Library of the Best American Literature
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Illustration: REPRESENTATIVES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.
LIBRARY
OF THE
Best American Literature
CONTAINING
The Lives of our Authors in Story Form
Their PORTRAITS, their HOMES, and their PERSONAL TRAITS
How they Worked and What they Wrote
Choice Selections from Eminent Writers
EMBRACING
GREAT AMERICAN POETS AND
NOVELISTS, FOREMOST WOMEN IN AMERICAN LETTERS,
DISTINGUISHED CRITICS AND ESSAYISTS, OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTS,
NOTED JOURNALISTS AND MAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS, POPULAR
WRITERS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, GREAT ORATORS
AND PUBLIC LECTURERS
ELEGANTLY ILLUSTRATED WITH HALF TONE PORTRAITS
AND PHOTOGRAPHS OF AUTHORS’ HOMES, TOGETHER WITH
MANY OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
MONARCH BOOK COMPANY,
Successors to and formerly L. P. MILLER & CO.,
CHICAGO, ILL. PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897, by
W. E. SCULL,
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
_All rights reserved._
ALL PERSONS ARE WARNED NOT TO INFRINGE UPON OUR COPYRIGHT
BY USING EITHER THE MATTER OR THE PICTURES IN THIS VOLUME.
LITERATURE OF AMERICA.
PART 1. GREAT POETS OF AMERICA
2. OUR MOST NOTED NOVELISTS
3. FAMOUS WOMEN NOVELISTS
4. REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN POETS OF AMERICA
5. WELL-KNOWN ESSAYISTS, CRITICS AND SKETCH WRITERS
6. GREAT AMERICAN HISTORIANS AND BIOGRAPHERS
7. OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTS
8. POPULAR WRITERS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
9. NOTED JOURNALISTS AND MAGAZINE CONTRIBUTORS
10. GREAT ORATORS AND POPULAR LECTURERS
11. FAMOUS WOMEN ORATORS AND REFORMERS
12. MISCELLANEOUS MASTERPIECES AND CHOICE GEMS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
_Our obligation_ to the following publishers is respectfully and
gratefully acknowledged, since, without the courtesies and assistance
of these publishers and a number of the living authors, it would have
been impossible to issue this volume.
Copyright selections from the following authors are used by the
permission of and special arrangement with _MESSRS. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN
& CO._, their authorized publishers:――Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry W.
Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor,
Maurice Thompson, Colonel John Hay, Bret Harte, William Dean Howells,
Edward Bellamy, Charles Egbert Craddock (Miss Murfree), Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps (Ward), Octave Thanet (Miss French), Alice Cary, Phœbe
Cary, Charles Dudley Warner, E. C. Stedman, James Parton, John Fiske
and Sarah Jane Lippincott.
_TO THE CENTURY CO._, we are indebted for selections from Richard
Watson Gilder, James Whitcomb Riley and Francis Richard Stockton.
_TO CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS_, for extracts from Eugene Field.
_TO HARPER & BROTHERS_, for selections from Will Carleton, General Lew
Wallace, W. D. Howells, Thomas Nelson Page, John L. Motley, Charles
Follen Adams and Lyman Abbott.
_TO ROBERTS BROTHERS_, for selections from Edward Everett Hale, Helen
Hunt Jackson, Louise Chandler Moulton and Louisa M. Alcott.
_TO ORANGE, JUDD & CO._, for extracts from Edward Eggleston.
_TO DODD, MEAD & CO._, for selections from E. P. Roe, Marion Harland
(Mrs. Terhune), Amelia E. Barr and Martha Finley.
_TO D. APPLETON & CO._, for Wm. Cullen Bryant and John Bach McMaster.
_TO MACMILLAN & CO._, for F. Marion Crawford.
_TO HORACE L. TRAUBEL_, Executor, for Walt Whitman.
_TO ESTES & LAURIAT_, for Gail Hamilton (Mary Abigail Dodge).
_TO LITTLE, BROWN & CO._, for Francis Parkman.
_TO FUNK & WAGNALLS_, for Josiah Allen’s Wife (Miss Holley).
_TO LEE & SHEPARD_, for Yawcob Strauss (Charles Follen Adams), Oliver
Optic (William T. Adams) and Mary A. Livermore.
_TO J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO._, for Bill Nye (Edgar Wilson Nye).
_TO GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS_, for Uncle Remus (Joel C. Harris).
_TO TICKNOR & CO._, for Julian Hawthorne.
_TO PORTER & COATES_, for Edward Ellis and Horatio Alger.
_TO WILLIAM F. GILL & CO._, for Whitelaw Reid.
_TO C. H. HUDGINS & CO._, for Henry W. Grady.
_TO THE “COSMOPOLITAN MAGAZINE,”_ for Julian Hawthorne.
_TO T. B. PETERSON & BROS._, for Frances Hodgson Burnett.
_TO JAS. R. OSGOOD & CO._, for Jane Goodwin Austin.
_TO GEO. R. SHEPARD_, for Thomas Wentworth Higginson.
_TO J. LEWIS STACKPOLE_, for John L. Motley.
Besides the above, we are under special obligation to a number of
authors who kindly furnished, in answer to our request, selections
which they considered representative of their writings.
Illustration: American Authors
Hawthorne • Cooper • H. B. Stowe • Prescott • Irving
INTRODUCTION.
“THE ink of a Nation’s Scholars is more sacred than the blood of its
martyrs,”――declares Mohammed. It is with this sentence in mind, and
a desire to impress upon our fellow countrymen the excellence, scope
and volume of American literature, and the dignity and personality
of American authorship, that this work has been prepared and is now
offered to the public.
The volume is distinctly American, and, as such it naturally appeals
to the patriotism of Americans. Every selection which it contains
was written by an American. Its perusal, we feel confident, will
both entertain the reader and quicken the pride of every lover of his
country in the accomplishments of her authors.
