Visit to Europe.—Reception in England.—Company in
Charge.—Starts for Sweden.—Stockholm.—The Dangerous Ride.—The
Severe Cold.—Arrival in Lapland.—First Experience with
Canoes and Reindeers.—Becomes a Lapp.—The Extreme North.—The
Days without a Sun.—“Yankee Doodle.”—The Return.—Study
in Stockholm.—Return to Germany and London.—Embarks for
Norway.—Meets his Friend at Christiania.—The Coast of
Norway.—The Midnight Sun.—Trip across Norway and Sweden.—Return
to Germany.
Without bringing the living into a notoriety which they certainly do
not seek, and which might be unpleasant for them, we cannot give an
extended account of that summer trip of Mr. Taylor and his friends
in the countries of Europe, already so familiar to him. He devoted
himself to the welfare of his companions, and appeared to enjoy himself
exceedingly. England appeared brighter and more attractive than he
supposed it possible; and his pleasure in visiting historical places was
doubled by the fact that he had others to appreciate and enjoy it with
him. His sisters inherited enough of that same instinctive comprehension
of vegetable nature, and enough of that fellowship with kindred human
nature, to regard the landscapes and the people as he had regarded them,
and made, as he wrote to his friends in Philadelphia, wonderfully
observing travellers. Other friends there were, who, with his brother,
made up a pleasant party, over which Mr. Taylor was for the time the
guide and protector. He visited many places where he had never been
before, but he had studied his theme so closely during his previous
visits to Europe that even in strange places he felt the gratification
of one who had been there before, and to whom each scene and relic was
familiar. His little party was often interrupted by the calls made
upon him to attend dinner-parties and select gatherings of literary
people; but he was not a neglectful escort. His acquaintance with the
men and women of London whose names are known to all readers of English
literature, was promoted very much by the kindness of Mr. Thackeray,
who spared no pains to introduce Mr. Taylor into that “charmed circle.”
No one can appreciate the pleasure there was in being introduced to the
authors of whom the world has said so much, unless he has followed them
like a friend through their various volumes and learned to love them
there. Historians, essayists, biographers, poets, musical composers,
and scientific authors clasped his hand in London and welcomed him to
their homes and their love. At last he felt that he had reached the
heights for which he had been striving, and was regarded as an equal by
those whose plane of thought he had so long striven to reach. But that
feeling had its reaction, for he often examined himself and repeated to
himself his published poetry, and, as he described it himself, wondered
what there could be in it worthy of reproduction in Old England. His
association with the master-minds of England opened to him a wider field
of literature, and impressed him with the importance of writing something
loftier and more artistic than anything he yet had undertaken. To that
task he turned all the forces of his nature; so that on leaving England
his friends noticed through all his vivacity and unceasing attention a
tendency to abstraction; as though some important theme unspoken was
uppermost in his mind. He was searching for an ideal which should not
copy Tennyson, nor Wordsworth, nor Browning, but should equal theirs in
conception and execution. He felt that irresistible yearning for the
highest poetical work, which is the surest indication of genius. He was
not egotistic, he was not foolishly ambitious, but all his life he had
been seeking his place in the realms of poetry, feeling morally sure,
notwithstanding his own temporary misgivings, that there was a great work
for him to do.
[Illustration: RUSSIAN SLEDGES.]
However, the needs of the present crowded out the dreams of the future,
as they so often do in the lives of others, and after a delightful summer
in the lands he loved, and a visit to those who were now dearer than the
most gorgeous landscapes, he determined upon a trip to the frozen regions
of Lapland. He undertook that journey with evident reluctance. His
communion with the best minds of America and Europe had taught him that
of the works which he had published his poetry would live much longer
than his travels. He found that the place of a poet in the scale of human
merit was loftier than that of a journalistic traveller. He had left home
with a feeling of uncertainty about his future course; but there was no
longer hesitation or doubt. He would follow out the routes laid out and
keep his promises to the newspapers and publishers, and was determined
to acquire an insight into the Scandinavian language in view of an
enterprise in the way of translation, which, however, was never fully
matured nor undertaken. But his interest in travel had lost its chiefest
charms. It would not, could not, satisfy his ambition. Some critics have
accounted for this lack of zeal by the nearness of his marriage, which
would take him from his wanderings. But the best reason is the one he
gave himself; viz., that he desired to undertake some more permanent
task—one that should live when his travels were forgotten.
