willows
Smote with a mystical sense of infinite sorrow upon us." '

*' These two melodious and striking poems are enough
to place Howells in the first rank of poets. But he has
written others of equal beauty, if not of equal dramatic
force. He has sung little love songs full of artless witch-
ery and grace, and these, and a few exquisite pastorals,
stamp him as a poet of the affections. The hexameter is
his favourite style, and he drops into it in all his grander
poems, but he employs other measures occasionally, and
produces music of almost equal sweetness and depth. His
' Two Wives,' which commemorates an event before At-
lanta, exhibits another trait in the poet's composition :

" ' The colonel rode by his picket-line
In the pleasant morning sun.
That glanced from him far off to shine
On the crouching rebel picket's gun,

*' * From his command the captain strode
Out with a grave salute,

r. 4 ■

III

I' ' r

i' i I

1 iJ i ;

: ! ,■ i! "

M !

1 • ■ : i

k^:'^

220 EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

And talked with the colonel as he rode ;—
The picket levelled his piece to shoot.

*' ' The colonel rode and the captain walked, —
The arm of the picket tired ;
Their faces almost touched as they talked,
And, swerved from his aim, the picket tired,

' ' ' The captain fell at the horse's feet,
Wounded and hurt to death.
Calling upon a name that was sweet
As God is good, with his dying breath.

*' ' And the colonel that leaped from his horse and knelt
To close the eyes so dim,
A high remorse for God's mercy felt,
Knowing the shot was meant 'or him.

" ' A d he whispered, prayer-like, under his breath,
The name of his own young wife :
For Love, that had made his friend's peace with Death,
Alone could make his with life. ' "

*' Bo-Peep is a pastoral that abounds in felicitous^dic-
tion, and is admired by all who read Howells' elegant
verse. I would fain quote from it to show you the poet
in another light, but the little book of his poems contains
so much that is tender, and true, and charming, that I
find it almost impossible to mention a poem of his which

■■M

HOWELLS.

221

is not perfect, meloclioiis and sweet. He has wisely in-
cluded only his best in the thin volume which bears his
name, and every poem in the book is a gem of the purest
class. A reviewer once said of Macaulay that * his poetry
differs only from his prose in being more condensed and
more decorated.' The same may be said of Howells. He
is epigrammatic without being faultily so. His descrip-
tions are never redundant. He always tells his story
simply, and with the taste and feeling of an artist. He
enters into his subject with an enthusiasn) akin to love.
He paints with the richest pigments, but he never squan-
ders his colours. His pictures are sometimes bold, Init al-
ways pleasing, and there is nothing in them which offends
the eye, as some of the paintings of Turner and his school
often do. He is not a coming poet, for he has come, and
though he has not given us many pieces, those which we
have are destined to live long. He has written little
poetry in a playful vein, that lightsome mood of his which
glows and sparkles so brightly in his prose writings, and
I could wish he would give us more, for his verse is al-
most always sad. One poem, 'Caprice,' I will read you,
so as to reveal another phase of the poet's genius :

" she hung the cage at the window :
• If he goes by,' she said,

^s-^

iiifli

222

i i

EVKNINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

' He will hear my robin singiiiij,

And when he lifts his head,
[ shall be sitting here to sew,
And he will bow to nie, I know.'

•'The robin sang a love-sweet song,
The young man raised his head ;
The maiden turned away and blushed :

' I am a fool, ' she said,
And went on broidering in silk
A pink-eyed rabbit, white as milk.

" The young man loitered slowly

By the house three times that day ;
She took her bird from the window :

' He need not look this way.'
She sat at her piano long,
And sighed, and played a death-sad song.

* ' But when the day was done, she said,
' I wish that he would come !
Remember, Mary, if he calls

To-night — I'm not at lixixie I '
So when he rang, she ^vcit — the elf ! —
3he went and let him in herself.

■ ' They sang full long together

Their songs love-sweet, death-sad ;
The robin woke from his slumber,

HOWELLS.

And rang out, clear and glad.
' Now go I ' she coldly said ; ' 'tis lato ; '
And followed him — to latch the gate.

" He took the rose-bud from her hair,
While, * you shall not ! ' she said ;
He closed her hand within his own,

And, while her tongue forbade,
Her will was darkened in the eclipse,
Of blinding love upon his lips. ' "

223

" Mr. Howells adds to his other duties that of lecturer.
He has delivered a series of lectures on some of the Italian
poets, and these have been highly spoken of by those who
heard them. He has written one book which I have not
read, a long poem in hexameter verse, entitled * No love
lost ; a Romance of Travel.' It describes, I believe, the
romantic and rich scenery of Venice. Howells is, perhaps,
the most indefatigable worker of all our literary men. He
is absolutely never idle, and most of his work is done in
the morning, at his pleasant home in Cambridge. In some
respects he is like Aldrich, and I think we can hardly do
better than discuss the author of * Prudence Palfrey ' at
our next meeting."

" I am willing."

^'And 1," added Frank.

224

KVENINGS JN THE LIBRARY.