European nations had already the best of their literature before
ours began. It is less than three hundred years since the landing
of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock, and the planting of a colony at
Jamestown, marked the first permanent settlements on these shores. Two
hundred years were almost entirely consumed in the foundation work of
exploring the country, settling new colonies, in conflicts with the
Indians, and in contentions with the mother country. Finally――after
two centuries――open war with England served the purpose of bringing
the jealous colonists together, throwing off our allegiance to Europe,
and, under an independent constitution, of introducing the united
colonists――now the _United States of America_――into the sisterhood of
nations.
Thus, it was not until the twilight of the eighteenth century that
we had an organized nationality, and it was not until the dawn of
the nineteenth that we began to have a literature. Prior to this we
looked abroad for everything except the products of our soil. Neither
manufacturing nor literature sought to raise its head among us. The
former was largely prohibited by our generous mother, who wanted
to make our clothes and furnish us with all manufactured articles;
literature was frowned upon with the old interrogation, “Who reads
an American book?” But simultaneously with the advent of liberty upon
our shores was born the spirit of progress――at once enthroned and
established as the guardian saint of American energy and enterprise.
She touched the mechanic and the hum of his machinery was heard
and the smoke of his factory arose as an incense to her, while our
exhaustless stores of raw materials were transformed into things of
use and beauty; she touched the merchant and the wings of commerce
were spread over our seas; she touched the scholar and the few
institutions of learning along the Atlantic seaboard took on new life
and colleges and universities multiplied and followed rapidly the
course of civilization across the mountains and plains of the West.
But the spirit of progress did not stop here. Long before that time
Dr. Johnson had declared, “The chief glory of every people arises from
its authors,” and our people had begun to realize the force of the
truth, which Carlyle afterwards expressed, that “A country which has
no national literature, or a literature too insignificant to force
its way abroad, must always be to its neighbors, at least in every
important spiritual respect, an unknown and unesteemed country.” The
infant nation had now begun its independent history. Should it also
have an independent literature; and if so, what were the bases for
it? The few writers who had dared to venture into print had dealt with
European themes, and laid their scenes and published their books in
foreign lands. What had America, to inspire their genius?
The answer to this question was of vital importance. Upon it depended
our destiny in literature. It came clear and strong. To go elsewhere
were to imitate the discontented and foolish farmer who became
possessed of a passion for hunting diamonds, and, selling his farm for
a song, spent his days in wandering over the earth in search of them.
The man who bought this farm found diamonds in the yard around the
house, and developed that farm into _the famous Golconda mines_. The
poor man who wandered away had acres of diamonds at home. They were
his if he had but been wise enough to gather them.
So was America a rich field for her authors. Nature nowhere else
offered such inspiration to the poet, the descriptive and the
scientific writer as was found in America. Its mountains were the
grandest; its plains the broadest; its rivers the longest; its lakes
were inland seas; its water-falls were the most sublime; its caves
were the largest and most wonderful in the world; its forests bore
every variety of vegetable life and stretched themselves from ocean to
ocean; it had a soil and a climate diversified and varied beyond that
of any other nation; birds sang for us whose notes were heard on no
other shores; we had a fauna and a flora of our own. For the historian
there was the aboriginal red man, with his unwritten past preserved
only in tradition awaiting the pen of the faithful chronicler; the
Colonial period was a study fraught with American life and tradition
and no foreigner could gather its true story from the musty tomes
of a European library; the Revolutionary period must be recorded by
an American historian. For the novelist and the sketch writer our
magnificent land had a rich legendary lore, and a peculiarity of
manners and customs possessed by no other continent. The story of its
frontier, with a peculiar type of life found nowhere else, was all its
own.
It was to this magnificent prospect, with its inspiring possibilities
that Progress,――the first child of liberty――stood and pointed as she
awoke the slumbering genius of independent American Authorship, and,
placing the pen in her hand bade her write what she would. Thus the
youngest aspirant in literature stood forth with the freest hand, in a
country with its treasures of the past unused, and a prospective view
of the most magnificent future of the nations of earth.
What a field for literature! What an opportunity it offered! How well
it has been occupied, how attractive the personality, how high the
aims, and how admirable the methods of those who have done so, it is
the province of this volume to demonstrate. With this end in view, the
volume has been prepared. It has been inspired by a patriotic pride
in the wonderful achievement of our men and women in literature, in
making America, at the beginning of her second century as a nation,
the fair and powerful rival of England and Continental Europe in the
field of letters.
Wonderful have been the achievements of Americans as inventors,
mechanics, merchants――indeed, in every field in which they have
contended――but we are prepared to agree with Dr. Johnson that “The
chief glory of a nation is its authors;” and, with Carlyle, that they
entitle us to our greatest respect among other nations. The reading
of the biographies and extracts herein contained should impress
the reader with the debt of gratitude we as a people owe to those
illustrious men and women, who, while wreathing their own brows with
chaplets of fame, have written the name, “_America_,” high up on the
literary roll of honor among the greatest nations of the world.
Illustration: THE POETS OF NEW ENGLAND
THE DISTINCTIVE PURPOSE AND PLAN OF THIS VOLUME.
THIS work has been designed and prepared with a view to presenting an
outline of American literature in such a manner as to stimulate a love
for good reading and especially to encourage the study of the lives
and writings of our American authors. The plan of this work is unique
and original, and possesses certain helpful and interesting features,
which――so far as we are aware――have been contemplated by no other
single volume.
The first and main purpose of the work is to present to our American
homes a mass of wholesome, varied and well-selected reading matter.
In this respect it is substantially a volume for the family. America
is pre-eminently a country of homes. These homes are the schools of
citizenship, and――next to the Bible, which is the foundation of our
morals and laws――we need those books which at once entertain and
instruct, and, at the same time, stimulate patriotism and pride for
our native land.
