FOUR AMERICAN POETS
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
A BOOK FOR YOUNG AMERICANS
BY
SHERWIN CODY
Author of “The Art of Short Story Writing,” “Story Composition,”
“In the Heart of the Hills,” etc.
[Illustration]
WERNER SCHOOL BOOK COMPANY
NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON
THE FOUR GREAT AMERICANS SERIES
Biographical Stories of Great Americans for Young Americans
EDITED BY JAMES BALDWIN, Ph.D.
In these biographical stories the lives of great Americans are presented
in such a manner as to hold the attention of the youngest reader.
In these lives the child finds the most inspiring examples of good
citizenship and true patriotism.
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ADMIRAL FARRAGUT, ADMIRAL DEWEY
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IV. FOUR AMERICAN POETS
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, HENRY WADSWORTH
LONGFELLOW, JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
BY SHERWIN CODY
Cloth, 254 pages, Price, 50 cents
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COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY WERNER SCHOOL BOOK COMPANY.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
THE STORY OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
I. THE LOVE OF NATURE 9
II. BRYANT’S CHILDHOOD 14
III. WHAT THE BOYS DID WHEN BRYANT WAS YOUNG 19
IV. THE YOUNG POET 23
V. THANATOPSIS 28
VI. BRYANT BECOMES A LAWYER 33
VII. A LITERARY ADVENTURER 37
VIII. THE EDITOR OF A GREAT NEWSPAPER 40
IX. HOW BRYANT BECAME RICH 46
X. BRYANT AS AN ORATOR AND PROSE WRITER 49
XI. OTHER EVENTS IN BRYANT’S LIFE 54
XII. HONORS TO THE GREAT POET 61
XIII. LEARNING TO LOVE A POET 65
THE STORY OF HENRY W. LONGFELLOW
I. A GREAT POET 71
II. LONGFELLOW’S ANCESTORS 73
III. LONGFELLOW’S BOYHOOD 76
IV. SOMETHING ABOUT THE TIMES WHEN LONGFELLOW WAS YOUNG 82
V. COLLEGE DAYS 86
VI. THE YOUNG PROFESSOR 91
VII. THE “BEING BEAUTEOUS” 95
VIII. THE CRAIGIE HOUSE 98
IX. THE FIVE OF CLUBS 103
X. LONGFELLOW BECOMES A FAMOUS POET 106
XI. HOW SOME OF THE GREAT POEMS WERE WRITTEN 111
XII. THE POET’S SECOND MARRIAGE 117
XIII. EVANGELINE, HIAWATHA, AND THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH 122
XIV. THE GOOD OLD MAN 128
THE STORY OF JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
I. THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME 133
II. A FARMER’S BOY 138
III. WHITTIER’S FAMILY 144
IV. STORIES OF THE POET’S CHILDHOOD 148
V. SCHOOL DAYS 151
VI. HAVERHILL ACADEMY 157
VII. THE FRIENDSHIP OF GOOD WOMEN 161
VIII. POLITICAL AMBITION 166
IX. THE GREAT QUESTION OF SLAVERY 171
X. HOW WHITTIER WAS MOBBED 175
XI. SOME OF WHITTIER’S FAMOUS POEMS 182
XII. THE END OF A SUCCESSFUL LIFE 187
THE STORY OF OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
I. THE TRUE HUMORIST 195
II. THE BIRTH OF OLIVER HOLMES 198
III. AN AMERICAN ARISTOCRAT 202
IV. CAMBRIDGE 207
V. SCHOOL LIFE 213
VI. COLLEGE LIFE 218
VII. A BUDDING POET 223
VIII. DOCTOR HOLMES 228
IX. THE AUTOCRAT 235
X. “THE FAMOUS CLASS OF ’29” 242
XI. A FEW STRAY FACTS 247
XII. THE END COMES 252
THE STORY OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
[Illustration: _WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT_]
BRYANT
CHAPTER I
THE LOVE OF NATURE
Do you know what is meant by “the love of Nature”? Yes? But are you quite
sure? Think a little. It is not an easy thing to understand, and many
older people than you do not know what it means.
Bryant was the great American poet of Nature. His poetry is best
understood and enjoyed by those who have first learned to love Nature as
he loved her. To all such it appears to be very simple and grand.
In order that we may come by easy steps to a true appreciation of
Bryant’s poetry, let us take a lesson in the love of Nature.
“Man made the city, God made the country,” is the old saying. Look
at the long rows of city houses: how ugly they are! How dirty are the
streets, from which on windy days clouds of dust sometimes rise and
almost choke you as you walk along! Even the sky above is not often clear
and blue as it ought to be, but it seems filthy with smoke and soot. And
what sounds you hear! The noise of the cars as they buzz and jar along
the street, the monotonous roar of human traffic, and the rough words of
teamsters and hackmen as they try to crowd by one another—all these grate
upon the sensitive ear.
How different is everything in the country! What a clear, brilliant blue
the sky is; and what a vast variety of color the surface of the earth
presents!
Here is the light, fresh green of the grass, and over there are the
darker greens of the pines and cedars. In the autumn we observe the
gorgeous hues of the maples and the oaks as their leaves change with the
frost from green to crimson and gold. Think, too, of the flowers! Here
are fields white with daisies, and there are other fields filled with
yellow buttercups or red clover blossoms! Farther away are fields of the
graceful, slender-stalked wheat, or of the tall, rustling corn!
Have you ever been in the woods in June? Instead of the harsh sounds
of the streets, you hear the tumultuous but harmonious songs of birds;
instead of the steady roar of traffic, you hear the deep note of the wind
through the trees, or the murmur of a little brook flowing over stones or
dashing down a waterfall. All around you the trees rise, like columns in
a cathedral, but more beautiful and majestic; and the air is filled with
a sweet scent fit to be used for incense in the churches.
Now read what Bryant has to say in his “Inscription for the Entrance to a
Wood.” There are many hard words in it, and you must read very carefully
and thoughtfully; but it will make you feel that on entering such a wood
you are indeed going into God’s own natural church, a place even more
magnificent and wonderful than Solomon’s temple:
Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men,
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence these shades
Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit; while below
The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,
Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade
Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam
That waked them into life. Even the green trees
Partake the deep contentment; as they bend
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy
Existence, than the wingèd plunderer
That sucks its sweets. The mossy rocks themselves,
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude
Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their earth upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet
Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o’er its bed
Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks,
Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice
In its own being. Softly tread the marge,
Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren
That dips her bill in water. The cool wind
That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
Like one that loves thee, nor let thee pass
Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace.[1]
This is one of the hardest things in Bryant’s poetry. When you can see
all its beauties, and take pleasure in reading it, you will have learned
to love both Nature and Nature’s poet-priest.