No. 9. ALDRICH.

fi iiii

) 1

" When I first met Aldrich," remarked the Professor, the
following evening, after his nephews had seated them-
selves ; " he was editing that excellent eclectic weekly,
Every Saturday. He had a little desk in Messrs. Fields,
Osgood &L Co.'s handsome book establishment, up stairs,
immediately over the retail store, and like all editorial
desks it was full of papers and magazines and books. You
could not help wondering how the editor managed to do
any work at all, or how he could write or find any thing
when he wanted it, with that heap of conglomerate WU'.r-
ature forever staring him in the face. But I need not go
further, you know how the average editorial table looks.
Mr. Editor Aldrich, graceful poet, and dainty story-teller
as he is, was no exception to the rule which renders
editors all alike in one thing. He kept an untidy desk.
And yet many a beautiful quatrain and melodious sonnet
were written on that same desk, close by a window which
looked into the busy street below. Not a few chapters of
the adventures of that bad boy, Tom Bailey, were written
here also, and perhaps more thj«n a sketch or two of this

. H-VVfiMWCMpa

ALDRICH.

225

5Sor, the
i them-
weekly,
i. Fields,
p stairs,
editorial
is. You
nred to do
,ny thing
ate lit(a'-
ed not go
ble looks,
ory-teller
h renders
bidy desk.
)us sonnet
ow which
hapters of
re written
wo of this

rising genius first saw the light here. Aldrich is l>y no
means a slow composer, but a very rapid w^ritei'. The
gracefullest conceits which have come from his brain, cost
him far less effort than one in a hundred of his readers
could imagine. He re-writes very little and his produc-
tions are nevei* laboured. His style is playful in a way,
very easy ^o read and meatey ; as he once said to me in
a chat about Thackeray's genius. You cannot lielp ad-
miring Aldrich, he is so original and so fidl of humour and
humanity. He almost takes your breath away by the
fertility of his genius, and his stories are a succession of
real surprises. He runs away from his reader, he ehides
him at every turn, and then dodges off, only to come back
in a moment to lau<jh at him a^jain. Who can read ' Mar-
jorie Daw " — a story told in a seiies of bright letters —
and not recognise this phase of the author's genius ? Who
can read this story and not feel, for a moment, half vexed
at being taken in and done for, so neatly and artistically ?
You are angry to t'lid Marjorie a myth, after building
such hopes on bur. From the time yt)u first catch a
glimpse of her swi}iging in her hammock, you are inter-
ested to the end, and are only cauglit in the very last
lir:. of Delaney's letter. Aldrich has developed thr
faculty of surpii.se, until it forms now a ])art of himself,

* !l

226

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

i I

and he no longer catches an old reader of his writings in
this way, but he arouses in him a feeling of amazement at
the fertility of his inventive powers. You are looking
perpetually for surprises, and they always come, but not
by the road you expect."

" I have noticed this quite often," said Frank, " and

particularly in his shorter stories. * A Struggle for Life '

is a good exemplar of this feature in his works, and that

curious romance of his * Miss Mehetabel's Son,' is another.

Aldrich occasionally reminds you of Poe, but he is more

in sympathy with his subject and entirely in sympathy

with his reader. You fancy a tinge of unrealism in Poe,

while with Aldrich the case is the exact opposite. He is

full of reality. His characters are real, human and full of

sympathy and nerve, and heart, and it is only when he

tells you himself, that such and such an one never existed

except on paper, that you begin to believe it, and even

then you only half believe the author, and almost think

he is trying to deceive you again. Poe is an unhealthy

romancist. He fascinates you and fills your mind with

weird, fantastical things. He alarms you by the quality

of his genius, diseased as it is, and he always leaves you

in a state you would nuich rather not be in. It is not so

with Aldrich. He never horrifies you. He is pathetic

itings in
lement at
) looking
3, but not

,nk, " and
; for Life'
, and that
is another,
le is more
sympathy
Lsm in Poe,
jite. He is
I and full of
y when he
gver existed
b, and even
most think
1 unhealthy
r mind with
the quality
3 leaves you
It is not so
is pathetic

ALDRICH.

227

at times and often dramatic, witness his P^re Antoine for
instance, but he is always real and full of robust life."

" What similarity do you see in both ? In what does
Aldrich remind you of Poe ? "

" Only in one particular. They both play on the sym-
pathies of their respective readers. Thus Aldrich makes
you laugh, surprises you, teases you, sometimes makes
you cry. Poe makes you cry. Sometimes too, he puzzles
you, tricks you into a belief you would not own when
you get back into your proper senses, and often distracts
and worries your mind. You experience no unpleasant
re-action after a course of Aldrich, you always do after
reading Poe's tales and some few of his poems. I confess
a fascination for Poe myself; but I do not think it does
me much good to read him.''

" You believe then that Poe is somewhat sensational
anvi that Aldrich is not."

*' P» ecisely."

'■' Vi'ell, you are not far wrong. I did not think of that
at rirsi. I see it now. I am interested and entertained
when I read Aldrich. When I read Poe he excites me so
much that I feel a throbbing all through me. I seem to
•l:ink in a sort of impure air, and feel a bounding pain
ife/iring through my head. Poe was full of genius and hi,^

r \ '■^ZMmmasssmm

228

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

If" *

1 i

character was forever showing itself in his works. He
could no more resist this than he could stay a flood.
What a curious man he was, polished, intellectual, highly
educated, mild-mannered, and refined. Yet, with all these
attributes he could not resist the temptation which so
often appeared to hin. in a pleasing shape, and forced him
downwards. Poe was a Byron in his way, and despite
his faults he has lef ': us much which will make us always
like him and revere V emory."