Hence, that indescribable lack which his readers have so universally
found in his books of travels published after that date. He could not rid
himself of the burden, nor cease to ponder upon the subjects which seemed
worthy of a great poem.
Starting from Germany Dec. 1, 1856, and embarking on a steamer which
ran between Lubec and Stockholm, he entered upon an undertaking more
hazardous and uncomfortable than anything he had ventured upon before.
But his experience taught him to fear nothing and to move on so long as
any other living being had lived on the same route. He had determined to
see a day without a sunrise and a night without a sunset. To be able to
state that fact in a book, would, in itself, ensure its ready sale. Of
this he had been assured in New York by his friend Dr. E. K. Kane, whose
opinion was entitled to much consideration, as the Doctor had been far
more extensively engaged in explorations, and had travelled many thousand
miles further than Mr. Taylor. Having once decided to see that wonderful
sight, nothing in the way of privation could prevent the accomplishment
of his purpose.
The steamer from Lubec was a rough, uncouth, inconvenient craft, and the
sea-sick voyage which Mr. Taylor and his friend made to Stockholm was
not an auspicious beginning for a tour so long and so dangerous. But he
relapsed into his old habit, acquired in Asia, of regarding no delay with
surprise or impatience, and refusing to feel certain of anything until he
possessed it; and as neither carelessness, neglect, lack of sleep or food
was allowed to disturb him, he made the company cheerful under the most
distressing circumstances.
[Illustration: LAZARETTO CHRISTIANSAND.]
On his arrival in Stockholm he could not speak a word of the language,
and had to depend mostly upon his own common-sense in the selection of an
outfit. But his quick ear and tractile tongue soon caught up words and
phrases, the meaning of which he learned by their effect when spoken,
and when he started northward he was able to ask for nearly everything
he needed in the native language. Of his ride from town to town, by
diligence and by lumbering sleighs, along the shores of the Bothnian
Gulf, we cannot give any extended account, and it can easily be found by
any reader who did not peruse it at the time of its publication. But it
answers our purpose to note how he appeared and what he suffered. It was
a terrible ride. Day after day and night after night he pushed on, losing
many meals, and often without sleep, in a temperature creeping downward
far below zero, and the sun sinking lower and lower on the southern
horizon. Frequently overturned in the snow, his beard and hair a mass of
solid ice, his eyelids frozen together, his nose frost-bitten, his hands
and feet momentarily in danger of freezing, he kept heroically on his
course, allowing no rumors of unendurable cold or impassable mountains,
of snow ahead to drive him from his purpose. With a wisdom that saved his
life, he fell with perfect _abandon_ into the habits of Swedes, Finns,
and Lapps, as he in turn found himself in their country and society,
eating what they ate, and wearing such skins as they wore, and following
their habits, excepting their dirt and their promiscuous arrangements for
sleeping. Around the gulf to Tornea, and thence to Muoniovara, he sped
northward with a haste which astonished the natives, and a shortness of
time which has surprised many travellers who have followed him on that
difficult route. He made such acquaintances and such friends on his way
northward that they wished him God-speed as he passed on, and welcomed
him in a royal manner on his return. On the borders of Lapland he took
his first lessons in reindeer-driving, and a most amusing experience
he had of it. He could not at first balance himself in the narrow boat
which was built for snow navigation, and he was frequently overturned in
fathomless piles of snow; and as he did not fully understand how to check
the speed of the animal, he flew like the wind over drifts, hollows, and
around corners with a most dangerous speed. Many men would have given up
the task, after being frozen, kicked, bruised, and pulled half out of
joint by the first trial. But such experiences were regarded by him as a
joke, and laughing over past mishaps, he tried again and again, until he
could guide a deer and balance himself in the narrow pulk as skilfully
as the Lapps themselves. He was not a traveller who sought luxury and
ease. He wished to sound all the shoals and depths of local experiences.
