COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY 
 THE CHAUTAUQUA PRESS. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY 
 LOTHROP PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 INTRODUCTION ..v 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE EARLIER PERIOD. .... j 
 
 X II. IRVING ...... I2 
 
 vIII. COOPER . 2 
 
 POE 66 
 
 V. HAWTHORNE 9g 
 
 VI. EMERSON j,* 
 
 VII. BRYANT l64 
 
 VIII. LONGFELLOW jg^ 
 
 IX. HOLMES 
 
 204 
 
 X. WHITTIER 22I 
 
 XL LOWELL .. 241 
 
 XII. WHITMAN 2 6 4 
 
 XIII. LANIER. [. 2g6 
 
 XIV. THE PRESENT DAY ...... 310 
 
 iii 
 
 37237;* 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 THE literature of a country is made up of the writings 
 of those who have had the gift and skill to express them 
 selves in such a way as to move and charm their readers. 
 To be literature, in the best sense, a piece of writing, 
 whether prose or verse, must have beauty of expression 
 and inherent worthiness of thought. While we cannot 
 deny the name "literature" to some writing which has 
 attraction of form, without importance of thought and 
 ennobling emotions, we can affirm that the truly great 
 literature, that which is likely to have permanence, will 
 show artistic quality along with intellectual and moral 
 significance. 
 
 Moreover, the literature of a country, to be really repre 
 sentative, must reflect the life of the people, external and 
 internal ; it must stand for its political, social, and ethical 
 ideals. It must, in a word, be the natural outcome of its 
 national life. American literature, therefore, embraces 
 all the writings which, on the one hand, are possessed of 
 beauty of form and value as thought, and also reflect with 
 some measure of truth the national existence. Our Ameri 
 can literature is valuable to the young student and future 
 citizen of the Republic just in proportion as it seems to 
 mirror our American ideals and as it shall have a ten 
 dency to build up the reader into a worthy citizenship. 
 
 flr" 
 
vi Introduction 
 
 The typical literature of a land, in addition to satisfying 
 the instinct for beauty and stimulating the mind by imagi 
 native creations, should thus teach patriotism and train 
 character. Whatever the esthetic value of our native 
 literature, it has always in its best examples performed 
 this service. 
 
 In writing a comprehensive history of American litera 
 ture, it is customary to begin with Captain John Smith, 
 an adventurous sixteenth-century Englishman, and then 
 to study the writings of all the men who left work of any 
 importance in the development of the life upon the native 
 shores. This method implies a mingling of historical and 
 literary interest, since many of these early writers did not 
 make great literature ; indeed, hardly made literature at 
 all. Just here it would be well to make a distinction, 
 the misunderstanding of which, I believe, often confuses 
 the student. A given author may be of considerable sig 
 nificance in the development of the national literature, 
 because, seen in the setting of his time, he had more 
 importance than any contemporary, or because from 
 him has come an important evolution. Yet he may be 
 by no means a writer of the first rank, or even of the 
 second class, judged by comparative tests. In short, his 
 importance is historical and relative. Often, in text-books, 
 he is made to loom up so large that the student is puzzled 
 as to his real standing. In the present book, devoted in 
 the main to the dominant figures of our literature, those 
 of first importance, it will not be necessary to dwell long 
 on those of lesser note. The high lights only will be 
 emphasized. To get a bird s-eye view, this is necessary ; 
 otherwise, one fails to see the forest for the leaves. In 
 the short introductory chapter which follows, the earlier 
 periods are summarized. Then the chief business of the 
 
Introduction vii 
 
 book is taken up ; namely, a setting forth of the dozen or 
 more great writers who have made our literature widely 
 known. Then, finally, follows a brief survey of contem 
 porary conditions, in which the present state of national 
 letters is considered. 
 
 But, first, a question : Have we an American literature 
 at all ? More than one critic of standing have taken the 
 ground that strictly we have not. The meaning back of 
 the assertion is that, broadly viewed, American literature 
 is simply British literature upon American soil, a variant, 
 not an independent production. American literature looks 
 to the same great past, expresses itself in the same tongue. 
 There is not the difference, for example, between English 
 and American literature that exists between that of any 
 two of the so-called Romance tongues, like the Italian 
 and Spanish. 
 
 The matter is in truth debatable, but it is largely a 
 quarrel over terms. For practical purposes, there is 
 a national literature, particularly that produced during the 
 last century, as distinguished from a British. If it were 
 not so, Americans would be as eager to buy British books 
 as those of their own authors, and it would argue an 
 absence of independent national life, which were to ignore 
 our wonderful history and all that makes us American. 
 
 Use the same language we do, but even the language 
 has a different idiomatic color from the present British, 
 as all educated folk and especially traveled folk are aware. 
 And our historical evolution, our climate and physical 
 geography, our political and social ideals, and the type 
 of people developed by all these things for two hundred 
 and fifty years have resulted in bringing into our letters a 
 quality and putting upon it a stamp which are distinctive, 
 justifying the opinion that there is an American literature 
 
viii Introduction 
 
 in the true sense. This view may be held without any 
 antagonism toward British influence and British accom 
 plishment That this distinction should have arisen is 
 entirely in accord with the usual happening when peoples 
 of the same stock separate on the face of the earth. The 
 Germanic settler in England spoke a tongue which was 
 a dialect closely akin to the German and still closer to 
 what we now call the Dutch. In the course of centuries 
 a differentiation had arisen because the German settlers 
 had sought another home, with the result that their tongue, 
 English, became an entirely different speech from that of 
 the Continental peoples whence they came. The same 
 process is at work in America ; the very much slighter 
 difference between the tongues being due, of course, to 
 the comparatively short time that has elapsed since the 
 separation, and the additional fact that in our day of rapid 
 and easy communication all speech is far less isolated 
 than it was in earlier times. Centripetal and centrifugal 
 forces are thus at work, and it is inconceivable that 
 American English should ever become unintelligible to 
 an Englishman, but it is not at all inconceivable that in 
 the years to come our native speech shall become more 
 rather than less distinctive. Hence, since our speech 
 and our life are thus independent, it is the most natural 
 thing in the world that our literature should likewise and 
 increasingly have a flavor of its own. 
 
 It is then, on the whole, correct to speak of an Ameri 
 can literature, meaning such a variation from the parent 
 British product in letters as to imply an independent 
 existence. In this our literature is unique, since in no 
 other case is there an independent literature unless it be 
 expressed in another language. This belief in our own 
 literature should not make Americans self-satisfied with 
 
Introduction ix 
 
 their literary product, or lead them to forget that while 
 we inherited our literature, as it were, ready-made from 
 England, historical conditions for several hundred years 
 kept back letters on this continent from being cultivated 
 as they might have been under more favoring circum 
 stances. The proper attitude for an American toward his 
 own literature, it seems to me, should be one of modest, 
 firm, hopeful, unboastful faith. In view of our history, 
 we have done much ; we have a past to be proud of, and 
 certainly our accomplishment in the future should be 
 noteworthy, and signs are not wanting that it will be. 
 There is ample reason why an American should have 
 especial interest in the native literature. Even if the 
 greatest American writers Poe, Irving, Emerson, and 
 Hawthorne were of less than international importance, 
 they would have a significance for us, which is the meas 
 ure of the truth and power wherewith they interpret for 
 us the national conditions and ideals : our habits and 
 beliefs, our hopes and potentialities. Every representa 
 tive American writer is thus dear and precious, aside from 
 the fact that he has made what the world calls great 
 literature. A few have done so, but many more have 
 reflected the conditions of life in this country, and in this 
 sense have constituted themselves true interpreters of 
 these United States, to be treasured by all Americans 
 who love their land. It will be seen that any just and 
 fruitful study of American literature in its best examples 
 is, therefore, far more than a study of literary develop 
 ment ; it is, or should be, a lesson in patriotism. 
 
 Just here it will be well to enlarge a little upon the 
 misconceptions of the term " literature " itself. The word 
 is often used simply to denote all writings about a subject, 
 whatever is to be found in print. Thus we speak of the 
 
x Introduction 
 
 literature of a subject when that subject is geography, and 
 mean the books bearing upon that study. This, of course, 
 is a loose, general application of the word, but, in the 
 truer and better sense, literature refers to all writing that 
 possesses power and beauty of expression. This truth, 
 that manner is important as well as matter, has, however, 
 led, especially in our own day, to a too great emphasis 
 upon technique at the expense of thought and character. 
 / Really noble literature, on the contrary, exhibits, in com 
 bination, beauty of form and worthiness of content ; or, 
 to modify a famous definition of Matthew Arnold s, litera 
 ture is the most beautiful way of saying something worthy 
 .to be said. Very much so-called literature of the nine- 
 Jteenth century fails because it is exquisitely said, but not 
 i worth saying, not worth it intellectually or morally ; or, 
 worse, it says with technical skill what is paltry or vicious. 
 The healthy-minded student and lover of literature, there 
 fore, should steer his course between two mistakes which 
 confront him, Scylla and Charybdis : the mistake of think 
 ing that all that is in books is literature, and the mistake 
 of believing that good technique necessarily means good 
 and great literature. 
 
 In trying to get some notion of American letters, there 
 is an advantage in giving main attention to the repre 
 sentative writers. It fixes the eye on the unquestionably 
 excellent ; it does not give undue space to earlier writers 
 who, though important when we are tracing the full literary 
 evolution, nevertheless are chiefly significant for their his 
 torical value, as minor links in the chain. Manuals of 
 literature are in the habit of giving considerable space, 
 for example, to the Colonial period, to such figures as 
 Captain John Smith or Cotton Mather; or later to the 
 Revolutionary period and the political writers it begot. 
 
Introduction xi 
 
 This is perfectly proper, if only it be borne in mind that 
 the purpose in so doing is to study the full course of our 
 literary development. The danger is that the beginner, 
 or the student, who as yet has not a comprehensive knowl 
 edge of the whole story, misunderstands the relative values 
 and gives to those early writers, tentative, feeble, and non- 
 literary as they mostly were, an exaggerated importance 
 in the total effect. In the present volume it is desired to 
 avoid this possible evil. In fact, it is safe to say that the 
 nineteenth century includes the really representative and 
 major work in American letters. What came before, 
 interesting and historically important as it was, stands, 
 nevertheless, for preparation and trial rather than for 
 permanently acceptable accomplishment. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE EARLIER PERIOD 
 
 THE Colonial time in American history was perforce 
 sternly practical. As a result, of literature there was little 
 or none. What writing was done had a utilitarian aim ; as 
 when Captain John Smith wrote an account of the Virginia 
 colony to send to England as a guide to other immigrants ; 
 or it was of a religious nature, composed after the manner 
 of the preacher for purposes of moral instruction or theo- 
 logic guidance. To put it briefly, adventurers and clergy 
 men, and mostly the latter, did the bulk of the writing from 
 1607 to 1765 ; the adventurers first, and later, as conditions 
 became settled and civilization advanced, the clergymen. 
 When the mother country, England, is contrasted with 
 the United States during this period of more than one 
 hundred and fifty years, the paucity of the literary product 
 here is strikingly illustrated. In 1607 Shakespeare was 
 alive and writing his greatest plays ; throughout the seven 
 teenth century his fellow Elizabethan dramatists and those 
 coming later in the Stuart reigns were making the Golden 
 Age of English literature. Great writers outside the drama, 
 like Bacon, Hooker, Raleigh, and Dryden, were leaving 
 works that were to become classics. Late in the seven 
 teenth century and in the beginning of the eighteenth the 
 brilliant Restoration Comedy, led by Congreve, was being 
 produced. In the second half of the eighteenth century 
 the essay was born with Addison and Steele ; while by the 
 
2 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 year 1765, the limit of the period, the modern novel had 
 been initiated and developed by Richardson, Fielding, and 
 Smollett to a wonderful degree of perfection, and Johnson 
 and Goldsmith were doing critical and creative work which 
 was to have an abiding place in British literature annals. 
 Set over against this wonderful array of representative 
 English writers, in accomplishment so varied, brilliant, and 
 important that no other period of like length can compare 
 with this in the whole history of English literature, the 
 names of Captain John Smith, Jonathan Edwards, and Cot 
 ton Mather, the three most mighty writers during the 
 same term of years in America, and we can appreciate 
 to the full the startling literary poverty of this country in 
 its beginnings. There is, of course, in this comparison no 
 thought of reproach. Given the conditions, it was inevitable 
 that it should have been so. The conquering of material 
 conditions must always precede intellectual and artistic 
 activity, for their own sakes, and the Puritans and Cavaliers 
 of the early days in New England and Virginia had set 
 before them the most practical of tasks : to subjugate the 
 Indian, make the soil yield harvests, clear the forests, and 
 in the clearings erect habitable homes, to begin housewifery 
 within doors, and without the simple industries of the 
 pioneer life. 
 
 Such literary activity as existed was divided at first 
 between Virginia and New England. In the South, only 
 seventeen years after the founding of Jamestown in 1607, 
 Captain John Smith published his " History of Virginia." l 
 
 1 There are numerous manuals of American literature in which details 
 here omitted are supplied, and a much fuller treatment of this early stage 
 of our literary development is given. The reader wishing such a volume is 
 referred to the following : " A History of American Literature," by Walter C. 
 Bronson. 
 
The Earlier Period j 
 
 He was a soldier of fortune, a man of the sword rather than 
 of the pen, who wrote with no thought of literary excellence, 
 but yet with a certain picturesque vigor, which is at least in 
 part explained by the fact that he lived in England, and 
 Shakespeare s English was in the air. It must be remem 
 bered that any writer like Smith had the advantage of 
 English speech in its very finest and strongest period of 
 existence the flower of English expression. Even ordi 
 nary men had a righteousness imputed to them which was 
 not their very own. The Elizabethan Englishman often 
 assumed a virtue even if he had it not. Smith s account 
 of his rescue by Pocahontas keeps his memory green with 
 schoolboys and their elders, and the fact that some modern 
 historians doubt the story and, indeed, regard Smith s state 
 ments in general with skepticism has no effect upon the 
 affectionate interest in the dramatic Pocahontas scene. 
 
 As affairs in Virginia became settled and a genteel plan 
 tation life was developed, there might very well have sprung 
 up a polite literature, but the Virginia gentleman preferred 
 field sports and indoor social diversions to letters. There 
 is no other name in the Colonial days of that state com 
 parable with that of Captain Smith ; here and there culti 
 vated men college presidents or professors or clergymen 
 wrote histories of Virginia. George Sandys, Virginia s 
 first poet, was simply an Englishman who finished upon 
 American soil his translation of a poem of Ovid s per 
 chance to take his mind from the Indian troubles which 
 raged outside. Strachey and Hammond are writers for the 
 specialist rather than the general reader. Colonel Byrd s 
 " History of the Dividing Line," an account of the work of 
 establishing, in 1729, the boundary between Virginia and 
 North Carolina, is perhaps more literary in touch and tone 
 
4 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 than anything else of the period ; and it must be under 
 stood that the style of these American pioneers, early as 
 well as late, was that of cultivated persons accustomed to 
 the best models of the mother country. There was little 
 to mark them as Americans in any true sense ; but some 
 times, as with Smith, they wrote of local conditions, and 
 this makes them interesting for us; and at the best they 
 united, like Colonel Byrd, a graphic account of American 
 affairs with a good deal of imagination and taste. Of the 
 Virginia writers as a group it may be said that their subjects 
 as a whole were historical or descriptive ; political writing was 
 minor and hardly worthy of mention. 
 
 Not so with New England in the same period. There the 
 religious interest predominated, and some of the names are 
 of genuine importance as writers ; as witness those of Brad 
 ford, Eliot, Hooker, Roger Williams, Anne Bradstreet, Wig- 
 glesworth, Cotton Mather, Judge Sewall, Jonathan Edwards 
 a formidable list. 
 
 Yet if pure literature be the test, there is very little, after 
 all, to detain us. The poets, Bradstreet and Wigglesworth, 
 can be placed by themselves, and of them it is enough to 
 say that the woman singer was imitative of the stock English 
 model and Wigglesworth s subject, "Doomsday," was so 
 anti-poetical and severe that it would have taken the genius 
 of a Milton to give it plastic shape and musical sound. Of 
 the prose writers, Eliot, the Indian apostle, did great service 
 by his translation of the Bible for the red man. Hooker, of 
 Connecticut, is a name ever honored as a town founder 
 and constitution maker, whose sermons have dignity, and 
 often a certain charm. Governor Winthrop s " History of 
 New England " is not so interesting for our purposes, how 
 ever valuable historically, as are his famous " Letters," 
 
The Earlier Period 5 
 
 which embody the correspondence with his wife, and in 
 their quaint phraseology and lovely feeling, are not seldom 
 of unfeigned beauty ; while Judge SewalTs " Diary " can be 
 read with pleasure to-day, largely for its unconscious humor 
 and piquant revelations of the way a Puritan of position 
 aforetime compromised with Mammon while keeping his 
 godliness. Cotton Mather s chief fame is as witch tamer 
 rather than as writer, although if bulk were the test, he 
 would be in the first rank. 
 
 Unquestionably the greatest name of the group for 
 literature is that of Jonathan Edwards, that stem divine, 
 whose fulminations from the pulpit harried up the souls of 
 his flock, whose view of hell seems now among the incredi- 
 bles of early theology. Edwards s sermons hardly did 
 justice to the personal loveliness of the man, his magnetic 
 power in the pulpit at Northampton, Massachusetts, and, 
 indeed, the not seldom tremendous vividness and strength 
 of his religious utterances. Had his powers been destined 
 to display themselves in an environment more favorable, he 
 might have left literature not fatally circumscribed by such a 
 subject as his well-known ordination sermon, " Sinners in the 
 Hands of an Angry God." The speech of many of these early 
 writers has a certain attraction, simply because of what is 
 now for us its old-time flavor, the quaint terms and un 
 wonted forms of the expression. 
 
 Outside of Virginia and New England there is little that 
 calls for recognition, or takes permanent place. Philadel 
 phia produced numerous writers, but none of such importance 
 as Benjamin Franklin, who may fairly be called the first 
 American producing literature of more than historical in 
 terest; whose work indeed has value to-day as a living 
 force. His earlier writings fall in the Colonial period, but 
 
6 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 his major work belongs in the Revolutionary period, whose 
 ideals were potent in developing his genius. He may there 
 fore be spoken of briefly in considering the Revolutionary 
 period of 1765-1789. 
 
 Broadly viewed, the writings stimulated by Revolutionary 
 events were political, as was natural, where earlier the con 
 ditions of Colonial settlement and the religious interests of 
 the colonies furnished the dominant impulse for those who 
 registered their thoughts in writing. For the most part, 
 therefore, the printed works, during this quarter of a century, 
 were practical rather than artistic. The expression was 
 secondary, the practical effect the main thing. Thomas 
 Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence surely a 
 noble instrument of its kind, though somewhat high-flown 
 and stilted to our modern taste. Otis in the North, and 
 Patrick Henry in the South, were orators far less effective on 
 the printed page than in their own persons ; it being ever 
 the penalty of oratory that unlike other forms of literature, 
 full half its effect depends upon the personality of the 
 speaker, and hence it has at best a dubious life in after time. 
 The Massachusetts leader, Samuel Adams, was a fluent 
 essayist, with a turn for satire, while Alexander Hamilton in 
 his state papers showed a wonderful maturity in view of his 
 youth, and wrote with Madison the Federalist papers, which 
 still are regarded as political writing of a rare quality. 
 Thomas Paine s " Common Sense," full of racy vigor as 
 well as intellectual power, made him the early champion of 
 what was then deemed atheism ; although read to-day his 
 religious position is that of a liberal rather than what we 
 would now call a radical. 
 
 Among the letter writing of the time, nothing has so 
 much literary worth as the " Journal " of John Woolman, 
 
The Earlier Period 7 
 
 whose lucid spirituality made the calm beauty of his words 
 the fit reflection of a noble personality, which in our day 
 strongly attracted the later and greater Quaker, Whittier. 
 The more definitely literary endeavor was mostly feeble, the 
 name of the French Crevecceur having some significance 
 because his " Letters for an American Farmer " are the first 
 examples of sketches of native types and places by one 
 whose point of view was comparative and his manner lively. 
 Of poetry the quantity was satisfactory, if not the quality. 
 Songs and ballads striking a popular note were numerous, 
 lacking in art, but of a wholesome patriotism, and possessed 
 of much more life than the jejune imitations of the style of 
 Pope, Johnson, or Addison. Most worthy of mention in a 
 sketch like this are Joel Barlow, John Trumbull, Timothy 
 Dwight, and Philip Freneau. The two first named were of 
 the little group residing in Hartford, Connecticut, and 
 known as the " Hartford wits." Dwight was president of 
 Yale, an ancestor of the later president of the same name, 
 while Freneau, a Huguenot Frenchman by race, was a grad 
 uate of the college now known as Princeton, lived in New 
 York and Philadelphia, and pursued the varied occupations 
 of sea captain and editor. Trumbull was a learned lawyer 
 and judge ; he did much verse, in which the influence of 
 Gray and Collins, as lyric models, was apparent. He wrote 
 his best-known poem as a vigorous burlesque of epic style 
 to satirize the Tories ; its interest is of the time, and the 
 nature of the subject precludes the performance from being 
 American in any true sense. Dwight s chief contribution is 
 also epic in form and serious in intention, " The Conquest 
 of Canaan," whose eleven books are commonplace and 
 respectable to a maddening degree. Barlow is an example 
 of what often happens in poetry ; his ponderous " Colum- 
 
8 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 biad," in which the theme at least is properly native, is but 
 a curiosity to-day, while his brief " Hasty Pudding " contains 
 a genuine lively humor and picturesque accounts of native 
 rural scenes, like the husking bee : contrary to the " Colum- 
 biad," the breath of life is in it, and the poem can still be 
 read with some pleasure. 
 
 Far above these other poets, or would-be poets, is Fre- 
 neau. In spite of the fact that his work often seems a sort 
 of sounding-board for the reduplication of the strains of 
 standard masters, this singer possessed real imagination, and 
 at times wore the singing robes with the true grace of the 
 bard born not made. There are touches of nature description 
 in his verse "The Wild Honeysuckle "is an example 
 which foretell Bryant. His somber " House of Night," most 
 remarkable of his longer pieces, has here and there a haunt 
 ing quality like that of Poe s, and could only have been pro 
 duced by a man of genius for imaginative metrical expres 
 sion. In a word, Freneau is the sole American poet who 
 before the nineteenth century could fairly be given the name 
 in its higher meaning. His " Wild Honeysuckle " is well 
 worth quotation, and here follows : 
 
 THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE 
 
 Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 
 Hid in this silent, dull retreat, 
 Untouch d thy honey d blossoms blow, 
 Unseen thy little branches greet : 
 No roving foot shall find thee here, 
 No busy hand provoke a tear. 
 
 By Nature s self in white array d, 
 She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, 
 And planted here the guardian shade, 
 And sent soft waters murmuring by ; 
 
The Earlier Period 9 
 
 Thus quietly thy summer goes, 
 Thy days declining to repose. 
 
 Smit with those charms that must decay, 
 I grieve to see your future doom ; 
 They died nor were those flowers less gay, 
 The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; 
 Unpitying frosts, and Autumn s power 
 Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 
 
 From morning suns and evening dews 
 At first thy little being came : 
 If nothing once, you nothing lose, 
 For when you die you are the same ; 
 The space between is but an hour, 
 The frail duration of a flower. 
 
 That last line has a touch of the true magic of expression. 
 
 From among his contemporaries who wrote prose, Benja 
 min Franklin towers as a very leviathan of the literary waters. 
 His fame is so thoroughly fixed in our history, his activity 
 took so many directions, that one has to detach his literary 
 accomplishment from his reputation as editor, scientist, 
 diplomat; educationist, philanthropist, and man of the world, 
 in order to appreciate it. Franklin s life was a long one ; 
 he began early to express himself in print, and he was a 
 voluminous writer who left many books. But his permanent 
 contribution to our letters is to be found in " Poor Richard s 
 Almanac," to which it may be well to add his " Autobiog 
 raphy," for an equivalent to which we have to come down to 
 our own era and name that by General Grant. The " Alma 
 nac " may fairly be called an American classic of its kind ; 
 it lives to-day in many beautiful editions, and is widely read. 
 Its rich common sense, its aphoristic wisdom, couched in 
 rustic phrase and homely wisdom, pat and perfect for its 
 
to Literary Leaders of America 
 
 purpose, and what is more, the revelation of some of the 
 fundamental American traits thus early in our history, make 
 it a valuable document in the case of American literature. 
 The salt of its humor would alone preserve it. That such a 
 work should be produced by the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, argues strongly that an independent literature 
 would spring up on this continent if only time were given it. 
 Franklin is the embodiment of shrewd, sane, good sense ; 
 his morality is that of a town policeman ; his doctrine is 
 utilitarian ; there is no height of aspiration or burst of poetry 
 in him. He is worldly and other worldly rather than spirit 
 ual. But his time and his own life largely explain the 
 mundane quality of his work. The eighteenth century in 
 England was one of small ideas, or the lack of them, of 
 urban thought and ways. The ethical writers were cold, 
 narrow, and hard ; it was an age of taste, wit, and elegance 
 rather than of poetry and of passion. Franklin, like every 
 other writer, felt the influence of the time and spirit ; it is 
 best to accept him in his limitations as well as in his unques 
 tionable greatness. He is one of the sturdily salient figures, 
 both in the life and letters of our early history, and certainly 
 the most considerable man of letters before the year 1800. 
 
 It is within the period of the republic, from 1789 to the 
 present time, that the major triumphs of our literature have 
 been won. Indeed, it is almost accurate to say that the 
 writers who have made us famous and taken a fixed place in 
 our galaxy fall after the opening of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The exception best worth speaking of after Franklin is 
 that of a man who may fitly be called the Father of Ameri 
 can Fiction, Charles Brockden Brown. He was a Philadel 
 phia recluse and scholar, who began to publish as early as 
 1797, and whose best-known novel, "Wieland," dates from 
 
The Earlier Period 1 1 
 
 1 798. Brown, though trained for the law, devoted himself 
 to letters, edited magazines, and gave a rather pathetic 
 example of a man who, in a day when literature as a profes 
 sion hardly existed, tried to live by it, only to die before he 
 was forty. Brown s "Wieland" is still read by students, 
 and the general reader will at least find it interesting and 
 powerful. The man s genius was exceptionally somber ; he 
 is the natural forerunner of Poe, a greater master of the 
 weird and terrible. It is instructive to find a writer and 
 thinker thus early making use of psychologic marvels in 
 fiction, yet treating them as did Poe after him in the temper 
 of the scientific investigator. Had Brown s fate fallen on 
 more propitious times, he might have won a secure place in 
 fiction ; as it is, his importance historically in the evolution 
 of American novel making is great, for he may be pointed to 
 as the founder of serious fiction in this country. " Wieland " 
 can be had in a good modern edition, with a brief introduc 
 tory sketch of the author s life. 
 
 But better days for literature were near at hand. Brown 
 found himself practically alone and unencouraged in Phila 
 delphia in his effort to produce worthy imaginative writing, 
 but in New York, by the might of his genius, and upon 
 seemingly barren ground, another writer of the early nine 
 teenth century, and a greater, not only sowed seed that 
 should make his name famous, but caused to spring up 
 about him a school of New York literary men, so that the 
 metropolis was regarded for years as the center of such 
 activity. That man was Washington Irving, whom we shall 
 now consider in full as our first American leader of literature. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 IRVING 
 
 THE first American to win not only national but interna 
 tional fame in letters was Washington Irving. The study of 
 our literary leaders therefore fitly and happily begins with 
 him a man pleasant in his life as he was wholesome in his 
 varied and delightful work. 
 
 One can hardly realize to-day, when the incomes of 
 authors are generous, and literature has a social and com 
 mercial life in several of our large cities, what an utter lack 
 of center and atmosphere Irving had to face when, very 
 early in the nineteenth century, he essayed to turn from the 
 mercantile pursuits of his family, in which he had been 
 trained and first immersed, to the prosecution of letters both 
 as an interest and a chance of support. New York in the 
 opening decades of the century had little interest in litera 
 ture ; there was no life from which a young aspirant might 
 get encouragement no salon, no social self-consciousness 
 of the place of letters in an enlightened community. Those 
 who would see this plainly should consult Charles Dudley 
 Warner s excellent brochure on Irving. Men of letters 
 throughout the United States when the young Washington 
 began to write were few and far between; there was no 
 sense of associative life among authors. On the other hand, 
 there was no support of literature on the part of the public, 
 
 12 
 
Irving 13 
 
 no inducement to adopt this profession on the part of those 
 possessing indisputable talent. Yet just because of this 
 paucity of rivals, this smallness of the supply as well as of 
 the demand, a man like Irving had his opportunity, seized 
 it, made the demand by the attraction of what he supplied, 
 and became the Father of American Literature. 
 
 For it is certainly just to give him this title. He is the 
 first of our authors to give dignity to letters, to produce 
 work that won international recognition Franklin had 
 foreign fame as a diplomat and scientist rather than man of 
 letters to found and foster a local school of literature. 
 The Knickerbocker writers, who drew their name from one 
 of Irving s most famous books, we call the group of literary 
 folk who lived in and about New York under the leadership 
 or at least encouraged by the influence of Washington 
 Irving. 
 
 This genial autocrat of our early literature had the writing 
 gift in his own individuality rather than by family predispo 
 sition. His father was a Scotchman in trade, his mother 
 English, neither of them born in this land. When Irving 
 was born in 1783 in New York City, his father was engaged 
 in mercantile pursuits, and the family was one of plain, com 
 fortable respectability, Presbyterian in its church leanings. 
 Young Washington was a lively lad who at twelve years of 
 age was scribbling verse and prose, and a year later was 
 guilty of a play for amateur performers. His love for the 
 theater was a youthful passion and his biographers give us 
 some amusing incidents connected with the taste ; among 
 others, a picture of the stripling attending nine o clock fam 
 ily prayers and then stealing forth from his bedroom window 
 in order to hurry to the unholy playhouse. He made vari 
 ous excursions in the Sleepy Hollow regions of the Hudson, 
 
14 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 and being a rather delicate boy, was given plenty of rope and 
 not too onerous studies, which were conducted by private 
 tutors. At sixteen he was set to the study of law, the 
 usual story of the born man of letters trying a profession 
 which has stood a sort of nurse to literary men innumerable, 
 literature inevitably weaning them from Coke and Black- 
 stone. Irving, like Lowell later, cared naught for the law, 
 and he still being, at twenty-one years, in indifferent health, 
 his brothers, who were older and successfully engaged in the 
 cutlery business, sent him abroad a course (as we can now 
 see) eminently wise in view of his career. He spent a year 
 or more in cultured travel, frequenting picture galleries and 
 theaters and meeting people of social position, this serving 
 to polish his natural aptitude for polite intercourse, for 
 Irving had rare gifts in this direction, and his long life de 
 veloped them to the full. This social talent had full sway 
 on his return to this country, when he became a figure in 
 the best circles of Gotham and neighboring cities. He was 
 admitted to the New York bar, although it may well be be 
 lieved that legal cares sat lightly on his soul. Just then, in 
 his brilliant young flush of manhood, a keen sorrow fell on 
 him. He was enamored of a lovely young girl, Maud 
 Hoffman by name, and she had plighted herself to him. 
 At eighteen she died, and although by the gentling hand of 
 time the experience became a fragrant memory, making 
 his wit stingless and giving his pathos a touch which all the 
 world loves, at first Irving suffered deeply. Indeed, in a 
 sense, he never got over the loss. He remained a bach 
 elor throughout his life, and long years afterward referred to 
 this early sorrow as still an unhealed wound of the heart. 
 It is not unduly imaginative to see running through the 
 charm of Washington Irving s essays a certain poetic sensi- 
 
Irving IJ 
 
 bility toward women, born of this unbroken romance of his 
 early years. 
 
 It was while suffering from this grief that Irving began 
 the literary labor which was to bring him fame. He had 
 already tried his hand at journalism in a series of letters 
 for the Morning Chronicle (a newspaper owned by his 
 brother Peter) under the pen name of Jonathan Oldstyle. 
 In these, the influence of Addison can be felt in its 
 ease, elegance, and playful humor. His first collected 
 papers, under the title " Salmagundi," were contributed in 
 some twenty numbers of a fortnightly paper during the 
 years 1807-1808, Irving having as associate his eldest 
 brother William and his friend, James K. Paulding. Its 
 aim, like that of the "Spectator" in England a century 
 before, was to display the foibles and fashions of the town 
 in a spirit of gentlemanly good humor and tolerance. This 
 series made a good deal of talk, and the young editor with 
 drew it at the year s end, apparently never having taken 
 the venture with much seriousness. 
 
 The ever memorable and delightful "History of New 
 York," commonly called the "Knickerbocker History," 
 because attributed in the preface and by cunningly con 
 cocted advance references in newspapers to Diedrich 
 Knickerbocker, Esq., a supposititious Dutchman, whose 
 mysterious disappearance added just the needed curiosity 
 for contemporary readers, appeared in 1809, when Irving 
 was twenty-six; and was thus the work of a very young 
 man. The spectacle of the author writing the half-finished 
 "History," so full of harmless satire and happy extrava 
 ganza, while his soul yet throbbed with sorrow over his 
 lost love, is one of the dramatic incidents of literary his 
 tory. The " Knickerbocker History " was an earnest of 
 
1 6 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 living s claim to genuine rank in letters, a notification 
 that a new American author of importance had arrived. 
 It became at once popular, and the fact that Irving was 
 the man behind the work was soon an open secret. A 
 success of course strengthened his position in society. 
 The year after its publication he became a silent partner 
 in his brothers business, and four years later was appointed 
 military aide to Governor Tompkins. This contact with 
 official life also widened his social relations. 
 
 Little writing was done after the completion of the " His 
 tory " for some years. Irving had a great capacity for the 
 light, graceful, and gracious intercourse of the drawing-room. 
 Wine suppers he enjoyed, and club life, or its early equiva 
 lent. He had somewhat the effect of an elegant idler during 
 this time ; was a man about town, in the higher sense of the 
 term. To put it plainly, he seemed rather lazy perhaps to 
 his hard-working brothers. But as we look at his life and 
 his work in retrospect, we can easily understand that all this 
 assimilation of social experience was of value to him; it 
 made possible his later distinctive essay work; and his 
 genial habit of reading the best, and that widely, was also 
 in the nature of preparation for his graver historical writ 
 ings. Robert Browning throughout his career enjoyed 
 society in several lands and gave an amount of time and 
 strength thereto which some deemed strange. Yet in his 
 case his most representative work was fed by such expe 
 rience. It is quite true that Irving did not make a methodi 
 cal slave of himself in his literary work ; he did not, like 
 Anthony Trollope, write so many words a minute, and write 
 them whether on sea or land. Irving took long periods for 
 rumination, he worked intermittently, at times fiercely, until 
 the task was completed ; then came the reaction. But he 
 
Irving 17 
 
 was a man of genius, and it is misleading to dub him lazy, or 
 seek to triangulate his life by a scientist s quadrant. 
 
 The " History of New York " was a mock-heroic account 
 of the settlement of Manhattan by the Dutch "from the 
 beginning of the world to the end of the Dutch dynasty." 
 It was begun as a parody of a certain very serious study of 
 New York by one Mitchell, a member of the New York 
 Historical Society, and the intention was that Peter and 
 Washington Irving should together concoct it ; but business 
 kept the other from his part, and luckily, as it turned out, 
 Washington executed the work alone. The author represents 
 that the blotted manuscript of the book was left in a New 
 York hostelry by Diedrich, who is described as impover 
 ished, of uncertain temper, and something of a busybody. 
 One smiles to-day doubly in opening the " History " : first 
 for the amusement it furnishes in itself, and again as one 
 conjures up a picture of the readers of Irving s time, begin 
 ning this solemn nonsense with the expectation of finding 
 improving information. The merit of the work lies in its 
 manner, its delicious exaggeration, its unforgetable pen- 
 pictures of Heinrich Hudson and the other worthies of 
 that early civilization, in the burlesque of social customs, 
 dress, domestic life, and life civic all thrown off with 
 infectious abandon, with a flowing pen, and (in appearance 
 at least) with an inexhaustible fresh spirit. It is with such 
 gusto that the large men of literature always write ; they pro 
 duce what is to be a classic as a meiejeu t? esprit, much as a 
 schoolboy conducts a game on a Saturday s holiday. The 
 literary style in which all this is done varies in accordance 
 with the demand, the required atmosphere ; for to create an 
 atmosphere and then to keep it by a congruous flow of lan 
 guage is one of the great secrets of good literature. But 
 c 
 
1 8 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Irving s manner in the " History " may fairly be shown in 
 the following passage ; the reader however being cautioned 
 that our author suffers inevitably from a short selection, 
 inasmuch as his peculiar felicity comes from an effect of 
 quiet charm and grace, of fitness and melody, to be felt 
 in their totality. 
 
 The detached, striking, bizarre effects of latter-day litera 
 ture are not to be sought in him : 
 
 About six miles from the renowned city of the Manhattoes, in 
 that sound or arm of the sea which passes between the mainland 
 and Nassua, on Long Island, there is a narrow strait, where the 
 current is violently compressed between shouldering promontories 
 and horribly perplexed by rocks and shoals. Being, at the best 
 of times, a very violent, impetuous current, it takes these impedi 
 ments in mighty dudgeon, boiling in whirlpools, brawling and 
 fretting in ripples, raging and roaring in rapids and breakers, and, 
 in short, indulging in all kinds of wrong-headed paroxysms. At 
 such times, woe to any unlucky vessel that ventures within its 
 clutches. This termagant humor, however, prevails only at 
 certain times of tide. At low water, for instance, it is as pacific 
 a stream as you would wish to see ; but as the tide rises, it begins 
 to fret ; at half-tide, it roars with might and main, like a bull bel 
 lowing for more drink ; but when the tide is full, it relapses into 
 quiet and, for a time, sleeps as soundly as an alderman after din 
 ner. In fact, it may be compared to a quarrelsome toper, who is 
 a peaceable fellow enough when he has no liquor at all or when 
 he has a skinful, but who when half seas over plays the very devil. 
 This mighty, blustering, bullying, hard-drinking little strait was a 
 place of great danger and perplexity to the Dutch navigators of 
 ancient days hectoring their tub-built barks in a most unruly 
 style, whirling them about in a manner to make any but a Dutch 
 man giddy, and not unfrequently standing them upon rocks and 
 reefs, as it did the famous squadron of Oloffe the Dreamer when 
 seeking a place to found the city of Manhattoes. Whereupon, 
 out of sheer spleen, they denominated it Helle-gat, and solemnly 
 
Irving 19 
 
 gave it over to the devil. This appellation has since been aptly- 
 rendered into English by the name of Hell-gate and into non 
 sense by the name of Hurlgate, according to certain foreign in 
 truders, who neither understood Dutch nor English may St. 
 Nicholas confound them ! 
 
 Of any one quality, humor predominates in this early 
 masterpiece. And since humor has always been a marked 
 characteristic of American literature, along with sanity, a 
 democratic spirit of brotherhood and a streak of idealism, it 
 is interesting to inquire what are the characteristics of this 
 earliest humorist of distinction on this side of the Atlantic. 
 The present-day reader, accustomed to the broader and 
 sometimes coarser fooling of the newspaper funny man, or 
 to the school of humor for which Artemus Ward stands as 
 father, is likely perhaps to find a writer like Irving a little tame. 
 His fun does not involve verbal play, nor violent antithesis, 
 nor grotesque exaggeration ; nor, in spite of all its freedom 
 in dealing with personalities, is it so daring as the fun of a 
 later dispensation to which nothing is sacred. In this sense 
 it is more in the British tradition. The day had not yet 
 come for the full unfolding of the American sensibility to 
 the ludicrous, developed by contact with democratic and 
 material conditions. Irving begets an inward smile, where 
 we laugh at Mark Twain, or mayhap guffaw at Bill Nye or 
 George Ade, or Mr. Dooley. But the " Knickerbocker 
 History " is very genuine humor, nevertheless, and more s 
 the pity if our jaded taste fails to respond to it ; such a 
 result should suggest the possibility that food too highly 
 spiced unfits for that which is more eupeptic. 
 
 After the " History," Irving did nothing of importance as 
 a writer for ten years, from 1809 to 1819, in which latter year 
 " The Sketch Book " began to appear. To be sure, he wrote 
 
2O Literary Leaders of America 
 
 sundry articles for a magazine he edited for a while, but for 
 the most part this was a period of observation, development, 
 maturing. In 1815 he went abroad for a sojourn that 
 stretched itself out to seventeen years of travel and resi 
 dence. He was a year or so over thirty when he went, a 
 man of nearly fifty when he returned. He left his native 
 land partly because there were reasons connected with his 
 business which called for his attention there ; partly, too, 
 because he liked the old country, much in him naturally 
 responding to the social brilliancy and culture-steeped tradi 
 tions of the older civilization. Friends he had made across 
 the water urged him to come ; and there was nothing of 
 compelling importance either in the way of family ties or 
 business cares to bid him remain in America. And so dur 
 ing these fruitful years in his youthful prime and dowered in 
 many ways for enlightened social communion, Irving saw 
 and wrote and eventually conquered. 
 
 His wanderings were wide. The first five years of the 
 seventeen were spent in Great Britain much of the time 
 in the English capital ; then for the most of six years, from 
 1820 to 1826, he was on the Continent; for three years in 
 Spain, then back to England again as secretary of the United 
 States legation. This prolonged residence abroad had a 
 very great influence on Irving s life, his thought, and hence 
 his literary work. He absorbed the spirit and essence of 
 English social life, old and new ; and those two typical vol 
 umes of essays, "The Sketch Book" and "Bracebridge 
 Hall," were largely the result. He browsed in foreign libra 
 ries, and derived inspiration from the art treasures of Spain, 
 and history like his " Columbus " and "The Alhambra" were 
 given to the world. It is not too much to say that his 
 European experience changed his life work as an author, 
 
Irving 21 
 
 and yet, unlike other Americans upon whom foreign sojourn 
 has worked more than a sea change, Irvmgfs genius never 
 lost its distinctively American quality. Henry James by 
 such a residence has ceased to be an American author in 
 any sense. Bret Harte, on the other hand, in a similar resi 
 dence, continued to the day of his death to write stories 
 that spoke alone of the native soil. To retain the domestic 
 flavor under such circumstances is as well for an author as 
 for a grape or pear. 
 
 Everywhere he went abroad Irving was received with 
 cordiality and kindness : he was sought after, and deservedly 
 so, for his manners were of the best, his personality charm 
 ing, and his growing literary reputation such as to remove 
 social barriers. There is testimony and to spare of the good 
 time he had, the pleasant impression he made; many a 
 reference in letter or memoir is preserved to prove it. He 
 met familiarly the notables of letters and society : in view 
 of the period and Irving s plebeian origin this speaks elo 
 quently for his winning qualities. 
 
 Irving seemed to need the pressure of necessity to pro 
 duce literature. When, because of the hard times brought 
 on by the War of 1812, the business houses of New York 
 were tottering and unstable, Irving had tried magazine edi 
 torship to help the house of Irving Brothers, though with 
 little success ; in England, half a dozen years later, came to 
 him news of the failure of the firm, and the loyal silent part 
 ner bethought him how he might help. Editorial work, with 
 handsome remuneration, he refused ; he sat down and made 
 a permanent contribution to American literature by writing 
 "The Sketch Book," or, to give it its full title, "The 
 Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent," the seven parts of 
 which appeared during 1819 and 1820. It may be here 
 
22 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 remarked parenthetically that two-thirds of the standard lit 
 erature of the world has been produced under some form 
 of practical pressure ; Grub Street has done more for letters 
 than Vanity Fair a reflection perhaps on man s natural 
 laziness, but on the whole enheartening in its suggestion of 
 the wholesome influence of work under necessity. 
 
 Irving was winningly modest in his feeling about the merit 
 of " The Sketch Book." He only wished, he said, " to blow 
 a flute accompaniment in the National Concert " ; yet he 
 did a distinctive and undying thing, because it was in him 
 \to do it, and neither foreign residence nor themes often 
 quite un-American could hide certain underlying qualities 
 which give the book its native smack. Then, too, along 
 with essays that are entirely and charmingly British, that 
 seem to come from the heart of an Oliver Goldsmith, that 
 on Stratford-on-Avon, for example, or the lovely paper on 
 Westminster Abbey, are those two immortal idyls of the 
 Hudson River, "Rip Van Winkle," "The Legend of Sleepy 
 Hollow," whose very names stir the imagination and warm 
 the heart of every good American. By writing these tales, 
 genial, sunny, touched with delicate fancy and with a half 
 serious face toward the legendary which is altogether de 
 lightful, Irving put once and for all the seal of poetic imag 
 ination upon certain noble things which did not before 
 possess this double charm of nature and art. Hereafter, 
 the Hudson became his river even more than it was Hem- 
 rich s of old a stately stream, around which, as around the 
 German Rhine, hover mythic shapes, and down whose water 
 ways the wings of poetry and romance, like magic sails, bear 
 the awakened souls of men. And how typically and finely 
 American they are, too, in scene and character, in humor and 
 pathos ! The fact that Rip has for a generation served in 
 
Irving 23 
 
 play form as an exponent of the art of the most beloved and 
 favored of living American comedians, has of course greatly 
 strengthened its hold upon the public. But the tale, as told 
 by Irving, will always be a favorite and has no need of the 
 stage to give it a place in popular regard. 
 
 But judged as literary product, and for their gentle, lovely 
 humanity, other of the sketches making up this welcome 
 addition to essay literature are, although placed upon Brit 
 ish shores, full of Irving s quality. "The Broken Heart," 
 "The Widow and Her Son," and such-like narratives seem 
 a little oversentimental to us to-day; they appeal to the 
 taste for the pathetic, with small attempt to disguise the 
 working of the pumps the method of Dickens at times, 
 as in the famous scene of the death of Little Nell. But 
 those sketches, even the most deliciously mournful of them, 
 were immensely liked in their day ; as Macaulay wept over 
 " Little Dombey," so did Byron over " The Broken Heart." 
 These papers, however, were not the most durable part of the 
 book which, aside from the inimitable Hudson River tales 
 already mentioned, is less noteworthy for the stories than 
 for the essays, of which the Stratford paper is a classic ex 
 ample. Tourists who visit the Red Horse Inn, in Shake 
 speare s native town, are shown the room in which he wrote, 
 the big chair he sat in, the poker wherewith he stirred the 
 fire into a cheery blaze, the very pen he used. It is one 
 of the minor magics of a place so prepotent in its supreme 
 magic of the master bard. Irving shaded off with utmost 
 ease from the essay to the short story ; it would hardly be 
 too much to say that he created the short tale in English. 
 Dickens wrote this form, now so vastly cultivated and popu 
 lar, somewhat later ; Cooper had no success in it. But to 
 Washington Irving it was a natural medium for imaginative 
 
24 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 expression. He is first and foremost an essayist ; by which 
 I mean, it is not so much the subject he deals with as the 
 deft and delicate way he handles it, which gives him his 
 charm. Very rarely is his tale a story for story s sake ; it 
 is a mood, a portrayal of character ; for the best effect, a 
 single one; it is a picture, an impression. There are in 
 timate relations, therefore, between the essay and fiction 
 in the form of the short story. In the early eighteenth 
 century, the English essay was originated by Addison and 
 Steele in the "Spectator"; yet the most famous series in 
 that immortal journal was made up of the Roger de Coverley 
 sketches which are a kind of fiction, certainly, perhaps as 
 good an example as literature can show of the merging of 
 essay and fiction. And as direct outcome of all this essay 
 activity, the modern novel sprang, Cadmus-like, into full life 
 before the middle of that century. 
 
 So with Irving. Influenced by these early essayists, Addi 
 son and Steele, and by Oliver Goldsmith a generation later, 
 he remained an essayist to the end of his days. Yet he 
 founded the short story, because that form is but the essay 
 (or can be) with a little more of the fictive, of objectivity 
 and of dramatized character the essayist, instead of talk 
 ing so frankly about himself, talks about some imagined 
 character who is, as likely as not, only his alter ego, behind 
 which the real speaker hides. This, no doubt, is what Mr. 
 Howells has in mind when he speaks of Dr. Holmes s " Auto 
 crat " as an example of the dramatized essay something 
 half fiction, half essay, Holmes being essentially an essayist 
 in his prose. 
 
 " The Sketch Book," then, is one of Irving s happiest and 
 most representative works, a contribution to American litera 
 ture much beloved and admired. Two years later came a 
 
Irving 25 
 
 second book of essays, " Bracebridgt Hall," as typical and 
 as well known, if less attractive to the American reader ; 
 pei haps only so because the papers are all of English 
 themes, reflecting more steadily than did the earlier volume 
 Irving s British experiences. But we must not make too 
 much of boundary lines in literature, and these papers are 
 wonderfully sympathetic, graceful, and genial studies of the 
 older English life, which was felt by Irving in all its charm 
 and suggestion, as it has been by very few of the native 
 British writers. There is a leisureliness in the movement, a 
 quaint humor and sentiment, an effect of the picturesque 
 for its own sake, especially refreshing in our day of haste, 
 strenuousness, and in some quarters suspicion even of inno 
 cent enjoyment. 
 
 Here again Irving s gift for the sketch finds full play, and 
 some of the choicest things in the collection belong to this 
 phase of fiction. We may take the " Stout Gentleman " 
 as a happy example, and it is reproduced at the end of this 
 study of Irving and his work, although, perhaps, not so well 
 known as American sketches, like the " Rip Van Winkle " 
 legend, or that of " Sleepy Hollow." The sketch of this 
 humorously seen gentleman illustrates the truth of what has 
 been said of the born essayist, caring more for the study of 
 character, for impression, atmosphere, and style than for 
 story interest. There is hardly a story at all to this inimi 
 table picture ; we do not hear the stout gentleman speak ; 
 we do not even see him ; his vanishing coat tails as he steps 
 into his cab in the morning is our nearest approach to vision. 
 And yet what a keen interest is aroused in his personality, 
 as the narrator of the incident describes his coming to the 
 inn, and the impression he makes upon all concerned. 
 How clearly, too, we see that inn reading room, and hear 
 
16 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 the boots call out the name of the mysterious stranger ! It 
 is all so picturesque, genial, enjoyable. Every page is mel 
 lowed by a rich humanity. The reader feels the wholesome, 
 sweet personality of the writer behind the scenes, and is 
 glad to look upon a bit of life through his all-seeing eyes 
 that have in them the good-humored twinkle of a lover of 
 his kind. We can think of no one in English literature, 
 save perhaps Dickens, a conjurer in this kind, who could 
 have made so much out of little. 
 
 The "Bracebridge Hall" sketches draw material, not 
 only from England, but from Spain and Normandy, and 
 from among the treasures of Dutch tradition. Several love 
 tales are among them, and probably these the modern 
 reader will enjoy less than such a thing as " Dolph Heyliger " 
 in the way of a native theme : or, for a blend of love and 
 action set in a framework of Spanish romance, " The Student 
 of Salamanca." These sketches are thoroughly Irvingesque 
 in the way in which they blend kindly satire with touches 
 of tender sentiment and picturesque description, a sort of 
 April day effect of smiles and tears, combined in pleasurable 
 proportion. At times, Irving s heavier pathos, as in the 
 earlier works, possesses a too conscious and prolonged 
 appeal to the lachrymose gland. But his audience was 
 readier for a cry than ours of to-day, and less insistent on 
 psychologic accuracy. 
 
 Irving followed up " Bracebridge Hall " with " The Tales 
 of a Traveller," in which the form is steadily that of narra 
 tive fiction. For this very reason, and because Irving was 
 so surely an essayist, the work, as a whole, is less typical of 
 his genius than the two volumes of sketches preceding it. 
 Yet these tales can be highly enjoyed to-day, and contain 
 certain things of special interest for American readers. 
 
Irving 27 
 
 Once again the writer uses the winding waters and wooded 
 heights of the Hudson, or picturesque old Manhattan, as 
 backgrounds for the story. One such is " The Money 
 Digger." The collection also includes the capital satiric 
 sketches of the Bohemian literary life entitled " Buckthorne 
 and His Friends." As good as anything in the book, and 
 perhaps best known, is the tale called " Wolfert s Roost," a 
 fine specimen of the author s imaginative molding of a 
 native local tradition. 
 
 Upon these three books of essay and narrative, along with 
 the " Knickerbocker History," Irving s fame solidly rests. 
 But his three years Spanish residence and the studies he 
 made during it led to a series of historical writings second 
 only in importance to the " Sketch Book " work. He began 
 with the publication of his " Life of Columbus," still, despite 
 the great amount of investigation since put upon the mighty 
 Genoese in the modern critical spirit, a book of value, be 
 cause it gives, whatever corrections are to be made in the 
 light of new information, a rounded and vital presentment 
 of his subject. This " Life " is in many respects the best to 
 put in the hands of the intelligent reading public. Irving 
 was primarily a man of letters ; in writing history he was 
 painstaking in his gathering of available historical material, 
 but cared most to clothe fact with the flesh and blood of warm 
 and moving words, pictures, episodes. Hence here, as else 
 where in his biographies and histories, the reader gets above 
 all a vivid sense of the dramatic value of the wonderful 
 career of Christopher Columbus which surely should be 
 the highest aim of the historian. Three years later, the 
 volume called " Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions 
 of Columbus " carried on the study in the same spirit ; be 
 tween the two came a chronicle of the "Conquest of 
 
28 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Granada" and a year later "The Alhambra," his master 
 piece in this field. Irving found in the old Spanish tradi 
 tion a theme fragrant with romance, rich and scintillant in 
 color, and lending itself admirably to his peculiar method of 
 imaginative interpretation. Upon a framework of history 
 he weaves a succession of vivid scenes of stately and pathetic 
 personages and eloquent descriptions until the whole glows 
 like a great Oriental rug. Fact and fancy are both in the 
 woof of the texture, but the magic of the narrator makes it 
 all a wonder tale, befitting the splendor of that melancholy, 
 yet lovely palace, memorial of a proud, unhappy race. 
 
 Directly after the publication of " The Alhambra " Wash 
 ington Irving returned to his native land, a man well along 
 in years and in the full summer of his reputation, an Ameri 
 can citizen who had been courted by society abroad and 
 publicly honored there. He had received a Royal Society 
 medal and an LL.D. from Oxford. It was natural that his 
 fellow-Americans should have received him with acclaim, 
 for he was their one author to be recognized as an impor 
 tant figure in letters by transatlantic critics. In honoring 
 him Americans honored themselves. 
 
 He made a tour of the southeast and was greeted every 
 where with enthusiastic admiration. Then ke settled down 
 in the pleasant cottage on the Hudson, at Tarrytown, called 
 Sunnyside, as if in recognition of the cheery nature of its 
 master ; a dwelling which has now become one of the his 
 toric haunts and literary shrines of the land. This Hudson 
 River residence was the realization of Irving s often ex 
 pressed desire for a retiring and home place upon the banks 
 of a stream, to whose very name he has lent a new loveli 
 ness. There has been talk of late of acquiring Sunnyside as 
 a memorial which the people of the United States may visit ; 
 
Irving 29 
 
 if it were feasible, this would be wise, since it is by these 
 signs and tokens of our great men that a people s self- 
 respect and instinct for hero-worship and patriotism are kept 
 alive. Here, for the remainder of his life, a term of a quarter 
 century or more, he resided, save for a break of four years, 
 when in 1842 he went abroad again to represent the United 
 States at the Court of Spain a selection peculiarly fitting in 
 view of his writings on the past and present of that land. 
 He filled the post to the signal satisfaction of both countries, 
 his social tact of course standing him in good stead. Irving s 
 life at Tarrytown was a genial one; friends and relatives 
 visited him, and he often was seen in the streets of New 
 York, the picture of a well-to-do, benignant gentleman of 
 the old school, with a touch of the quaintness of the elder 
 days in garb and carriage. His disposition seems to have 
 been a happy mingling of affability and dignity. When the 
 farewell dinner to Charles Dickens was given in New York 
 City, upon the occasion of the Englishman s visit to the 
 United States, Irving presided, as naturally our representa 
 tive in letters. For long he was the foremost of American 
 makers of literature. 
 
 His declining years were smooth and sunny, for not only 
 were Irving s outward circumstances easy, but his was a tem 
 perament to insure happiness. It is pleasant to think of the 
 peaceful Indian summer of his days in contrast with the 
 belligerent and strenuous career of Cooper, or the tragic 
 brevity of Poe s end. Nor was his peace idleness ; much 
 writing was done in the Tarrytown library, minor, to be sure, 
 for the most part, but testifying that his right hand had not 
 lost its cunning, and some of it still of the choice vintage of 
 his mid-prime. His "Crayon Miscellany," in which he 
 used the old sobriquet, embraced sketches in which his 
 
jo Literary Leaders of America 
 
 western travels in the United States, his English experience, 
 his Spanish wanderings and his likings for the Hudson River 
 and other native legends were all levied upon. His contri 
 butions to the Knickerbocker Magazine were published in 
 book form, and some of them have the flavor which is so 
 relishably Irving s ; while several important biographies were 
 also produced. One of these was " Mahomet and His Suc 
 cessors." Another, and better, the " Life of Washington," 
 was only completed the year of the author s death. The 
 first great American had put his hand in blessing on the boy 
 Irving s head, and the proud mother had named the child 
 after him ; in the fullness of time the debt was thus repaid. 
 The charming "Life of Goldsmith" the one English 
 writer whom Irving most suggests rounds out the list of 
 the biographies. 
 
 In 1859, at the age of seventy-five, Irving died in his 
 country place, having lived long, and to such effect that 
 his place in American literature is as secure, if not so high, 
 as that of any other American writer. His personality had 
 always been of a kind to attract and hold friends. A con 
 nection wrote of his appearance : " He had dark gray eyes, 
 a handsome straight nose, a broad, high, full forehead, and a 
 small mouth. His smile was exceedingly genial, lighting up 
 his whole face, and rendering it very attractive." In the 
 "Easy Chair" of Harper s Magazine, George William 
 Curtis spoke thus of the impression made upon him by Irving 
 late in life : " He might have been seen on an autumnal after 
 noon tripping with an elastic step along Broadway with 
 low quartered shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak, a 
 short garment that hangs from the shoulders like the cape 
 of a coat. There was a chirping, cheery, old-school air in 
 his appearance which was undeniably Dutch, and most har- 
 
Irving 31 
 
 raonious with the associations of his writings. He seemed, 
 indeed, to have stepped out of his own books ; and the 
 cordial grace and humor of his address, if he stopped for 
 a passing chat, were delightfully characteristic." 
 
 He had prospered in all ways. He had earned more than 
 $200,000 by his pen, a sum rarely equaled even in these 
 better-paid times. He had seen, ere he passed away, a 
 complete and handsome definitive edition of his work, a 
 practical testament to his importance as a writer. A 
 bachelor throughout his life, he had been cherished and 
 loved by countless friends in several lands ; and his readers 
 he could number by tens of thousands. As near as a mor 
 tal may, Washington Irving had lived a life that was blame 
 less and beautiful. 
 
 It would be the impulse of a false patriotism to represent 
 him as in the front rank of the writers of the world; but he 
 is a very distinctive, charming, and important figure in our 
 native literary development ; so much an artist, and so 
 wholesomely good a man, that however literary fashions 
 may change, he cannot be ignored. He does not loom 
 so large in the modern gaze as he did at the time of his 
 death ; but this is only another way of saying that a great 
 deal has since been accomplished, that a group of remark 
 able New England writers has since come and gone. 
 Although Irving was sometimes attacked by contemporary 
 criticism for his lack of moral earnestness, his tone and 
 influence were perfectly sound and sweet. Nor is he to be 
 blamed for being imitative for the excellent reason that at 
 the time he wrote, American literature was inevitably nearer 
 in spirit and tradition to the parent British than it is at the 
 present time. It is saner criticism to draw attention to the 
 remarkable degree in which Washington Irving, despite his 
 
32 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 period, his obvious sympathies with the English literary past 
 and the English models he frankly followed, did nevertheless 
 retain the hall-mark of a truly native quality. It is a com 
 fort to come into contact with so healthy a personality as is 
 revealed alike in the life and the literary work of this first 
 of our large and worthy makers of American letters. 
 
 THE STOUT GENTLEMAN 
 
 A STAGECOACH ROMANCE 
 11 I ll cross it, though it blast me ! " Hamlet 
 
 It was a rainy Sunday, in the gloomy month of November. 
 I had been detained, in the course of a journey, by a slight in 
 disposition, from which I was recovering ; but was still feverish, 
 and obliged to keep within doors all day, in an inn of the small 
 town of Derby. A wet Sunday in a country inn ! whoever 
 has had the luck to experience one can alone judge of my situa 
 tion. The rain pattered against the casements ; the bells tolled 
 for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the windows, 
 in quest of something to amuse the eye ; but it seemed as if I 
 had been placed completely out of the reach of all amusement. 
 The windows of my bedroom looked out among tiled roofs and 
 stacks of chimneys, while those of my sitting-room commanded 
 a full view of the stable yard. I know of nothing more calcu 
 lated to make a man sick of this world, than a stable yard on a 
 rainy day. The place was littered with wet straw, that had been 
 kicked about by travelers and stable boys. In one corner was 
 a stagnant pool of water, surrounding an island of muck ; there 
 were several half-drowned fowls crowded together under a cart, 
 among which was a miserable, crestfallen cock, drenched out of 
 all life and spirit; his drooping tail matted, as it were, into a 
 single feather, along which the water trickled from his back; 
 near the cart was a half-dozing cow chewing the cud, and stand 
 ing patiently to be rained on, with wreaths of vapor rising from 
 
Irving 33 
 
 her reeking hide ; a wall-eyed horse, tired of the loneliness of 
 the stable, was poking his spectral head out of a window, with 
 the rain dripping on it from the eaves ; an unhappy cur, chained 
 to a dog house hard by, uttered something every now and then, 
 between a bark and a yelp ; a drab of a kitchen wench tramped 
 backwards and forwards through the yard in pattens, looking as 
 sulky as the weather itself; everything, in short, was comfortless 
 and forlorn, excepting a crew of hardened ducks, assembled like 
 boon companions round a puddle, and making a riotous noise 
 over their liquor. 
 