" Peace, to his ashes. Poor Poe ! every one has had a
fling at him. His vices have been magnified, his virtues
lessened and even his thoughts liave been misinterpreted.
He was himself to blame, of course, for most of this ; but
the world can well aflord to forget his faults and admire
him for what he has left us that is beautifid. With Aid-
rich the case is difi'erent, his mind is amiable, his nature
vii-tuous. It was as easy for the one to sin as it is for the
other to do right. 1 remember when I met Aldrich first.
We were going over to Cambridge from Boston. He was
only a little past thirty, and every boy in the country
was going into ecstasies over his ' Story of a Bad Boy,'
then running through the pages of 'Our Young Folks.'
He was just entering upon a career then which has been
witlcning and deepening ever since. He had struck a

*^'^ 'w * w i i ^^»nwr*fe*iiwa utt Mi

m**uMa»i«H*>^-«..;>t.„^y,wy,|^

ALDRICH.

229

cs. He
a flood.

all these
\rhich so
reed him
I despite
Ls always

las had a
is virtues
terpreted.
this ; but
1,1 a<lmire
With Ald-
lis nature
it is for the
drich first.
He was
le country
Bad Boy,'
ung Folks.'
•h hjvs been
u\ struck a

note in boy-life which was new and fresh and original.
It was like Tom Brown, and then again it was not like
Tom Brown. Tom Bailey was a new character, a new
type and the autobiographical form of the narrative gave
a piquancy and tone to the book, wliich enlisted the sym-
pathies of almost every boy in New^ England. Wliat a
picture of village life Aldrich gives in this rare romance !
Who can read the book and not love Rivermouth, the River-
mouth which exists only in Aldrich's pages ? Not a char-
acter in the book is overdrawn. There is not one of those
improbable and impossible boys which people the pages
of goodey books, to be found in it. Every one loves Tom
Bailey, the impulsive youngster, full of mischief and for-
ever playing pranks with his school-mates. Little Binny
Wallace, the tender-hearted lad who was drowned ; Pep-
per Whitcomb, who believed every thing that was told
him, and who was always sympathising with Tom in his
troubles ; General Harris of Snow-Fort fame and Slat-
ters's Hill renown ; Sailor Ben, Miss Abigail, the Cai)tain
and Kitty are real personages, and one cannot but Itelieve
that they did exist at one time. I'he story is breezy and
natural. The incidents are managed with consunmiate
skill and the tone of the book is healthy, and calculated to
make boys love every thing that is maidy and true, and

230

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

5 !l

...

rlespise all tliat is contemptible and mean. I have lead
Tom Bailey three times, and I could read it again with as
much interest as when I cut the pages of the magazine
which contained it first, and read it in its monthly parts.
If you want to know how good it is, just hand a copy of
it to a boy and I'll be much mistaken if you hear any-
thing else but Tom Bailey from him, for three months
after he has read it. It is full of adventure and spirit and
sketches of boy life, interspersed now ai d then, with a
few reflections from which even an ' old head ' could gain
wisdom now and again. I have said Mr. Aldrich was ris-
ing into fame. This was his first prose book. Before
this a blue and gold edition of his poems had been pub-
lished, but he had done almost nothing that was destined
to raise him to the first rank of our poets and novelists.
One poem he had wiitten, however, which was known
pretty well as a musical and touching thing entitled
' Baby Bell.' Beyond this he had written scarcely any-
thing of great moment. The older poets prophesied a
grand career for young Aldrich. Opinion was divided as
to which sphere in literature he would occupy, poet or
story-teller. He has answered them all, and in seven or
«ight years has made a name equally brilliant, as a poet

ALDRICH.

231

ve read
with as
lagazine
Ly parts,
copy of
3ar any-
I months
pirit and
L, with a
3uld gain
h was ris-
. Before
)een pub-
destined
novelists.
,s known
entitled
cely any-
hesied a
ivided as
, poet or
seven or
,s a poet

and novelist and sketch writer. His career lias been as
wonderful as it has been rapid."

" It has, indeed, and one reason why this is so, I take
it to be, is because Aldrich puts so much of his soul into his
writings. He never slights anything, or writes mere

* padding.' He has always something new and vivid to
say, and he says it in as elegant English as the occasion
demands. Even his trifles, things which he may have
dashed off in a leisure moment, exhibit a polished and
cultivated taste. That same story of Tom Bailey reminded
Longfellow that a new story- writer of great promise had
arisen, and caused Mr. Hale to say it was the freshest boy
story ever written in America. Dr. Holmes felt that

* Tom Bailey' was only an earnest of what Aldrich might
yet do, and so it was everywhere. The highest literary
circles in the land welcomed the new novelist among them,
and humbler readers were not less enthusiastic over his
writings. I remember when * Prudence Palfrey,' another
exquisite romance, the scene of which was laid in the ideal
Riverraouth of the author, came out, and how eager Mr.
Aldrich's admirers were to get it. It is unquestionably
his ablest prose effort, and I do not even except * The
Queen of Sheba,' which is a vivid and telling narrative ;
but * Prudence Palfrey,' quiet all through, with just

1 ,

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232

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

III

v '-

i 1

\i -, ,

I ■ i

■ l' . .1

i r

'?' \ I

,■ 1, ' ■

enough excitement to make it snap and sparkle at inter-
vals, is a story which no one of our day could have written
but its own graceful author. It is full of poetic fervour,
and we catch a glimpse of Aldrich's peculiar genius in
almost every page. The story is nowise mechanical, but
a real romance, witty, attractive and full of suggestion.
One cannot but feel that the author has put a good deal
of his own life into this work."

