occupied myself according to my tastes. I read with him parts of Livy,
the _Annals_ of Tacitus, the whole of Juvenal and Persius, the
_Satires_ of Horace, and portions of other Latin classics which I do
not remember. I wrote Latin prose and verse. In Greek I read some
books of the _Odyssey_, I don't remember how many; the _Alcestis_; and
two or three other plays of Euripides; the _Prometheus Vinctus_ of
AEschylus; portions of Herodotus, and parts of Thucydides,--of which
last I only remember how I was tormented by the account of the plague
at Athens. This was the work of between two and three years."
After a year's experience in law, he decides to give up his profession
and goes to Europe in order to study at Goettingen. On reaching
Liverpool his first introduction is to Roscoe, and then on his way to
London he stops at Hatton to visit Dr. Parr, who astonished him not a
little by observing, "Sir, I would not think I had done my duty if I
went to bed any night without praying for the success of Napoleon
Bonaparte."
In London Mr. Ticknor formed a friendship with Lord Byron; two men
more unlike in every respect can hardly be conceived of, and it is
amusing to think of Byron impressing his visitor as being "simple and
unaffected," or of his speaking "of his early follies with
sincerity," and of his own works "with modesty." It is amusing, too,
to hear that as Lady Byron is going out for a drive, "Lord Byron's
manner to her was affectionate; he followed her to the door, and shook
hands with her, as if he were not to see her for a month." The
following curious anecdote shows that Byron was no less unpatriotic in
his views than Dr. Parr himself. Mr. Ticknor is calling upon him, and
Byron is praising Scott as the first man of his time, and saying of
Gifford that no one could have a better disposition, when,--
"Sir James Bland Burgess, who had something to do in negotiating Jay's
Treaty, came suddenly into the room, and said abruptly, 'My lord, my
lord, a great battle has been fought in the Low Countries, and
Bonaparte is entirely defeated.' 'But is it true?' said Lord Byron, 'is
it true?' 'Yes, my lord, it is certainly true; and an aid-de-camp
arrived in town last night, he has been in Downing Street this morning,
and I have just seen him as he was going to Lady Wellington's. He says
he thinks Bonaparte is in full retreat towards Paris.' After a moment's
pause, Lord Byron replied, 'I am sorry for it;' and then, after another
slight pause, he added, 'I didn't know but I might live to see Lord
Castlereagh's head on a pole. But I suppose I sha'n't now.' And this
was the first impression produced on his imperious nature by the news
of the battle of Waterloo."
But Byron is not Mr. Ticknor's only London friend, for we read of a
breakfast with Sir Humphry Davy, a "genuine bookseller's dinner" with
Murray, and a visit to the author of _Gertrude of Wyoming_.
Goettingen, however, is the object of his journey, and at Goettingen
he remains for the next year and a half. If he does not learn to scorn
the delights of society, he has at least the resolution to live the
laborious days of the earnest student. He studies five languages, and
works twelve hours in the twenty-four. Greek, German, theology, and
natural history seem chiefly to claim his attention, but he is also
busy with French, Italian, and Latin, and manages at the same time to
keep up his English reading. He is much amused with the German
professors, and describes them with no little humor. There is
Michaelis, who asks one of his scholars for some silver shoe-buckles,
in lieu of a fee. There is Schultze, who "looks as if he had fasted
six months on Greek prosody and the Pindaric meters." There is
Blumenbach, who has a sharp discussion at a dinner-table, and next day
sends down three huge quartos all marked to show his authorities and
justify his statements.
Here is another interesting anecdote given in Ticknor's _Memoirs_:
"When I was in Goettingen, in 1816, I saw Wolf, the most distinguished
Greek scholar of the time. He could also lecture extemporaneously in
Latin. He was curious about this country, and questioned me about our
scholars and the amount of our scholarship. I told him what I
could,--amongst other things, of a fashionable, dashing preacher of
New York having told me that he took great pleasure in reading the
choruses of AEschylus, and that he read them without a dictionary! I
was walking with Wolf at the time, and, on hearing this, he stopped,
squared round, and said, 'He told you that, did he?' 'Yes,' I
answered. 'Very well; the next time you hear him say it, do you tell
him he lies, and that I say so.'"
During a six weeks' vacation there is a pleasant tour through Germany,
and at Weimar Mr. Ticknor makes the acquaintance of Goethe, who talked
about Byron, and "his great knowledge of human nature."
And now in the November of 1816, there comes an intimation that
Harvard College wishes to recall Mr. Ticknor to his old home, and give
him the professorship of French and Spanish literature. It was a
matter of difficulty for him to make a final decision, and a year
passes before he determined to accept the charge, and a year and a
half more before he enters upon its duties.