 I was lonely and listless, and wanted amusement. My room 
 soon became insupportable. I abandoned it, and sought what is 
 technically called the travelers 1 room. This is a public room 
 set apart at most inns for the accommodation of a class of way 
 farers called travelers, or riders; a kind of commercial knights- 
 errant, who are incessantly scouring the kingdom in gigs, on 
 horseback, or by coach. They are the only successors that I 
 know of, at the present day, to the knights-errant of yore. They 
 lead the same kind of roving, adventurous life, only changing the 
 lance for a driving whip, the buckler for a pattern card, and the 
 coat of mail for an upper Benjamin. Instead of vindicating 
 the charms of peerless beauty, they rove about spreading the 
 fame and standing of some substantial tradesman or manufac 
 turer, and are ready at any time to bargain in his name ; it being 
 the fashion nowadays to trade, instead of fight, with one an 
 other. As the room of the hostel, in the good old fighting times, 
 would be hung round at night with the amor of wayworn war 
 riors, such as coats of mail, falchions, and yawning helmets ; so 
 the travelers room is garnished with the harnessing of their 
 successors, with box coats, whips of all kinds, spurs, gaiters, and 
 oilcloth-covered hats. 
 
 I was in hopes of finding some of these worthies to talk with, 
 but was disappointed. There were, indeed, two or three in the 
 room; but I could make nothing of them. One was just finish 
 ing his breakfast, quarreling with his bread and butter, and 
 huffing the waiter ; another buttoned on a pair of gaiters, with 
 many execrations at Boots for not having cleaned his shoes 
 
34 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 well ; a third sat drumming on the table with his fingers, and 
 looking at the rain as it streamed down the window glass ; they 
 all appeared infected by the weather, and disappeared, one after 
 the other, without exchanging a word. 
 
 I sauntered to the window, and stood gazing at the people 
 picking their way to church, with petticoats hoisted mid-leg high, 
 and dripping umbrellas. The bell ceased to toll, and the streets 
 became silent. I then amused myself with watching the daugh 
 ters of a tradesman opposite ; who, being confined to the house 
 for fear of wetting their Sunday finery, played off their charms 
 at the front windows, to fascinate the chance tenants of the inn. 
 They at length were summoned away by a vigilant, vinegar-faced 
 mother, and I had nothing further from without to amuse me. 
 
 What was I to do to pass away the long-lived day ? I was 
 sadly nervous and lonely; and everything about an inn seems 
 calculated to make a dull day ten times duller. Old newspapers, 
 smelling of beer and tobacco smoke, and which I had already 
 read half a dozen times good-for-nothing books, that were 
 worse than rainy weather. I bored myself to death with an old 
 volume of the Lady^s Magazine. I read all the commonplace 
 names of ambitious travelers scrawled on the panes of glass ; 
 the eternal families of the Smiths, and the Browns, and the Jack- 
 sons, and the Johnsons, and all the other sons ; and I deciphered 
 several scraps of fatiguing inn-window poetry which I have met 
 with in all parts of the world. 
 
 The day continued lowering and gloomy ; the slovenly, rag 
 ged, spongy clouds drifted heavily along ; there was no variety 
 even in the rain ; it was one dull, continued, monotonous patter 
 patter patter, excepting that now and then I was enlivened 
 by the idea of a brisk shower, from the rattling of the drops 
 upon a passing umbrella. 
 
 It was quite refreshing (if I may be allowed a hackneyed 
 phrase of the day) when, in the course of the morning, a horn 
 blew, and a stagecoach whirled through the street, with outside 
 passengers stuck all over it, cowering under cotton umbrellas, 
 and seethed together, and reeking with the steams of wet box 
 coats and upper Benjamins, 
 
Irving 35 
 
 The sound brought out from their lurking places a crew of 
 vagabond boys, and vagabond dogs, and the carroty-headed 
 hostler, and that nondescript animal ycleped Boots, and all the 
 other vagabond race that infest the purlieus of an inn ; but the 
 bustle was transient ; the coach again whirled on its way ; and 
 boy and dog, and hostler and Boots, all slunk back again to their 
 holes ; the street again became silent, and the rain continued to 
 rain on. In fact, there was no hope of its clearing up ; the barom 
 eter pointed to rainy weather ; mine hostess tortoise-shell cat sat 
 by the fire washing her face, and rubbing her paws over her ears ; 
 and, on referring to the almanac, I found a direful prediction stretch 
 ing from the top of the page to the bottom through the whole 
 month, " expect much rain about this time." 
 
 I was dreadfully hipped. The hours seemed as if they would 
 never creep by. The very ticking of the clock became irksome. 
 At length the stillness of the house was interrupted by the ring 
 ing of a bell. Shortly after, I heard the voice of a waiter at 
 the bar: "The stout gentleman in No. 13 wants his breakfast. 
 Tea and bread and butter with ham and eggs ; the eggs not to 
 be too much done." 
 
 In such a situation as mine, every incident is of importance. 
 Here was a subject of speculation presented to my mind, and 
 ample exercise for my imagination. I am prone to paint pictures 
 to myself, and on this occasion I had some materials to work 
 upon. Had the guest upstairs been mentioned as Mr. Smith, 
 or Mr. Brown, or Mr. Jackson, or Mr. Johnson, or merely as 
 "the gentleman in No. 13," it would have been a perfect blank 
 to me. I should have thought nothing of it; but "The stout 
 gentleman!" the very name had something in it of the pictur 
 esque. It at once gave the size; it embodied the personage to 
 my mind s eye, and my fancy did the rest. 
 
 He was stout, or, as some term it, lusty ; in all probability, 
 therefore, he was advanced in life, some people expanding as 
 they grow old. By his breakfasting rather late, and in his own 
 room, he must be a man accustomed to live at his ease, and 
 above the necessity of early rising ; no doubt a round, rosy, lusty 
 old gentleman. 
 
36 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 There was another violent ringing. The stout gentleman was 
 impatient for his breakfast. He was evidently a man of impor 
 tance ; " well-to-do in the world " ; accustomed to be promptly 
 waited upon ; of a keen appetite, and a little cross when hungry ; 
 " perhaps," thought I, " he may be some London Alderman ; or 
 who knows but he may be a Member of Parliament?" 
 
 The breakfast was sent up and there was a short interval of 
 silence ; he was, doubtless, making the tea. Presently there was 
 a violent ringing, and before it could be answered, another ring 
 ing still more violent. " Bless me ! what a choleric old gentle 
 man ! " The waiter came down in a huff. The butter was 
 rancid, the eggs were overdone, the ham was too salt : the 
 stout gentleman was evidently nice in his eating ; one of those 
 who eat and growl, and keep the waiter on the trot, and live in 
 a state militant with the household. 
 
 The hostess got into a fume. I should observe that she was a 
 brisk, coquettish woman ; a little of a shrew, and something of 
 a slammerkin, but very pretty withal ; with a nincompoop for a 
 husband, as shrews are apt to have. She rated the servants 
 roundly for their negligence in sending up so bad a breakfast, 
 but said not a word against the stout gentleman; by which I 
 clearly perceived that he must be a man of consequence, entitled 
 to make a noise and to give trouble at a country inn. Other 
 eggs, and ham, and bread and butter, were sent up. They 
 appeared to be more graciously received ; at least there was no 
 further complaint. 
 
 I had not made many turns about the travelers room, when 
 there was another ringing. Shortly afterwards there was a stir 
 and an inquest about the house. The stout gentleman wanted 
 the Times or the Chronicle newspaper. I set him down, there 
 fore, for a Whig; or rather, from his being so absolute and 
 lordly where he had a chance, I suspected him of being a Radical. 
 Hunt, I had heard, was a large man ; " who knows," thought I, 
 " but it is Hunt himself ! " 
 
 My curiosity began to be awakened. I inquired of the waiter 
 who was this stout gentleman that was making all the stir ; but 
 I could get no information : nobody seemed to know his name. 
 
Irving 
 
 37 
 
 The landlords of bustling inns seldom trouble their heads about 
 the names or occupations of their transient guests. The color 
 of a coat, the shape or size of the person, is enough to suggest a 
 traveling name. It is either the tall gentleman, or the short 
 gentleman, or the gentleman in black, or the gentleman in snuff 
 color; or, as in the present instance, the stout gentleman. A 
 designation of the kind once hit on answers every purpose, and 
 saves all further inquiry. 
 
 Rain rain rain! pitiless, ceaseless rain! No such thing 
 as putting a foot out of doors, and no occupation nor amuse 
 ment within. By and by I heard some one walking overhead. 
 It was in the stout gentleman s room. He evidently was a large 
 man, by the heaviness of his tread ; and an old man, from his 
 wearing such creaking soles. "He is doubtless," thought I, 
 " some rich old square-toes, of regular habits, and is now taking 
 exercise after breakfast." 
 
 I now read all the advertisements of coaches and hotels that 
 were stuck about the mantelpiece. The Lady^s Magazine had 
 become an abomination to me; it was as tedious as the day 
 itself. I wandered out. not knowing what to do, and ascended 
 again to my room. I had not been there long, when there was 
 a squall from a neighboring bedroom. A door opened and 
 slammed violently; a chambermaid, that I had remarked for 
 having a ruddy, good-humored face, went down stairs in a violent 
 flurry. The stout gentleman had been rude to her. 
 
 This sent the whole host of my deductions to the deuce in a 
 moment. This unknown personage could not be an old gentle 
 man; for old gentlemen are not apt to be so obstreperous to 
 chambermaids. He could not be a young gentleman ; for young 
 gentlemen are not apt to inspire such indignation. He must 
 be a middle-aged man, and confounded ugly into the bargain, 
 or the girl would not have taken the matter in such terrible 
 dudgeon. I confess I was sorely puzzled. 
 
 In a few minutes I heard the voice of my landlady. I caught 
 a glance of her as she came tramping upstairs ; her face glow 
 ing, her cap flaring, her tongue wagging the whole way. " She d 
 have no such doings in her house, she d warrant ! If gentlemen did 
 
3 8 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 spend money freely, it was no rule. She d have no servant maids 
 of hers treated in that way, when they were about their work, 
 that s what she wouldn t ! " 
 
 As I hate squabbles, particularly with women, and above all 
 with pretty women, I slunk back into my room, and partly closed 
 the door ; but my curiosity was too much excited not to listen. 
 The landlady marched intrepidly to the enemy s citadel, and 
 entered it with a storm ; the door closed after her. I heard her 
 voice in high windy clamor for a moment or two. Then it 
 gradually subsided, like a gust of wind in a garret ; then there 
 was a laugh ; then I heard nothing more. 
 
 After a little while, my landlady came out with an odd smile 
 on her face, adjusting her cap, which was a little on one side. 
 As she went downstairs, I heard the landlord ask her what was 
 the matter; she said, " Nothing at all, only the girl s a fool." I 
 was more than ever perplexed what to make of this unaccountable 
 personage, who could put a good-natured chambermaid in a 
 passion, and send away a termagant landlady in smiles. He 
 could not be so old, nor cross, nor ugly either. 
 
 I had to go to work at his picture again, and to paint him 
 entirely different. I now set him down for one of those stout 
 gentlemen that are frequently met with, swaggering about the 
 doors of country inns. Moist, merry fellows, in Belcher hand 
 kerchiefs, whose bulk is a little assisted by malt liquors. Men 
 who have seen the world, and been sworn at Highgate; who 
 are used to tavern life ; up to all the tricks of tapsters, and 
 knowing in the ways of sinful publicans. Free livers on a 
 small scale ; who are prodigal within the compass of a guinea ; 
 who call all the waiters by name, tousle the maids, gossip with 
 the landlady at the bar, and prose over a pint of port, or a glass 
 of negus, after dinner. 
 
 The morning wore away in forming these and similar sur 
 mises. As fast as I wove one system of belief, some movement 
 of the unknown would completely overturn it, and throw all my 
 thoughts again into confusion. Such are the solitary operations 
 of a feverish mind. I was, as I have said, extremely nervous ; 
 and the continual meditation on the concerns of this invisible 
 
Irving 39 
 
 personage began to have its effect : I was getting a fit of the 
 fidgets. 
 
 Dinner-time came. I hoped the stout gentleman might dine 
 in the travelers 1 room, and that I might at length get a view 
 of his person; but no he had dinner served in his own room. 
 What could be the meaning of this solitude and mystery ? He 
 could not be a Radical ; there was something too aristocratical 
 in thus keeping himself apart from the rest of the world, and 
 condemning himself to his own dull company throughout a 
 rainy day. And then, too, he lived too well for a discontented 
 politician. He seemed to expatiate on a variety of dishes, and 
 to sit over his wine like a jolly friend of good living. Indeed, 
 my doubts on this head were soon at an end ; for he could not 
 have finished his first bottle before I could faintly hear him 
 humming a tune ; and on listening, I found it to be " God save 
 the King. 1 ? Twas plain, then, he was no Radical, but a faithful 
 subject : one who grew loyal over his bottle, and was ready to 
 stand by king and constitution, when he could stand by nothing 
 else. But who could he be ? My conjectures began to run 
 wild. Was he not some personage of distinction, traveling 
 incog. ? " God knows ! " said I, at my wit s end ; " it may be 
 one of the royal family for aught I know, for they are all stout 
 gentlemen! " 
 
 The weather continued rainy. The mysterious unknown kept 
 his room, and, as far as I could judge, his chair, for I did not 
 hear him move. In the meantime, as the day advanced, the 
 travelers 1 room began to be frequented. Some, who had just 
 arrived, came in buttoned up in box coats ; others came home, 
 who had been dispersed about the town. Some took their 
 dinners, and some their tea. Had I been in a different mood, 
 I should have found entertainment in studying this peculiar 
 class of men. There were two especially, who were regular 
 wags of the road, and up to all the standing jokes of travelers. 
 They had a thousand sly things to say to the waiting maid, 
 whom they called Louisa, and Ethelinda, and a dozen other fine 
 names, changing the name every time, and chuckling amazingly 
 at their own waggery. My mind, however, had become com- 
 
40 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 pletely engrossed by the stout gentleman. He had kept my 
 fancy in chase during a long day, and it was not now to be 
 diverted from the scent. 
 
 The evening gradually wore away. The travelers read the 
 papers two or three times over. Some drew round the fire, and 
 told long stories about their horses, about their adventures, their 
 overturns, and breakings down. They discussed the credits of 
 different merchants and different inns ; and the two wags told 
 several choice anecdotes of pretty chambermaids, and kind 
 landladies. All this passed as they were quietly taking what 
 they called their nightcaps, that is to say, strong glasses of 
 brandy and water and sugar, or some other mixture of the kind ; 
 after which they one after another rang for " Boots " and the 
 chambermaid, and walked off to bed in old shoes cut down into 
 marvelously uncomfortable slippers. 
 
 There was now only one man left ; a short-legged, long-bodied, 
 plethoric fellow, with a very large, sandy head. He sat by him 
 self, with a glass of port wine negus, and a spoon ; sipping and 
 stirring, and meditating and sipping, until nothing was left but 
 the spoon. He gradually fell asleep bolt upright in his chair, 
 with the empty glass standing before him; and the candle 
 seemed to fall asleep too, for the wick grew long, and black, 
 and cabbaged at the end, and dimmed the little light that re 
 mained in the chamber. The gloom that now prevailed was 
 contagious. Around hung the shapeless, and almost spectral, 
 box coats, of departed travelers, long since buried in deep 
 sleep. I only heard the ticking of the clock, with the deep- 
 drawn breathings of the sleeping topers, and the drippings of 
 the rain, drop drop drop, from the eaves of the house. The 
 church bells chimed midnight. All at once the stout gentleman 
 began to walk overhead, pacing slowly backwards and forwards. 
 There was something extremely awful in all this, especially to 
 one in my state of nerves. These ghastly greatcoats, these 
 guttural breathings, and the creaking footsteps of this mysterious 
 being. His steps grew fainter and fainter, and at length died 
 away. I could bear it no longer. I was wound up to the 
 desperation of a hero of romance. "Be he who or what he 
 
Irving 
 
 may," said I to myself, " I ll have a sight of him ! " I seized a 
 chamber candle, and hurried up to No. 13. The door stood 
 ajar. I hesitated I entered : the room was deserted. There 
 stood a large, broad-bottomed elbow chair at a table, on which 
 was an empty tumbler, and a Times newspaper, and the room 
 smelt powerfully of Stilton cheese. 
 
 The mysterious stranger had evidently but just retired. I 
 turned off, sorely disappointed, to my room, which had been 
 changed to the front of the house. As I went along the corri 
 dor, I saw a large pair of boots, with dirty, waxed tops, stand 
 ing at the door of a bedchamber. They doubtless belonged to 
 the unknown ; but it would not do to disturb so redoubtable a 
 personage in his den; he might discharge a pistol, or something 
 worse, at my head. I went to bed, therefore, and lay awake 
 half the night in a terrible nervous state ; and even when I fell 
 asleep, I was still haunted in my dreams by the idea of the stout 
 gentleman and his wax-topped boots. 
 
 I slept rather late the next morning, and was awakened by 
 some stir and bustle in the house, which I could not at first 
 comprehend ; until getting more awake, I found there was a 
 mail coach starting from the door. Suddenly there was a cry 
 from below, " The gentleman has forgot his umbrella ! look for 
 the gentleman s umbrella in No. 13!" I heard an immediate 
 scampering of a chambermaid along the passage, and a shrill 
 reply as she ran, " Here it is ! here s the gentleman s umbrella ! " 
 
 The mysterious stranger then was on the point of setting off. 
 This was the only chance I should ever have of knowing him. 
 I sprang out of bed, scrambled to the window, snatched aside 
 the curtains, and just caught a glimpse of the rear of a person 
 getting in at the coach door. The skirts of a brown coat parted 
 behind, and gave me a full view of the broad disk of a pair of 
 drab breeches. The door closed "all right!" was the word 
 the coach whirled off: and that was all I ever saw of the 
 stout gentleman ! 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 COOPER 
 
 IN comparison with other of the early makers of American 
 literature the reputation of James Fenimore Cooper has 
 diminished disproportionately since his death. In the case 
 of his contemporaries, Irving and Poe, the former has lost 
 nothing during the past fifty years, in critical regard ; the 
 latter has immeasurably gained. Cooper, on the other hand, 
 because of the carelessness of his literary methods and the 
 keener appreciation in our day of the defects of technique 
 his work unquestionably shows, has, as was inevitable, come 
 to be regarded largely as a writer for boys, by some crit 
 ics at the beginning of the twentieth century he hardly seems 
 to be taken seriously ; there is an effect of patronage in refer 
 ences to him. We are speaking, of course, of the critical 
 view of his work, the estimate which endeavors to give him 
 his due place in the bead roll of American letters. His 
 popularity with the general reader is another matter. 
 
 Cooper is still secure in a certain popularity ; for the 
 breath of life is in some of his stories, and all readers (and 
 surely their name is legion) who like stir and change and ex 
 citement in their fiction are likely to swear by him. But, more 
 than this, Cooper has no small significance in our American fic 
 tion because he was a stalwart pioneer in a day when such a 
 one had to blaze his own trail ; and because, moreover, he 
 
 42 
 
Cooper 43 
 
 led in the use of distinctively and attractively native material 
 for his books. Certainly praise is due one who had the per 
 ception to see the great value of the Indian for the purposes 
 of literary art, and who had the ability to set him pictur 
 esquely amidst his native wilds, to show him hi his more 
 heroic aspects, whether he be bravely terrible in war-paint, 
 agile for the hunt, or romantic, as he unbends to love beside 
 the far waters of his wood-girdled streams. Cooper is 
 for these reasons still a striking figure in the literary 
 Pantheon. Less perfect in his art than Irving, he is yet 
 in a sense a writer of larger popularity and of more obvious 
 vigor. 
 
 He was bora in 1789, half a dozen years after Irving, at 
 Burlington, New Jersey, where the Coopers were tempo 
 rarily residing, while their lands in New York State were be 
 ing made ready for occupancy the region which he was 
 again and again to portray in his romances. His mother 
 was of Swedish extraction, and his middle name, Fenimore, 
 which he assumed in maturity, being baptized simply 
 "James," was the name of her family. His father was of 
 Quaker stock, a congressman, a judge, a man of energy 
 and ability who, after the American Revolution, acquired 
 large tracts of land on Otsego Lake (Otsego Lake it is 
 still written) hi New York State, and according to the cus 
 tom of the American pioneer, gradually made the region 
 habitable, so that the town of Cooperstown remains as a 
 monument of the fact. Thither, when the little James was 
 a year old, the family moved. In the preface of his novel 
 "The Pioneers," Cooper tells how "in 1785 the author s 
 father, who had extensive tracts of land in this wilderness, 
 arrived with a party of surveyors. At the commencement 
 of the following year the settlement began. . . . The 
 
44 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 author was brought an infant into this valley, and all his 
 first impressions were here obtained." 
 
 Thus the young ^Cooper had an early environment of 
 much moment to a future romancer. He was reared on 
 the edge of a wilderness, fellow of the sun, the wind, and 
 the open. That great good place, outdoors, was his play 
 ground, and the splendid primitive things of Nature were 
 at his very threshold. It seems strange to-day to think 
 of central New York State as an unsettled waste, a region 
 of woodsmen, untilled land, and pathless forests. Yet so it 
 was a hundred and odd years ago, and to the early Ameri 
 can a pilgrimage to the Mohawk Valley seemed infinitely 
 more remote and adventurous than would in our time a 
 Wyoming hunting trip. Otsego Hall, as the large house 
 and estate of the Cooper family was called, gave the lad a 
 stately home in which a large and easy manner of living was 
 instituted ; while without, all the world between sky and earth 
 was his to roam in, and for the first half of his life, Cooper 
 in sharp contrast with men of letters who are of the study 
 and the midnight lamp passed his time outside of confin 
 ing walls. It seems as if something of the largeness, the 
 liberal gift of Nature, entered into his work because of this 
 good fortune of home and education. 
 
 Cooper s schooling was thus far more of Nature than 
 from books. He attended the village academy, to be 
 sure, but he early absorbed the valuable knowledge that is 
 to be derived from contact with men rather than from 
 books, from the rough woodsmen and trappers and guides 
 who frequented this region. Later his education was con 
 tinued at Albany, where he was admitted into the family 
 of an English clergyman who fitted him for Yale College, 
 which institution he entered in 1802, at the age of thirteen. 
 
Cooper 45 
 
 His course there was cut short a year before graduation, 
 through inattention to his studies and participation in 
 what is euphoniously described by all his biographers as a 
 " frolic " whatever that may mean. Professor Lounsbury, 
 who writes the life of Cooper for the " American Men of 
 Letters " series, says that Cooper was fond in college of 
 taking long tramps in the picturesque country about New 
 Haven ; and adds, with a touch of humor, " but the study of 
 scenery, however desirable in itself, cannot easily be in 
 cluded in a college curriculum." It is not likely that the 
 young man left Yale with reluctance. 
 
 Next, as preliminary to a naval career, for which his 
 father s public position was an aid in the way of influence, 
 we find the collegian shipping before the mast in 1806; 
 and after a year at sea, he was commissioned midshipman, 
 serving three years. All this experience was of rich value to 
 the future writer of sea romances. But his roving disposi 
 tion led him to make another change. A furlough of twelve 
 months had been granted him, and before it expired he 
 married in January, i8u,and resigned from the naval ser 
 vice. His wife was Miss De Lancey of an excellent Hugue 
 not family which had settled at Mamaroneck, New York, 
 where the young people were united. Thence he returned 
 to Otsego County to settle down near the residence of his 
 family to the life of a country gentleman, although for many 
 years he vacillated between Cooperstown and Westchester, 
 the home of his wife s family, with occasional residences, also, 
 in other towns of the vicinity. Proud, irascible, high-spirited, 
 and at times dictatorial, Cooper had the virtues which go 
 with that temperament : he was honest, generous, and affec 
 tionate ; there is no question that his private home life 
 was happy, and the influence of his wife strong upon him 
 
46 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 for good throughout his career, from the time he left the 
 navy in order that he might be with her steadily. 
 
 It is remarkable that the prospective writer, for a number 
 of years now, and indeed until he had reached the age of 
 thirty, gave his full attention to building, planting, draining, 
 and stock raising, with no thought of turning to literature. 
 
 The story of his taking up the pen is interesting. He 
 was reading an English novel of society to his wife, one day, 
 and, not liking it, remarked to her that he could do better 
 himself. She challenged him to prove his word. He wrote 
 " Precaution," which appeared in 1820 in New York City, 
 so badly printed that what merit it had was obscured. It 
 was a failure, and gave no hint of Cooper s real powers ; but 
 the next year, when he was urged by his friends to try an 
 American theme, he produced the Revolutionary story 
 " The Spy," with little hope that it would be well received, 
 and consequently with a rather languid interest in its fate. 
 But within a few months its success was assured, and Cooper 
 was fairly launched as a fictionist. Now he did the wisest 
 possible thing; he bethought him of investing the Otsego 
 Lake region he knew so well with a romantic charm by 
 weaving it into a tale of adventure. He wrote " The Pio 
 neers," in which Leatherstocking, the famous Natty Bumpo, 
 who was to be the hero of his finest series of books, first 
 appeared ; wrote it to please himself, he declared, but also 
 pleasing the public and confirming his reputation. And 
 that same year he also produced the stirring sea tale " The 
 Pilot," in which again he drew upon his own experiences of 
 the life described. Hereafter followed in rapid succession, 
 and with a marvelous fecundity of invention and quick pro 
 duction, the long series of fiction which has given Cooper s 
 name more than national fame. 
 
Cooper 47 
 
 He was an improviser, like Scott or Dumas, pouring out 
 from a full mind and memory a wealth of incident, scene, 
 and character ; revising little, hasty, careless, but possessed 
 of a genuine vitality, a natural story-teller in a day uncriti 
 cal of technique but as well aware when it got hold of a 
 good story as is our own. The historical novel Scott had 
 already made popular ; there was no rivalry in America in 
 the making of Cooper s particular kind of fiction. The 
 public was eager for what Cooper had to give, and he gave it 
 many years, prodigally, out of a horn of plenty. During 
 one decade, that from 184010 1850, he produced seventeen 
 novels. By the time " The Last of the Mohicans " was 
 printed, in 1826, Cooper had fully revealed his quality; for 
 in this novel Leatherstocking is seen in mid-manhood, 
 whereas in "The Pioneers" he is an old man hardly more 
 than a preliminary sketch. In this later story he rises into 
 epic dignity, while in the remaining volumes of the world- 
 famous series he is further developed in the different stages 
 of his career, until he stands forth a full-length portrait for 
 the admiration of a world of readers. The typical Indians, 
 too, Uncas and Chingachgook, come into prominence and are 
 so limned that Cooper s conception of their race is attract 
 ively presented to his audience. 
 
 Without attempting here to follow one by one the many 
 books written by this hale, up-country gentleman for some 
 thirty years, the remaining events of his life may be briefly 
 noted. In 1822, after the success of his first book, Cooper 
 felt the necessity of removing his residence to New York 
 City. If he was to continue author, a city residence was 
 desirable, in view of the slowness of mail carriage, transpor 
 tation, and the like. Hence he lived in New York for some 
 years. That this city became in the early half of the nine- 
 
48 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 teenth century a literary center is due more than anything 
 else to two great men of letters, Irving and Cooper. Others, 
 contemporary and later, like Paulding, Willis, Halleck, and 
 Drake were satellites to these suns ; Bryant s work, although 
 part of it was done as a contemporary of the two elder men, was 
 projected so far forward in time that he is naturally to be viewed 
 with the later New England group. The Knickerbocker 
 school of American literature made New York famed before 
 Boston acquired its literary supremacy a generation afterward. 
 Cooper lived in the metropolis until 1826, when he went 
 abroad with his family (the manage, including servants, num 
 bered ten persons) as our consul at Lyons (1826 to 1829), 
 his foreign residence taking up a period of over seven years ; 
 he did not return to this country until 1833. After his term 
 as consul had expired he spent the time in traveling, mostly 
 in France and Italy. He had already made large sums by 
 his writings, and besides, Cooper s personal property placed 
 him in easy circumstances. While he sought no social dis 
 tinction when abroad, he could not hide his light under a 
 bushel, and once discovered, had his full share of lionizing. 
 He liked Italy best of all (as did Hawthorne afterward), and 
 with his usual outspokenness and lack of tact, drew many 
 comparisons between the British (as well as the Americans) 
 and the Italian and French, to the former s disadvantage. 
 Henry Clay, then Secretary of State, had given him this offi 
 cial post at Cooper s request it involved few duties, and no 
 salary was attached. Cooper desired it that he might not, 
 on leaving his native land for so long a period, seem to be 
 unpatriotic. And let it be said here, and with emphasis, that 
 Cooper all his life, and in all his utterances, was a sturdy 
 patriot, although he was often misunderstood in his remarks 
 about his country, as was Lowell after him. 
 
Cooper 49 
 
 The reference to Cooper s left-handed compliments on 
 his countrymen leads to a word concerning the least pleas 
 ant aspect of his character. He was perpetually in hot 
 water because of irascible temper, unnecessary frankness, a 
 touchy insistence on his rights, a failure to see that to do a 
 right thing in a wrong way sometimes plays more havoc than 
 the reverse. At his country places he quarreled with his 
 neighbors over boundary lines ; his libel cases with news 
 papers (which, by the bye, he was in the habit of winning) , 
 from the Otsego Republican up to the New York Tribune, 
 were frequent and notorious ; and his attacks upon the United 
 States for its various sins of omission and commission inevi 
 tably aroused much hostility. Cooper while abroad only 
 attacked false Americans who were apologetic of their native 
 land (early examples of Anglo or other phobia) j the warm 
 hearted patriotism under his words was evident enough. But 
 no sooner had he returned, than he began to stir up trouble 
 by rushing into print at the slightest provocation, to answer 
 charges and criticisms real and imagined. He was at this 
 time greatly respected and admired for what he had done 
 for American literature, and, indeed, personally; but he 
 deliberately clouded this sentiment by his course of action. 
 The foolishness of this is apparent but, as Professor Louns- 
 bury puts it, " The one thing Cooper could not do was to 
 remain quiet." He had not grasped the fundamental truth 
 that it is always a mistake to answer a newspaper. The year 
 after his arrival he published the " Letter to His Country 
 men " which added vastly to his unpopularity by its injudi- 
 ciousness in scoring newspapers, political parties, and sundry 
 persons who had criticised his work. In short, no man in 
 the history of American literature, whose character was really 
 so fine and high, did so many ill-advised things. For the 
 
50 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 remainder of his days he was at loggerheads with the nation, 
 in matters social, political, and literary. Poor fiction, like the 
 satiric story "The Monikins " (to name but one), was writ 
 ten, and also a vast deal of controversial matter which was 
 simply labor thrown away, or worse. It is sad to see so great 
 a writer, so good a man, thus dissipating his energy and 
 injuring his name. 
 
 Cooper resided, during these final, stormy years of his 
 strenuous life, alternately in New York City and Coopers- 
 town. He had always been of a vigorous habit of body, 
 but in the autumn of 1851 dropsy developed, and he died 
 peacefully at Cooperstown, almost exactly sixty-two years 
 of age ; in the spring he had become a communicant of the 
 Episcopalian Church, and was confirmed only a couple of 
 months before his death by Bishop De Lancey, his brother- 
 in-law. His property was found to be impaired, but upon 
 its settlement a competence remained to the family. His 
 wife, however, passed away only four months after him ; in 
 death they were not long divided. It is pleasant to reflect 
 that whatever the stress and struggle of his public career, 
 his home ties and relations were almost ideal. The Cooper 
 estate at Cooperstown is no longer intact; the house was 
 burned many years ago, and the land has been parceled 
 out and sold for various purposes. 
 
 The romance upon American soil begins with James 
 Fenimore Cooper. He looked across the water and saw 
 that Scott, then in the midst of the Waverley novels, was 
 achieving success with the historical romance ; and he con 
 ceived the possibility of applying the same method to local 
 conditions. Full praise should be granted him for this 
 feat. Beginning to write comparatively late in life, he pro 
 duced upwards of thirty novels, and his work has all the 
 
Cooper 5 1 
 
 faults as well as merits of the rapid and hasty \\Titer. 
 Cooper s literary habits (like those of Scott) were in con 
 trast with the present method of careful technique ; the 
 latter-day writer carefully constructs his work, broods over 
 first drafts, rewrites, polishes, and makes perfect. But 
 spontaneity, gusto, a vital effect of movement and color, 
 Cooper certainly possesses. His reputation now rests most 
 firmly upon his sea tales he wrote a dozen nautical stories 
 and, above all, upon the quintette of Leatherstocking tales : 
 " Deerslayer," " The Last of the Mohicans," " Pathfinder," 
 "The Pioneers," and "The Prairie," mentioning these 
 books in the order, not of their appearance, but to indicate 
 the chronologic treatment of the life of Leatherstocking 
 himself. 
 
 Thinking of Cooper s whole work in fiction, we may sub 
 tract from what is of real interest to-day a number of pieces 
 of fiction in which his social or political views were allowed 
 to injure the pure story interest, to dull the creative quality 
 of his work. We mean such stories as " Homeward Bound " 
 and " Home as Found," to mention but two. His historical 
 novels, while as a group they are inferior to the Leather- 
 stocking series, contain such sterling things as " The Spy," 
 in which Harvey Birch, the peddler patriot of the Revolu 
 tion, is one of his best-remembered figures. These stories 
 range in theme from the time of Columbus to that of 
 Colonial days, or of the Revolution. The sea stories, be 
 sides " The Pilot," in which Long Tom Coffin, the Nantucket 
 whaler, has remained one of Cooper s favorite creations, and 
 " Red Rover," certainly a vivid tale of the sea, include in 
 " The Water Witch " and " Wing and Wing " at least two 
 more of excellent quality. Of Cooper s nautical tales in 
 general it may be said that they are spiritedly realistic, 
 
j 2 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 bearing the marks of first-hand observation on every page. 
 " The Pilot " awoke the enthusiasm of a seasoned mariner 
 when Cooper read some of it to him, and it is conceded to 
 be superior, in its liveliness and truth, to Scott s " The Pi 
 rate/ in friendly emulation of which it was written ; in this 
 case Cooper knew his subject better than could Scott. Yet, 
 although it will not do to refer to Cooper as the creator 
 of Leatherstocking and nothing else, it may be said that to 
 have added one such permanent type to fiction is a suffi 
 cient achievement for any artist. 
 
 No shift of literary fashion or stricter demands of art will 
 prevent Cooper s Leatherstocking tales and sea tales from 
 being read and liked. Many of his stories will always 
 attract their audience. But certain defects all of Cooper s 
 fiction possesses. The carelessness of his method is be 
 trayed in many inaccuracies, in his lack of what to-day we 
 call realism. He makes his characters do impossible things, 
 and say what they never would or could say, in view of what 
 they are : Leatherstocking performs miracles of marksman 
 ship that no sportsman can accept; he speaks on one page 
 in the uncouth dialect of the trapper, on another in the best 
 literary English. Again, the author s women are as a rule 
 little more than figureheads, lacking variety and reality. 
 His treatment of love is conventional, and to us now often 
 seems mawkish and sentimental; it lacks fervor and red 
 blood. Cooper was far more successful in the portrayal of 
 men. For another and graver charge, in the portraiture 
 of the Indian as a type, this novelist has aroused a con 
 troversy which is likely always to exist. That Cooper 
 idealized the Indian as Mrs. Jackson ,has done later in her 
 "Ramona," there can be little doubt; he sees him through 
 a romantic mist of poetry. LeatherstoCking s friendliness 
 
Cooper 53 
 
 with such an old brave as Chingachgook is so charmingly 
 fraternal as inevitably to arouse skepticism to-day. But there 
 is certainly some defense of this treatment. That the result 
 is pleasing, can certainly be allowed; something, too, may 
 be conceded to the romancer whose object is to present, 
 in dealing with nature and with human nature, the more 
 exceptional and heroic. Much of our national experience, 
 too, with the Indian since Cooper s day, has been disillu 
 sioning; this puts us in a more critical attitude toward a 
 representation which, in Cooper s time, might have been 
 acceptable. At all events, it is stimulating to encounter 
 these grave, noble red men, and to be in their company. 
 Who shall say that before the white man s fire-water had 
 begun to do its work the type did not deserve Cooper s 
 praise? Certainly it offered a picturesque theme, and one 
 that the novelist used with great effect. 
 
 In construction, too, in the building and climax of his 
 stories, Cooper s haste and lack of revision are often to be 
 detected. He makes an impression of not giving to his 
 fiction such proportionate shaping as best to serve the 
 interests of his plot. His stories often seem to end 
 abruptly, or with things more or less at loose ends ; some 
 times, strictly speaking, they hardly seem to end at all. 
 Apparently he did not see his way through these narratives 
 when he began them. The same criticism applies to much 
 of the work of Scott, whose so-called " huddled endings " 
 have often been pointed out. Once more, the style in which 
 Cooper wrote his books, although it has marked merits 
 of picturesqueness and power, is, to our ears to-day, at 
 times pompous, heavy, even wooden. Of course he began 
 to write at a time when English expression was somewhat 
 more formal than it now is; and of his manner of handling 
 
54 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 the mother tongue in general it is accurate to say that, 
 while he was not a master of style, he was a very vigor 
 ous, fluent, and, on occasion, admirable writer, prevailingly 
 so in description, and sometimes in dialogue. 
 
 But it were to convey a false idea of Cooper not to hasten 
 to add that these faults were, after all, swallowed up in his 
 very great virtues. No writer can hold readers nearly a 
 century unless he has shining excellences, and Cooper has 
 them, and in plenty. He can, for one thing, create char 
 acters that live ; hardly a figure in the whole range of 
 American fiction is better known, more clearly seen, than 
 Leatherstocking; and other dear and familiar personalities 
 have been named. To create folk who thus abide in the 
 affectionate memory of after times is one of the great 
 triumphs of the novelist, perhaps the greatest. Cooper 
 showed himself a large and noble man in conceiving such 
 a type as Leatherstocking, with his reality yet poetry, his 
 love of outdoor life, of nature, his simple reverence and 
 faith, his shrewdness, generosity, strength, and sweetness. 
 His life, in the successive books, in a shifting environment 
 which takes him through what was then the far West, 
 carried on from early manhood to his impressive death, 
 is the unique story of a striking phase of our civilization now 
 forever gone ; the passing of the pioneer. It has an epic 
 quality. 
 
 Cooper had invention also ; his books are crowded full of 
 incident, action ; there is a fine breath of adventure blowing 
 through it all. He loved " the bright eyes of danger," as did 
 Robert Louis Stevenson in a later generation. That is the 
 reason he is loved of boys ; older folk appreciate his character- 
 drawing or his descriptions, the young overlook them or 
 skip them, but hang on his hairbreadth escapes, his doings 
 
Cooper 55 
 
 by flood and field.! One might imagine that, because 
 Cooper moves so slow (at least to modern taste), stop 
 ping not seldom for grandiloquent scene painting or for the 
 moral comment, young people would have none of him; 
 but they can and do jump these waits and come to action 
 again ; there is always a promise of something doing just 
 ahead. Hence he is popular with them. For the more 
 mature reader, however, his descriptions are often among 
 the best things he does, and here is to be found one of his 
 chief merits ; he appreciates and makes us appreciate the 
 native scenery as he saw it in the New York wilderness. 
 The example of his work which follows this paper will 
 illustrate the point. 
 
 The final point I would make with regard to the positive 
 and even splendid services of Cooper in our fiction is that 
 his work was so truly American at a time when, to make it 
 so, seemed well-nigh impossible. Nobody would have be 
 lieved that a man could have found worthy themes for 
 romance in the unsettled wilds surrounding his home ; yet, 
 with the true instinct of the literary creator, who draws 
 strength from Mother Earth, Cooper turned his back upon 
 British motives and methods (after writing the dull, unsuc 
 cessful " Precaution ") and, so to say, struck off for himself 
 into virgin forests, across unforded rivers, over trailless 
 plains. And he also seized upon romantic figures and 
 scenes in our history wherever found; as where he made 
 Paul Jones the hero of " The Pilot," and thus early gave a 
 clue which writers on all sides at present are still acting upon 
 in producing native novels of the Colonial, Revolutionary, 
 and Civil War periods. There is little danger of overesti 
 mating the merit of such a bold taking of the initiative. 
 
 As Irving found a theme in Manhattan and the Hudson 
 
56 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 River locality, so Cooper found it at Otsego Lake and 
 thereabouts ; both are pioneers of American fiction in a 
 deeper, better sense because they did so, and Cooper s con 
 tribution in sweep, mass, and persistence, although not in 
 pure art, was of the two more impressive. The very pro- 
 lificness of his power has in it something admirable ; he 
 wrote on the average more than a novel a year for many 
 years, besides turning out an immense mass of other writ 
 ings historical, polemic, religious, and political ; and this 
 from a man who did not begin to be an author until well 
 past his youth, and whose natural gifts and training seem to 
 declare him to be more fitted for some practical employ 
 ment or leadership. The salient qualities of his literary 
 work come from this very fact of his unliterary beginning 
 and the fact that he approached letters unconventionally 
 through an unbeaten path. 
 
 This author, then, while he has lost something with the 
 critical sifting out of the years, still occupies, and will always 
 occupy, a worthy place in our literary annals. He is a great 
 pioneer of American literature, and unquestionably the 
 founder of the long native romance as is Irving of the 
 short tale or Poe of the psychologic tale of horror and mys 
 tery. Surely this is no mean service, and with all his faults 
 of art or flaws of character there is that which is so whole 
 some in the one and so lovable in the other that the critic 
 must always linger in kindness and genuine liking upon the 
 name of James Fenimore Cooper. 
 
 RUNNING THE GANTLET 
 (FROM "THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS") 
 
 There yet lingered sufficient light in the heavens to exhibit 
 those bright openings among the tree-tops, where different paths 
 
Cooper 57 
 
 left the clearings to enter the depths of the wilderness. Beneath 
 one of them a line of warriors issued from the woods, and ad 
 vanced slowly toward the dwellings. One in front bore a short 
 pole, on which, as it afterward appeared, were suspended several 
 human scalps. The startling sounds that Duncan had heard 
 were what the whites have, not inappropriately, called the " death 
 halloo ; and each repetition of the cry was intended to announce 
 to the tribe the fate of an enemy. Thus far the knowledge of 
 Heyward assisted him in the explanation ; and, as he now knew 
 that the interruption was caused by the unlooked-for return of a 
 successful war party, every disagreeable sensation was quieted in 
 inward congratulations for the opportune relief and insignificance 
 it conferred on himself. 
 
 When at the distance of a few hundred feet from the lodges, 
 the newly arrived warriors halted. The plaintive and terrible 
 cry, which was intended to represent equally the wailings of the 
 dead and the triumph of the victors, had entirely ceased. One 
 of their number now called aloud in words that were far from 
 appalling, though not more intelligible to those for whose ears 
 they were intended than their expressive yells. It would be 
 difficult to convey a suitable idea of the savage ecstasy with 
 which the news thus imparted was received. The whole encamp 
 ment, in a moment, became a scene of the most violent bustle 
 and commotion. The warriors drew their knives, and, flourish 
 ing them, they arranged themselves in two lines, forming a lane 
 that extended from the war party to the lodges. The squaws 
 seized clubs, axes, or whatever weapon of offense first offered 
 itself to their hands, and rushed eagerly to act their part in the 
 cruel game that was at hand. Even the children would not be 
 excluded : but boys, little able to wield the instruments, tore the 
 tomahawks from the belts of their fathers and stole into the ranks, 
 apt imitators of the savage traits exhibited by their parents. 
 
 Large piles of brush lay scattered about the clearing, and a 
 wary and aged squaw was occupied in firing as many as might 
 serve to light the coming exhibition. As the flame arose, its 
 power exceeded that of the parting day, and assisted to render 
 objects at the same time more distinct and more hideous. The 
 
58 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 whole scene formed a striking picture, whose frame was composed 
 of the dark and tall border of pines. The warriors just arrived 
 were the most distant figures. A little in advance stood two 
 men, who were apparently selected from the rest as the principal 
 actors in what was to follow. The light was not strong enough 
 to render their features distinct, though it was quite evident that 
 they were governed by very different emotions. While one 
 stood erect and firm, prepared to meet his fate like a hero, the 
 other bowed his head as if palsied by terror or stricken with 
 shame. The high-spirited Duncan felt a powerful impulse of 
 admiration and pity toward the former, though no opportunity 
 could offer to exhibit his generous emotions. He watched his 
 slightest movement, however, with eager eyes, and as he traced 
 the fine outline of his admirably proportioned and active frame 
 he endeavored to persuade himself that if the powers of man, 
 seconded by such noble resolution, could bear one harmless 
 through so severe a trial, the youthful captive before him might 
 hope for success in the hazardous race he was about to run. 
 Insensibly the young man drew nigher to the swarthy lines of 
 the Hurons, and scarcely breathed, so intense became his inter 
 est in the spectacle. Just then the signal yell was given, and the 
 momentary quiet which had preceded it was broken by a burst 
 of cries that far exceeded any before heard. The most abject of 
 the two victims continued motionless, but the other bounded 
 from the place at the cry with the activity and swiftness of a 
 deer. Instead of rushing through the hostile lines, as had been 
 expected, he just entered the dangerous defile, and before time 
 was given for a single blow, turned short, and, leaping the heads 
 of a row of children, he gained at once the exterior and safer 
 side of the formidable array. The artifice was answered by a 
 hundred voices raised in imprecations, and the whole of the ex 
 cited multitude broke from their order and spread themselves 
 about the place in wild confusion. 
 
 A dozen blazing piles now shed their lurid brightness on the 
 place, which resembled some unhallowed and supernatural arena, 
 in which malicious demons had assembled to act their bloody 
 and lawless rites. The forms in the background looked like 
 
Cooper 59 
 
 unearthly beings, gliding before the eye, and cleaving the air 
 with frantic and unmeaning gestures ; while the savage passions 
 of such as passed the flames, were rendered fearfully distinct by 
 the gleams that shot athwart their inflamed visages. 
 
 It will easily be understood that, amid such a concourse of 
 vindictive enemies, no breathing time was allowed the fugitive. 
 There was a single moment when it seemed as if he would have 
 reached the forest, but the whole body of his captors threw them 
 selves before him and drove him back into the center of his re 
 lentless persecutors. Turning like a headed deer, he shot, with 
 the swiftness of an arrow, through a pillar of forked flame, and 
 passing the whole multitude harmless, he appeared on the oppo 
 site side of the clearing. Here, too, he was met and turned by 
 a few of the older and more subtle of the Hurons. Once more 
 he tried the throng, as if seeking safety in its blindness, and then 
 several moments succeeded, during which Duncan believed the 
 active and courageous young stranger was lost. 
 
 Nothing could be distinguished but a dark mass of human 
 forms tossed and involved in inexplicable confusion. Arms, 
 gleaming knives, and formidable clubs appeared above them, but 
 the blows were evidently given at random. The awful effect 
 was heightened by the piercing shrieks of the women and the 
 fierce yells of the warriors. Now and then Duncan caught a 
 glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some desperate bound, 
 and he rather hoped than believed that the captive yet retained 
 the command of his astonishing powers of activity. Suddenly 
 the multitude rolled backward, and approached the spot where 
 he himself stood. The heavy body in the rear pressed upon the 
 women and children in front, and bore them to the earth. The 
 stranger reappeared in the confusion. Human power could not, 
 however, much longer endure so severe a trial. Of this the cap 
 tive seemed conscious. Profiting by the momentary opening, 
 he darted from among the warriors, and made a desperate and, 
 what seemed to Duncan, a final effort to gain the wood. As if 
 aware that no danger was to be apprehended from the young 
 soldier, the fugitive nearly brushed his person in his flight. A 
 tall and powerful Huron, who had husbanded his forces, pressed 
 
60 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 close upon his heels, and with an uplifted arm menaced a fatal 
 blow. Duncan thrust forth a foot, and the shock precipitated 
 the eager savage headlong, many feet in advance of his intended 
 victim. Thought itself is not quicker than was the motion with 
 which the latter profited by the advantage ; he turned, gleamed 
 like a meteor again before the eyes of Duncan, and at the next 
 moment, when the latter recovered his recollection, and gazed 
 round in quest of the captive, he saw him quietly leaning against 
 a small painted post, which stood before the door of the principal 
 lodge. 
 
 Apprehensive that the part he had taken in the escape might 
 prove fatal to himself, Duncan left the place without delay. He 
 followed the crowd, which drew nigh the lodges, gloomy and sul 
 len, like any other multitude that had been disappointed in an 
 execution. Curiosity, or perhaps a better feeling, induced him to 
 approach the stranger. He found him, standing with one arm 
 cast about the protecting post, and breathing thick and hard, 
 after his exertions, but disdaining to permit a single sign of suf 
 fering to escape. His person was now protected by immemorial 
 and sacred usage, until the tribe in council had deliberated and 
 determined on his fate. It was not difficult, however, to foretell 
 the result, if any presage could be drawn from the feelings of 
 those who crowded the place. 
 
 There was no term of abuse known to the Huron vocabulary 
 that the disappointed women did not lavishly expend on the suc 
 cessful stranger. They flouted at his efforts, and told him, with 
 bitter scoffs, that his feet were better than his hands, and that 
 he merited wings, while he knew not the use of an arrow or a 
 knife. To all this the captive made no reply ; but was content 
 to preserve an attitude in which dignity was singularly blended 
 with disdain. Exasperated as much by his composure as by his 
 good fortune, their words became unintelligible, and were suc 
 ceeded by shrill, piercing yells. Just then the crafty squaw, who 
 had taken the necessary precaution to fire the piles, made her 
 way through the throng, and cleared a place for herself in front 
 of the captive. The squalid and withered person of this hag 
 might well have obtained for her the character of possessing more 
 
Cooper 6 1 
 
 than human cunning. Throwing back her light vestment, she 
 stretched forth her long skinny arm, in derision, and using the 
 language of the Lenape, as more intelligible to the subject of her 
 gibes, she commenced, aloud : 
 
 " Look you, Delaware ! she said, snapping her fingers in his 
 face ; " your nation is a race of women, and the hoe is better 
 fitted to your hands than the gun. Your squaws are the mothers 
 of deer ; but if a bear, or a wild cat, or a serpent, were born 
 among you, ye would flee. The Huron girls shall make you pet 
 ticoats, and we will find you a husband." 
 
 A burst of savage laughter succeeded this attack, during which 
 the soft and musical merriment of the younger females strangely 
 chimed with the cracked voice of their older and more malignant 
 companion. But the stranger was superior to all their efforts. 
 His head was immovable ; nor did he betray the slightest con 
 sciousness that any were present, except when his haughty eye 
 rolled toward the dusky forms of the warriors, who stalked in 
 the background, silent and sullen observers of the scene. 
 
 Infuriated at the self-command of the captive, the woman 
 placed her arms akimbo ; and throwing herself into a posture 
 of defiance, she broke out anew, in a torrent of words, that no 
 art of ours could commit successfully to paper. Her breath was, 
 however, expended in vain ; for, although distinguished in her 
 nation as a proficient in the art of abuse, she was permitted to 
 work herself into such a fury as actually to foam at the mouth, 
 without causing a muscle to vibrate in the motionless figure of 
 the stranger. The effect of his indifference began to extend itself 
 to the other spectators : and a youngster who was just quitting 
 the condition of a boy, to enter the state of manhood, attempted 
 to assist the termagant, by flourishing his tomahawk before their 
 victim, and adding his empty boasts to the taunts of the woman. 
 Then, indeed, the captive turned his face toward the light, and 
 looked down on the stripling with an expression that was supe 
 rior to contempt. At the next moment he resumed his quiet 
 and reclining attitude against the post. But the change of pos 
 ture had permitted Duncan to exchange glances with the firm and 
 piercing eyes of Uncas. 
 
62 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Breathless with amazement, and heavily oppressed with the 
 critical situation of his friend, Heyward recoiled before the look, 
 trembling lest its meaning might, in some unknown manner, 
 hasten the prisoner s fate. There was not, however, any in 
 stant cause for such an apprehension. Just then a warrior 
 forced his way into the exasperated crowd. Motioning the 
 women and children aside with a stern gesture, he took Uncas 
 by the arm, and led him toward the door of the council lodge. 
 Thither all the chiefs, and most of the distinguished warriors, 
 followed ; among whom the anxious Heyward found means to 
 enter without attracting any dangerous attention to himself. 
 
 A few minutes were consumed in disposing of those present 
 in a manner suitable to their rank and influence in the tribe. 
 An order very similar to that adopted in the preceding interview 
 was observed ; the aged and superior chiefs occupying the area 
 of the spacious apartment, within the powerful light of a glaring 
 torch, while their juniors and inferiors were arranged in the 
 background, presenting a dark outline of swarthy and marked 
 visages. In the very center of the lodge, immediately under an 
 opening that admitted the twinkling light of one or two stars, 
 stood Uncas calm, elevated, and collected. His high and 
 haughty carriage was not lost on his captors, who often bent 
 their looks on his person, with eyes which, while they lost none 
 of their inflexibility of purpose, plainly betrayed their admiration 
 of the stranger s daring. 
 
 The case was different with the individual whom Duncan had 
 observed to stand forth with his friend, previously to the des 
 perate trial of speed ; and who, instead of joining in the chase, 
 had remained, through its turbulent uproar, like a cringing 
 statue, expressive of shame and disgrace. Though not a hand 
 had been extended to meet him, nor yet an eye had conde 
 scended to watch his movements, he had also entered the lodge, 
 as though impelled by a fate to whose decrees he submitted, 
 seemingly, without a struggle. Heyward profited by the first 
 opportunity to gaze in his face, secretly apprehensive he might 
 find the features of another acquaintance ; but they proved to be 
 those of a stranger, and, what was still more inexplicable, of one 
 
Cooper 63 
 
 who bore all the distinctive marks of a Huron warrior. Instead 
 of mingling with his tribe, however, he sat apart, a solitary being 
 in a multitude, his form shrinking into a crouching and abject 
 attitude, as if anxious to fill as little space as possible. When 
 each individual had taken his proper station, and silence reigned 
 in the place, the gray-haired chief already introduced to the 
 reader spoke aloud, in the language of the Lenni-Lenape : 
 
 " Delaware," he said, " though one of a nation of women, you 
 have proved yourself a man. I would give you food ; but 
 he who eats with a Huron should become his friend. Rest 
 in peace till the morning sun, when our last words shall be 
 spoken." 
 
 " Seven nights, and as many days, have I fasted on the trail 
 of the Hurons, 1 Uncas coldly replied; "the children of the 
 Lenape know how to travel the path of the just without linger 
 ing to eat." 
 
 " Two of my young men are in pursuit of your companion, 11 
 resumed the other, without appearing to regard the boast of 
 his captive ; " when they get back, then will our wise men say 
 to you, Live or die. " 
 
 " Has a Huron no ears ? " scornfully exclaimed Uncas ; 
 "twice, since he has been your prisoner, has the Delaware 
 heard a gun that he knows. Your young men will never come 
 back." 
 
 A short and sullen pause succeeded this bold assertion. Dun 
 can, who understood the Mohican to allude to the fatal rifle of 
 the scout, bent forward in earnest observation of the effect it 
 might produce on the conquerors ; but the chief was content 
 with simply retorting : 
 
 " If the Lenape are so skillful, why is one of their bravest 
 warriors here ? " 
 
 "He followed in the steps of a flying coward, and fell into a 
 snare. The cunning beaver may be caught." 
 
 As Uncas thus replied, he pointed with his finger toward the 
 solitary Huron, but without deigning to bestow any other 
 notice on so unworthy an object. The words of the answer and 
 the air of the speaker produced a strong sensation among his 
 
64 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 auditors. Every eye rolled sullenly toward the individual indi 
 cated by the simple gesture, and a low, threatening murmur 
 passed through the crowd. The ominous sounds reached the 
 outer door and, the women and children pressing into the throng, 
 no gap had been left between shoulder and shoulder, that was 
 not now filled with the dark lineaments of some eager and curious 
 human countenance. 
 
 In the meantime, the more aged chiefs, in the center, com 
 muned with each other in short and broken sentences. Not a 
 word was uttered that did not convey the meaning of the 
 speaker, in the simplest and most energetic form. Again a long 
 and deeply solemn pause took place. It was known, by all 
 present, to be the grave precursor of a weighty and important 
 judgment. They who composed the outer circle of faces were 
 on tiptoe to gaze; and even the culprit for an instant forgot 
 his shame in a deeper emotion, and exposed his abject features 
 in order to cast an anxious and troubled glance at the dark 
 assemblage of chiefs. The silence was finally broken by the 
 aged warrior so often named. He rose from the earth, and mov 
 ing past the immovable form of Uncas, placed himself in a dig 
 nified attitude before the offender. At that moment, the 
 withered squaw already mentioned moved into the circle, in a 
 slow, sidelong sort of a dance, holding the torch, and muttering 
 the indistinct words of what might have been a species of incan 
 tation. Though her presence was altogether an intrusion, it was 
 unheeded. Approaching Uncas, she held the blazing brand in 
 such a manner as to cast its red glare on his person, and to expose 
 the slightest emotion of his countenance. The Mohican main 
 tained his firm and haughty attitude ; and his eye, so far from 
 deigning to meet her inquisitive look, dwelt steadily on the dis 
 tance, as though it penetrated the obstacles which impeded the 
 view, and looked into futurity. Satisfied with her examination, 
 she left him, with a slight expression of pleasure, and proceeded 
 to practice the same trying experiment on her delinquent country 
 man. 
 
 The young Huron was in his war paint and very little of a 
 finely molded form was concealed by his attire. The light ren- 
 
Cooper 6$ 
 
 dered every limb and joint discernible, and Duncan turned away 
 in horror when he saw they were writhing in irrepressible agony. 
 The woman was commencing a low and plaintive howl at the 
 sad and shameful spectacle, when the chief put forth his hand 
 and gently pushed her aside. 
 
 " Reed-that-bends," he said, addressing the young culprit by 
 name, and in his proper language, u though the Great Spirit has 
 made you pleasant to the eyes, it would have been better that 
 you had not been born. Your tongue is loud in the village, but 
 in battle it is still. None of my young men strike the tomahawk 
 deeper into the war post none of them so lightly on the Yen- 
 geese. The enemy know the shape of your back, but they have 
 never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called 
 on you to come, and as often did you forget to answer. Your 
 name will never be mentioned again in your tribe it is already 
 forgotten." 
 
 As the chief slowly uttered these words, pausing impressively 
 between each sentence, the culprit raised his face, in deference 
 to the other s rank and years. Shame, horror, and pride strug 
 gled in his lineaments. His eye, which was contracted with 
 inward anguish, gleamed on the presence of those whose breath 
 was his feme; and the latter emotion for an instant predomi 
 nated. He rose to his feet and, baring his bosom, looked 
 steadily on the keen, glittering knife that was already upheld by 
 his inexorable judge. As the weapon passed slowly into his 
 heart he even smiled, as if in joy at having found death less 
 dreadful than he had anticipated, and fell heavily on his face, at 
 the feet of the rigid and unyielding form of Uncas. 
 
 The squaw gave a loud and plaintive yell, dashed the torch to 
 the earth, and buried everything in darkness. The whole shud 
 dering group of spectators glided from the lodge, like troubled 
 spirits ; and Duncan thought that he and the yet throbbing body 
 of the victim of an Indian judgment had now become its only 
 tenants. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 POE 
 
 Two or three Americans only have won secure interna 
 tional recognition in letters. One of them is certainly 
 Edgar Allan Poe. His natural equipment or endowment 
 and the wonderful perfection of his art have carried his song 
 over seas, and made him widely admired, imitated, and 
 translated as hardly another of the native writers. This is 
 both interesting and curious, because Poe violates one of 
 the two tests set up at the beginning, by which we estimate 
 American literature : namely, he is not representatively 
 American at all. So far from his work standing for a 
 definite section of the country, as does Emerson s for New 
 England, or Lanier s for the South, or Bret Harte s for the 
 West, Poe s verse or prose might have been written any 
 where within or without our borders. It has no local color, 
 and it does not reflect our native ideas or ideals : it tells 
 little or nothing of the soil whence it springs, of the civiliza 
 tion behind it. 
 
 We call Poe a Southern poet, but more because he lived 
 a part of his life in Virginia than because he in any way 
 reflects the South. In fact, Poe s life was very much that of 
 a nomad, he did not stay long eno/igh in any one place to 
 partake of it in any deep sense. ^^The permanency of his 
 fame and the rare accomplishment of his genius, therefore, 
 
 66 
 
Poe 67 
 
 furnish a remarkable illustration of the truth of art in its per 
 fection ; an inimitable gift for language and melody and 
 imaginative conception will in themselves, even if separated 
 from certain higher qualities which we like to associate with 
 the world s masterpieces, reward their possessors with the 
 choicest literary laurels. And this becomes all the more 
 noteworthy when it is remembered that the man in question 
 died when but a trifle over forty years of age/X 
 
 Foe s life history is a sad and somber orfe^ and as strik 
 ing, perhaps, as any in the annals of our literature. He was 
 born in Boston in 1809, his parents actor folk, the mother 
 English, the father American. But as he was adopted by a 
 gentleman of Richmond, Virginia, Mr. Allan, when he was 
 but two years old, his earliest years were spent in the South. 
 Five years of school life, from his sixth to his eleventh year 
 (a period of vast importance in the upbringing of any im 
 pressionable child of genius), were passed in an English 
 school near London; possibly some of Poe s mystic and 
 strange landscapes were influenced by these surroundings, 
 for he is the most unlocal of writers. From his eleventh to 
 his sixteenth year he fitted for college in Richmond ; going 
 thence to the University of Virginia in February of 1826, 
 only to withdraw under a cloud in December of the same 
 year. There seems to have been much that was unfortunate 
 in the early home life of Poe. His patron petted him, but 
 with a good deal of temper along with his indulgence, he 
 fostered traits in Poe s willful and imperious nature, which, 
 under a better guidance, might have been checked, and per 
 haps eradicated. At the time he was ready for college he 
 was ripe to show, when he had left the home, the results of 
 the lack of wise parental restraint. He had gambling debts 
 at college, and various rumors, more or less well founded, of 
 
68 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 extravagance and dissipation have sifted down to us. It is 
 only fair to Poe to say that the tendency in modern scholar 
 ship is to exonerate him from many of the charges of his 
 first biographer, Griswold, and thus to set him in a better 
 light. In the study of Poe s life by Professor George E. 
 Woodberry, and the later account by Professor Harrison, the 
 tangled record is straightened out in many ways, and justice 
 attempted at least, this being especially true in the case of 
 Professor Harrison, whose kindly estimate is the result of 
 using new material, and may be sought as a needed correc 
 tion to Griswold s malice. 
 