" Have you ever noticed how delicately Aldrich sketches
his women ? To me they seem always sweet and gentle.
I do not mean his exaggerated women, for some of these
are coarse enough, but I mean those sympathetic creatures
whom we find in some of his stories, and in all of his
poems. Women who sufier much in secret, and lead
blameless and holy lives. I think his scenes from home-
life very beautiful, many of them are even more than
beautiful. He invests these home-pictures of his with all
that is tender and gentle. A charming halo centres round
the homes he describes, and he always teaches lessons of
peace, contentment and happiness. One little story of his
I often read. It is a sad little thing, and is unlike his
writings generally. It is a mere sketch, but very pathetic.
I allude to ' Pere Antoine's Date-Palm.' It tells a story
of heart-sufferino' and heart-bleedins:. One cannot read

»"lMnis«kHMM«

~f~i mnrilw

> m m tumtummmm

AI.DRICH.

233

at intcr-
3 written.
; fervour,
yeniua in
nical, but
iggestion.
good deal

ti sketches
bud gentle,
le of these
c creatures
1 all of his
and lead
rom home-
luore than
lis with all
itres round
s lessons of
story of his
unlike his
•y pathetic.
,ells a story
cannot read

it without emotion. It is told artistically, and yet it is
done simply, and apparently as if it cost no effort. But
it is a prose-poem, and as sweet a thing as we have in our
literature."

" I have read it myself several times, and have felt its
influence. It is singularly touching and sad. What a
contrast there is between it and ' The Young Desperado,'
which I fancy is drawn from real lif'". Mr. Aldrich seems
to know just what will amuse a boy, and this little sketch
is as good in its way, as his larger boy-story. In his
writings he is constantly putting us in mind of just
such experiences at have happened to ourselves in our
young days. It is all because he is so natural that we
fancy Tthis. He is so real, and places before us such
genuine glimpses of what is happening every day, and
often under precisely the same circumstances, that we
cannot help wondering why we had not thought of it be-
fore. A * Young Desperado' is true to the life, and far
more natural and likely than anything to be found in Mr.
Habberton's amusing but impossible ' Helen's Babies.'
The * General' can be seen every day ; I fear I cannot say
as much for ' Budgie' or * Toddie.' Of one story in Mr.
Aldrich's book, I have heard a rather curious account,

did you hear it ? "
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2.34

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

V .

i;il

ill

li.'

" Which one ? "

•* Olympe ZaV)riski, no, well I'll tell you about it so far
as I can remember it. It is said that dining one day
with some ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Aldrich heard an
amusing account of a young man who had fallen in love
with a lady who was gifted with extraordinary personal
charms. It was admiration at fii*st and love afterwards,
and when the youth's passion could no longer be subdued
and the crisis was reached, the damsel turned out to be a
man after all. The incident was cleverly related for the
narrator was a good story-teller but the burden of it was
as I have told you. Aldrich thought- it might be turned
to account and he resolved to make a story out of it, and
so did a lady who was present, an authoress whose name
has escaped me now, I think the wager was a pair of
gloves for the one who should complete the story the
first. Both won, however, for her story appeared in
an early number of The Galaxy, and Aldrich's Mademoi-
selle Olympe Zabriski came out in The Atlantic for the
same month. The plot was identical, but the treatment
was very different, I have read Aldrich's, but not the
other. It is one of the cleverest of his stories, and as
usual ends with a surprise, not in this case, however,
wholly unlooked for. Our poet is not only an excellent

ALDRICH.

235

t SO far
me day
3ar(l an
in love
:)ersonal
jrwards,
subdued
b to be a
i for the
of it was
>e turned
)f it, and
ose name
a pair of
story the
)eared in
id^ademoi-
:ic for the
treatment
Lit not the
es, and as
however,
excellent

noveli-s* but ho turns off an agreeable essay, now and
then, which exhibits all the natural sprightliness of his
mind. The account he gives us of his visit to Pius IX is
about the best of his writings in this field. While we all
admire him as a story-teller, and he is one of the best we
have, it is as a poet of rich and delicious fancy that we
rank him among the sweetest writers of our age. If he
were not so entirely original in himself I would be in-
clined to say he reminded me of Keats and sometimes of
Kirke White. His poetry is of the oriental school and
there is nothing in his two books of poesy which we can-
not admire and praise. His imagery is always delicate
and refined and pure. He never neglects to inculcate in
the mind of his readers a love for the beautiful and good.
There is nothing sensuous in his poetry, and his thought,
like his language, is always chaste. He never shocks, but
always delights."

" What charming love poems he has written, true pic-
tures are they of the workings of the human heart and
the development of the tender passion. His * Nocturne '
is a pretty thing, melodious and sweet. Notice the ex-
quisite fancy of this :

' Up to her chamber window
A slight wire trellis goeg,

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236 EVENINGS IN THE LIBRAHY.