This book seeks to meet this demand. Four-fifths of our space is
devoted exclusively to American literature. Nearly all other volumes
of selections are made up chiefly from foreign authors. The reason for
this is obvious. Foreign publications until within the last few years
have been free of copyright restrictions. Anything might be chosen
and copied from them while American authors were protected by law
from such outrages. Consequently, American material under forty-two
years of age could not be used without the consent of the owner of
the copyright. The expense and the difficulty of obtaining these
permissions were too great to warrant compilers and publishers in
using American material. The constantly growing demand, however, for
a work of this class has encouraged the publishers of this volume
to undertake the task. The publishers of the works from which these
selections are made and many living authors represented have been
corresponded with, and it is only through the joint courtesy and
co-operation of these many publishers and authors that the production
of this volume has been made possible. Due acknowledgment will be
found elsewhere. In a number of instances the selections have been
made by the authors themselves, who have also rendered other valuable
assistance in supplying data and photographs.
The second distinctive point of merit in the plan of the work is the
_biographical feature_, which gives the story of each author’s life
separately, treating them both personally and as writers. Longfellow
remarked in “Hyperion”――“If you once understand the character of
an author the comprehension of his writings becomes easy.” He might
have gone further and stated that when we have once read the life of
an author his writings become the more interesting. Goethe assures
us that “Every author portrays himself in his works even though it
be against his will.” The patriarch in the Scriptures had the same
thought in his mind when he exclaimed “Oh! that mine enemy had written
a book.” Human nature remains the same. Any book takes on a new phase
of value and interest to us the moment we know the story of the writer,
whether we agree with his statements and theories or not. These
biographical sketches, which in every case are placed immediately
before the selections from an author, give, in addition to the story
of his life, a list of the principal books he has written, and the
dates of publication, together with comments on his literary style
and in many instances reviews of his best known works. This, with the
selections which follow, established that necessary bond of sympathy
and relationship which should exist in the mind of the reader between
every author and his writings. Furthermore, under this arrangement the
biography of each author and the selections from his works compose a
complete and independent chapter in the volume, so that the writer may
be taken up and studied or read alone, or in connection with others in
the particular class to which he belongs.
This brings us to the third point of _classification_. Other volumes
of selections――where they have been classified at all――have usually
placed selections of similar character together under the various
heads of Narrative and Descriptive, Moral and Religious, Historical,
etc. On the contrary, it has appeared to us the better plan in the
construction of this volume to classify the authors, rather than, by
dividing their selections, scatter the children of one parent in many
different quarters. There has been no small difficulty in doing this
in the cases of some of our versatile writers. Emerson, for instance,
with his poetry, philosophy and essays, and Holmes, with his wit and
humor, his essays, his novels and his poetry. Where should they be
placed? Summing them up, we find their writings――whether written in
stanzas of metred lines or all the way across the page, and whether
they talked philosophy or indulged in humor――were predominated by
the spirit of poetry. Therefore, with their varied brood, Emerson
and Holmes were taken off to the “Poet’s Corner,” which is made all
the richer and more enjoyable by the variety of their gems of prose.
Hence our classifications and groupings are as _Poets_, _Novelists_,
_Historians_, _Journalists_, _Humorists_, _Essayists_, _Critics_,
_Orators_, etc., placing each author in the department to which he
most belongs, enabling the reader to read and compare him in his best
element with others of the same class.
_Part I., “Great Poets of America,”_ comprises twenty of our most
famous and popular writers of verse. The work necessarily begins with
that immortal “Seven Stars” of poesy in the galaxy of our literary
heavens――Bryant, Poe, Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Holmes and Lowell.
Succeeding these are those of lesser magnitude, many of whom are
still living and some who have won fame in other fields of literature
which divides honors with their poetry. Among these are Bayard Taylor,
the noted traveler and poet; N. P. Willis, the most accomplished
magazinist of his day; R. H. Stoddard, the critic; Walt Whitman;
Maurice Thompson, the scientist; Thomas Bailey Aldrich and Richard
Watson Gilder, editors, and Colonel John Hay, politician and statesman.
The list closes with that notable group of well-known Western poets,
James Whitcomb Riley, Bret Harte, Eugene Field, Will Carleton, and
Joaquin Miller.
The remaining nine parts of the book treat in similar manner
about seventy-five additional authors, embracing noted novelists,
representative women poets of America; essayists, critics and sketch
writers; great American historians and biographers; our national
humorists; popular writers for young people; noted journalists and
magazine contributors; great orators and popular lecturers. Thus, it
will be seen that in this volume the whole field of American letters
has been gleaned to make the work the best and most representative of
our literature possible within the scope of a single volume.
In making a list of authors in whom the public were sufficiently
interested to entitle them to a place in a work like this, naturally
they were found to be entirely too numerous to be all included in one
book. The absence of many good names from the volume is, therefore,
explained by the fact that the editor has been driven to the necessity
of selecting, first, those whom he deemed pre-eminently prominent, and,
after that, making room for those who best represent a certain class
or particular phase of our literature.
To those authors who have so kindly responded to our requests for
courtesies, and whose names do not appear, the above explanation
is offered. The omission was imperative in order that those treated
might be allowed sufficient space to make the work as complete and
representative as might be reasonably expected.
Special attention has been given to _illustrations_. We have inserted
portraits of all the authors whose photographs we could obtain, and
have, also, given views of the homes and studies of many. A large
number of special drawings have also been made to illustrate the text
of selections. The whole number of portraits and other illustrations
amount to nearly one hundred and fifty, all of which are strictly
illustrative of the authors or their writings. None are put in as mere
ornaments. We have, furthermore, taken particular care to arrange a
number of special groups, placing those authors which belong in one
class or division of a class together on a page. One group on a page
represents our greatest poets; another, well-known western poets;
another, famous historians; another, writers for young people; another,
American humorists, etc. These groups are all arranged by artists
in various designs of ornamental setting. In many cases we have also
had special designs made by artists for commemorative and historic
pictures of famous authors. These drawings set forth in a pictorial
form leading scenes in the life and labors of the author represented.