Meanwhile he leaves Goettingen, visits Paris, Geneva, and Rome, and
then goes on to Spain.... When in Spain, Mr. Ticknor is busy learning
Spanish and collecting Spanish books, and here he lays the groundwork
for that special literary distinction for which he is now so widely
known.--Adapted from the _Athenaeum_ and _Quarterly Review_.
LI
FITZ-GREENE HALLECK
Fitz-Greene Halleck died at a ripe old age in 1867. On the evening of
February 2d, 1869, Bryant delivered an address on the life and
writings of Halleck. The address was given before the New York
Historical Society and was printed the next day in the _New York
Evening Post_. Here is an interesting extract from the address:
"When I look back upon Halleck's literary life I cannot help thinking
that if his death had happened forty years earlier, his life would
have been regarded as a bright morning prematurely overcast. Yet
Halleck's literary career may be said to have ended then. All that
will hand down his name to future years had already been produced. Who
shall say to what cause his subsequent literary inaction was owing? It
was not the decline of his powers; his brilliant conversation showed
that it was not. Was it, then, indifference to fame? Was it because he
had put an humble estimate on what he had written, and therefore
resolved to write no more? Was it because he feared lest what he might
write would be unworthy of the reputation he had been so fortunate to
acquire?
"I have my own way of accounting for his literary silence in the
latter half of his life. One of the resemblances which he bore to
Horace consisted in the length of time for which he kept his poems by
him that he might give them the last and happiest touches. He had a
tenacious verbal memory, and having composed his poems without
committing them to paper, he revised them in the same manner,
murmuring them to himself in his solitary moments, recovering the
enthusiasm with which they were first received, and in this state
heightening the beauty of the thought or of the expression. I remember
that once in crossing Washington Park I saw Halleck before me and
quickened my pace to overtake him. As I drew near I heard him crooning
to himself what seemed to be lines of verse, and as he threw back his
hands in walking I perceived that they quivered with the feeling of
the passage he was reciting. I instantly checked my pace and fell
back, out of reverence for the mood of inspiration which seemed to be
upon him, and fearful lest I should intercept the birth of a poem
destined to be the delight of thousands of readers.
"In this way I suppose Halleck to have attained the gracefulness of
his diction, and the airy melody of his numbers. In this way I believe
he wrought up his verses to that transparent clearness of expression
which causes the thought to be seen through them without any
interposing dimness, so that the thought and the phrase seem one, and
the thought enters the mind like a beam of light. I suppose that
Halleck's time being taken up by the tasks of his vocation, he
naturally lost by degrees the habit of composing in this manner, and
that he found it so necessary to the perfection of what he wrote that
he adopted no other in its place.
"Whatever was the reason that Halleck ceased so early to write, let us
congratulate ourselves that he wrote at all. Great authors often
overlay and almost smother their own fame by the voluminousness of
their writings. So great is their multitude, and so rich is the
literature of our language, that for frequent readings we are obliged
to content ourselves with mere selections from the works of best and
most beloved of our poets, even those who have not written much. It is
only a few of their works that dwell and live in the general mind.
Gray, for example, wrote little, and of that little one short poem,
his _Elegy_, can be fairly said to survive in the public admiration,
and that poem I have sometimes heard called the most popular in our
language."
LII
THE AUTHOR OF THANATOPSIS
Thanatopsis may be said to be the most remarkable poem written by an
American youth. "The unfailing wonder of it is," writes an American
critic in a magazine article, "that a boy of seventeen could have
written it; not merely that he could have made verse of such
structural beauty and dignity, but that the thoughts of which it is
compacted could have been a boy's thoughts. The poem seems to have
been written while he was at his father's house in Cummington, in the
summer of 1811, before he had definitely begun the study of law. Fond
as he had been of showing his earlier effusions to his father and
others, the consciousness of having done something different and
greater must have come upon him at this time, for it was only by
accident, six years after the writing of _Thanatopsis_, that his
father chanced to find it and the poem now called _An Inscription Upon
the Entrance to a Wood_, among some papers in a desk the boy had used
while at home. Dr. Bryant read them with amazement and delight,
hurried at once to the house of a neighbor, a lady of whose sympathy
he felt sure, thrust them into her hands, and, with the tears running
down his cheeks, said, 'Read them; they are Cullen's.'
[Illustration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
From a photograph from life]
"Now it had happened only a short time before, that Dr. Bryant had
been asked in Boston to urge his son to contribute to the newly
established _North American Review_, and had written him a letter on
the editor's behalf. Here was the opportunity of a proud father.