And up thia Romeo's ladder
Clambero a bold white roue.

I lounge in the ilex Hhadows,

I see the lady lean,
Unclasping her Bilken girdle,

The curtain's folds between.

She smiles on her white-rose lover,

She reaches out her hand.
And helps him in at the window —

I see it where I stand.

To her scarlet lip she holds him,
And kisses him many a time —
Ah, me ! it was ha that won her
Because he dared to climb ! '

" I find myself going over its liquid numbers very of-
ten. The rhythm is perfect, the conceit quite delicious,
and the tone is warm and sunny. It is the same with
another of his gems, a musical poem which is called
* Across the Street.' It fascinates you at once. It rings
with true music, and I would recognise it as one of Al-
drich's pieces among a thousand. Ho may now and then
change his style in his prose works, but he cannot alter
his manner in his poetry. It is too distinctly original
for that. He has compelled men and women to read his
verses whether they will or no, and every year the array

ALDRICH.

237

very of-
elicious,
ne with
8 called
It rings
of Al-
nd then
lot alter
original
read his
le array

of his admirers <(rows larger and .stronger. In thus com-
pelling attention he has resorted to no tricks. He has
not shocked the sensibilities or the morals of a community,
and made people read him because of his boldness in a
certain direction, or because he had written in a style
more becoming the age in which Jonson wrote than in
our own day, but his reputation has been honestly and
fairly won. It is no easy matter let me tell you for a
new poet to gain readere. He is met on every side by
hosts of sweet and robust singers who have the ear of
the reading public, and to engage their attention he must
produce something out of the common, and strike their
fancy at once with something really tremendous in excel-
lence. You can see, therefore, the difficulties Aldrich had
to meet and surmount. He had to develop a new vein
in poetry and create a taste for his verses. I think he
has done his work nobly. His poetry is marked by one
distinctive quality. He has sung not for America alone
but for the whole world. He has done nothing that
would entitle him to the name of American poet, pure
and simple. So far as local is concerned he might just
as well have written his lyrics and poems in Rome or
Elorence, as indeed some of them have been, us to have
written them in Boston, or in other cities of the Union.

238

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

An Eastern tinge runs through every line of his verse.
He is purely an American novelist, but the world's poet.
His fanciful and cultured taste has led him to seek out
the beautiful no matter under what sky it may be found.
Naturally he has been led to Italy, and many of his
finer pieces owe their origin to the legends and scenery
of that poetic land. The story may date back to the
small centuries, the tale may be one of Boccaccio's, or it
may be one told yesterday, but in Aldrich's hands it
glows anew, afresh and beautiful again. One reads Al-
drich as an epicure drinks a glass of old wine at his din-
ner, for the bouquet which is in it. Listen to this.
What can be neater, or prettier :

" * With lash on cheek, she comes and goes ;
I watch her when she little knows :

I wonder if she dreams of it.
Sitting and working at my rhymes,
I weave into my verse at times

Her sunny hair, or gleams of it.

" * Upon her window-ledge is set
A box of flowering mignonette ;

Morning and eve she tends to them —
The senseless (lowers, that do not care
About that loosened strand of hair.
As prettily she bends to them.

: I

IS verse.
d's poet.
<eek out
>e found.
{ of his
scenery
i to the
o's, or it
tiands it
eads Al-
his din-
to this.

ALDRICH. 239

*' * If I could once contrive to get
' Into that box of mignonette

Some morning when she tends to them —
She comes ! I see the rich blood rise
From throat to cheek ! — down go the eyes,
Demurely as she bends to them ! ' "

" I must partake of your enthusiasm, Charles," said the
Professor. " I have only read a few of Aldrich's poems
The muse has indeed been good to him. I was well pleased
with a long poem of his, written in blank verse, entitled
'Judith,' which I read for the first time only the other
day. It is intensely dramatic and vigorous and quite re-
minds me of some of the older English poets. The scenes
are ably done, all of them ; but the assassination of Holo-
f ernes in the tent is one of the most powerful bits of writ
ing I have come across for many a year. I was resting
for a moment when the book containing it came in, and I
took it up intending merely to glance at it until I had
time to devote a reading to it, when in turning the pages
my eye and ear caught the prayer of Judith. I read but
a few lines when I had to turn back and begin the poem
and read on until I had finished it. You know the story,
so I won't relate it here but allow me to quote the fine burst
which struck my fancy, and which displaya so well

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240

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

Aldrich's dramatic fire and spirit. I will not read you
the delightful wine song which Holofemes fancied he
heard the Hebrew woman singing to him, as she held the
golden goblet of red wine before him as he ate. That
wine which

' * ' Seemed richer to him for those slender hands.
iSo Judith served, and Holofemes drank,
Until the lamps that glimmered round the tent
In mad processions danced before his gaze. '

" The moon was poetic too that eventful night, and it
dropt behind the sky without, while within odours of heavy
flowers stole into the air, and Holofemes flushed with wine,
dropped into slumber dreaming a dream of alternate joy
and pain. It was then that this song, which is full of true
poetry, fell upon his ear, and the chieftain tumbling from
his seat of leopard-skins went to sleep in earnest. The
next scene, and the one X wish to quote, comes after this
and reads :

" 'Judith knelt

And gazed upon him, and her thoughts were dark ;

For half she longed to bid her purpose die, —

To stay, to weep, to fold him in her arms,

To let her long hair loose upon his face.