[1] To help in the mastery of this poem, the student is advised to make
a careful list of all the natural objects mentioned in it, such as birds,
brooks, trees, and flowers, and try to recollect having seen something of
the same sort.
CHAPTER II
BRYANT’S CHILDHOOD
Bryant was the first great American poet, having been born fourteen
years before Longfellow. Like Longfellow, he could trace his descent
(on his mother’s side) from John Alden and Priscilla Mullens, who
came over in the _Mayflower_; and through two other branches he was
descended from Pilgrim stock. The first Bryant in America did not come
in the _Mayflower_, but he was in Plymouth in 1632, and was chosen town
constable in 1663.
The poet’s father and grandfather were both doctors; so when Dr. Peter
Bryant was married to “sweet Sallie Snell,” as the poet has it, and their
second child was born, the good doctor named him William Cullen, after
a great medical authority who had died four years before. This happy
event—that is, the birth of William Cullen Bryant—occurred November 3,
1794, in the small town of Cummington, Massachusetts. But instead of
growing up to be a doctor the boy became a poet, and his father was
rather proud of the fact, too.
Cummington is a small town among the Berkshire hills, in the western part
of Massachusetts. The country around it is mountainous, with wide valleys
which in the early days were very fertile. Bryant’s grandfather, Snell,
had come here in 1774, just before the Revolution, with a handful of
other settlers, to take up a homestead. There is a story that Eben Snell,
Jr., an uncle of the poet, while working in the cornfield put his ear to
the ground and heard the sounds of the distant battle of Bunker Hill.
Little William Cullen was very quick and bright, though puny. In his
autobiography he says he could go alone when he was but a year old,
and knew all the letters of the alphabet four months later. His older
brother, Austin, did even better than this, however; for he began to
read the Bible before he was three years old, and in just about a year
from the time he began, he had read it all through, from Genesis to
Revelation. William Cullen as a small child learned many of Watts’s
hymns, and used to recite them as he stood by his mother’s knee.
It is probable that so much study was not good for him, for he suffered
from terrible headaches, and was so puny his father and mother thought he
would not live long. His head seemed to be too big for his body. There
is a story that some medical students, who were studying in Dr. Bryant’s
office when William was a child, were ordered to give him a cold bath
every morning in a spring near the house. They kept this up so late in
the fall that they had to break the first skim of ice on the top of the
water. The treatment cured him, and after he was fourteen, he says, he
never had a headache in his life.
He began to go to school before he was four years old. It was not
unnatural that a little fellow of that age should get sleepy during
school hours. One day he woke from a sound nap to find himself in his
teacher’s lap. When he realized where he was he became furiously angry at
the thought that he should be treated so like a baby.
About this time, too, he was kicked by a horse. A lady had come to call
on his mother, and had tied her horse to a tree near the door. There were
fresh chips scattered about, and William and his elder brother amused
themselves by throwing them at the horse’s heels to make him caper.
William got too near and at last the horse kicked him over. He soon
recovered, and went to school with a bandaged head, but a scar from the
wound on his head he carried to the day of his death.
When he was five years old, the family went to live on Grandfather
Snell’s old homestead, where Dr. Peter Bryant remained as long as he
lived. Years afterward, when the poet became rich, he bought this place
for a country home.
He began now to go regularly to the district school, where he learned
reading, writing, and arithmetic, a little grammar and geography, and the
Westminster Catechism. He was a fine speller, seldom missing a word, and
he got on well in geography. The catechism, however, did not interest him
and he could not understand it.
Those were very strict Puritanic days. Says Bryant, in his autobiography:
“One of the means of keeping boys in order was a little bundle of birchen
rods, bound together with a small cord, and generally suspended on a
nail against the kitchen wall. This was esteemed as much a part of the
necessary furniture as the crane that hung in the kitchen fireplace, or
the shovel and tongs.” And he tells us that sometimes the boy was sent
out to cut the twigs with which he himself was to be whipped.
Not only was whipping thought to be good for boys, but even grown-up
people were whipped in public for petty crimes.
About a mile from the Bryant home was a public whipping-post. Says the
poet: “I remember seeing a young fellow, of about eighteen years of age,
upon whose back, by direction of a justice of the peace, forty lashes had
just been laid, as the punishment for a theft which he had committed. His
eyes were red, like those of one who had been crying, and I well remember
the feeling of curiosity, mingled with pity and fear, with which I gazed
on him.”
This was the last time the whipping-post was used in that neighborhood,
but it stood there for several years longer.
CHAPTER III
WHAT THE BOYS DID WHEN BRYANT WAS YOUNG
Life in the time of Bryant’s boyhood was rather hard and rough.
New England country life was never easy. The chairs were very
straight-backed, the beds were hard, and the food was not very delicate,
though there was always plenty of it—plenty of pork and beans, if nothing
else. For all that, the boys in Bryant’s day had a very good time, which
he tells about in the account of his early life to which we have already
referred.
Among the pleasant occurrences of those old-fashioned times were the
neighborhood “raisings.” When a man intended to build a house he got
all the big, heavy timbers together for the frame, and then called in
the neighbors to help him put them up. The minister always made a point
of being present; and the young men thought it great sport, as did the
boys, who could only look on. “It was a spectacle for us,” says Bryant,
“next to that of a performer on the tight-rope, to see the young men walk
steadily on the narrow footing of the beams at a great height from the
ground, or as they stood to catch in their hands the wooden pins and the
braces flung to them from below. Each tried to outdo the other in daring,
and when the frame was all up, one of them would usually cap the climax
by standing on his head on the ridge-pole.”
Another good time was had at the maple sugar frolic. In spring, when the
sap begins to come up in the maple trees, men go about, and bore two or
three holes in every maple tree in a sugar camp. In these they stick
little spigots with holes through them, and underneath they set a pail to
catch the sap. Soon it begins to drop. When the pails are filled, the men
bring fresh ones, and carry off the sap to an enormous iron kettle hung
on a pole over a hot fire.