 It should be added that whatever Poe s wildness in college 
 and after life, he was an athlete in his student days, a fine 
 swimmer and runner, and he secured honors in French and 
 Latin ; in other words, he exhibited himself as a young man 
 of parts and of a healthy outdoor activity, something not 
 to be expected of the dreamy degenerate which Poe has 
 been taken for by some. The fact is, that until the last few 
 years there was a picturesque tradition which demanded 
 that Poe be regarded as a somber son of genius, wrecked 
 by his own double nature, a sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 
 More careful examination, inspired by the modern scientific 
 spirit, which demands truth at all hazards with regard to the 
 life of those who have done great things, has placed this 
 writer in a somewhat different light. An erratic life Poe 
 indubitably led ; the unfortunate habit of overindulgence of 
 drink he did possess. But all this has been treated too often 
 in a melodramatic way. Poe had a temperament to which 
 one glass of wine was intoxication ; his was the high-strung, 
 nervous physique, which ill bears any unnatural stimulant. 
 And at least it may be said that he paid the full penalty for 
 his misdoings, there are few men indeed who do not pay 
 
Poe 69 
 
 less for more sinning. There is plenty of testament to show 
 that Poe in maturity for long periods was a perfectly well- 
 trained, quiet, dignified gentleman of elegant carriage and 
 address. Mr. Parke Godwin, one of the very few survivors at 
 the present writing of the generation which had direct relations 
 with Poe, has testified emphatically to the happy impression 
 made upon him by Poe. The vagaries of his life touching 
 women, and vagaries they were, have been handled in the same 
 strictly romantic manner, in the spirit of the Delia Cruscans. 
 These general reflections may be well borne in mind while 
 we consider Poe at college. Professor Kent, of the Uni 
 versity of Virginia, in connection with the recent Poe 
 memorial meeting at which the Zolnay bust of the poet was 
 unveiled at that institution, published a sketch in which the 
 truth about Poe s college career is fairly set forth, in the 
 light of the records. To this book the earnest student is 
 commended. It is sufficient here to say, that on the whole, 
 the college days of Edgar A. Poe had their share of harum- 
 scarum, but were very much what might be expected of a 
 young Virginia lad of that day with a rich guardian. Plenty 
 of college boys there were then, and are now, who, after 
 similar doings in their salad days, make reputable and valu 
 able citizens. It must be reiterated, too, that while Poe was 
 taken out of college before his first year was completed, 
 because of his habits, he was not expelled; his guardian 
 withdrew him, and while this may have been justified by the 
 facts, it is well understood now that Mr. Allan was a marti 
 net of discipline, erring in extreme measures. This method 
 of handling a high-spirited, proud, sensitive fellow, with a 
 touch of morbidity and a natural wildness in his blood, de 
 rived perhaps from his actor forebears, was just the one to 
 produce the worst results. 
 
jo Literary Leaders of America 
 
 At any rate, Poe, resenting the treatment, wandered to 
 Boston, published his " Tamerlane " there, a volume pre 
 cious in its first edition to all book-lovers, and learned, as 
 every young poet must, that literature won t bring a living. 
 He enlisted in the army, and after two years there he was 
 admitted to West Point, being assisted by Mr. Allan, who, 
 by this time, had relented in his attitude toward the boy. 
 He remained at that institution less than a year, and so, 
 by 1831, when he was twenty- two, we find him in Baltimore, 
 trying to make a living by contributions to magazines. 
 Looking back upon the five years between 1826-1831, one 
 feels that they must have been full of strange experiences 
 for so young a man ; we know but little of them, for Poe in 
 respect to the details of his external life was most reticent, 
 this in spite of a strange, even intense egoism as to his 
 essential life, the life of the mind and soul. A feeling of 
 sadness is begotten, a sense of the pathos of it all, as one 
 thinks of this proud, perturbed young man roaming from 
 place to place, from occupation to occupation, in the vain 
 endeavor to find work and an abiding city. All his life Poe 
 was a wanderer, and a fitting epitaph upon his tomb one 
 feels would be that in "Hamlet" : "Rest, perturbed spirit." 
 
 "Tamerlane," that slim volume of 1827 (when he was 
 eighteen), contains some of his notable work, but it will be 
 best to pass on to his Baltimore period, and think of the 
 volume of 1831, called simply " Poems," for that book is 
 substantially Poe s testament, his typical contribution to 
 American literature. In the case of no poet, by the way, 
 is it more necessary to read his work in the light of his 
 personality and life. One thing the student will be likely 
 to notice perhaps with surprise : the smalmess of Poe s 
 poetical contributions. As a matter of fact, one small 
 
Poe 71 
 
 volume of only about fifty poems contains his whole output 
 in verse : more than that, the pieces upon which his claim to 
 greatness is securely founded number less than twenty, 
 one of the most remarkable examples in all literary history 
 of the value of quality, and reminding us that a bad epic is 
 worth very much less than a perfect sonnet. 
 
 The youthful poems of Poe found in the " Tamerlane " 
 volume show a clever versifier, influenced plainly by the 
 English masters ; but they are fairly to be described as good 
 rather than great, the improvisation or practice work of a 
 man of promise ere he has come into his own of power. 
 They lack the peculiar witchery of Poe, and, indeed, upon 
 the evidence they offer, the Poe who was to be can hardly be 
 discovered. There is some significance that in " Tamer 
 lane," the title poem of the collection, Poe found a theme 
 sympathetic to his imperious pride and spirit of revolt : the 
 Eastern monarch fn his haughty spirit of superiority (the 
 reader should, in this connection, read Elizabethan Marlowe s 
 fine double play of " Tamerlane") seemed a figure to 
 attract young Poe from the very nature of the subject; the 
 poem, therefore, is more autobiographic than of direct 
 poetic value. The next poem in the book, another East 
 ern motive, " Al Aaraaf," is also of interest to the student, 
 showing Poe s tendency to seize on a theme that has in it 
 an ethereal and remote poetical significance that of a 
 great star which appears in the heavens, dazzles by its bril 
 liancy, and then disappears forever. A certain starry aspira 
 tion thus runs through all the poet s work. 
 
 But it was with the "Poems" of 1831 that the real Poe 
 was announced : herein, in such pieces as " To Helen," 
 " The Raven," " Lenore," " Israfel," " The City in the Sea," 
 and " The Haunted Palace," to mention only a half-dozen, 
 
72 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 all of them now of household fame, the distinctive traits of 
 one of the most original of the sons of song were made 
 manifest. It will be well, therefore, at this point to say 
 a word on the essential greatness of Poe s verse. 
 
 Its limitations are strictly defined. It is fairly astonishing, 
 indeed, within what narrow limits this writer s power cuts 
 its way into the human heart ; it is like a Western canon 
 that rises sheer in odd beauty all its own, yet the stream that 
 rushes madly through its deep gorge is so narrow that it 
 would seem as if it might be compassed by an athlete s leap. 
 Yet the canon is one of the great effects of nature, and Poe s 
 poetry is one of the great effects of modern literature. So 
 far as it may be analyzed, it consists of a blend of three 
 magics : the magic of word, of music, and of a strange eery 
 imagination. It lacks the higher ethereal quality of a Words 
 worth, a Tennyson, or a Browning ; it wants red blood, and the 
 appeal to the more apparent interests and passions ; it is not 
 poetry to whose measure men may march toward the City 
 of Perfection. In this sense it is hardly great poetry : Poe 
 cannot be ranked among the literary masters of world-wide 
 importance, because he fails both on the intellectual and 
 spiritual sides of literature. This applies not only to his 
 verse, which we are now considering, but to his prose, 
 \. which will be considered afterward. But the verse of Poe 
 \ haunts, charms, bewitches, hence it cannot die. His sub- 
 \ jects are really but variations of two themes : his own mis- 
 \ fortunes and a vague lyric love for woman, personified in 
 \"Lenore," or another: woman as a kind of symbol for a 
 unystic, shadowy love that is more dream than flesh. Poe 
 is^thus unearthly, unfleshly, all is moonlight and mist and 
 musical vaporing with him, but what wonders of sound and 
 suggestion he performs with these ingredients ! 
 
Poe 73 
 
 As a type of his somber spirit of revolt, the sadness over 
 the irrevocable losses of life, the world-famous "Raven" 
 comes first to mind; a poem spouted in the schoolroom, 
 inevitable to all English Readers, and so familiar to many 
 who have not read poetry in general, or Poe in the full 
 range of his work. Modern criticism sometimes likes to 
 point to this poem as little other than a clever trick, and the 
 poet himself has coldly analyzed it, declaring that the whole 
 thing was mechanically built up around the melodious re 
 frain " Never More." But, legerdemain or no, it certainly 
 is in its way a masterpiece of music and suggestion, a match 
 less expression of a certain mood of world weariness and 
 satiety. It won a prize of one hundred dollars offered by a 
 magazine called the Mirror in 1845, when he was thirty-six 
 years old, and by this success, Poe, just beginning his career 
 as a contributor of literary material to the periodicals, was 
 much encouraged to go on. Since " The Raven " is the best 
 known of Poe s poems, and although effective and indeed 
 wonderful in its well-nigh mesmeric charm, it by no means 
 stands for the height of his genius, we will not quote it here, 
 but will illustrate his power by several shorter lyrics. That 
 entitled " To Helen " is a perfect example of him. 
 
 TO HELEN 
 
 Helen, thy beauty is to me 
 Like those Nicasan barks of yore, 
 
 That gently, o er a perfumed sea, 
 The wean , wayworn wanderer bore 
 To his own native shore. 
 
 On desperate seas long wont to roam, 
 Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 
 
74 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home 
 
 To the glory that was Greece 
 And the grandeur that was Rome. 
 
 Lo ! in yon brilliant window-niche 
 How statue-like I see thee stand, 
 The agate light within thy hand ! 
 
 Ah, Psyche, from the regions which 
 Are Holy Land ! 
 
 The classic atmosphere is perfectly caught here, the 
 simple stanzaic form faultlessly handled, and the phrasing 
 has an elegance and finish beyond praise. The touch at 
 the end is typical, with its hint of the mystical, lifting the 
 old-time light o love by implication into something higher, 
 akin to the eternal feminine. Poe s lines are often in their 
 matchless beauty such that they enter into the common body 
 of choice quotations from the poets ; in the second stanza, 
 the two closing lines are of this sort. The everlasting motive 
 of fair woman, which has fed poetry more than any other one 
 theme, simply because it is the central expression of man s 
 emotional nature, is voiced with great warmth and a more 
 personal note of sorrow as well as with a greater allurement 
 of metrical device in "To One in Paradise," a lover s sad 
 plaint of his lost love. The magic of Poe s metrical handling 
 is especially illustrated in the closing stanza, which is by far 
 the loveliest of the four ; one never gets it out of the ear 
 and soul when once it enters. 
 
 TO ONE IN PARADISE 
 
 Thou wast that all to me, love, 
 For which my soul did pine, - 
 
 A green isle in the sea, love, 
 A fountain and a shrine, 
 
Poe 75 
 
 All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, 
 And all the flowers were mine. 
 
 Ah, dream too bright to last ! 
 
 Ah, starry Hope ! that didst arise 
 But to be overcast ! 
 
 A voice from out the future cries, 
 On ! on ! " But o er the Past 
 
 (Dim gulf !) my spirit hovering lies 
 Mute, motionless, aghast ! 
 For, alas ! alas ! with me 
 
 The light of Life is o er ! 
 
 " No more no more no more w 
 (Such language holds the solemn sea 
 
 To the sands upon the shore) 
 
 Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, 
 
 Or the stricken eagle soar ! 
 
 And all my days are trances, 
 
 And all my nightly dreams 
 Are where thy dark eye glances, 
 
 And where thy footstep gleams, 
 In what ethereal dances, 
 
 By what eternal streams. 
 
 Mention of these pieces in which woman is hymned 
 naturally leads to some reference to Poe s relations with the 
 sex, a puzzling and complex aspect of his stormy life. Here 
 again, common sense, and a desire not to extend facts to fit 
 a theory, may help us. After four years of literary life in 
 Baltimore ( 1 83 i-i 835 ) Poe had gone to Richmond to become 
 editor of the Southern Literary Messenger. And just before 
 going, he had (it is believed secretly) married his cousin, 
 Virginia Clemm, a mere child of thirteen ; at all events, the 
 ceremony was publicly performed the next year. Poe s 
 
7 6 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 struggle against poverty for literary recognition and dire 
 enough it was had been lightened by his living with Mrs. 
 Clemm, his aunt, and the consequent winning of her 
 daughter. At this time he was dependent upon chance 
 contributions to the magazines, and when he won, in 1833, 
 by a story entitled " The Manuscript Found in a Bottle," a 
 one hundred dollar prize offered by a Baltimore paper, it 
 came like a benison from heaven. It must be understood 
 that he steadily wrote fiction along with verse, although we 
 consider the former after finishing with the poetry. But 
 such windfalls were few and far between, and he barely lived 
 by hack work during this period. 
 
 Obviously the marriage was a foolish one, judged by pru 
 dential considerations ; but it is long since either bards or 
 tailors have been altogether sensible in giving hostages to 
 fortune, and Poe s followers in this way are many. His 
 child wife was beautiful, and that Poe loved her and ideal 
 ized her, that she furnished much of the inspiration of his 
 best song, it is entirely reasonable to believe. That he was 
 a most impressionable man, his various affairs with women 
 after his wife s death go to show ; in fact, with his ardent 
 temperament, his tendency to emotional excesses of all 
 kinds, his imperious temper and aristocratic beauty, one can 
 understand that he must have been a fascinating lover, if an 
 uncertain husband. To question his affection for his young 
 wife is to take the extreme of cynicism toward Poe in his ill- 
 starred fate. The gloomy romanticism of his career receives 
 part of its attraction from this relation to the frail girl who 
 for twelve years shared his lot, and died while still but newly 
 come to woman s estate, after bitter, yet perhaps bitter 
 sweet, years of companionship with an erring son of genius. 
 That the loss is expressed in the poem last quoted, 
 
Poe 77 
 
 and in the following "Annabel Lee," one of his most 
 familiar and well-loved things and richly deserving its repu 
 tation, who can doubt ? A touch of pathos is added by the 
 fact that this poem was not published until a little after his 
 own death. 
 
 ANNABEL LEE 
 
 It was many and many a year ago, 
 
 In a kingdom by the sea, 
 That a maiden there lived whom you may know, 
 
 By the name of Annabel Lee ; 
 And this maiden she lived with no other thought 
 
 Than to love and be loved by me. 
 
 /was a child and she was a child, 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea : 
 But we loved with a love that was more than love, 
 
 I and my Annabel Lee ; 
 With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven 
 
 Coveted her and me. 
 
 And this was the reason that, long ago, 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea, 
 A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling 
 
 My beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
 So that her highborn kinsman came 
 
 And bore her away from me, 
 To shut her up in a sepulcher 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea. 
 
 The angels, not half so happy in heaven, 
 
 Went envying her and me, 
 Yes ! that was the reason (as all men know, 
 
 In this kingdom by the sea) 
 That the wind came out of the cloud by night, 
 
 Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. 
 
7 8 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 But our love it was stronger by far than the love 
 
 Of those who were older than we, 
 
 Of many far wiser than we ; 
 And neither the angels in heaven above, 
 
 Nor the demons down under the sea, 
 Can ever dissever my soul from the soul 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee : 
 For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
 
 And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes 
 
 Of the beautiful Annabel Lee ; 
 And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side 
 Of my darling my darling my life and my bride, 
 
 In the sepulcher there by the sea, 
 
 In her tomb by the sounding sea. 
 
 In another poem, seemingly inspired by love, "For 
 Annie," a remarkable, though unequal performance, certain 
 lines and rhymes of which are as well known as anything 
 Poe did, the poet, while brooding on loss and death, gives 
 the reverse of the picture. Here, not the mistress but her 
 lover is dead, and is imagined as happily embowered, even 
 iin his grave, by the luxuriant tresses of his sweetheart. 
 
 FOR ANNIE 
 
 Thank Heaven ! the crisis 
 
 The danger is past, 
 And the lingering illness 
 
 Is over at last, 
 And the fever called "Living" 
 
 Is conquered at last. 
 
 Sadly, I know, 
 
 I am shorn of my strength 
 And no muscle I move 
 
 As I lie at full length ; 
 
Poe 79 
 
 But no matter! I feel 
 I am better at length. 
 
 And I rest so composedly 
 
 Now, in my bed, 
 That any beholder 
 
 Might fancy me dead, 
 Might start at beholding me, 
 
 Thinking me dead. 
 
 The moaning and groaning 
 The sighing and sobbing 
 
 Are quieted now, 
 
 With that horrible throbbing 
 
 At heart : ah, that horrible, 
 Horrible throbbing ! 
 
 The sickness the nausea 
 
 The pitiless pain 
 Have ceased, with the fever 
 
 That maddened my brain, 
 With the fever called " Living" 
 
 That burned in my brain. 
 
 And oh ! of all tortures, 
 
 That torture the worst 
 Has abated the terrible 
 
 Torture of thirst 
 For the napthaline river 
 
 Of Passion accurst : 
 I have drank of a water 
 
 That quenches all thirst : 
 
 Of a water that flows, 
 With a lullaby sound, 
 
 From a spring but a very few 
 Feet underground, 
 
 From a cavern not very far 
 Down underground. 
 
8o Literary Leaders of America 
 
 And ah ! let it never 
 
 Be foolishly said 
 That my room it is gloomy, 
 
 And narrow my bed ; 
 For man never slept 
 
 In a different bed, 
 And, to sleep, you must slumber 
 
 In just such a bed. 
 
 My tantalized spirit 
 Here blandly reposes, 
 
 Forgetting, or never 
 Regretting its roses, 
 
 Its old agitations 
 Of myrtles and roses. 
 
 For now, while so quietly 
 
 Lying, it fancies 
 A holier odor 
 
 About it, of pansies, 
 A rosemary odor 
 
 Commingled with pansies, 
 With rue and the beautiful 
 
 Puritan pansies. 
 
 And so it lies happily, 
 
 Bathing in many 
 A dream of the truth 
 
 And the beauty of Annie, 
 Drowned in a bath 
 
 Of the tresses of Annie. 
 
 She tenderly kissed me, 
 She fondly caressed, 
 
 And then I fell gently 
 To sleep on her breast, 
 
 Deeply to sleep 
 From the heaven of her breast. 
 
Poe 8 1 
 
 When the light was extinguished 
 
 She covered me warm, 
 And she prayed to the angels 
 
 To keep me from harm, 
 To the queen of the angels 
 
 To shield me from harm. 
 
 And I lie so composedly, 
 
 Now, in my bed, 
 (Knowing her love) 
 
 That you fancy me dead, 
 And I rest so contentedly, 
 
 Now in my bed, 
 (With her love at my breast) 
 
 That you fancy me dead, 
 That you shudder to look at me, 
 
 Thinking me dead. 
 
 But my heart it is brighter 
 
 Than all of the many 
 Stars in the sky, 
 
 For it sparkles with Annie, 
 It glows with the light 
 
 * Of the love of my Annie, 
 
 With the thought of the light 
 
 Of the eyes of my Annie. 
 
 This ghoulish preference for charnel house themes is 
 characteristic of the poet; the poem is curiously com 
 mingled of almost unpoetical realism in verse and the 
 magic that is his. This composition, too, is an excellent 
 example" of his mastery of the refrain or repetend, the 
 repetition of verse and lines with slight alteration for the 
 effect of lingering music : a device developed by Poe and 
 hall-marked by his genius so that it has always been one 
 of his technical feats and graces. His handling of the 
 
82 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 refrain in "The Raven," and in that other linguistic mar 
 vel, " The Bells," is familiar, and has never been equaled by 
 any poet using the English tongue. 
 
 There is that in the man s genius which leads him at 
 times toward a sort of dim symbolism, fluent, but of un 
 clear meaning, a sort of "revel of rhyme," with sound 
 substituted for sense. This is well illustrated by that other 
 baffling poem to which a woman s name is given, " Ulalume." 
 If one utterly ignorant of our tongue were to read this piece 
 of verse, a certain pleasure in it would be likely to follow ; it 
 is so wonderfully smooth flowing and swift flowing. The 
 cryptic meaning, the suggestion of gloom, mystery, and 
 horror running through it, together with a hint of the 
 autobiographic, all merge to make an unforgetable impres 
 sion. Like Swinburne, Poe was in danger of this extreme ; 
 it seems as if his one peerless gift for word and sound 
 carried him off his feet at times. But let the piece speak 
 for itself. 
 
 ULALUME 
 
 The skies they were ashen and sober ; 
 
 The leaves they were crisped and sere 
 
 The leaves they were withering and sere ; 
 It was night in the lonesome October 
 
 Of my most immemorial year ; 
 It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, 
 
 In the misty mid region of Weir 
 It was down by the dank tarn of Auber, 
 
 In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 
 
 Here once, through an alley Titanic, 
 Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul 
 Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul. 
 
Poe 83 
 
 These were days when my heart was volcanic 
 
 As the scoriae rivers that roll 
 
 As the lavas that restlessly roll 
 Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek 
 
 In the ultimate climes of the pole 
 That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek 
 
 In the realms of the boreal pole. 
 
 Our talk had been serious and sober, 
 
 But our thoughts they were palsied and sere- 
 Our memories were treacherous and sere 
 
 For we knew not the month was October, 
 And we marked not the night of the year 
 (Ah, night of all nights in the year !) 
 
 We noted not the dim lake of Auber 
 
 (Though once we had journeyed down here) 
 
 Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber, 
 Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir. 
 
 And now, as the night was senescent, 
 And star dials pointed to morn 
 As the star dials hinted of morn 
 
 At the end of our path a liquescent 
 And nebulous luster was born, 
 
 Out of which a miraculous crescent 
 Arose with a duplicate horn 
 
 Astarte s bediamonded crescent 
 Distinct with its duplicate horn. 
 
 And I said " She is warmer than Dian: 
 She rolls through an ether of sighs 
 She revels in a region of sighs : 
 
 She has seen that the tears are not dry on 
 These cheeks, where the worm never dies, 
 
 And has come past the stars of the Lion, 
 To point us the path to the skies 
 To the Lethean peace of the skies 
 
84 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Come up, in despite of the Lion, 
 To shine on us with her bright eyes 
 
 Come up through the lair of the Lion, 
 With love in her luminous eyes." 
 
 But Psyche, uplifting her finger, 
 
 Said " Sadly this star I mistrust 
 Her pallor I strangely mistrust : 
 
 Oh, hasten! oh, let us not linger! 
 Oh, fly ! let us fly ! for we must." 
 
 In terror she spoke, letting sink her 
 Wings until they trailed in the dust 
 
 In agony sobbed, letting sink her 
 Plumes till they trailed in the dust 
 Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust. 
 
 I replied " This is nothing but dreaming : 
 
 Let us on by this tremulous light ! 
 
 Let us bathe in this crystalline light ! 
 Its Sibyllic splendor is beaming 
 
 With Hope and in Beauty to-night : 
 
 See! it flickers up the sky through the night! 
 Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming, 
 
 And be sure it will lead us aright, 
 We safely may trust to a gleaming 
 
 That cannot but guide us aright, 
 
 Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night." 
 
 Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her, 
 And tempted her out of her gloom 
 And conquered her scruples and gloom ; 
 
 And we passed to the end of the vista, 
 But were stopped by the door of a tomb 
 By the door of a legended tomb ; 
 
 And I said " What is written, sweet sister, 
 On the door of this legended tomb ? " 
 She replied " Ulalume Ulalume 
 Tis the vault of thy lost Ulalume! 1 
 
Poe 85 
 
 Then my heart it grew ashen and sober 
 As the leaves that were crisped and sere 
 As the leaves that w.ere withering and sere 
 
 And I cried "It was surely October 
 On this very night of last year 
 That I journeyed I journeyed down here 
 That I brought a dread burden down here 
 On this night of all nights in the year, 
 Ah, what demon has tempted me here? 
 
 Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber 
 This misty mid region of Weir 
 
 Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber, 
 This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir." 
 
 There is a little group of poems, broader both in sugges 
 tion and movement, which exhibit Poe in a most striking 
 manifestation of his unique power. They are prevailingly 
 somber, vague, unhuman productions, so to say, but com 
 pelling in their lure and loveliness. Such a one is "The 
 City in the Sea." The metrical movement is admirable, and 
 few greater poems of mood and picture can be named in 
 all literature. If the Philistines should turn upon us with a 
 very natural question, " But what does it all mean?" we per 
 haps hesitate ; it is best taken as a dream vision. It is full 
 of color and music and that penumbra of suggestion that is 
 in all good poetry, and in the use of which Poe is richly 
 endowed. It is unnecessary to look for self-consciousness 
 or definite allegory; it is rather poetry for poetry s sake, 
 and should be enjoyed as such. 
 
 THE CITY IN THE SEA 
 
 Lo! Death has reared himself a throne 
 In a strange city lying alone 
 Far down within the dim West, 
 
86 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best 
 
 Have gone to their eternal rest. 
 
 There shrines and palaces and towers 
 
 (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) 
 
 Resemble nothing that is ours. 
 
 Around, by lifting winds forgot, 
 
 Resignedly beneath the sky 
 
 The melancholy waters lie. 
 
 Butlo! a stir is in the air! 
 The wave there is a movement there! 
 As if the towers had thrust aside, 
 In slightly sinking, the dull tide, 
 As if their tops had feebly given 
 A void within the filmy Heaven. 
 The waves have now a redder glow, 
 The hours are breathing faint and low ; 
 And when, amid no earthly moans, 
 Down, down that town shall settle hence, 
 Hell, rising from a thousand thrones, 
 Shall do it reverence. 
 
 Another such poem is " The Haunted Palace," which is 
 clothed upon with all the master s magic of word music and 
 word picture. 
 
 THE HAUNTED PALACE 
 
 In the greenest of our valleys 
 
 By good angels tenanted, 
 Once a fair and stately palace 
 
 Radiant palace reared its head 
 In the monarch Thought s dominion 
 
 It stood there ! 
 Never seraph spread a pinion 
 
 Over fabric half so fair! 
 
Poe 87 
 
 Banners yellow, glorious, golden, 
 
 On its roof did float and flow, 
 (This - all this was in the olden 
 
 Time long ago,) 
 And every gentle air that dallied, 
 
 In that sweet day, 
 Along the ramparts plumed and pallid, 
 
 A winged odor went away. 
 
 Wanderers in that happy valley, 
 
 Through two luminous windows, saw 
 Spirits moving musically, 
 
 To a lute s well-tuned law, 
 Round about a throne where, sitting 
 
 (Porphyrogene !) 
 In state his glory well befitting, 
 
 The ruler of the realm was seen. 
 
 And all with pearl and ruby glowing 
 
 Was the fair palace door, 
 Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing, 
 
 And sparkling ever more, 
 A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty 
 
 Was but to sing, 
 In voices of surpassing beauty, 
 
 The wit and wisdom of their king. 
 
 But evil things, in robes of sorrow, 
 
 Assailed the monarch s high estate. 
 (Ah, let us mourn! for never morrow 
 
 Shall dawn upon him desolate !) 
 And round about his home the glory 
 
 That blushed and bloomed, 
 Is but a dim-remembered story 
 
 Of the old time entombed. 
 And travelers, now, within that valley, 
 
 Through the red-litten windows sec 
 Vast forms, that move fantastically 
 
 To a discordant melody, 
 
88 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 While, like a ghastly rapid river, 
 
 Through the pale door 
 A hideous throng rush out forever 
 
 And laugh, but smile no more. 
 
 Here the allegory is too steadily apparent : the writer 
 seems to refer to his own life, gifted with intellect and soul 
 and fallen, through whatever cause, on evil days of revolt, 
 despair, and doom. It is most impressive, and attracts with 
 a sort of shuddering fascination. 
 
 We cannot do better than to leave Poe s poetry with the 
 starry lyric " Israfel " ; one of the highest flights of his genius, 
 and like the one just given, thinly veiling autobiographic 
 confession. To Poe, poetry, as he himself said, was a passion 
 rather than a principle; the conception of the heavenly 
 bard whose impassioned themes suggested the place and 
 opportunity; the thought of this Israfel mentioned in the 
 Koran as having heartstrings for a lute, appealed with the 
 sure appeal of a kindred soul. In singing of him he sang 
 of himself. 
 
 ISRAFEL 1 
 
 In Heaven a spirit doth dwell, 
 " Whose heartstrings are a lute." 
 
 None sing so wildly well 
 
 As the angel, Israfel, 
 
 And the giddy stars (so legends tell) 
 
 Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell 
 Of his voice, all mute. 
 
 Tottering above, 
 
 In her highest noon, 
 
 The enamored moon 
 Blushes with love, 
 
 1 And the angel Israfel, whose heartstrings are a lute, and who has the 
 sweetest voice of all God s creatures. KORAN. 
 
Poe 89 
 
 While, to listen, the red levin 
 (With the rapid Pleiades, even, 
 Which were seven,) 
 Pauses in Heaven. 
 
 And they say (the starry choir 
 And the other listening things) 
 
 That Israfeirs fire 
 
 Is owing to that lyre 
 By which he sits and sings, 
 
 The trembling living wire 
 Of those unusual strings. 
 
 But the skies that angel trod, 
 Where deep thoughts are a duty 
 
 Where Love s a grown-up God, 
 
 Where the Houri glances are 
 Imbued with all the beauty 
 
 Which we worship in a star. 
 
 Therefore, thou art not wrong, 
 
 Israfeli, who despisest 
 An unimpassioned song : 
 To thee the laurels belong, 
 
 Best bard, because the wisest! 
 Merrily live, and long ! 
 
 The ecstasies above 
 With thy burning measures suit 
 
 Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love, 
 With the fervor of thy lute : 
 Well may the stars be mute! 
 
 Yes, Heaven is thine ; but this 
 Is a world of sweets and sours : 
 Our flowers are merely flowers, 
 
 And the shadow of thy perfect bliss 
 Is the sunshine of ours. 
 
90 Literary Leaders of* America 
 
 If I could dwell 
 Where Israfel 
 
 Hath dwelt, and he where I, 
 He might not sing so wildly well 
 
 A mortal melody, 
 While a bolder note than this might swell 
 
 From my lyre within the sky. 
 
 Such is a characteristic picture of Edgar Allan Poe. A 
 sympathetic knowledge of these quoted pieces, a re-reading 
 of the choicest here mentioned, will let the reader, as nothing 
 else will, into the heart of the mystery, the abiding- place of 
 the charm. A thorough familiarity with the eight or ten 
 pieces quoted will effect this better than a dutiful perusal of 
 the rest of his work. Eventually, and for that very reason, 
 the lovers of Poe, having felt the delight of these master 
 pieces, will read his verse in its entirety as a labor of love. 
 
 Now there are only a very few poets in the whole range 
 of English-speaking literature possessing the metrical mas 
 tery, the felicity of verse, the subtle something besides, 
 which gives verse distinction and grace, denoting that of 
 Poe. For this reason, and in spite of his not always admira- 
 
 \ble tendency to bemoan his fate in terms of art and aspire 
 to the starry way through human griefs and graves, does he 
 occupy his strangely definite position in American literature 
 as a poet, one of the few genuine creators. But the most 
 astonishing part of it is, let us repeat, that he accomplished 
 this without bringing a high and helpful message to man 
 kind, and as a poet of but one theme, and that a narrow and 
 largely morbid one. The fact emphasizes the might of art, 
 the dominance of one supreme gift, the gift of song. The 
 lovers of American poetry can always point with pride to 
 Poe as a master who had conquered by patient labor along 
 
Poe 91 
 
 with natural endowment, the graces of the poetic art, until 
 his technique became so perfect that time could not destroy 
 his work. 
 
 But it must not be overlooked that Poe did work in fiction 
 hardly less remarkable than that which he accomplished in 
 verse. We have already noted how, in the Baltimore 
 days of obscurity, he wrote prose fiction in short story form. 
 These stories he continued to produce throughout his career 
 of magazine writer, editor, and general literary hack worker. 
 As poetry waned in him, prose grew, and to it, after he was 
 thirty years of age, he gave most of his time and strength, 
 prose critical and artistic. This turning from verse to prose, 
 from the life of the emotions to that which embodied 
 some of the reasoning processes, is, of course, the common 
 experience of literary persons. 
 
 All this fiction, in its final shape, appears in two volumes. 
 It was originally published as " Tales of the Grotesque and 
 Arabesque" in 1840 and as "Tales" in 1845. In the 
 division of fiction, one has to include all short stories, con 
 cerning which we have already said something. In this Poe 
 was well-nigh as supreme as he is in the minor key of lyric 
 verse. He is a master in the command of atmosphere, 
 color, sound, and suggestion woven into and about a motive 
 of mystery, horror, and subtle spiritual and supernatural 
 significance. His work of this kind ranges from the detec 
 tive story, of which the " Murders in the Rue Morgue " 
 is a type, a little classic which furnished Conan Doyle at 
 a later date the stimulus for his " Sherlock Holmes," through 
 gradations many of horror and adventure stories to such 
 fine fantasies as the "Fall of the House of Usher" or 
 "Ligeia," where all is innuendo and nuance, weird picture 
 and mournful yet passionate wail of music. For illustra- 
 
92 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 tions of these various sorts, one may read " The Gold Bug," 
 "The Black Cat," "The Telltale Heart," and "William 
 Wilson." There is nothing like this fiction in English 
 literature. Some of the tales show a curious compound 
 of grave scientific deduction, of lofty flights, of a somber 
 imagination. This led one of his editors, Mr. Woodberry, 
 to name a whole division of his work " Tales of Ratioci 
 nation" and still another "Tales of Pseudo Science." In 
 this gravely realistic handling of imaginative material, Poe 
 introduces a method in fiction which has become common 
 enough with us now, and which makes his work, although it is 
 a half-century or more old, seem strangely modern. Perhaps 
 no one has so wonderfully well blended realism and romance 
 in this way. The author possessed a smattering of knowl 
 edge, scientific, physical, ajid ethical, which he displays with 
 the greatest skill and plausibility, and, indeed, Poe s mind 
 was curiously analytic, and potentially at least, his powers of 
 reasoning were great. This he brings to bear in his fiction 
 in a way that is most effective. He is a pioneer in using for 
 literary purposes the then new marvels of scientific dis 
 covery, physics, thought transference, electricity, and the 
 like. The verisimilitude of fact is perfectly conveyed at the 
 same time that the wildest imaginations are being indulged 
 in with a somberness that almost cheats us into believing. 
 
 The form of his work demands a word. He wrote the 
 tale, not essaying larger fiction, save in the case of " Arthur 
 Gordon Pym," which, however fine in conception and be 
 yond criticism in execution, is, on the whole, less success 
 ful. The short story, from a dozen to fifty pages in length, 
 was the mold into which his genius naturally ran for self- 
 expression, and he is a veritable pioneer, and in some wise 
 the creator of the modern short story. It would not be true 
 
Poe 93 
 
 to say that Poe founded the short story, for Washington Irving, 
 as we have seen, and Dickens, wrote them before him ; but 
 Poe set his seal upon certain categories of the tale, and he 
 has never been surpassed, indeed, has never been equaled, 
 within his particular preserves. His position therefore in the 
 history of the general evolution of the fiction of our tongue 
 is an important one. 
 
 To read his stories is to have an increased sense of the 
 gloom as well as the grandeur of this man s gift. There is 
 something aloof, unhuman, uncanny in it all. It stimulates 
 the brain and makes the heart beat faster with wonder and 
 fear and awe ; but it does not expand the nature, or warm 
 the cockles of the heart with that cheery sense of man s 
 brotherhood. For all these things in literature, we must go 
 elsewhere. Poe s genius in prose, even more than in poetry, 
 is of the moonlight and of the midnight, but very rare and 
 perfect, for the light of the moon has an ethereal significance, 
 and the night is the imagination s chosen stalking ground. 
 
 We must now trace the remaining years of Poe s too brief, 
 tragically incomplete, erring life. The story expressed in a 
 sentence, is the record of changing employment and resi 
 dence ; he did well for a while, and then, through weakness, 
 and because of unfortunate traits of character which made 
 it difficult for others to get on with him, trouble and failure 
 would come, and the family would begin again elsewhere. 
 Already in Baltimore, the drink habit and the drug habit 
 had lifted their skeleton heads ; then, as throughout his days, 
 be it remembered, perhaps less to be called habits than 
 irregularities, whose results would, in his case, be ten times 
 more disastrous than happens with the steady alcoholic 
 indulgence of the average club man about town. 
 
 Poe s editorial experience was varied, and he had brilliant 
 
94 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 qualifications for such a function. Again and again he took 
 hold of a new or defunct publication and brought it into good 
 estate. But alas ! he lacked perseverance, he lacked equa 
 nimity, that nomadic restlessness that seemed to be in his very 
 being drew him on. He was moody, irritable, suspicious ; per 
 haps his statements were sometimes untrustworthy, though 
 God alone can pronounce upon the physical condition which 
 made them possible. Misunderstandings and quarrels with 
 friends were not uncommon. One is saddened and perplexed 
 in trying to get a clear notion of such a gifted, complex, contra 
 dictory human creature as Edgar Allan Poe. No easy-going 
 theory which complacently divides human beings into two 
 parts, the sheep and the goats, will help in this case. Human 
 nature is an intricate thing, and Poe was one of those men 
 whose bosom was a microcosm of all the light and shadow of 
 the universe. Two beings dwelt in his handsome body. 
 For his good side he had many winning and lovable quali 
 ties, quiet, dignified, with a manner of remarkable gentle 
 ness, with his pale, fine face and the wide brow over which 
 waved the dark hair, with splendid eyes, and possessed of a 
 voice of charming timbre, his social graces were very un 
 usual, and those who encountered him when these attrac 
 tions were allowed their natural display, were greatly 
 drawn to him, and have left tributes which seem quite at 
 variance with the darker testimonies, which, however, are 
 readily understood when one understands his complexity. 
 There was a touch of Southern chivalry in his address to 
 women, and the fact that he was a poet lent its glamour. 
 
 One can well believe that there were many days in that 
 little Fordham cottage near New York City (which can be 
 now visited by the public, it having been made a memorial 
 to the poet) when the young wife, Virginia, felt the charm of 
 
Poe 95 
 
 his presence, the privilege of his comradeship. That there is 
 a reverse to the medal, is one of the tragedies of literary 
 history and human experience. 
 
 When Poe went to Richmond as the editor of the South 
 ern Literary Messenger, his prospects were good. His pay 
 was increased soon after he began, but he was steady in his 
 work only a short time, and the irregularity of his charac 
 ter estranged his friend the editor and led to his dismissal. 
 All his subsequent experiences were of this character ; new 
 positions, bright prospects, dashed hopes, melancholy end 
 ings. One s thoughts turn again and again with a genuine 
 heartache to the lovely little girl wife who watched this 
 erratic orbit, and was aware of the light that burned within. 
 After Richmond, he went to New York, taking up literary 
 work there in 1837-1838. Then he moved to Philadelphia, 
 where he made his headquarters for six years ; living in the 
 suburbs in a little cottage about which roses climbed. Dur 
 ing these years in Philadelphia he held editorial positions 
 with Burton s Magazine and Graham s Magazine, in the 
 case of the last named taking full charge and bringing it into 
 prominence as a literary periodical through his wise direct 
 orship ; but here, as always, was the fatal lapse. 
 
 The final five years of Poe s life of bufferings and brief 
 calms were spent in New York, where he had connections 
 with the Evening Journal and the Broadway Journal, of 
 the second of which he became owner and editor, and it 
 was at this period that he occupied the Fordham cottage a 
 few miles from the city ; an utterly simple, one-storied lit 
 tle structure, where, in 1847, Virginia died ^ consumption. 
 It is a terrible picture, that of the death of the child wife 
 when the Poes were so poor that the poet drew his own 
 coat over the emaciated body hi order to keep off the cold, 
 
96 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 against which he was unable to provide the necessary cov 
 erings. The haunting, melodious sadness of " Annabel Lee " 
 may well be autobiographic in voicing the sorrow which 
 rolled in upon his soul at this time. An attack of brain 
 fever followed upon Virginia s death, and his friends had to 
 make up a purse to take him through this strait. On his 
 recovery, he resumed his literary work, but was perceptibly 
 aged and spent; his black moods carrying him at times 
 close to the verge of insanity. Terribly lonesome as he was, 
 we find him less than a year later offering himself to a dear 
 friend and fellow verse writer, Mrs. Sarah Whitman of Provi 
 dence, who, after much dubiety, gave him a half promise 
 based upon his good conduct, only a month later to with 
 draw her pledge because of a spree in which he indulged. 
 Poe at this time was no doubt under great stress, and 
 moody to the extreme. He was lonely, depressed, at times 
 desperate. That he turned for companionship to congenial 
 women is not surprising. In July, 1849, he went to Rich 
 mond with the idea of starting a magazine in that city. Poe 
 had believed for years in the possibility of using a literary 
 organ in the South that would bring that section of the 
 country into literary connection with the North. He visited 
 friends during the summer in the South, and in spite of sev 
 eral moral backslidings in the way of drink, entered into 
 relations with Mrs. Sarah Skelton, a well-to-do widow, and an 
 early flame of his youth, which promised to lead to marriage. 
 When Poe left Richmond in the fall of this year (1849), ms 
 prospects in spite of his health and intemperate habits 
 were comparatively encouraging, but he was doomed to be 
 his own worst enemy. He never got farther in his north 
 ward journey than Baltimore, where he was found helpless 
 and insensible in a saloon, was taken into a city hospital, 
 
Poe 97 
 
 and after four days of wretchedness, died, being but 
 little past his fortieth year, in what should have been 
 the very prime of his powers, the best of his literary 
 performance. 
 
 His tomb is visited to-day by thousands in a little grave 
 yard connected with an old church in that city. The record 
 of such a brief, tragic life is almost too piteous to bear. Lit 
 erary annals hardly hold a case in which the dramatic con 
 trast of genius and weakness, of high and low, in human 
 achievements, clash with more violent discord. 
 
 A final word should be spoken of Poe as a critic of liter 
 ature, for he left several volumes of criticism. Much of it 
 is journalistic, because of its reference to current writers now 
 forgotten, and it is therefore not of permanent value. But 
 Poe had remarkable analytic gifts, as well as gifts of remark 
 able expression. He was not less analytic than imaginatively 
 sympathetic, one is tempted to say, in his creative work both 
 in fiction and poetry. There seems a double nature in the 
 man, intellectually as well as morally. Hence certain of his 
 papers entitled "The Rationale of Verse" and "The Poetic 
 Principle," are most interesting and suggestive, especially 
 in that they are the productions of a great poet speaking of 
 the art he represents. His theories are still much discussed. 
 Certain of his statements, like the famous dictum that there 
 is no such thing as a long poem, because the poetic ecstasy 
 is in its very constitution of short duration, and hence, 
 ideally at least, should be completed at one sitting, in one 
 mood, has provoked a great deal of argument. Poe had a 
 high ideal of his craft, and a profound respect for its tech- 
 nic. His teaching, which separated the beauty which he 
 claimed to be the abiding aim of all poetry from any and 
 all didactic purposes, which so often were associated with 
 H 
 
98 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 it, was more needed and wholesome in his own day than 
 our own, because then the elder writers were prone to 
 preach, whereas at present, estheticism and art for art s 
 sake make up the most popular creed, and there is very 
 little danger of careless technic. Yet Poe indubitably 
 enunciated a sound and lasting principle of art in declaring 
 the arousement and exercise of the feeling for beauty to be 
 the end of art, the idea so nobly expressed by Keats, in his 
 
 Beauty is truth, truth beauty, this is all 
 Ye know and all ye need to know. 
 
 Like the great English critic, Hazlitt, Poe s literary attain 
 ments were curiously commingled of acuteness and broad- 
 minded appreciation, together with spite, envy, and an absurd 
 overestimate of the second rate. He was unfair to Long 
 fellow ; while, on the other hand, he lauded contemporary 
 poetasters whose names have long since been consigned to 
 oblivion. It was only when he got away from personalities 
 that he was sure to be at his finest. 
 
 The student, then, who is desirous of getting a rounded 
 view of Edgar Allan Poe must study him first of all as a 
 poet, next as a remarkable writer of short stories, and then, 
 finally, as supplementary, read his best criticism, mainly for 
 the light it throws upon his own creations in song and story. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HAWTHORNE 
 
 IN thinking of Nathaniel Hawthorne as a man and 
 author, Wordsworth s line on Milton leaps to the mind : 
 
 His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart. 
 
 There is something aloof, a touch of th strange, and shy, 
 and mysterious about the solitary genius of the man of 
 Salem. All latter-day attempts to exhibit him in his per 
 sonality and daily walk as a creature of warmly human 
 relations do not remove the impression gained from his 
 works and consonant with his acts and thoughts and feelings 
 as they are revealed in his biography. Yet his gifts were 
 masculine ; he lacked the erraticism and morbidity of a Poe. 
 But there was a hint of the night in it, the night lit by the 
 pale, mystic radiance of heaven s high-placed stars. The 
 study of his life and writings will serve to make this plainer. 
 
 Hawthorne was of excellent New England blood. His 
 ancestry went back to the Major William Hawthorne who 
 was prominent in Colonial days as a legislator and warrior. 
 The romancer refers to him in the Preface to " The 
 Scarlet Letter" as his "grave, bearded, sable-cloaked, and 
 steeple-crowned progenitor, who came so early with his 
 Bible and his sword, and trod the unworn streets with such 
 a stately port, and made so large a figure as a man of war 
 and peace." Both father and grandfather were sea cap- 
 
 99 
 
ioo Literary Leaders of America 
 
 tains, an interesting fact for its suggestion of their heredi 
 tary influence on his work an influence, however, not 
 easy to discover. Hawthorne in the same Preface says of 
 them : "From father to son for above a hundred years 
 they followed the sea : a gray-bearded shipmaster in each 
 generation retiring from the quarter-deck to the homestead, 
 while a boy of fourteen took the hereditary position before 
 the mast, confronting the salt spray and the gale which 
 had blustered against his sire and grandsire," and he goes 
 on with quiet humor to imagine these his forebears as con 
 temptuous over their descendant who had become a writer of 
 " story books," exclaiming, " Why, the degenerate fellow 
 might as well have been a fiddler ! " In much the same 
 spirit, humorously satirical, Robert Louis Stevenson refers to 
 himself more than once as a white-fingered, weak offspring 
 of a hardy race of lighthouse builders and keepers. 
 
 His mother s family, the Mannings, was also one which 
 had settled in New England in the seventeenth century, so 
 that the New England consciousness (much more a definite 
 thing then than now) was deep in^his nature, and by both he 
 was well fitted to become the revealer of the historic New 
 England conscience, working out in the persons of his 
 spiritual tragedies. 
 
 Mrs. Hawthorne, Nathaniel s mother, was a quiet widow, 
 whose husband died four years after the son s birth, and 
 who led,]during his boyhood and upbringing, a very secluded 
 life. His schooling, provided for by an uncle, was secured 
 at private schools in Salem, the quaint old Massachusetts 
 seaport which was his native place ; and later from a tutor 
 who fitted him for college. When he was nine, the Haw- 
 thornes removed to Sebago Lake in Maine, where the mother 
 had inherited an estate, and for some years Nathaniel had 
 
Hawthorne 
 
 the advantage there of a wholesome country life, all of 
 which he greatly enjoyed, being a boy of lively nature, much 
 given to athletic exercises, and fond of sport. He returned, 
 however, to Salem to fit for college, and he has left words to 
 show that he regarded the proposed scholastic training as of 
 dubious good. " Four years of my life is a great deal to 
 throw away," he declares, and the remark has its amuse 
 ment for us who look back upon him as a great man of 
 letters, all his days a dreamer over books. 
 
 When the family resumed their Salem life, the recluse 
 habits of the mother were intensified. Hawthorne himself 
 narrates that for years she never came to the family table 
 for her meals, which were served in her room. A single 
 fact like this gives a vivid picture of the excessive exclusion 
 of her manner of existence. It is not hard to fancy that 
 this would react upon the temperament of a sensitive boy 
 with the brooding tendency in his blood. Yet too much of 
 it must not be made : earlier biographers of Hawthorne 
 were so inclined, but the more correct portrait allots to him 
 his full share of playfulness and healthy interests. As his 
 Maine experiences witness, he liked outdoor life, went 
 fishing and shooting, kept animal pets, and so far 
 from being a forlorn, neglected lad, a kind of David Copper- 
 field was rather petted by the family relatives. He read 
 some of the standard literature in these early days in a 
 rambling, ruminative way : we learn that "The Pilgrim s 
 Progress " was much in his hands, as were Shakespeare and 
 Milton, good fodder for the assimilative period. The 
 school terms were varied by vacationings that kept body 
 and brain in wholesome balance. Altogether, we may see 
 Hawthorne s boyhood as a normal and enjoyable one, 
 whatever the idiosyncrasies of his home. 
 
i CM. Literary Leaders of America 
 
 During his course at Bowdoin College, in Maine, which he 
 entered in 1821, being in his eighteenth year, he was of a 
 convivial disposition, playing cards, giving wine parties, and 
 taking a hand at college sports and pranks, though we do 
 not find him either neglecting his studies or becoming em 
 broiled with the authorities, after the manner of so many 
 embryo men of letters in their college days. Physically, by 
 the testimony of his son Julian, he was at this time athletic 
 and handsome. " He was five feet, ten and a half inches in 
 height, broad-shouldered, but of a light, athletic build, not 
 weighing more than one hundred and fifty pounds. His 
 limbs were beautifully formed, and the molding of his neck 
 and throat was as fine as anything in antique sculpture. His 
 hair, which had a long, curving wave in it, approached black 
 ness in color ; his head was large and grandly developed ; 
 his eyebrows were dark and heavy, with a superb arch and 
 space beneath. His nose was straight but the contour of 
 his chin was Roman. . . . His eyes were large, dark blue, 
 brilliant, and full of varied expression. Bayard Taylor used 
 to say that they were the only eyes he had ever known flash 
 fire. . . . His complexion was delicate and transparent, 
 rather dark than light, with a ruddy tinge in the cheeks . . . 
 up to the time he was forty years old, he could clear a height 
 of five feet at a standing jump. His voice, which was low 
 and deep in ordinary conversation, had astounding volume 
 when he chose to give full vent to it ; ... it was not a bel 
 low, but had the searching and electrifying quality of the 
 blast of a trumpet." 
 
 His college friends included the poet Longfellow, Hora 
 tio Bridge, afterwards distinguished in the naval sendee, and 
 Franklin Pierce, who was to be President of the United 
 States, and whose stanch friendship with Hawthorne lasted 
 
Hawthorne 103 
 
 throughout their lives. Bridge, too, was always an intimate, 
 and has left a book about his friend containing valuable side 
 lights upon his character. In another Preface, that to the 
 "Snow Image," which is addressed to Bridge, Hawthorne 
 refers to this life at "a country college, gathering blue 
 berries in study hours, under those tall academic pines, or 
 watching the great logs as they tumbled along the current 
 of the Androscoggin, or shooting pigeons and gray squirrels 
 in the woods ; or bat-fowling in the summer twilight ; or 
 catching trout in the shadowy little stream which, I suppose, 
 is still wandering river-ward through the forest though 
 you and I will never cast a line in it again two idle lads, 
 in short (as we need not fear to acknowledge now), doing 
 a hundred things that the faculty never heard of, or else it 
 had been the worse for us, still it was your prognostic of 
 your friend s destiny, that he was to be a writer of fiction." 
 One reads with a half smile, thinking how different would 
 be the confession as to his daily doings of a student in our 
 day. 
 
 Hawthorne did not shine brightly in his college work, and 
 seems to have shirked what he did not like : he was grad 
 uated decently, but not cum laude. In spite of the pleas 
 antly normal manner of his early career, however, a certain 
 effect of aloofness in him is produced by reading all the 
 records. He himself has testified to the recluse manner of 
 his existence on his return to Salem, after leaving Bowdoin, 
 in order to devote his time to writing and not to be heard 
 of by the world for a long terra of years, more than a 
 decade. " For months together," he says, " I scarcely held 
 human intercourse outside my own family, seldom going out 
 except at twilight, or only to take the nearest way to the 
 most convenient solitude." I have italicized the sentence 
 
104 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 which seems to me to be one of those unconscious flash 
 lights upon a character, of prime importance in studying 
 this strange man. However social, even convivial, he may 
 have appeared to his college mates, no man whose nature 
 did not possess a quality of remoteness and self-sufficiency 
 could have instinctively followed such a course. To be sure, 
 he has told us that, "living in solitude till the fullness of time 
 had come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the fresh 
 ness of my heart." Doubtless, this period of lonely incuba 
 tion was priceless in its results ; but the mind reverts to 
 those words : " Seldom going out except at twilight," and 
 again finds there something at once explanatory and curi 
 ously suggestive of a nature whose grave retrospective brood 
 ing and constant commerce and preoccupation with the 
 great questions of individual conscience are reflected in the 
 external habit of life. 
 
 From 1825, when he took his Bowdoin degree, to 1837, 
 the date of the appearance of "Twice-told Tales," Haw 
 thorne remained in the family home in Salem, lost to the 
 public eye, absorbed in his literary experiments, while his 
 fellow-collegian, Longfellow, advanced to position and fame. 
 The young Salem man meditated, wrote, burned what had 
 been written, rewrote his tales, and with a single-eyed devo 
 tion to his art, rare and beautiful in these days of hurried 
 execution and haste to get into print (like the modern 
 college boy s haste to get out and into life), served his stern 
 apprenticeship to letters, thus securing a command of his 
 tools which was to reveal him in the first book he allowed 
 to be given to the public, as a trained and accomplished 
 master. It must be borne in mind that he showed this 
 perseverance with practically no encouragement from any 
 one outside. He wrought to transmute his dreams and 
 
Hawthorne 105 
 
 imaginings into the form of fiction, drawing on as slender 
 a capital of experience as ever did one who was to be 
 come a great writer. But that lack was more than com 
 pensated for by one of the imaginations which can body 
 forth the realities of the inner spirit. In his room, high up 
 in the ancestral home, Hawthorne labored patiently, quietly, 
 while his brothers and sisters, recluses like himself, left 
 him much alone. " Here," as he expresses it, " I sat 
 a long, long time, waiting for the world to know me, and 
 sometimes wondering why it did not know me sooner ; or 
 whether it would ever know me at all, at least, till I were in 
 my grave." And he declares that by turns he was glad and 
 sad in his work : " But oftener I was happy," a statement 
 we are pleased to get, since the picture as a whole is somber 
 enough. 
 
 One thing, and perhaps one thing only, was in Haw 
 thorne s favor during those years when he was endeavoring 
 to get a hearing as a writer : the competition was little com 
 pared with the present day. living s fiction work was long 
 since published and familiar to the world ; Poe s wonderful 
 short stories had not been given to the public. There was 
 ample room for a really distinctive, new writer of fiction. To 
 counteract this advantage, the market was of course uncer 
 tain, limited ; for literary wares but little comparatively was 
 paid. Hawthorne received thirty-five dollars apiece^for the 
 magazine use of his early tales which have since become 
 classic. The beginning of his career was undertaken on 
 conditions on the whole chilling and unpromisefuL 
 
 Several tentative performances preceded the sure ground 
 on which he walked with the "Twice-told Tales": the 
 novel " Fanshawe," soon withdrawn from circulation after 
 being brought out at his own expense, a story of college life 
 
io6 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 decidedly amateurish and having little of the typical 
 thornesque distinction ; and a collection known as " Seven 
 Tales of my Native Land," toward which the publishers 
 took the usual skeptical attitude, and whose sheets were 
 finally condemned to the flames as ruthlessly as if they were 
 so many Salem witches and he one of his stem ancestors 
 who regarded them as of the evil one. Some of his tales, 
 afterward to be published in the volume which was to show 
 his true quality, were accepted gladly enough by such maga 
 zines as The Token, The New England, and the Knicker 
 bocker ; but they drew little attention, did not spread his 
 reputation ; the audience waiting on periodical literature at 
 this time was small and scattered. All through this forma 
 tive time Hawthorne had no position that meant income or 
 regular enforced employment, save that in 1836, the year 
 before the " Twice-told Tales " were published, he became 
 editor of the American Magazine of Useful and Entertain 
 ing Knowledge, a place of drudgery he endured for but two 
 years. With this exception, Hawthorne to the Philistine eye 
 must have appeared as a young man sitting at home and 
 idling away a precious portion of his life, the very years 
 which should have been devoted to active effort for what is 
 known as " getting on " in his career. To us, as we look 
 back upon it in the light of what was to follow, it is plain 
 that he could not have put his time to better use. 
 
 The "Twice-told Tales" upon their publication made 
 no stir in the literary world ; such more often than not is 
 the fate of works destined to take a firm place in literature. 
 Hawthorne did not have the experience of Byron who woke 
 up one morning to find himself famous. Not only was the 
 book not a popular success, but it would be an exaggeration 
 to say that it received general critical recognition. Long- 
 
Hawthorne 107 
 
 fellow, to be sure, gave it a cordial reception in a critique in 
 The North American Review, glad to commend the work of 
 a college friend in which he saw distinguished worth. But 
 it was only slowly and in a small way that the approval for 
 which every author is anhungered came to Hawthorne at this 
 time. Still, the effect of this publication was an excellent 
 good thing, for it drew enough attention to him to get him 
 somewhat out of his shell; he recalls that he was "com 
 pelled to come out of my owl s nest and lionize in a small 
 way." In this wider social contact the noteworthy thing 
 was his meeting with Sophia Peabody, of the noted Massa 
 chusetts family which has given numerous important citizens, 
 men and women, to the commonwealth. To this lady he 
 became engaged in 1838 the year after the book was 
 printed although his circumstances made it unwise to 
 marry until four years later, in 1842. 
 
 The influence of this noble woman upon Hawthorne was 
 in all ways such as to make his home life the sweetest, 
 brightest part of his somber career. Many other testimonies 
 to this are left by his son, his son-in-law, and his various 
 biographers. Hawthorne worshiped his wife, and found 
 not only rest and consolation, but strength and inspiration 
 in her society. A man whose nature was not dependent nor 
 widely affectional, he yet leaned upon her. " Thou art the 
 only person in the world," he wrote her, " that ever was 
 necessary to me. I think I was always more at ease alone 
 than in anybody s company until I knew thee." These are 
 words as significant, as revelatory, as those quoted before 
 concerning his recluse habit. In any comprehension of 
 the strange character and unique genius of Nathaniel Haw 
 thorne, the part played by his wife cannot be ignored, 
 and it is one of the noblest parts enacted by any companion 
 
io8 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 to a veritable man of letters, a part often no doubt more 
 trying than the world will ever know. It is certain that the 
 happiest side of his lonesome life journey was experienced 
 in his home : and the best side of his nature was exposed to 
 the home circle; there is testimony and to spare bearing on 
 this conclusion. 
 
 The year after his engagement to Miss Peabody, Haw 
 thorne was made weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom 
 House, a post which brought him into relations with Ban 
 croft, the historian, and not, one would surmise, particularly 
 attractive to him or suitable to the powers of a man of such 
 parts. Yet the quiet man of letters made a good executive 
 in this and other subsequent positions of a practical nature. 
 Hawthorne, like Emerson, had a practicality, a shrewdness, 
 which came into play in his contact with the material world. 
 He once said that he liked to get into touch with the real 
 world, to meet all sorts and conditions of men; not 
 perhaps so much as their fellow human being as in the role 
 of the psychologist seeking to acquire material to use in his 
 romances. This Boston work took him into the city for two 
 years ; it gave him some valuable studies of New England 
 character, as his books show, though nothing more intimate 
 and typical than those furnished by Salem, for such a 
 romance, for example, as "The House of Seven Gables." 
 One smiles in reflecting how little at this juncture Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne, a man in the middle thirties, his first book 
 (a representative one, too) published with no eclat as he 
 went quietly about a daily practical employment, was recog 
 nizable as the greatest American romancer of the nineteenth 
 century, one of the very few men who was to shed unfailing 
 luster upon our native literature. 
 
 Before returning to Salem, when he gave up the Boston 
 
Hawthorne 109 
 
 office which, however well he performed his duties, was no 
 congenial task, "a very grievous thraldom," he character 
 izes it, Hawthorne gave an expression of the idealism that 
 was in him by joining the famous Brook Farm community, 
 remaining there for something over a year. This fact calls 
 up visions of Margaret Fuller, Emerson, Curtis, Ripley, and 
 others of a group whose attempt to combine philosophy and 
 practical farming is one of the witnesses to that wonderful 
 strain of transcendentalism in the Yankee make-up which 
 did so much for our earlier letters. Hawthorne tried the 
 experiment but a short time, perhaps because that same 
 practical streak in him was offended by some of the incon 
 gruous doings at Brook Farm, so humorously described by 
 Curtis and others ; agriculture and asceticism, however 
 acceptable to Margaret Fuller, did not seem to him a natu 
 ral combination. But there were fruits literary, if not actual, 
 from this Brook Farm sojourn, as we shall see. He returned 
 to Salem in 1842 to marry Miss Peabody and settle in the 
 Old Manse, that historic house of memories which has now 
 a magical sound because of its associations. Here he knew 
 the happiness of a home which at once protected him from 
 the world and kept his lonely genius tempered and genial- 
 ized by the household hearts that were his own. Here chil 
 dren were given him ; and his son Julian and his daughter 
 Rose, Mrs. George Parsons Lathrop, have left us valuable 
 aids to the study of their father. Here he walked the woods 
 and fields or rowed his boat on the beautiful Musketaquid 
 River. Here, in a word, he tasted the best of the human 
 lot; "nobody but we ever knew what it is to be married," 
 he once wrote his wife ; and these little heart glimpses are 
 all the more precious to set over against such descriptions 
 of Hawthorne s carriage toward others, as that by Curtis, 
 
no Literary Leaders of America 
 
 where he states that "Hawthorne, a statue of Night and 
 Silence, sat a little removed, under a portrait of Dante, gaz 
 ing imperturbably upon the group." 
 