As on a moimtain-top some amorous cloud

Lets down its sombre tresses of Hue rain.

ALDRICH.

241

ead you
icied he
held the
J. That

and it
F heavy
h wine,
ite joy
of true
g from
. The
3r this

For one wild instant in her burning arms
She held him sleeping ; then grew wan as death,
Relaxed her hold, and starting from his side
As if an asp had stung her to the quick.
Listened ; and listening, she heard the moans
Of little children moaning in the streets
Of Bethula, saw famished women pass.
Wringing their hands, and on the broken walls
The flower of Israel dying.

"•With quick breath
Judith blew out the tapers, all save one.
And from his twisted girdle loosed the sword.
And grasping the huge hilt with her two hands,
Thrice smote the Prince of Assur as he lay,
Thrice on his neck she smote him as he lay.
And from the brawny shoulders rolled the head
Winking and ghastly in the cresset's light ;
Which done, she fled into the yawning dark.
There met her maid, who, stealing to the tent.
Pulled down the crimson arras on the corse.
And in her mantle wrapt the brazen head,
And brought it with her ; and a great gong boomed
Twelve, as the women glided past the guard
With measured footstep : but outside the camp.
Terror seized on them, and they fled like wraiths
Through the hushed midnight into the black woods,
Where, from gnarled roots and ancient, palsied trees,
Dread shapes, upstarting, clutched at them, and once,

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242 EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

A nameless bird in branches overhead

Screeched, and the blood grew cold about their hearts.

Ry mouldy caves, the hooded viper's haunt,

Down perilous steeps, and through the desolate gorge,

Onward they flew, with madly streaming hair,

Bearing their hideous burden, till at last.

Wild with the pregnant horrors of the night,

They dashed themselves against the City's gate.' "

" The skill of the poet never for a moment forsakes him.
He carries on to a successful issue the incidents in this
thrilling narrative, showing force as a dramatist and fine
perceptive qualities. His portraiture of the Prince of
Assur, and of the Hebrew woman Judith, is a stroke of
splendid genius. His figures stand prominently out and
they move not like marionettes or puppets, but after the
manner of real persons having each a strong individuality
and purpose. The very earnestness of the poet is an art
which he cultivates assiduously and well. I think Aid-
rich could write a play, if not a tragedy, an interesting
and acceptable comedy, certainly. He is happiest in
description of anmsing episodes and people, and in the
line of eccentric comedy I think he could make a name
and reputation."

** Yes, I rather agree with you there. Even some of
his shorter stories with a little labour could be turned into

ALDRICH.

243

ts.

?e,

ikes him.
a in this

and fine
^rince of
stroke of

out and
a-fter the
viduality
is an art
ink Ald-
teresting
^piest in
d in the

a name

L some of
ned into

pleasant plays. All they need is elaboration. Aldrich's
poetry is rich in thought. We were speaking of so^n^^of
the old legends which he has so happily dressed up in
verse. There is one of them I like very much. The
story is simple but full of interest, and the poet turns it
into rhyme, his own delicate marvellous rhyme, tuneful
as a sweet song and full of the daintiest art. It is ' The
Legend of Ara-Coeli,' and an old wrinkled and withered
Franciscan monk, Fra Gervasio, spins in the convent
garden, what the bard terms in his mellifluous way, ' this
thread of golden romance." It is one of those stories which
we have heard in a thousand shapes. It is indigenous to the
soil of Southern Europe, and it is all the more charming
because it is old, and illustrates the reason why we
always cherish an affection for just such tales as these.
We cannot help loving these old legends. They breathe
a perpetual simplicity and warmth. They are like the
people who relate them, and must be taken as a part of
themselves — a part of their every day life and manner,
and custom. In our day we will not call them miracles,
but let us love them for what they are. Let us believe in
the faith which teaches such tales as these, the clime which
bids them blossom and live. The old and gray Franciscan
tells this story then, and it is only one of many. The

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EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY,

scene is laid in Rome, in the Chapel of The Sacristy of
Ara-Coili. A figure of the Sainted Child, garnished from
"iic_... uO foot with rings and precious jewels, rests in his
cloth of gold and silver tissue in the Sacristy. The story
is, that this image has power to heal the sick and make
strong the weak, and it is told in as fascinating a way as
it came to the poet himself. Tt loses nothing in the para-
phrasing I can assure you."

" Nor does Aldrich's other noble poem, ' Friar Jerome's
Beautiful Book, A.D., 1200.' The good old friar devotes
the last years of his life to the illuminating of a book, one
of those wonderful volumes of art which we can see some-
times in old cities, those great studies which throw us into
speechless admiration, and make us wonder at the pati-
ence of man. The old friar longed to make one of these
books, and often thought of,

* * ' Those great tomes
With clamps of gold,— the Convent's boast, —

How they endured, while kings and realms
Passed into darkness and were lost ;
How they had stood from age to age,
Clad in their yellow vellum-mail,
'Gainst v<'hich the Paynim'a godless rage,
The Vandal's fire, could naught avail :
f Though heathe*! sword-blows fell like hail,

cristy of
led from
ts in his
he story
id make
, way as
he para-

Ferome's
devotes
)ok, one
!e some-
' us into
he pati-
of these

ALDRICH. 245

Though cities ran with Christian blood,
ImpeHshable they had stood !
They did not seem like books to him.
But Heroes, Martyrs, Saints, — themselves
The things they told of, not mere books
Ranged grimly on the oaken shelves .'"