Without telling his son of his discovery or his purpose, he left the
poems one day, together with some translations from _Horace_ by the
same hand, at the office of _The North American_. The little package
was addressed to his editorial friend, Mr. Willard Phillips, of whom
tradition tells us that as soon as he read the poems he betook himself
in hot haste to Cambridge to display his treasures to his associates,
Richard H. Dana and Edward T. Channing. 'Ah, Phillips,' said Dana,
when he had heard the poems read, 'you have been imposed upon. No one
on this side of the Atlantic is capable of writing such verse.' But
Phillips, believing Dr. Bryant to be responsible for it, declared that
he knew the writer, and that Dana could see him at once if he would go
to the State House in Boston. Accordingly the young men posted into
town, and Dana, unconvinced after looking long and carefully at Dr.
Bryant in his seat in the Senate, said, 'It is a good head, but I do
not see _Thanatopsis_ in it.'"
Bryant is never thought of as a humorist, and his poetry is devoid of
playfulness. But in this letter to his mother, in which he announces
his marriage with Frances Fairchild, we have evidence that Bryant had
a strong sense of humor.
DEAR MOTHER: I hasten to send you the melancholy intelligence
of what has lately happened to me.
Early on the evening of the eleventh day of the present month
I was at a neighboring house in this village. Several people
of both sexes were assembled in one of the apartments, and
three or four others, with myself, were in another. At last
came in a little elderly gentleman, pale, thin, with a solemn
countenance, pleuritic voice, hooked nose, and hollow eyes. It
was not long before we were summoned to attend in the
apartment where he and the rest of the company were gathered.
We went in and took our seats; the little elderly gentleman
with the hooked nose prayed, and we all stood up. When he had
finished most of us sat down. The gentleman with the hooked
nose then muttered certain cabalistic expressions, which I was
too much frightened to remember, but I recollect that at the
conclusion I was given to understand that I was married to a
young lady by the name of Frances Fairchild, whom I perceived
standing by my side, and I hope in the course of few months to
have the pleasure of introducing to you as your daughter-in-law,
which is a matter of some interest to the poor girl, who has
neither father or mother in the world.
Next to _Thanatopsis_ the most widely-known and admired of Bryant's
work is _To a Waterfowl_. There are two very interesting stories
pertaining to this much quoted poem, one relating to the origin of the
poem, the other recording its effect on two fastidious young
Englishmen, Hartley Coleridge and Matthew Arnold.
Bryant was a young man with no assurance as to what the future might
have in store for him. He was journeying over the hills to Plainfield
to see whether there might possibly be an opening for a young lawyer.
It was the 15th of December, 1816, and we can imagine that the gloom
of the gathering twilight helped to deepen the youth's despondency.
But before the glimmering light of evening had given place entirely to
the dark of night, the sky was transfigured with the bright rays of
the setting sun. The New England sky was flooded for a moment with
seas of chrysolite and opal. While young Bryant stopped to enjoy the
brilliant scene, a solitary bird made its way across the sky. He
watched it until it was lost in the distant horizon, and then went on
with new courage as he thought the thoughts so beautifully expressed
in the poem which he wrote after he reached the house where he was to
stay for the night.
The incident in regard to Matthew Arnold is related by Godwin in a
letter to Bigelow:
"Once when the late Matthew Arnold, with his family, was visiting the
ever-hospitable country home of Mr. Charles Butler, I happened to
spend an evening there. In the course of it Mr. Arnold took up a
volume of Mr. Bryant's poems from the table and turning to me said,
'This is the American poet, _facile princeps_'; and after a pause, he
continued: 'When I first heard of him, Hartley Coleridge (we were both
lads then) came into my father's house one afternoon considerably
excited and exclaimed, 'Matt, do you want to hear the best short poem
in the English language?' 'Faith, Hartley, I do,' was my reply. He
then read a poem _To a Waterfowl_ in his best manner. And he was a
good reader. As soon as he had done he asked, 'What do you think of
that?' 'I am not sure but you are right, Hartley, is it your
father's?' was my reply. 'No,' he rejoined, 'father has written
nothing like that.' Some days after he might be heard muttering to
himself,
The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering but not lost."
LIII
CURTIS AND HAWTHORNE AT THE BROOK FARM
The social experiment known as the Brook Farm enterprise is one of the
most interesting episodes in American literature. Mrs. Ora G. Sedgwick
is one of the many writers who have written about the place and its
inhabitants. She went there in June, 1841, and lived for some time at
the Hive, the principal community edifice. She was then but a girl of
sixteen, but the impressions on her youthful mind were strong enough
to enable her recently to describe her life there. As to Curtis she
has this to say:
"The arrival of George William Curtis, then a youth of eighteen, and
his brother Burrill, two years his senior, was a noteworthy event in
the annals of Brook Farm, at least in the estimation of the younger
members. I shall never forget the flutter of excitement caused by Mr.