Illustration: THE NEW CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY, WASHINGTON, D. C.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
⭘ An Author at Fourteen
⭘ The Influence of his Father
⭘ Bryant’s Best Known Poems
⭘ Personal Appearance
⭘ A Long and Useful Life
⭘ ‘Thanatopsis’
⭘ ‘Waiting By the Gate
⭘ ‘Blessed are They That Mourn’
⭘ ‘Antiquity of Freedom’
⭘ ‘To a Water Fowl’
⭘ ‘Robert of Lincoln’
⭘ ‘Drought’
⭘ ‘The Past’
⭘ ‘The Murdered Traveler’
⭘ ‘The Battle-Field’
⭘ ‘The Crowded Street’
⭘ ‘Fitz Greene Halleck (Notice of)’
⭘ ‘A Corn-Shucking in South Carolina’
EDGAR ALLEN POE.
⭘ Comparison with Other American Poets
⭘ Place of Birth and Ancestry
⭘ Career as a Student
⭘ The Sadness of his Life and Its Influence Upon his Literature
⭘ Conflicting Statements of his Biographers
⭘ Great as a Story Writer and as a Poet
⭘ His Literary Labors and Productions
⭘ ‘The City in the Sea’
⭘ ‘Annabel Lee’
⭘ ‘To Helen’
⭘ ‘Israfel’
⭘ ‘To One in Paradise’
⭘ ‘Lenore’
⭘ ‘The Bells’
⭘ ‘The Raven’
HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
⭘ His Place in Literature
⭘ Comparison With American and English Poets
⭘ His Education, Collegemates and Home
⭘ His Domestic Life. His Poems
⭘ Prose Works and Translations
⭘ The Wayside Inn (A view of)
⭘ His Critics, Poe, Margaret Fuller, ♦Duyckinck
♦ ‘Duyckink’ replaced with ‘Duyckinck’
⭘ Longfellow’s Genius
⭘ ‘The Psalm of Life’
⭘ ‘The Village Blacksmith’
⭘ ‘The Bridge’
⭘ ‘Resignation’
⭘ ‘God’s Acre’
⭘ ‘Excelsior’
⭘ ‘The Rainy Day’
⭘ ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’
⭘ ‘The Old Clock On the Stairs’
⭘ ‘The Skeleton in Armour’
⭘ ‘King Witlaf’s Drinking Horn’
⭘ ‘Evangeline On the Prairie’
⭘ ‘Literary Fame (Prose)’
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
⭘ The Difficulty of Classifying Emerson
⭘ The Liberator of American Letters
⭘ A Master of Language
⭘ Emerson and Franklin
⭘ Birth, Education, Early Life
⭘ Home at Concord, Brook-Farm Enterprise
⭘ Influence on Other Writers
⭘ Modern Communism and the New Theology
⭘ ‘Hymn Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument (1836)’
⭘ ‘The Rhodora’
⭘ ‘A True Hero’
⭘ ‘Mountain and Squirrel’
⭘ ‘The Snow-Storm’
⭘ ‘The Problem’
⭘ ‘Traveling’
⭘ ‘The Compensation of Calamity’
⭘ ‘Self Reliance’
⭘ ‘Nature’
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
⭘ Whittier’s Humble Birth, Ancestry, Education
⭘ Poet of the Abolitionists
⭘ His Poems and His Prose
⭘ New England’s History Embalmed in Verse
⭘ Our Most Distinctively American Poet
⭘ ‘My Playmate’
⭘ ‘The Changeling’
⭘ ‘The ♦Worship of Nature’
♦ ‘Workskip’ replaced with ‘Worship’
⭘ ‘The Bare-foot Boy’
⭘ ‘Maud Muller’
⭘ ‘Memories’
⭘ ‘In Prison For Debt’
⭘ ‘The Storm’ (From ‘Snow Bound’)
⭘ ‘Ichabod’
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
⭘ Admired by the English-speaking World
⭘ His Education and Popularity
⭘ Early Poems
⭘ Autocrat and Professor at the Breakfast Table
⭘ Holmes’ Genial and Lovable Nature
⭘ ‘Bill and Joe’
⭘ ‘Union and Liberty’
⭘ ‘Old Ironsides’
⭘ ‘My Aunt’
⭘ ‘The Height of the Ridiculous’
⭘ ‘The Chambered Nautilus’
⭘ ‘Old Age and the Professor’ (Prose)
⭘ ‘The Brain’ (Prose)
⭘ ‘My Last Walk with the School Mistress’
⭘ ‘A Random Conversation on Old Maxims, Boston and other Towns’
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
⭘ Profoundest of American Poets
⭘ Early Life and Beginning in Literature
⭘ Marriage, and the Influence of his Wife
⭘ Home at Cambridge (view of)
⭘ Humorous Poems and Prose Writings
⭘ Longfellow’s Poem on Mrs. Lowell’s Death
⭘ Public Career of the Author
⭘ How Lowell is Regarded by Scholars
⭘ ‘The Gothic Genius’ (From ‘The Cathedral’)
⭘ ‘The Rose’
⭘ ‘The Heritage’
⭘ ‘Act For Truth’
⭘ ‘The First Snow-Fall’
⭘ ‘Fourth-of-July Ode’
⭘ ‘The Dandelion’
⭘ ‘The Alpine Sheep’ (by Mrs. Lowell)
BAYARD TAYLOR.
⭘ Life as a Farmer Boy
⭘ Education
⭘ His First Book
⭘ Encouragement from Horace Greeley
⭘ A Two Years’ Tramp Through Europe
⭘ A Most Delightful Book of Travel
⭘ An Inveterate Nomad
⭘ Public Career of the Author
⭘ ‘The Bison Track’
⭘ ‘The Song of the Camp’
⭘ ‘Bedouin Song’
⭘ ‘The Arab to the Palm’
⭘ ‘Life on the Nile’
NATHANIEL P. WILLIS.