" It was a righteous ambition truly, that of the devout
old Christian. His duty hitherto had been to feed the
poor. 'He would leave this duty to others, and devote the
remainder of his days to the great work, which seemed
revealed to him as a mission, which he must perform. The
poet relates what follows :

" * To those dim alcoves, far withdrawn,
He turned with measured steps and slow,
Trimming his lantern as he went ;
And there, among the shadows, bent
Above one ponderous folio,
With whose miraculous text were blent
Seraphic faces : Angels, crowned
With rings of melting amethyst ;
Mute, patient Martyrs, cruelly bound
To blazing fagots ; here and there,
Some bold, serene Evangelist,
Or Mary in her sunny hair ;
And here and there from out the words
A brilliant tropic bird took flight j

246

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

And through the margins many a vine
Went wandering, — roses, red and white,
Tulip, wind-flower, and columbine
Blossomed. To his believing mind
These things were real, and the wind.
Blown through the muUioned window, took
Scent from the lilies in the book. '

■J i

" The friar began his book, and bent long over the
lengthening page, pausing scarcely to tell his beads, save
when the night had come. And even then his mind worked,
for he lay unrestful on the straw, anxious and impatient
for the morning's dawn. He excused himself, now and
then, for forgetting the poor at the convent door, by whis-
pering to himself,

" • I feed the souls of men
Henceforth, and not their bodies ! '

" ' Yet,' says the poet —

•' ' Their sharp, pinched features, now and then,
Stole in between him and his Book,
And filled him with a vague regret !'

" Thus thought and worked Friar Jerome, now eagerly
finishing a vignette, now subtly touching up a curious
tail-piece, anon engaged on some grander figure in his

ALDRTCH.

247

over the
eads, save
nd worked,

impatient
[f , now and
>r, by whis-

now eagerly
ip a curious
figure in his

book. His mind was full of the gi'eat work he had in
hand, and though a blight had come steathily upon the
region where he lived, and the corn grew cankered in its
Sheath, and Sickness, the * green spotted terror called the
Pest,' was hurrying to the grave the young bride, the in-
fant and the stalwart man, the monk, filled with the
magnitude of his labour, and forgetting everything else,
still pored over the tome which grew more and more
beautiful under his hand.

" ' And evennore that dreadful pall
Of mist hung stagnant over all ;
By day, a sickly light broke through
The heated fog, on tower and field ;
By night, the moon, in anger, turned
Against the earth its mottled shield.'

" The picture which Mr. Aldrich gives us of the friars
and the monks, at this stage, going about two and two,
chanting, shriving the sick and burying the dead, is very
vigorous and strong. Jerome of all the monks, remained
behind, hiding in his nook, still working at the last ten
pages of his book. The stately figure of St. John, his
master-piece, done, the work as a whole would be finished,
and then he would go out with his brethren, and busy
himself with the calls of the sick, the dying and the poor
He sketched the head, laid in the tint, when lo !

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248 EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

" ' He found a grinning Death's-head there,
And not the Grand Apostle's face ! ' "

" The old friar deemed this a revelation and a message.
He closed his book at once, left undone his task, drew
his cowl about his face and went out among the sufferers
into the Stricken City,

" ' And there waa joy in heaven that day, —
More joy o'er this forlorn old friar
Than over fifty sinless men
Who never struggled with desire ! ' "

" The monk toiled with his people, but before the black
scourge had disappeared he had taken the Plague himself,
and soon became a wasted shape. He returned to the
convent and beheld a sad, strange sight. There was
silence in corridor,

** ' For of that long, innumerous train
Which issued forth a month before
Scarce twenty had come back again ! ' "

" The friar crawled up the stair-case to his damp cell,
that he might see before he died the pages of the work
which had consumed so many years of his life. He gave
a cry of joy as he beheld it, on the familiar stand where
he had left it. It waa open now and spread out, when

ALDRICH.

24D

aessage.
k, drew
lufferers

he black
himself,
d to the
lere was

amp cell,
,he work
He gave
d where
ut, when

he had seen it last, it was closed. Some angel's hand liad
been here and finished it, for

" ' There 'twas complete, as he hjid phmned ;
There, at the end, stood ^^'min, writ
And gilded as no man could do,' " —

" The friar could not speak or stir. His eyes remained
fixed on the last word, and

" * He passed from sin and want and scorn ;
And suddenly the chapel-bells

Bang in the holy Christmas Morn

) ' "

" The legend is faithfully told throughout, and the har-
monious chai'acter of the language invests it with great
beauty as a poem. Allusions are here and there made
which shew the bent of the poet's mind, and the scope of
much of his reading. He has not been unmindful of the
opportunities which this legend presents, for the display
of fine and delicate imagery. It abounds in glowing
passages which exhibit well the exuberant fancy of its
author,"

" Mr. Aldrich has written a large number of musical

quatrains. These are all very pretty and tender. * A

Child's Grave ' possesses an interest to me, not shared

wholly by the others,
P

}

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250 EVLNINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