Some of the trials were very hazardous, and make one’s hair rise as he
reads of them. Yet Mr. Taylor appears to have put a blind trust in fate
and went boldly on. In all these visits and undertakings he forgot not
his Muse, and repeated “Afraja” and the “Arctic Lover” when the snow blew
too furiously or the cold was too far below zero to engage in original
composition.
With the thermometer varying from zero to forty degrees below he
traversed the wildest part of Lapland, which lies between the Bothnian
Gulf and the Northern Ocean.
At Kautockeino, far beyond the Arctic Circle, he found friends, through
the letter of a mutual acquaintance, and recorded with his usual kindness
of heart, how good and how generous they were to him. There, too, he
saw the day without a sunrise, which he had promised himself to see,
and his description of the white earth, the blue sky, the saffron and
orange flushes of the morning, and the crimson glow of the evening, all
combined in a few moments of time as the sun approached the line of
the horizon and sank again without peeping over it, is one of the most
charming and graphic paragraphs to be found in literature. There, too,
he saw the moon wheel through her entire circuit, without a rising and
without a setting. There he made sketches of the dwellings and the people
which, after so much practice, he was able to take in a very accurate
and artistic manner, and which served afterwards for illustrations in
the pages of a magazine. There he met a Lapp by the name of “Lars,” and
meeting the name often afterwards, suggested the name for that poem of
“Lars,” now as popular in Norway as in the United States. There, in that
extreme north, in the house of a native missionary, he found a piano, and
was half beside himself with joy when the kind-hearted ministers wife
played “Yankee Doodle.” She had heard Ole Bull play it at Christiania,
and caught the tune in that way.
His return to Stockholm was more tedious and dangerous than his northward
journey, for the weather was colder and the storms more severe. But his
reception at the miserable huts along the route, where he had stopped
on his journey northward, was always so hearty and friendly that he
felt no longer in a strange land. It was a repetition of his experience
elsewhere. He was loved at sight, and has not been forgotten to this day
by the humble friends he made. Nothing shows the whole-souled manner
in which he threw himself into the feelings and habits of the people,
better than the expressions which he used in his letters concerning the
scenery. He felt so much like a Swede, that he loved the landscapes
with the devotion, of a native. Notwithstanding he had used all the
superlative terms which our language furnished, in which to describe the
scenery of the tropics, yet there he went further and declares with great
enthusiasm, that the South had no such beautiful scenery as the ice-bound
forests and mountains of Sweden. To him, when he saw them, there
were no landscapes to compare with those before him. The transparent
crystals, the purity of the snow, the shape of the half-buried trees,
the boundless plains of white, and the gleams of acres of diamonds when
the frosty spirals greet the morning sun, all possessed a charm beyond
the attractions of any other land, so long as he was their associate.
He became a Swede, and knew, when his experience was over, just how a
Swede lived and how he felt, what he loved and what he enjoyed. Thus he
came to a more thorough understanding of the people, and had a better
appreciation of their literature, than any other traveller known to the
public prints.
On his return to Stockholm, February 14, he set about the work of
learning the language and literature of the Swedes. For nearly three
months he kept close to his books and his practice in the gymnasium, and
although it seems almost impossible, it is said by his associates that he
could then read fluently any work to be found in the Norse language.
He left Stockholm on the 6th of May, taking a steamer for Copenhagen,
from which place he purposed to take a steamer for Germany. At Copenhagen
he met Hans Christian Andersen, the great Danish poet, by whom Mr. Taylor
was received most cordially. Thus, one after another, the great men of
the world were added to the list of friends found by this son of an
humble American farmer. Andersen afterwards sent Mr. Taylor copies of
his poems and essays before they were printed, and in many ways showed
his regard for the American poet. There Mr. Taylor met Prof. Rafn, the
archæologist, and Goldschmidt, the author of the “The Jew,” and editor of
a magazine.