 The year of his marriage appeared the second volume of 
 his "Twice-told Tales." His residence at Concord with 
 the manifesto he had made in the first collection of his 
 stories, brought him the congenial society of that notable 
 coterie of folk whose intellectual interests and literary gifts 
 made them distinctive in our letters ; among them, Thoreau, 
 Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Alcott, and Channing. Even unto 
 this day, to say nothing of its great memories, Concord, with 
 its natural beauty and its democratic ideals, the high-bred 
 simplicity of its social life, is not like unto other towns. It 
 is a natural Mecca for the literary student in this country. 
 There was something peculiarly apt in such an environment 
 for a nature like Hawthorne, with its self-dependence, its 
 liking for privacy, its necessary but willing adoption of a 
 frugal mode of living. His contentment in his home is 
 expressed in letters again and again. He says that he is 
 thankful for the early unhappiness, that his present joy may 
 stand in the higher relief. 
 
 But the reception of the second " Twice-told Tales " (a 
 title, by the way, taken from Shakespeare) , though critically 
 there was a gain over the first volume, was by no means 
 such as to bring much money to the master of the Manse. 
 Hawthorne, after four years of it, felt the necessity of going 
 back to Salem (which he by no means loved) as surveyor of 
 customs, a position the Democratic administration extended 
 him through his influence with Pierce. For three years 
 (1846-1849) he was thus occupied, and literature suffered 
 accordingly ; the usual political shift threw him out of em 
 ployment, so that he could return to Concord and to fiction 
 
Hawthorne 1 1 1 
 
 writing. " The Scarlet Letter " was the golden result of this 
 enforced leisure ; if all losses of political position were 
 followed by like results, they could be borne with equanim 
 ity. Then, for the first time, the invigorating light of fame 
 shone upon him in the retired Manse ; this novel at once 
 gained a wide recognition which was not, like so much of 
 sudden success, to die down as suddenly. That Hawthorne 
 basked and expanded in the hard-won victory may be be 
 lieved ; he was nearer fifty than forty years old when his 
 greatest book brought him sure place and reward ; a quarter- 
 century of work and waiting lay behind him. It was a 
 triumph late-given, but a triumph none the less, all the 
 more, perhaps, for its tardy coming. Family reasons now 
 led him to remove to the little red house at Lenox, Massa 
 chusetts, in the beautiful hill country where, under more 
 cheerful circumstances than he ever penned a piece of fic 
 tion, he wrote " The House of Seven Gables." Mr. James T. 
 Fields, of the famous Boston house of Ticknor & Fields, was 
 besieging Hawthorne for another book, in view of the great 
 success of "The Scarlet Letter" ; it may be going too far to 
 see in the fact that this new novel does not grapple quite so 
 grimly with the great spiritual tragedies, a reflex of the sun 
 nier environment which the romancer was now enjoying. 
 Sure it is that " The House of Seven Gables " has for a color 
 scheme a delicate mystic gray, relieved by rose tints of 
 poetry. It was during the Lenox residence that " The 
 Scarlet Letter " was given to the world, and perhaps its re 
 ception also helped his mood. After Lenox, there was a 
 brief sojourn of a year or thereabouts at West Newton, one 
 of the outlying communities within easy reach of Boston, 
 yet offering the attractions of country air and economic liv 
 ing. Here the third of the long romances was written, " The 
 
H2 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Blithedale Romance," a story lacking the historic perspective 
 and the atmospheric quality of the two preceding it, yet very 
 powerful in its way, and most interesting for the realism with 
 which Hawthorne used his Brook Farm experiences; for 
 this tale depicts the life there, and against this background a 
 tragic narrative unfolds. 
 
 In 1852 Hawthorne and his own came back to Concord, 
 which was to be henceforth his permanent home. He pur 
 chased the Wayside, another house in Concord, opposite 
 Emerson s, and therein set up his household gods. But he 
 was not long to remain unmolested, for the next year (1853) 
 he was sent as our consul to Liverpool. Pierce, his college 
 comrade, had become the Democratic President ; and the 
 offer of the post followed naturally enough. Hawthorne 
 had already written an autobiography of Pierce for cam 
 paign purposes, and the consulship was an expression of grati 
 tude. It was, however, by no means a glittering emolument, 
 and one rather begrudges Hawthorne, in view of his peculiar 
 powers, the four years thus passed in England. His literary 
 productivity amounted to little while he was there ; socially 
 he made no stir, as had Irving before, as did Lowell after 
 ward. In truth, Hawthorne seems to have been antipathetic 
 to the British. He did not even meet the literary represen 
 tative men, his natural peers. This and a later residence in 
 England gave him the material for the book, " Our Old Eng 
 lish Home," published in 1863, the year before his death; 
 in which there is not to be found the sympathy and insight 
 one might have expected from a writer so sensitive to the 
 charm of the past of his own New England. 
 
 His consular duties were not of the sort congenial to his 
 temperament, and he seems to have been unable to conquer 
 his native disability to free social contact and intercourse ; 
 
Hawthorne 113 
 
 although along with this trait went, as we have noted, a sort 
 of professional interest in mankind as so much material for 
 a writer. After the four years of the consulate, spent in 
 what he grimly describes as a " blighted chamber," Haw 
 thorne went down into Italy, where he remained between 
 one and two years, basking in the poetry of that " woman 
 land," keenly responsive to its wonderful beauty. "The 
 Italian Notebooks " are eloquent witness to how much in 
 spiration he received from the country which has so often 
 stirred men of the English race to imaginative expression of 
 some kind. It was while here that he gathered material for, 
 and ruminated upon, the fourth and last of his great group 
 of romances, namely, " The Marble Faun." 
 
 He returned to England from Italy for a further sojourn 
 of a year or more, and finally, in 1860, came back to his 
 native land, after a seven years absence. The Civil War 
 had not formally been declared, but the country was already 
 in the throes of the great struggle. Hawthorne s attitude 
 was for a New Englander somewhat unsympathetic; with 
 an intellectual coolness which was characteristic, he saw 
 both sides of the question, and was not a Northern parti 
 san. His warm friendship for Pierce the Democrat was an 
 element in the position he took. He dedicated one of his 
 books to Pierce, and when his friends besought him, in view 
 of the situation, to omit the dedication, since it would cer 
 tainly injure the success of the book, he refused to do so 
 and, as had been prophesied, the volume met with angry 
 opposition for that reason. Hawthorne at this juncture offers 
 a sharp contrast with such other New England writers as 
 Whittier and Lowell whose early song flamed and thrilled 
 with a fervid patriotism. 
 
 It has been said that every American who remains abroad 
 i 
 
H4 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 at least seven years will never reassume his nationality with 
 so much intimacy and relish as before his travels. This is 
 certainly not true of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He loved New 
 England, and on his return to the quaint Wayside at Con 
 cord, he gathered his own about him and settled down in 
 great contentment to busy himself with his literary plans, 
 and enjoy the home life which always brought him the 
 greatest happiness. There, health and strength, slowly ebbed, 
 and four years later, in 1864, he closed his mortal activity, 
 having lived two months less than sixty years. Athletic as 
 he was by gift of nature, Hawthorne s health began to de 
 cline shortly after his coming back to America. When at 
 length work could no longer be done, although arranged for 
 or promised, a summer trip in the White Mountains was 
 devised by the anxious family, and his old-time friend, ex- 
 President Pierce, offered himself as companion. But at 
 Plymouth, New Hampshire, his strength gave out, and he 
 passed away at the inn there in the night. As human lives 
 average, Hawthorne s was a happy, uneventful one. He 
 died in full knowledge that a just renown was his ; he had 
 seen the labor of his hands and could be satisfied. He was 
 spared the feebleness and helplessness of extreme old age ; 
 he was full of literary plans to the last. At the time of his 
 death he was at work upon "Septimius Felton," and the in 
 complete manuscript was laid in his coffin. The theme of 
 this romance, published posthumously in 1872, was the 
 possibility of solving the riddle of immortality ; one befitting 
 a man who was himself on the very verge of the eternal. 
 
 It were idle to deny that the life of Nathaniel Hawthorne 
 does not attract one to him as a man so warmly and genially 
 as one is attracted to personalities like Charles Lamb or 
 Robert Louis Stevenson. But there was much that was ad- 
 
Hawthorne 115 
 
 mirable in Hawthorne s character. He was in his work the 
 New England conscience made flesh ; surely an important 
 role and mission. And his life when viewed with insight 
 and sympathy will be felt to be in key with his work. It 
 was his business to study the soul of mankind that he might 
 quicken its sense of the tremendous spiritual problems that 
 make life not a pleasure-ground but a battle-ground, upon 
 which character shall be proved and the development of the 
 race settled. If he walked much alone as a man, if he 
 seemed to raise a barrier between himself and others, this 
 can be understood in one who only in lonesomeness of the 
 spirit could see and tell of the tragic verities of the soul. 
 
 The genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne expressed itself in 
 two main forms of imaginative writing in the long romance 
 and the tale or short story. In my treatment of Irving and 
 Poe the point that the short story is a distinct form of fic 
 tion has already been made. In general, the great short 
 story writer is not a good novelist, and vice versa. But 
 Hawthorne excelled in both forms. He began with tales, 
 and the romances were of his more mature life and art ; 
 but he never ceased to pour into the short story mold some 
 of his choicest and most striking conceptions. They are to 
 be found in the first and second series of the " Twice-told 
 Tales," in " The Snow Image and Other Tales," in " Mosses 
 from an Old Manse," and in the two collections for chil 
 dren, "A Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales." Per 
 haps nothing in the tale form is more characteristic than 
 such sketches as "The Snow Image," which is quoted at 
 the end of this article, or "The Great Stone Face," in both 
 of which a moral lesson is conveyed allegorically in a poetic 
 setting of story, told with the quiet perfection of manner 
 and with all the skill in conveying atmosphere for which this 
 
n6 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 romancer is famed. There are also many stories, of which 
 "Doctor Heidegger s Experiment," "The Great Carbuncle," 
 "Rappaccini s Daughter," and " The Minister s Black Veil" 
 are examples, where some dark secret of the human soul is 
 revealed in a machinery which involves some use or hint of 
 the supernatural, and is only saved from the morbidity dis 
 played by a Poe through the strenuous spiritual implication. 
 Again, there is a group of tales possessing a kind of satiric 
 humor which often contains a touch of the grimly sardonic, 
 to wit: "The Celestial Railroad," " Feathertop," "The 
 Intelligence Office," and many others. In pieces like " A 
 Rill from a Town Pump," the sweeter and more kindly 
 aspect of Hawthorne s humor, interblent with pathos, is 
 manifest, and the reader should understand that while the 
 trend of this man s genius was toward the presentment of 
 the more somber elements of life, with marked emphasis 
 upon the irony of fate which sets a melancholy half smile 
 upon the narrator s face, he wrote not a few sketches wherein 
 all is of a May-day beauty, tempered but not darkened by 
 a subtle poetic haze of sadness. Nevertheless, it is an 
 autumn atmosphere for the most part with Hawthorne. He 
 sees life as a " twilight piece," in Browning s phrase. Yet 
 autumn and the twilight have their loveliness and their 
 wholesome lessons; and this master of romance gives us 
 our fill of both. 
 
 In many of the tales, Hawthorne s love for nature is 
 delightfully illustrated by his descriptions of flowers, of 
 wood and field, of mountain, and stream, and blue dome 
 of sky, of the manifold pageantry of the shifting months 
 in New England. The local color is faithfully given be 
 cause it is part of the writer s vision, nay, of his very 
 soul. 
 
Hawthorne 117 
 
 If Hawthoraejaik comparatiyelyjn any particular_of the 
 art of fiction, it is injhe handling of the liumorous. Some- 
 "Hmes^for the present-day reader at least,lrT the manner of 
 his wit there is a suggestion of the heavy or forced. His 
 nature was so essentially serious, that one feels him to be a 
 trifle off his own ground. Sometimes, too, be it confessed, 
 his style may strike us as a little formal ; but on the whplfi.it is 
 of a rare "perfection, showing exquisite adaptation of means 
 tolm end, ajquiet loveliness of movement, together-with a 
 felicity of phrase and an innate feeling for the dignity, .grace, 
 and breeding of English expression, unmatched by any_other 
 writer of American fiction. Indeed, one might say that his 
 ^distinction of style and loftiness of spiritual meaning are the 
 two main strands wherefrom he weaves his magic cloth of 
 imagination. 
 
 We may now contrast Hawthorne the writer of tales and 
 Hawthorne the maker of romance. It may be said that in 
 the tales he is more the moralist, at times frankly didactic ; 
 and less the narrator of straight stories regarded as pieces 
 of human experience interesting in themselves. We have 
 seen that of necessity there is less of narrative, of plot, and 
 of character- complexity in the short story than in the long 
 novel, which, with its many characters unfolding and inter 
 acting upon each other in many scenes, can much more 
 easily convey a feeling of the largeness of life. In the 
 tale, atmosphere, suggestion, impressionism, are much and 
 as Hawthorne possessed them to a remarkable degree, he 
 was able to produce truly wonderful short stories. 
 
 But in the romances, which on the whole stand for his 
 greatest achievement, there is besides such an embodiment 
 of spiritual struggle in human action taking place upon this 
 larger human arena, that a far more deeply vital effect is 
 
n8 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 produced, and the reader forgets the allegory in the tre 
 mendous poignancy and pathos of the picture. 
 
 By common consent, the first of these romances in time, 
 "The Scarlet Letter," is also the first in power and art. 
 American literature points to it with a just pride as our 
 highest accomplishment in the imaginative depicting of 
 the native life. The nature of the subject helps to explain 
 this preeminence ; it is a study of the New England past. 
 In that past Hawthorne was steeped; he knew it, he felt 
 it, as did no one else who has essayed to reproduce it in 
 fiction. He saw its outer physiognomy and its inner soul. 
 The bygone times of his own section and people offered his 
 imagination just the stimulus it needed to play over the sub 
 ject and give it body and vital air. In all his romance work, 
 there is the subtle idealization of character, scene, and situa 
 tion which results in the symbolic nature of outward events 
 being brought home vividly to the reader s mind. 
 
 Moreover, still explaining why " The Scarlet Letter " is 
 peerless among the Hawthorne romances, he had in the 
 problem dealt with in the book, one that fascinated him, 
 s and of tremendous significance to the world that of sin, 
 
 ~ expiation, purification of character. Character, Hawthorne 
 
 / teaches, can come forth cleansed as if by fire from the fur- 
 
 _ nace of sin and sorrow, if only the repentance be true and 
 open confession be made ; in fact, such sorrowful experience 
 r is the condition of character growth. Thus as the Puritan 
 
 maiden, Hester, develops throiigh sin to a spiritual peace, 
 /? the^thou^htful^ leaderj^while ., enthralled with the book as 
 
 \ a soul history, becojnej_aware_o^_its_ symbolism. There 
 is~a vast surrounding atmosphere of suggestion to the story 
 which ^ddsT imiriej,sui^lyjo_its greatness. As story^ iMs 
 eminently simple, yet tremendous in its very simplicity, 
 
 i 
 
Hawthorne 119 
 
 because of its mordjrutjyand told with a marvelous unity 
 of effect, so that all is harmonious and in key. The realism 
 oFlt all is as noticeable as its idealism ; nothing in all _the 
 ranges of fiction is more vividly true than the scene where 
 Arthur Dimmesdale declares his sin from the platform. This 
 romance shows that in works of art of the highest kind, truth 
 and beauty merge, there being no real conflict between them. 
 The descriptions in this novel and all that part of it which 
 might be called background are felt to be far more than 
 description and background in the usual sense, being in fact 
 of the very warp and woof of the fabric. Hawthorne in all 
 his work makes his scenery part and parcel of the story ; 
 I can think of nobody else in English fiction, save Thomas 
 Hardy, who thus interpenetrates scene and character so 
 that all takes on one tone, nothing can be spared.- 
 
 The close following romance, "The House of Seven 
 Gables," is hardly less characteristic of Hawthorne, though 
 of far less spiritual bigness and importance. It is interesting 
 and curious to know that he preferred it to "The Scarlet 
 Letter." In this book again the romancer is dealing with 
 things he knew intimately and deeply felt. To express them 
 was germane to his genius. The theme is the tragedy of 
 heredity, the sins of the fathers working out in after times. 
 More specifically, in Judge Pyncheon we have a masterful 
 portrait of pride and its downfall, along with the suggestion 
 of the household where malefic influences abound, and only 
 the sweeter air let in by healthy young love and the banish 
 ment of an old taint of evil conduct, can bring in the better 
 kingdom. His wonderful gift for atmosphere is nowhere 
 better displayed than in this story; the old gabled house 
 itself might be called the central figure of the plot. Its 
 doors and windows and gabled ends are like human hands 
 
I2O Literary Leaders of America 
 
 and eyes telling, with many a wink and nod, the under- 
 meaning of the strange, half mystic tale. The house stands 
 in Salem, and its identity is disputed to-day ; but whichever 
 the house pointed out to the visitor, he is likely to be con 
 scious of a great feeling of disappointment, and no wonder, 
 since no mortal structure can stand for that lodge of the 
 imagination so much more portentous than any house made 
 by hands. 
 
 Hawthorne s third story, "The Blithedale Romance," in 
 which the heroine Zenobia has been said to be drawn from 
 Margaret Fuller, a charge emphatically denied by the author, 
 is only inferior to the other three great romances because of 
 the nature of the subject, and the consequent failure to 
 arouse Hawthorne to a degree of imaginative creation 
 which was wont to follow an entirely congenial theme. 
 The story is of contemporary life ; hence it lacks the magic 
 of the dim yet potent atmosphere of poetry which haunts 
 the tales of New England s past. Again, there is something 
 of the satiric spirit in his portrayal of the Brook Farm life, 
 and satire, as we have noted before, was with him of a pecul 
 iar mordant kind never altogether acceptable. The Brook 
 Farmers, in fact, were offended by the manner in which he 
 handled their beloved dream. And finally, the idea of the 
 book does not involve so fundamental a spiritual problem as 
 do the other books. But with these reservations, "The 
 Blithedale Romance " is a powerful, deeply interesting study, 
 and one who reads the story for story s sake will find that it 
 has a plot which closely holds the attention, and is indeed at 
 times melodramatic, as in the description of Zenobia s death 
 and the tragic finding of her body. The underlying teach 
 ing of the story is, as expressed in his own words, " that the 
 whole universe and Providence and Deity to boot make 
 
Hawthorne ill 
 
 common cause against a woman who swerves one hair s 
 breadth out of the beaten path" a theme closely akin to 
 that in Hardy s "Tess of the D Urbervilles " indeed, the 
 same theme with variations. It will thus be seen that Haw 
 thorne in this moving romance anticipates a whole modern 
 school of fiction which deals with The New Woman and 
 involves the sexual relations. The motive is of course a 
 serious one, even a large one ; yet it has not as direct a sig 
 nificance as his other books; it is sociologic rather than 
 psychologic. Zenobia is one of those strong, stormy char 
 acters not easily forgotten. Hawthorne has hardly drawn a 
 more vivid personality, passionate, impetuous, richly col 
 ored ; with all the differences between the two, she reminds 
 one of Louie in Mrs. Ward s " David Grieve," both tragic 
 sisters of fate foredoomed to love and death. 
 
 The fourth of this major quartet of romances, and the last 
 great book of Hawthorne s life, is " The Marble Faun," in 
 some ways as distinctive and striking a creation as he ever 
 gave the world. Indeed, but for the foreign setting of the 
 tale, it is as characteristic as " The Scarlet Letter " itself. It 
 loses the advantage which the New England setting always 
 gave Hawthorne ; but for compensation, it gains the rich 
 mellow atmosphere of the art life and natural beauty to be 
 found in Italy. It is a story of artists life in that land, and 
 an innocent and most attractive element of Bohemianism is 
 in its pages. From Hawthorne s " Notebooks " we see 
 again and again that much not only in England but on the 
 Continent was disappointing, even repulsive to this thought 
 ful American ; but he fairly basked in the sunshine of Italy, 
 and worshiped before her shrines of imperishable pictures 
 and sculptures. In this delightful atmosphere of autumn 
 romance Hawthorne sets a little group of Americans and 
 
122 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 makes them play out their tragic fates. Here again the 
 tragic note is insistent, the subject a spiritual one, the teach 
 ing gravely wholesome. In "The Marble Faun," the author 
 has seized upon a theme as profound and spiritually signifi 
 cant as any he ever handled : that it is only by a knowledge 
 of sin, and perhaps by a participation in it, as in the case of 
 Donatello, that the soul can awake and grow ; that the faun 
 can change into the man. The romance is thus a subtle 
 spiritual allegory, but so colored and warmed by humanity^ so 
 dramatized in scenes and characters, that entirely aside from 
 its moral significance it has enthralling power. The reader 
 of the book must note that Hawthorne essays in it boldly 
 and with distinguishing success a most difficult and danger 
 ous task ; namely, in a story of modern life full of reality 
 in its descriptions and incidents and people of the play, he 
 yet introduces a mythic element in Donatello, thereby run 
 ning the risk of making it all seem ridiculous. But his great 
 art triumphs, and the whole is so harmonious that the reader 
 might easily overlook the artistic problem the novelist has 
 here set himself. The suggestion of the non-human elements 
 in Donatello s personality is conveyed so subtly, with so 
 much of grace and elegance, of sly humor and indirection, 
 that the reader s imagination is aroused, and he accepts the 
 character for very truth. 
 
 Externally viewed, the romance deals with the relations 
 of two pairs of lovers : Miriam and her faun lover, Dona 
 tello, the sculptor and Hilda, lovely maiden of the doves. 
 But regarded more closely, Hilda and her lover are sub 
 sidiary, for relief and contrast, and the central drama is 
 played by Donatello and his love, culminating in the murder 
 he commits, which is the psychologic height of the book as 
 well as the climax in the stage sense. Then follows Dona- 
 
Hawthorne 123 
 
 tello s awakening. The character drawing in this fascinating 
 novel is clear, firm, and vital. Donatello is a wonderful 
 creation, and Hilda one of the loveliest portraitures of sweet 
 young maidenhood, sword-proof in her white innocence, 
 ever put into fiction ; nor are the other characters unworthy 
 to stand with these. There is so much of the elusive in this 
 romance, it deals so prevailingly with things of the ideal on 
 the borderland of mystery, that it inevitably puzzles some 
 who wish all to be told, all understood, forgetting that for the 
 soul, hints, suggestions, are often more than mathematical 
 statements. When Hawthorne had finished the story, which 
 appeared in England under the title " Transformation," his 
 publishers requested him to add a final explanatory chapter, 
 which he did with an ill grace, feeling, rightly enough, that 
 the real point had been missed by those who needed such 
 an edition. 
 
 In this account of the four great romances of Hawthorne, 
 little attempt has been made to go into the details of their 
 plots ; the hope was to suggest their meaning to the reader, 
 stimulating to a first-hand examination which, after all, is the 
 only way to appreciate such works. In the general enumera 
 tion of Hawthorne s work, too, I have confined myself to his 
 greatest productions in tale and romance. He wrote much 
 else, the " Grandfather s Chair " series, many essays, sketches, 
 biographical studies; but all this constitutes minor work, 
 however interesting. Besides the unfinished "Septimius 
 Felton " already mentioned, another romance, " Doctor 
 Grimshawe s Secret," was published in 1883, edited and 
 finished by his son Julian. It has all the grim tragic 
 quality of Hawthorne, with more of horror and less of satis 
 faction because of the absence of the clarifying spiritual 
 vision. In 1897 what was announced as Hawthorne s 
 
124 Literary Leaders #f America 
 
 First Diary appeared, but his son Julian doubts if it be 
 genuine. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne was a great romancer; the word 
 has often been used in this sketch in speaking of his fiction. 
 His own idea of the romance can be found in the Preface to 
 "The House of Seven Gables." It means a poetizing of 
 the prosaic facts of human life, presenting them in their 
 more ideal relations, so that life is seen as symbol more than 
 as fact, and its deeper and more abiding meaning is realized. 
 Romance with Hawthorne does not mean to falsify, but 
 rather, in a setting of the past by preference, to suggest the 
 spiritual values of human existence. It is in this sense that 
 he is a romanticist, and all his novels have this character. 
 Of the two or three makers of literature whose position is 
 acknowledged abroad as well as at home, Nathaniel Haw 
 thorne is one ; no man has done more unique work in 
 American letters, and his fame is secure as the great 
 romancer of New England life. 
 
 THE SNOW IMAGE: 
 
 A CHILDISH MIRACLE 
 
 One afternoon of a cold winter s day, when the sun shone 
 forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children 
 asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new- 
 fallen snow. The elder child was a little girl, whom, because 
 she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought 
 to be very beautiful, L her parents, and other people who were 
 familiar with her, used to call Violet. But her brother was 
 known by the style and title of Peony, on account of the ruddi 
 ness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody 
 think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers. The father of these 
 two children, a certain Mr. Lindsey, it is important to say, was 
 
Hawthorne 125 
 
 an excellent but exceedingly matter-of-fact sort of man, a dealer 
 in hardware, and was sturdily accustomed to take what is called 
 the common-sense view of all matters that came under his con 
 sideration. With a heart about as tender as other people s, he 
 had a head as hard and impenetrable, and therefore, perhaps, as 
 empty, as one of the iron pots which it was a part of his busi 
 ness to sell. The mother s character, on the other hand, had a 
 strain of poetry in it, a trait of unworldly beauty, a delicate 
 and dewy flower, as it were, that had survived out of her imagi 
 native youth, and still kept itself alive amid the dusty realities 
 of matrimony and motherhood. 
 
 So, Violet and Peony, as I began with saying, besought their 
 mother to let them run out and play in the new snow ; for, 
 though it had looked so dreary and dismal, drifting downward 
 out of the gray sky, it had a very cheerful aspect, now that the 
 sun was shining on it. The children dwelt in a city, and had no 
 wider play-place than a little garden before the house, divided 
 by a white fence from the street. * * * 
 
 "Yes, Violet, yes, my little Peony," said their kind mother; 
 " you may go out and play in the new snow." 
 
 Accordingly the good lady bundled up her darlings in woolen 
 jackets and wadded sacks, and put comforters round their necks, 
 and a pair of striped gaiters on each little pair of legs, and 
 worsted mittens on their hands, and gave them a kiss apiece, by 
 way of a spell to keep away Jack Frost. Forth sallied the two 
 children, with a hop-skip-and-jump, that carried them at once 
 into the very heart of a huge snowdrift, whence Violet emerged 
 like a snow bunting, while little Peony floundered out with his round 
 face in full bloom. Then what a merry time had they ! * * * 
 
 At last, when they had frosted one another all over with hand- 
 fills of snow, Violet, after laughing heartily at little Peony s 
 figure, was struck with a new idea. 
 
 " You look exactly like a snow image. Peony," said she, " if 
 your cheeks were not so red. And that puts me in mind ! Let 
 us make an image out of snow, an image of a little girl, and 
 it shall be our sister, and shall run about and play with us all 
 winter long. Won t it be nice? " 
 
126 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " cried Peony, as plainly as he could speak, for he 
 was but a little boy. " That will be nice ! And mamma shall 
 see it ! " 
 
 " Yes," answered Violet ; " mamma shall see the new little girl. 
 But she must not make Ijer come into the warm parlor ; for, you 
 know, our little snow sister will not love the warmth." 
 
 And forthwith the children began this great business of mak 
 ing a snow image that should run about ; while their mother who 
 was sitting at the window and overheard some of their talk, 
 could not help smiling at the gravity with which they set about 
 it. They really seemed to imagine that there would be no 
 difficulty whatever in creating a live little girl out of the 
 snow. * * * 
 
 Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright 
 little souls at their task ! Moreover, it was really wonderful to 
 observe how knowingly and skillfully they managed the matter. 
 Violet assumed the chief direction, and told Peony what to do, 
 while, with her own delicate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer 
 parts of the snow figure. It seemed, in fact, not so much to be 
 made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while 
 they were playing and prattling about it. * * * 
 
 " Peony, Peony ! " cried Violet ; * * * " Bring me those light 
 wreaths of snow that have rested on the lower branches of the 
 pear tree. You can clamber on the snowdrift, Peony, and reach 
 them easily. I must have them to make some ringlets for our 
 snow sister s head ! " 
 
 " Here they are, Violet ! " answered the little boy. Take 
 care you do not break them. Well done ! Well done ! How 
 pretty ! " 
 
 "Does she not look sweetly?" said Violet, with a very satis 
 fied tone ; " and now we must have some little shining bits of 
 ice, to make the brightness of her eyes. She is not finished yet. 
 Mamma will see how very beautiful she is; but papa will say, 
 Tush ! nonsense ! come in out of the cold ! " * * * 
 
 u What a nice playmate she will be for us, all winter long ! " 
 said Violet. " I hope papa will not be afraid of her giving us 
 a cold ! Shan t you love her dearly, Peony ? " 
 
Hawthorne 127 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " cried Peony. " And I will hug her, and she shall 
 sit down close by me, and drink some of my warm milk ! " 
 
 "Oh, no, Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. 
 " That will not do at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for 
 our little snow sister. Little snow people, like her, eat nothing 
 but icicles. No, no, Peony; we must not give her anything 
 warm to drink ! " 
 
 There was a minute or two of silence ; for Peony, whose short 
 legs were never weary, had gone on a pilgrimage again to the 
 other side of the garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, 
 loudly and joyfully : 
 
 " Look here, Peony ! Come quickly ! A light has been shin 
 ing on her cheek out of that rose-colored cloud ! and the color 
 does not go away ! Is not that beautiful ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pronouncing the 
 three syllables with deliberate accuracy. " Oh, Violet, only look 
 at her hah- ! It is all like gold ! " 
 
 "Oh, certainly, 1 said Violet, with tranquillity, as if it were 
 very much a matter of course. " That color, you know, comes 
 from the golden clouds, that we see up there hi the sky. She is 
 almost finished now. But her lips must be made very red, 
 redder than her cheeks. Perhaps, Peony, it will make them red, 
 if we both kiss them ! " 
 
 Accordingly the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if 
 both her children were kissing the snow image on its frozen 
 mouth. But, as this did not seem to make the lips quite red 
 enough, Violet next proposed that the snow child should be 
 invited to kiss Peony s scarlet cheek. 
 
 " Come, ittle snow sister, kiss me ! " cried Peony. 
 
 " There ! she has kissed you," added Violet, " and now her 
 lips are very red. And she blushed a little, too ! " 
 
 " Oh, what a cold kiss ! " cried Peony. * * * 
 
 " Mamma ! mamma ! We have finished our little snow sister, 
 and she is running about the garden with us ! " 
 
 " What imaginative little beings my children are ! " thought 
 the mother, putting the last few stitches into Peony s frock. 
 " And it is strange, too, that they make me almost as much a 
 
128 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 child as they themselves are! I can hardly help believing, now, 
 that the snow image has really come to life ! " 
 
 " Dear mamma ! " cried Violet, " pray look out, and see what 
 a sweet playmate we have ! " 
 
 The mother, being thus entreated, could no longer delay to 
 look forth from the window. * * * And what do you think she 
 saw there ? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two darling 
 children. Ah, but whom or what did she, besides? Why, if you 
 will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl, dressed all in 
 white, with rose-tinged cheeks and ringlets of golden hue, play 
 ing about the garden with the two children ! A stranger though 
 she was, the child seemed to be on familiar terms with Violet 
 and Peony, and they with her, as if all the three had been play 
 mates during the whole of their little lives. The mother 
 thought to herself that it must certainly be the daughter of one 
 of the neighbors, and that, seeing Violet and Peony in the 
 garden, the child had run across the street to play with them. 
 So this kind lady went to the door, intending to invite the little 
 runaway into her comfortable parlor ; for, now that the sunshine 
 was withdrawn, the atmosphere, out of doors, was already grow 
 ing very cold. 
 
 But, after opening the house door, she stood an instant on the 
 threshold, hesitating whether she ought to ask the child to come 
 in, or whether she should even speak to her. Indeed, she almost 
 doubted whether it were a real child, after all, or only a light 
 wreath of the new-fallen snow, blown hither and thither about 
 the garden by the intensely cold west wind. There was cer 
 tainly something very singular in the aspect of the little stranger. 
 Among all the children of the neighborhood, the lady could re 
 member no such face, with its pure white, and delicate rose color, 
 and the golden ringlets tossing about the forehead and cheeks. 
 And as for her dress, which was entirely of white, and fluttering 
 in the breeze, it was such as no reasonable woman would put 
 upon a little girl, when sending her out to play, in the depth of 
 winter. It made this kind and careful mother shiver only to 
 look at those small feet, with nothing in the world on them, 
 except a very thin pair of white slippers. Nevertheless, airily as 
 
Hawthorne 129 
 
 she was clad, the child seemed to feel not the slightest inconven 
 ience from the cold, but danced so lightly over the snow that the 
 tips of her toes left hardly a print in its surface ; while Violet 
 could but just keep pace with her, and Peony s short legs com 
 pelled him to lag behind. 
 
 Once, in the course of their play, the strange child placed 
 herself between Violet and Peony, and taking a hand of each, 
 skipped merrily forward, and they along with her. Almost 
 immediately, however, Peony pulled away his little fist, and 
 began to rub it as if the ringers were tingling with cold ; while 
 Violet also released herself, though with less abruptness, gravely 
 remarking it was better not to take hold of hands. The white- 
 robed damsel said not a word, but danced about, just as merrily 
 as before. If Violet and Peony did not choose to play with her, 
 she could make just as good a playmate of the brisk and cold 
 west wind, which kept blowing her all about the garden, and 
 took such liberties with her, that they seemed to have been 
 friends for a long time. All this while, the mother stood on the 
 threshold, wondering how a little girl could look so much like a 
 flying snowdrift, or how a snowdrift could look so very like 
 a little girl. 
 
 She called Violet, and whispered to her. 
 
 "Violet, my darling, what is this child s name?" asked she. 
 " Does she live near us ? " 
 
 " Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laughing to think 
 that her mother did not comprehend so very plain an affair, 
 " this is our little snow sister, whom we have just been making! " 
 
 " Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his mother, and 
 looking up simply into her face. " This is our snow image ! 
 Is it not a nice Mttle child? " * * * 
 
 While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, 
 the street gate was thrown open, and the father of Violet and 
 Peony appeared, wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap 
 drawn down over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his 
 hands. Mr. Lindsey was a middle-aged man with a weary and 
 yet a happy look in his wind-flushed and frost-pinched face, as if 
 he had been busy all the day long, and was glad to get back to 
 x 
 
130 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 his quiet home. His eyes brightened at the sight of his wife and 
 children, although he could not help uttering a word or two of 
 surprise, at finding the whole family in the open air, on so bleak 
 a day, and after sunset too. He soon perceived the little white 
 stranger, sporting to and fro in the garden, like a dancing snow 
 wreath, and the flock of snowbirds fluttering above her head. 
 
 " Pray, what little girl may that be ? " inquired this very sensi 
 ble man. " Surely her mother must be crazy, to let her go out 
 in such bitter weather as it has been to-day, with only that flimsy 
 white gown, and those thin slippers ! " 
 
 " My dear husband," said his wife, " I know no more about the 
 little thing than you do. Some neighbor s child, I suppose. Our 
 Violet and Peony," she added, laughing at herself for repeating 
 so absurd a story, " insist that she is nothing but a snow image, 
 which they have been busy about in the garden, almost all the 
 afternoon." 
 
 As she said this, the mother glanced her eyes toward the spot 
 where the children s snow image had been made. What was 
 her surprise, on perceiving that there was not the slightest trace 
 of so much labor! no image at all! no piled-up heap of 
 snow ! nothing whatever, save the prints of little footsteps 
 around a vacant space ! 
 
 " This is very strange ! " said she. 
 
 " What is strange, dear mother? " asked Violet. " Dear father, 
 do not you see how it is? This is our snow image, which Peony 
 and I have made, because we wanted another playmate. Did 
 not we, Peony ? " 
 
 " Yes, papa, " said crimson Peony. " This be our ittle snow 
 sister. Is she not beau-ti-ful? But she gave me such a cold 
 kiss!" 
 
 " Poh, nonsense, children!" cried their good, honest father, 
 who, as we have already intimated, had an exceedingly common- 
 sensible way of looking at matters. "Do not tell me of making 
 live figures out of snow. Come, wife ; this little stranger must 
 not stay out in the bleak air a moment longer. We will bring 
 her into the parlor ; and you shall give her a supper of warm 
 bread and milk, and make her as comfortable as you can. Mean- 
 
Hawthorne 131 
 
 while, I will inquire among the neighbors ; or, if necessary, 
 send the city crier about the streets, to give notice of a lost 
 child." * * * 
 
 " Husband ! dear husband ! " said his wife, in- a low voice, 
 for she had been looking narrowly at the snow child, and was 
 more perplexed than ever, " there is something very singular in 
 all this. You will think me foolish, but but may it not be 
 that some invisible angel has been attracted by the simplicity and 
 good faith with which our children set about their undertaking? 
 May he not have spent an hour of his immortality in playing with 
 those dear little souls? and so the result is what we call a miracle. 
 No, no ! Do not laugh at me ; I see what a foolish thought it 
 is!" 
 
 "My dear wife," replied the husband, laughing heartily, "you 
 are as much a child as Violet and Peony." 
 
 And in one sense so she was, for all through life she had kept 
 her heart full of childlike simplicity and faith, which was as pure 
 and clear as crystal ; and, looking at all matters through this 
 transparent medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound, that 
 other people laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity. 
 
 But now kind Mr. Lindsey had entered the garden, breaking 
 away from his two children, who still sent their shrill voices after 
 him, beseeching him to let the snow child stay and enjoy herself 
 in the cold west wind. As he approached, the snowbirds took 
 to flight. The little white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking 
 her head, as if to say, " Pray, do not touch me ! " and roguishly, 
 as it appeared, leading him through the deepest of the snow. 
 Once, the good man stumbled, and floundered down upon his 
 face, so that, gathering himself up again, with the snow sticking 
 to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he looked as white and wintry as a 
 snow image of the largest size. Some of the neighbors, mean 
 while, seeing them from their windows, wondered what could 
 possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about his garden in 
 pursuit of a snowdrift, which the west wind was driving hither 
 and thither ! At length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased 
 the little stranger into a corner, where she could not possibly 
 escape him. His wife had been looking on, and, it being nearly 
 
132 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 twilight, was wonderstruck to observe how the snow child 
 gleamed and sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow all 
 round about her ; and when driven into the corner, she positively 
 glistened like a star ! It was a frosty kind of brightness, too, 
 like that of an icicle in the moonlight. The wife thought it strange 
 that good Mr. Lindsey should see nothing remarkable in the 
 snow child s appearance. 
 
 " Come, you odd little thing ! " cried the honest man, seizing 
 her by the hand, " I have caught you at last, and will make you 
 comfortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice warm pair 
 of worsted stockings on your frozen little feet, and you shall have 
 a good thick shawl to wrap yourself in. Your poor white nose, I 
 am afraid, is actually frost-bitten. But we will make it all right. 
 Come along in." 
 
 And so, with a most benevolent smile on his sagacious visage, 
 all purple as it was with the cold, this very well-meaning gentle 
 man took the snow child by the hand and led her toward the 
 house. She followed him, droopingly and reluctant ; for all the 
 glow and sparkle was gone out of her figure ; and whereas just 
 before she had resembled a bright, frosty, star-gemmed evening, 
 with a crimson gleam on the cold horizon, she now looked as dull 
 and languid as a thaw. * * * 
 
 A puff of the west wind blew against the snow child, and again 
 she sparkled like a star. 
 
 " Snow ! " repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant 
 guest over his hospitable threshold. " No wonder she looks like 
 snow. She is half frozen, poor little thing ! But a good fire will 
 put everything to rights." 
 
 Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions, 
 this highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the 
 little white damsel drooping, drooping, drooping, more and 
 more out of the frosty air, and into his comfortable parlor. 
 A Heidenberg stove, filled to the brim with intensely burning 
 anthracite, was sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of its 
 iron door, and causing the vase of water on its top to fume and 
 bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell was diffused 
 throughout the room. A thermometer on the wall furthest from 
 
Hawthorne 133 
 
 the stove stood at eighty degrees. The parlor was hung with 
 red curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked just as 
 warm as it felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and 
 the cold, wintry twilight out of doors was like stepping at once 
 from Nova Zembla to the hottest part of India, or from the 
 North Pole into an oven. Oh, this was a fine place for the little 
 white stranger! 
 
 The common-sensible man placed the snow child on the 
 hearth rug, right in front of the hissing and fuming stove. 
 
 " Now she will be comfortable ! " cried Mr. Lindsey, rubbing 
 his hands and looking about him, with the pleasantest smile you 
 ever saw. " Make yourself at home, my child." 
 
 Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden, as she 
 stood on the hearth rug, with the hot blast of the stove striking 
 through her like a pestilence. Once, she threw a glance wist 
 fully toward the window, and caught a glimpse, through its red 
 curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, and the stars glimmering 
 frostily, and all the delicious intensity of the cold night. The 
 bleak wind rattled the window panes, as if it were summoning 
 her to come forth. But there stood the snow child, drooping, 
 before the hot stove ! 
 
 But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss. 
 
 " Come, wife," said he, " let her have a pair of thick stockings 
 and a woolen shawl or a blanket directly ; and tell Dora to give 
 her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils. You. Violet 
 and Peony, amuse your little friend. She is out of spirits, you 
 see, at finding herself in a strange place. For my part, I will go 
 around among the neighbors, and find out where she belongs." 
 
 The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and 
 stockings ; for her own view of the matter, however subtle and 
 delicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn mate 
 rialism of her husband. Without heeding the remonstrances of 
 his two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snow 
 sister did not love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his de 
 parture, shutting the parlor door carefully behind him. Turning 
 up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the 
 house, and had barely reached the street gate, when he was 
 
Literary Leaders of America 
 
 recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of 
 a thimbled finger against the parlor window. 
 
 "Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror- 
 stricken face through the window panes. " There is no need of 
 going for the child s parents! " 
 
 " We told you so, father ! " screamed Violet and Peony, as he 
 reentered the parlor. " You would bring her in ; and now our 
 poor dear beau-ti-ful little snow sister is thawed! " 
 
 And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears ; 
 so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen 
 in this everyday world, felt not a little anxious lest his children 
 might be going to thaw too ! In the utmost perplexity, he de 
 manded an explanation of his wife. She could only reply that, 
 being summoned to the parlor by the cries of Violet and Peony, 
 she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were the 
 remains of a heap of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, 
 melted quite away upon the hearth rug. 
 
 " And there you see all there is left of it ! " added she, pointing 
 to a pool of water, in front of the stove. * * * 
 
 This, you will observe, was one of those rare cases which 
 yet will occasionally happen, where common sense finds itself at 
 fault. The remarkable story of the snow image, though to that 
 sagacious class of people to whom good Mr. Lindsey belongs it 
 may seem but a childish affair, is, nevertheless, capable of being 
 moralized in various methods, greatly for their edification. One 
 of its lessons, for instance, might be that it behooves men, and 
 especially men of benevolence, to consider well what they are 
 about, and, before acting on their philanthropic purposes, to be 
 quite sure that they comprehend the nature and all the relations 
 of the business in hand. * * * 
 
 But, after all, there is no teaching anything to wise men of 
 good Mr. Lindsey s stamp. They know everything oh, to be 
 sure! everything that has been, and everything that is, and 
 everything that, by any future possibility, can be. And, should 
 some phenomenon of nature or providence transcend their sys 
 tem, they will not recognize it, even if it come to pass under 
 their very noses. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 EMERSON 
 
 IN the center of the remarkable little group of New Eng 
 land writers who stood for God and country, who were 
 idealists, yet thoroughly of the soil, into whose words the 
 very genius of their land seems to have passed, the literary 
 historian must always place Ralph Waldo Emerson. As 
 unique as Poe or Hawthorne, he seems more American than 
 either; there is in his work something so high and so 
 homely, that the man behind the work comes to be regarded 
 with a touching affection, his character making him beloved 
 even as his genius has made him honored. 
 
 Merely to mention Emerson s name is to bring up a 
 vision of New England, to think of Massachusetts, of Boston, 
 of Harvard, of Concord. When the Athens of America is 
 spoken of nowadays, there is in the phrase a suggestion of 
 newspaper raillery ; but when Emerson was in his heyday of 
 influence and activity, the little city had reason to be proud 
 of its intellectual giants, of the standing near and far of its 
 literary leaders. Then, American literature looked to 
 Boston and its vicinity as naturally as Englishmen look to 
 London. 
 
 In this favored city Emerson was born May 25, 1803. 
 While these words are being written, various preparations 
 are making to celebrate the anniversary of his birth j the 
 
136 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 memory of him is green, his labor is vitally affecting a later 
 century, his soul goes marching on. 
 
 The Puritan strain in him went deep. Back in the early 
 sixteenth century, one Peter Bulkeley, Fellow of St. John s 
 College at Cambridge, England, found the persecutions of 
 Archbishop Laud intolerable and fled the country, coming 
 to the United States and settling in Concord. He was 
 Emerson s first ancestor upon this soil. Those deriving 
 from him were prevailingly clerical and scholastic, Puritan 
 too in the good sense, though comparatively recent investi 
 gation shows that there was an admixture of Episcopalianism 
 and a more genial manner of taking the world in the maternal 
 branch of the family. America gave no man better fore 
 fathers ; John Burroughs thinks that there is a certain lack 
 of red blood in Emerson because of his clerical stock ; but 
 we prefer here to dwell upon the advantage of such a past. 
 
 As to his immediate family, his grandfather William was 
 a pastor at Concord in the eighteenth century, building the 
 Old Manse, which was later to take on a magic meaning from 
 its association with the Emerson family and Hawthorne. His 
 father, a second William, was pastor of the first church in 
 Boston ; both of them men of scholarship and literary 
 accomplishment. The father died when Waldo was eight, 
 so that the boy s character, so far as home influence went, 
 was more largely molded by his mother and his aunt. 
 Emerson s mother was one of those typically strong, sweet, 
 serene New England women whose son exhibits a poise and 
 dignity, a sort of Olympian calm which is a direct inheritance : 
 a benignity of a higher place even than Parnassus. Her 
 maiden name was Ruth Haskins ; she was of a distinguished 
 Boston family, and a person of deep and genuine piety. 
 When an unmarried girl she registered in her diary a vow 
 
Emerson 137 
 
 to keep a record of the happy and sad events of her 
 experience, that she might see the hand of God working 
 therein, and so come to a better understanding of His ways. 
 There is in this the true flavor of the old-time noble Puritan 
 strain. It was by her economy and self-sacrifice, when the 
 father s death had left her and her six sons but poorly off, 
 that all the children received sound educations an example 
 of the great unwritten epic of motherhood. Emerson was a 
 scholar at the Boston Latin School, still a noted local institu 
 tion, leaving it to enter Harvard in 1817, when he was four 
 teen years of age, which says much as to the gradual lifting 
 of the requirements for college entrance during the past 
 century. Emerson was no infant phenomenon, nor even 
 precocious in his school and college life ; he was just a 
 middling good scholar, standing neither high nor low, but 
 possessing marked tastes for good reading, and recognized 
 by his mates as a bookish, thoughtful fellow, interesting in 
 a quiet way. He was weak in mathematics (which seems 
 to be generally the bete noire of those called to literature), 
 but showed ability in forensics and composition. A fellow- 
 student describes him as " a spiritual-looking boy in blue 
 nankeen," and declares that he loved him and thought him 
 " so angelic and remarkable." Without being a prig or a 
 muff, Emerson seems from his earliest boyhood to have 
 had something in him which made his fellows regard him 
 as of exceptional quality. After graduation in 1821, the 
 young man, or rather boy of eighteen, taught school in the 
 neighborhood for four years, during which he found out that 
 the profession of pedagogue offered him few attractions. It 
 was the most natural thing in the world that one of his 
 family should turn from school- mastering to theology. He 
 entered the Unitarian Divinity School at Harvard in 1825, 
 
ij 8 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 \ 
 and although not a regularly enrolled scholar, he studied 
 
 there for three years, and was licensed to preach in 1826. 
 It was equally natural that he should be ordained as a 
 Unitarian since, as Dr. Holmes puts it in his "Life of 
 Emerson," it was "the dominating form of belief in the 
 more highly educated classes of both the two great New 
 England centers, the town of Boston and the University of 
 Cambridge." James Freeman Clarke and William E. Chan- 
 ning, names to conjure with, were then preaching in the city. 
 At the time he was ordained, Emerson s health was poor ; 
 he went South to South Carolina and Florida for recupera 
 tion, and during this tour preached in several Southern 
 towns, as he did on his return in various New England 
 places, including Northampton, Concord, and Boston ; the 
 fledgling trying his wings. 
 
 He must have given satisfaction, for in 1829, the year after 
 his studies were finished, he received an invitation to become 
 the colleague of the Rev. Henry Ware, the much esteemed 
 pastor of the Second Unitarian Church in Boston, called the 
 Old North Church. In this same year too he married Ellen 
 Louisa Tucker. Life opened brightly for the young minis 
 ter. But clouds were already above the horizon ; his wife, 
 who was of delicate habit, sickened and died of consump 
 tion early in 1832, and by the fall of the same year we find 
 Emerson preaching a sermon in which he states his objec 
 tions of conscience to administering the Lord s Supper, 
 a declaration followed by his resignation, since the church 
 committee s views were diametrically opposite. This ser 
 mon of Emerson s was a preliminary shot in a battle which 
 has ever since been waged, and by firing it Emerson first 
 stood forth as the great Independent of thought he was 
 all his days to be. The act of standing boldly by his con- 
 
Emerson 139 
 
 victions was a brave one ; it meant trouble, financial risk, 
 possibility of a loss of social standing. Emerson never 
 hesitated. Such examples of courage are rare. He parted 
 from the congregation with no bitterness, with friendliness on 
 both sides ; and was face to face with the problem of a new- 
 life work. As a preacher the impression made by Emerson 
 had been unique ; never an orator, there was nevertheless 
 rare charm about his manner of speaking or in what he said. 
 He was awkward, slow and hesitating in delivery, and often 
 lost his place by shuffling his manuscript, yet the sweet 
 dignity of his presence and the high things he had to com 
 municate held his audiences as in a vise. One Scotchman 
 hearing him in Edinburgh, declared that Emerson had for 
 him more attraction than the great Dr. Chalmers. 
 
 When his wife died, Emerson s health was precarious, 
 and since no definite work was in sight, he went abroad in 
 the winter of 1833-1834, going to Sicily and thence to the 
 Continent and England. By the settlement of his wife s 
 share in the Tucker estate, Emerson found himself pos 
 sessed of a twelve- hundred dollar income, quite sufficient 
 in those days, and with his simple manner of life in a place 
 like Concord, to make him comfortable, especially as this 
 sum was soon increased by his literary and lecture work. 
 The diary of his travels shows he got more out of meeting 
 distinguished folk, especially literary men like Landor, 
 Coleridge, Wordsworth^ De Quincey, and Carlyle, than from 
 contact with pictures, statues, and cathedrals. He states in a 
 letter that his main reason for the trip was to see three or 
 four writers. Indeed, the world of historic lore and tradi 
 tion Emerson was by nature less sympathetic to than are 
 most tourists. Emerson s meeting with Carlyle was the 
 beginning of the famous friendship with which, as embodied 
 
140 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 in the exchange of letters, the world is now familiar. His 
 first impression of the Chelsea Sage was most favorable. 
 Frank liking was begotten on both sides, and the bond thus 
 struck lasted for life. 
 
 Upon returning to his native shores in 1833 Emerson 
 took up lecturing, a vocation he followed for the next 
 fifteen years ; he spoke on his foreign travels, or of great 
 men like Angelo, Milton, and Burke, or on popular themes 
 of instruction, such as " The Relation of Man to the Globe." 
 The year after his return, Emerson settled in Concord, 
 first living with his kinsman, Dr. Ripley, in the Old Manse, 
 and the next year settling in the "plain, square, wooden 
 house," set about with horse-chestnuts and evergreens, and 
 for many years now a place pointed out as one of the chief 
 jewels in the crown of this wonderful little town. There he 
 lived and died, and there his daughter Ellen still resides. It is 
 to Emerson and Hawthorne primarily, that Concord owes its 
 international reputation. But if its Revolutionary record were 
 not a noble one, if, of old, it had not been the place where 
 
 Once the embattled farmers stood 
 
 And fired the shot heard round the world, 
 
 or the group of literary men and women who distinguish 
 it had never gathered there, its natural beauty would have 
 made its name pleasant. It might indeed, as Dr. Holmes 
 suggests, " sit for its portrait as an ideal New England 
 town." Only twenty miles from Boston, it is within easy 
 reach of all that city affords, while retaining the charm of 
 a rural place, but its main glory lies in the fact that certain 
 great people lived there. 
 
 There are many reports of Emerson s lecture experiences, 
 some of them amusing. One hears of his absent-minded- 
 
Emerson 141 
 
 ness, the ease with which he lost his place in the manuscript 
 from which he was reading, and the dignity he exhibited 
 as he adjusted the sheets while his audience waited in 
 patience, perhaps in wonder. But a like impression was 
 made by Emerson, whether as preacher or teacher ; indeed 
 his lectures were always lay sermons. Their unconven- 
 tionality, poetic beauty, and profound earnestness, were all 
 elements of his success. Above all, was the superb eleva 
 tion of the speaker, who dealt at first hand, simply and sin 
 cerely and with a certain lovable physical awkwardness, with 
 great personalities, great ideas, great issues. A lecture thus 
 pitched and aimed took on the nature of an intellectual 
 and moral experience to a sensitive soul in the seats. It 
 was the message of a man who in his own description was 
 " enamored of moral perfection " ; it was, in a word, in 
 spiring. Few men in private or public begot love as did 
 Emerson. When he began his platform work, the old-time 
 lyceum was in full sway ; it meant the popular presentation 
 of serious subjects which allowed rural communities, people 
 detached from the centers, to come into contact with the 
 best minds of the day. Emerson was for years the marked 
 figure in these lyceum lectures, which have now, in a day 
 when one hundred lectures are given to one aforetime, been 
 exchanged for club addresses, University Extension talks, 
 Chautauqua courses, and twenty more methods of popu 
 lar education. His lectures were made books of in due 
 time, adding a little thus to his income, but not much. 
 Lecture prices in those days were much below what men 
 of distinction receive to-day ; in country lyceums Emerson s 
 fee was but ten dollars with his traveling expenses; in 
 Boston he received fifty dollars, but he often went to near 
 by places, like Worcester, for such a sum as twenty dollars. 
 
142 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 A year after he purchased his Concord house Emerson 
 made his second marriage, Miss Lidian Jackson becoming 
 his wife; she was a lady possessed of property. The 
 quiet, studious, and in the high sense influential life led by 
 Emerson for many years offers few striking points for the 
 chronicler. In one of his letters to Carlyle he draws a 
 picture of the retired, simple, domestic life he led : 
 
 I occupy, or improve, as we Yankees say, two acres only of 
 God s earth; on which is my house, my kitchen garden, my 
 orchard of thirty young trees, my empty barn. My house is now 
 a very good one for comfort, and abounding in room. Besides my 
 house I have, I believe, $22,000, whose income in ordinary years is 
 six per cent. I have no other tithe or glebe except the income of 
 my winter lectures, which was last winter $800. Well, with this 
 income, here at home I am a rich man. I stay at home, and go 
 abroad, at my own instance. I have food, warmth, leisure, books, 
 friends. Go away from home, I am rich no longer. I never have 
 a dollar to spend on a fancy. As no wise man, I suppose, ever 
 was rich in the sense of freedom to spend, because of the inunda 
 tions of claims, so neither am I, who am not wise. But at home 
 I am rich, rich enough for ten brothers. 
 
 The most noteworthy outward happenings during the re 
 mainder of his long and fruitful career were the European 
 tripsof i847-i848and 1872-1873, the latter extensive enough 
 to take in Egypt; and a California trip in 1871 at a time 
 when it was far more of an undertaking than in these days of 
 overland limited expresses and Pullman comforts. 
 
 Worldly honors came to him of all men least caring 
 for them, when in 1866 Harvard conferred her coveted 
 LL.D., and elected him a college overseer. From 1841, 
 when the first series of his Essays appeared, he published 
 steadily; the second series following in 1844, the " Poems " 
 in 1847, and such other typical works, as "Representative 
 
Emerson 143 
 
 Men " in 1850, " English Traits " in 1856, the " Conduct of 
 Life" in 1860, another volume of poems, "May Day and 
 Other Pieces," 1867, " Society and Solitude," 1870, " Let 
 ters and Social Aims" in 1876, and the posthumously pub 
 lished "Natural History of the Intellect" in 1893. This 
 last book was made up of lectures and reprints from 
 the Dial, the famous transcendental periodical of which 
 Margaret Fuller was the editor. 
 
 In 1872 his house was burned, and the shock and excite 
 ment weakened his condition, which already showed a gen- 
 i eral breaking up of the vital forces, and in particular, a sad 
 loss of memory. The final tour abroad was undertaken 
 after the loss of his house, and on his return next year, he 
 was welcomed by his loving townspeople with music and 
 with flowers, and enabled to enter a home rebuilt and im 
 proved by friendly benefactions to pass nearly ten years of 
 at least painless decay. In the late sixties this physical 
 decline had begun, and nothing in the history of letters is 
 more pathetic than the picture of this great man attending 
 Longfellow s funeral and remarking to a friend, "That gen 
 tleman was a sweet, beautiful soul, but I have entirely for 
 gotten his name." When he fell on sleep in 1882, and was 
 laid to rest in the Sleepy Hollow cemetery, where Hawthorne 
 and Thoreau also rest, he had almost completed his seventy- 
 ninth year, and for more than a decade his superb mental 
 quality had been a thing of the past ; gradually he had lapsed 
 into a state that was well-nigh that of childishness. 
 
 Looking at his life as a whole, it had been one of singular 
 felicity and honor. The loss of his son Waldo was the 
 sharpest grief of his life ; but no lover of poetry who reads 
 the lofty and touching " Threnody " in which that son s 
 memory is embalmed, will feel that the experience was in 
 
144 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 vain, since it was thus translated into high song. It would 
 be a mistake, then, to bear down too heavily upon the 
 pathetic close of Emerson s life. When he returned to 
 Europe in 1847, ne was recognized as the peer of the great 
 men of his day. At Concord his house was for many years 
 a center for the most enlightened culture, naturally visited 
 by distinguished folk from different parts of the land or from 
 abroad. The Dial coterie was there to be found ; Haw 
 thorne and Alcott were near-by neighbors ; Thoreau, that 
 shy genius of the woods, dropped in at any moment. Few 
 men have ever been loved by all conditions of men and wo 
 men as was Emerson. Not alone his compeers, his fellows 
 of thought and deed, but the common folk who were far 
 from understanding his message, worshiped the sweet, grave 
 face of him, the kindly friend and neighbor, the man whose 
 very look was a benison as he passed by. To this day, the 
 memory of Emerson in Concord is like the sound of bells, 
 in tune and sweet. Where the stately Hawthorne was re 
 vered and feared as he walked aloof, Emerson was beloved. 
 He would lean over the fence or against the woodpile, talking 
 of the most homely affairs with some farmer, or over a piece of 
 morning mince pie, settle the affairs of the universe. High 
 thinking and plain living met in him as in few of the sons of 
 Adam. The odd combination in him of Yankee practicality, 
 of shrewdness tempered by kindly humor, along with the 
 loftiest spirituality and the wisdom of Brahma, brought him 
 seemingly into equal touch with heaven and earth. There 
 is nothing like his character and accomplishment in the full 
 range of American literature. 
 
 When in 1836, a short while after he had settled in Con 
 cord, a little volume called " Nature " appeared in print, 
 \s Ralph Waldo Emerson made his manifesto to the world. In 
 
Emerson 145 
 
 it Emerson spoke practically a new dialect ; it took more 
 than a decade to sell a few hundred copies yet this book 
 is essentially a revelation of the man ; his fundamental con 
 ception of the unique interest and importance of the human 
 soul set in the midst of what we call nature and the world of 
 men, with its one business to develop character and attain to 
 perfection, is here set forth. And in all his subsequent writ 
 ings, whatever the subject, his message is the same, the 
 theme but a variation thereupon. The distinctive quality of 
 Emerson as a writer comes from two things in the main : 
 the single-eyed, clear purpose of his teaching and the incom 
 municable charm of his way of saying his say. He wished 
 to awaken his readers to the truth that life is much more 
 symbol than fact ; that the spiritual significance in a piece of 
 coal is of vastly more importance than its power of combus 
 tion. In the whole outer universe he found this spiritual 
 meaning ; and then bade every honest soul, with no atten 
 tion to convention or platitude of tradition, to bring his own 
 nature into accord with this one great principle which guides 
 and guards the worlds. 
 