" ' A little mound with chipped headHtont*,
The grasH, ah me ! uncut about the Hward,
Summer by Hummer left alone
With one white lily keeping watch and ward ! ' "

" One cannot help feeling," said the Professor " that a
great future awaits Aldrich. His writings are deserving
of a stronger term than charming. He grows into one's
affections, and every new poem of his which I read ex-
hibits the same well-defined outline and system, ima-
ginative skill, culture and elegant taste. His best work
appears in his sonnets ; * Three Flowers ' inscribed to
Bayard Taylor, and ' At Stratford-upon-Avon,' dedica-
ted to Edwin Booth, and in many of his shorter
pieces. The more one reads of this excellent poet the
better one loves him, and the greater the desire ex-
ists to learn more of him and his work. I cannot
forget that sweetly pretty poem of his, 'Tiger Lilies.'
You have read it of course, but you will excuse me if I
repeat it to you :

'* • I like not lady -slippers,

Bed, or white as snow ;
I like the chaliced lilies,
The heavy Eastern lilies,

ALDRICH. 251

The gorgeous tiger-lilieB,

That in our garden grow !

" ' For they are tall and Hlender ;

Their mouths are dashed with carmine
And when the wind sweeps by them.

On their emerald stalks
They bend so proud and graceful, —
They are Circassian women,
The favourites of the Sultan,

Adown our garden walks f

" ' And when the rain is falling,
I sit beside the window
And watch them glow and glisten,
How they burn and glow !
O for the burning lilies,
The tender Eastern lilies,
The gorgeous tiger-lilies.

That in our garden grow ! ' "

" It is indeed, but not more so than ' Before the Rain,'
' After the Rain,' ' In the Old Church Tower,' oi that gem
which really gave Aldrich his first hold on the public,
' Dainty Baby Bell ! ' These are all as pretty as fairy
tales. I could linger for hours dipping into the sweet
things which this poet has given us. ' Destiny ' is full
of thought and suggestion.

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i! i

252 EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

" * Three roses, wan as moonlight and weighed down
Each with its loveliness as with a crown,
Drooped in a florist's window in a town.

The first a lover bought. It lay at rest,

I^ike flower on flr »ver, that night, on Beauty's breast.

The second rose, as virginal and fair,
Shrunk in the tangles of a harlot's hair.

The third, a widow, with new grief made wild.
Shut in the icy palm of her dead child." '

" Aldrich, you know, came very nearly being a mer-
chant ; what a fortunate thing for literature that circum-
stances prevented this."

" Yes, I have gleaned that from his * Tom Bailey,'
which is largely an account of Aldrich's own life. His
youth was spent in Louisianna. He was to go to college
in accordance with the wish of his father ; but his father's
death, and an offer to enter a New York counting-house
changed all this. His uncle was afraid, as he humorously
puts ity that he would turn out to be a poet before he
could make a merchant out of him. He spent three years
poring over figures and merchandise, and then unable
to stand it longer, he gave up his position in the house
and sought nn occupation more congenial to his mind and

;-*• .

r a mer-

) circum-

Bailey,'
ife. His
io college
s father's
ng-house
norously
before he
iree years
1 unable
le house
mind and

ALDRIOH.

253

feelings. He worked as ' reader ' for a New York pub-
lishing establishment for a while, and then did some work
for Tfie New York Evening Mirror, Saturday Pr^s and
Home Journal, besides writing regularly for the maga-
zines. After this he went to Boston, became editor of
Every Saturday, and remained in that capacity until that
useful publication was discontinued, ^ince then he has
spent some years in travel, visiting the older cities of
Europe, and adding largely to his store of knowledge, and
at the same time gratifying his high artistic ta,ste, and cul-
tivating his love for the beautiful. Our poet has just
turned forty, and furnishes abundant promise with each
succeeding work of his, that we have not yet seen him at his
very best, charming, and yet delightful as his stories and
poems are. The pen that gave us * Judith,' the glorious
conceits in the * Cloth of Gold,' * Baby Bell,' those won-
derful sonnets; the Indian legend 'Miantowona' which
rings on the ear like the sound of sweet music, and
which contains such a pretty idea, ' Spring in New Eng-
land' and no end of quatrains, can surely, in the days to
come, as his mind grows fuller and richer, give us a great
masterpiece combining all the charms of his verse and
spirit. Aldiich is the poet of refinement and b«^a»ity.*
His verse is a garland of choice tlowers and bright jewels.

f ^

254

EVENINGS IN THE LIBRARY.

This night has been very pleasant to me. I have enjoyed
reading the poetry and talking about the genius and char-
acter of our poet. I feel that we have scarcely done him
full justice, the hours have gone so hurriedly, and he has
written so much that is pleasing and worthy of note. 1 am
sorry your return to college to-morrow," concluded the
Professor, " will, for a time, put an end to our meetings.
To one and all of us I think they have been agreeable. We
have all, I hope, learned something from these talks about
men of genius and their works."

" We have, indeed, Uncle. Good night."
" Good night," said the old Professor, as he closed the
door, and returning to the library drew his chair to the
fire, watched the curious things he saw in the flames for
a while, and then quietly dropped off to sleep.

ill

THE END.

THIIilD EDITIOIT-

enjoyed
nd char-
one him
i he has
e. I am
ded the
leetings.
ble. We
ks about

)sed the
to the
mes for

lOL

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