Prof. Rafn, gave Mr. Taylor his initiation into the beauties of Icelandic
poetry, for the professor was an earnest admirer of northern lore, and
loved to converse with any one who took an interest in it. Ho read some
of the verses which he especially admired, for Mr. Taylor’s criticism,
and Mr. Taylor was so delighted with them that he resolved to study the
literature of Iceland and at some time to visit the Island.
From Copenhagen Mr. Taylor hurried over to Germany to look after his
friends, and after a stay of a few days hastened to London on business
connected with his books. He left London about the first of July, after
seeing his relatives depart for America, and taking a steamer at Hull,
sailed for Christiania in Norway. The steamer stopped at Christiansand,
where the rugged, broken promontories loom up so grandly over sea and
bay. No harbor is more picturesque than that of Christiansand, and
no coast more uneven. Perhaps the best description of the coast from
Christiansand to Apendal, given by Mr. Taylor, is to be found in his poem
of “Lars,” wherein Lars and his Quaker wife sailed from Hull for Apendal.
“Calm autumn skies were o’er them and the sea
Swelled in unwrinkled glass: they scarcely knew
How sped the voyage until Lindesnaes,
At first a cloud, stood fast and spread away
To flanking capes, with gaps of blue between;
Then rose, and showed, above the precipice,
The firs of Norway climbing thick and high
To wilder crests that made the inland gloom.
In front, the sprinkled skerries pierced the wave;
Between then, slowly glided in and out
The tawny sails, while houses low and red
Hailed their return or sent them fearless forth.
‘This is thy Norway, Lars; it looks like thee,’
Said Ruth: ‘it has a forehead firm and bold:
It sets its foot below the reach of storms,
Yet hides, methinks, in each retiring vale,
Delight in toil, contentment, love, and peace.’”
“‘To starboard, yonder lies the isle
As I described it; here, upon our lee
Is mainland all, and there the Nid comes down,
The timber-shouldering Nid, from endless woods
And wilder valleys where scant grain is grown.
Now bend your glances as my finger points,—
Lo, there it is, the spire of Apendal.’”
Arrangements had been made with his intimate German friend, whom he first
met in Egypt, and in whom Mr. Taylor then took such a deep interest, to
meet him at the hotel in Christiania, from which place they purposed to
start on a trip overland through Norway to Drontheim, and from that city
by steamer to the northern capes of Norway, where the summer sun did
not rise or set. Another “sacred triad” was formed—one German and two
Americans—equally fortunate and equally pleasant with the former triad in
Egypt.
Their course lay through the rugged and drear landscape of Southern
Norway, and at the time they made their journey the sky was overcast
and the air loaded with moisture, giving every bleak cliff a bleaker
appearance, and every barren waste a gloomier aspect. With all his
poetical nature, Mr. Taylor did not find much to admire on his way to
Drontheim. His sympathy was aroused for the poor farmers who dwell in
such a solitude as seemed to envelop the land, and he was glad when the
gleams of the river announced their approach to Drontheim.
From Drontheim they sailed by the Hammerfest line on the 18th of July,
following the coast so noted for its fantastic crags and startling
cliffs. The coast scenery from Drontheim to Hammerfest is unquestionably
the most broken and grand in the world. Its black towers, enormous
arches, gigantic peaks, and resounding caverns excel anything in the way
of sombre grandeur that travellers elsewhere have described.
As they approached the Arctic Circle the mountains became capped with
snow, and chilly winds blew off the land, and the days became so long
that the evening and the morning succeeded each other with but an
intervening twilight. Gradually the midnights grew brighter until, as
they proceeded round the North Cape, the sun shone in all its splendor
throughout the twenty-four hours.
After several days spent in visiting the small fishing villages along the
northern coast, they again turned southward and disembarked at Drontheim,
from which place they took passage to Bergen.
From Bergen they travelled on horseback and by boats, over the interior
lakes to Christiania, and from that city through the interior of
Wermeland and Delecarlia to Stockholm, where they arrived about the
middle of September. There Mr. Taylor remained long enough to call on
many of the friends whom he had made during the previous winter, and then
the “triad” departed for Berlin and Gotha.