“From my father’s door,” says Bryant, “in the latter part of March and
the early part of April, we could see a dozen columns of smoke rising
over the woods in different places, where the work was going on. After
the sap had been collected and boiled for three or four days, the time
came when the thickening liquid was made to pass into the form of sugar.
This was when the syrup had become of such a consistency that it would
feather—that is to say, when a beechen twig, formed at the small end into
a little loop, dipped into the hot syrup and blown upon by the breath,
sent into the air a light, feathery film.” The syrup was then lifted off
and poured into moulds, or else stirred rapidly until cooled, when it
became delicious brown sugar in loose grains. The boys had a great deal
of fun “trying” the syrup to see if it was ready to “sugar off.”
Then there were husking-bees and apple-parings and cider-making; and in
the winter all the young people went to singing school.
Bryant in his boyhood was also fond of fishing for trout in the small
streams, where there were plenty of fish to catch. Another sport was
squirrel shooting. The young men would divide into two equal parties and
see which party could shoot the most squirrels.
Of course, in those days everybody went to church. Young Bryant began
when he was only three years old. History does not say how he behaved,
but there was not much chance to be naughty in church in those times.
Every parish had its tithing man, whose business it was to maintain
order in the church during divine service, and who sat with a stern
countenance through the sermon, keeping a vigilant eye on the boys in
distant pews and in the galleries. Sometimes when he detected two of
them communicating with each other, he went to one of them, took him
by the arm, and leading him away, seated him beside himself. He was
also directed by law to see that the Sabbath was not profaned by people
wandering in the fields or fishing in the brooks.
When he was eight years old, young Cullen began to make poetry. His
grandfather thought him rather bright at this, and a year or two later
asked him to turn the first chapter of the Book of Job into verse. He did
it all. Here are two sample lines:
His name was Job, evil he did eschew.
To him were born seven sons; three daughters, too.
For this he received a ninepenny piece, though his father thought the
lines rather bad.
CHAPTER IV
THE YOUNG POET
Bryant’s poetic career began when he was twelve years old. Besides some
“Enigmas” and a translation from the Latin of Horace, he made a copy of
verses to be recited at the close of the winter school, “in the presence
of the master, the minister of the parish, and a number of private
gentlemen.” The verses were printed in the _Hampshire Gazette_, March 18,
1806, the year before Longfellow was born. This same newspaper had other
contributions also from the pen of “C. B.”
Dr. Peter Bryant was something of a politician. He was several times a
representative in the Massachusetts legislature, and finally a senator.
He belonged to the Federal party, which was then in opposition to the
president. Jefferson was president, and in 1807, for the purpose of
protecting American interests, he laid an embargo on shipping. This
brought on severe hard times, and caused great indignation among the
Federalists. Dr. Bryant thought his young son might write a satirical
poem about it. So “The Embargo; or, Sketches of the Times,” was written
and printed in a volume. There was a line on the title page saying the
poem was written by “a youth of thirteen.” One of the great periodicals
of that time, called the _Anthology_, reviewed the book, and while
speaking well of it, said it seemed impossible that such a poem had been
written by a “youth of thirteen.” So when the first edition was sold and
a second was printed the following year, young Bryant’s friends prefixed
an “Advertisement,” as they called it—a paragraph in which they assured
the public that the author was only thirteen, and there were plenty of
people who would vouch for it. In this edition the name William Cullen
Bryant was boldly printed.
Of course this was not very good poetry. There is a story that years
afterward some one asked Bryant if he had a copy of his first book, “The
Embargo.” “No,” said he. Afterward the friend who had asked him said he
had found a copy in Boston. “I don’t see how you can spend your time
with such rubbish,” said the poet, and turned away.
During the next few years he wrote other boyish and patriotic poems, some
of which were printed in the _Hampshire Gazette_. One, written when he
was sixteen, was entitled “The Genius of Columbia”; another was, “An Ode
for the Fourth of July, 1812.”
In 1812 he entered the Sophomore Class in Williams College, where he
remained only a year. There were only the president, one professor, and
two tutors at Williams College in those days, and so Bryant’s room-mate
decided to go to Yale, where he could get a better education. Bryant
thought he would go, too. He left Williams College and went home to
prepare himself to pass the examinations for entrance to the Junior Class
in Yale.
During this summer, while he was studying at home, he often wandered
about in the woods; and here he wrote “Thanatopsis.” At this time Bryant
was a very meditative young man, fond of reading poetry, a fair Greek and
Latin scholar, and devotedly fond of the country and all its beauties.
Just how or when he wrote “Thanatopsis” nobody ever knew. In the autumn
his father decided that he could not afford to send him to Yale, as he
was poor and had a large family. So the young man went away to study law.
After he was gone, Dr. Bryant was looking over some papers in his desk,
and found in one of the pigeon-holes some poems which his son Cullen had
written. One of them was “Thanatopsis.” He read it over, and thought it
so good that he took it to a lady friend of his.
“Here are some poems,” said he, “which our Cullen has been writing.”
She took them and began to read. When she had finished “Thanatopsis” she
burst into tears; and Dr. Bryant found his eyes rather watery, too.
At that time Dr. Bryant was a member of the senate in the Massachusetts
legislature; and so, going up to Boston, he took this and some other
poems along. The _North American Review_ was the great magazine in those
days, and Dr. Bryant knew slightly one of the editors, whose name was
Phillips. He went to call on him, but not finding him at home left the
package of manuscript with his own name on it. When Mr Phillips came
home he found it, and after reading the poems concluded that Dr. Bryant
must have written “Thanatopsis,” while the other poems were by his son
Cullen. But he regarded this poem as such a find that he hurried over
to Cambridge to see his two fellow-editors and read them the wonderful
lines. When he had finished, one of them, Richard H. Dana, himself a
poet, said:
“Oh, Phillips, you have been imposed on. There is no one in America who
can write such a poem as that.”
“Ah, but I know the man who wrote it,” said Phillips. “He is in the
senate.”
“Well, I must have a look at the man who wrote that poem,” said Dana; and
off he posted to Boston. He went to the state house, and to the senate
chamber, and asked for Senator Bryant. A tall, gray-bearded old man was
pointed out to him. Dana looked at him for a few minutes and said to
himself: “He has a fine head; but that man never wrote ‘Thanatopsis.’” So
without speaking to him he returned to Cambridge.
The poem was printed in the _North American Review_. It was the first
great poem ever produced in America; it was the work of a young man not
eighteen years of age, and it has since been said to be the greatest poem
ever written by one so young.