 Because of his genius for getting at the central fact of 
 spirit, impatiently brushing aside what is secondary or merely 
 ornamental, he inevitably became an Independent in reli 
 gious thought, a radical, as the orthodox would say. But he 
 was, in the deepest and profoundest sense, an awakening 
 and a purifying force, especially upon the thoughtful young, 
 and those sensitive to spiritual appeal. Emerson in his 
 magnificently high and wholesome address to the young 
 person to be true to his best and find God in all things and 
 " good in everything," preaches a pantheistic doctrine which 
 has been a banner-cry and "a tonic draught to countless 
 spirits. For his own generation he was a mighty influence : 
 L 
 
146 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 and his place in American literature has strengthened as this 
 influence has been the more realized. If his message falls 
 dull on the ears of young Americans of the present dispensa 
 tion, with less of flutelike loveliness and of gravely serene 
 power, the reflection is upon the age, not upon Emerson, 
 for he was never more needed in his beautiful idealism than 
 he is at present. 
 
 The next year after the book " Nature " he delivered the 
 Phi Beta Kappa oration at Harvard, printed with the title 
 " The American Scholar." This is the address described 
 by Lowell as " our intellectual Declaration of Independ 
 ence." Read to-day, it calls like a clarion to the native 
 youth to believe in country, in its aims and potentialities, 
 and to believe in himself as a possible helper of country. 
 It is also a noble defense of the life intellectual and its sore 
 need in such a land as ours. 
 
 It would be a mistake to think of Emerson as if his essays 
 were entirely devoted to a study of the oversoul, soaring in 
 the superior regions of abstract philosophy. Plenty of his 
 themes are homely, direct, practical : upon love, con 
 versation, manners, conduct, experience. The reader, too, 
 should beware of the shallow criticism that, after reading 
 one such essay, it is hard to say just what it is about, to 
 draw a diagram of its course. Emerson s writings are not 
 primarily intellectual, ratiocinative ; he speaks from and to 
 the spirit. His value is in the way of stimulation, sugges 
 tion ; after reading a typical essay of his the whole nature 
 is clarified and attuned to a higher plain of living. This 
 most precious influence comes only from the few great 
 idealists and poets of the literary world ; and the good that 
 is derived from them is one that, just because it is so pre 
 cious, cannot be expressed in terms of intellectual gain, or 
 
Emerson 147 
 
 used satisfactorily in a college test. I would rather have a 
 young person during the formative period really responsive 
 to Emerson, really in love with him, than letter-perfect in a 
 dozen isms and ologies. 
 
 If Emerson deals with an apparently concrete subject 
 as with some great personality in his " Representative Men " ^0, >i 
 or with national qualities and customs, as in his study ^O 
 
 of the life of our British cousins in " English Traits " he 
 views life in such wise as continually to bring the reader 
 back to this position of his : belief in character as the sole 
 test, in the spiritual significance of life, as the only real 
 thing. Thus the whole body of hi? writings have a unity 
 such as rarely happens. The essays are often referred to 
 for their alleged lack of unity, and humorous stories fly about 
 to the effect that Emerson walked in the woods, writing 
 detached Orphic sentences, which on returning home he 
 then shuffled together without order or sequence, and, 
 presto ! a lecture, later to become an essay. Nothing is 
 more foolish and misleading. There is the subtlest and 
 strongest of connections in every essay and, as we said, in 
 all his work : the wholeness of a consistent view, of an in 
 sistent purpose, of a unique preoccupation with the things of 
 God. The greatness of Emerson does not lie in his being a 
 philosopher, in the sense of one who constructs a definite 
 system : for that he was not. He cared nothing for mere 
 formal consistency, which is, he tells us, " the bugbear of 
 small minds." His business was to drop seed thoughts of 
 life into the soul of his time, and as he sowed, to make the 
 labor seem like a song, because of the beauty of his ges 
 tures the words of a poet. 
 
 This leads on to the important matter of Emerson s style. 
 He is fundamentally a great man of letters as well as a spirit- 
 
148 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 ual force, for the good and sufficient reason that he had a 
 genius for the happy word, for a certain fashion of form, 
 a winsome and lovely manner of expressing his thought such 
 as the world always recognizes to mean a gift for literature. 
 Matthew Arnold, in writing of Emerson, emphasizes his spirit 
 ual quality rather than his literary gift. But it is doubtful 
 if Emerson would have so influenced Arnold in the latter s 
 youth, if there had not been in him something of the magic 
 of a literary master. Always, when Emerson is at his best, 
 it is fascinating to hear him talk. Listen to him, for ex 
 ample, as he begins to speak of love in the essay of that 
 name : 
 
 The natural association of the sentiment of love with the hey 
 day of the blood seems to require, that in order to portray it in 
 vivid tints, which every youth and maid should confess to be true 
 to their throbbing experience, one must not be too old. The 
 delicious fancies of youth reject the least savor of a mature phi 
 losophy, as chilling with age and pedantry their purple bloom. 
 And, therefore, I know I incur the imputation of unnecessary 
 hardness and stoicism from those who compose the Court and 
 Parliament of Love. But from these formidable censors I shall 
 appeal to my seniors. For it is to be considered that this pas 
 sion of which we speak, though it begin with the young, yet for 
 sakes not the old, or rather suffers no one who is truly its servant 
 to grow old, but makes the aged participators of it, not less than 
 the tender maiden, though, in a different and nobler sort. 
 
 When one has read only thus far, one is fully prepared 
 for rich delights to come. I have had young men and 
 women in a college class after this essay or the one upon 
 Nature had been read aloud to them, come to me with 
 flushed cheeks and humid eyes, to testify to their delight 
 in it, the wonder of the awakened lyric thrill in their quick 
 young hearts. Emerson was not only the general friend and 
 
Emerson 149 
 
 aider of those who live in the spirit ; he exhorted like an 
 angel. " Hitch your wagon to a star," he cried to youth, 
 and straightway youth is so enchanted by the figure that it 
 falls in love with the idea. His manner of writing unites 
 in a remarkable way the greatest dignity and elevation with 
 the homeliest, I might almost say, the quaintest of idiomatic 
 quality. His rural life, the simplicity always to be found 
 in his habits and surroundings, entered into his metaphors 
 and the very music of his marshaled words. What of aus 
 tere and select there was in him as an inheritance of eight 
 generations of clerical ancestors, was thus freshened by the 
 fine flavor of the soil in his style. The directness and hon 
 esty of the man s nature, too, are reflected in his writings, 
 and become a head-mark of it. No maker of literature 
 ever illustrated better BufTon s dictum that " the style s the 
 man " than Ralph Waldo Emerson. The distinction of his 
 prose is a distinction which was felt in his conversation, in 
 his very presence : it is a distinction of character. 
 
 It cannot be too plainly understood that Emerson s so- 
 called obscurity is never an obscurity in his way of saying 
 things ; no man ever handled English with more lucidity. 
 His sentences are short and never forced or twisted in 
 construction ; his words are rarely such as the wayfaring 
 man may not understand, and only then when the theme 
 demands them. No, if Emerson is difficult to read, 
 the difficulty inheres in the nature of the things he 
 talks of or in the unpreparedness of the listener. Deal 
 ing as he prevailingly does with spiritual verities, it was 
 inevitable that at times he should soar to such a height as 
 to embarrass the pedestrian who would follow him. A trip 
 in a balloon is in some respects less easy and comfortable 
 than a faring through one of earth s thoroughfares ; yet there 
 
1 50 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 may be certain advantages in the way of air and landscape 
 in the aerial car. It may also be added that Emerson in 
 putting his lectures into essay form (and all his essays were 
 originally lectures) cared less than do most writers to indi 
 cate the seams or interstices of his pattern ; but neverthe 
 less my firm belief has been already expressed that these 
 essays are always a close-knit organism. It would be an 
 excellent exercise for the reader interested in this matter 
 to try to indicate the skeleton of Emerson s thought, its 
 ordered progress, in a typical paper like that on " Compen 
 sation " or " Politics." 
 
 To Emerson there was great beauty in human character 
 and in the ordered cosmos of which man is a part. His 
 admiration of personality and his belief that it was the key 
 to all progress made him an Individualist, and this he re 
 mained consistently to the end, during the period when 
 man s associative activity was fast developing both as a 
 practical fact and a social ideal. For that very reason there 
 was need of such a thinker as Emerson, lest society in love 
 with the new toy called " association " should forget that, in 
 a sense, the truest strength lies in independent action. 
 Emerson s crying-up of the importance of independence, of 
 individualism, was a form of romanticism; it meant that 
 freer expression of personality which, in all lands, has been 
 a chief characteristic of the literary tendency called the ro 
 mantic. And Emerson s habit of placing man in the midst 
 of a world which is made for his benefit and of which he is 
 the interpreter and explainer, is saved from all narrowness 
 and crudity by the large nobility of his general view, which 
 has in it a touch of Oriental mysticism, of Buddhistic em 
 brace of the All. 
 
 Emerson was also a great Independent, as we have seen, 
 
Emerson 151 
 
 not only in politics and religion, but in the far deeper sense 
 of one who preached self-reliance (read his bracing essay of 
 this title) whereby a man was not dependent upon position 
 or money or the external pleasures of the world, but, finding 
 resources within himself, and in harmony with the universal, 
 moved along his elected path undisturbed, fearless, and 
 calmly content. In one of his essays he pictures a bustling, 
 nervous, fevered modern man suddenly rebuked by Nature 
 herself, surrounding him with peace and beauty : " Why so 
 hot, little sir?" speaks the voice. This is typical of Emer 
 son s attitude ; it is one of the explanations of his whole 
 some magic upon the unspoiled, susceptible heart. 
 
 In his prose Emerson was thus a noble teacher, and he 
 will continue to be, so long as the people have ears to hear. 
 His message is not temporary ; one is aware of the accent 
 of the eternal in its cadences. And he was, moreover, a 
 master of English prose, great for the way he said a thing as 
 well as for what he said. 
 
 But Emerson has a double claim upon our regard as a 
 writer; he is not only essayist but poet. To some, for 
 quality and high message, he is unsurpassed upon the 
 American Parnassus. This opinion, however, needs qualifi 
 cation. Emerson s natural medium of expression was prose. 
 He had mastered the art of prose utterance. He never 
 entirely mastered that of metrical writing. He wrote ex 
 quisite lines, phrases, occasionally even whole poems ; but 
 he could not be sure of himself, he might at any time halt in 
 meter, or become harsh and unhappy in language, or choke 
 poetic expression by the colder usages of philosophy. His 
 technique, in other words, was not certain, and there seems 
 to have been a natural defect in his feeling for metrical 
 movement; either this, or lack of the work which brings 
 
152 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 certitude. In thought, in feeling, often in the noble mar 
 riage of thought and expression, and certainly in the quality 
 of his poetic utterance, Emerson was one of the major 
 poets of America ; but too often only in flashes. Hence, 
 on the whole, the necessity of placing his verse below his 
 prose works, and this in spite of the fact that his greatest 
 verse may with perfect propriety be pointed to as the finest 
 emanation of his genius. 
 
 Emerson himself was aware of this defect in him for verse 
 expression. He once said to Mr. J. T. Trowbridge : " I 
 feel it a hardship that with something of a lover s passion 
 for what is to me the most precious thing in life poetry 
 I have no gift of fluency in it, only a rude and stammering 
 utterance." The beautiful humility of this will strike every 
 body who listens to it ; it has a deep pathos. But it con 
 tains sound self-criticism, and be it noted that Emerson 
 always and everywhere in his life and literature reveals him 
 self as a good critic of himself and others. He was not 
 deluded about matters of importance, a strain of splendid 
 common sense ran through all his idealism. 
 
 His first book of poems was not published until he was 
 forty-four years of age. In this lateness of appearance there 
 is food for reflection. The poet who all his life must sing, 
 and who, in the twenties, often does his most lasting and 
 lovely work think of Byron and Keats and Shelley 
 would not have thus waited until middle age ; it suggests that 
 with Emerson verse was not the main outlet of expression. 
 It was not until twenty years later, in 1867, that his second 
 volume appeared ; and here again there is the hint of the 
 occasional, the aside of something loved, by his own con 
 fession, yet not chosen steadily to convey his message to the 
 world, as, for instance, Browning ch/se it and continued to 
 
Emerson 1 53 
 
 use the verse medium for a lifetime, let the world say what 
 it would. 
 
 But the wild charm, the impressive high distinction of 
 Emerson at his best in verse, no true lover of poetry can 
 gainsay. Lines and passages of his have entered widely 
 into quotation and almost daily use : 
 
 The frolic architecture of the snow. 
 
 And yet, for all his faith could see, 
 I would not the good bishop be. 
 
 Thou shalt not wave thy staff in air, 
 
 Or dip thy paddle in the lake, 
 But it carves the bow of beauty there, 
 
 And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake. 
 
 Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days. 
 
 Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
 And fired the shot heard round the world. 
 
 One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 The heedless world hath never lost. 
 
 Oh, tenderly the haughty day 
 Fills her blue urn with fire ! 
 
 These and fifty more fragments rise in the mind of the 
 Emerson lover as among the precious and permanent things 
 of the native anthology. For the very reason of his careless 
 technique, an appreciation of Emerson s quality is a test of 
 one s real recognition of the immense merit of his song. 
 You must know it in spite of its failings ; as if one were to 
 pierce through Cinderella s homespun garb to the young 
 beauty beneath. His native endowment for poetic expres 
 sion was very great ; had he been willing or able to take the 
 Ars Poetica more seriously, realizing that technique is a 
 
154 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 good servant though a bad master, there are no poetic 
 heights he might not have attained. 
 
 But there are a few pieces in which, while the form is 
 adequate, the message is purely Emersonian. The " Con 
 cord Hymn " is one such, perhaps the most familiar of all 
 his song : 
 
 HYMN 
 
 SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE CONCORD MONUMENT 
 
 April 19, 1836 
 
 By the rude bridge that arched the flood, 
 
 Their flag to April s breeze unfurled, 
 Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
 
 And fired the shot heard round the world. 
 
 The foe long since in silence slept ; 
 
 Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ; 
 And Time the ruined bridge has swept 
 
 Down the dark stream which seaward creeps. 
 
 On this green bank, by this soft stream, 
 
 We set to-day a votive stone ; 
 That memory may their deed redeem, 
 
 When, like our sires, our sons are gone. 
 
 Spirit that made those heroes dare 
 
 To die, and leave their children free, 
 Bid Time and Nature gently spare 
 
 The shaft we raise to them and thee. 
 
 Deeply expressive of Emerson s religious creed is " The 
 Problem," in which his recognition of God in everything 
 is breathed forth along with a kind of noble impatience of 
 the shackles of dogma, and the exclusiveness of sects. This 
 poem is starred with fine and often-quoted couplets, and 
 
Emerson 155 
 
 is one of the best known he ever wrote. It is unequal in 
 execution, and the final lines are by no means commensurate 
 with what goes before ; but as a whole it has great dignity 
 and distinction of manner. 
 
 THE PROBLEM 
 
 I like a church ; I like a cowl ; 
 
 I love a prophet of the soul ; 
 
 And on my heart monastic aisles 
 
 Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles ; 
 
 Yet not for all his faith can see 
 
 Would I that cowled churchman be. 
 
 Why should the vest on him allure, 
 Which I could not on me endure? 
 
 Not from a vain or shallow thought 
 His awful Jove young Phidias brought, 
 Never from lips of cunning fell 
 The thrilling Delphic oracle ; 
 Out from the heart of nature rolled 
 The burdens of the Bible old; 
 The litanies of nations came, 
 Like the volcano s tongue of flame, 
 Up from the burning core below, 
 The canticles of love and woe ; 
 The hand that rounded Peter s dome, 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Rome, 
 Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
 Himself from God he could not free ; 
 He builded better than he knew ; 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew. 
 
 Know st thou what wove yon wood bird s nest 
 Of leaves, and feathers from her breast? 
 Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, 
 Painting with morn each annual cell ? 
 
156 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Or how the sacred pine tree adds 
 To her old leaves new myriads? 
 Such and so grew these holy piles, 
 Whilst love and terror laid the tiles. 
 Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, 
 As the best gem upon her zone ; 
 And Morning opes with haste her lids, 
 To gaze upon the Pyramids ; 
 O er England s abbeys bends the sky, 
 As on its friends, with kindred eye ; 
 For out of Thought s interior sphere, 
 These wonders rose to upper air ; 
 And Nature gladly gave them place, 
 Adopted them into her race, 
 And granted them an equal date 
 With Andes and with Ararat. 
 
 These temples grew as grows the grass ; 
 
 Art might obey, but not surpass. 
 
 The passive Master lent his hand 
 
 To the vast soul that o er him planned ; 
 
 And the same power that reared the shrine, 
 
 Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. 
 
 Ever the fiery Pentecost 
 
 Girds with one flame the countless host, 
 
 Trances the heart through chanting choirs, 
 
 And through the priest the mind inspires. 
 
 The word unto the prophet spoken 
 Was writ on tables yet unbroken ; 
 The word by seers or sibyls told, 
 In groves of oak, or fanes of gold, 
 Still floats upon the morning wind, 
 Still whispers of the willing mind. 
 One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 The heedless world hath never lost. 
 I know what say the fathers wise, - 
 The Book itself before me lies, 
 
Emerson 157 
 
 Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, 
 And he who blent both in his line, 
 The younger Golden Lips or mines, 
 Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines. 
 His words are music in my ear, 
 I see his cowled portrait dear ; 
 And yet, for all his faith could see, 
 I would not the good bishop be. 
 
 Emerson s love for country life is finely voiced in the 
 poem " Good-by ! " One can imagine the mood with 
 which he would return to Concord to walk its green se 
 cluded groves, a peripatetic poet-philosopher. 
 
 GOOD-BY ! 
 
 Good-by, proud world ! I m going home : 
 Thou art not my friend, and I m not thine, 
 Long through thy weary crowds I roam ; 
 A river ark on the ocean brine, 
 Long I ve been tossed like the driven foam : 
 But now, proud world ! I m going home. 
 
 Good-by to Flattery s fawning face ; 
 
 To Grandeur with his wise grimace ; 
 
 To upstart Wealth s averted eye ; 
 
 To supple Office, low and high ; 
 
 To crowded halls, to court and street ; 
 
 To frozen hearts and hasting feet ; 
 
 To those who go, and those who come ; 
 
 Good-by, proud world ! I m going home. 
 
 I am going to my own hearthstone, 
 Bosomed in yon green hills alone, 
 A secret nook in a pleasant land, 
 Whose groves the frolic fairies planned ; 
 Where arches green, the livelong day, 
 Echo the blackbird s roundelay, 
 
158 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 And vulgar feet have never trod 
 
 A spot that is sacred to thought and God. 
 
 O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, 
 I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome ; 
 And when I am stretched beneath the pines, 
 Where the evening star so holy shines, 
 I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, 
 At the sophist schools, and the learned clan ; 
 For what are they all, in their high conceit, 
 When man in the bush with God may meet ? 
 
 Again and again, in his verse, either incidental to the 
 main theme, or as a subject for itself, Emerson painted the 
 beauty of natural things flowers, bees, birds and trees 
 and surcharged them with the spiritual significance he found 
 everywhere. This side of his poetic genius is as attractive 
 as any aspect of his verse, and several poems may be given 
 to illustrate it. " The Rhodora " is full of a quaint, touch 
 ing simplicity and a kind of childlike trust : 
 
 THE RHODORA: 
 
 ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER? 
 
 In May, when sea winds pierced our solitudes, 
 
 I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, 
 
 Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, 
 
 To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 
 
 The purple petals, fallen in the pool, 
 
 Made the black water with their beauty gay ; 
 
 Here might the redbird come his plumes to cool, 
 
 And court the flower that cheapens his array. 
 
 Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why 
 
 This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, 
 
 Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, 
 
 Then Beauty is its own excuse for being : 
 
Emerson 159 
 
 Why them wert there, O rival of the rose ! 
 
 I never thought to ask, I never knew ; 
 
 But, in my simple ignorance, suppose 
 
 The self-same Power that brought me there brought you. 
 
 The longer " Humblebee," if of lighter tone and intent, 
 and lacking the ethical application common to our poet, 
 is full of charm, and of nature lore, and with its touch of 
 pathos at the end is certainly one of the most perfect things 
 Emerson ever did, and may be read in this connection. 
 
 Nor can the splendid winter picture, " The Snowstorm," 
 be omitted, a poem almost as well known as Whittier s 
 " Snow-Bound," and as successful in securing an atmos 
 phere which has made that masterpiece and Burns s " The 
 Cotter s Saturday Night " of universal popularity : 
 
 THE SNOWSTORM 
 
 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 heavens, 
 And veils the farmhouse at the garden s end. 
 The sled and traveler stopped, the courier s feet 
 Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
 Around the radiant fireplace, inclosed 
 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, nought cares he 
 For number or proportion. Mockingly, 
 On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths ; 
 
160 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 A swanlike form invests the hidden thorn ; 
 Fills up the farmer s lane from wall to wall, 
 Maugre the farmer s sighs ; 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 nightwork, 
 The frolic architecture of the snow. 
 
 No student of the poet should omit to read and re-read 
 the " Wood Notes " and " Monadnoc," among the nature 
 pieces, both too long to quote here, but filled with noble 
 passages, and very typical in thought. " Forbearance " is 
 so brief that it can be given : 
 
 FORBEARANCE 
 
 Hast thou named all the birds without a gun ? 
 
 Loved the wood rose, and left it on its stalk? 
 
 At rich men s tables eaten bread and pulse? 
 
 Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust ? 
 
 And loved so well a high behavior, 
 
 In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained, 
 
 Nobility more nobly to repay? 
 
 O, be my friend, and teach me to be thine ! 
 
 Also I must give the very noble " Two Rivers," in which 
 the local Concord color adds to its attraction : 
 
 TWO RIVERS 
 
 Thy summer voice, Musketaquit, 
 
 Repeats the music of the rain ; 
 But sweeter rivers pulsing flit 
 
 Through thee, as through Concord Plain. 
 
Kmerson 161 
 
 Thou in thy n.mow l>.mk , .ul pent : 
 
 Thestie.im I love impounded goci 
 Through llo.nl .Mid se.i ,uul linn. uncut . 
 
 Through light. through lilo, it toiw.nd tlows. 
 
 I See the inundation -. \veel. 
 
 I lu\ u the spending ol the -.lir.un 
 Thron:;h vc.n .. through men. thi.Mi : ;h n.itnrcflcct, 
 
 Through love .in.l thon-ht. lhi,n- i |MH\CI .nul dlc.un. 
 
 Miiskct.u|nil. .t i^oltlin sii 
 Of sh.ml .uul Mini in.iki I |c\ v t - i;ay : 
 
 Tln-v love then _;iir! uho In MI hi . song, 
 And where In \\inds is the day of day. 
 
 So forth and hli^litei t.ne-. in\ stie.un, 
 
 Who drink it -.lull not thirst .ii;.im ; 
 No d.uknr , , st.iiir, its e.|n.il 
 
 And ages diop in it like i.un. 
 
 Again, the familiar " Days" is .1 ^<>nd example of the 
 poem whose merit is suggestion, .\nd the in. inner in which 
 it stimulates thought, uiihont the leader being over sure, 
 it may be, what is the poet s meaning: 
 
 DAYS 
 
 Daughters of Time, the hyfcocrttlc Days, 
 
 MulMed .in.l (liiinl. like kin-font dervishes, 
 
 And in. m hin- Miii lr 111 .in emllr . . file, 
 
 I .iin:-. di.iileni . .in.l fagol in their hands. 
 
 To each they offer gifts after his will, 
 
 Bread, kingdom, si.n -. .md sky that holds them all. 
 
 I, in mv ple.ielird -.ml. n, \v.il< lied the pomp, 
 Forgot my mornm;; \vr.hes, h.r.lilv 
 I ook .1 lew hdlr. .ind .ipplr., .md the H.iy 
 Tiirm-d .ind drp.nl. .1 .ilent. I, tOO late, 
 Under hci solemn lillel saw the scorn. 
 M 
 
1 62 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 How full of suggestion, too, as well as beauty, is the 
 brief poem called " The Test " : 
 
 THE TEST 
 
 (Musa loquitur) 
 
 I hung my verses in the wind, 
 
 Time and tide their faults may find. 
 
 All were winnowed through and through, 
 
 Five lines lasted sound and true ; 
 
 Five were smelted in a pot 
 
 Than the South more fierce and hot : 
 
 These the siroc could not melt, 
 
 Fire their fiercer flaming felt, 
 
 And the meaning was more white 
 
 Than July s meridian light. 
 
 Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, 
 
 Nor time unmake what poets know. 
 
 Have you eyes to find the five 
 
 Which five hundred did survive ? 
 
 & 
 
 Of all Emerson s larger and more philosophical" poems, 
 none is so full of a deep tenderness, together with an 
 admirable bowing of the heart to the course of nature, in 
 faith, as " The Threnody," written after the death of his 
 favorite son. It deals with great simplicity, yet with the 
 profoundest thought and superb elevation of utterance, 
 with an elemental human sorrow, and its spirit cannot fail 
 to go home to the hearts of thousands of readers. It 
 reveals a religious nature passing through the fiery furnace 
 of affliction and coming forth purified and at peace. Every 
 earnest student of the poet should make it his own. 
 
 Such poems as these, and others like them which the 
 reader, once indoctrinated with the peculiar charm of 
 Emerson, will readily find for himself, represent the work 
 
Emerson 1 63 
 
 which allows the name of maker and seer to be duly 
 awarded to him. They constitute but a small portion of 
 his whole poetic writings. He has a less happy side. 
 Long pieces like " Initial, Daemonic and Celestial Love " 
 to name but one are often involved, harsh, and frag 
 mentary in effect ; they lack form and music and felicity 
 of phrase, and if they do not lack meaning, at least it is 
 sometimes hard to find. It is as foolish to laud such 
 poems as successes as it is to treat Browning s " Sordello " 
 as if it were on a level with the dramatic monologues. 
 But, let me say it once more here, a poet is to be judged 
 by quality, not quantity, by his best, not his worst. And 
 in quality and at his best, Ralph Waldo Emerson is one 
 of the high peers of American poetry, the singer-sage 
 whose voice ever calls men to beauty, to duty, and to God. 
 While the memorials of Emerson s anniversary were 
 being held in the beautiful May month of which he him 
 self chanted, the spectacle was an enheartening one to the 
 lover of native literature and of his native land. It told 
 how in a day when Capital talks the loudest, and Trusts 
 do multiply, America will not willingly remove from their 
 pedestals the men of thought and character and prophetic 
 voice. Among such Emerson must forever stand, a cen 
 tral figure of calm benignity, of beneficent influence, of 
 unassailable elevation. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 BRYANT 
 
 THE poetry of William Cullen Bryant is of importance 
 in the history of American song, for its lucidity, purity, 
 and high moral tone. It has something of the coldness as 
 well as of the clearness of the mountain stream. There 
 is an almost austere nobility in Bryant s genius, which, 
 together with his gift for imaginative interpretation of 
 nature, as it was revealed to him in his native New Eng 
 land, gives him a distinction seldom attained. His art 
 lacks the magic of Poe but it is simpler and saner. He 
 does not, as a rule, grow fervid over a cause, like Whittier 
 or Lowell. He has not the ease, lightness, and depth of 
 Holmes, nor the wide range and genial culture of Long 
 fellow. Yet, in its way, his comparatively slender rill of 
 verse is as greatly prized as is the fuller stream of almost 
 any of our native singers. When he is not observing the 
 beautiful growths of nature upon the level earth, he seems 
 to dwell upon a peak and to be in communion with the 
 high things that there abide. The accomplishment of this 
 New England writer, therefore, is one of the most impress 
 ive contributions to American literature, and he is surely 
 one of the seven great poets of our earlier period who con 
 stitute a sort of heptarchy of poetry. 
 
 Bryant, although he lived half a century in New York 
 City, and is commonly grouped with the Knickerbocker 
 
 164 
 
Bryant 165 
 
 writers, was in cast of mind and quality of work essen 
 tially of the New England which gave him birth. Up to 
 thirty years of age he lived in Massachusetts, and he came 
 of old Massachusetts stock, the original ancestor settling 
 there in 1632 ; on his mother s side he is derived from 
 John Alden. One of the interesting offshoots in the 
 story of American literature concerns the way in which the 
 men of New England have come down into New York 
 City to settle there and, by the creative work they did, to 
 add to its fair fame. 
 
 It was in the little village of Cummington, which lies 
 among the Hampshire hills of Massachusetts, surrounded 
 by the lovely scenery for which that part of the state is 
 widely known, that Bryant was born in 1794, five years 
 after Cooper. His breeding was that of a country boy. 
 He had the open fields, rivers, and hills to look upon and 
 learn to love, and he early drank in the beauty of his 
 environment, to give it forth later in terms of song. His 
 home was one of those common to New England life in 
 the earlier days, plain, comfortable, and full of a genuine 
 good breeding, the charm of a true gentility. His father 
 was a respected physician who served his state in the leg 
 islature, and whose library was well stocked with the 
 standard books, he was even known to drop into poetry 
 himself upon occasion. The mother was one of those 
 model housewives equally at home in kitchen or fore-room, 
 and of an influence upon her son potent for all purposes 
 of education in the deeper meaning of that sorely strained 
 word. She helped him in his letters and made him ready 
 for the district school. He was a precocious lad who 
 could read at an astonishingly early age, and wrote verse 
 at nine. He browsed steadily among his father s books 
 
1 66 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 but kept a healthy appetite for outdoor sports and occu 
 pations, and was familiar with the old-time country work 
 and play, to be found in haying-squads, husking-bees, and 
 house-raisings. Nothing is pleasanter in the study of 
 American literature than to call up a picture of the country 
 homes of such literary leaders as Whittier and Bryant, 
 with all they mean for wholesome breeding, influences at 
 once homely and high and natural arenas for the develop 
 ment of sturdy homespun character. 
 
 Bryant, be it understood, was a lad of healthy, natural 
 tastes. He liked to fish and hunt, and knew the mysteries 
 of maple sirup making in the spring and cider making 
 in the autumn. It is a pity that these typical, homely ex 
 periences of his youth so rarely got into his verse. His 
 first literary efforts were far from realistic, and he did not, 
 as did Whittier, in after years, look back upon his boy 
 hood and write another " Barefoot Boy " or " Snow-Bound." 
 In 1808, when he was thirteen, there was published in 
 Boston a satiric poem called " The Embargo," in which 
 Bryant attacked the Jefferson administration for closing 
 our ports to foreign commerce. Of course, the theme, to 
 say nothing of the age of the bard, precluded the poem 
 from being real poetry, and the piece is merely a curiosity, 
 interesting because it testifies to Bryant s early instinct 
 for verse and to the didactic nature of his message. After 
 the home instruction, he was tutored in the classics by 
 neighboring clergymen, and in 1810-1811 passed part of 
 the year as a sophomore at Williams College ; the simplic 
 ity of the conditions of living at that time may be under 
 stood from the statement that, while he was thus being 
 prepared for college, he paid the dominie who taught him 
 one dollar a week for his board and instruction. Yet the 
 
Bryant . 167 
 
 future translator of Homer got a solid grounding in Greek 
 from the country parson. Bryant s father did not feel 
 able to carry him through college, so the boy took to 
 law (another example of the premature choice of law in 
 stead of literature) and wrestled with legal lore at Bridge- 
 water and Worthington, neighboring towns. But his 
 heart was elsewhere, and hardly had his law studies be 
 gun, when on a solitary stroll among his native hills in 
 the autumn the idea for the poem " Thanatopsis " came 
 to him and it was written in 1811, before he was seven 
 teen. It was an extraordinary performance, a remarkable 
 poem for any one to write, but close to a miracle as coming 
 from a country lad untrained in literary technique and, 
 presumably, immature of mind. Yet, read to-day, when 
 it takes its place in our literature as one of the permanent 
 efforts, it is seen to possess a maturity, a perfection of 
 form as well as of thought and expression, such as Bryant 
 in his long career has hardly excelled. Precedents are 
 upset by such a phenomenon. At the time, Bryant had 
 been reading Kirke White s somber (not to say lugubrious) 
 poem called " The Grave," and no doubt his Vision of 
 Death (the meaning of the Greek title " Thanatopsis ") 
 shows this influence ; but only in the sense in which a 
 poem of the first rank can be affected by one upon a hope 
 lessly inferior plane. The real inspiration of the piece 
 came from within himself as he looked out upon the 
 beauty of nature and felt the force of its spiritual meaning. 
 The young man tucked his poem away in his desk, 
 where the father found it, and, by his encouragement, 
 induced the son to send it, without the fine opening lines 
 and the still finer closing passage, to the North American 
 Review of Boston, where the editors, headed by R. H. 
 
1 68 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Dana, were skeptical of its being written by an American, 
 attributing it to some one of the well-known British poets. 
 When Dana read it he said to a fellow-editor : " Phillips, 
 you have been imposed upon ; no one on this side of the 
 Atlantic is capable of writing such verses." It is amus 
 ing to know that they accepted the poem only upon the 
 misunderstanding that it was by Dr. Bryant, the poet s 
 father. Had they been told its author was a country lad 
 of seventeen, no doubt they would have flatly refused 
 to be parties to such a violation of all proper magazine 
 tradition. In its final improved form the poem here fol 
 lows. It should be noted that blank verse, in which 
 " Thanatopsis " is written, is the most difficult of all verse 
 forms for the beginner, and, as a rule, only mastered if 
 at all in full maturity. 
 
 THANATOPSIS 
 
 To him who in the love of Nature holds 
 Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
 A various language ; for his gayer hours 
 She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
 And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
 Into his darker musings, with a mild 
 And healing sympathy, that steals away 
 Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts 
 Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
 Over thy spirit, and sad images 
 Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
 And breathless darkness, and the narrow house 
 Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; 
 Go forth, under the open sky, and list 
 To Nature s teachings, while from all around 
 Earth and her waters, and the depths of air, 
 Comes a still voice Yet a few days, and thee 
 
Bryant 169 
 
 The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
 
 In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 
 
 Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 
 
 Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 
 
 Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 
 
 Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, 
 
 And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 
 
 Thine individual being, shalt thou go 
 
 To mix forever with the elements, 
 
 To be a brother to the insensible rock 
 
 And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 
 
 Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
 
 Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. 
 
 Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 
 Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish 
 Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 
 With patriarchs of the infant world with kings, 
 The powerful of the earth the wise, the good, 
 Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, 
 All in one mighty sepulcher. The hills, 
 Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, the vales 
 Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 
 The venerable woods rivers that move 
 In majesty, and the complaining brooks 
 That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 
 Old ocean s gray and melancholy waste, 
 Are but the solemn decorations all 
 Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 
 The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
 Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 
 Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
 The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
 That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings 
 Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, 
 Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 
 Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, 
 
170 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Save his own dashings yet the dead are there : 
 And millions in those solitudes, since first 
 The flight of years began, have laid them down 
 In their last sleep the dead reign there alone. 
 So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw 
 In silence from the living, and no friend 
 Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 
 Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 
 When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 
 Plod on, and each one as before will chase 
 His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 
 Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 
 And make their bed with thee. As the long train 
 Of ages glide away, the sons of men, 
 The youth in life s green spring, and he who goes 
 In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, 
 The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man, 
 Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, 
 By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 
 
 So live, that when thy summons comes to join 
 The innumerable caravan, which moves 
 To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 
 
 Meanwhile, Bryant went steadily on with his law studies, 
 for this great first poem of his was not published until 
 1817 ; and, as might be expected, did not draw general 
 attention to him when it did appear, although a critic here 
 and there recognized its quality. But nature the poetic 
 nature in this case cannot be coerced; and as young 
 
Bryant 171 
 
 Bryant walked to a neighboring town late one afternoon 
 for the purpose of finding a good place in which to hang 
 out his shingle, he saw a solitary bird winging its way 
 across the sunset sky, silhouetted against the flame of 
 color, and wrote another classic, "To a Water-fowl," 
 equally expressive of his genius and saturated with the 
 calm beauty and deep religious feeling of all his work. 
 There is in it a noble melancholy saved from being morbid 
 by the consolation of faith : 
 
 TO A WATER-FOWL 
 
 Whither, midst falling dew, 
 
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 
 
 Thy solitary way ? 
 
 Vainly the fowler s eye 
 
 Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, 
 As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, 
 
 Thy figure floats along. 
 
 Seek st thou the plashy brink 
 Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
 Or where the rocking billows rise and sink 
 
 On the chafed ocean side ? 
 
 There is a Power whose care 
 Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, 
 The desert and illimitable air, 
 
 Lone wandering, but not lost. 
 
 All day thy wings have fanned, 
 At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, 
 Yet, stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 
 
 Though the dark night is near. 
 
172 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 And soon that toil shall end ; 
 Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, 
 And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 
 
 Soon, o er thy sheltered nest. 
 
 Thou rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
 Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
 Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 
 
 And shall not soon depart. 
 
 He who, from zone to zone, 
 
 Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight. 
 In the long way that I must tread alone, 
 
 Will lead my steps aright. 
 
 Bryant married Frances Fairchild while still very young, 
 and, after a year of law practice at Plainfield, and nine years 
 more of it at Great Harrington, quite enough to show 
 him that he did not like the profession, he went in 1825 
 to New York City, ambitious of a wider field and a change 
 of work. He was then a little over thirty, and he solved 
 the practical problem of livelihood by adopting newspaper 
 work as a profession, one, by the way, that has been a good 
 staff for many of our American makers of literature. He had 
 some hard sledding at the outset, but several experiments on 
 other papers led up to an associate editorship of the Even 
 ing Post in 1826 ; and three years later he became editor- 
 in-chief, and acquired an interest in the paper. For almost 
 half a century he held this conspicuous post in American 
 journalism and brought the paper into a position of influ 
 ence for its honesty, ability, and high, clean methods, 
 which still gives it a unique place among American news 
 papers, an influence the traditions of which have been 
 
Bryant 173 
 
 carried on, with some personal variations, by the late E. L. 
 Godkin, whose recent death removed one of the aggres 
 sively striking figures of the newspaper world. 
 
 Bryant s personal effect and the more impersonal 
 effect of his journal was an incalculable service in ele 
 vating the general tone of our newspapers ; and he is an 
 illustration of the fact that even in the much-maligned 
 newspaper, the mind behind the editorial can be a force 
 which, if directed to high aims, and controlled by high 
 ideals, makes the newspaper one of the worthy educational 
 forces of the day. So long was Bryant s life that, at one 
 end, it touched the War of 1812 for he was an ardent 
 secessionist in those days, joining the militia for the 
 defense of the state against the demands of an unreason 
 able government and the administration of Hayes at 
 the other. His metropolitan residence, with its steadily 
 growing success and beneficent influence, was varied by 
 half a dozen or more trips to Europe and the Orient, to 
 Cuba, Mexico, and the West Indies, and these opportuni 
 ties for culture broadened him as a man and added to his 
 capacity as an interpreter of affairs. Before his death he 
 had come to be regarded as the leading figure in journal 
 ism and in many ways New York s first citizen. In 1843 
 he bought his suburban estate near Roslyn, Long Island, 
 where he made his home and was buried ; he also acquired 
 in 1865, the year he lost his wife, the family homestead at 
 Cummington, to which town he gave a public library in 
 1872, half a dozen years before his death. Coming of a 
 sturdy stock, and having through his life the most careful 
 habits of regimen and regularity in his daily walks and 
 ways, Bryant not only lived to an extreme old age but 
 retained his faculties, mental and physical, marvelously to 
 
174 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 his last, making in his personal appearance a splendidly 
 patriarchal effect. He is described by Parke Godwin, his 
 son-in-law and biographer, as of " medium height, spare 
 in figure, with a clean-shaven face, unusually large 
 head, bright eyes, and a wearied, severe, almost saturnine 
 expression of countenance. One, however, remarked at 
 once the exceeding gentleness of his manner, and a rare 
 sweetness in the tone of his voice, as well as an extraordi 
 nary purity in his selection and pronunciation of English." 
 How such a man kept his health and strength in so 
 remarkable a degree when he was nearer eighty than 
 seventy, still active at his office, and engaged at home in 
 his Greek translation, is perhaps largely explained by the 
 fact that he exercised an hour before breakfast with dumb 
 bells and other gymnastic appliances, avoided animal food 
 except at dinner, and then using mostly vegetables ; and 
 that he walked three miles each day to and from the office 
 of the Evening Post, spending but three hours at his news 
 paper work. He never touched tea or coffee and rarely a 
 glass of wine. During his old age he solaced himself at 
 home with practical studies, translating the " Iliad " and 
 "Odyssey" into blank verse, which, for accuracy and 
 nobility, still ranks well among the many Homeric versions. 
 These he completed when he was seventy-seven. 
 
 Bryant s death in his eighty-fourth year was the result 
 of an accident, and he was still wonderfully vigorous 
 for that age. In the spring of 1878 he addressed an 
 audience in Central Park on the occasion of the raising 
 of a statue to the Italian, Mazzini. It was a warm day, 
 and, with his hat off, he was exposed to the rays of the sun. 
 Afterwards, as he ascended the stone steps of the house 
 of General Wilson, he fell, struck his head on the stones, 
 
Bryant 175 
 
 and concussion of the brain followed. He died after lying 
 two weeks in a comatose condition. 
 
 The character of Bryant, as it is shown by many memo 
 rials and witnesses, was high, pure, and admirable, rather 
 than of the sort which awakens fervid love. No man was 
 more respected and revered ; but Hawthorne and many 
 others found him cold. He had the New England reserve, 
 he did not make a magnetic impression, did not enter into 
 impulsive, warm-hearted contact with his fellow-men. It 
 is said that in his home life the real warmth of his nature 
 was revealed, the volcano beneath the snow. It may be 
 that to call him cold, meaning thereby that he lacked 
 human sympathy, is misleading, even unjust. But many 
 anecdotes are afloat to indicate that Bryant did possess a 
 certain temperamental coldness, a quality of reserve. He 
 was frugal, careful, cautious ; good traits all, but not such 
 as to fire the onlooker to enthusiastic praise. And his 
 song reflects this nature, both in its limitations and its 
 excellences. 
 
 Bryant published many books during his long career, 
 and a number of them were prose, travel articles, and occa 
 sional addresses, admirable for their purpose. His prose 
 was excellent and, as we have seen, he did much to elevate 
 editorial style and exercised a wholesomely conservative 
 effect upon the English idiom of to-day. But this side of 
 his activity counts for nothing in the study of him as a 
 leader in American literature. His fame rests entirely 
 upon his poetry. He printed numerous volumes of verse, 
 from the " Poems "of 1821 to a volume in 1863, in which 
 appears " The Planting of the Apple Tree." It was his 
 way in each successive book to add a number of new 
 pieces, retaining those in the earlier collections. His 
 
ij6 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 total poetic contribution, therefore, was not large in 
 extent; moreover, most of it had been written by 1832, 
 when he was still under forty, although a few favorites 
 like " Robert of Lincoln," which was printed in the vol 
 ume of 1854 came later. But Bryant is a most remark 
 able example of a distinctive poet who reached maturity 
 very young, showed his real quality there and then, and 
 made small departures from this announcement of his 
 quality, in spite of the manifold experiences of an unusu 
 ally long and richly fruitful career. Perhaps it is because 
 his daily work was a practical one, and verse always aside 
 from the main employment. The boy of seventeen who 
 wrote " Thanatopsis," the young man who composed " To 
 a Water-fowl " before he attained his majority, does not 
 appear to have gained from well-nigh three-quarters <f C T, 
 century of living, a lovelier note of music or a deeper 
 philosophy. He simply added other noble and beautiful 
 things ; but growth he hardly displays. In this respect 
 Bryant is one of the anomalies of poetic history. But 
 his case suggests the validity of the poetic gift which 
 transcends rule and reverses theories. 
 
 A little consideration of Bryant s poetry makes apparent 
 its deservedly high standing as well as the lack of range 
 and narrowness of appeal which helped to make its influ 
 ence. A poet who clearly sings one song is more likely 
 to be heard than another who. like a mocking-bird, takes 
 on the voice of many singers, or who, without imitation, 
 yet has the effect of being many rather than one. With 
 such an one, it is harder to define his aim and to feel 
 his unity. Bryant s verse is, for the most part, grave, 
 restrained, unimpassioned, meditative, fraught with reflec 
 tion ; but so high and clear and sweet, that no note in the 
 
Bryant 177 
 
 American song garden floats to us with a more pellucid 
 charm. In many ways he now seems old-fashioned. His 
 education, in the time in which his formative period fell, 
 led him to use largely the language of the eighteenth- 
 century bards, modifying and purifying it, however, by 
 virtue of his native talent. In the handling of meters in 
 stanzaic forms, too, he preferred the simpler art of the 
 period before the rhythmic and formal intricacies of mas 
 ters like Poe and Swinburne and Lanier. As to themes, 
 he dwelt reflectively upon nature in relation to man ; he 
 brooded upon life and its moral meaning and upon death, 
 its issue, relieved by the spiritual hope that lessens its 
 terror and makes it the threshold of the better life. Thus, 
 a certain brooding melancholy in him, a sweet pensiveness, 
 is tempered by the religious consolation of his song which 
 is also a characteristic of the elder New England poets as 
 a whole, and justifies us in placing Bryant with them (in 
 his spirit, I mean) rather than with the New York Knicker 
 bockers. These poets, and none of them more than 
 Bryant, love what has been irreverently called " the moral 
 tag" ; they liked to make a didactic application of a poetic 
 scene or thought, to drive the lesson home. This has an 
 effect of old-fashionedness in our day, when it is more 
 popular to offer something beautiful and let it speak for 
 itself. But, questionless, the major American poets have 
 secured their permanent place and are beloved by the 
 people, partly because of this same moral message of 
 theirs. 
 
 No side of Bryant s song is more appreciated than his 
 nature pieces. We have already listened to one, " The 
 Water-fowl." Here is another favorite, representative 
 both for its tenderness, the observing eye of the lover of 
 
178 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 flower and bird, and shifting season, and, too, for the inev 
 itable application at the end to the human case, generally 
 the poet s own. 
 
 TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN 
 
 Thou blossom bright with autumn dew, 
 And colored with the heaven s own blue, 
 That openest when the quiet light 
 Succeeds the keen and frosty night. 
 
 Thou comest not when violets lean 
 O er wandering brooks and springs unseen, 
 Or columbines, in purple dressed, 
 Nod o er the ground- bird s hidden nest. 
 
 Thou waitest late and com st alone, 
 When woods are bare and birds are flown, 
 And frosts and shortening days portend 
 The aged year is near his end. 
 
 Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
 Look through its fringes to the sky, 
 Blue blue as if that sky let fall 
 A flower from its cerulean wall. 
 
 I would that thus, when I shall see 
 The hour of death draw near to me, 
 Hope, blossoming within my heart, 
 May look to heaven as I depart. 
 
 An elegiac quality is pronounced in the familiar " Death 
 of the Flowers," simple almost to bareness, but truly 
 charming in the limning of nature in the first four stan 
 zas. Bryant wrote numerous sonorous poems in blank 
 verse, and, as we have seen, had a special aptitude for 
 that large-moving, grave, majestic form. Along with the 
 
Bryant 179 
 
 " Thanatopsis," a " Forest Hymn " may be read in further 
 illustration of this phase of his work ; it contains lines 
 often to be met with in quotation. " The Flood of Years " 
 also belongs to this class and is one of the most admired 
 of his longer pieces. They display Bryant s tendency to 
 large, grandiose effects, treating them with a kind of Olym 
 pian sweep which is in consonance with the mighty things 
 he hymns. Yet his triumphs, on the whole, are to be 
 found in the simpler and shorter lyrics. He is essentially 
 a reflective lyric poet ; his was not the dramatic power of 
 scene-painting and situation nor the constructive gift for 
 narrative. Very early he found his metier and wisely he 
 kept to it. Love the more passionate love between the 
 sexes does not enter his song to give it a warmer color, 
 a vernal glamour and thrill. 
 
 When, as occasionally happens, he essays the patriotic, 
 he produces in a poem like " America," something that is 
 adequate and dignified but not compelling. The leap 
 and fervor which Whittier or Lowell would have given us 
 are absent. "The Battlefield" is far finer (the ninth 
 stanza, often reproduced, is notable) and may be read as a 
 favorable example of this mood of his Muse. 
 
 It will be well, perhaps, in leaving Bryant, to have 
 lingering in our ears for musical and happy memory, such 
 a lyric as " Robert of Lincoln " : 
 
 ROBERT OF LINCOLN 
 
 Merrily swinging on brier and weed, 
 Near to the nest of his little dame, 
 Over the mountain-side or mead, 
 
 Robert of Lincoln is telling his name: 
 Bob-o -link, bob-oMink, 
 Spink. spank, spink ; 
 
180 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Snug and safe is that nest of ours, 
 Hidden among the summer flowers. 
 Chee, chee, chee. 
 
 Robert of Lincoln is gayly drest, 
 
 Wearing a bright black wedding coat ; 
 White are his shoulders and white his crest, 
 Hear him call in his merry note : 
 Bob-o -link, bob-o -link, 
 Spink, spank, spink ; 
 Look, what a nice new coat is mine, 
 Sure there was never a bird so fine. 
 Chee, chee, chee. 
 
 Robert of Lincoln s Quaker wife, 
 
 Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings, 
 Passing at home a patient life, 
 
 Broods in the grass while her husband sings 
 Bob-o -link, bob-o -link, 
 Spink, spank, spink ; 
 Brood, kind creature ; you need not fear 
 Thieves and robbers while I am here. 
 Chee, chee, chee. 
 
 Modest and shy as a nun is she ; 
 
 One weak chirp is her only note. 
 Braggart and prince of braggarts is he, 
 Pouring boasts from his little throat : 
 Bob-o -link, bob-o -link, 
 Spink, spank, spink ; 
 Never was I afraid of man ; 
 Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can. 
 Chee, chee, chee. 
 
 Six white eggs on a bed of hay, 
 
 Flecked with purple, a pretty sight ! 
 
Bryant 181 
 
 There as the mother sits all day, 
 Robert is singing with all his might : 
 Bob-o -link, bob-o -link, 
 Spink, spank, spink ; 
 Nice good wife, that never goes out, 
 Keeping house while I frolic about. 
 Chee, chee, chee. 
 
 Soon as the little ones chip the shell 
 Six wide mouths are open for food. 
 Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well. 
 Gathering seeds for the hungry brood. 
 Bob-o -link, bob-o -link, 
 Spink, spank, spink ; 
 This new life is likely to be 
 Hard for a gay young fellow like me. 
 Chee, chee, chee. 
 
 Robert of Lincoln at length is made 
 
 Sober with work, and silent with care ; 
 Off is his holiday garment laid, 
 Half forgotten that merry air, 
 Bob-o -link, bob-o -link, 
 Spink, spank, spink ; 
 Nobody knows but my mate and I 
 Where our nest and our nestlings lie. 
 Chee, chee, chee. 
 
 Summer wanes ; the children are grown ; 
 
 Fun and frolic no more he knows ; 
 Robert of Lincoln s a humdrum crone ; 
 Off he flies, and we sing as he goes : 
 Bob-o -link, bob-o -link, 
 Spink, spank, spink ; 
 
 When you can pipe that merry old strain, 
 Robert of Lincoln, come back again. 
 Chee, chee, chee. 
 
1 82 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 William Cullen Bryant is justly called the Patriarch of 
 American Poetry. He is in time the first of our major 
 poets. His " Thanatopsis," written when Poe was an 
 infant, was the first fruit of the rich harvesting of the 
 nineteenth century. * In quality and kind he is the Ameri 
 can Wordsworth, though by no means the peer of the 
 great English singer of nature. He sits apart, and, with 
 a voice serene, calm, high, and of a silvery sweetness, still 
 calls upon all Americans who are sensitive to the spiritual 
 meaning in the external universe and who are willing to 
 listen to wise meditations upon life and death and the 
 Great Beyond. He is a poet more likely to please, to 
 console, and to uplift the mature who have lived and suf 
 fered and gained depth through living, than the young 
 who are carried away by passion and leaping music and 
 the stormy felicities of new life. To be thus a consoler of 
 the later years is a mission, and worthily does Bryant 
 fulfill it. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LONGFELLOW 
 
 ONE of the distinctions of Longfellow among the Ameri 
 can poets is that, while he was a poet of culture a man 
 of scholarly habits who had widely assimilated continental 
 literature and often drew upon his culture for his themes 
 yet he was quite as truly a popular poet. His song 
 went home to the general heart, his poems became a 
 household possession. 
 
 As more and more of critical attention has been directed 
 to the American singers of an earlier generation, the esti 
 mate of Longfellow has come to be somewhat different 
 from that which existed at the time of his death and which 
 encouraged him during his life-work. Transatlantic criti 
 cism, where it does not deny to Poe and Emerson and 
 Hawthorne the right to a place with the more permanent 
 literary forces, inclines to relegate Longfellow to a less 
 significant position. He is named as a pleasing poet with 
 out real or much originality and distinction. Some critics 
 even go so far as to refer to him half contemptuously as 
 a sort of sounding-board of foreign tones. At home, 
 while his popularity is still firmly fixed, it cannot be de 
 nied that the critical regard of him has somewhat altered. 
 I shall wish to show, however, in the following pages that 
 there is ample reason for placing him with the major 
 American poets. 
 
184 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Longfellow was born in 1807, two years before Holmes, 
 but he died more than a decade earlier, and this makes 
 him seem farther back in time as a literary figure. Al 
 though so long and intimately associated with Massachu 
 setts, with the social and intellectual life of Cambridge 
 and Boston, he was a Maine boy, whose native place was 
 Portland, where his father was a distinguished lawyer and 
 a trustee of Bowdoin College. The story of the poet s life 
 is not like that of Bryant or Whittier, the country lad 
 accomplishing great things from humble beginnings. 
 Longfellow s lot, contrariwise, was fair and fortunate 
 throughout his days ; if we except a tragic sorrow in his 
 home the loss of his second wife by fire. But viewing 
 his life as a whole, externally it was notably unruffled, 
 while within was the calm of a character in which the 
 elements were wisely blended and made but the more 
 symmetrical by the passage of the years. 
 
 The New England blood in him was of the best; his 
 mother was a Wadsworth, and on her side he traced back 
 to John Alden of bashful memory, whom he was to immor 
 talize in one of his poems. From boyhood into manhood 
 and through maturity to a noble old age, we find in Henry 
 Wadsworth Longfellow an essentially sweet, sane, fine na 
 ture. Without being a prig or a softling, he was as a child 
 gentler and more sensitive to fine appeals than the aver 
 age lad ; yet a hearty, handsome fellow, by all accounts, 
 quick tempered but kind and affectionate, " the sunlight 
 of the house." 
 
 Portland was a good town to be young and grow up in, 
 with its long sea beach and mysterious merchant ships 
 from afar, that lay at its wharves. Long afterwards, in 
 one of his best poems, " My Lost Youth," he sang : 
 
Longfellow 185 
 
 I remember the black wharves and the slips 
 
 And the sea-tides tossing free ; 
 And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips 
 And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 
 
 And the magic of the sea. 
 
 The young Longfellow was fond of his books, and a 
 rhymster at thirteen, at which formidable age a piece of 
 verse by him appeared in a local paper. Of this, and his 
 early efforts in general, it may be said that they were not 
 remarkable, which is a comfort rather than otherwise, 
 for a young precocity is of dubious promise for the mature 
 performance. He was educated privately and at Portland 
 Academy, and entered Bowdoin as a sophomore, to find 
 one classmate, Nathaniel Hawthorne, who like himself 
 was to become famous in literature. Very wisely, as it 
 turned out, Longfellow while he was an undergraduate 
 wrote prose and verse steadily, contributing to such maga 
 zines as would take his literary efforts ; and thus made 
 progress in forming his style and learning what his bent 
 really was. He was all for literature in these early days. 
 He stood well in college, being graduated fourth in a class 
 numbering about forty. A sign of the good impression 
 he had made came when, at the end of his course, the 
 Bowdoin trustees proposed that he should go abroad to 
 fit himself to take the new chair of modern languages. 
 The suggestion was entirely congenial to his tastes. 
 There had been some talk of the law for him, which was 
 naturally his father s notion. The senior Longfellow had 
 the practical man s usual attitude toward letters : " A lit 
 erary life, to one who has the means of support," he wrote 
 to his son, " must be very pleasant, but there is not enough 
 wealth in this country to afford encouragement and patron- 
 
1 86 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 age to merely literary men." There is, perhaps, a touch 
 of the patronizing in this, but its sound common sense is 
 undeniable. Certainly, to Longfellow, the would-be poet, 
 in the summer following his graduation, the outlook for 
 the aspirant was not brilliant. Bryant was publishing his 
 early poems, but otherwise the song garden seemed voice 
 less ; but in this offer of a college position was work in the 
 line of his ability and liking ; so the next three years were 
 spent in England and on the continent in fruitful and de 
 lightful study and sight-seeing. The young Bowdoin man 
 was peculiarly responsive to the old-world effect, its 
 legends and folklore, its time-soaked associations and 
 traditions, its storied treasures of art, and brilliant pano 
 rama of nature. What he absorbed during this forma 
 tive period (Longfellow was but nineteen when he sailed) 
 was potent in coloring his whole after-life as an author. 
 His first creative work, the prose " Outre Mer," a delight 
 ful travel sketch in the tradition and under the influence 
 of Irving, testifies in name and quality to this rich expe 
 rience over-seas. 
 
 A young man, then, of only twenty-two, he returned in 
 1829 to begin his teaching at Bowdoin ; and until he was 
 not far from fifty, Longfellow was a teacher, a college 
 professor at Bowdoin and Harvard popular and most 
 effective in his work. It is well known that he finally 
 abandoned it because he felt it hampered his literary 
 work, even choked his poetry. Shortly before resigning 
 his Harvard chair, he wrote : " This college work is like 
 a great hand laid on all the strings of my lyre, stopping 
 their vibration." We shall find Lowell making similar 
 plaint about his college lectures. Yet it would not be 
 quite fair, perhaps, to Longfellow s college work to over- 
 
Longfellow 187 
 
 look the fact that these words may have been the expres 
 sion of a mood, and that much in the vocation of teacher 
 appealed to him and was heartily enjoyed. His was a 
 nature sympathetic and kindly ; he loved languages and 
 literature, and could not fail to get pleasure from their 
 impartation. Those who were his students, testify to the 
 exquisite courtliness and courtesy of his manner in the 
 classroom. 
 
 The Bowdoin professorship was held six years, and then 
 came, in 1835, another year abroad, spent in Denmark, 
 Sweden, Holland, and other lands. His young wife (he 
 had married Mary S. Potter, in 1831) died in Rotterdam, 
 Longfellow s first great sorrow ; and it is not fanciful to 
 see in his poetry, after this loss, a deeper note of human 
 sympathy. During the Bowdoin years his scholarly book 
 work had begun, for in 1833 he published a Spanish trans 
 lation, while on the side of verse, his maiden volume of 
 poems had appeared in the year of his departure for the 
 European study. Upon the second return from Europe, 
 Longfellow took the chair of Romance languages at Har 
 vard, of which the earlier occupant had been Ticknor, the 
 historian, and became one of the notable figures in scho 
 lastic circles as well as conspicuous socially in a Boston 
 and Cambridge group, made of such men of mark as Pro 
 fessor Norton, Sumner, Hawthorne, the historians Tick 
 nor and Prescott, Lowell, Agassiz, and Holmes, indeed, 
 by the testimony of Colonel Higginson, in some sort its 
 center. Longfellow had great social aptitudes ; his whole 
 some, attractive personality and essential kindliness of 
 nature, as well as his accomplishments, made him widely 
 welcome. In these earlier days, his face was one of 
 strength and character, rather than beauty; but as he 
 
1 88 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 advanced in age, Longfellow mellowed and softened, and 
 was, in his last years, with his crown of white hair, a very 
 handsome and stately old man. 
 
 At Cambridge, Longfellow had rooms in Craigie House 
 on the beautiful Brattle Street. Washington had used 
 this building for his headquarters when, in 1775, he took 
 charge of the American troops. Later in the poet s life 
 the historic house came into his possession through its 
 purchase by the father of his second wife, Frances Apple- 
 ton, whom he married in 1843 ; and the stately colonial 
 home can still be visited, for, by the courtesy of the poet s 
 daughter, Miss Alice Longfellow, on certain days several 
 of the rooms, preserved much as Longfellow left them, are 
 shown to those who apply for admission. 
 
 The tranquil flow of these Cambridge days was vio 
 lently interrupted by a domestic tragedy, Longfellow s 
 loss of his second wife by fire. While she was seated in 
 the next room to him, her clothing became ignited from 
 a lamp, and before the husband could rescue her, she was 
 burned so severely as to die the following day. This was 
 in 1 86 1, so that the poet passed the remaining twenty years 
 of his life without the dear house-mate ; consoled, however, 
 by his sons and daughters, his children numbering six, 
 four of them girls, of whom one was early taken. All the 
 world remembers the description of 
 
 Grave Alice and laughing Allegra 
 And Edith with golden hair. 
 
 Gradually peace came, and many good books were given 
 to the world after this sorrow, beginning with the " Tales 
 of a Wayside Inn," one of his deserved successes in 
 narrative verse. 
 
Longfellow 189 
 
 There was another European trip in 1868-1869, and 
 then for the remainder of his days, Longfellow led a quietly 
 contented and charming home life at Craigie House, busy 
 with his writings, enlivened by a social circle which was 
 as choice as could be found anywhere in the world, be 
 loved and honored at home and abroad as few men have 
 ever been, and by the time of his death, after a brief 
 illness in 1882, holding a place in the popular regard such 
 as at the moment no other American poet could pretend 
 to approach. Only a few days before, he had, after his 
 kindly fashion, entertained a little party of Boston school 
 boys at his home ; his hold on the children has always 
 been remarkable, and it is pleasant to remember that so 
 near to his end the close relation was symbolized by this 
 incident. Two years before he died, Longfellow Day was 
 established in the Cincinnati public schools, and the move 
 ment has since spread fast and far throughout the land. 
 Such action speaks volumes for the really vital influence 
 of this singer upon his day and his country. His work 
 was but the reflection of a truly good life. There was a 
 double fitness in the epithet, " the white Mr. Longfellow," 
 applied to him by the great Norwegian poet-statesman, 
 Bjornson ; for that life was, indeed, stainless, pure, and 
 high. 
 