⭘ A Devotee of Fashion
⭘ Birth and Ancestors
⭘ Educational Facilities
⭘ His First Poems
⭘ A Four Years’ Tour in Europe
⭘ Marriage and Home
⭘ A Second Journey to England
⭘ Death
⭘ An Untiring Worker
⭘ ‘David’s Lament for Absalom’
⭘ ‘The Dying Alchemist’
⭘ ‘The Belfry Pigeon’
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
⭘ His Humble Origin and Early Struggles
⭘ Introduction into Literature
⭘ Stoddard’s Style
⭘ Literary Dinner in His Honor (1892)
⭘ Ik Marvel’s Letter and Whitcomb Riley’s Poem
⭘ ‘A Curtain Call’
⭘ ‘Hymn to the Beautiful’
⭘ ‘A Dirge’
⭘ ‘The Shadow of the Hand’
⭘ ‘A Serenade’
WALTER WHITMAN (WALT).
⭘ The Estimates of Critics
⭘ Charms of Whitman’s Poetry
⭘ Life and Works of the Poet
⭘ Biographies of the Poet
⭘ ‘Darest Thou Now, O Soul’
⭘ ‘O Captain! My Captain’
⭘ ‘In All, Myself’
⭘ ‘Old Ireland’
⭘ ‘Pæan of Joy’
JAMES MAURICE THOMPSON.
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ A Thorough Southerner
⭘ Man of Letters and Scientist
⭘ Chief of the State Geological Survey
⭘ Works of the Author
⭘ ‘Ceres’
⭘ ‘Diana’
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
⭘ At the Head of Modern Lyrical Writers
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ Mercantile Career
⭘ War Correspondent
⭘ Life in Boston
⭘ Works
⭘ Visit to England
⭘ ‘Alec Yeaton’s Son’
⭘ ‘On Lynn Terrace’
⭘ ‘Sargent’s Portrait of Edwin Booth at “The Players.”’
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
⭘ Purity of Sentiment and Delicacy of Expression
⭘ Education and Early Life
⭘ Journalist
⭘ Editor of “Hours at Home”
⭘ Politician and Reformer
⭘ A Staunch Friend of our Colleges
⭘ A Man of Exalted Ideals
⭘ ‘Sonnet (After the Italian)’
⭘ ‘The Life Mask of Abraham Lincoln’
⭘ ‘Sheridan’
⭘ ‘Sunset From the Train’
⭘ ‘O Silver River Flowing to the Sea’
⭘ ‘There is Nothing New Under the Sun’
⭘ ‘Memorial Day’
⭘ ‘A Woman’s Thought’
JOHN HAY.
⭘ His Western Birth and Education
⭘ Service to President Lincoln
⭘ Military Career
⭘ Appointed Ambassador to Great Britain
⭘ A List of His Books
⭘ How He Came to Write “Little Breeches”
⭘ ‘Little Breeches’
⭘ ‘Jim Bludso’
⭘ ‘How it Happened’
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
⭘ Great Popularity with the Masses
⭘ A Poet of the Country People
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ First Occupation
⭘ Congratulated by Longfellow
⭘ Mr. Riley’s Methods of Work
⭘ The Poet’s Home
⭘ Constantly “on the Wing”
⭘ ‘A Boy’s Mother’
⭘ ‘Thoughts on the Late War’
⭘ ‘Our Hired Girl’
⭘ ‘The Raggedy Man’
BRET HARTE.
⭘ The Poet of the Mining Camp
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Emigrated to California
⭘ Schoolteacher and Miner
⭘ Position on a Frontier Paper
⭘ Editorial Position on the “Golden Era”
⭘ Secretary of the U. S. Mint at San Francisco
⭘ In Chicago and Boston
⭘ U. S. Consul to Crefield and Glasgow
⭘ A List of his Works
⭘ ‘The Society Upon the Stanislaus’
⭘ ‘Dickens in Camp’
EUGENE FIELD.
⭘ The “Poet of Child Life”
⭘ Troups of Children for his Friends
⭘ Peace-maker Among the Small Ones
⭘ A Feast with his Little Friends
⭘ A Devoted Husband
⭘ Congenial Association with his Fellow-workers
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ His Works
⭘ ‘Our Two Opinions’
⭘ ‘Lullaby’
⭘ ‘A Dutch Lullaby’
⭘ ‘A Norse Lullaby’
WILL CARLETON.
⭘ His Poems Favorites for Recitation
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ Teacher, Farmhand and College Graduate
⭘ Journalist and Lecturer
⭘ A List of his Works
⭘ ‘Betsy and I Are Out’
⭘ ‘Gone With a Handsomer Man’
CINCINNATUS HINER MILLER (JOAQUIN).
⭘ Removal from Indiana to Oregon
⭘ Experiences in Mining and Filibustering
⭘ Marries and Becomes Editor and Lawyer
⭘ Visit to London to Seek a Publisher
⭘ ‘Thoughts of My Western Home’
⭘ ‘Mount Shasta’
⭘ ‘Kit Carson’s Ride’
⭘ ‘J. Miller’s Alaska Letter’
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER.