CHAPTER V
THANATOPSIS
Every child at school becomes familiar with this grand poem, because it
is in many of the higher readers. But that is not enough. You should
learn to understand its meaning. As you read this poem, are you not
reminded of the deep notes of a church organ, as the organist, left
alone, plays some mighty fugue in preparation for the funeral of a great
man? Thanatopsis (made up from two Greek words) means a view of death.
The poem opens by calling to our minds the grandeurs and the beauty of a
cathedral-like wood, where Nature rules supreme.
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.
We should hardly expect a young man of seventeen to be meditating on
death; but even very young people often think about it.
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—
These are the things we all think of when father or mother or brother
or sister or young friend dies and is laid away in the earth. It is sad
and terrible, and we cannot help weeping. At those times strong men and
women shed tears, and we do not think it strange. But, says Bryant,—
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
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 mould.
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 sepulchre.
Being turned back to earth again does not seem so terrible when we
think that all must have the same fate. There is a suggestion of
grandeur in the thought that George Washington, King Solomon, Sir Isaac
Newton, Napoleon—all lie in the same bed which Nature, the all-ruling,
everlasting power, has provided.
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.
When we reflect on how many have lived and died, the earth seems but one
great tomb. There are said to be over 1,200,000,000 persons on the earth
to-day. In a few years they will all have passed away, and others will
have taken their places; and this change has been going on for thousands
and thousands of years. In the graveyards of any city will be found but
a few hundred or at most a few thousand graves; yet hundreds of thousands
of people have died there and been buried. Where are their graves? Lost
and forgotten.
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
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 glides 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 grey-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.
CHAPTER VI
BRYANT BECOMES A LAWYER
Always of a studious turn, always reading in his father’s well-stocked
library, or wandering through the woods and writing poetry, Bryant
naturally tended towards some learned profession. He did not care to be
a doctor; he would have liked to be a literary man, if such a career had
then existed or been dreamed possible. As it was not, he finally decided
to become a lawyer.
A classmate who remembers him at this time describes him as singularly
handsome and finely formed. He was tall and slender, and had a prolific
growth of dark brown hair. He was also quick and dextrous in his
movements, so much so that his younger brother sometimes boasted about
his “stout brother,” though he afterward learned that his strength was
not so remarkable as his skill and alertness in the use of it.
When his father’s poverty compelled him to abandon college, he entered
the law office of a Mr. Howe, of Worthington, a quiet little village four
or five miles from Cummington.
Bryant’s friend and biographer, John Bigelow, says: “A young man’s first
year’s study of the law commonly affects him like his first cigar or
his first experience ‘before the mast.’” In other words, Bryant didn’t
like it at all. He was a conscientious young man, and kept at the work;
but he felt that he would almost as soon go out as a day laborer. In
a letter he speaks of Worthington as consisting of “a blacksmith shop
and a cow stable,” where his only entertainment was reading Irving’s
“Knickerbocker.” Mr. Howe complained that he gave more time to
Wordsworth’s lyrical ballads than to Blackstone and Chitty, the great
authorities on law, which he should have been studying.
Young Bryant wanted to go to Boston to continue his studies; but
finally, as his father was too poor to support him in Boston, he went to
Bridgewater, where his grandfather, Dr. Philip Bryant, lived. He liked
this place better. He was poet for a Fourth of July celebration, and
became interested in politics. The War of 1812 was going on. Madison was
President, and Bryant, in his letters to his friends, speaks of him as
“His Imbecility.” “His Imbecility” was warned that if he imposed any more
taxes the people would revolt.
At one time, Bryant thought of entering the militia for the defense
of states’ rights. It seems that he then advocated the policy of
Massachusetts seceding from the Union, as the Southern states afterwards
did.
His father actually got him a commission as adjutant in the Massachusetts
militia, but the war ended, and Bryant kept on with his law studies.
That same year he came of age and was admitted to practice at the bar.
He now went home and began to look about for a place where he could begin
the practice of law. He decided on Plainfield, a small village four or
five miles from Cummington. Plainfield had been the home of his father
for a short time when the future poet was a child; but it was a very
small place, with not more than two hundred inhabitants.
He drudged here for a few months, earning quite a little money; but he
decided that the place was too small, and went to Great Barrington, where
he had a chance to go into partnership with a lawyer already established,
whose practice was worth $1,200 a year.
Here he settled down to hard work, and here he remained as long as
he continued to practice law. After the success of “Thanatopsis,” he
contributed various articles to the _North American Review_, and in it
were published some of his most famous poems. He was chosen one of the
tithing men of the town, and soon afterwards town clerk, an office he
held for five years. As town clerk he received a salary of five dollars a
year. The governor of Massachusetts also made him Justice of the Peace.
When Bryant was twenty-five years old his father died. This caused him
great grief; but about this time, great happiness came to him also. Soon
after going to Great Barrington he had become acquainted with a Miss
Fairchild, who was an orphan visiting in the neighborhood. He liked her,
and the year after his father’s death they were married. She was his
devoted wife and friend for forty-five years, until she died.
CHAPTER VII
A LITERARY ADVENTURER
Gradually Bryant had become known in the small literary circle that had
sprung up around the _North American Review_, though his name was not
known outside this small circle in Boston. He had a great desire to
become a literary man; but he knew he must support his wife and family,
and verse-making offered no money return.
His friends, Richard H. Dana, Miss Catherine Sedgwick, and one or two
others, tried to persuade him to go to New York and engage in literature.
Finally he made a visit to New York. A publishing firm there offered him
two hundred dollars a year to write one hundred lines of poetry a month
for them. He thought this might keep him from starvation. He went back
to Great Barrington and stayed for some time longer, contributing to the
_United States Literary Gazette_, for which Longfellow was then writing.
In 1825 he visited New York again, and was offered the editorship of
a monthly periodical, the _New York Review and Athenæum Magazine_,
which some publishers were proposing to start. His salary was to be one
thousand dollars a year. This offer he accepted, and he went to New
York to live, leaving his wife and family in Great Barrington until he
should find out whether he was going to succeed. He considered that if
literature failed, he could drudge at the law in New York as well as at
Great Barrington.