 As Longfellow brought out book after book during his 
 long career (and no attempt will here be made to catalogue 
 the writings of so voluminous a man, whose books number 
 some thirty) his reputation grew slowly but steadily ; his 
 approach to fame was not, like Byron s, at a bound, but 
 normal and sure. So late as 1840, when he was thirty-five 
 and had published the prose " Hyperion " and the book 
 of verse "Voices of the Night," as well as several other 
 
1 90 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 volumes, the income from his writings was only $214; 
 but by 1846 it had increased to $1800, and thereafter the 
 gain was constant. By the time he was fifty, his various 
 works were selling handsomely, the poetry, led, it is inter 
 esting to note, by " Hiawatha," of which fifty thousand 
 had been disposed of, out-selling his prose romances by 
 three or four to one. Just as Emerson s natural medium 
 of expression was prose, so was verse that of Longfellow. 
 His European sketches and romances in prose, "Outre 
 Mer," " Hyperion," and his New England story, 
 " Kavanagh," are interesting for beauty of style, purity 
 and warmth of sentiment, and, in the case of the earlier 
 two, for a certain young-man poetry. " Hyperion " has 
 an interest not possessed by the others for its autobio 
 graphical flavor, since it is known to be a veiled history 
 of the poet s own experiences ; and it did a service in 
 opening up to American readers the riches of German 
 romance, of song, story, scenery, and life, all set forth 
 with a fervor at times a little too sentimental for taste 
 to-day. " Hyperion " is a storm and stress document, 
 Longfellow s depiction of the day when he sought the blue 
 flower and found his love. The translations in the book 
 were a foretaste of the many admirable versions of the 
 best poetry in whatever tongue, which, throughout his lit 
 erary career, Longfellow was to give the world, thereby 
 again doing great service in the popularizing and domesti 
 cating of foreign masters. 
 
 But the poetry must receive main attention. Longfellow 
 wrote much verse and in many forms ; his field was a wide 
 one and the growths therein were so various as to seem to 
 embrace every kind of poetic flower. A thoughtful survey 
 of the large body of his works, however, will show that he 
 
Longfellow 191 
 
 was primarily a lyric poet; a singer of songs, an inter 
 preter of the elemental emotions of common humanity, a 
 bard who looked into his own heart and found there the 
 inspiration to speak for others. His charming little poem 
 " The Arrow and the Song " conveys this idea: 
 
 THE ARROW AND THE SONG 
 
 I shot an arrow into the air, 
 It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
 For, so swiftly it flew, the sight 
 Could not follow it in its flight. 
 
 I breathed a song into the air, 
 It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
 For who has sight so keen and strong, 
 That it can follow the flight of song? 
 
 Long, long afterward, in an oak 
 I found the arrow, still unbroke ; 
 And the song, from beginning to end, 
 I found again in the heart of a friend. 
 
 The song reached the friend s heart because it came from 
 Longfellow s own ; and the heart of a fellow human being 
 is a target at which the true poet ever aims. Longfellow 
 never forgot this. A lyric poet is one who is musical, who 
 is charged with personal emotion and with a message of 
 love love human and love spiritual and so reveals 
 himself, instead of hiding behind characters and objective 
 events as does the dramatic or epic poet. But in calling 
 Longfellow thus a lyric poet, I only mean that a large 
 part of his best and most typical work was lyric ; the word 
 is used broadly to include a deal of fine narrative verse, 
 rising at times to the epic quality of " Evangeline " or 
 
192 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 "Hiawatha," and hence not subjective like "The Psalm 
 of Life " or " The Children s Hour." 
 
 For Longfellow was certainly a most effective and 
 admirable narrative poet. He could take a romantic story, 
 like that of " Evangeline," or a picturesque historic epi 
 sode, such as is handled in " The Courtship of Miles 
 Standish," and tell it with a clear charm and a human 
 touch that made it instantly liked : and he could always 
 turn off a capital ballad, witness "The Skeleton in 
 Armour," " The Wreck of the Hesperus," and a score 
 more. We are told that five thousand copies of " Miles 
 Standish " were sold by noon of the first day of its publi 
 cation ; in London ten thousand, this last an extraordi 
 nary fact, hardly to be paralleled in American literature. 
 Longfellow was unique among our poets in the foreign 
 vogue he won ; his work has been more widely copied and 
 translated than that of any other American writer save 
 Mrs. Stowe. 
 
 Dramatic in his work he is not. The threefold dra 
 matic poem, " Christus," of which the central part, " The 
 Golden Legend," is the best, mellow and full of artistic 
 quality as it is, cannot be called the masterpiece it would 
 have been, if Longfellow, like Browning in " The Ring 
 and the Book," had found his full powers in such efforts. 
 The charm of " The Spanish Student " is that of lyric color 
 and sound, of song and picture, rather than of dramatic 
 story. But for idyllic narrative and for that of more epic 
 dignity and proportion, he had a genuine gift. Since it is 
 the tendency of latter-day criticism to refer to Longfellow 
 as a writer of sweet, simple songs and little more, I wish 
 to emphasize this side of his power: the talent for sus 
 tained narrative verse. The poet who is simply derivative, 
 
Longfellow 193 
 
 an ^Eolian harp played upon by every wind that blows, 
 does not show himself a pioneer in themes and forms : 
 Longfellow did just this. He had the poetic instinct to 
 take from Nova Scotia the pensively lovely tale of 
 " Evangeline " and make that dim Acadian folk live again 
 with all the pathos of the loved and lost. And he told the 
 story in the melodious hexameter, practically a new meter 
 for such a purpose, and in so doing constituted himself 
 a bold innovator as to form, and won a success in it 
 which has never been duplicated. The handling of the 
 hexameter in this poem (and it has been harshly criticised 
 from Poe to Matthew Arnold) is on the whole a triumph ; 
 there is no more skillful use of this meter applied to the 
 purpose of real story-telling and not done merely as a 
 scholastic exercise. Goethe, in his " Hermann and Doro 
 thea," an hexameter poem of like idyllic quality, has 
 hardly been more successful. The student is earnestly 
 besought to read " Evangeline " as a whole. 
 
 In the same spirit, he turned later to the Indian for 
 inspiration (as had Cooper so long before) and found 
 another fine native theme, throwing the romantic story 
 of another race, once strong and proud and picturesque 
 and now well-nigh gone, into another untried meter, and 
 again with wonderfully happy results. Everybody now 
 knows that the meter of " Hiawatha " is that of the 
 Finnish epic " Kalevala " ; that Longfellow revived it. 
 But that does not alter the fact that he was successful in 
 daring to introduce this unrhymed form of verse into a 
 language where rhyme (outside of blank verse) was a hard 
 and fast tradition. It is only justice to Longfellow to say 
 that, looking at him as an artist and a force in native 
 letters, these are major achievements ; and their inexpug- 
 
194 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 nable popularity ever since they were introduced seems to 
 me to be an evidence of a sound public instinct for what 
 is really representative. 
 
 In many another narrative as well, heroic or homely, 
 high in theme or lowly, "The Tales of a Wayside Inn" 
 afford a notable example, did Longfellow exhibit this 
 gift of his for story-making. He was eclectic in his 
 subjects, taking them from anywhere and everywhere (as 
 did Shakespeare before him), but the question in such 
 matters is not, Where did you get it? but rather, What 
 have you done with it? In the ballads, where lyric flow 
 and an attractive handling of a simple, often homely 
 measure must combine with a strong human interest, in 
 the telling of some story, Longfellow was happy again and 
 again. "The Wreck of the Hesperus" may be read as 
 typical of many in this class. 
 
 On that side of lyric poetry which is gently meditative 
 or gravely philosophic and full of spiritual message, Long 
 fellow is also famous. His most-quoted pieces fall here, 
 and poems like "A Psalm of Life" have suffered the 
 penalty attaching always to literature which, because of a 
 familiarity beginning in the schoolroom, comes to be hack 
 neyed and parodied. But after all, such a fate is only 
 granted to what has come to stay; it has been said of 
 great men that after they are caricatured their fame is 
 assured. 
 
 In the poems of this kind Longfellow has a tendency 
 which is now regarded as a fault, a tendency, let me 
 add, shared more or less in common by all the older New 
 England bards. I refer to his didacticism, his desire 
 to preach. In that very charming piece, "The Village 
 Blacksmith," for example, the last stanza begins : 
 
Longfellow 195 
 
 Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, 
 
 For the lesson thou hast taught. 
 
 And the poet then goes on to tell what the lesson is and 
 to make, a little heavily, the moral application. Few will 
 deny that in poetical quality the poem suffers; the ethical 
 good of it was all received before the moral tag had been 
 added. And along with this moralizing at the end of a 
 poem, goes a prosaic commonplaceness of expression which 
 injures the verse. The invocatory first line just quoted is 
 not the language of poetry at all. In reply to this criti 
 cism, it may be said that much of Longfellow s hold on 
 the people comes from this frank use of the hortatory and 
 the moralizing; fifty years ago it was not objected to in 
 poetry as it is to-day. At present the readers of verse 
 prefer to get their obvious instruction from the pulpit, and 
 regard the stimulation of their sense of beauty as the main 
 business of poetry. Yet often Longfellow s verse, when 
 such is his aim, takes on a fine dignity and an increased 
 width and depth by reason of this purpose of his to teach 
 and lead. The question finally resolves itself into this : 
 Is the poet while preaching still the poet, that is, musi 
 cal, beautiful in word and form ? If so, the more moralism 
 the better. Prosiness, dullness, and lack of beauty are 
 the three cardinal poetic sins : and Longfellow was never 
 guilty of them all. It is unusual with him to be guilty of 
 any of them. His felicity of phrasing is almost constant, 
 and his capacity for music was so well in hand that it 
 rarely forsook him. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten in looking at the many facets 
 of this poet s jewels, as they variously shine before the 
 reader s eye, that luster after luster is the result of the 
 literary culture of the poet; it is this part of his work, to 
 
196 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 be sure, which now seems to us less original and hence 
 less important. Yet this stimulus often called out Long 
 fellow s full powers. A poem like " The Belfry of Bruges " 
 may stand for an example of the successful handling of a 
 transatlantic motive. Longfellow was as good a sonneteer 
 as we have produced, and in this Italian form, with its 
 definite demands of rhyme arrangement and rhythm and 
 twofold parts, he wrought some of the loveliest of his 
 fancies ; the fine sonnet on Milton is one such, and the 
 really splendid series on the cathedral, that " medieval 
 miracle of stone," furnishes another. The first mentioned 
 may follow : 
 
 MILTON 
 
 I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold 
 How the voluminous billows roll and run, 
 Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun 
 Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled, 
 
 And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold 
 All its loose-flowing garments into one, 
 Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun 
 Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold. 
 
 So in majestic cadence rise and fall 
 The mighty undulations of thy song, 
 O sightless bard, England s Maeonides ! 
 
 And ever and anon, high over all 
 
 Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong, 
 Floods all the soul with its melodious seas. 
 
 It is the scholar-poet again who is to be seen in the 
 " Saga of King Olaf " or in the old miracle play of The 
 Golden Legend " ; but in Longfellow s verse, as indeed in 
 the whole demesne of poetry of the English race, the 
 themes which have inspired to creative effort have been 
 
Longfellow 197 
 
 in large measure historical, legendary, and bookish ; the 
 democratic Muse of Whitman, with its startling homeliness 
 and modernity of subject, does not exclude the possibility 
 of a more cultured appeal. It is a mark of the versatility 
 of Longfellow that he could with such success write both 
 the simple lays dear to the general public and produce 
 the larger scholar-work for the few ; could erect the hum 
 ble wayside shrine and the stately cathedral with its 
 glories of music, decoration, and soaring architectonics. 
 Naturally enough, in the poetic labor of his latest years, 
 the culture themes became more prominent. The titles 
 of late books, like " The Masque of Pandora " and " Kera- 
 mos," illustrate the fact. 
 
 Closely in connection with this cultured and scholarly 
 aspect of Longfellow s poetry is his work as a translator. 
 All things considered, he did more and better work in 
 making English versions from good foreign literature than 
 any other literary man we have produced. His outgiving 
 here was of remarkable range and variety. When well 
 advanced in years he made an English translation of 
 Dante s " Divine Comedy," in many respects admirable ; 
 but from the days of " Outre Mer " and " Hyperion " he 
 was constantly turning song, ballad, and narrative from 
 foreign sources into his own tongue. Some of them, like 
 the vastly popular song " Beware " or the lovely " Song of 
 the Silent Land," both from the German, seem almost as 
 much a part of him and of English literature as his original 
 poems, which is in itself a tremendous compliment. 
 The service to general culture in America thus performed 
 by Longfellow is not likely to be overestimated ; when he 
 began to translate from other languages, the common 
 knowledge of foreign literature which now exists had 
 
198 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 hardly begun ; viewed thus, his work as a translator, 
 though not so demonstrative of his individual talent, is 
 an important side of the good he did as a literary man. 
 Every literary worker knows the immense and thankless 
 difficulty of producing good translations; nothing is rarer 
 than a really conspicuous talent for it. Such a talent 
 Longfellow certainly possessed. 
 
 But when full acknowledgments have been made of 
 Longfellow s powers in these various fields of accomplish 
 ment, it remains true that the great majority of readers 
 persist in loving him for his simple lyrics "some simple 
 and heartfelt lay" which have a homely fashion of 
 creeping into the universal heart : such are "The Day 
 is Done," "The Bridge," "The Old Clock on the Stairs," 
 how the names throng in. Let us have two such, to re 
 read which is, for most of us, to meet old, dear friends. 
 
 THE BRIDGE 
 
 I stood on the bridge at midnight, 
 As the clocks were striking the hour, 
 
 And the moon rose o er the city, 
 Behind the dark church-tower. 
 
 I saw her bright reflection 
 
 In the waters under me, 
 Like a golden goblet falling 
 
 And sinking into the sea. 
 
 And far in the hazy distance 
 
 Of that lovely night in June, 
 The blaze of the flaming furnace 
 
 Gleamed redder than the moon. 
 
Longfellow 199 
 
 Among the long, black rafters 
 
 The wavering shadows lay, 
 And the current that came from the ocean 
 
 Seemed to lift and bear them away; 
 
 As, sweeping and eddying through them, 
 
 Rose the belated tide, 
 And, streaming into the moonlight, 
 
 The seaweed floated wide. 
 
 And like those waters rushing 
 
 Among the wooden piers, 
 A flood of thoughts came o er me^ 
 
 That rilled my eyes with tears. 
 
 How often, oh how often, 
 
 In the days that had gone by, 
 I had stood on that bridge at midnight 
 
 And gazed on that wave and sky ! 
 
 How often, oh how often, 
 
 I had wished that the ebbing tide 
 Would bear me away on its bosom 
 
 O er the ocean wild and wide ! 
 
 For my heart was hot and restless, 
 
 And my life was full of care, 
 And the burden laid upon me 
 
 Seemed greater than I could bear. 
 
 Ifcit now it has fallen from me, 
 
 It is buried in the sea; 
 And only the sorrow of others 
 
 Throws its shadow over me. 
 
 Yet whenever I cross the river 
 
 On its bridge with wooden piers, 
 Like the odor of brine from the ocean 
 
 Comes the thought of other years. 
 
2OO Literary Leaders of America 
 
 And I think how many thousands 
 Of care-encumbered men, 
 
 Each bearing his burden of sorrow, 
 Have crossed the bridge since then. 
 
 I see the long procession 
 Still passing to and fro, 
 
 The young heart hot and restless, 
 And the old subdued and slow! 
 
 And forever and forever, 
 As long as the river flows, 
 
 As long as the heart has passions, 
 As long as life has woes ; 
 
 The moon and its broken reflection 
 And its shadows shall appear, 
 
 As the symbol of love in heaven, 
 And its wavering image here. 
 
 THE DAY IS DONE 
 
 The day is done, and the darkness 
 Falls from the wings of Night, 
 
 As a feather is wafted downward 
 From an eagle in his flight. 
 
 I see the lights of the village 
 
 Gleam through the rain and the mist, 
 And a feeling of sadness comes o er me 
 
 That my soul cannot resist : 
 
 A feeling of sadness and longing 
 
 That is not akin to pain, 
 And resembles sorrow only 
 
 As the mist resembles the rain. 
 
 Come, read to me some poem, 
 Some simple and heartfelt lay, 
 
Longfellow 201 
 
 That shall soothe this restless feeling, 
 And banish the thoughts of day. 
 
 Not from the grand old masters, 
 
 Not from the bards sublime, 
 Whose distant footsteps echo 
 
 Through the corridors of Time. 
 
 For, like strains of martial music, 
 
 Their mighty thoughts suggest 
 Life s endless toil and endeavor ; 
 
 And to-night I long for rest. 
 
 Read from some humbler poet, 
 Whose songs gushed from his heart, 
 
 As showers from the clouds of summer, 
 Or tears from the eyelids start ; 
 
 Who, through long days of labor, 
 
 And nights devoid of ease, 
 Still heard in his soul the music 
 
 Of wonderful melodies. 
 
 Such songs have power to quiet 
 
 The restless pulse of care, 
 And come like the benediction 
 
 That follows after prayer. 
 
 Then read from the treasured volume 
 
 The poem of thy choice, 
 And lend to the rhyme of the poet 
 
 The beauty of thy voice. 
 
 And the night shall be filled with music, 
 And the cares, that infest the day, 
 
 Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
 And as silently steal away. 
 
 In a fine sonnet on Tennyson, Longfellow addressed 
 him as the "sweet historian of the heart"; the line may 
 most aptly be fitted to himself. It is because he does 
 
2O2 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 interpret the best instincts of the emotional life of average 
 men and women with simplicity, felicity, and truth, that 
 he will long be cherished; and it is when he in like man 
 ner interprets the fundamental human needs and aspira 
 tions in the framework of a narrative like "Evangeline" 
 that he performs the same service in his longer poems. 
 There is no particular demerit in making yourself under 
 stood in verse by the so-called general reader, although 
 some very precious messages may be more subtle and 
 more uniquely expressed. If Longfellow is not strikingly 
 original, not dynamically great like Browning, or if the 
 magic touch of a Poe is denied him, the good he did will 
 match either of them. One thing he certainly was : a 
 master in verse, an artist of literary expression. And 
 while conceding that he was not a profound thinker, one 
 may not hesitate to ask if it is the first business of the 
 poet to be a profound thinker; if he have not done his 
 duty when by the charm of form and of music he revivifies 
 what is a common property until it seem new and precious. 
 
 Longfellow, for all his writing days, worked with high 
 purpose and patient toil at his craft. He believed in the 
 poetic function, he took his task seriously. He polished 
 his works as every good workman should; but once it was 
 given to the world, he did not fuss over it nor pother over 
 the minute changes which make life miserable for the 
 editors of some bards. His devotion to his art had in 
 it something of religious consecration. He knew that 
 poetry when it was true to itself had as lofty a mission as 
 any utterance of man. 
 
 When the American who is in London steps into West 
 minster Abbey that splendid mausoleum of the worthy 
 dead of a dominant race nothing in the Poets Corner 
 
Longfellow 203 
 
 thrills him more, if I may here express my own experience, 
 than to behold the marble bust of Longfellow, the only 
 memorial to a maker of American literature in that his 
 toric place. By general consent and the acclaim of two 
 sister peoples he was selected as the bard to represent us 
 there. 
 
 The choice is a significant commentary upon the nature 
 of Longfellow s fame at the time of his death. It did 
 not mean that English critical opinion would necessarily 
 accord to him the laurels in American song. But it did 
 express the feeling that the poet had entered into the 
 general current of literature abroad and become more 
 widely influential than any other American. Hence was 
 his name most fittingly inscribed where men who have 
 used the English speech with power and beauty and to 
 purposes of good are remembered by their own people. 
 Longfellow had become a link in the chain which binds 
 us to our kinsmen across the water; and as, gravely lovely 
 in the sculptured stone, he looks down upon a visitor to 
 the great church so full of reverberations of the mighty 
 past, his lips would seem to say : " Lo, we who make beauty 
 in song and story are the true bringers-in of peace; since 
 all mankind may be knit together by the bond of beautiful 
 words and in the broad brotherhood of noble thoguhts." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 HOLMES 
 
 IT is hard to realize that in the same year, 1809, which 
 gave birth to Poe, who already seems so far back in our 
 literary history, dying as he did before the middle of the 
 nineteenth century, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born, 
 whose slight, alert figure was only yesterday pacing the 
 streets of Boston. 
 
 Dr. Holmes, like Bryant, was an octogenarian and saw 
 with the keenest interest and with none of the old-age 
 conservative horror in change, a veritable revolution in 
 scientific and religious thought, indeed, became himself 
 a spokesman of the new truth. He never grew old, he 
 was eighty years young, as somebody said of him. The 
 work he did in prose and verse took the impress, of the 
 finely mundane quality of his genius and made him|always 
 a man of his time, interpreting with wit and wisdom the 
 meaning of modern social life. ) It was by his sunny gift 
 for social interpretation that he won his large audience 
 and will live. 
 
 Following what may be called the rule of our New 
 England writers, Holmes came of clerical stock, his father 
 being a Congregational minister of Cambridge, Oliver s 
 birthplace. His mother was a Wendell, as the name 
 implies, of Dutch descent, but also deriving from the 
 colonial Bradstreets, thus connecting him with Anne Brad- 
 
 204 
 
Holmes 205 
 
 street, the colonial poetess. The Holmeses settled in 
 Woodstock, Connecticut, in the late seventeenth century, 
 but soon came to Massachusetts. Dr. Holmes (the title is 
 universally used in a sort of affectionate recognition of 
 his gentle autocracy) referred to himself as of the " Brah 
 min caste " of New England ; he was indeed of its best, 
 and well did he maintain its ideal of intellectual cultiva 
 tion and moral worth. 
 
 The peculiar vivacity always characteristic of Holmes, 
 as well as his small stature, seems to have come from his 
 mother, whose diminutive figure and lively manners are 
 described by the biographer. Holmes, after attendance 
 at the Cambridgeport Academy, where his fellow-pupils 
 included Margaret Fuller and R. H. Dana, the novelist of 
 the sea, went to Andover Academy when he was fifteen for 
 his college preparation. It was a matter of course that a 
 Cambridge clergyman should send his boy to Harvard, 
 and thither Wendell dutifully fared in 1825, and four years 
 later was graduated. As a young boy he had evinced a 
 vivid interest in books and begun to rhyme ; the rhyming 
 tendency was in the immediate family, since his father was 
 at least a respectable author in verse. In every college 
 class there is some fellow who has sufficient mastery in 
 metrical writing, if not genuine poetic call, to be elected 
 class poet. There were two such in the Harvard class of 
 29 ; Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Freeman Clarke, 
 and the former was chosen as its representative. In the 
 class, too, was S. F. Smith, author of the famous patriotic 
 hymn, " America " ; but as he did not apparently contest 
 for the position, it would appear that his poetic promise 
 had not been revealed. This class poem by Holmes was 
 the beginning of the long series of verses for all sorts of 
 
206 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 college occasions, which for a generation flowed from the 
 ready pen and readier wit of the genial Doctor. 
 
 A year of law study at the Harvard Law School fol 
 lowed the undergraduate course. When in doubt, try law, 
 might be named as the regular principle of the literary 
 aspirant. But this one year was sufficient to deflect him 
 to the study of medicine, and he passed two years in 
 Boston working at this profession, and then went abroad 
 to carry on his studies, with headquarters in Paris, where 
 he had the advantage of lectures by famous specialists. 
 During the years thus spent he also made trips to Eng 
 land, Germany, and Italy. By 1836 he had his M.D. 
 degree and began to practice in Boston. Young physi 
 cians are not in the habit of doing a large business at 
 once, and Dr. Holmes was no exception ; in fact, his 
 professional success as a practitioner was never a thing to 
 boast of, his laurels being rather those of a teacher and 
 investigator. He became Professor of Anatomy in Dart 
 mouth College in 1839 at the age of thirty, held it for a 
 year, and in 1847 was given the same chair at Harvard, 
 being also elected dean; and here his service covered 
 thirty-five years. His medical papers were of genuine 
 ability and as a teacher he was brilliant. It has been 
 suggested that perhaps the fact that he was a wit and a 
 literary man may have prevented his private practice from 
 growing ; people like a doctor to stick strictly to business, 
 they tolerate a quack before a wag. Holmes made merry 
 over his small practice and declared that the smallest 
 fevers would be gratefully received; but as a college 
 lecturer his humor and happy power of presentation made 
 him vastly popular, and he won the enviable reputation of 
 being the only man who, late in a day of many recitations, 
 
Holmes 207 
 
 could hold the attention of a collegiate audience. In the 
 year he left Dartmouth he married Miss Amelia L. Jackson, 
 and on coming to Boston took up a life full of cultivated 
 social opportunities and a broadening culture. 
 
 The years slipped by, and Holmes was getting well 
 along in years without really showing his hand in litera 
 ture. He was known socially as a wit, raconteur, and 
 general good fellow; he was a clever, graceful, occasional 
 poet; and he was a successful scholar in his chosen field; 
 but, when he was past forty-five years of age, he had no 
 broad literary reputation, nor was he primarily regarded as 
 a man of letters. In 1857 something occurred which 
 changed all this : the Atlantic Monthly had been founded 
 in this year and Lowell had accepted the editorship, and 
 only done so on the condition that Dr. Holmes should 
 be his first contributor. When Holmes was called upon 
 for the contribution, he bethought him of two papers 
 which he had published a quarter of a century before in 
 the New England Magazine. He began to furbish these 
 papers up and to extend them ; during the years 1857 to 
 1858 appeared serially in the Atlantic "The Autocrat of 
 the Breakfast Table"; and the medical lecturer, the local 
 wit, became a literary man of national reputation. Looked 
 back upon, it almost seems like a happy fluke. Dr. 
 Holmes himself declared that Lowell, by urging him to 
 contribute to the Atlantic, woke him "from a kind of liter 
 ary lethargy in which I was half slumbering." 
 
 The remainder of his life was a succession of literary 
 successes, of widening reputation, of larger social contact, 
 and of recognition on all sides and in every way. The 
 trilogy of the Breakfast Table was completed by the 
 "Professor at the Breakfast Table" in 1859 and "The 
 
208 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Poet at the Breakfast Table " in 1872, both of them appear 
 ing in the Atlantic. Two notable pieces of fiction, " Elsie 
 Venner," in 1861, and "The Guardian Angel," in 1867, 
 were also serials in the Atlantic, to which Holmes s crea 
 tive work went first, as a matter of course. He wrote a 
 memoir of Motley in 1878, and the life of Emerson in the 
 "American Men of Letters" series in 1884. "A Mortal 
 Antipathy" dates from 1885, and two delightful old-age 
 books of essays, "Over the Tea-cups" in 1890 (a fourth 
 book to go with the Autocrat series) and " Our Hundred 
 Days in Europe " in 1887, declared that the charm of the 
 essayist was little weakened by the fact that he was past 
 the psalmist s allotment of life. Dr. Holmes visited Eu 
 rope in 1886 and the last-mentioned book was the direct 
 and charming outcome of this experience, while in his Tea 
 cup chats he treated the fact of old age in a charming 
 vein of gentle humor and delicate pathos. He was given 
 the Harvard LL.D. in 1880 and the degree of Doctor of 
 Letters from Cambridge, and D.C.L. from Oxford. His 
 closing years were peaceful, honored and full of a calm en 
 joyment. Not only honor but affection was his in unusual 
 measure. He divided his year between his Beacon Street 
 house in Boston and his beautiful summer residence at Bev 
 erly Farms ; and he passed away in the mid-autumn of 1894. 
 So long had he lived that he was well-nigh the " last leaf 
 upon the tree": Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, and Whittier 
 had gone, the Quaker poet but two years before. His 
 classmates of the famous class of 29, for whose meetings 
 he had written many a sprightly verse, had been reduced 
 until he was almost the sole survivor. The evenings at 
 the famous dinners of the Saturday Club in Boston, 
 when his sparkling wit was relished by a full circle of 
 
Holmes 209 
 
 companion wits, savants, and poets, were very far behind. 
 Holmes clung almost pathetically to life and took a sort of 
 scientific interest in seeing how long by a proper care of his 
 body he could survive ; but after all, deep in his heart he 
 must have been well content to go. 
 
 The versatility of Dr. Holmes is perhaps what one 
 first thinks of in reviewing his work and trying to under 
 stand his place in our literature. To begin with, he was 
 socially a remarkable figure, and his position in Boston for 
 more than a generation, unique. In a sense he seemed its 
 genius loci expressive of what it stood for in the way of 
 social breeding, grace, and distinction. He was a wonder 
 ful talker ; not a formal conversationalist like Alcott, who 
 harangued while the silent circle listened, almost hypno 
 tized by the unceasing flow { but a man who also listened 
 well, who stimulated others, and who made a drawing-room / 
 scintillant with his epigrams, while his bons mots were a 
 part of the best traditions of the famous Puritan city. 
 Holmes made puns, and justified them by their cleverness 
 in itself a real achievement. ) George William Curtis 
 has compared his conversation to a "humming bird supping 
 the one honeyed drop from every flower." It may not 
 have been he who declared that the typical Boston person 
 is the east wind made flesh ; but it should have been, for 
 it sounds like him. His readiness on an occasion was 
 proverbial. At the time when he was delivering the 
 Lowell lectures in a down-town hall in Boston, there was a 
 custodian whose business it was to see to it that the 
 speaker did not run over the allotted time of an hour. 
 The gentle hint he gave was to appear at the end of the 
 hour for the purpose of closing the doors. Dr. Holmes 
 was under full steam in a talk about Walter Scott, and the 
 p 
 
2io Literary Leaders of America 
 
 audience hung on his words. But the hour was up and 
 the guardian came into sight at the rear of the hall. 
 Holmes stopped abruptly, clapped his hands, and vented 
 this impromptu couplet, which, it will be observed, is quite 
 in keeping with the spirit of Sir Walter s poetry upon which 
 he had been dilating : 
 
 Tis time that the portcullis fall ; 
 The warder waits to close the hall. 
 
 The audience saw the point, and burst into laughter and 
 applause. This anecdote, by the way, has never before 
 been in print. 
 
 And this sparkle of talk which Dr. Holmes gave forth 
 with such delightful spontaneity in society, got into his 
 verse and his essays, and particularly into the latter ; he 
 could talk in print as well as in society, I his Autocrat 
 papers were a sort of inspired chat} "What do I mean by 
 the real talkers?" he queries therein; "why, the people 
 with fresh ideas, of course, and plenty of good warm words 
 to dress them in." Holmes had both the ideas and the 
 happy idiom in which to express them. And moreover, 
 Bostonese to the finger-tips, his very sense of humor saved 
 him from what is perhaps that city s subtlest danger : tak 
 ing himself and the town too seriously. To a lady who 
 spoke admiringly to him of his famous definition of Bos 
 ton as the Hub of the Universe, he replied: "And the 
 best of it is, you don t see the joke." "What do you 
 mean ? " " That we believe it," twinkled the doctor. Was 
 there ever a keener satire? There was a frankness about 
 him which showed itself in a kind of naive appreciation of 
 his own powers, entirely harmless and inoffensive. He 
 liked to be told that his poems were beautiful, he liked 
 
Holmes 211 
 
 to read them to admiring listeners. But there was abso 
 lutely nothing of the egoist, in the unpleasant sense, in 
 him. 
 
 (Holmes, then, was a humorist, and no study of Ameri 
 can humor can omit his name. His fun was that of the 
 fine gentleman and appealed equally to the head and the 
 heart. He had wit, that intellectual quality which sees 
 incongruities and expresses them in such apt terms of 
 language that a keen, mental delight follows ; but quite 
 as truly, he had that atmospheric quality of humor which 
 rests upon kindliness, exhibits temperament, and is so 
 close akin to pathos that often the two blend, as does an 
 April day of sun and shower. In the second book of the 
 Autocrat series, wherein the Professor is the speaker, 
 the Story of Iris, embedded like a precious stone in the 
 lighter satire of the book, is a tenderly pathetic love- 
 romance and a fine example of the underlying emotional 
 seriousness of the author, as many of his passages which 
 grapple with some serious topic of the day are of his 
 equally serious intellectual position, 
 
 Dr. Holmes s greatest ambition was to be a poet. Yet 
 his achievements in prose, on the whole, outweigh what 
 he did in verse, familiar and well loved as are certain 
 of his lyrics. He will be longest remembered as an 
 essayist. His writing life may be divided into two parts 
 of which 1857, the year of the founding of the Atlantic, is 
 the line of separation. Before that date he wrote most of 
 his poems, and the best of them ; afterwards came his 
 prose triumphs. Fully one-half of all Dr. Holmes s metri 
 cal writing consisted of that composed for some occasion, 
 a dinner, a birthday, a college reunion, or a funeral, 
 no man of his time had his felicity for such things. But, 
 
212 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 from its very nature, comparatively little of this could 
 remain ; such verse is inevitably so special in its applica 
 tion and so local that it cannot abide. That a few such 
 pieces are still quoted, and to be found in collections, only 
 testifies to Dr. Holmes s exceptional gift in this field. 
 
 But entirely aside from these poems of occasion, 
 Holmes produced a few lyrics which have taken a firm 
 place in popular regard ; and they are of several kinds. 
 One of them is the light verse almost what the French 
 call vers societe of which "The Last Leaf" is an ex 
 quisite and perfect example, with its delicate interplay of 
 pathos and humor, its quaint suggestion of eighteenth- 
 century old-fashioned gentility, like a Watteau picture 
 or a minuet danced in powdered wigs and knee breeches. 
 
 THE LAST LEAF 
 
 I saw him once before, 
 As he passed by the door, 
 
 And again 
 
 The pavement stones resound, 
 As he totters o er the ground 
 
 With his cane. 
 
 They say that in his prime, 
 Ere the pruning-knife of Time 
 
 Cut him down, 
 Not a better man was found 
 By the Crier on his round 
 
 Through the town. 
 
 But now he walks the streets, 
 And he looks at all he meets 
 
 Sad and wan, 
 
 And he shakes his feeble head, 
 That it seems as if he said, 
 
 " They are gone." 
 
Holmes 213 
 
 The mossy marbles rest 
 On the lips that he has prest 
 
 In their bloom, 
 
 And the names he loved to hear 
 Have been carved for many a year 
 
 On the tomb. 
 
 My grandmamma has said 
 Poor old lady, she is dead 
 
 Long ago 
 
 That he had a Roman nose, 
 And his cheek was like a rose 
 
 In the snow ; 
 
 But now his nose is thin, 
 And it rests upon his chin 
 
 Like a staff, 
 
 And a crook is in his back, 
 And a melancholy crack 
 
 In his laugh. 
 
 I know it is a sin 
 For me to sit and grin 
 
 At him here ; 
 
 But the old three-cornered hat, 
 And the breeches, and all that, 
 
 Are so queer ! 
 
 And if I should live to be 
 The last leaf upon the tree 
 
 In the spring, 
 
 Let them smile, as I do now, 
 At the old forsaken bough 
 
 Where I cling. 
 
 That Holmes could, like his fellow-poets of New Eng 
 land, strike a clear and stirring note of patriotism, is well 
 exemplified by " Old Ironsides," one of the lyrics that is 
 
214 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 more effective in influencing public opinion than a legis 
 lative act. 
 
 Holmes also wrote a number of pieces in which he used 
 homely New England subjects, as did Lowell in the " Big- 
 low Papers," and of these none is better known and liked 
 than "The Deacon s Masterpiece," wherein that one-hoss 
 shay, dear to us all from childhood, is limned once and 
 forever. So familiar is this deliciously humorous and 
 characteristic lyric that it hardly needs quoting here. It 
 will be better to give room to a poem in which Dr. Holmes 
 showed that he could rise to a very noble height when 
 writing a serious lyric in the best traditions of English 
 poetry. I refer to "The Chambered Nautilus," perhaps 
 of all his poetry that one which his judicious admirers 
 would choose from the large body of his metrical work. 
 
 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS 
 
 This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, 
 
 Sails the unshadowed main, 
 
 The venturous bark that flings 
 On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings 
 In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, 
 
 And coral reefs lie bare, 
 Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 
 
 Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl ; 
 
 Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 
 
 And every chambered cell, 
 Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell, 
 As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell, 
 
 Before thee lies revealed, 
 Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed ! 
 
 Year after year beheld the silent toil 
 That spread his lustrous coil ; 
 
Holmes 215 
 
 Still, as the spiral grew, 
 He left the past year s dwelling for the new, 
 Stole with soft step its shining archway through, 
 
 Built up its idle door, 
 Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more. 
 
 Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 
 
 Child of the wandering sea, 
 
 Cast from her lap, forlorn ! 
 From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
 Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! 
 
 While on my ear it rings, 
 Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings : 
 
 Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
 
 As the swift seasons roll ! 
 
 Leave thy low- vaulted past ! 
 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 
 Till thou at length art free, 
 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life s unresting sea ! 
 
 Much of his best verse, which is now to be found in the 
 collected editions of his poems, was originally thrown off 
 in connection with the Autocrat papers, and it is one of 
 the pleasant experiences of reading his essays to find some 
 favorite lyric hidden there. In all his verse one may note 
 a certain old-fashioned quality as to meter and manner of 
 phrasing. Holmes always admired Pope, and Pope s 
 influence can be seen in him. The freer movement and 
 the wider lyric utterance of the greatest contemporary 
 poets are not as a rule to be found in his work. Had he 
 left nothing but verse, he would have been regarded as a 
 graceful, charming poet, a few of whose lyrics well deserve 
 to survive ; but not a writer to take his place side by side 
 with Poe and Emerson, or with Longfellow, Whittier, and 
 
216 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Lowell. Neither the range nor the quality of his work, 
 viewed as a whole, would have justified it. As we have 
 said, it is a certain aspect of his prose that has put him 
 where he is. 
 
 For Holmes was an essayist of very high quality, with 
 a distinction all his own ; and without for a moment de 
 preciating his work in other fields, it is here that he has 
 most significance for American literature. ( He was not 
 X\ only a man of wit and elegance but a genuine thinker, too, 
 * dowered with such a gift for statement and illustration 
 that his wisdom seems like wit. , Holmes was, in his Auto 
 crat series, a genuine intellectual leader, letting in upon 
 musty and narrow conventions social, scientific, reli 
 gious, political, or whatever the clear, dry, vivifying 
 sunlight of a fine intellect and a tolerant nature. He 
 pierced the shams of medicine, he heralded the new dis 
 coveries of science in all directions, he pointed out the 
 difference between a real spiritual condition and the dry 
 bones of dogma. And he did it all, not like a sermon, 
 but with infinite good humor and good breeding, with the 
 pleasing manners of a man of the world^ He gave a 
 slight framework of fiction to his Breakfast Table series ; 
 the varied group of men and women around the social 
 board talk in their own persons, yet all the while you 
 feel that the Doctor has simply dramatized his own talk 
 for the purposes of greater liberty in giving his mind. 
 This is the mark of the true essayist. The method of the 
 fictionist is entirely different; his aim is other and the 
 way he attains it. The essayist is a writer who can in 
 dulge in a confidential talk with his reader ; and who can 
 say a wise thing in so light and happy a way that you think 
 you are simply amused when in reality you are set a-think- 
 
Holmes 217 
 
 ing and made broader and better. Dr. Holmes belongs 
 to the race of real essayists (and how very few they are) 
 because upon every page he gives us such a delightful 
 revelation of himself, while he is discussing all the affairs 
 of the universe. 
 
 How pleasantly, for example, does he satirize preten 
 tious half-knowledge in the following familiar passage 
 from the " Autocrat " : 
 
 He? Veneers in first-rate style. The mahogany scales off 
 now and then in spots, and then you see the cheap light stuff. 
 
 I found very fine in conversational information, the other 
 
 day, when we were in company. The talk ran upon mountains. 
 He was wonderfully well acquainted with the leading facts about 
 the Andes, the Apennines, and the Appalachians ; he had noth 
 ing in particular to say about Ararat, Ben Nevis, and various 
 other mountains that were mentioned. By and by some Revolu 
 tionary anecdote came up, and he showed singular familiarity 
 with the lives of the Adamses, and gave many details relating to 
 Major Andrd. A point of Natural History being suggested, he 
 gave an excellent account of the air-bladder of fishes. He was 
 very full upon the subject of agriculture, but retired from the 
 conversation when horticulture was introduced in the discussion. 
 So he seemed well acquainted with the geology of anthracite, but 
 did not pretend to know anything of other kinds of coal. There 
 was something so odd about the extent and limitations of his 
 knowledge, that I suspected all at once what might be the mean 
 ing of it, and waited till I got an opportunity. " Have you seen 
 the New American Cyclopaedia ?" said I. "I have," he re 
 plied; "I received an early copy." "How far does it go?" 
 He turned red and answered, "To Araguay." "Oh," said I 
 to myself, " not quite so far as Ararat ; that is the reason he 
 knew nothing about it; but he must have read all the rest 
 straight through, and, if he can remember what is in this volume 
 until he has read all those that are to come, he will know more 
 than I ever thought he would." 
 
21 8 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Let the Professor, too, speak briefly (but oh, how 
 keenly !) of the two professions of medicine and the min 
 istry. There is to my mind little diminution of the 
 Holmes flavor in the successive volumes of this essay 
 group ; certainly the Professor talks as well and as bril 
 liantly as the Poet, albeit he is a little more serious in his 
 handling of the graver themes. 
 
 "Here, look at medicine. Big wigs, gold-headed canes, 
 Latin prescriptions, shops full of abominations, recipes a yard 
 long, * curing patients by drugging, as sailors bring a wind by 
 whistling, telling lies at a guinea apiece a routine, in short, 
 of giving unfortunate sick people a mess of things either too 
 odious to swallow or too acrid to hold, or, if that were possible, 
 both at once. You don t know what I mean, indignant and 
 not unintelligent country practitioner ? Then you don t know 
 the history of medicine and that is not my fault." . . . 
 
 "The clergy have played the part of the fly-wheel in our 
 modern civilization. They have never suffered it to stop. 
 They have often carried on its movement, when other moving 
 powers failed, by the momentum stored in their vast body. 
 Sometimes, too, they have kept it back by their vis inertia, 
 when its wheels were like to grind the bones of some old 
 canonized error into fertilizers of the soil that yields the bread 
 of life. But the mainspring of the world s onward religious 
 movement is not in them, nor in any body of men, let me tell 
 you. It is the people that makes the clergy, and not the 
 clergy that makes the people. Of course, the profession reacts 
 on its source with variable energy. But there never was a 
 guild of dealers, or a company of craftsmen who did not need 
 sharp looking after." 
 
 The electrically alive modern man is to be discovered 
 in such passages ; indeed, dip into any book of this same 
 series at random, and you will be likely to get an electric 
 charge of thought along the wire of a personality which 
 emits both light and heat. 
 
Holmes 219 
 
 In the order here given, Dr. Holmes produced, as has 
 been said, three pieces of fiction, perhaps best styled 
 psychological romances, with a definite underlying aim. 
 The first and most striking was "Elsie Vernier"; the 
 others are "The Guardian Angel" and "A Mortal Antip 
 athy," all of them published after he was fifty years of age, 
 and the last (decidedly the weakest) when he was nearer 
 eighty than seventy. They were all what is now called 
 "purpose novels," and that purpose to portray under a 
 veil of fiction the workings of heredity. In writing to 
 Harriet Beecher Stowe, he says of "Elsie Vernier" that 
 he wished " to write a story with enough of interest in its 
 characters and incidents to attract a certain amount of 
 popular attention. Under cover of this to stir that mighty 
 question of automatic agency hi its relation to self-deter 
 mination." In thus dealing with the "mysterious border 
 land which lies between physiology and psychology," 
 Holmes trespasses in some sort upon the domain of Haw 
 thorne. In "Elsie Venner" the fact of heredity is por 
 trayed in the powerful pre-natal influence of a snake upon 
 a susceptible girl ; a gruesome theme, full of suggestion 
 and a certain kind of fascination. " The Guardian 
 Angel," in which the inheritance is that of Indian blood, 
 is lighter in its tone and a favorite for its mingled wit and 
 satire. But the medical man, the scientist, is apparent in 
 these books, to the injury of the novelist pure and simple ; 
 hence, interesting and able as they are, they belong in the 
 second class of the author s creative work. 
 
 It is only necessary to add that during his wonderfully 
 active and long life as a writer, Dr. Holmes did a good 
 deal of solid literary criticism, in which his graces of style 
 lighted up the serious and what would have been, in some 
 
220 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 hands, the heavy matter of his theme ; as well as produc 
 ing much special work in the field of his chosen profes 
 sion one paper, that on puerperal fever, being regarded 
 as a valuable addition to medical knowledge. The variety 
 of his talent, the extent of his interests, the polydextrous 
 display of his activity, are thus evidenced. 
 
 No American author makes a more distinct personal 
 impression than Oliver Wendell Holmes; none is more 
 affectionately remembered. Perhaps in the last analysis 
 it is just this personal attitude he bears to his audience 
 that will keep his memory green. The true essayist has 
 always the possibility of entering into this vital relation 
 with his readers. One feels that there is something per 
 sonal, almost private, in such an author s message to one s 
 self, and this is part of his charm. Occasionally a writer 
 seems to have a mission to draw mankind together in the 
 social bond. This service Dr. Holmes performed, and% e 
 think of the genial Autocrat as of a personal friend when 
 we take his name on our lips. To be in literature a friend 
 to countless men and women, beloved whether he be grave 
 or gay, was the good fortune of the Little Man of Boston, 
 who yet occupies so large a place among the New England 
 writers. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 WHITTIER 
 
 ANOTHER New England country boy who became a well- 
 loved singer is John Greenleaf Whittier, of all our bards 
 most appropriately called a poet of the people. Nothing 
 is more striking in the study of our elder men of letters 
 than the frequency with which by sheer force of character 
 and against whatever odds, they came to perform great 
 services and win a noble fame. Thus, in their own per 
 sons, do they express the American idea. 
 
 This leader of literature was of good family, using the 
 phrase in the signification most worth while. His ances 
 tors had dwelt in Eastern Massachusetts a hundred and 
 fifty years when he was born. They were God-fearing, 
 law-abiding, hard-working folk, tillers of the soil who did 
 yeoman service in this homely fashion for the common 
 wealth. His seventeenth-century ancestor, Thomas Whit- 
 tier, was a man of large mental and moral stature, a giant, 
 too, in body, who settled in 1638 in Salisbury, near Ames- 
 bury, Massachusetts, which was later to become the poet s 
 home. In 1647 this elder Whittier removed to Haverhill 
 and hewed the oaken beams for the homestead where John 
 Greenleaf Whittier was born in December of 1807, two 
 years before Poe s birth in Boston, hard by. His mother 
 was a Greenleaf, of a race of farmers, with ancestors of 
 genuine importance ; and the boy seems to have derived 
 
 221 
 
222 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 his most marked traits from her. Indeed, it is worth re 
 marking that in the study of great men again and again 
 one is struck by the fact that the maternal influence 
 what has been quaintly called the spindle side of the 
 house is most potent to form character and shape des 
 tiny. Whittier s mother united strength and sweetness ; 
 she strove for her son s education, she fostered his early 
 literary leanings, she was in close sympathy with the gifted 
 boy, intellectually and in all ways. The father, on the 
 other hand, was a forthright farmer, who desired his son 
 to be a farmer, too. 
 
 Whittier was frail-bodied and the long and busy life he 
 led, though constantly hampered by ill-health, was, no 
 doubt, the result of the care he took of himself, the fact 
 that, unlike men of stronger build, he dared not take risks 
 and abuse his health. 
 
 The Whittier home in the east parish of Haverhill, 
 Massachusetts, can still be visited, for it is preserved as 
 a memorial, with the original furniture and many sou 
 venirs of great interest. Of late it has been injured by 
 fire, but the restoration was speedily effected. The house 
 is picturesquely set in hills and woods and is a fine speci 
 men of the plain, comfortable farmhouse of the better 
 class common to old New England. From its big kitchen, 
 reproduced so charmingly in "Snow-Bound," to the un 
 finished, dark-raftered room in the second story, where the 
 boy Whittier slept, it makes real the early days of the 
 poet as no words can. John took his part in the chores 
 and farm duties, though his health kept him from the 
 heavier work. He loved dogs, horses, and cattle, and 
 got his share of fun, outdoors and in. In his own words, 
 he "found about equal satisfaction in an old rural home, 
 
Whittier 223 
 
 with the shifting panorama of the seasons, in reading a 
 few books within my reach, and dreaming of something 
 wonderful and good somewhere in the future." These 
 few books comprised, of course, the Bible, and it entered 
 into the very blood and bone of Whittier, as all his writ 
 ings show. There was also a due proportion of books 
 dealing with the literature of Quakerdom, for the family 
 had been Quakers since the seventeenth century. 
 
 For schooling, he attended the district school inter 
 mittently, and one of the teachers there put into his hands 
 one day a volume of Burns s poetry and lo ! the world 
 of song was auspiciously opened to him. A wandering 
 ballad-monger (type of the elder times) had recited Burns 
 to him before this, so he was ready for the Scotch people- 
 poet, whom his own work was in many ways to resemble. 
 This district school stood for Whittier s education until he 
 was nineteen; then certain editors of newspapers in neigh 
 boring towns to whose columns Whittier had contributed 
 verses already he was rhyming urged the not too- 
 willing father to send him to the Haverhill academy, and 
 his mother s influence was strong for the idea. So, for two 
 terms, the young man had this chance of higher educa 
 tion, taking a turn at teaching between terms and making 
 slippers at twenty-five cents the pair to help pay expenses. 
 This experience gave him access to a town library, and 
 he eagerly absorbed the best in English literature. This 
 much schooling, meager enough one might say, constituted 
 the formal education of John Greenleaf Whittier. But all 
 his life he was a student, and in manhood he offered 
 an excellent example of the self-made man, doubly appre 
 ciating his opportunities, and with his unconventional 
 sheepskin signed by the wise head-master, Experience. 
 
224 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Meanwhile, in various local newspapers, his verses were 
 steadily appearing. They attracted attention, and Wil 
 liam Lloyd Garrison, who was editing the Philanthropist 
 in Boston, tendered Whittier the editorship, which was ac 
 cepted ; in 1828 a young man only just past his majority, 
 he became editor of another paper, the American Manu 
 facturer, and so began his long, strenuous journalistic life. 
 During the early and mid-years of his manhood Whittier 
 appeared to the world as a newspaper writer, agitator, and 
 politician, rather than a literary man though this seems 
 strange enough now. His interest in the work of the 
 press was always keen, his activity constant and influ 
 ential. The positions he held indicate this. In 1830 
 he conducted the Haverhill Gazette, the next year the 
 New England Review, of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1831 
 again the Gazette; for three years (1837 to 1840) the 
 National Enquirer, and, up to the time that he assisted 
 in starting the Atlantic Monthly in 1857, he had various 
 other newspaper connections in Massachusetts, New York, 
 Philadelphia, and Washington. Whittier s interest in poli 
 tics began early and never ceased. He kept closely in 
 touch with the shifting political conditions, and his voice 
 was ever urgent and eloquent in prose as well as in poetry, 
 for what he deemed the right. In 1831 he was appointed 
 delegate to the Whig National Convention, and two years 
 later was a delegate to the Antislavery National Conven 
 tion. It may be seen from this that when a young man 
 in the twenties he already had taken a stand for the cause 
 which always lay so close to his heart : that of freeing the 
 black slaves. The stormiest incidents in Whittier s life 
 are connected with the slavery agitation, for to be an abo 
 litionist in those days was to have the courage of one s 
 
Whittier 
 
 225 
 
 convictions, and to run the risk, not only of social unpopu 
 larity, but of bodily harm. Other of the great American 
 writers Lowell, to mention one stalwart example did 
 their full share in the movement which led to negro eman 
 cipation. But none of them was so active and entered so 
 dramatically into the struggle as did Whittier. 
 
 Whittier did not believe in agitation and in war for 
 their own sakes. He had the Quaker sympathy for peace. 
 But there was red blood under the Quaker-cut black, and 
 it flamed forth in lyrics which were as potent to influence 
 public opinion as were the enactments of Congress or a 
 President s message. By 1835 we find him being mobbed 
 in Concord, New Hampshire, because of his participation 
 in antislavery meetings, and companionship with an Eng 
 lish abolitionist orator, who was then lecturing in this 
 country. Whittier escaped uninjured, save that he was 
 somewhat lamed and his clothes ruined. Later, at an 
 antislavery convention in Newburyport, he was, as he 
 puts it, " assailed with decayed eggs, sticks, and light mis 
 siles," and again in Philadelphia he was a witness of an 
 other scene of turbulence from the same cause. Men 
 who were living out their principles in this way got some 
 thing into their writings which the recluse scholar and 
 do-nothing doctrinaire can never command. 
 
 While the physically frail Whittier of the indomitable 
 spirit was thus in the thick of the fight, there were changes 
 at the rural home. The father had died, and in 1836 the 
 paternal farm was sold and the family moved to Amesbury, 
 only a few miles away, where a modest house was pur 
 chased. This Amesbury cottage, which was altered and 
 improved from time to time, was the chief residence of the 
 poet for the rest of his days, a period of over half a cen- 
 Q 
 
226 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 tury. He always returned to it with pleasure, and indeed 
 from 1840 was able to live in it for the most part. Much 
 of his editorial and other work for the papers, wherever 
 situated, could be done at home, and this home life with 
 the dear mother and the sainted sister, Elizabeth, one 
 of those angels in the house to glorify the homely things 
 of life, was an ideal one. There is in the Amesbury cot 
 tage, a certain room called the garden room; it gives upon 
 a beautiful, old-fashioned garden, and in it for many years 
 Whittier wrote his best-known poems, stepping through a 
 door into the midst of his flower-bordered walks, if the 
 weather permitted, there, perhaps, to put the last touches 
 upon some lyric, while the birds and flowers of which he 
 wrote sang and bloomed about him. 
 
 There is a touch of pathos in the fact that Whittier 
 remained a bachelor. He was devoted to his women-folks 
 at home, and was by no means a misogynist, touching the 
 sex in general. Indeed, out of his own mouth he stands 
 confessed as an advocate of marriage. He wrote to 
 James T. Fields, his publisher, on the former s marriage : 
 " Bachelor as I am, I congratulate thee on thy escape from 
 single (misery) blessedness. It is the very wisest thing 
 thee ever did. Were I autocrat, I would see to it that 
 every young man over twenty-five, and every young 
 woman over twenty was married without delay. Perhaps, 
 on second thought, it might be well to keep one old maid 
 and one old bachelor in each town, by way of warning, 
 just as the Spartans did their drunken helots." It may 
 be added that all through his life Whittier s friendships 
 with women were many and warm ; he delighted in this 
 companionship and communion. It is believed that there 
 was a touch of romance early in Whittier s life. At a time 
 
Whittier 227 
 
 when he was residing in New York City he met the young 
 Massachusetts poet, Lucy Hooper, and, so runs the ac 
 count, fell in love with her. She died at the age of twenty- 
 four, and the pensively beautiful lyric "Memories," in all 
 probability, has an autobiographic value. None of our 
 poets has treated love with a purer, lovelier idealism than 
 Whittier, and the man s Life history is in consonance with 
 this spirit of his work. 
 
 Whittier s prose works we can afford to ignore in this 
 study of his place as one of the standard American poets. 
 He began to publish his poetry very young, " Moll Pitcher " 
 dating from 1832, when he was twenty-rive. It will be 
 unnecessary to enumerate the long list of his books, but 
 it is of special interest to note that the first general issue 
 of his poems appeared in 1837. This publication would 
 indicate that by this time, when Whittier was a little over 
 thirty, his work was deemed of sufficient importance to 
 thus gather into a distinct collection. From the very 
 start of his poetic career, he acquired the reputation of a 
 newspaper bard. Much of his verse was of the polemic 
 kind, treating of some topic of the moment, fluent and 
 facile, and, hence, also hasty and sometimes careless in 
 its art. He soon gained a popular rather than a critical 
 reputation, for a man may print a great deal of newspaper 
 verse without receiving recognition in the best magazines, 
 or may appear with frequency in the magazines, and yet 
 not be reckoned with by the more serious readers of book 
 poetry. Therefore, with regard to the solid reputation 
 that really counts, Whittier won his way with comparative 
 slowness. A striking proof of all this is given in the fact 
 that his volume entitled "Lays of My Home," published 
 in 1843, when he was nearer forty than thirty years old, 
 
228 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 was the first edition of his works to bring him a financial 
 reward worth mentioning. Up to this time he had no 
 realization of the market value of his wares. Yet, every 
 once in a while, he was writing some fiery lyric like " Mas 
 sachusetts to Virginia," evoked by the Latimer fugitive 
 slave case, or the " Texas : Voice of New England," which 
 came when the country was deeply stirred by the question 
 of the admission, of that republic as a free state. In such 
 volumes as " Lays of My Home," " Voices of Freedom," 
 and " Songs of Labor," many fugitive pieces which, at the 
 time, seemed perhaps newspaper verse and nothing more, 
 have come to be known, loved, and permanently registered 
 amid the poetry of patriotism of our country. 
 
 Up to 1857 Whittier was slowly creeping into an as 
 sured place in letters. Gradually he had been drawn 
 away from the more practical life of editor and agitator 
 and politician, toward literature. Back in 1835 he was a 
 representative from Haverhill in the Massachusetts legis 
 lature ; we positively know that at that period of his 
 career he wished to become a politician and looked for 
 ward to its rewards, giving up that way of life because 
 of his ill-health. His withdrawal to the quiet Amesbury 
 home, congenial as it was, was in part, at least, enforced by 
 his physical condition. Whittier had many of the qualifi 
 cations to make a statesman, and long after he gave up 
 the idea of practical participation in that kind of life, he 
 was consulted by leaders like Charles Sumner as one 
 whose opinion was of the very highest value. In the 
 years just preceding the opening of the war the air was 
 electrically charged, and Whittier s poems touching upon 
 the vital question of the day inevitably increased his repu 
 tation. It was a great day for song ; there was something 
 
Whittier 229 
 
 epical in its very air. Western pioneers marched to lyrics 
 that voiced mighty principles. A man like Whittier could 
 ill be spared from the procession of national progress, for 
 his eye looked far beyond party, and his stern insistence 
 on a high moral principle gave him a power very different 
 from the facile influence of the mere politician. Hence 
 the Boston firm of Ticknor & Fields thought it an excel 
 lent time, in 1856, to bring out a volume in which many 
 of his standard pieces are to be found, "Maud Muller " 
 among them, the authenticity of whose heroine the author 
 always valiantly defended, and such other lyrics as 
 " Burns," "Tauler," " The Barefoot Boy," and "The 
 Kansas Emigrants." Following hard upon this volume 
 came in 1857 a complete edition of his poems called 
 " The Blue and Gold " edition, in the same style which 
 the publishers had just given to Longfellow s works ; and 
 this same year was founded the famous Atlantic Monthly 
 in Boston, still the most dignified, scholarly, and, in the 
 old sense, literary of American periodicals. And Whittier, 
 along with such other leaders as Emerson, Mrs. Stowe, 
 Lowell, Longfellow, Holmes, Prescott, and Motley, re 
 ceived a cordial invitation to become a contributor. This 
 magazine connection gave him a critical rating which be 
 fore he did not possess. It meant a recognition of him 
 by the small number of readers, who, in some sort, 
 guarded the approaches to literature, the awarding of a 
 place long before granted to Whittier by the people at 
 large, who, after all, are in the habit of settling these 
 things for themselves. Most of the poet s finest work for 
 the next ten years went into the Atlantic, and his " The 
 Gift of Tritemius " appeared in the first number. The 
 comparatively liberal pay of the Atlantic for contributions 
 
230 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 placed the poet in easier circumstances; and yet he was 
 hardly released from the very familiar money-pinch until 
 the success of " Snow-Bound" in 1866. Socially, too, the 
 Atlantic contact brought him into delightful relations, and 
 we get pleasant pictures of Whittier as he occasionally 
 dropped into Boston drawing-rooms, soon to return, how 
 ever, to the beloved retreat at Amesbury. 
 
 The appearance of the man was striking. He wore a 
 coat of Quaker cut, his figure was erect and slight, with a 
 notably alert carriage, the eyes brown and wonderfully 
 brilliant, and an effect of serene gravity in his whole per 
 sonality. In his youth he was described by a woman 
 friend as a very handsome, distinguished-looking young 
 man. All his life, indeed, he was a distinguished-looking 
 person. The very year of the Atlantic s initiation brought 
 Whittier heavy sorrow, typical of the tragi-comedy we 
 call life. His mother died at the Amesbury home, and, 
 as he wrote to Sumner the day after, half the motive 
 power of life seemed lost. In one of his best poems, 
 "Telling the Bees," which appeared within a month after 
 her death, one seems to have testimony that sorrow can 
 be translated into beautiful song. When war opened 
 Whittier found plenty of inspiration, as might be expected, 
 in its stirring events. In the middle of the conflict ap 
 peared his book "In War Time," and therein, whether 
 with "Barbara Frietchie" or the rest, may be heard the 
 resonant human note of the patriotic poet doing his share 
 for the country. A year later he had to mourn the death 
 of his favorite sister, Lizzie, dearest of his kin remaining, 
 and there appeared the exquisite lyric "The Vanishers," 
 again a sacred private experience used for purposes of 
 public consolation. When the war ended, Whittier s 
 
Whittier 23 1 
 
 fighting days were over. He could now turn from the 
 stern and stormy utterances of his mid-manhood, and in 
 ripe maturity look back upon his earlier and peacefuller 
 days and write "Snow-Bound," and many another house 
 hold lyric of his country youth. With "Snow-Bound," 
 perhaps the most deservedly popular of all his poems, 
 Whittier became a truly national poet, if he was not be 
 fore. Such verse, homely in subject, happy in feeling, 
 warmly human in sentiment, has both the relish of reality 
 and the delicate idealization of a true poet s vision. Such 
 song has a household virtue. Its success was instant and 
 hearty. Materially, it meant more money than Whittier 
 had ever dreamed he would earn. The first edition of 
 the book netted him ten thousand dollars. Yet this 
 material success came late, when we realize that the 
 poet was now well-nigh sixty years of age. "Snow- 
 Bound" is too long for quotation here, and rather than 
 give extracts from it I would commend its entire reading 
 to the student. It can be universally appreciated, for it 
 is a perfect picture of typical scenes in the homely life of 
 a New England household in the early days. 
 