Ripley's announcing their expected coming in these words: 'Now we're
going to have two young Greek gods among us.' ... On a bright morning
in May, 1842, soon after Mr. Ripley's announcement, as I was coming
down from the Eyrie to the Hive, I saw Charles A. Dana with two
strange young men approaching my 'magic gate' from the direction of
the Hive. Arriving at the gate before me, Mr. Dana threw it open with
the flourish peculiar to his manner, and stood holding it back. His
companions stood beside him, and all three waited for me to pass
through. I saw at a glance that these must be 'the two young Greek
gods.' They stood disclosed, not like Virgil's Venus, by their step,
but by their beauty and bearing. Burrill Curtis was at that time the
more beautiful. He had a Greek face, of great purity of expression,
and curling hair. George too was very handsome--not so remarkably as
in later life, but already with a man's virile expression.
"About George William Curtis there was a peculiar personal elegance
and an air of great deference in listening to one whom he admired or
looked up to. There was a certain remoteness (at times almost
amounting to indifference) about him, but he was always courteous. His
friends were all older than himself, and he appeared much older in
manners and conversation than he was in years; more like a man of
twenty-five than a youth of eighteen."
Mrs. Sedgwick also gives us a charming glimpse at the great American
novelist, Hawthorne:
"I do not recollect Hawthorne's talking much at the table. Indeed, he
was a very taciturn man. One day, tired of seeing him sitting
immovable on the sofa in the hall, as I was learning some verses to
recite at the evening class for recitation formed by Charles A. Dana,
I daringly took my book, pushed it into his hands, and said, 'Will you
hear my poetry, Mr. Hawthorne?' He gave me a sidelong glance from his
very shy eyes, took the book, and most kindly heard me. After that he
was on the sofa every week to hear me recite.
"One evening he was alone in the hall, sitting on a chair at the
farther end, when my room mate, Ellen Slade, and myself were going
upstairs. She whispered to me, 'Let's throw the sofa pillows at Mr.
Hawthorne.' Reaching over the bannisters, we each took a cushion and
threw it. Quick as a flash he put out his hand, seized a broom that
was hanging near him, warded off our cushions, and threw them back
with sure aim. As fast as we could throw them at him he returned them
with effect, hitting us every time, while we could hit only the broom.
He must have been very quick in his movements. Through it all not a
word was spoken. We laughed and laughed, and his eyes shone and
twinkled like stars. Wonderful eyes they were, and when anything witty
was said I always looked quickly at Mr. Hawthorne; for his dark eyes
lighted up as if flames were suddenly kindled behind them, and then
the smile came down to his lips and over his grave face.
"My memories of Mr. Hawthorne are among the pleasantest of my Brook
Farm recollections. His manners to children were charming and kind. I
saw him one day walking, as was his custom, with his hands behind his
back, head bent forward, the two little Bancrofts and other children
following him with pleased faces, and stooping every now and then with
broad smiles, after which they would rise and run on again behind him.
Puzzled at these maneuvers, I watched closely, and found that
although he hardly moved a muscle except to walk, yet from time to
time he dropped a penny, for which the children scrambled."
LIV
HAWTHORNE AND THE SCARLET LETTER
On June 8, 1849, Hawthorne walked out of the Salem Custom House--a man
without a job. Taylor's Whig administration had come in, so our
Democratic friend, Mr. Hawthorne, walked out. The job he left was not
in our modern eyes a very lucrative one, it was worth $1,200 a year
and Hawthorne had had it for three years. But he went out "mad," for
he knew he had not meddled in politics and he thought that as an
author--even if he was the "most obscure man of letters in
America"--he was entitled to some consideration.
And then there were the wife and children! As he walked home to tell
them the doleful news, he was much depressed by thoughts of them. He
had paid his old debts; but he had saved nothing. He seemed to lack
money, friends, and influence. He had written to a friend in
Boston,--"I shall not stand upon my dignity; that must take care of
itself.... Do not think anything too humble to be mentioned to me. The
intelligence has just reached me, and Sophia has not yet heard it. She
will bear it like a woman,--that is to say better than a man." What a
noble tribute to woman's fortitude! Hawthorne's belief in the
sustaining love of his wife reminds us of a tradition which says that
he never read a letter from his wife without first washing his hands.
To him the act was sacred, and like a priest of old before handling
the symbols of love he performed the rites of purification.
His son tells us how the wife met the news with which he greeted her
on his arrival at home, "that he had left his head behind." She
exclaimed, "Oh, then you can write your book!" And when he with the
prudence of a practical man wanted to know where the bread and rice
were to come from while he was writing the book, she like all good
wives--of olden times, at least--brought forth a "pile of gold" which
she had saved from the household weekly expenses. When the pile of
gold had been subjected to mathematical accuracy it dwindled to $150,
but it was enough to tide over immediate wants.