James Fenimore Cooper, who was now becoming a famous novelist, was a
friend of Bryant’s. So was William Ware, who wrote a novel based on the
life of Zenobia, the queen of Palmyra,—a very famous book in its day and
one still worth reading. Bryant worked very hard. He liked literature
a great deal better than he did the law; and though it was uncertain,
he thought that fortune would favor him in the end. The magazine he
edited did not succeed very well, and at the end of a year was united
with another one, the _New York Literary Gazette_. A few months later
the _United States Gazette_ in Boston was united with the magazine which
Bryant was editing, under the title, _United States Review and Literary
Gazette_.
Bryant was allowed one quarter interest in the business and five hundred
dollars a year salary. The five hundred dollars was probably all he got,
and this sum was so small he could not make it support his family very
well. If this magazine should succeed, he would get more money; but it
did not, and Bryant really thought he would have to quit literature for
law once more.
He was licensed to practice in New York; but just then fortune favored
him: he was asked to do some work on the New York _Evening Post_. The
assistant editor had gone to Cuba, and finally died there. So Bryant was
soon made the assistant editor, and was allowed an interest in the paper.
At that time the paper was favorable to the federal party; but a few
years later it became decidedly democratic in tone. So long as Mr. Bryant
controlled it, it was an advocate of free trade and a bold champion of
human liberty.
CHAPTER VIII
THE EDITOR OF A GREAT NEWSPAPER
Bryant’s life work proved to be, not writing poetry, but editing a great
New York daily paper. For many years he went to his office at seven
o’clock every morning. He was never strong in body, and he had to take
very great care of his health.
Every young reader should learn a useful lesson from him, although it is
not easy to follow the rigorous mode of life he laid out for himself and
followed to the end of his days. He himself tells in a letter what he did:
“I rise early at this time of the year (March), about half-past five;
in summer, half an hour or even an hour earlier. Immediately, with very
little encumbrance of clothing, I begin a series of exercises, for the
most part designed to expand the chest, and at the same time call into
action all the muscles and articulations of the body. These are performed
with dumb-bells,—the very lightest, covered with flannel,—with a pole,
a horizontal bar, and a light chair swung around my head. After a full
hour and sometimes more passed in this manner, I bathe from head to foot.
When at my place in the country, I sometimes shorten my exercise in
the chamber, and, going out, occupy myself in some work which requires
brisk motion. After my bath, if breakfast be not ready, I sit down to
my studies till I am called. My breakfast is a simple one—hominy and
milk, or, in place of hominy, brown bread, or oatmeal, or wheaten grits,
and, in season, baked sweet apples. Buckwheat cakes I do not decline,
nor any other article of vegetable food, but animal food I never take at
breakfast. Tea and coffee I never touch at any time; sometimes I take a
cup of chocolate, which has no narcotic effect, and agrees with me very
well. At breakfast I often take fruit, either in its natural state or
freshly stewed.
“After breakfast I occupy myself for a while with my studies, and, when
in town, I walk down to the office of the _Evening Post_, nearly three
miles distant, and after about three hours return, always walking....
In town, where I dine late, I take but two meals a day. Fruit makes a
considerable part of my diet. My drink is water.
“That I may rise early, I, of course, go to bed early; in town as early
as ten; in the country somewhat earlier.... I abominate drugs and
narcotics, and have always carefully avoided anything which spurs nature
to exertions which it would not otherwise make. Even with my food I do
not take the usual condiments, such as pepper and the like.”
A man who was so conscientious about eating and drinking and going to
bed and getting up in the morning, was the kind of man who would be
conscientious in editing a newspaper. In Bryant’s early newspaper life
a great daily paper was not so much a machine to gather news from every
quarter of the globe and serve it up in a sensational style, as a medium
for discussing public questions. Nowadays, people often do not even look
at the editorial column; but in those days there was so little news they
were obliged to read this. It was about the only fresh thing in the
paper. Once a week, perhaps, a sailing vessel from Europe would come
in with a bundle of European newspapers, from which the editor would
clip and reprint a summary of foreign news. It took several days to get
news from Washington to New York. Local items were generally sent in by
friends of the editor. For years Bryant had but one assistant, and they
two did all the reporting, editing, and editorial writing. Reviews of
books were sometimes done outside, and the shipping and financial news
was furnished by a sort of City Press Association. It was Bryant’s work
to write a brilliant editorial or two every morning. Many of these were
on politics, others on questions of local public interest. But Bryant
tried always to be on the side of right and justice. For years the _Post_
was regarded as the leading paper of the people, standing for the rights
of the people. Many a time it fought the battles of the great public, and
sometimes it won.
A daily paper lasts but for a day; then it is dead and another takes its
place. To know how completely a daily paper dies when its day’s work is
done, so to speak, suppose you try to buy a copy three months old, or a
year old. You remember three months ago there were hundreds of thousands
of copies printed and distributed. You suppose that you can get a copy at
the office of the paper, at any rate. But no; all more than three months
old have been destroyed.
In New York there was once a little old shop, kept by a queer old
mulatto, known as “Back Number Bud,” who charged a dollar and a half for
a one cent paper, less than a year old. This shop of “Back Number Bud’s”
was, a few years ago, the only place in New York City where back numbers
of newspapers could be purchased at any price; and in smaller cities no
copies whatever could be obtained, except by chance.
A daily newspaper influences the people to-day, and then dies, and
another paper takes its place. But if one man is making that paper every
day for fifty years, at the end of fifty years, doing a little every day,
he may have succeeded several times in completely revolutionizing public
opinion.
Besides Bryant, there were other great newspaper editors in New York. One
was Horace Greeley, whose name every child has heard. There were others,
too. But none were more faithful than Bryant. For years his newspaper
work took so much of his time that he wrote scarcely any poetry at all.
But as those numbers of the _Evening Post_ are dead and forgotten, we
shall never know how much good he did during those years and years of
faithful leadership.
CHAPTER IX
HOW BRYANT BECAME RICH
We have already seen that Bryant was born a poor country boy; that his
father was so poor he could not send his son to college more than a year;
and that Bryant himself, when he first went to New York, worked for a
time at a salary of only five hundred dollars a year.
When he became assistant editor of the _Evening Post_, the
editor-in-chief, William Coleman, who was also the chief proprietor,
thought it would be well to give a small interest in the paper to one or
two young men, so that when the older proprietors died others would be
coming on to take their places. An eighth part was given to Bryant, who
was to pay for it gradually from the money he could save. Another portion
was offered to a friend of his, who decided not to take it.
Three or four years later, when Mr. Coleman died, Bryant was made
editor-in-chief, and bought a larger interest in the paper. He finally
secured one half. The other half was owned for a time by a Mr. Burnham,
a practical printer. Later, one of Bryant’s assistants, whose name was
Leggett, owned a part interest.