 For the long remainder of his life, over a quarter of 
 a century, Whittier lived quietly at Amesbury, spending 
 parts of each year at the beautiful country-place of kins 
 folk at Danvers, Massachusetts, and with frequent sum 
 mer sojourns at neighboring coast resorts, until his death 
 in 1892. He produced a succession of volumes contain 
 ing many of his favorite poems from "The Tent on the 
 Beach" in 1867 to "At Sundown," which appeared so 
 late as 1890. He wonderfully retained his lyric gift to 
 the last; like Tennyson, his swan-songs sounded as clear 
 a note as was struck by his lyre when he was in the full 
 
232 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 flush of his powers. Of course, during these latest years 
 honor and fame grew steadily. He was made an over 
 seer of Harvard College in 1858, and later received her 
 degree of LL.D. He was made a trustee of Brown Uni 
 versity. As in the case of all famous men of letters, his 
 acquaintance widened, he was besieged by strangers, and 
 came to know the burden of the autograph collector ; but 
 very lovely and pleasant were his days. His friendships 
 among literary men and women were many, and he awoke 
 everywhere a peculiar love by his presence and his worth. 
 
 In the early summer of 1892 he had gone to Hampton 
 Falls, New Hampshire, but a few miles from Amesbury, 
 to spend several summer weeks. There he was taken ill, 
 and there he died on September 7. The funeral services 
 were held in the Amesbury garden, into which, as he 
 wrote, he had so often looked, where he had so often 
 paced in poetic meditation. In the picturesque Amesbury 
 burying ground, set apart for the use of the Friends, Whit- 
 tier lies beside his kin, the broken circle of "Snow- 
 Bound " reunited in the long sleep. 
 
 When Whittier is called a poet of the people, the 
 phrase is unusually fitting. His interests were the com 
 mon interests of humanity. He did not wrap himself in 
 the trailing garments of poetry in order to hide himself 
 from the common gaze or tread misty regions not habited 
 by the average human being. His verse was always in 
 the best sense practical, vital, direct, and homely. He 
 early elected a great cause as his own and strove for it 
 with his full moral force. In this dispassionate day we 
 can see that he was a partisan, and that there was much 
 to say on the other side of the slavery question. But it 
 is sufficient for the purposes of poetry for a man to feel 
 
Whittier 233 
 
 himself right and to be aware of the fact that he has a 
 spiritual message. The political and patriotic poetry of 
 Whittier is, therefore, one of the most characteristic as 
 pects of his muse. Yet, on the whole, it does not stand 
 for his highest and best. The noble dignity of the 
 " Centennial Hymn " exhibits him at his best in patriotic 
 verse. 
 
 A beautiful side of his power is to be found in his 
 poems of spiritual theme or mood. Of this sort, nothing 
 is more a favorite and deservedly than "The Eternal 
 Goodness," which here follows: 
 
 THE ETERNAL GOODNESS 
 
 friends ! with whom my feet have trod 
 The quiet aisles of prayer, 
 
 Glad witness to your zeal for God 
 And love of man I bear. 
 
 1 trace your lines of argument ; 
 Your logic linked and strong, 
 
 I weigh as one who dreads dissent, 
 And fears a doubt as wrong. 
 
 But still my human hands are weak 
 
 To hold your iron creeds : 
 Against the words ye bid me speak 
 
 My heart within me pleads. 
 
 Who fathoms the Eternal Thought ? 
 
 Who talks of scheme and plan ? 
 The Lord is God ! He needeth not 
 
 The poor device of man. 
 
 I walked with bare, hushed feet the ground 
 
 Ye tread with boldness shod ; 
 I dare not fix with mete and bound 
 
 The love and power of God. 
 
234 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Ye praise His justice ; even such 
 
 His pitying love I deem : 
 Ye seek a king ; I fain would touch 
 
 The robe that hath no seam. 
 
 Ye see the curse which overbroods 
 A world of pain and loss ; 
 
 I hear our Lord s beatitudes 
 And prayer upon the cross. 
 
 More than your schoolmen teach, within 
 
 Myself, alas ! I know : 
 Too dark ye cannot paint the sin, 
 
 Too small the merit show. 
 
 I bow my forehead to the dust, 
 I veil mine eyes for shame, 
 
 And urge, in trembling self-distrust, 
 A prayer without a claim. 
 
 I see the wrong that round me lies, 
 
 I feel the guilt within ; 
 I hear with groan and travail-cries, 
 
 The world confess its sin. 
 
 Yet in the maddening maze of things, 
 And tossed by storm and flood, 
 
 To one fixed trust my spirit clings ; 
 I know that God is good ! 
 
 Not mine to look where cherubim 
 And seraphs may not see, 
 
 But nothing can be good in Him 
 Which evil is in me. 
 
 The wrong that pains my soul below 
 
 I dare not throne above, 
 I know not of His hate, I know 
 
 His goodness and His love. 
 
Whittier 235 
 
 I dimly guess from blessings known 
 
 Of greater out of sight, 
 And, with the chastened Psalmist, own 
 
 His judgments too are right. 
 
 I long for household voices gone, 
 
 For vanished smiles I long, 
 But God hath led my dear ones on, 
 
 And He can do no wrong. 
 
 I know not what the future hath 
 
 Of marvel or surprise, 
 Assured alone that life and death 
 
 His mercy underlies. 
 
 And if my heart and flesh are weak 
 
 To bear an untried pain, 
 The bruised reed He will not break, 
 
 But strengthen and sustain. 
 
 No offering of my own I have, 
 
 Nor works my faith to prove ; 
 I can but give the gifts He gave, 
 
 And plead His love for love. 
 
 And so beside the Silent Sea" 
 
 I wait the muffled oar ; 
 No harm from Him can come to me 
 
 On ocean or on shore. 
 
 I know not where His islands lif t 
 
 Their f ronded palms in air ; 
 I only know I cannot drift 
 
 Beyond His love and care. 
 
 brothers ! if my faith is vain, 
 
 If hopes like these betray, 
 Pray for me that my feet may gain 
 
 The sure and safer way. 
 
236 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 And Thou, O Lord ! by whom are seen 
 Thy creatures as they be, 
 
 Forgive me if too close I lean 
 My human heart on Thee ! 
 
 Of ballads and narrative pieces, of which " Skipper 
 Ireson s Ride, " Maud Muller," and " Barbara Frietchie " 
 are familiar examples, Whittier wrote many, and because 
 of their familiarity it is perhaps less necessary to give 
 them. I prefer to include the poem called " Ichabod," 
 in which he sternly chants of what he considered the 
 moral downfall of Daniel Webster, the result being cer 
 tainly one of his noblest lyrics. 
 
 
 
 ICHABOD 
 
 So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn 
 
 Which once he wore ! 
 The glory from his gray hairs gone 
 
 For evermore ! 
 
 Revile him not, the Tempter hath 
 
 A snare for all ; 
 And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, 
 
 Befit his fall ! 
 
 Oh, dumb be passion s stormy rage, 
 
 When he who might 
 Have lighted up and led his age, 
 
 Falls back in night. 
 
 Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to marl? 
 
 A bright soul driven, 
 Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, 
 
 From hope and heaven ! 
 
Whi trier 237 
 
 Let not the land once proud of him 
 
 Insult him now, 
 Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, 
 
 Dishonored brow. 
 
 But let its humbled sons, instead, 
 
 From sea to lake, 
 A long lament, as for the dead, 
 
 In sadness make. 
 
 Of all we loved and honored, naught 
 
 Save power remains ; 
 A fallen angel s pride of thought, 
 
 Still strong in chains. 
 
 All else is gone ; from those great eyes 
 
 The soul has fled : 
 When faith is lost, when honor dies, 
 
 The man is dead ! 
 
 Then, pay the reverence of old days 
 
 To his dead fame ; 
 Walk backward, with averted gaze, 
 
 And hide the shame ! 
 
 For one more example of the merging of personal sor 
 row in a beautifully tender and simple faith a religious 
 attitude typical of all Whittier s life and literature " The 
 Vanishers " should be read. 
 
 But perhaps there is no division of Whittier s verse 
 where the native characteristics of his genius are better 
 to be seen than in those homely narratives and songs and 
 pictures for which " Snow-Bound " stands a type. There 
 are sundry lesser and hence quotable lyrics which here 
 belong, and at least one of them must be included. 
 
 We may listen finally to that universal favorite, "In 
 School Days," where the delicate implication of auto- 
 
238 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 biographic experience, in the light of what we now know 
 of Whittier s life, lends the needed touch of truth to a 
 pathos which, whether as art or life, goes very deep : 
 
 IN SCHOOL DAYS 
 
 Still sits the schoolhouse by the road, 
 
 A ragged beggar sleeping ; 
 Around it still the sumachs grow, 
 
 And blackberry vines are creeping. 
 
 Within, the master s desk is seen, 
 
 Deep scarred by raps official ; 
 The warping floor, the battered seats, 
 
 The jack-knife s carved initial ; 
 
 The charcoal frescoes on its wall ; 
 
 Its door s worn sill, betraying 
 The feet that, creeping slow to school, 
 
 Went storming out to playing ! 
 
 Long years ago a winter sun 
 
 Shone over it at setting ; 
 Lit up its western window panes, 
 
 And low eaves icy fretting. 
 
 It touched the tangled golden curls, 
 And brown eyes full of grieving, 
 
 Of one who still her steps delayed 
 When all the school were leaving. 
 
 For near her stood the little boy 
 
 Her childish favor singled : 
 His cap pulled low upon a face 
 
 Where pride and shame were mingled. 
 
 Pushing with restless feet the snow 
 To right and left, he lingered ; 
 
 As restlessly her tiny hands 
 
 The blue-checked apron fingered. 
 
Whittier 239 
 
 He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 
 The soft hand s light caressing, 
 
 And heard the tremble of her voice, 
 As if a fault confessing. 
 
 "I m sorry that I spelt the word : 
 
 I hate to go above you, 
 Because," the brown eyes lower fell, 
 
 "Because, you see, I love you I" 
 
 Still memory to a gray-haired man 
 That sweet child face is showing. 
 
 Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 
 Have forty years been growing ! 
 
 He lives to learn, in life s hard school, 
 
 How few who pass above him 
 Lament their triumph and his loss, 
 
 Like her, because they love him. 
 
 It is much for a poet to be beloved as is Whittier ; 
 much for him and much for his country. His place in 
 the native song is far more than an historical thing. It 
 is present and living and potent. His contemporaneous 
 influence was very great ; that part of his work which first 
 gave him prominence has, in the course of years, and with 
 the truer critical discrimination, become subordinate, but 
 his best verse is securer now than ever it was ; is safe in 
 an undying regard. 
 
 Whittier s poetry was no perfect thing. He wrote too 
 hastily and too much. His was a day when technique 
 was less considered. The very facility of his metrical 
 writing was for him a dangerous thing. As a result, a 
 large amount of his verse work has been thrown aside ; 
 with few exceptions that which remains could be improved 
 by compression. But on the other hand he had a native 
 
240 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 gift for lyric utterance ; he was a natural singer, if there 
 ever was one. His finest lyrics are beautiful as works of 
 art as well as spiritual messages, and it is just in this 
 union of moral purpose with the sense of beauty I have 
 said ekewhere that the one rhyme of his poetry is that 
 made by beauty and duty that the true merit of Whittier 
 is to be found, the explanation of his place with the major 
 American singers. He is at once the poet of a section 
 and yet a national poet. 
 
 Moreover he was a man whose character was such that 
 one admires him in his life as much as in his literature. 
 Entirely aside from his literary gifts he was in the full 
 sense a good man whose life was sweet and true and high. 
 His religion was a doing of good, and his sincere love for 
 his fellow-men and his wholesome reverence for righteous 
 ness, together with his natural singing voice, produced a 
 body of literature not to be obscured by any change of 
 literary models nor effaced by the passing of the years. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 LOWELL 
 
 IN his " Representative Men " Emerson treats of Goethe 
 as the beau ideal of the man of letters standing for such 
 an all-round culture and wide contact with the world 
 that the title best describes his varied accomplishment. 
 Lowell, of all our literary men, may be chosen as our 
 representative man of letters ; he was more, and yet less, 
 than if he had been solely poet, essayist, or writer of 
 romance. Scholar, teacher, editor, wit, diplomat, he 
 did many things and did them conspicuously well. And 
 yet, he perhaps might have made a deeper impress upon 
 American literature had he done but the one and with less 
 of versatility, and remained steadfast to a single love. 
 However, the loss in one direction means a gain in the 
 other. James Russell Lowell was a very great citizen 
 besides doing notable work as critic, essayist, and poet. 
 Mr. Aldrich said of him that no American of his day had 
 "so various and admirable gifts." 
 
 Hardly more than round the corner from Longfellow s 
 Craigie House in Cambridge, is another stately residence, 
 a fine old house dating from Revolutionary days, set in 
 ample grounds and with an air about it of dignified, rural 
 retirement. This is Elmwood, the family estate where 
 James Russell Lowell was born, lived, and died. It is 
 refreshing, at a time when so many Americans early and 
 R 241 
 
242 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 late are of necessity homeless nomads, living in flats, 
 moving every other year and striking roots into the soil 
 nowhere, to study the life of a man of letters whose 
 home was that of his forefathers and who, however wide 
 his wanderings, in a sense never left it. 
 
 Elmwood plays an important role in the drama of 
 Lowell s life. The best of his literature was made under 
 its elms or among the books of its library ; and all his 
 days was he set about by books, environed in a culture 
 which only fructified his native power a proof that cul 
 ture is for the strong. "Here I am in my garret," he 
 writes in maturity; "I slept here when I was a little 
 curly-headed boy." 
 
 Like Longfellow and Holmes, and unlike Whittier and 
 Bryant, Lowell is an example of a New Englander of the 
 best blood and breeding, who had the power to take ad 
 vantage of his opportunities and not be swamped by them ; 
 and so finally became one of our leaders in American 
 literature. The roll of his ancestors, immediate and re 
 mote, is rather a formidable one. The Lowell family has 
 for a long time stood high in Massachusetts. The original 
 ancestor was an English merchant who settled there in 
 the early seventeenth century. The city of Lowell was 
 named after the poet s grandfather, who was also known 
 for introducing the manufacture of cotton into this coun 
 try. That famed institution, the Lowell Institute, with its 
 free lecture system, is the benefaction of his first cousin ; 
 his grandfather, John, was a member of the Continental 
 Congress and chief justice in the United States Supreme 
 Court, and it was he who drew up the antislavery clause 
 in the Massachusetts Bill of Rights. His father, Charles, 
 was the long-time pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston, 
 
Lowell 243 
 
 when Unitarianism was fast becoming fashionable. Such 
 a background for a boy seems almost a handicap in the 
 race of life; it suggests the picture of a spindle-legged, 
 big-headed urchin whose expression is doleful because he 
 has so much to live up to. 
 
 But his ancestry does not appear to have worried James 
 Russell Lowell, who was born in 1819, ten years after 
 Whittier and Longfellow, but who in his work and associa 
 tions may be regarded as their contemporary. His mother 
 was of Scotch descent and had in her memory a store of 
 legendary stories of that land of poetry and romance, 
 which, the report runs, " She sang over the cradles of her 
 children and repeated in their school days until poetic 
 lore and feeling were as natural to them as the bodily 
 senses." Indeed, Lowell has stated that he derived both 
 his love of nature and his poetic temperament from her. 
 
 He was a particularly lively, natural, healthy lad, w r ho 
 w r as educated at a private school, where he exhibited 
 plenty of capacity for fun and frolic, and then did the 
 inevitable thing for a fellow of his sort, went to Harvard 
 College. At school he was a good scholar, though no dig, 
 and by the time college days came he is revealed in his 
 " Letters" (edited by his friend and literary executor, 
 Prof. C. E. Norton) as a young man w r ho read a great 
 deal, was decidedly literary in his tastes, had high spirits 
 and a good deal of pride, was shy in a w y ay, but possessed 
 of a plentiful supply of humor, and humor was to be 
 one of Lowell s marked traits as man and writer. He 
 began to develop a love for fine books, books scarce to 
 find and of coveted editions, the estrays and curios of 
 literature. The Elmwood library numbered some four 
 thousand well-chosen volumes and must have been a 
 
244 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 fascinating one to nibble one s way through. His read 
 ing and no man read more omnivorously and to better 
 results of culture was mostly outside of text-books, how 
 ever, for he says he devoured everything but the necessary 
 aids to college progress. Hence, naturally, his college 
 standing was not remarkable ; moreover (the Adam in us 
 will perhaps delight in the fact), the neglect of the cur 
 riculum along with certain mysterious pranks which it is 
 hard to learn of definitely from his biographers, led to 
 rustication at Concord in his senior year ; this, although 
 he was class poet, so that his poem had to be read by 
 another on class day and he returned at commencement 
 in time to take a sheepskin. It is amusing to know that 
 Lowell, for whom Concord, as a haunt and high seat of 
 the Transcendentalists, might be supposed to have attrac 
 tion, did not like that classic spot at all. 
 
 He was nineteen when he took his degree and what so 
 often happens with young men inclined towards letters 
 at sea as to his life-work. Law offered itself as a solution, 
 and at his legal studies at Harvard he went, even going 
 so far as to have an office after the LL.B. was won and, 
 nominally at least, to practice a little. Lowell s legal 
 training can be traced as a definite element in his literary 
 production and certainly added strength to it and so was 
 by no means labor wasted. For four years he was thus a 
 knight of the green bag, in the meanwhile writing maga 
 zine papers and eking out in this way his not over-large 
 income. For his first editorial work he started the Pioneer 
 Magazine in 1843, to which such notables as Mrs. Brown 
 ing, and the Americans, Poe and Hawthorne, contributed, 
 but which nevertheless died young, only three numbers 
 being printed. 
 
Lowell 245 
 
 What was beyond doubt a turning point in his career 
 came in 1844, when he married Maria White, a New Eng 
 land woman of the finest type ; beautiful, cultured, herself 
 a poet, some of whose tender lyrics have survived in the 
 anthologies. She had the instinct of the reformer, with a 
 special interest in the antislavery movement, which was 
 then beginning to be a burning question of the day. 
 Lowell s own fiery championship of the cause of the 
 black man may well have been fanned by her wifely zeal. 
 In any event, he became a frequent contributor to the 
 Antislavery Standard and soon was known as an ardent 
 defender of the faith that was in him, evoking the bitter 
 diatribes of Poe, who, with his hot Southern sympathies, 
 could ill brook the fervor of the New England Abolition 
 ists. Thus Lowell, who in his class-day poem had poked 
 fun at these reformers, became one of them himself, and, 
 like Whittier, found a motive for his early verse in a great 
 moral issue. He had already published a volume of 
 poems, " A Year s Life," in 1841 ; which, however, was in 
 no way significant. But three years later, when he was 
 twenty-five, the publication of a book entitled " Poems," 
 drew attention to a man of genuine voice. The next year 
 he revealed himself as a critic to reckon with in " Con 
 versations on Some of the Old Poets," a volume now 
 precious to lovers of American literature in general and 
 of Lowell in particular. These early years were passed at 
 Elmwood in quiet, fruitful study and meditation in his 
 garden ; indoors and out alike he found stimulus for his 
 prose and verse ; while now and then he flashed forth 
 with a word on slavery which awoke the North ; as where, 
 when feeling ran high over the admission of Texas as a 
 state and the consequent extension of slavery in the 
 
246 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 country, he published "The Present Crisis" a stalwart 
 invocation to truth and right even though men beheld 
 
 Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne. 
 
 And now there began to appear in the Boston Courier in 
 1846, when Lowell was twenty-seven, the first series of 
 papers which have become everywhere known as the 
 "Biglow Papers"; humorous verse which was, much to 
 the author s surprise, to lift him into a prominence un 
 dreamed of and by no means secured by the serious lyric 
 work he had already done. He had written pensive, 
 lovely lyrics like "She Came and Went," "The Change 
 ling," "A Requiem"; and in the year the Biglow series 
 began, had appeared one of his nobler poems of culture 
 and foreign theme, "The Vision of Sir Launfal," a treat 
 ment of the legend of the Holy Grail, having a spiritual 
 breath and beauty of coloring which remind the reader of 
 Tennyson. In this poem occurs the stanza beginning]: 
 
 What is so rare as a day in June, 
 Then, if ever, come perfect days, 
 
 dearly familiar to every lover of American nature and 
 poetry. It was plain enough before that in Lowell 
 America had a bard of gift and great ethical earnestness. 
 But when he conceived and carried out the idea of putting 
 into the mouth of a homely New England farmer, Hosea 
 Biglow, the shrewd rustic wisdom of the countryside, 
 touching the vital questions of the day, local and national, 
 with many comments in the way of introductions and 
 letters by Hosea s parson friend, Wilbur, it was a stroke 
 of genius; and what the author deemed at first a mere 
 newspaper squib, and when it was finished, a jeu d esprit, 
 
Lowell 247 
 
 became the veritable document of a poet and eventually 
 a standard piece of American literature. This is all the 
 more remarkable in that Lowell started the papers with 
 a bit of verse commenting on the sight of an officer in 
 Boston raising a regiment of recruits for the Mexican 
 War, a purely local incident ; verse on other subjects fol 
 lowed, and the collection was published in book form in 
 1848, the second series as a book in 1867, after it had run 
 in the Atlantic during the bellicose years 1862-1866, the 
 poet now having the advantage of the tremendous theme 
 of the Civil War. 
 
 While the "Biglow Papers" are described in a phrase 
 as humorous poetry, they are far more than is perhaps 
 implied by the description ; humor they have, audacious 
 and unique. Lowell possessed a wonderful talent for 
 handling the Yankee dialect; all his life a student of 
 language, who yet possessed popular sympathies and the 
 red blood of a virile personality, he here drew on these 
 resources. He was a pioneer in using for literary pur 
 poses the quaint vernacular of the people. Charles Sum- 
 ner said of the "Biglow Papers" that it was a pity that 
 they were not written in the English language. But we 
 have come in these days to regard it as one of the merits 
 of modern literature that a Lowell early < or a Riley late 
 can let the simple folks speak it means the coming of 
 the democratic spirit into our letters. Lowell s prose 
 introductions to the Biglow series on New England speech 
 are the best deliverances ever made on the subject. 
 
 Both the homely idyllic quality and the canny hard- 
 headedness of the New England democratic type are de- 
 liciously conveyed in these papers by a man who really 
 knew and loved them; and with a mastery of the metrical 
 
248 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 material such as has never been surpassed in the history 
 of American literature. With this control of the poetic 
 medium, went a deep patriotism, a love alike of section 
 and of country, lifting it all to a height of moral earnest 
 ness and power such as to give the verse the dignity of 
 a large vital theme. An extract may follow showing the 
 idyllic aspect of this rural type ; a poem always popular 
 because so richly human, so charmingly true to the un 
 changing elements in humanity. 
 
 THE COURTIN 
 
 God makes sech nights, all white an still 
 
 Fur z you can look or listen, 
 Moonshine an snow on field an hill, 
 
 All silence an all glisten. 
 
 Zekle crep up quite unbeknown 
 An peeked in thru the winder, 
 
 An there sot Huldy all alone, 
 ith no one nigh to hender. 
 
 A fireplace filled the room s one side 
 With half a cord o wood in 
 
 Ther warn t no stoves (tell comfort died) 
 To bake ye to a puddin . 
 
 The wa nut logs shot sparkles out 
 Towards the pootiest, bless her, 
 
 An leetle flames danced all about 
 The chiny on the dresser. 
 
 Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, 
 
 An in amongst em rusted 
 The ole queen s-arm thet gran ther Young 
 
 Fetched back fom Concord busted. 
 
Lowell 249 
 
 The very room, coz she was in, 
 
 Seemed warm f om floor to ceilin , 
 An she looked full ez rosy agin 
 
 Ez the apples she was peelin . 
 
 Twas kin o kingdom come to look 
 
 On sech a blessed cretur, 
 A dogrose blushin to a brook 
 
 Ain t modester nor sweeter. 
 
 He was six foot o 1 man, Ai, 
 
 Clear grit an human natur 1 , 
 None couldn t quicker pitch a ton 
 
 Nor dror a furrer straighter. 
 
 He d sparked it with full twenty gals, "" 
 Hed squired em, danced em, druv em, 
 
 Fust this one, an then thet, by spells 
 All is, he couldn t love em. 
 
 But long o her his veins ould run 
 
 All crinkly like curled maple, 
 The side she breshed felt full o sun 
 
 Ez a south slope in Ap il. 
 
 She thought no v ice hed sech a swing 
 
 Ez hisn in the choir ; 
 My ! when he made Ole Hunderd ring, 
 
 She knowed the Lord was nigher. 
 
 An she d blush scarlit, right in prayer, 
 
 When her new meetin -bunnet 
 Felt somehow thru its crown a pair 
 
 O blue eyes sot upon it. 
 
 Thet night, I tell ye, she looked some! 
 
 She seemed to ve gut a new soul, 
 For she felt sartin-sure he d come, 
 
 Down to her very shoe sole. 
 
250 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 She heered a foot, an knowed it tu, 
 A-raspin on the scraper, 
 
 All ways to once her feelins flew 
 Like sparks in burnt-up paper. 
 
 He kin o 1 itered on the mat, 
 Some doubtfle o the sekle, 
 
 His heart kep goin pity-pat, 
 But hern went pity Zekle. 
 
 An yit she gin her cheer a jerk 
 Ez though she wished him furder, 
 
 An on her apples kep to work, 
 Parin away like murder. 
 
 "You want to see my Pa, I s pose?" 
 " Wai ... no ... I come dasignin 
 
 "To see my Ma? She s sprinklin clo es 
 Agin to-morrer s i nin ." 
 
 To say why gals acts so or so, 
 Or don t ould be persumin ; 
 
 Mebby to mean yes an say no 
 Comes nateral to women. 
 
 He stood a spell on one foot fust, 
 Then stood a spell on t other, 
 
 An on which one he felt the wust 
 He couldn t ha told ye nuther. 
 
 Says he, "I d better call agin :" 
 Says she, "Think likely, Mister :" 
 
 Thet last word pricked him like a pin, 
 An . . . Wai, he up an kist her. 
 
 When Ma bimeby upon em slips, 
 
 Huldy sot pale ez ashes, 
 All kin o smily roun the lips 
 
 An teary roun the lashes. 
 
Lowell 251 
 
 For she was jes the quiet kind 
 
 Whose naturs never vary, 
 Like streams that keep a summer mind 
 
 Snowhid in Jenooary. 
 
 The blood clost roun her heart felt glued 
 
 Too tight for all expressin , 
 Tell mother see how metters stood, 
 
 An gin em both her blessin . 
 
 Then her red come back like the tide 
 
 Down to the Bay o Fundy, 
 An all I know is they was cried 
 
 In meetin come nex Sunday. 
 
 The "Biglow Papers" swept the country; they were 
 quoted and admired in England. Lowell became a power 
 not only in literature but in American life. They con 
 stitute one of the four or five major productions, which, 
 along with a few exquisite short lyrics, complete this poet s 
 claim to a permanent place among American singers. 
 
 Each year of the few years between 1844 and 1850 was 
 an annus mirabilis, a wonderful year with James Rus 
 sell Lowell, for in 1848, the date of the "Biglow Papers," 
 a volume of lyrics, called simply " Poems," was also put 
 into print and strengthened his place as a lyric poet; and 
 still another side of his talent came to light in the " Fable 
 for Critics," in which, with infinitely clever mastery of 
 humorous jingle and a keenly critical yet kindly hitting off 
 of the characteristics of the poets of his day (most of the 
 judgments wonderfully verified by time) Lowell exhibited 
 himself as a critic of importance in verse, even as he was 
 to be in the essay. That he was aware of his own limi 
 tations, as well as those of his brother bards, the following 
 
252 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 estimate of himself shows, and the passage will serve to 
 illustrate the style and meter of this famous production: 
 
 There is Lowell who s striving Parnassus to climb 
 
 With a whole bale of isms tied together with rhyme ; 
 
 He might get on alone, spite of brambles and bowlders, 
 
 But he can t with that bundle he has on his shoulders. 
 
 The top of the hill he will ne er come nigh reaching 
 
 Till he learns the distinction twixt singing and preaching ; 
 
 His lyre has some chords which would ring pretty well, 
 
 But he d rather by half make a drum of the shell, 
 
 And rattle away till he s old as Methusalem 
 
 At the head of a march to the lost New Jerusalem. 
 
 Lowell was now fairly launched. The author of the 
 "Vision of Sir Launfal," " A Fable for Critics," and the 
 " Biglow Papers," to say nothing of the lesser poems, was 
 hereafter a man of assured position with critics and pub 
 lic. His home thrusts against slavery, and later his views 
 on the war and the attitude of a certain class of Ameri 
 cans toward British opinion, had vitally affected public 
 thought. He was not only poet but reformer. 
 
 But a cloud had appeared in the poet scholar s Elm- 
 wood home ; Mrs. Lowell s health was failing. A Euro 
 pean trip in 1851-1852 was undertaken with the hope of 
 benefiting her, but an infant son was lost at Rome, the 
 mother drooped, and when they had returned she died 
 the next year, to leave the husband lonely, with work 
 the best narcotic. In 1855 he lectured before the Lowell 
 Institute, a fit incumbent of the lectureship bearing the 
 family name, with such success that it was natural the 
 appointment to the language professorship at Harvard 
 made vacant by the withdrawal of Longfellow should 
 follow the same year. As a college teacher Lowell was 
 
Lowell 253 
 
 at once unconventional and fascinating ; he ignored tradi 
 tions, made regular note-taking in class an impossibility, 
 and whenever he liked would leave the elected subject, 
 " talking away across country till he felt like stopping," 
 as Barrett Wendell describes it ; or he would gather a 
 few students at his house for a Dante reading which was 
 to be the richest memory of their college life. He held 
 the position over twenty years, but in the end found, as 
 did Longfellow before him, that it checked his creative 
 work "it damped my gunpowder," in his picturesque 
 phrase. But for many years his days were passed in en 
 joyable literary labor and in college duties, with an occa 
 sional outing in Europe and with a domestic life full of 
 charm, breeding, and social leadership. 
 
 In 1857 Lowell married for his second wife Frances 
 Dunlap, who had come into his family as friend and com 
 panion to his first wife. It was a union in every way fit 
 and happy. Lowell united as few men ever do the habits 
 of the scholar and man of the world. He would sit w r hole 
 days among his books in lounging coat and with pipe in 
 mouth, happy that he might make marginal notes, chase 
 a remote clew, and taste the recondite pleasure of the 
 specialist ; yet when he emerged from his chrysalis, he 
 could take the wing in the brilliant social world of such 
 a cultured center as Boston. His studies took him far 
 afield in language and literature ; but instead of an assimi 
 lation barren of fruit, all his debts to others were repaid 
 in the mellow vintage of his own books of essays. After 
 the first creative period in verse, this prose writing be 
 came more prominent and was embodied in four main 
 volumes, the issue of his ripe maturity : " Fireside Trav 
 els," in 1864, "Among My Books," first series 1870, sec- 
 
254 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 ond series 1876, "My Study Windows," 1871, to which 
 may be added two books of political papers and addresses 
 in 1877 and 1888, and two more the year after his death; 
 "Latest Literary Essays and Addresses/ and the delight 
 ful "Old English Dramatists," a Lowell Lecture series in 
 which he returned to a first love and talked of the English 
 writers he had as a young man been fond of in a volume 
 of 1845. These successive books of essays were hailed 
 as the prose work of an American writer of charm and 
 distinction, and are now seen to stand, for wit, wisdom, 
 and beauty of form, as the contribution to essay writing 
 of the greatest of our literary critics. The earlier inter 
 ests of the "Biglow Papers" gradually gave way to the 
 interests, on the one hand, of the scholar, on the other, 
 of the student of affairs social and political, English and 
 American. 
 
 The year of Lowell s second marriage was important 
 for another reason. In the spring of that year he was one 
 of a group of literary men at a dinner given by a Boston 
 publisher, Mr. Phillips; on that occasion the advisability 
 of founding a magazine which should represent the higher 
 American interests, political, social, and literary, was dis 
 cussed. As a result, in the autumn the Atlantic Monthly 
 appeared, with Lowell for the editor, the selection being 
 a compliment which plainly indicated the estimate of him 
 by his confreres in letters, for Emerson, Holmes, Long 
 fellow, and Motley were also present at that dinner, and 
 they and others like Whittier and Mrs. Stowe were secured 
 as helpers. For four years (and at a salary which was 
 trifling compared with what the position would now com 
 mand) Lowell gave the prestige of his name to the conduct- 
 ment of that periodical; and while not an ideal routine 
 
Lowell 255 
 
 editor, made it what it has ever since remained, the 
 best literary magazine in the United States. After leav 
 ing it in 1 86 1, he continued to be closely in touch with it 
 as a contributor; and from 1863 to 1872 he was, with 
 Professor Charles E. Norton, of Harvard, joint editor of 
 the North American Review, which, founded in 1815, was 
 the earliest of the literary periodicals of distinction in this 
 country. Lowell s impress upon American letters was 
 the more marked because of these positions of trust. 
 
 But a third influence, and a potent one, was to come 
 into the career of a man who had already done so much; 
 the influence of politics. Lowell was to be statesman as 
 well as poet, reformer, scholar, teacher, and editor. His 
 frequent European trips had brought him more and more 
 of sympathetic insight into English social life and govern 
 ment, while at the same time his admiration for the British 
 had but deepened his belief in our own institutions and 
 ideals. In 1877 President Hayes honored the nation by 
 appointing Lowell to the Spanish ministry, a post he 
 filled for the years 1877-1880. Up to this time, Lowell 
 had had no thought of public place, nor had his friends 
 for him. The life of the quiet Cambridge professor 
 hardly seemed the proper training for such positions. 
 Mr. Howells gives a humorous account of how, when 
 another high foreign mission w y as suggested to him unoffi 
 cially as a possibility, he showed no interest in it; but 
 plaintively remarked that he should enjoy the use of the 
 library at Madrid. Upon this hint, the Spanish position 
 was tendered. This sounds more like scholar than states 
 man, but Lowell was to become a well-nigh ideal diplo 
 matic representative, as all the world now knows; for 
 upon being transferred to England, in 1880, for five years 
 
256 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 service as minister, to be recalled by Cleveland, he ex 
 hibited at the court of St. James such a union of breeding, 
 grace, and authority as to make him our beau ideal man 
 of letters turned diplomat, one who has perhaps done 
 more to draw together the kinsmen of English speech on 
 both sides of the Atlantic, than any other man we have 
 sent to occupy that high seat of power. From this ex 
 perience came the best of his political essays, and those 
 addresses upon public men or occasions which are models 
 of their kind. 
 
 The English residence brought one change in Lowell 
 (if it was indeed a change), which has awakened contro 
 versy bitter and prolonged ; it has been and is still said 
 that he became less a patriotic American, and learned to 
 put an undue valuation upon English ways and habits 
 a grave charge against the author of the " Biglow Papers." 
 Every student of Lowell must decide the matter for him 
 self, carefully reading the letters, biographies, reminis 
 cences, and all other memorials throwing light upon his 
 career. It is without doubt true that, in what might be 
 called social externals, Lowell s long residence abroad 
 wrought some change in the whilom Cambridge professor ; 
 he became somewhat more careful in his dress, more 
 punctilious in points of etiquette. This was natural 
 enough in view of his manner of living while in England. 
 Lowell also loved the English historic background, he 
 was deeply sympathetic to all its charm of tradition. It 
 may have seemed to an occasional American in the Eng 
 lish capital, that he cared more for the British lion than 
 for the eagle of his native land. Yet again it is a fact, 
 as his maturest political writings show, that with increas 
 ing study he came to see with clear vision the defects and 
 
Lowell 257 
 
 dangers of the democratic idea as it was being worked out 
 in the United States, perhaps in some moods even to 
 mistrust it. On his return to this country to live out his 
 last years, he did not hesitate to express in print his sense 
 of our lacks, and sternly to criticize such political corrup 
 tion as he saw. This brought upon him much abuse. But 
 that Lowell remained in the depth of his nature and to 
 the end, a lover of his country, a true patriot, it is well to 
 believe. 
 
 He who criticizes what he loves for the sake of its bet 
 tering, is not disloyal. My country right or wrong, was 
 not his way of expressing affection. 
 
 Although Lowell s prose was so important in his middle 
 and later life, he never ceased entirely from verse. In 
 deed, the volumes " Under the Willows " and " The Cathe 
 dral," published in 1869, contain, the former, some of his 
 choicest lyrics, and the latter, one of the noblest of his 
 longer pieces, perhaps the finest of his culture poems, 
 save the " Sir Launfal," and illustrative of the way the 
 old-world beauty bore in upon him to stimulate his soul to 
 song. " The Cathedral " is a profoundly thoughtful mod 
 ern poem in depicting the mind of one who is still sensi 
 tive to the beauty of the older faith, while well aware that 
 the dogmas associated with it have passed or are passing ; 
 and who finds peace in a broader belief acceptable to both 
 head and heart. A little earlier, too, in 1865, at the close 
 of the war, the great struggle in which three of Lowell s 
 nephews had fallen, he was called upon to write a poem 
 to be read at Harvard in commemoration of the heroes 
 who had given their lives to the cause ; and the lofty 
 " Commemoration Ode " was the result. This great chant 
 still marks high water for American patriotic poetry. It 
 
258 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 is for us what Tennyson s Duke of Wellington Ode is 
 for England. Lowell was here confronted with a severe 
 test of his poetic powers. He wrote the ode under great 
 pressure, and for that reason the first draft came like a 
 very inspiration; as a whole, the production was uneven, 
 but that part which invocates Lincoln as the first Ameri 
 can, and the splendid burst at the end, beginning, 
 
 Oh Beautiful, my country, 
 
 rise to a height rarely attained even by the major men. 
 As an incentive to a sound patriotism (let alone its value 
 as verse) it should be read by all good Americans at least 
 once a year. It begins with something of academic ele 
 gance; but as it proceeds, it warms, deepens, and quickens 
 as the vital theme takes hold upon the singer. 
 
 The last years of Lowell s long and notable life were 
 passed in the neighborhood of Boston, where his married 
 daughter had a home, and at Elm wood the final two 
 years, when his health was fast declining, entirely at the 
 Cambridge home. It was his habit so long as possible 
 to spend the summers in rural England, and this he did 
 up to 1889, loyal to the end to the American s "other 
 home." His wife died in 1885, and this loss, together 
 with that of other friends and his failing physical condi 
 tion, made these closing years comparatively dark. But 
 to the last he kept his intellectual vigor, his inexhaustible 
 vivacity and wit, and when Lowell s "Letters" appeared 
 after he was gone, a new sense of his remarkable gifts was 
 obtained, those "Letters" being unsurpassed in Ameri 
 can literature. His death occurred at Cambridge in 1891, 
 and how lonely looked Elmwood without its master to the 
 eyes of an old friend, may be learned in a fellow-poet s 
 
Lowell 259 
 
 noble tribute, Thomas Bailey Aldrich s eloquent elegiac 
 entitled "Elmwood," written directly after Lowell s pass 
 ing. 
 
 As we have seen, Lowell the poet did many things. 
 He wrote charmingly of nature and caught not only her 
 outward semblance but her subtle spiritual meaning. He 
 was special poet laureate of June and knew the birds and 
 trees and flowers of his beloved New England as well as 
 Byrant or Whittier. 
 
 One example may be given : 
 
 TO THE DANDELION 
 
 Dear common flower, that grow st beside the way, 
 Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, 
 
 First pledge of blithesome May, 
 
 Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold, 
 
 High-hearted buccaneers, o erjoyed that they 
 An Eldorado in the grass have found, 
 Which not the rich earth s ample round 
 
 May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me 
 
 Than all the prouder summer blooms may be. 
 
 Gold such as thine ne er drew the Spanish prow 
 Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 
 
 Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
 
 Of age, to rob the lover s heart of ease ; 
 
 Tis the Spring s largess, which she scatters now 
 To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 
 Though most hearts never understand 
 
 To take it at God s value, but pass by 
 
 The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 
 
 Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; 
 
 To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 
 The eyes thou givest me 
 
 Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : 
 Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee 
 
260 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Feels a. more summer-like warm ravishment 
 
 In the white lily s breezy tent, 
 His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 
 From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 
 
 Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, 
 Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 
 
 Where, as the breezes pass, 
 The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, 
 
 Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, 
 Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 
 That from the distance sparkle through 
 
 Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 
 
 Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 
 
 My childhood s earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 
 
 The sight of thee calls back the robin s song, 
 Who, from the dark old tree 
 
 Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 
 And I, secure in childish piety, 
 
 Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
 
 With news from heaven, which he could bring 
 Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
 When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. 
 
 How like a prodigal doth nature seem, 
 
 When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! 
 Thou teachest me to deem 
 
 More sacredly of every human heart, 
 Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
 
 Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, 
 
 Did we but pay the love we owe, 
 And with a child s undoubting wisdom look 
 On all these living pages of God s book. 
 
 He could, too, write poems of patriotism in the dialect 
 of the countryman, or in the classic idiom of the " Com- 
 memoratitn Ode." His Muse found inspiration in the 
 
Lowell 261 
 
 old-world lands, in the historical scenes or myths of long 
 ago witness such poems as " Rhcecus," "Columbus," 
 " The Legend of Brittany," " The Vision of Sir Launfal," 
 and " The Cathedral." Or he could voice the homely and 
 domestic sorrows, as in " The Changeling," " A Requiem," 
 " She Came and Went," and other favorites. Thinking 
 of his work in all its range and variety, one feels that it is 
 that of a writer with a genius for poetic expression, who 
 might have done still more had he followed the Muse with 
 absolute devotion, since she is a jealous mistress. 
 Lowell never entirely mastered his material or the poetic 
 medium ; his rhythms are somewhat uncertain, he was 
 careless as to polish, and some of his verse work could 
 easily be bettered technically. He always felt that with 
 fewer distractions he might have rendered a more perfect 
 service to song. It is with this in mind that the lover of 
 American poetry almost begrudges Lowell his brilliant 
 accomplishments in other fields, since they took him from 
 his poetry. But as it is, whatever the inequality of his 
 verse, it has the earmarks of a truly called poet. His gift 
 for expression at its best, for the idiomatic mastery of 
 English speech emotionally surcharged by the imagination, 
 was more original than that of Longfellow or Whittier ; 
 there was more passion and power in his work. Long 
 fellow and Lowell were the closest of friends in life ; one 
 was gentle, sweet, and urbane, the other impetuous, eager, 
 and strong; the contrast in character, which perhaps 
 drew them together, may be seen in their poetic work as 
 well. 
 
 I have already referred to Lowell as our greatest critic. 
 No man has given us literary criticism of such authority, 
 distinction, and charm, so revelatory of a first-class, origi- 
 
262 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 nal mind, perfectly at home alike in its medium of lan 
 guage and in its chosen theme. The scholar is there, the 
 traveler in the literature of all lands and times, but quite 
 as much the man, the American, the lover of garden 
 growths, and of New England s human oddities. Look 
 at a typical volume like " My Study Windows," and notice 
 how Lowell writes, now of Chaucer or Dryden, now of 
 "My Garden Acquaintances," or "A Good Word for 
 Winter." To the very last, he made whatever topic he 
 touched vital with his own rich personality ; in the post 
 humous work on Elizabethan dramatists he fairly bubbles 
 over on every page with the most delightful humor, and 
 deals with a subject likely to be dull enough in most keep 
 ings, with a startlingly unconventional felicity, that at the 
 same time never transcends good taste, and is freighted 
 with more than the wisdom of the schools. In the famous 
 paper "On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners," the 
 legitimate indignation of the American who resents the 
 unfair treatment of those beyond our borders, has never 
 been vented with such wit, satire, and eloquence ; the satire 
 is all the keener because of the fun of it and the perfect 
 temper. It is critical of our defects, too, while apparently 
 bent solely upon criticizing the foreigners. It has a flavor 
 of the soil, a native smack which makes it relishable for 
 ever, an undying piece of American literature. And so 
 with other essays not a few. And in the addresses and 
 political deliverances, like the fine paper on Democracy, 
 one is aware of a powerful mind at work upon large things, 
 at once masculine and happy in its manner of presentation. 
 As a critic, Lowell uses the more old-fashioned method of 
 leisurely discursive handling of his subject, egoistic, desul 
 tory, and delightful, instead of coldly objective and scien- 
 
Lowell 263 
 
 tific, according to the laboratory method of latter-day 
 criticism. But the subjective method, the free giving of 
 personality, when that personality is a Lowell or Holmes, 
 a Charles Lamb or Stevenson, a Howells or Jules Lemaitre, 
 will always be loved by readers, and in the highest degree 
 stimulative. When Lowell tells us about Pope or Dante 
 or Marlowe, we know we are getting a first-hand impres 
 sion, not the application of an impersonal rule; it is 
 better to show a liking in a fascinating way than to ex 
 hibit no end of skill in waving an infallible metewand 
 over literary products. 
 
 James Russell Lowell then, being a great personality, 
 became the most distinctive critic the United States has 
 yet produced, and an essayist of the rank which brings 
 him into favorable comparison with the best in other lands. 
 His reputation since his death has solidified. He is not 
 likely to lose with the coming years. His part was an 
 important one in those days when the Republic was 
 shaken to its foundations, and reshaped to better 
 things. In that remarkable circle of New England 
 thinkers, scholars, and men of letters, he makes the im 
 pression as does no other of astonishingly diverse gifts 
 and powers, and stands forth in his day and generation as 
 America s most finished citizen and man of letters. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHITMAN 
 
 THE most unconventional personality in American liter 
 ature is Walt Whitman, the good gray poet of Camden 
 town. In many ways he is unique both as man and writer. 
 The very fact that he is universally addressed as Walt 
 (rather than as Walter, his full Christian name), is sym 
 bolic of the comradery suggested by his life and work, and 
 carried out in his appearance : the slouch hat, the flannel 
 shirt open at the neck, and general swagger of the man of 
 the road, and spokesman for the Commonalty. His career, 
 picturesque in itself, exhibits strange contrasts ; for he 
 has been in his time at once a literary cult, and the most 
 despised and rejected of all makers of American litera 
 ture ; regarded by many as a fraud or a freak, yet hailed 
 by those in authority both here and abroad as the master 
 of a new message, the apostle of the creed of the common 
 place, and still looked up to by a lusty band of disciples 
 led by John Burroughs, as a literary god and a great origi 
 nal force in modern American life. 
 
 Any estimate of Whitman is upon a less solid basis than 
 that of the leaders already studied ; there is more room 
 for difference of opinion. No one in his senses can ques 
 tion the place of Poe or Hawthorne or Emerson. But in 
 the case of Whitman, his art or lack of art offers fair 
 prey for literary societies to discuss, pro and con, and his 
 
 264 
 
Whitman 265 
 
 theory of Americanism is naturally an object of violent 
 attack and as violent defense with something to say on 
 either side. But it is coming to be generally conceded 
 that Whitman, for good or bad, is a force of real signifi 
 cance in our national development, and the study of our 
 democratic ideals. There is nothing eccentric in group 
 ing him with our literary leaders. 
 
 He was born the same year as Lowell and died a year 
 later, in 1892 ; but what a contrast in other respects! We 
 turn from the quiet culture of Cambridge to a Long Island 
 farm, where Whitman s folk were hard-working descend 
 ants of English and Dutch stock, with a dash of Quaker 
 to gentle it withal. Whitman s father was a carpenter, his 
 mother a Dutch- American girl, Van Velsor by name, a 
 healthy outdoor body much loved of her son, as many 
 references show. She was a "daily and daring" horse 
 back rider, in her younger days. The Whitmans had been 
 Long Island people for some generations; the poet s grand 
 father had carried on his farming with the help of a dozen 
 slaves. This particular branch of the family came from 
 Massachusetts, " the mother hive of the New Englanders 
 of the name," hailing from a seventeenth-century English 
 man who had settled in Weymouth. 
 
 The boy Walt was given only a common-school educa 
 tion, but he seems to have assimilated good literature 
 through the very pores of his skin, and the difficulty in 
 the way of getting hold of good books only made him the 
 more eager for them. He was an out-of-door sort of fel 
 low from the first, and as he himself tells it, along Long 
 Island s seashores " in the presence of outdoor influences, 
 I went over thoroughly the Old and New Testaments, and 
 absorbed . . . Shakespeare, Ossian, the best translated 
 
266 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 versions I could get of Homer, ^Eschylus, Sophocles, the 
 old German Nibelungen, the Ancient Hindoo poems, and 
 one or two other masterpieces, Dante s among them. As 
 it happened, I read the latter mostly in an old wood." 
 
 This is a sort of cross-lots cut to culture. But let it be 
 said here that to read world literature like this outdoors 
 at the most impressionable time of life, is an experience 
 likely never to be matched in its effect. It is only the 
 great writers who can stand the test of outdoor reading ; 
 truth mates with truth there, and the second-class folk 
 shrink to their true dimensions, and have a feeble and 
 hollow sound. One enjoys thinking of the young Walt 
 thus roaming his beloved Paumanok (the Indian name for 
 Long Island) hobnobbing with fishermen and farmers, 
 learning country ways, looking at country sights, and 
 always within reach of the huge old sea he was to chant 
 in more than one strain of power. The " growth stages " 
 of Whitman from infancy to manhood were so identified 
 with Long Island that he declared himself he felt as if he 
 had incorporated it. "I roamed, as boy and man, and 
 have lived in nearly all parts, from Brooklyn to Montauk." 
 He was "in the atmosphere of many wrecks." He speared 
 eels through the ice, gathered sea gulls eggs, dug clams 
 in barefoot freedom, hayed in the sedge meadows. He 
 footed down to Coney Island (when the sound of the 
 name meant segregation) for a sea bath, and then raced 
 over the hard beach, and, naked as he was, declaimed 
 Homer and Shakespeare to the surf and the sea gulls. 
 An unconventional sort of education this, but very likely 
 to produce results once in a while. 
 
 Then he received the impression of a city early, for the 
 family lived in Brooklyn from his fifth to his ninth years ; 
 
Whitman 267 
 
 and Walt was a boy in a lawyer s office, where he got some 
 instruction in handwriting and composition, and had access 
 to a big circulating library, and plunged into the " Ara 
 bian Nights," Walter Scott, and "the fair fields of old 
 romance" in general. Next came an apprenticeship to a 
 printer in a newspaper office, The Long Island Patriot. 
 His family moved back to the Paumanok country when 
 he was along in the teens, and Walt went between town 
 and farm, active in debating societies, fond of the theater, 
 and of the city panoramas as one sees them on ferryboats, 
 from omnibus tops, or in below-ground resorts; but quite 
 as fond of his home, his mother, and the lusty old sea. 
 Then at eighteen he did some school-teaching in Long 
 Island, " boar ding around" the while, and he says this 
 last was one of his best experiences for its revelations of 
 human nature, its glimpses behind the scenes of com 
 mon humanity. The remark is very typical of Whitman, 
 for all his days (until crippled and unable to wander and 
 watch the human passion play), he was a wonderful ob 
 server of life, faring, afoot and free, untrammeled by any 
 of the usual restrictions of society, over the native land he 
 loved, as a kind of inspired reporter and tramp, whose 
 notebook jottings turned out to be poems. He had a 
 passion for life in the mass, in the rough ; the obscure 
 dramas of humanity, as of literature, attracted him most. 
 He has told of the way he haunted ferryboats, knowing 
 all the pilots and loving the bustle, the sight and smell of 
 it, "inimitable, streaming, never-failing, living poems." 
 In the same fashion on the top of a Broadway bus he 
 would chum with the drivers, who spun yarns for him, 
 "the most vivid," he declares ; and watch the human tide 
 go by, riding the whole length of the street by day and 
 
268 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 night. The comradery of Whitman s verse is honest ; it is 
 but the reflection of his life for many years. He tells us 
 too of his theater going and opera going, for music 
 became a passion with him as well as the histrionic art. 
 Whitman, in a characteristic passage of the prose book 
 " Specimen Days " (in which much of his early life is 
 vividly chronicled) sums up three main influences which 
 were formative of his character : the Dutch mother stock 
 along with the English-derived willfulness ; " the combina 
 tion of my Long Island birth spot, seashores, childhood 
 scenes, absorptions, with teeming Brooklyn and New 
 York"; and his experiences in the outbreak of the Civil 
 War. 
 
 From teaching, Whitman turned to newspaper work; 
 by the time he was twenty-one he was publishing a news 
 paper at Huntington, Long Island, and from this up to 
 the war his life was that of a roving printer, writer, and 
 editor ; among his newspaper connections were the Brook 
 lyn Daily Eagle and the New Orleans Daily Crescent. 
 So early as 1849, wnen he was thirty, we see him jour 
 neying leisurely through the West and South, and return 
 ing by the Great Lakes and Canada ; this trip of eight 
 thousand miles, much of it on foot, added to his studies 
 of human nature already made nearer home. No man in 
 the history of American literature entered so vitally and 
 broadly into democratic relations with his fellow Ameri 
 cans as did Walt Whitman ; he mingled with plain men 
 and women everywhere, folk earning their living in many 
 a hand-soiling indoor craft, or getting their bread under 
 the sun and in the rain with the sweat of their brow. He 
 was hail-fellow-well-met with them, and always he jotted 
 down his impressions to be printed eventually in 
 
Whitman 269 
 
 " Specimen Days " or to be incorporated in " Leaves of 
 Grass." Through this part of his life and until well after 
 the war years, Whitman had superb health; he was a 
 hale, rugged young man emanating wholesome good cheer 
 and throwing a good luck ! to every one that passed. 
 
 For some years now Whitman lived in New York and 
 Brooklyn ; a familiar figure on the streets, in the hotels 
 and places of amusement, dropping into Pfaf s Broadway 
 Restaurant for a glass of beer and a talk with the litte"ra- 
 teurs, or at Niblo s to hear Charlotte Cushman or the 
 elder Booth, or going down to Castle Garden to hear 
 Jenny Lind. The theater and opera were a valuable part 
 of Whitman s education ; he testifies that, as boy and 
 young man, he had seen all Shakespeare s dramas, " read 
 ing them carefully the day beforehand." Meanwhile all 
 along he was writing scraps for " Leaves of Grass," his 
 unique magnum opus of poetry; by 1855 he was now 
 thirty-six he began to put it to press himself at the job 
 printing office of friends ; literally printing his own first 
 book, as Kipling did his. Concerning it, he makes this 
 pregnant note : " I had great trouble in leaving out the 
 stock poetical touches " an unconscious self-criticism ! 
 
 The war brought a change, stirring experiences for 
 Whitman. His brother George was an officer in the Fifty- 
 first New York Volunteers, and at news of his being 
 wounded at Fredericksburg, Walt hurried to Virginia ; and 
 then began his several years work as an army nurse. He 
 spent the time between Washington and the Southern 
 battlefields ; visiting the sick, supplying them with food, 
 writing materials, homely comforts of all kinds ; writing 
 home letters to sweethearts whose lovers lay a-dying ; read 
 ing the Bible to one, easing the posture or dressing the 
 
270 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 wound of another, doing God s work as truly as ever 
 did soldier on the tented field. The grim horror and 
 hideousness of war have never been more vividly described 
 than in the graphic etchings of " Specimen Days." But 
 through and under it all surges a great moral principle, 
 an august spectacle of democracy in the throes of a new 
 birth. Two great spectacles he thought the war fur 
 nished : "The general, voluntary, armed upheaval, and 
 the peaceful and harmonious disbanding of the armies in 
 the summer of 1865." 
 
 Whitman s passionate admiration for Lincoln one 
 strong personality going out to another grew with the 
 acquaintance begotten of these years. When the news 
 came of the assassination, the Whitmans were together in 
 Brooklyn. The mother prepared breakfast as usual, the 
 other meals in due course; "but," says Whitman, "not a 
 mouthful was eaten all day by either of us. We each 
 drank half a cup of coffee ; that was all. Little was said. 
 We got every newspaper, morning and evening, and the 
 frequent extras of that period, and passed them silently 
 to each other." The repression, simplicity, immense im 
 plication of dumb anguish in this are very affecting. Walt 
 Whitman was a patriot ; his life and his work were twins 
 out of a well-nigh maternal love for country. 
 
 Whitman s services as an army nurse were recognized 
 by a government clerkship, from which he was removed 
 because an official objected to "Leaves of Grass"; but 
 soon secured another position and was in Uncle Sam s 
 employ in the Interior Department from 1865 to 1874. 
 The strain of the war experiences had sapped his vigorous 
 health, and in 1874 a partial paralysis compelled him to 
 withdraw to Camden, New Jersey, where, with occasional 
 
Whitman 271 
 
 trips to the West and New England, he passed the re 
 mainder of his days, a period of nearly twenty years, 
 for he lived till 1892. During this long season of semi- 
 invalidism, he was steadily putting into his prose and 
 poetry his sense of the elemental effects of his beloved 
 United States and the great dramatic shows of its teeming 
 population. He declared that now, in his crippled condi 
 tion, he appreciated as never before the foot-free life of 
 the river fronts, the plains and the woods, and could chant 
 of them ; he had a pagan relish of the great god Pan. So 
 late as 1879 he went westward to the Rocky Mountains. 
 He lectured now and then on such a theme as Lincoln ; 
 he visited John Burroughs at his home on the Hudson 
 River and once made the trip to Boston, where he went 
 out to Cambridge to call on Longfellow and to Concord to 
 see Emerson. Much as Whitman scorned in his own 
 work the traditional artistic restraints of poetry, he had a 
 sincere appreciation of the work of the major New Eng 
 land poets, like Longfellow, Whittier, and Byrant, and to 
 Emerson he was of course drawn by bonds of gratitude 
 as well as of admiration. 
 
 Whitman lived in the plainest fashion in a humble little 
 house in Camden, where he was often visited by admirers 
 and notables. When, with increasing infirmity, he could 
 not use his limbs, he was wheeled into the sun and air by 
 an attendant and so was to the last a man of the open. 
 The returns from his books, never large, were insufficient 
 to maintain him, and he was helped during his last years 
 by the free-will offerings of friends on both sides of the 
 Atlantic ; for, as has been said, Whitman has never 
 lacked admirers ardent to the point of bigotry. Since his 
 death a Walt Whitman Fellowship has been established 
 
272 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 for the express purpose of spreading an appreciation of 
 him and his works. 
 
 The poet drew the design for his tomb, which may be 
 seen at Camden ; a massive, simple, rough-hewn stone 
 affair set into a hillside in the midst of a wood. Whitman 
 had lived to be nearly seventy-three and his appearance 
 had long been patriarchal. The title of " the good gray 
 poet," given by one of his warmest friends and defenders, 
 W. D. O Conner, refers to the fact that his hair turned 
 early. 
 
 Any review of Whitman s life begets both admiration 
 and affection for him. Unconventional as he was, dis 
 reputably bohemian as his habits and associates may seem 
 to those who pay close heed to social laws, Whitman 
 makes the impression of an utterly wholesome, robust, 
 large-natured man of noble character. The invariable 
 personal effect of him was one of sweet cleanliness and 
 fine manhood. I remember hearing Mr. F. B. Sanborn 
 of Concord say that he never received from any man such 
 a sense of the radiated magnetism of essential health and 
 goodness as from Whitman. It is important to realize 
 this of Whitman the man, since so much in Whitman the 
 writer might mislead the reader to another conclusion. 
 
 Whitman s writings began with the famous little thin, 
 quarto anonymous edition of "Leaves of Grass," poorly 
 printed by the author in 1855 ; it was quite unattractive 
 in style, but had a good steel engraving of the poet for 
 frontispiece, showing him in the now familiar neglige". It 
 was put on sale in Brooklyn and New York and not a copy 
 sold, the two bookstores that had copies finally requesting 
 that they be removed. The only attention the book drew 
 was that of ridicule. Then a conspicuous example of 
 
Whitman 273 
 
 the value of a word in time Emerson wrote the author a 
 brief letter in which he praised the curious book, and 
 before long the edition was sold out. Whitman s feeling 
 for Emerson can be imagined. The chief work of Whit 
 man s literary life was to prepare the successive, aug 
 mented editions of "Leaves of Grass," which appeared 
 from time to time up to 1882. His prose works, of im 
 mense autobiographic value for the light they threw on 
 his poetry and his aims and ideals, appeared from 1865 to 
 1888 under the titles " Drum Taps," " Democratic Vistas," 
 " Memoranda during the War," " Specimen Days and 
 Collect," and " November Boughs." His complete works 
 may now be had in two large, handsome, illustrated vol 
 umes, one each for the prose and poetry, published by 
 Small, Maynard & Company of Boston. 
 
 Whitman s works have never sold largely among gen 
 eral readers. His appeal has been to the thoughtful few, 
 his backing has been that of quality rather than that of 
 quantity. From the start, he won choice critical approval 
 and that approval has slowly spread, until now, a decade 
 after his death, it is safe to say that, whatever one s pri 
 vate opinion may be of him, his works will be placed in 
 every well-regulated library as a recognized part of Ameri 
 can literature. His message was so unique and his man 
 ner of giving it so bizarre, that even among critics there 
 are not a few who never entirely accepted him ; some, 
 indeed, who never accepted him at all. Up to his death 
 and for years before it, leading magazines to which he 
 would have been glad to contribute would have none of 
 his verse. In this sense he was never a popular poet. 
 Yet, to counterbalance this, he affected such Englishmen 
 as Symonds, Rossetti, Swinburne, and Stevenson to 
 T 
 
274 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 mention only a few in such wise that he came as a 
 revelation, which led them in some instances to recon 
 struct their lives. In fact, there was a Walt Whitman 
 cult in England long before there was any general Ameri 
 can appreciation of him. No doubt his cause has been 
 somewhat injured by the excesses of indiscriminate adu 
 lation on the part of his self-elected disciples. The 
 Whitmanite dyed in the bone is a little inclined to be 
 obstreperous, to have a chip on his shoulder. 
 