⭘ First American Novelist
⭘ Birth and Childhood
⭘ The Wilderness his Teacher
⭘ Sailor Life
⭘ Marriage and Home
⭘ “The Spy”
⭘ Plaudits From Both Sides of the Atlantic
⭘ The First Genuine Salt-water Novel
⭘ Removal to New York
⭘ A Six Years’ Visit to Europe
⭘ His Remaining Nineteen Years
⭘ ‘Encounter With a Panther’
⭘ ‘The Capture of a Whale’
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
⭘ The Greatest of American Romancers
⭘ Birth, Ancestors, and Childhood
⭘ Twelve Years of Solitary Existence
⭘ His First Book
⭘ “Twice Told Tales”
⭘ A Staunch Democrat
⭘ Marriage and the “Old Manse”
⭘ The Masterpiece in American Fiction
⭘ Books Written by Hawthorne
⭘ Death and Funeral
⭘ ‘Emerson and the Emersonites’
⭘ ‘Pearl’
⭘ ‘Sights From a Steeple’
⭘ ‘A Reminiscence of Early Life’
EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
⭘ Among the Best Known American Authors
⭘ A Noted Lecturer
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Career as a Clergyman
⭘ Newspaper and Magazine Work
⭘ A Prominent Short-Story-teller
⭘ An Historical Writer of Great Prominence
⭘ Patriotic Interest in Public Affairs
⭘ ‘Lost’
WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.
⭘ One of the Greatest of Modern American Novelists
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ Editor of the “Ohio State Journal”
⭘ His First Volume of Verse
⭘ His “Life of Abraham Lincoln”
⭘ Consul to Venice
⭘ Mr. Howells’ Works
⭘ Editor of the “Atlantic Monthly”
⭘ ‘The First Boarder’
⭘ ‘Impressions on Visiting Pompeii’
⭘ ‘Venetian Vagabonds’
GENERAL LEW WALLACE.
⭘ Began His Literary Career Late in Life
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ Lawyer and Soldier
⭘ Governor of Utah
⭘ Appointed Minister to Turkey
⭘ His Most Popular Book
⭘ Enormous Circulation
⭘ ‘Description of Christ’
⭘ ‘The Prince of India Teaches Re-incarnation’
⭘ ‘The Prayer of the Wandering Jew’
⭘ ‘Death of Montezuma’
⭘ ‘Description of Virgin Mary’
EDWARD EGGLESTON.
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ A Man of Self-culture
⭘ His Early Training
⭘ Religious Devotion and Sacrifice
⭘ Beginning of his Literary Career
⭘ What Distinguishes his Novels
⭘ List of his Chief Novels and Stories
⭘ ‘Spelling down the Master’
THOMAS NELSON PAGE.
⭘ Birth and Earliest Recollections
⭘ Childhood, Ancestors, and Education
⭘ His First Literary Success
⭘ “In Ole Virginia” and other stories
⭘ Prominent Journalist and Lecturer
⭘ A Tour Abroad
⭘ ‘Old Sue’
EDWARD PAYSON ROE.
⭘ Great Popularity Among the Masses
⭘ The Character of his Novels
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Served as Chaplain During the Civil War
⭘ List of His Works
⭘ ‘Christine, Awake For Your Life’
FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD.
⭘ “The Most Versatile of Modern Novelists”
⭘ Birth, Ancestors, and Early Life
⭘ Editor on the “Allahabad Herald”
⭘ Varied Experiences
⭘ How he Came to Write “Mr. Isaacs”
⭘ His Most Popular Novels
⭘ A Novel Written in Twenty-four ♦Days
♦ ‘Hours’ replaced with ‘Days’
⭘ His Other Chief Works
⭘ ‘Horace Bellingham’
⭘ ‘In the Himalayas’
FRANCIS RICHARD STOCKTON.
⭘ A Prolific and Popular Author
⭘ Birth and Educational Training
⭘ Engraver and Designer
⭘ One New Book Almost Every Year
⭘ Some of his Best Known Books
⭘ ‘The End of a Career’
EDWARD BELLAMY.
⭘ A Most Remarkable Sensation
⭘ 100,000 Copies Per Year
⭘ Mr. ♦Bellamy’s Ideal
♦ ‘Belamy’s’ replaced with ‘Bellamy’s’
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ His Books
⭘ An Ideal Home
⭘ ‘Music in the Year 2000’
GEORGE W. CABLE.
⭘ “Circumstances Make the Man”
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ Service in the Confederate Army
⭘ Errand Boy in a Store
⭘ On the “New Orleans Picayune”
⭘ Devotes his Life to Literature
⭘ His Most Prominent Works
⭘ ‘The Doctor’
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
⭘ Ancestors, Birth, and Girlhood
⭘ Removal to Cincinnati
⭘ A Trip Across the River
⭘ Marriage
⭘ Severe Trials
⭘ A Memorable Year
⭘ “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”
⭘ Her Pen Never Idle
⭘ Removal to Hartford, Conn.
⭘ Her Death
⭘ ‘The Little Evangelist’
⭘ ‘The Other World’
M. VIRGINIA TERHUNE (MARION HARLAND).
⭘ Wide Variety of Talent
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Marriage and Home
⭘ Her Most Prominent Works
⭘ ‘A Manly Hero’
MARY ABIGAIL DODGE (GAIL HAMILTON).
⭘ Essayist, Critic and Novelist
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Career as a Writer
⭘ Her Published Volumes
⭘ The Only Authorized Life of J. G. Blaine
⭘ ‘Fishing’
HELEN HUNT JACKSON.
⭘ Helen Hunt’s Cabin
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Marriage and Removal to Newport, R. I.
⭘ Her First Poems
⭘ Great Distinction as a Writer
⭘ Removal to Colorado
⭘ At the Foot of Pike’s Peak
⭘ List of her Most Prominent Works
⭘ Death and Burial Place
⭘ ‘Christmas Night at St. Peter’s’
⭘ ‘Choice of Colors’
FRANCES H. BURNETT.
⭘ Pluck, Energy and Perseverance
⭘ Her First Story
⭘ Marriage and Tour in Europe
⭘ Her Children Stories
⭘ A Frequent Contributor to Periodicals
⭘ ‘Pretty Polly P.’
MARY N. MURFREE (CHAS. EGBERT CRADDOCK).
⭘ An Amusing Story
⭘ Birth, Ancestry and Misfortunes
⭘ A Student of Humanity
⭘ Her Style Bold and Full of Humor
⭘ ‘The Confession’
ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD.
⭘ Favorable Reception of “Gates Ajar!”