In those days newspapers were not such costly properties as they are
to-day. Bryant always made a good living, but he regarded the work in
which he was engaged as drudgery.
After he had been in the newspaper work for some years, he wrote to his
brother, who was a pioneer in Illinois, saying he thought of retiring
from the _Post_, and asking what could be done in the West with four or
five thousand dollars. His interest at this time was two fifths, so that
he must have valued the paper at about twelve thousand dollars.
About this time, while he was away from New York, his partner and
assistant editor, Mr. Leggett, nearly ruined the paper. When Bryant
returned he found that it was earning no money, and that he could not
sell his interest at any price.
He therefore set to work to win popularity for the paper once more. This
he succeeded gradually in doing, and during the next ten years there was
an average yearly profit of over $10,000, of which Bryant received a
little less than half. In 1850 the yearly profit was $16,000, and in 1860
it was $70,000. If Bryant received $30,000 for his share of the profits
of a year’s business, he might be regarded as a rich man. After his
death, the _Evening Post_ was sold for $900,000, of which Bryant’s share
was half.
During his later years he bought a great deal of land and many houses on
Long Island, where he had a country home. He had another country home
at Cummington, his grandfather’s homestead, where he built a beautiful
house. He also traveled a great deal, going to Europe many times, and to
other parts of the world.
Thus, by faithful, plodding work for many years Bryant, though a poet,
became rich. He was delicate and sympathetic, like all true poets, but he
did not indulge in what some have supposed to be the poet’s liberty to be
reckless and careless. He worked faithfully and very diligently all his
life; and in his old age he was well rewarded for all his labor.
CHAPTER X
BRYANT AS AN ORATOR AND PROSE WRITER
When Bryant went to New York it was a comparatively small city. As years
passed, it grew in size and wealth, and its newspapers became more
important. We have seen how Bryant became rich by his ownership of the
_Evening Post_. He also gained in honors. He was the editor of a great
daily paper, and he was also a noted poet. His poems had been published
both in this country and in London, and many thousands of copies were
sold. Bryant was often asked to write poems for great celebrations, or in
honor of well-known people. This he always refused to do. But he often
made public addresses. When James Fenimore Cooper died, he acted, as it
were, as the spokesman of the nation’s grief. He pronounced the funeral
eulogy upon Irving, and upon many noted people. He was not a great orator
like Daniel Webster; but such speeches as these upon the lives of great
men have seldom been surpassed.
We must remember, too, that all his life Bryant, in his editorials, was
writing prose. From these editorials it would be easy to select some of
the finest pieces of prose writing in our language. As most of them were
on the passing events of the day, they have never been reprinted,—they
have died with the newspaper. But here is a passage on the emancipation
of the slaves which has the ring of true eloquence.
President Lincoln had proposed gradual emancipation.
“Gradual emancipation!” exclaims Bryant. “Have we not suffered enough
from slavery without keeping it any longer? Has not blood enough been
shed? My friends, if a child of yours were to fall into the fire, would
you pull him out gradually? If he were to swallow a dose of laudanum
sufficient to cause speedy death, and a stomach pump were at hand, would
you draw out the poison by degrees? If your house were on fire, would
you put it out piecemeal? And yet there are men who talk of gradual
emancipation by force of ancient habit, and there are men in the slave
states who make of slavery a sort of idol which they are unwilling to
part with; which, if it must be removed, they would prefer to see removed
after a lapse of time and tender leave-takings.
“Slavery is a foul and monstrous idol, a Juggernaut under which thousands
are crushed to death; it is a Moloch for whom the children of the land
pass through fire. Must we consent that the number of the victims shall
be diminished gradually? If there are a thousand victims this year, are
you willing that nine hundred shall be sacrificed next year, and eight
hundred the next, and so on until after the lapse of ten years it shall
cease? No, my friends, let us hurl the grim image from its pedestal. Down
with it to the ground! Dash it to fragments; trample it in the dust.
Grind it to powder as the prophets of old commanded that the graven
images of the Hebrew idolaters should be ground, and in that state
scatter it to the four winds and strew it upon the waters, that no human
hand shall ever gather up the accursed atoms and mould them into an image
to be worshiped again with human sacrifice.”
This eloquent passage is taken from an editorial in the _Evening Post_.
The following is from a speech delivered at a dinner given to Professor
Morse, the inventor of the telegraph:
“There is one view of this great invention which impresses me with awe.
Beside me at this board, along with the illustrious man whom we are
met to honor, and whose name will go down to the latest generations of
civilized man, sits the gentleman to whose clear-sighted perseverance,
and to whose energy—an energy which knew no discouragement, no weariness,
no pause—we owe it that the telegraph has been laid which connects the
Old World with the New through the Atlantic Ocean. My imagination goes
down to the chambers of the middle sea, to those vast depths where
repose the mystic wire on beds of coral, among forests of tangle, or on
the bottom of the dim blue gulfs, strewn with the bones of whales and
sharks, skeletons of drowned men, and ribs and masts of foundered barks,
laden with wedges of gold never to be coined, and pipes of the choicest
vintages of earth never to be tasted.
“Through these watery solitudes, among the fountains of the great deep,
the abode of perpetual silence, never visited by living human presence
and beyond the sight of human eye, there are gliding to and fro, by night
and by day, in light and in darkness, in calm and in tempest, currents
of human thought borne by the electric pulse which obeys the bidding of
man. That slender wire thrills with the hopes and fears of nations; it
vibrates to every emotion that can be awakened by any event affecting the
welfare of the human race.
“A volume of contemporary history passes every hour of the day from one
continent to another. An operator on the continent of Europe gently
touches the keys of an instrument in his quiet room, a message is shot
with the swiftness of light through the abysses of the sea, and before
his hand is lifted from the machine the story of revolts and revolutions,
of monarchs dethroned and new dynasties set up in their place, of battles
and conquests and treaties of peace, of great statesmen fallen in death,
lights of the world gone out and new luminaries glimmering on the
horizon, is written down in another quiet room on the other side of the
globe.
“Mr. President, I see in the circumstances which I have enumerated a new
proof of the superiority of mind to matter, of the independent existence
of that part of our nature which we call the spirit, when it can thus
subdue, enslave, and educate the subtilest, the most active, and in
certain of its manifestations the most intractable and terrible, of the
elements, making it in our hands the vehicle of thought, and compelling
it to speak every language of the civilized world. I infer the capacity
of the spirit for a separate state of being, its indestructible essence
and its noble destiny, and I thank the great discoverer whom we have
assembled to honor for this confirmation of my faith.”