 The first question to ask is, What was he trying to do ? 
 Next, How did he do it? As to to his intention, he himself 
 has told us of it : "The theory of my Leaves of Grass 
 is, to thoroughly possess the mind, memory, cognizance 
 of the author himself, with everything beforehand a full 
 armory of concrete actualities, observations, humanity, 
 past poems, ballads, facts, technique, war and peace, 
 politics, north and south, east and west, nothing too large 
 or too small, the sciences as far as possible and above 
 all America and the present after and out of which the 
 subject of the poem, long or short, has been invariably 
 turned over to his Emotionality, even Personality, to be 
 shaped thence ; and emerges strictly therefrom, with all 
 its merits and demerits on its head. Every page of my 
 attempt at poetic utterance, therefore, smacks of the living 
 physical identity, date, environment, individuality, prob 
 ably beyond anything known, and in style often offensive 
 to the conventions." 
 
 This may not seem over-plain in meaning. In other 
 words, Whitman believed it worth while to sing of 
 the life, physical, mental, and moral, of an individual 
 (himself, because he knew no other entity so well), set hi 
 the environment of these United States, with a greater 
 
^Whitman 275 
 
 frankness and fullness than had ever been attempted. 
 The value of this should be a complete human document 
 and a revivified sense of what our splendid democratic 
 experiment in the new world really meant for the present 
 and the future. Surely this is a bold ambition and one 
 of large conception, implying an innovator, a man of strik 
 ing force of character. As an inevitable condition, his 
 purpose involves an intense egoism, not egotism. Hear 
 the first utterance in "Leaves of Grass": 
 
 ONE S-SELF I SING 
 
 One s-self I sing, a simple separate person, 
 
 Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. 
 
 Of Physiology from top to toe I sing, 
 
 Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone, is worthy for the 
 
 Muse say the Form complete is worthier far, 
 The Female equally with the Male I sing. 
 
 Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, 
 
 Cheerful, for freest action formed under the laws divine, 
 
 The Modern Man I sing. 
 
 Whitman, then, had a message, and a remarkable one. 
 He had intense convictions (always the bed rock of great 
 poetry), and an adamantine courage in carrying them 
 through, such as would be admirable even in the case of 
 failure. By what method, now, did he seek to gain his 
 end? Whitman conceived that, his Evangel being unique, 
 his form also should be unique. Therefore, deliberately 
 and of set purpose, he turned his back on the traditional 
 forms of the art of poetry, and threw his utterances into 
 a loose, irregular, rhymeless, and largely meter-less style 
 of dithyrambic verse, which to one trained in the conven- 
 
276 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 tions of English poetry is puzzling and sometimes mad 
 dening. He eschewed such time-honored devices as 
 rhyme and definite meter ; he violated fundamentally the 
 long-accepted idea that poetry in depicting life should 
 select from its raw material such matter as is digestible, 
 rejecting that which is not suitable for the purposes of art. 
 Whitman, contrariwise, holding to the theory that the 
 natural function of the body and the most material evi 
 dences of our hustling civilization are as precious and as 
 significant as anything else, excluded nothing from his 
 poetic survey ; and hence catalogued ad infinitum. He 
 never realized that for the purposes of art, the half is more 
 than the whole. Hence, to some at least, a large part of 
 his work is flat, stale, and unprofitable, drearily com 
 monplace and tedious. Those who accept this aspect of 
 his writing either must take the position that the tradi 
 tional theory of English poetry is all wrong ; or else claim 
 that Whitman is a great thinker and reformer rather than 
 a poet in the sense that word is generally used. 
 
 As a brief example, out of hundreds, of the way in 
 which this man violates the poetic principles, take this, 
 chosen almost at random from " Drum Taps " : 
 
 I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet wound, 
 Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sicken 
 ing, so offensive, 
 
 While the attendant stands behind aside me, holding the tray and 
 pail. 
 
 I submit that this is not the language of poetry nor is it 
 the suitable treatment of a subject which in itself might 
 be capable of poetic handling. There is a failure here 
 both in method and in tools. If the whole poem from 
 
Whitman 277 
 
 which it is taken, " The Wound Dresser," shall be read, 
 the point will be still plainer. Passages like this have lost 
 Whitman thousands of good, honest readers who are not 
 aware that embedded in " Leaves of Grass " there is much 
 truly great poetry. Repelled and disgusted by such an 
 extract, they look no farther. 
 
 Connected with this idea of Whitman s failure properly 
 to exercise the selective instinct of art, is to many an 
 offense not only against esthetics, but against morals. 
 \Vhitman violates taste, but, it is added, he also hymns 
 animality. It has been wittily said of " Leaves of Grass " 
 that it contains every kind of leaf except the fig leaf. For 
 myself, the sin is one of esthetics, not a spiritual mis 
 doing ; for nobody can read Walt Whitman in his whole 
 range without feeling that his purpose is high ; it is his 
 intention to laud the body because it is glorious, and con 
 versely to attack the medieval notion that the body is 
 vile. Still, he is wrong, in a way, it seems to me. The 
 body is wonderful to the physiologist, to the sculptor, and 
 to the thinker who regards it as the vessel which houses 
 the spirit. But neither Whitman nor another will ever 
 convince sane humanity that an animal function in itself 
 is on the same plane for the purposes of creative and 
 imaginative representation as those higher functions 
 which belong to the mental and moral natures. Rela 
 tive to the higher, the manifestations of the flesh are 
 precious ; but after all, they do link us with the lower 
 orders, with the beast side of life. Whitman was so des 
 perately anxious to do justice to the body and to depict 
 everything, that he lost his sense of proportion. The 
 body is good, yes ; but he is mistaken in calling " the 
 scent of the armpits aroma diviner than prayer." This 
 
278 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 criticism is simply common sense. Immoral, in the true 
 sense, Whitman is not. And often, I hasten to add, he is 
 superb in his Homeric exaltation of the flesh ; listen to 
 the following as an example of the better side of such 
 treatment : 
 
 If anything is sacred the human body is sacred, and the glory 
 and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted, 
 
 And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-nbered body is more 
 beautiful than the most beautiful face. 
 
 Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body ? or 
 the fool that corrupted her own live body? 
 
 For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal them 
 selves. 
 
 Whitman has still other very grave faults of style. With 
 an extraordinary power for imaginative expression, his 
 language is often grotesque, disjointed, and vulgar. He 
 has a curious way of interlining his diction with foreign 
 coinages French, Spanish, or whatever such as "cele- 
 bres," "melange," "Americanos," "camerades," "ma 
 femme," "presidentiads"; and of using words borrowed 
 from the sciences or philosophies, like "eidolons," "philo- 
 sophs," and many more. At times his rhetoric is a wild 
 farrago of dissimilar elements more s the pity, when he 
 was capable of such really simple, fit, noble creative 
 speech. Rarely did his diction have that organic har 
 mony which is one of the final tests of style, of the 
 "grand manner" of Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Yet, Whitman is a great poet in spite of a wrong 
 theory of technique, of an uncertain style and of many 
 sins against taste and art. He has both vision and voice ; 
 poetic conceptions that are grand and high and a master- 
 
Whitman 279 
 
 ful gift of imaginative utterance. He is a great poet in 
 spite of his lack of art, not because of it. Sidney Lanier, 
 an artist to his finger-tips, declared that Whitman was 
 " Poetry s butcher. Huge raw collops slashed from the 
 rump of poetry and never mind gristle, is what Whitman 
 feeds our souls with." This is hardly putting it too 
 strong. No man perhaps in the poetic history of the 
 race needs editing to be appreciated so much as Walt 
 Whitman. 
 
 He is a poet of epithets, phrases, and lines ; of places 
 and passages, of brief inspirations. Very rarely was his 
 flight steady ; in the midst of a prosaic list of items a 
 sudden figure or phrase may lift the reader to the very 
 heights or, carried on eagles wings, you may as sud 
 denly be dumped on a dung heap. It is in short pieces 
 that he may best be approached by those seeking his 
 acquaintance. We may illustrate ; here is a glimpsed war- 
 picture. (All quotations are referred to the Small, May- 
 nard edition of "Leaves of Grass," complete in one volume. 
 The prose selection is from the prose volume in the same 
 edition.) 
 
 BY THE BIVOUAC S FITFUL FLAME 
 
 By the bivouac s fitful flame, 
 
 A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow 
 but first I note, 
 
 The tents of the sleeping army, the fields and woods dim out 
 line, 
 
 The darkness lit by spots of kindled fire, the silence, 
 
 Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving, 
 
 The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be 
 stealthily watching me,) 
 
 While wind in procession thoughts, tender and wondrous 
 thoughts, 
 
280 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Of life and death, of home and the past and loved, and of those 
 
 that are far away ; 
 
 A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground, 
 By the bivouac s fitful flame. 
 
 Take this bit, which expresses, despite the somewhat 
 prosy manner of it, his deep love for Nature here set in 
 contrast with the f ussiness of lecture-room science : 
 
 WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN D ASTRONOMER 
 
 When I heard the learn d astronomer, 
 
 When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, 
 
 When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and 
 
 measure them, 
 When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much 
 
 applause in the lecture room, 
 How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, 
 Till rising and gliding out I wander d off by myself, 
 In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time, 
 Look d up in perfect silence at the stars. 
 
 At least one example must be given of his sense of 
 primitive man in America, the fine though unequal poem 
 on the Pioneers. 
 
 PIONEERS! O PIONEERS! 
 
 Come, my tan-faced children, 
 Follow well in order, get your weapons ready, 
 Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 For we cannot tarry here, 
 
 We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, 
 We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, 
 
 Pioneers! O pioneers! 
 
Whitman 281 
 
 O you youths, Western youths, 
 
 So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, 
 Plain I see you, Western youths, see you tramping with the fore 
 most, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 Have the elder races halted ? 
 Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond 
 
 the seas? 
 We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 All the past we leave behind, 
 
 We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, 
 Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, 
 
 Pioneers! O pioneers! 
 
 We detachments steady throwing 
 
 Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, 
 Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown 
 ways, 
 
 Pioneers! O pioneers! 
 
 We primeval forests felling, 
 We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines 
 
 within, 
 We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 Colorado men are we, 
 From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high 
 
 plateaus, 
 From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 From Nebraska, from Arkansas, 
 Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental 
 
 blood intervein d, 
 All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the 
 
 Northern, 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
282 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 O resistless restless race ! 
 O beloved race in all ! O my breast aches with tender love for 
 
 all! 
 O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 Raise the mighty mother mistress, 
 Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, 
 
 (bend your heads all,) 
 Raise the fang d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, 
 
 weapon d mistress, 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 See my children, resolute children, 
 
 By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or falter, 
 Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us urging, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 On and on the compact ranks, 
 With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead 
 
 quickly fill d, 
 Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never 
 
 stopping, 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 O to die advancing on ! 
 
 Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? 
 Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill d, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 All the pulses of the world, 
 
 Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat, 
 Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us, 
 
 Pioneers ! pioneers ! 
 
 Life s involv d and varied pageants, 
 All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, 
 All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their 
 slaves, 
 
 Pioneers ! pioneers ! 
 
 All the hapless silent lovers, 
 
 All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, 
 All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
Whitman 283 
 
 I too with my soul and body, 
 
 We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, 
 Through these shores amid the shadows, with the apparitions 
 pressing, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 Lo, the darting bowling orb ! 
 Lo, the brother orbs around, all the clustering suns and 
 
 planets, 
 All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 These are of us, they are with us, 
 All for primal needed work, while the followers there in 
 
 embryo wait behind, 
 We to-day s procession heading, we the route for travel 
 
 clearing, 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 you daughters of the West ! 
 you young and elder daughters ! O you mothers and you 
 
 wives ! 
 Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 Minstrels latent on the prairies ! 
 (Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have done 
 
 your work,) 
 Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp 
 
 amid us, 
 Pioneers ! pioneers ! 
 
 Not for delectations sweet, 
 Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the 
 
 studious, 
 Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
 Do the f casters gluttonous feast? 
 Do the corpulent sleepers sleep ? have they lock d and bolted 
 
 doors ? 
 Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers ! 
 
284 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Has the night descended? 
 
 Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged nod 
 ding on our way ? 
 Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause oblivious, 
 
 Pioneers! O pioneers! 
 
 Till with sound of trumpet, 
 Far, far off the daybreak call hark ! how loud and clear I hear 
 
 it wind, 
 Swift ! to the head of the army ! swift ! spring to your places, 
 
 Pioneers ! O pioneers I 
 
 How pathetic and impressive is this old-age defiance, 
 which he flung out when the ship of life was already strain 
 ing at her anchor : 
 
 OLD AGE S SHIP & CRAFTY DEATH S 
 
 From east and west across the horizon s edge, 
 
 Two mighty masterful vessels sailers steal upon us : 
 
 But we ll make race a-time upon the seas a battle-contest yet 
 
 bear lively there! 
 
 (Our joys of strife and derring-do to the last !) 
 Put on the old ship all her power to-day! 
 Crowd topsail, topgallant and royal studding-sails, 
 Out challenge and defiance flags and flaunting pennants added, 
 As we take to the open take to the deepest, freest waters. 
 
 In two of his long poems before all others is Whitman, 
 in my opinion, steadily a great poet ; having an adequate 
 subject, and using it to the noblest results of song. One 
 is the Thrush Chant, "Out of the Cradle Endlessly 
 Rocking," in which his power in nature description along 
 with his strong, deep love, which includes all lesser living 
 things like birds, is sweepingly and piercingly conveyed ; 
 the other, the great patriotic chant on Lincoln, his idol 
 
Whitman 285 
 
 among men (the hero of " Captain, O My Captain "), 
 which must take its place as a threnody in American 
 poetry along with Lowell s " Commemoration Ode." 
 
 MEMORIES OF PRESIDENT, LINCOLN 
 
 WHEN LILACS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOM D 
 
 When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom d, 
 
 And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night, 
 
 I mourn d, and yet shall mourn with ever returning spring. 
 
 Ever returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring, 
 Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west, 
 And thought of him I love. 
 
 O powerful western fallen star! 
 
 O shades of night O moody, tearful night ! 
 
 O great star disappeared O the black murk that hides the star! 
 
 O cruel hands that hold me powerless O helpless soul of me! 
 
 O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul. 
 
 3 
 
 In the dooryard fronting an old farmhouse near the whitewashed 
 
 palings, 
 Stands the lilac bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of 
 
 rich green, 
 With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume 
 
 strong I love, 
 
 With every leaf a miracle and from this bush in the dooryard^ 
 With delicate-color d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich 
 
 green, 
 A sprig with its flower I break. 
 
286 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 4 
 
 In the swamp in secluded recesses, 
 A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. 
 
 Solitary the thrush, 
 
 The hermit withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, 
 
 Sings by himself a song. 
 
 Song of the bleeding throat, 
 
 Death s outlet song of life, (for well dear brother I know, 
 
 If thou wast not granted to sing thou would st surely die.) 
 
 5 
 
 Over the breast of the spring, the land, amid cities, 
 Amid lanes and through old woods, where lately the violets 
 
 peep d from the ground, spotting the gray debris, 
 Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes, passing the 
 
 endless grass, 
 Passing the yellow-spear d wheat, every grain from its shroud 
 
 in the dark-brown fields uprisen, 
 
 Passing the apple tree blows of white and pink in the orchards, 
 Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave, 
 Night and day journey s a coffin. 
 
 6 
 
 Coffin that passes through lanes and streets, 
 
 Through day and night with the great cloud darkening the 
 
 land, 
 With the pomp of the inloop d flags with the cities draped in 
 
 black, 
 With the show of the States themselves as of crape-veil d 
 
 women standing, 
 With processions long and winding and the flambeaus of the 
 
 night, 
 With the countless torches lit, with the silent sea of faces and 
 
 the unbared heads, 
 With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the somber 
 
 faces, 
 
Whitman 287 
 
 With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising 
 
 strong and solemn, 
 With all the mournful voices of the dirges pour d around the 
 
 coffin, 
 The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs where amid 
 
 these you journey, 
 
 With the tolling tolling bells perpetual clang, 
 Here, coffin that slowly passes, 
 I give you my sprig of lilac. 
 
 (Nor for you, for one alone, 
 
 Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring, 
 For fresh as the morning, thus would I chant a song for you O 
 sane and sacred death. 
 
 All over bouquets of roses, 
 
 O death, I cover you over with roses and early lilies, 
 
 But mostly and now the lilac that blooms the first, 
 
 Copious I break, I break the sprigs from the bushes, 
 
 With loaded arms I come, pouring for you, 
 
 For you and the coffins all of you death.) 
 
 8 
 
 O western orb sailing the heaven, 
 
 Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I 
 
 walk d, 
 
 As I walk d in silence the transparent shadowy night, 
 As I saw you had something to tell as you bent to me night 
 
 after night, 
 As you droop d from the sky low down as if to my side, (while 
 
 the other stars all look d on,) 
 As we wander d together the solemn night, (for something I 
 
 know not what kept me from sleep,) 
 As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west how 
 
 full you were of woe, 
 
288 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze in the cool trans 
 parent night, 
 
 As I watch d where you passed and was lost in the netherward 
 black of the night, 
 
 As my soul in its trouble dissatisfied sank, as where you sad orb, 
 
 Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone. 
 
 9 
 
 Sing on there in the swamp, 
 
 singer bashful and tender, I hear your notes, I hear your call, 
 
 1 hear, I come presently, I understand you, 
 
 But a moment I linger, for the lustrous star has detained me, 
 The star my departing comrade holds and detains me. 
 
 10 
 
 O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved? 
 And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has 
 
 gone? 
 And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love? 
 
 Sea winds blown from east and west, 
 
 Blown from the Eastern sea and blown from the Western sea, till 
 
 there on the prairies meeting, 
 These and with these and the breath of my chant, 
 I ll perfume the grave of him I love. 
 
 ii 
 
 O what shall I hang on the chamber walls? 
 
 And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls, 
 
 To adorn the burial house of him I love? 
 
 Pictures of growing spring and farms and homes, 
 
 With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke 
 
 lucid and bright, 
 With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking 
 
 sun, burning, expanding the air, 
 
Whitman 289 
 
 With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green 
 
 leaves of the trees prolific, 
 In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a 
 
 wind-dapple here and there, 
 With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the 
 
 sky, and shadows, 
 And the city at hand with dwellings so dense, and stacks of 
 
 chimneys, 
 And all the scenes of life and the workshops, and the workmen 
 
 homeward returning. 
 
 12 
 
 Lo, body and soul this land, 
 
 My own Manhattan with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying 
 
 tides, and the ships, 
 The varied and ample land, the South and the North in the 
 
 light, Ohio s shores and flashing Missouri, 
 And ever the far-spreading prairies covered with grass and corn. 
 
 Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, 
 
 The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, 
 
 The gentle soft-born measureless light, 
 
 The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfilTd noon, 
 
 The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, 
 
 Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land. 
 
 13 
 
 Sing on, sing on you gray-brown bird, 
 
 Sing from the swamps, the recesses, pour your chant from the 
 
 bushes, 
 Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines. 
 
 Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song, 
 Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe. 
 
 O liquid and free and tender ! 
 
 O wild and loose to my soul O wondrous singer ! 
 You only I hear yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart,) 
 Yet the lilac with mastering odor holds me. 
 u 
 
290 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 14 
 
 Now while I sat in the day and look d forth, 
 
 In the close of the day with its light and the fields of spring, and 
 
 the farmers preparing their crops, 
 In the large unconscious scenery of my land with its lakes and 
 
 forests, 
 In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturbed winds and the 
 
 storms,) 
 Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and 
 
 the voices of children and women, 
 
 The many-moving sea tides, and I saw the ships how they saiPd, 
 And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all 
 
 busy with labor, 
 And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with 
 
 its meals and minutia of daily usages, 
 And the streets how their throbbings throbb d, and the cities pent 
 
 lo, then and there, 
 Falling upon them all and among them all, enveloping me with 
 
 the rest, 
 
 Appear d the cloud, appear d the long black trail, 
 And I knew death, its thought, and the sacred knowledge of 
 
 death. 
 
 Then with the knowledge of death as walking one side of me, 
 And the thought of death close-walking the other side of me, 
 And I in the middle as with companions, and as holding the 
 
 hands of companions, 
 
 I fled forth to the hiding receiving night that talks not, 
 Down to the shores of the water, the path by the swamp in the 
 
 dimness, 
 To the solemn shadowy cedars and ghostly pines so still. 
 
 And the singer so shy to the rest received me, 
 
 The gray-brown bird I know receiv d us comrades three, 
 
 And he sang the carol of death, and a verse for him I love. 
 
 From deep secluded recesses, 
 
 From the fragrant cedars and the ghostly pines so still, 
 
 Came the carol of the bird. 
 
Whitman 291 
 
 And the charm of the carol rapt me, 
 
 As I held as if by their hands my comrades in the night, 
 
 And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird. 
 
 Come lovely and soothing death, 
 
 Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, 
 
 In the day, in the night, to all, to each. 
 
 Sooner or later delicate death. 
 
 Praised be the fathomless universe, 
 For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, 
 And for love, sweet love but praise 1 , praise! praise ! 
 For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. 
 
 Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, 
 Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome f 
 Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, 
 I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfal 
 teringly. 
 
 Approach strong deliver ess, 
 
 When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the 
 
 dead, 
 
 Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, 
 Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death. 
 
 From me to thee glad serenades, 
 
 Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feast- 
 ings for thee, 
 
 And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are 
 fitting, 
 
 And life and the fields, and the huge and thmtghtful night. 
 
 The night in silence under many a star, 
 
 The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice / 
 
 ktww, 
 
 And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veiled death, 
 And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. 
 
292 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Over the tree tops I float thee a song, 
 
 Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the 
 
 prairies wide, 
 Over the dense-packed cities all and the teeming wharves and 
 
 ways, 
 I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death. 
 
 5 
 
 To the tally of my soul, 
 
 Loud and strong kept up the gray-brown bird, 
 
 With pure deliberate notes spreading filling the night. 
 
 Loud in the pines and cedars dim, 
 
 Clear in the freshness moist and the swamp-perfume, 
 
 And I with my comrades there in the night. 
 
 While my sight that was bound in my eyes unclosed, 
 As to long panoramas of visions. 
 
 And I saw askant the armies, 
 
 I saw as in noiseless dreams hundreds of battle-flags, 
 
 Borne through the smoke of the battles and pierc d with missiles 
 
 I saw them, 
 And carried hither and yon through the smoke, and torn and 
 
 bloody, 
 
 And at last but a few shreds left on the staffs, (and all in silence,) 
 And the staffs all splinter d and broken. 
 
 I saw battle-corpses, myriads of them, 
 
 And the white skeletons of young men, I saw them, 
 
 I saw the debris and debris of all the slain soldiers of the war, 
 
 But I saw they were not as was thought, 
 
 They themselves were fully at rest, they suffer d not, 
 
 The living remain d and suffer d, the mother suffer d, 
 
 And the wife and the child and the musing comrade suffered, 
 
 And the armies that remain d suffer d. 
 
 16 
 
 Passing the visions, passing the night, 
 
 Passing, unloosing the hold of my comrades hands, 
 
Whitman 293 
 
 Passing the song of the hermit bird and the tallying song of my 
 
 soul, 
 Victorious song, death s outlet song, yet varying ever altering 
 
 song, 
 
 As low and wailing yet clear the notes, rising and falling, flood 
 ing the night, 
 Sadly sinking and fainting, as warning and warning, and yet 
 
 again bursting with joy, 
 
 Covering the earth and filling the spread of the heaven, 
 As that powerful psalm in the night I heard from recesses, 
 Passing, I leave thee lilac with heart-shaped leaves, 
 I leave thee there in the dooryard, blooming, returning with 
 spring. 
 
 I cease from my song for thee, 
 
 From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing 
 
 with thee, 
 O comrade lustrous with silver face in the night. 
 
 Yet each to keep and all, retrievements out of the night, 
 
 The song, the wondrous chant of the gray-brown bird, 
 
 And the tallying chant, the echo arous d in my soul, 
 
 With the lustrous and drooping star with the countenance full of 
 
 woe, 
 
 With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird, 
 Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to 
 
 keep, for the dead I loved so well, 
 For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands and this 
 
 for his dear sake, 
 
 Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, 
 There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim. 
 
 It is worth noting, as one reads these greater poems, 
 that it is just when Whitman is at his best that he be 
 comes most definitely rhythmical, approaches nearest to 
 artistic form, and does not drop into the prosy banalities 
 which so often injure his less inspired efforts. 
 
294 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 The " Leaves of Grass " is to be read, then, not because 
 it is steadily poetry, but because there speaks in it a great 
 personality, with a striking gospel. The book, whatever 
 may be said against it, is emphatically a book of life. It 
 is the message of a big, brave, puissant man. If I may 
 make a suggestion, a good way to come into sympathetic 
 communion with Walt Whitman is to begin with a selected 
 edition of his works ; such a one was made by Arthur 
 Stedman some years ago, and can be commended. Then, 
 the " Leaves of Grass " can be studied as a whole, after 
 the reader is indoctrinated with Whitman by these culled 
 poems, and thus his full meaning and significance 
 grasped. 
 
 A final word on Whitman s prose. It lacks organism, 
 balance, and breeding. Most of it has the effect of the 
 disjointed hurry of note-taking, indeed, it was mostly 
 thus written. There is in it as in the verse a fine 
 scorn of punctuation. But Whitman is eminently pic 
 turesque and suggestive as a maker of prose, and often 
 wonderfully poetical or powerful. Rugged as Carry le, and 
 far more formless, you yet feel that a leviathan is moving 
 through the waters when he heaves in sight. As a corol 
 lary to the poetry, the prose is also important. The student, 
 therefore, would make a grievous mistake if, for a just ap 
 preciation of the man, his prose was neglected. The fol 
 lowing is a fair example of the full-mouthed swell of his 
 music at times, with its pathetic under-surge of virile 
 feeling : 
 
 Nor will ever future American patriots and Unionists, indiffer 
 ently over the whole land, or North or South, find a better moral 
 to tlieir lesson. The final use of the greatest men of a Nation is, 
 after all, not with reference to their deeds in themselves, or their 
 
Whitman 295 
 
 direct bearing on their times or lands. The final use of a heroic- 
 eminent life especially of a heroic-eminent death is its indirect 
 filtering into the nation and the race, and to give, often at many 
 removes, but unerringly, age after age, color and fiber to the per- 
 sonalism of the youth and maturity of that age and of mankind. 
 Then there is a cement to the whole people, subtler, more under 
 lying, than anything in written constitutions or courts or armies 
 namely, the cement of a death identified thoroughly with that 
 people, as its head, for its sake. Strange (is it not ?) that battles, 
 martyrs, agonies, blood, even assassination, should so condense 
 perhaps only really, lastingly condense a Nationality. 
 
 I repeat it, the grand deaths of the race, the dramatic deaths 
 of every nationality, are its most important inheritance-values, in 
 some respects beyond its literature and art (as the hero is beyond 
 his finest portrait, and the battle itself beyond its choicest song 
 or epic). Is not here indeed the point underlying all tragedy? 
 the famous pieces of the Greek masters and all masters ? Why, 
 if the old Greeks had had this man what trilogies of plays what 
 epics would have been made out of him ! How the rhapsodes 
 would have recited him! How quickly the quaint, tall form 
 would have entered into the region where men vitalize gods and 
 gods divinify men 1 But Lincoln, his times, his death great as 
 any, any age belong altogether to our own, and our autochthonic ! 
 (Sometimes, indeed, I think our American days, our own stage 
 the actors we know and have shaken hands or talk d with, more 
 fateful than anything in Eschylus, more heroic than the fighters 
 around Troy afford kings of men for our democracy prouder 
 than Agamemnon, models of character cute and hardy as Ulysses, 
 deaths more pitiful than Priam s.) 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 LANIER 
 
 FOR half a century Poe has been regarded as the one 
 great poet of the American South. When Sidney Lanier, 
 the Georgian singer, died something over twenty years 
 ago, he was looked upon by a few critics as a graceful 
 poet of pure strain, and a man of more promise than 
 performance, since he was so untimely taken away. 
 He died before he was forty years of age. But as time 
 has elapsed, a remarkable change has taken place in 
 the estimate of this bard. Gradually he has come into 
 prominence, his true significance has been realized, and 
 at last he has come to be reckoned, in the language of 
 Dr. Ward, which when written was a prophecy, " among 
 the princes of American songs." The reader who opens 
 Stedman s authoritative " American Anthology" will find a 
 frontispiece portrait group of eight leaders of American 
 song; and one of them is Lanier. To those who felt 
 many years ago that Lanier belonged to such company, 
 this recognition is a matter of peculiar pleasure. 
 
 This widening of the reputation of Sidney Lanier since 
 his death is no doubt due in a measure to the fact that 
 a number of prose works of his of value have been brought 
 out from time to time, with the result of giving a truer 
 sense of the variety and extent of his literary accomplish 
 ments. But the main reason lies in the other fact, that 
 
 % 296 
 
Lanier 297 
 
 Lanier both in prose and verse was so original, so much 
 the innovator and independent, that he inevitably won his 
 way more slowly to sure approval. It is the history of 
 literature that facile adaptation to traditional ways and 
 models means a quick reward ; while new literary forces at 
 first get no hearing, or at the best a small and grudging 
 one. It was so with this gifted and high-souled Southerner 
 whose life, in rare and beautiful harmony with his song, 
 makes as moving a story as literary biography can tell. 
 
 Sidney Lanier was born in February, 1842, in Macon, 
 Georgia, where his father was a much-respected lawyer. 
 The family, as the name implies, was on the paternal side 
 of French descent and Huguenot in its religious predilec 
 tions. From the maternal branch Scotch blood mingled 
 with French, so that the Celtic strain, which in men of the 
 English-speaking race has so often been of avail for im 
 aginative creation, was doubly Lanier s dower. He thus 
 had the advantage of a cultured home, and received a 
 fair education at Oglethorpe College in his native state 
 though one not to his own satisfaction. But on the break 
 ing out of the Civil War Lanier, still a very young man, 
 like many another high-spirited Southern youth enlisted 
 naturally enough on the Confederate side. He was made 
 a prisoner of war, and under such untoward circumstances 
 the twin passions of his life music and literature com 
 forted him ; for while thus immured he played his flute 
 behind prison bars and wrote fugitive verses, transla 
 tions and original. 
 
 Father Tabb, the Maryland poet-priest, was a fellow 
 with him in this harsh experience, and the two began a 
 friendship which the latter has celebrated in more than 
 one tender lyric. 
 
298 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Lanier s constitution was always delicate, and the ex 
 posures and hardships of war developed the seeds of con 
 sumption, which he fought in hero fashion through young 
 and middle manhood, to be finally conquered before he 
 had done half the work that was in him to do. The war 
 over, experiments at this and that occupation followed. 
 His father wished him to follow the law in his footsteps ; 
 it may be remarked parenthetically that the literary leaders 
 grouped in this volume with few exceptions tried the legal 
 profession, only to find the centripetal pull of literature 
 too strong for them. Sidney wrote to his father that he 
 felt imperatively called away from any work save that of 
 letters. 
 
 " How can I," he cries, pathetically enough, " settle 
 down to be a third-rate lawyer for the balance of my little 
 life as long as there is a certainty almost absolute that I 
 can do some other things so much better? My dear 
 father, think how for twenty years, through poverty, 
 through pain, through weariness, through the uncongenial 
 atmosphere of a farcical college and a bare army, and 
 then of an exacting business life through all of the dis 
 couragement of being wholly unacquainted with literary 
 people and literary ways, ... in spite of all these depress 
 ing circumstances, . . . these two figures of music and of 
 poetry have kept in my heart so that I could not banish 
 them. Does it not seem to you, as to me, that I have the 
 right to enroll myself among the devotees of these two 
 sublime arts, after having followed them so long and so 
 humbly, and through so much bitterness ? " 
 
 The parent wisely yielded, and behold the young man 
 dedicated to the struggle and a struggle indeed it was 
 in his case. I say dedicated, for to a man like Lanier the 
 
Lanier 299 
 
 choice had in it all the solemnity of a consecration. His 
 ideal of art was so lofty that its service became the most 
 serious thing to him in the world. Nor, through whatever 
 of setback, stress, and misery, did he for a moment lower 
 his standard or swerve from a devotion which was little 
 less than knightly. To the last he was a priest of that 
 highest beauty which is the beauty spiritual. 
 
 He began by publishing a novel founded on his war 
 experiences and full of a luxuriant imagination not as yet 
 governed by artistic restraint ; it was called " Tiger Lilies," 
 and appeared in 1867 when he was but twenty-six. It did 
 not win success ; indeed, fiction was never his proper 
 medium. Meanwhile, he steadily wrote verse and sent it 
 to the magazines, to get it promptly back as a rule. But 
 here and there an unusually canny editor recognized the 
 rare worth of this young Southern unknown, and at least 
 one well-known poet, Bayard Taylor, stretched forth the 
 friendly hand of greeting. The publication of his striking 
 poem, " Corn," drew sufficient attention to him to result 
 in an invitation to write the words for a cantata to the 
 music of Dudley Buck, to be sung at the Philadelphia 
 Centennial Exhibition. And this centennial year marks 
 the publication of the first edition of his poems, not till 
 he was dead did the second and definitive edition appear. 
 This early book was tentative, and by no means fully ex 
 pressed the singer who was to be, though rich promise it 
 had. A few magazines were friendly, Lippincotfs, the 
 Independent, and Scribner s, but at the best the financial 
 rewards of fugitive poem selling were so scant that the 
 poet s struggle with poverty was severe, and all his life 
 he was under this harrow. To live by magazine contribu 
 tions was well-nigh an impossibility then, as indeed it is 
 
300 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 now to any save the fictionist. Very early too, in 1867, 
 he had married Mary Day of Macon and soon there were 
 other mouths to feed and the struggle was sterner. So, 
 Pegasus put on harness ; Lanier did hack work, yet always 
 work of meaning and beauty. He made a Florida guide 
 book attractive, and edited brave old literature for boys, 
 like Malory s " King Arthur," the Welsh tales known as 
 the Mabinogian, and Bishop Percy s " Reliques." Lanier 
 loved the quaint, full-mouthed, resonant old English, and 
 was all his days a devout student of the bygone literators, 
 with a noteworthy effect upon his own style, and he loved 
 quite as well the stalwart ideals of the English past. And 
 so he presented even in such enforced literary labor the 
 rare spectacle of a poet-editor. 
 
 In 1879 a gleam of good luck came. Music had been 
 followed (we have seen) as a sister muse. In 1873 ne na d 
 gone to Baltimore to be first flute in the Peabody Orchestra 
 of that city ; his scholarship, high character, and literary 
 attainments had become known there and, in consequence, 
 in 1879, he was appointed to a lectureship at the Johns 
 Hopkins University ; assuring him the first steady income 
 (albeit a small one) of a strenuous life. Noble work 
 resulted from this stimulus : two books of great value and 
 individuality, the remarkable study of the English novel 
 delivered as lectures at the university and the " Science 
 of English Verse," a volume recognized by scholars in 
 this field as a remarkable contribution. But alas ! the 
 respite was but brief. Just as the sky seemed clearing, 
 and he was about to approach the zenith of his work and 
 reward, Lanier s health, all along precarious, quite failed ; 
 he traveled with his devoted wife in literal search for 
 breath, but hemorrhage prostrated him, until in the autumn 
 
Lanier 301 
 
 of 1 88 1, in the mountains of North Carolina, the noble 
 soul was loosened from its frail tenement of flesh : 
 
 From the contagion of the world s slow stain 
 He is secure. 
 
 To hear of heroic souls like Lanier and Stevenson accom 
 plishing great things under such limitations is a moral 
 lesson that shames all cowardice and half-hearted en 
 deavor. 
 
 Not till 1884 did the full edition of the " Poems " appear, 
 with the appreciative foreword by Dr. Ward. Slightly 
 augmented since, it now contains all of Lanier s poetic 
 output. A number of prose books have been given to the 
 world since his death : viz., his " Letters "and three essay 
 volumes, " Music and Poetry," " Retrospects and Pros 
 pects," and so late as 1902, " Shakespeare and his Fore 
 runners." One who would understand Lanier both in his 
 life and works is especially directed to the " Letters." 
 The beautiful nature of the man is here revealed, and his 
 ideal relations to the gracious and noble woman whom he 
 called wife. Those on the subject of music written to her 
 in absence which are to be found in this volume, are 
 unique not only in their wonderful poetry but their revela 
 tion of a devotion that seems hardly of this earth. Had 
 they appeared in a piece of romantic fiction they would 
 have been declared untrue to life. 
 
 But in spite of the genuine value of his prose contribu 
 tion, it is as a poet that Sidney Lanier is chiefly significant. 
 His characteristics separate him from other makers of 
 literature. His work possesses, to begin with, the glow 
 and color of the South an exuberance and rhythmic 
 sweep, which to the sensitive reader are wonderfully stimu- 
 
302 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 / lating. Lanier was an artist of words, of melodies and 
 poetic forms. For mastery of the niceties of verse, for the 
 handling of rhyme and meter, for resources of tone color 
 and music, his talent was conspicuous. In this way he 
 broadened and enriched the technique of the native verse. 
 He was both musician and poet, and each gift helped the 
 other. He was a pioneer in ingenious attempts to develop 
 to a point never before attained, the harmonic possibilities 
 of English poetry. As an example of this, his Centennial 
 cantata with its marginal musical notations will serve. 
 Again, Lanier was that rare thing, a true song writer as 
 was Burns or Branger or Tennyson. Many of his poems 
 have been set to music, always a severe test of verse, with 
 the most felicitous results. Such lovely lyrics as the 
 " Song of the Chattahoochee," the " Song of the Future," 
 " A Song of Love," and an " Evening Song " are witnesses 
 to this gift. None is finer than the " Song of the Chatta 
 hoochee," which may here be quoted as a piece of verse 
 equally remarkable for its pure singing quality, love of 
 nature, and characteristically spiritual implication : 
 
 SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE 
 
 Out of the hills of Habersham, 
 Down the valleys of Hall, 
 I hurry amain to reach the plain, 
 Run the rapid and leap the fall, 
 Split at the rock and together again, 
 Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, 
 And flee from folly on every side 
 With a lover s pain to attain the plain 
 Far from the hills of Habersham, 
 Far from the valleys of Hall. 
 
Lanier 303 
 
 All down the hills of Habersham, 
 
 All through the valleys of Hall, 
 The rushes cried Abide, abide, 
 The willful waterweeds held me thrall, 
 The laving laurel turned my tide, 
 The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay 9 
 The dewberry dipped for to work delay, 
 And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide. 
 
 Here in the hills of Haber sham, 
 
 Here in the valleys of Hall. 
 
 High o er the hills of Habersham, 
 
 Veiling the valleys of Hall, 
 The hickory told me manifold 
 Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall 
 Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, 
 The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, 
 Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, 
 Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold 
 
 Deep shades of the hills of Habersham y 
 
 These glades in the valleys of Hall. 
 
 And oft in the hills of Habersham, 
 
 And oft in the valleys of Hall, 
 
 The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook -stone 
 Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, 
 And many a luminous jewel lone 
 Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, 
 Ruby, garnet, and amethyst 
 Made lures with the lights of streaming stone 
 
 In the clefts of the hills of Habersham, 
 
 In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 
 
 But oh, not the hills of Habersham 
 
 And oh, not the valleys of Hall 
 Avail : I am fain for to water the plain. 
 Downward the voices of Duty call 
 Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, 
 
304 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, 
 And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, 
 And the lordly main from beyond the plain 
 
 Calls o er the hills of Habersham, 
 
 Calls through the valleys of Hall. 
 
 We have thus far borne down on the technical accom 
 plishment of Sidney Lanier ; but technique is to a poet s 
 rounded achievement only the scaffolding for the completed 
 structure. Lanier was possessed of a fine culture, he had 
 read much and choicely, his thought was masterly and he 
 was endowed with a sane and large imagination. He was 
 utterly free from and above the decking out in the fine 
 robes of art of the petty conceits, the stale themes, and 
 immasculate prettifications of much modern verse. He 
 was a thinker, one who spoke wise words on the vital 
 problems of his day, problems of state, religion, society, 
 science, art, and literature ; often he was an intellectual 
 pioneer ahead of his time. And with this mental breadth 
 and grasp went a profound ethical earnestness, a subtly 
 pervasive spirituality which make this poet most distinc 
 tive. He believed not only in the beauty of holiness, but 
 also in the holiness of beauty. He divined that Beauty 
 (as Keats knew) is in the last analysis a spiritual thing ; 
 that the true, the good, and the beautiful interplay divinely 
 into each other. 
 
 These three qualities, technical mastery, independent 
 thought, and spiritual perception and passion are the head 
 marks of his best poetry, and the chief of this trinity of 
 traits is the message of the spirit. Certain poems that 
 illustrate this may be given ; and first that which is of all he 
 did most familiar, " The Ballad of Trees and the Master " 
 which can properly be called a perfect poem of worship. 
 
Lanier 305 
 
 A BALLAD OF TREES AND THE MASTER 
 
 Into the woods my Master went, 
 
 Clean forspent, forspent. 
 
 Into the woods my Master came, 
 
 Forspent with love and shame. 
 
 But the olives they were not blind to Him, 
 
 The little gray leaves were kind to Him : 
 
 The thorn tree had a mind to Him 
 
 When into the woods He came. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master went, 
 
 And He was well content* 
 
 Out of the woods my Master came, 
 
 Content with death and shame. 
 
 When Death and shame would woo Him last, 
 
 From under the trees they drew Him last : 
 
 Twas on a tree they slew Him last 
 
 When out of the woods He came. 
 
 How valiantly soul rises above failing flesh in his The 
 Stirrup Cup," one of the high-hearted moods of the man 
 who lectured at Johns Hopkins when too weak to stand on 
 the platform and who, his wife testifies, wrote the last of 
 the magnificent " Hymns of the Marshes " when he was 
 so near death as to be unable to lift hand to mouth : 
 
 THE STIRRUP CUP 
 
 Death, thou rt a cordial old and rare : 
 Look how compounded, with what care! 
 Time got his wrinkles reaping thee 
 Sweet herbs from all antiquity. 
 
 David to thy distillage went, 
 Keats, and Gotama excellent, 
 Omar Khayyam, and Chaucer bright, 
 And Shakespeare for a king-delight. 
 
306 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt : 
 Hand me the cup whene er thou wilt ; 
 Tis thy rich stirrup cup to me ; 
 I ll drink it down right smilingly. 
 
 Poets have only occasionally sung of wifehood in a lyric 
 strain as pure and impassioned as those more familiar 
 notes which tell of the wooing time. Browning did this 
 in the noble " One Word More " ; Lanier did it in the 
 poem " My Springs," whose loveliness must go home to 
 every heart that responds to the finer human kinships ; 
 the student of Lanier should not overlook it. 
 
 In a poem like "Life and Song," with its haunting 
 melody, one gets a glimpse of this poet s ideal of work 
 almost too high a one, it would seem, for human nature s 
 daily food. " Let my name perish," he once said in sub 
 stance, in a private letter, " the poetry is good poetry, and 
 the music good music, and the heart that needs it will find 
 it." And it may honestly be said of Sidney Lanier that, 
 given the shortcomings of our mortal nature, no artisthas 
 
 come nearer to the aspirations of the two closing lines of 
 
 s 
 
 , 
 LIFE AND SONG 
 
 If life were caught by a clarionet, 
 And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, 
 
 Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, 
 And utter its heart in every deed, 
 
 Then would this breathing clarionet 
 
 Type what the poet fain would be ; 
 For none o the singers ever yet 
 
 Has wholly lived his minstrelsy, 
 
Lamer 307 
 
 Or clearly sung his true, true thought, 
 
 Or utterly bodied forth his life, 
 Or out of life and song has wrought 
 
 The perfect one of man and wife ; 
 
 Or lived and sung, that Life and Song 
 
 Might each express the other s all, 
 Careless if life or art were long, 
 
 Since both were one, to stand or fall : 
 
 So that the wonder struck the crowd, 
 
 Who shouted it about the land : 
 His song was only living aloud, 
 
 His work, a singing with his hand! 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that much of his very finest 
 work, like the piece just quoted, came directly from the 
 inspiration of his beloved music. There is hardly a nobler 
 thing among his major poems than that called the " Sym 
 phony," as every lover of Lanier well knows. Again and 
 again is this influence potent. " Music is love in search 
 of a word," one of his poems declares, and one of the 
 delights in reading Lanier is to feel the birth of that divin- 
 est of qualities in one s heart, and to be floated into full 
 communion with it upon a concord of sweet sounds. 
 
 Another winsome aspect of his genius was his attitude 
 toward nature, of whom he was a fit interpreter, a pas 
 sionate lover, who could reveal her very soul so well as 
 her myriad fair externals between sky and sod. He felt 
 God in everything ; to him the visible universe pulsated 
 with a divine presence ; incidentally, his nature poems 
 are full of entrancing local color of his Southern home. 
 An illustration will illuminate this statement. 
 
308 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 FROM THE FLATS 
 
 What heartache ne er a hill! 
 Inexorable, vapid, vague, and chill 
 The drear sand levels drain my spirit low. 
 With one poor word they tell me all they know ; 
 Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain, 
 Do drawl it o er again and o er again. 
 They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name : 
 
 Always the same, the same. 
 
 Nature hath no surprise, 
 No ambuscade of beauty gainst mine eyes 
 From brake or lurking dell or deep defile ; 
 No humors, frolic forms this mile, that mile ; 
 No rich reserves or happy-valley hopes 
 Beyond the bend of roads, the distant slopes. 
 Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame : 
 
 Ever the same, the same. 
 
 Oh might I through these tears 
 But glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears, 
 Where white the quartz and pink the pebble shine, 
 The hickory heavenward strives, the muscadine \ 
 Swings o er the slope, the oak s far-falling shade 
 Darkens the dogwood in the bottom glade, 
 And down the hollow from a ferny nook 
 
 Lull sings a little brook ! 
 
 The combination of Lanier s art and spiritual force is 
 found in the " Hymns of the Marshes," two of which, 
 " Sunrise " and " The Marshes of Glynn," are magnifi 
 cently imaginative organ chants of a dying man never so 
 strong in soul as when he hung by a tenuous thread to life. 
 Yet no poetry is more surgingly, vibrantly athrob with a 
 splendid vitality. Its production under the conditions 
 
Lanier 309 
 
 named is little short of a marvel. We cannot give it 
 space here, but earnestly bespeak a reading for it. 
 
 For an acquaintance with the full orbit of Sidney La- 
 nier s nature, such thoughtful poems as " The Crystal," 
 " Individuality," " How Love Looked for Hell," " Corn," 
 "Psalm of the West," "To Richard Wagner," and 
 "Clover" must be read, for they will serve to increase 
 the sense of how largely he touched life, how vigorous 
 was his intellect. As one reads him in his entirety, one 
 recognizes that in the full tide of plethoric utterance, with 
 so much to say and so piteously little time to say it, Lanier 
 sometimes sacrificed lucidity. His fancy now and then 
 was in surplusage, and ran into decoration and arabesque, 
 the overflow of a fertile mind and imagination. In full 
 maturity doubtless the tendency might have been shaken 
 off. It may also be (as some critics have held) that he 
 pushed too far his interesting theory of the close interrela 
 tions of music and verse, believing that the latter had not 
 only lyric but symphonic powers. 
 
 Had Lanier been granted longer life, he would have 
 added much and would have perfected what he did pro 
 duce with the instinct of the ardent artist. But he did 
 enough to reveal a rare, beautiful genius. Half complete 
 as is his poetical work, it is in quality and influence such 
 as to associate him with those who endure. Once more 
 has the South sent forth a slender son, seemingly a strip 
 ling like David, who has, nevertheless, overcome in Phi- 
 listia, and lived to be crowned a king in Israel 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE PRESENT DAY 
 
 IN this book the American literary leaders chosen for 
 study have all been drawn from the ranks of the dead. 
 Critics of literature are agreed as to the danger of dealing 
 with the living, whose work is perhaps still incomplete ; 
 with whom the critic may have personal relations, or who 
 are not far enough away from us to be judged in the proper 
 perspective and with the judicial calmness of Time. The 
 dozen writers we have considered rest from their labors 
 and their works do follow them ; they have taken what is 
 pretty sure to be a firm, final place in American literature. 
 Moreover, they are one and all in some sort representa 
 tive. 
 
 Yet this method of selecting a few typical figures makes 
 necessary the exclusion of many writers of importance, 
 past and present, some of them hardly less significant 
 than those treated herein ; writers who, in a complete 
 survey of our attainment of letters, would come in for 
 attention such as has been given them in numerous excel 
 lent manuals. To supplement the present volume the 
 condensed studies of American literature by such scholars 
 as Professor Brander Matthews, Professor Katharine Lee 
 Bates, Mr. Julian Hawthorne, and Professor Walter C. 
 Bronson will be found most helpful ; while for a fuller and 
 
 310 
 
The Present Day 311 
 
 more atmospheric treatment, that by Professor Charles F. 
 Richardson is especially recommended. In our study, the 
 object has been to bear down on the dominant things ; as 
 one s eye seeks the salient features of a landscape, before 
 trying to observe details and appreciate the less obvious 
 attractions. A few words may now be spoken touching 
 the omissions of earlier makers of literature and on the 
 present situation. 
 
 Names in the past clamor for mention. Oratory, for 
 example, has furnished mighty men : Patrick Henry, 
 Henry Clay, Randolph, Calhoun, and the giant Web 
 ster ; later, Choate, Everett, Wendell Phillips and pulpit 
 speakers like Parker, Beecher, and Storrs. It must always 
 be remembered, however, that oratory is a kind of half- 
 brother to literature, since even the great effects of a 
 Daniel Webster are so much dependent upon voice, pres 
 ence, personal magnetism, that the magic is lost when one 
 turns to the cold replica of the printed page. In thinking 
 of the Concord group, too, one feels that our literature 
 would have been poorer indeed without the essays of 
 Thoreau, quaint hermit friend of Emerson, original both 
 in mind and manner: that rare phenomenon, a genuine 
 essayist. And there are later essayists of charm and 
 distinction : " Ik Marvel " (Donald G. Mitchell), George 
 William Curtis, Charles Dudley Warner, rush to the mind, 
 all save Mitchell now gone ; while of the living, sturdy 
 John Burroughs stands at the head of a group of nature 
 writers who have made themselves welcome for wholesome 
 attraction of theme and pleasantness of presentation. The 
 essay, critical and creative, is by no means dead, and is 
 likely to gain in authority and acceptance when the now 
 prevalent autocracy of fiction is past. One living writer 
 
3 12 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 of indisputable genius stands halfway between fiction and 
 the essay, hard to catalogue, so unique is he : Mark Twain, 
 whose place in the popular heart is of the household kind ; 
 whose work, when it is looked back upon in its entirety, 
 will be recognized as that of a humorist in the large mean 
 ing of the word, an essentially serious-minded man who 
 really preaches and teaches while we laugh. And writers 
 of history we have had whose work is literature ; Prescott, 
 Ticknor, Motley, Parkman, the list might easily be 
 augmented. 
 
 As to poetry, it will be well, while conceding that the 
 first creative burst from the elder bards has subsided, 
 not to overlook the good work that is still being done. 
 The average of verse technique is higher than it was fifty 
 years ago ; and there are so many aspirants for favor that 
 it is relatively harder for one voice to be distinguished in 
 the general chorus. Some who now seem minor may later 
 be recognized as of real importance. With greater atten 
 tion to form, there has been a loss in vital subjects ; natural 
 enough, perhaps, although the settling of new states, the 
 extension by war and " benevolent assimilation " of foreign 
 territory, the great capitalist ventures and labor throes 
 and the deeper realization of the tremendous scope and 
 significance of the American idea, would seem to suggest 
 no lack of themes. The very complexities of our mighty 
 civilization, with its cosmopolitanism and material miracles, 
 may possibly stagger the poet, for the very reason that 
 there is so much to interpret : it is a case of embarrass 
 ment of riches. Singers of deserved reputation are still 
 living: the veteran lyrist R. H. Stoddard, Stedman, cul 
 tured and thoughtful in verse as he is in criticism one of 
 our foremost students, and Aldrich, an artist in his exqui- 
 
The Present Day 313 
 
 site finish and in his earlier work by no means wanting in 
 vibrant humanity ; and Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, whose 
 " Battle Hymn " still makes the blood beat and the feet 
 keep time. Now and again poets like Emily Dickinson 
 and Edward Sill have come and gone before we were fully 
 aware how rare was their spirit. Bayard Taylor s impor 
 tance was such as to give him a chapter to himself in Mr. 
 Stedman s study of our native singers. The temptation to 
 add almost indefinitely to the list of capable lyric poets, 
 both living and dead, must be sternly resisted. Nature 
 has been worthily depicted in the late lyric work of a group 
 of Canadians headed by Bliss Carman, and no phase of 
 present verse work is more conspicuous than this of 
 the reverent and rapturous appreciation of nature. The 
 homely life of common humanity (if any humanity can 
 rightly be called common) has been interpreted with truth 
 and pathos by a band of dialect poets of whom Riley is 
 easily first. Nor are signs wanting that our poets are 
 likely in the near future to essay more sustained work in 
 narrative and dramatic verse, encouraged thereto by the 
 very evident tendency to rehabilitate the literary drama. 
 
 By far the most significant literary movement of this 
 generation in the United States (as indeed wherever lit 
 erature is cultured) has been that of the development of 
 prose fiction. This modern form, for better or worse, has 
 come to occupy a tyrannous central position, well-nigh to 
 the crushing out of elder forms like poetry, the essay and 
 drama, in the general regard. Fiction appeals to the 
 widest audience (the play is an exception, but as yet we 
 hardly have a literary drama in this country), simply 
 because it is most easily understood by the people, the 
 most democratic of literary molds in that it can best 
 
314 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 / receive the impress of the very form and image of our 
 time. It surveys classes and masses alike ; every state, 
 section, even village, has its novelist ; within the pages of 
 the story all humanity jostles and hobnobs. The service 
 thus done by fiction in teaching the different parts of the 
 land to know each other and so to realize the variety and 
 vastitude of our national life, is likely to be underesti 
 mated rather than the reverse. The novel, in this 
 thought, is a mighty civilizer, drawing men together as do 
 the wonderful material uses of electricity, and for the 
 higher purposes of a comprehensive sympathy and love. 
 In the United States since 1860, there has been a 
 remarkable growth and perfecting of the novel of real life 
 realistic fiction, in the critical phrase. In the middle 
 century, Harriet Beecher Stowe, besides writing in " Uncle 
 Tom s Cabin " an epoch-making book, vital in power, 
 whatever its defects and prejudices, initiated in her other 
 stories a faithful first-hand study of homely New England 
 character, which has been fruitfully developed by an able 
 band of later-day followers with Miss Wilkins and Miss 
 Jewett at their head. The names throng here and can 
 not be enumerated. Two leaders, however, must have 
 special mention : Howells and James, for they, more than 
 any others, started the present-day school. Mr. James, 
 whose earlier and better work dealt with American condi 
 tions, often in their European aspects, has of late years 
 lived abroad and written of life there, meanwhile deteri 
 orating both in the breadth and clarity of his art. But 
 Mr. Howells has steadily produced a series of fictional 
 studies which the future social historian is likely to rec 
 ognize as the most comprehensive and truthful survey of 
 certain sections of Eastern life especially that in cities 
 
The Present Day 315 
 
 ever made by an American novelist. And some two- 
 score younger writers, both men and women, might be 
 enrolled as using the method and having the aim of this 
 leader. 
 
 In the Far West, a pioneer like Bret Harte began that 
 exploitation of the more picturesque types and incidents / 
 of a newer phase of our civilization which has spread 
 throughout the land ; California itself in so recent a man 
 as the late Frank Norris lending itself once more to a 
 masterful delineation. 
 
 The Middle West and the Southwest, with all they stand 
 for in difference of material conditions, nationality of 
 the settlers, and physical environment, have been and are 
 being displayed by able fiction makers ; writers like 
 Eggleston, Wallace, Wister, Garland, Fuller, Tarkington, 
 Thanet, White, are but a few of many. The prevailing 
 temper in these sections of the country, as exhibited in 
 fiction, is that of a strong, cheery optimism, along with an 
 insistence on the facts sometimes carrying the author 
 into grimness and sadness. The fiction of the \Vest as a 
 whole may be described as wholesomely realistic. In the 
 South, which has been revealed of late in novel and short 
 story by a group of gifted writers who have infused a most 
 welcome vitality into our latter-day creative writing, the 
 tone is more romantic. This may be explained perhaps 
 by the environment, the picturesque conditions both 
 human and physiographic of that part of the land. Page, 
 Stuart, Harris, Lane Allen, Murfree, Fox, are but a few 
 of the names that naturally are suggested, where others 
 are as deserving of mention. So steady and interesting is 
 the production in all parts of the United States, that one 
 is overwhelmed in the attempt even to keep up with it, 
 
316 Literary Leaders of America 
 
 to say nothing of its classification. A surprising amount 
 of it is really good work, and that all this activity will 
 leave a residuum of worthy fiction illustrative of the newer 
 America, no student can doubt. In all this recent work 
 nothing is more noteworthy than the prominence of women 
 writers, who now compete on even terms with men and 
 often win the coveted prizes. The day when, to Jane 
 Austen, the writing of novels seemed of dubious gentility, 
 has long since passed away. 
 
 What is the present literary center of the United States ? 
 Beyond question, commercially, it is New York, which 
 has become the natural headquarters as a mart where 
 literary folk may dispose of their wares. Early in the 
 nineteenth century the Knickerbocker School of writers 
 gave the metropolis a fair literary fame ; still earlier, 
 Philadelphia had some such claim. Then Boston and 
 its vicinity became a worthy center ; now, although there 
 is still much of literary atmosphere and influence in the 
 Massachusetts city, New York, in the fullness of time, 
 seems to have its revenge. But looking ahead, one may 
 / see that the line of literary demarcation is likely to be 
 . pushed westward ; a generation hence a majority of the 
 representative writers may come from beyond the Missis 
 sippi. No one city or locality can long hold literary pre 
 eminence in a country like ours, of rapid radiation and 
 shifting interests. We are more likely to have several 
 centers than one of any permanence. But so long as this 
 desectionalizing of literature makes for a truer, firmer 
 Americanism, all will be well. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 THE student who becomes interested in the dozen great writers 
 discussed in this volume may supplement his study by reference 
 to some book in which the national literary development is 
 sketched with more of fulness and detail, and many writers 
 merely mentioned herein, or omitted altogether, are described. 
 The following, carefully chosen from a considerable list, may be 
 recommended : 
 
 " The New England Poets," by Prof. W. C. Lawton (Macmil- 
 lan) . This is a study of six native poets, Emerson, Hawthorne, 
 Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, and Lowell. 
 
 "American Literature" (1607-1885), by Prof. C. F. Richard 
 son (Putnam). 
 
 " A Readers 1 Handbook of American Literature," by Col. T. W. 
 Higginson and H. W. Boynton (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). 
 
 " American Literature," by Prof. W. P. Trent, in the " Litera 
 ture of the World " series (Scribner) . 
 
 " America in Literature/ by Prof. Geo. E. Woodberry (Harper). 
 
 " American Literature," by Prof. Brander Matthews (Appleton). 
 
 "Literary History of America," by Prof. Barrett Wendell 
 (Scribner). 
 
 "Chronological Outlines of American Literature," by S. L. 
 Whitcomb (Macmillan). This will be found very helpful in the 
 way of assisting to an understanding of contemporaneous his 
 torical events in connection with the literary production. 
 
 "Poets of America, 1 by E. C. Stedman (Houghton, Mifflin & 
 Co.). This is the best book on the development of our native 
 song. 
 
 The student who wishes fuller description of the American 
 literary masters is referred to " The American Men of Letters " 
 
 317 
 
3 1 8 Bibliography 
 
 series (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)? in which appear, besides those 
 not studied in this book, the lives of Cooper, Emerson, Poe, 
 Bryant, Hawthorne, Longfellow, and Whittier; while those of 
 Lowell and Holmes are in preparation. 
 
 A sympathetic life and study of Whitman is that by John Bur 
 roughs (Houghton, Mifflin & Co.). The sketch of Lanier by 
 Dr. J. H. Ward, introductory to the volume of his poems (Scrib- 
 ner), is admirable. 
 
 The student who desires further selections from the works of 
 standard authors, as well as examples of the writings of American 
 authors of repute, may be referred to " The Library of American 
 Literature" (1608-1889), edited by E. C. Stedman and E. M. 
 Hutchinson, in ten volumes. 
 
 From the large number of books which throw sidelights upon 
 American authors, in the way of reminiscence, anecdotes, and 
 personal testimony, and thus make the subject more familiar and 
 delightful, these may be especially recommended : 
 
 "American Book Men," by M. A. DeWolfe Howe (Dodd, 
 Mead & Co.). 
 
 "Authors and Friends," by Mrs. James T. Fields (Houghton, 
 Mifflin & Co.). 
 
 " Cheerful Yesterdays," by Col. T. W. Higginson (Houghton, 
 Mifflin & Co.). 
 
 "Literary Friends and Acquaintances," by W. D. Howells 
 (Harper). 
 
 "Reminiscences," by Julia Ward Howe (Houghton, Mifflin 
 & Co.). 
 
 " Recollections of Eminent Men," by E. P. Whipple (Hough- 
 ton, Mifflin & Co.). 
 
 The student is urged in his study of American literature to 
 read representative examples of the authors of standing whenever 
 possible, and to make a point of reading a given art work as a 
 whole, whether it be poem, essay, fiction, or drama. It is better 
 to get a first-hand acquaintance with an author than to put more 
 time on criticism about him and never come to a taste of his 
 quality itself. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
 - 
 
 J3Dec 
 
 26 
 
 4Jun T 51Lu 
 
 7Jan52HLC 
 
 IW 
 
 22Apr54WB 
 
 
 FEB 7 1955 
 
 LD21-100m-9, 481B399sl6)476 OCT 
 
 
 AUG 
 
YB 75004 
 
 #1 . 
 
 37237,1 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY