His Friends.—The Multitude of Mourners.—His London
Acquaintances.—Tennyson, Cornwall, Browning, Carlyle.—German
Popularity.—Auerbach.—Humboldt.—French Authors.—Early American
Friends.—Stoddard, Willis, Kane, Bryant, Halleck, Powers,
Greeley, Mrs. Kirkland, Whittier, Longfellow, Holmes, Emerson,
Lowell, Dana, Alcott, Aldrich, Whipple, Curtis, Fields, Boker,
Chandler.—Relatives.
Seldom has the death of a single individual wounded the hearts of so
many personal friends. Men have attained to greater renown, and have
been, perhaps, as extensively known by their writings and their fame; but
rare, indeed, can be found in history the name of one who had so many
intimate companions. The number of those who claimed the right to be his
friends is beyond computation, at this time,—within a few weeks after his
death,—but it includes many of the most noted men of the world.
Alfred Tennyson, the poet-laureate of England, was an acquaintance
and correspondent of Mr. Taylor’s, their first meeting being at Mr.
Tennyson’s house, Farringford, on the Isle of Wight.
William Makepeace Thackeray was one of Mr. Taylor’s warmest literary
friends, from the time when they met at a dinner of the Century Club, in
New York, in 1856, until Mr. Thackeray’s death, in 1863. The friendship
was kept alive by Mr. Thackeray’s daughters, who first met Mr. Taylor in
London, in 1858, and who at that time most hospitably entertained him,
together with his brother and sisters.
Robert Browning often invited Mr. Taylor to join his select company in
London, their acquaintance having begun in 1851; and Barry Cornwall
(Bryan Waller Procter), treated Mr. Taylor with the greatest kindness and
hospitality, writing frequently, until he died, in 1874, to inquire after
Mr. Taylor’s progress in the translation of “Faust.”
Thomas Carlyle and John Bright were numbered among his correspondents,
although it so happened that he met them but seldom.
Among the leaders of English literature whose friendship he enjoyed,
there is a very large circle of literary and scientific men who knew Mr.
Taylor through their frequent meetings on social and formal occasions,
and who were well acquainted with Mr. Taylor’s books. From many of these
there came the expressions of great grief, when the fact of Mr. Taylor’s
death was announced in London.
In Germany he was quite as well known as their native poets of his
time, and he secured the respect and love of nearly every distinguished
literary man and woman in that Empire. One of the sweetest friendships
of his life was with that most fascinating descriptive writer, Berthold
Auerbach, whose “Villa on the Rhine” was given to the American public
in 1869, by Mr. Taylor. These two authors were like twin brothers in
their authorship, and some of Auerbach’s letters, descriptive of European
scenes and people, could be inserted in Mr. Taylor’s books, verbatim,
and the interpolation be scarcely detected. Their regard for each other
equalled their gifts, and one of the sincerest mourners at the funeral of
Mr. Taylor, was that gifted scholar, Berthold Auerbach.
Mr. Taylor’s first acquaintance with Alexander von Humboldt, was in 1856,
when Mr. Taylor called upon the great naturalist at his home in Berlin.
The reading of Humboldt’s works had been of great benefit to Mr. Taylor,
as a correspondent, and he so informed the Professor, at which he seemed
much pleased. Humboldt took great pains to secure all of Mr. Taylor’s
letters, as they appeared from time to time in the “Tribune,” and most
warmly praised him for the remarkable manner in which he pictured the
scenes he visited. The acquaintance was frequently renewed, and when
Humboldt died, in 1859, Mr. Taylor is said to have been numbered among
the mourning friends, by those in charge of the funeral, although he was
in the United States at the time. For years the public in America was led
to believe that Humboldt ridiculed Mr. Taylor’s writings, although what
could have been the motive of the one who originated the falsehood it is
hard to conjecture.
With the French authors he did not have a very extended personal
acquaintance, although he had met many of them, and frequently exchanged
books with Victor Hugo and Guillaume Lejean.
His acquaintances in America included nearly every living author of his
generation, and he numbered among his intimate friends the most gifted
men in the land. Nearest to him, perhaps, stood Richard H. Stoddard, of
New York, and his talented wife, Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard. Both were
born in Massachusetts, and have frequently spent the summer months at
Mrs. Stoddard’s old home in Mattapoisett, in company with Mr. Taylor and
his family. A jolly household it was, when the Taylors and the Stoddards
united their families, as they frequently did, in the city, or on the
seashore. One of Mr. Stoddard’s many books, viz., the Life of Humboldt,
contains an introduction by Mr. Taylor, and many of Mr. Taylor’s poems
were submitted to Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard for their criticism, before he
published them. With them, and with Mr. George Ripley, he appears to have
maintained the most confidential relations to the day of his death.