CHAPTER XI
OTHER EVENTS IN BRYANT’S LIFE
Among the remaining important events of the poet’s life, we must first
speak of the publication of his poems. In 1822, the year after his
marriage and while he was trying to practice law at Great Barrington,
he was invited to deliver the usual poetical address before the Phi
Beta Kappa Society of Harvard College. For this occasion he wrote the
poem of “The Ages,” with which his collected works now open. This poem
secured him so much reputation that he published a very small volume of
his works. There were but forty-four pages, but in that small space were
printed some of the finest poems Bryant ever wrote. The copies did not
sell very rapidly, and Bryant’s profit was not large. When he was old and
famous, a young man said to him, “I have just bought a copy of the first
volume of your poems. I paid twenty dollars for it.”
“Hm!” said Bryant. “A good deal more than I got for writing it!”
Of his other poems, a large number were written for the _United States
Literary Gazette_, and the various magazines he edited in New York. When
he became editor of the _Evening Post_ he continued to edit the _United
States Review and Literary Gazette_, until it was discontinued. After
that he assisted in editing an annual called _The Talisman_, which
appeared regularly until 1829. To this he contributed a considerable
number of poems. But now for several years he wrote but little poetry,
giving all his time and energy to the newspaper.
In 1831, however, he published a second collection of his poems. There
were eighty in the volume. Then he thought he would see how they would be
received in England. He had a friend who knew Washington Irving. Irving
was a famous writer at this time, and his publisher was John Murray, one
of the greatest of English publishers. Bryant obtained an introduction
to Irving by letter, and asked him to assist in getting Murray to bring
out a London edition of his poems. Murray would not do it, however.
But Irving admired Bryant’s work, and after a time he found another
publisher who was willing to bring out the volume. He himself wrote an
introduction, and dedicated the book to Rogers, the fashionable poet of
England at that time. But before the book came out the publisher, a fussy
old man, came to Irving and said it would never do to print in England
the line,
And the British foeman trembles.
That would be sure to offend the stolid Briton’s pride. So Irving changed
the line to
The foeman trembles in his camp.
Years afterward there was some controversy over this change on the part
of Irving; but Irving and Bryant always remained good friends.
Other volumes of his collected poems were published from time to time
after this; but they are not important. The only other great poetic work
that Bryant attempted was his translation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
When he translated these grand Greek poems into English blank verse he
was already quite an old man. His wife had died, and he wished some
regular work, aside from his paper, that would claim his thoughts. So he
made it a practice to translate a few lines every day. This he kept up
for a number of years, until he had translated the whole of both these
long poems.
For this he probably received more money than for all his other poems
put together—over seventeen thousand dollars in all.
We must next speak of his travels; for Bryant was a great traveler.
His first long journey was made in 1832 to visit his brothers, who had
become the proprietors of a large landed estate in Illinois. He was
three weeks on the journey out. While crossing the prairies between
the Mississippi River and his brothers’ plantation he met a company of
Illinois volunteers, who were going to take part in the Black Hawk War.
They were led by a tall, awkward, uncouth lad, whose appearance attracted
Bryant’s attention, and whose conversation pleased him, it was so breezy
and original. He learned many years afterward that this captain was
Abraham Lincoln. When in 1860 it was proposed to nominate Lincoln for
President, Lincoln came to New York to speak, and Bryant introduced him
to the audience.
It was during his visit to his brothers that he wrote of
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name.
He evidently liked the West, for we have seen that later he proposed to
sell out his paper and go there to live.
In 1834 he made his first trip to Europe. While he was gone he wrote
letters regularly for his paper; but he traveled leisurely and enjoyed
himself. He took his wife and daughters with him. He remained two years,
when he was called home by the illness of the associate editor, who had
charge of the paper in his absence.
After this, at various times, he visited Europe again, crossing the
Atlantic in all six times. One of these journeys, made in 1857, was
chiefly for Mrs. Bryant’s health. They landed at Havre, and journeyed
through Belgium and Holland, France and Spain to Madrid, whence they
crossed to Naples, where Mrs. Bryant was ill for four months. She
recovered somewhat, but when at last they returned to the United
States she was not much better. Bryant had bought the old homestead at
Cummington, and had invited all his relatives from Illinois to join him
in “hanging the pot.” In July, 1858, he had to notify his brothers, some
of whom were already at Cummington, that his wife was too ill to go
there; and on the 27th of that month she died. In regard to her death he
wrote to a friend, “I lived with my wife forty-five years, and now that
great blessing of my life is withdrawn, and I am like one cast out of
paradise and wandering in a strange world.”
Nearly ten years before this, in 1849, he made a visit of two months to
Cuba, going by way of the Carolinas and Florida. He was “received by the
governor-general of Havana, and passed several days on a coffee estate
at Matanzas, going then by rail to San Antonio in a car built at Newark,
drawn by an engine made in New York, and worked by an American engineer.
He breakfasted at the inn of La Punta on rice and fresh eggs and a dish
of meat. He witnessed a cock-fight, a masked ball, a murderer garroted,
and slavery in some of its most inhuman phases.”
He also visited Mexico, Egypt, and the Shetland Islands, and was
everywhere an interested observer of men and manners.
CHAPTER XII
HONORS TO THE GREAT POET
We have seen that Bryant was not only a great poet, but a great newspaper
editor, an eloquent orator, and a rich man. So he came to be a noted
public character, one of the leading citizens of the great city of
New York. From this time forward until his death in extreme old age,
prominent statesmen, politicians, poets, people of society, hastened to
shower honors upon him. He was asked to be a regent of the University of
New York, but declined. Banquets were also tendered him, which he also
declined. But on his seventieth birthday, November 3, 1864, the Century
Club of New York, of which he had been one of the founders, resolved
to make a great festival in his honor. Bancroft, the historian, was
president of the club, and greeted Bryant with a graceful speech on that
great occasion. In Bryant’s reply is the following passage, which will be
of interest to all young people as showing that this great and wise man
believed in placing responsibility on the young, and not in keeping them
in the background for wise old heads.
“Much has been said of the wisdom of Old Age,” said he. “Old Age is
wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise
in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time
to execute them; wise in shirking from difficulty, for it has not the
strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the
faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and
converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large,
by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties
surmounted. What a world this would be if it were made up of old men!”
Oliver Wendell Holmes was there, and read a beautiful poem composed for
the occasion. There were also other poems read by their authors, and
Whittier and Lowell, who could not be there, sent their poems to be read,
while Longfellow and a great many other famous people wrote letters of
congratulation.
Here are some of the beautiful lines from the poem which Dr. Holmes read:
How can we praise the verse whose music flows
With solemn cadence and majestic close,
Pure as the dew that filters through the rose?
How shall we thank him that in evil days
He faltered never,—nor for blame nor praise,
Nor hire nor party, shared his earlier days?
But as his boyhood was of manliest hue,
So to his youth his manly years were true,
All dyed in royal purple through and through.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was there, and made a speech, which he closed with
this verse, written by the poet Crabbe:
True bard, and simple as the race
Of heaven-born poets always are,
When stooping from their starry place
They’re children near but gods afar.
This means that great poets seem very great and magnificent when we think
of them after they are dead and gone, or when they live by themselves at
a great distance; but really when you know them, they are as natural and
human as children. That perfectly describes William Cullen Bryant.
In 1874 Bryant was elected an honorary member of the Russian Academy
of St. Petersburg. The same year, on his eightieth birthday, he was
presented with an address of honor, signed by thousands and thousands
of people. This was accompanied by a special vase, completed sometime
afterward, which commemorated his literary career. A little later in
the same year he visited Governor Tilden at Albany, and was tendered a
public reception. After that some of his friends proposed that he should
be nominated as one of the electors on the Tilden electoral ticket, when
Tilden was a candidate for the presidency of the United States.
These and many other public honors were heaped upon him in his old age.
When over eighty-three years of age he was invited to deliver an address
on the unveiling of a statue of Mazzini, the Italian patriot, in Central
Park, New York City. After it was over, he was very much exhausted, but
walked across the park to the house of a friend. On the steps he fell,
being old and feeble and very tired. His head hit on a stone and he
fainted away. Less than two weeks later, June 12, 1878, he died from the
effects of this fall.
CHAPTER XIII
LEARNING TO LOVE A POET
It is not uncommon to hear young people say, “I don’t like poetry at
all. It is dry, horrid stuff, and I don’t understand it.” No doubt some
of you will say or think this about Bryant’s poetry. It is true that he
used a great many long, hard words; and his poems are sometimes rather
solemn. What is more, they are not musical like Longfellow’s. It is said
that Bryant had no ear for music. For this reason you cannot read his
poetry as you do Longfellow’s, swinging along from line to line. Young
people who read in the sing-song style will find that they cannot do
that when they come to Bryant. At first you may think his poetry is, for
this reason, not good poetry at all. Perhaps it would be better to call
Bryant a prose poet instead of a musical poet. But when you get used to
his prose-like poetry, you will like it if you have in you the least love
of nature or natural beauty.
Take some one poem that you like and read it over and over again, until
you have it almost if not quite by heart—for instance, that beautiful
poem, “The Death of the Flowers,” written on the occasion of his sister’s
death:
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead;
They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit’s tread.
The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,
And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.
Other poems that are well worth reading many times, until you really
understand and love them, are “The Waterfowl,” “Autumn Woods,”
“November,” “The Gladness of Nature,” “The Past,” “To the Fringed
Gentian,” “The Conqueror’s Grave,” “An Invitation to the Country,” “The
Wind and the Stream,” “The Poet,” “May Evening,” “The Flood of Years,”
and “Our Fellow-Worshipers.” To have mastered one of these poems is
better than to have read the whole of Bryant carelessly. Take one, and
read it until by very force of habit you learn to love it; and then the
next poem you take up will reveal beauties which you never suspected when
you first read it.
There is also a city poem of Bryant’s, “The Crowded Street,” well worth
learning to love:
Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.
How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.
And here is one more short poem, which may you all remember, long after
you have forgotten that you ever read this little history of the poet’s
life!
THE DEATH OF LINCOLN.
Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just!
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear
The sword of power, a nation’s trust!
In sorrow by thy bier we stand,
Amid the awe that hushes all,
And speak the anguish of a land
That shook with horror at thy fall.
Thy task is done; the bond are free:
We bear thee to an honored grave,
Whose proudest monument shall be
The broken fetters of the slave.
Pure was thy life; its bloody close
Hath placed thee with the sons of light,
Among the noblest host of those
Who perished in the cause of Right.
THE STORY OF HENRY W. LONGFELLOW
[Illustration: _HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW_]
LONGFELLOW
CHAPTER I
A GREAT POET
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;—
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
You doubtless remember how Robinson Crusoe one day found footprints in
the sand on the shore of his desert island. “I am not alone!” said he to
himself. “Another human being has been here before me.” Soon afterward he
had the good fortune to find his “man Friday.”
In geology we learn of footprints in rocks. Living beings ages ago walked
on the soft sand, and that sand, lying for a long time undisturbed, was
at length hardened into rock.
The poet Longfellow has left “footprints on the sands of time” in the
shape of his poems, and we may say those poems are like footprints
hardened into rock, which will last for ages. Many an unhappy soul, after
reading the sad, sweet, beautiful verses of the “Psalm of Life,” has
taken heart to go on fighting life’s battle nobly, and doing good instead
of yielding to the temptation to be weak and careless.
To realize what it is to be a great poet, think of the millions of boys
and girls, old and young, in the United States, and in Great Britain and
other foreign countries, who have learned by heart such famous poems as
“The Village Blacksmith,” “The Wreck of the Hesperus,” and “The Building
of the Ship.” You, yourself, no doubt, dear reader, when you want
something to memorize, turn to a volume of Longfellow’s poems. You have
learned to love the poems: therefore let me introduce to you the man who
first lived the poems in his own life, and you will certainly learn to
love him, too.
The poet was born February 27, 1807, in Portland, Maine. At the time of
his birth his parents were living in Captain Stephenson’s house, Mrs.
Stephenson being a sister of the elder Mr. Longfellow. But this was only
temporarily, indeed only while the Stephenson family were visiting the
West Indies. The Longfellows soon moved into the house of General Peleg
Wadsworth, where Mrs. Longfellow had spent part of her girlhood. It is
said to have been the first brick house ever built in Portland, and it
was one of the finest. Here they lived until the baby grew into a man.