⭘ An Early Writer
⭘ A Long Series of Books
⭘ Marriage and Home
⭘ Her Purpose Always High
⭘ ‘The Hands at Hayle and Kelso’s’
AMELIA E. BARR.
⭘ Popularity of her Works
⭘ Her Sorrows and Hardships
⭘ Birth and Early Education
⭘ Marriage and Travels
⭘ Death of her Husband and Four Sons
⭘ An Instantly Successful Book
⭘ ‘Little Jan’s Triumph’
⭘ ‘The Old Piano’
ALICE FRENCH (OCTAVE THANET).
⭘ A Genuine Yankee Woman
⭘ Her Puritan Ancestry
⭘ Education and First Manuscript
⭘ Her First Book
⭘ Her Most Prominent Publications
⭘ Her nom-de-plume
⭘ Philosopher, Artist, and Novelist
⭘ An Assiduous Student of her Subjects
⭘ ‘Two Lost and Found’
JANE GOODWIN AUSTIN.
⭘ A Famous Daughter of the “Pilgrims”
⭘ Birth and Parents
⭘ A List of her Best Books
⭘ Her Personality
⭘ ‘An Afternoon in Nantucket’
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
⭘ The Most Prolific of American Women Writers
⭘ Critical Estimate of her Works
⭘ Birth and Educational Advantages
⭘ Her First Book
⭘ Some of her Other Works
⭘ A Tour of Europe
⭘ Death
⭘ ‘Columbus’
⭘ ‘The Alpine Flowers’
⭘ ‘Niagara’
⭘ ‘Death of an Infant’
⭘ ‘A Butterfly on a Child’s Grave’
ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.
⭘ Ancestors and Birth
⭘ A Liberal Contributor to Periodicals
⭘ Her Published Works
⭘ ‘The Step-mother’
⭘ ‘Guardian Angels’
⭘ ‘The Brook’
⭘ ‘The April Rain’
⭘ ‘Flowers’
⭘ ‘Eros and Anteros’
LUCY LARCOM.
⭘ Operative in a Cotton Factory
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ Her First Literary Production
⭘ Some of her Best Works
⭘ The Working Woman’s Friend
⭘ ‘Hannah Binding Shoes’
ALICE AND PHŒBE CARY.
⭘ Their Birth and Early Lot
⭘ Encouragement From Editors
⭘ Their First Volume
⭘ Some of their Prominent Works
⭘ A Comparison Between the Two Sisters
⭘ One in Spirit through Life
⭘ United in Death
⭘ ‘Pictures of Memory’
⭘ ‘Nobility’
⭘ ‘The Gray Swan’
⭘ ‘To the Evening Zephyr’
⭘ ‘Death Scene’
⭘ ‘Memories’
⭘ ‘Equal to Either Fortune’
⭘ ‘Light’
LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Her First Book at Nineteen Years
⭘ Her Following Publications
⭘ Residence in Boston and Trips Abroad
⭘ A Systematic Worker
⭘ Personal Friendship
⭘ ‘If There Were Dreams to Sell’
⭘ ‘Wife to Husband’
⭘ ‘The Last Good-Bye’
⭘ ‘Next Year’
⭘ ‘My Mother’s Picture’
WASHINGTON IRVING.
⭘ The First Great Pioneer in American Letters
⭘ Birth and Ancestors
⭘ Named After George Washington
⭘ Early Success as a Journalist
⭘ A Two Years’ Trip in Europe
⭘ A Shrewd Advertisement
⭘ Seventeen Years Abroad
⭘ The Winning Character of his Genius
⭘ ‘The Organ of Westminster Abbey’
⭘ ‘Baltus Van Tassel’s Farm’
⭘ ‘Columbus at Barcelona’
⭘ ‘The Galloping Hessian’
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
⭘ The Meditative School in American Literature
⭘ Birth, Ancestry and Education
⭘ Early Life
⭘ In “The Brotherhood of Authors”
⭘ His First Literary Work
⭘ A Few of his Other Publications
⭘ ‘The Moral Quality of Vegetables’
DONALD G. MITCHELL.
⭘ Characteristics of the Author
⭘ A Disciple of Washington Irving
⭘ Birth, Education, and Early Life
⭘ Home and Marriage
⭘ U. S. Consul to Venice
⭘ Semi-public Positions
⭘ His Most Prominent Books
⭘ ‘Washington Irving’
⭘ ‘Glimpses of “Dream Life”’
THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.
⭘ A Noble Part in the Battles for Freedom
⭘ Activity in the Anti-Slavery Agitation
⭘ His Contributions to Literature
⭘ A Popular Historian
⭘ ‘A Puritan Sunday Morning’
HAMILTON W. MABIE.
⭘ Birth, Family, and Education
⭘ Familiar with the Classics
⭘ On the Staff of the “Christian Union”
⭘ Profound Study of the Problems of Life
⭘ A Declaration Typical of all his Thought
⭘ ‘Country Sights and Sounds’
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
⭘ Two Sensational Poems
⭘ Birth, Ancestry, and Early Life
⭘ Journalist at Twenty-one
⭘ On the New York “Tribune”
⭘ Editor of the “World”
⭘ A Remarkable War Letter
⭘ A List of his Prominent Works
⭘ Poet and Man of Business
⭘ An Ideal Home Life
⭘ ‘Betrothed Anew’
⭘ ‘The Door-Step’
GEORGE H. BANCROFT.
⭘ The First Among American Historians
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Extensive Studies in Europe
⭘ Appointed to the Chair of Greek in Harvard College
⭘ A School of High Classical Character
⭘ Official Service
⭘ Removal to New York
⭘ Minister to Russia and to Germany
⭘ His “History of the United States” and other Works
⭘ A Long and Useful Life
⭘ ‘Character of Roger Williams’
⭘ ‘Destruction of the Tea in Boston Harbor’
⭘ ‘Chivalry and Puritanism’
⭘ ‘The Position of the Puritans’
JAMES PARTON.