Many of his early friends have preceded him to that “silent shore,”
and many tears did he shed over their graves. Nathaniel P. Willis, his
earliest friend in the great city, who encouraged him and introduced him
into a literary life, died at his home of “Idlewild,” in 1867. Washington
Irving, who in his old ago was earnest enough to leave his home at
“Sunnyside” and go to New York, to urge Mr. Taylor to persevere in his
poetical undertakings, and whose advice assisted Mr. Taylor so much in
his various trips into Spain, died in 1873.
Dr. E. K. Kane, who aided Mr. Taylor in laying out his route through
Norway, and whose letters of introduction and commendation to George
Peabody, the great banker, and to other influential men in England,
opened the way for Mr. Taylor into the best society of that capital,
did not live to meet Mr. Taylor on his return from Norway, as had been
arranged, but died alone, at Havana, in 1857.
William Cullen Bryant, whose master-pieces were Mr. Taylor’s study, and
whose personal friendship was so much valued, that Mr. Taylor visited
the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, wherein the “Thanatopsis” had
its birth, to note “if the scenes would have the same influence on a
stranger, that they appeared to have had on a native,”—he whose counsel
and companionship had, through many years, been counted among the
“richest boons of life,” died a few months before Mr. Taylor, and the
shadow had not passed from Mr. Taylor’s brow, and his poetical tribute
to Bryant was hardly in print, before he was called “to join the caravan
that moves to that mysterious realm.”
Fitz-Greene Halleck, who used to caution the young poet, and who took
pride in every new achievement of the traveller, died in 1867.
Horace Greeley, the editor of the Tribune, whose friendship was of the
most steady and substantial kind, and for whom Mr. Taylor felt the
respect due to a parent, expired in 1872. It was when writing of Mr.
Greeley’s death that Mr. Taylor gave the following sketch of their
friendship:—
“My own intercourse with him, though often interrupted by
absence or divergence of labor, was frank at the start, and
grew closer and more precious with every year. In all my
experience of men, I have never found one whose primitive
impulses revealed themselves with such marvellous purity and
sincerity. His nature often seemed to me as crystal-clear as
that of a child. In my younger and more sensitive days, he
often gave me a transient wound; but such wounds healed without
a scar, and I always found, afterward, that they came from the
lance of a physician, not from the knife of an enemy.
“I first saw Mr. Greeley in June, 1844, when I was a boy of
nineteen. I applied to him for an engagement to write letters
to the ‘Tribune’ from Germany. His reply was terse enough. ‘No
descriptive letters!’ he said; ‘I am sick of them. When you
have been there long enough to know something, send to me, and,
if there is anything in your letters, I will publish them.’ I
waited nearly a year, and then sent seventeen letters, which
were published. They were shallow enough, I suspect; but what
might they not have been without his warning?
“Toward the end of 1847, while I was engaged in the unfortunate
enterprise of trying to establish a weekly paper at
Phœnixville, Penn., I wrote him—foreseeing the failure of my
hopes—asking his assistance in procuring literary work in New
York. He advised me (as I suspect he has advised thousands of
young men), to stay in the country. But I _had_ stayed in the
country, and a year too long; so another month found me in New
York, in his office, with my story of disappointment, and my
repeated request for his favorable influence. ‘I think you are
mistaken,’ he said; ‘but I will bear you in mind, if I hear of
any chance.’
“Six weeks afterward, to my great surprise (for I supposed
he had quite forgotten me), he sent for me and offered me a
place on the ‘Tribune.’ I worked hard and incessantly during
the summer of 1848, hearing never a word of commendation or
encouragement; but one day in October he suddenly came to my
desk, laid his hand on my shoulder, and said, ‘You have been
faithful; but now you need rest. Take a week’s holiday, and go
into New England.’ I obeyed, and found, on my return, that he
had ordered my salary to be increased.”
Hiram Powers, the American sculptor, who so heartily welcomed the young
pedestrian to Florence, Italy, and who through the years which followed,
showed a most kindly spirit, making Taylor his guest and confidant,
passed away from the contemplation of beautiful earthly forms to figures
angelic, in 1873.
Mrs. Kirkland, on whose magazine, in 1848, he began to regain the
literary prestige which the failure of the “Phœnixville Pioneer” took
from him, and who, with Halleck, so kindly opened the way for him to
teach a school in New York, to repair his shattered fortunes, was gone,
together with a large number of their mutual acquaintances in the
literary circles of New York.
Although the ranks were so sadly depleted, there are still living a most
brilliant company of his early literary friends.
John G. Whittier, who still resides in Amesbury, his patriotism unabated,
his Quaker simplicity unchanged, and his fame as a poet increasing, as
civilization and freedom extend. To him Mr. Taylor dedicated his poem of
“Lars,” and in it thus mentioned his first meeting with Whittier:—
“Though many years my heart goes back,
Through checkered years of loss and gain,
To the fair landmark on its track,
When first, upon the Merrimack,
Upon the cottage roof I heard the autumn rain.
A hand that welcomed and that cheered,
To one unknown didst thou extend;
Thou gavest hope to song that feared;
But now by Time and Faith endeared,
I claim the right to call the Poet, Friend!”
Thus did a Quaker write of a Quaker in dedicating a Quaker poem.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lives and sings as in those days when Taylor
read the story of “Hyperion” and the poetry of “Voices of the Night,” and
resolved to visit Boppart and to be a poet. Mr. Longfellow had a name
to be envied in the annals of literature, when the man of whom we write
was a rollicking, mischievious boy. Yet Taylor has appeared on the stage
of life, has enacted a very important part, and is gone. His friend and
benefactor remains, loved and honored in the old Washington mansion at
Cambridge.
That marvellously versatile and skilful man, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes,
though born long before Taylor, still walks the halls of learning,
and, while enjoying the deserved rewards of “The Autocrat of the
Breakfast-Table,” “Old Ironsides,” and the numerous other publications in
the shape of essays, poems, and medical text-books, was not ashamed to be
called the friend of Mr. Taylor, and recalls his association with him in
the most affectionate terms.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the poet and essayist, who, like Mr. Holmes, enjoys
a world-wide reputation as a man of letters and thoughts, moves among men
as of yore, while his younger acquaintance has passed on before.
James Russell Lowell, upon whose brilliant literary career Mr. Taylor
said he often “gazed with bewilderment,” but who was among his much-loved
literary friends, adorns the court of Spain, as the Minister of the
United States, while the life of his colleague which began much later,
has ceased to move his hands to friendly grasps, and his lips to living
words.
Richard H. Dana, Sr., the “eldest poet,” has been dead but a few days.
Amos Bronson Alcott retains his home in Concord, appearing much as he did
when George Ripley, Margaret Fuller, and Theodore Parker were with him on
the “Dial,” which the Taylors read in Pennsylvania; but he who came to
their homes so short a time ago, will cross their thresholds no more.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich remains, and writes on for the love of it, while
his friend and early companion in New York,—Taylor, who praised his
“Babie Bell” and “Daisie’s Necklace,” has laid down his pen forever, and
will sit down with him no more at social boards.
George William Curtis, who was born the year before Mr. Taylor, and whose
travels, books, and correspondence for the New York “Tribune,” gave him
such a similar experience, now stands at the front in American oratory,
and looks forward to wider fields of usefulness, as though life had
just begun. As a representative American in literature and in political
influence, he has lost in Mr. Taylor an earnest and efficient comrade.
Edwin P. Whipple still lives on Beacon Hill in Boston, and, together
with his brilliant wife, recalls the face and words of Taylor with the
affectionate regard of appreciative minds and loving hearts.
James T. Fields, of Boston, comes and goes, an authority on literary
excellence, and an attractive expounder and biographer, while the boy who
came to him long, long ago, to learn if Ticknor & Fields would publish
a little poem, has grown into manhood, into fame, and passed on to the
Hereafter. The friendship of many years,—so beautiful a sight between
publisher and poet,—which the pressure and uncertainty of business could
not sever or decrease, is broken, ah! so rudely, by the hand of death.
The Hon. George H. Boker, of Philadelphia, still counts his useful years;
while the boy whose poems he purchased, and whose ambition he directed,
has seen a long and eventful life, using but a part of the time in which
his benefactor has lived. Of him Mr. Taylor wrote in 1855:—
“You were the mate of my poetic spring;
To you its buds, of little worth, concealed
More than the summer years have since revealed,
Or doubtful autumn from the stem shall fling.
But here they are, the buds, the blossoms blown,
Or rich or scant the wreath is at your feet;
And though it were the freshest ever grown,
To you its incense could not be more sweet,
Since with it goes a love to match your own,
A heart, dear friend, that never falsely beat.”
George H. Boker, Jr., and Mrs. Taylor are, by the terms of Mr. Taylor’s
will, his literary executors.
The Hon. J. R. Chandler still resides in the same old home at
Philadelphia, into which the trembling youth came for the loan of fifty
dollars with which to see Europe on foot. After a long and honorable life
he sees no act more creditable than the simple-hearted generosity which
he displayed toward that ambitious stripling.
His brother, J. Howard Taylor, M.D., and his cousin, Franklin Taylor,
M.D., are both at their official posts of honor in Philadelphia, while
the sisters and parents survive, still in that haze of doubt which
precedes the hard realization that Bayard is dead.
Mr. Whitelaw Reid may search long before he supplies to the “Tribune’s”
readers all the characteristics of Mr. Taylor’s writings; the literati
of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, will long wait for the congenial
companion to take his seat; and the thousands of loving hearts in all the
civilized countries of the world and in many uncivilized lands, will not
cease to be sore, until
“The stern genius, to whose hollow tramp
Echo the startled chambers of the soul,
Waves his inverted torch o’er that pale camp,
Where the archangel’s final trumpets roll.”