⭘ Ancestry, Birth, and Education
⭘ A Very Successful Teacher
⭘ His Career as a Literary Man
⭘ On the Staff of “The New York Ledger”
⭘ His Most Prominent Works
⭘ ‘Old Virginia’
FRANCIS PARKMAN.
⭘ Birth, Education, and Visit Abroad
⭘ A Summer With the ♦Dacotah Indians
♦ ‘Dakotah’ replaced with ‘Dacotah’
⭘ Compelled to Suspend Intellectual Work
⭘ An Interesting Example of his Persistency
⭘ His Interest in Horticulture
⭘ ‘The New England Colonies’
⭘ ‘The Heights of Abraham’
WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT.
⭘ A Popular Historian
⭘ Birth, Parentage and Early Life
⭘ A Thorough Preparation
⭘ Marriage and Happy Home
⭘ His Method of Composition
⭘ Successful as a Writer from the First
⭘ A List of his Works
⭘ Many Engaging Qualities
⭘ ‘The Golden Age of Tezcuco’
⭘ ‘The Banquet of the Dead’
JOHN L. MOTLEY.
⭘ Birth, Boyhood, and Early Associates
⭘ Intimate Friend of Prince Bismarck
⭘ Member of Massachusetts’ Legislature
⭘ “History of Holland”
⭘ Minister to Austria, 1861; to England, 1869
⭘ Patriot, Scholar, Historian
⭘ ‘Bismarck’
⭘ ‘The Siege of Leyden’
⭘ ‘Assassination of William of Orange’
JOHN FISKE.
⭘ Precocious Ability
⭘ Birth, Education and Early Life
⭘ His Literary Work and Most Noted Books
⭘ His Principal Historical Works
⭘ His School-books
⭘ ‘Land Discovered’
⭘ ‘The Federal Convention’
JOHN B. McMASTER.
⭘ Excelling in Different Fields
⭘ Parentage, Birth and Early Life
⭘ Professor of American History
⭘ His View of History
⭘ Instructor of the Young
⭘ ‘The American Workman in 1784’
⭘ ‘The Minister in New England’
FRANCES M. WHITCHER (THE WIDOW BEDOTT).
⭘ Her nom-de-plume
⭘ Richness of Humor
⭘ Birth, Childhood and Education
⭘ Marriage and Literary Fame
⭘ Removal from Elmira, N. Y.
⭘ ‘Widow Bedott to Elder Sniffles’
⭘ ‘The Widow’s Poetry and her Comments on the Same About Hezekiah’
CHARLES F. BROWN (ARTEMUS WARD).
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ On the “Commercial,” Toledo, Ohio
⭘ Local Editor of the “Plain Dealer”
⭘ Successful Lecturer in England
⭘ Death at Southampton
⭘ His Works
⭘ ‘Artemus Ward Visits the Shakers’
⭘ ‘At the Tomb of Shakespeare’
HENRY W. SHAW (JOSH BILLINGS).
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ His Early Life of Adventure
⭘ Entered the Lecture Field
⭘ Contributor to “The New York Weekly”
⭘ His Published Books
♦⭘ ‘Josh Billing’s Advertisement’
♦ added work omitted from the TOC
⭘ ‘Manifest Destiny’
⭘ ‘Letters to Farmers’
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN).
⭘ A World-wide Reputation
⭘ Birth, Boyhood and Education
⭘ His Pilot Life
⭘ Editor of the Virginia City “Enterprise”
⭘ Journalist and Gold Digger
⭘ A Trip to Hawaii
⭘ Innocents Abroad
⭘ Some of his Other Works
⭘ A Lecturing Trip Around the World
⭘ ‘Jim Smiley’s Frog’
⭘ ‘Uncle Dan’l’s Apparition and Prayer’
⭘ ‘The Babies’
MARIETTA HOLLEY (JOSIAH ALLEN’S WIFE).
⭘ A Writer at an Early Age
⭘ Birth and Ancestors
⭘ Rise and Increase of Her Fame
⭘ Some of her Prominent Works
⭘ A Quarter Million Copies Sold
⭘ Characteristics of her Books
⭘ ‘Josiah Allen’s Wife Calls on the President’
CHARLES F. ADAMS (YAWCOB STRAUSS).
⭘ A Not-Soon-to-be-Forgotten Author
⭘ Birth, Education and Early Life
⭘ Service in Many Hard-fought Battles
⭘ Prominent Business Man
⭘ A Contributor to Prominent Journals
⭘ A Genial and Companionable Man
⭘ ‘Der Drummer’
⭘ ‘Hans and Fritz’
⭘ ‘Yawcob Strauss’
⭘ ‘Mine Moder-in-Law’
⭘ ‘Yawcob’s Dribulations’
⭘ ‘The Puzzled Dutchman’
⭘ ‘Der Oak and Der Vine’
EDGAR WILSON NYE (BILL NYE).
⭘ A Man of Genuine Wit
⭘ Birth and Early Surroundings
⭘ Studied Law, Admitted to the Bar
⭘ Organized the Nye Trust
⭘ Famous Letters from Buck’s Shoals, N. C.
⭘ “History of the United States”
⭘ His Death
⭘ ‘The Wild Cow’
⭘ ‘Mr. Whisk’s True Love’
⭘ ‘The Discovery of New York’
JOEL C. HARRIS (UNCLE REMUS).
⭘ “An Accidental Author”
⭘ Birth and Humble Circumstances
⭘ In the Office of the “Countryman”
⭘ Beginning of his Literary Career
⭘ Studied and Practiced Law
⭘ Co-editor of the Atlanta “Constitution”
⭘ His Works
⭘ ‘Mr. Rabbit, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Buzzard’
ROBERT J. BURDETTE.
⭘ A Prominent Place Among “Funny Men”
⭘ Birth and Early Education
⭘ Fought in the Civil War
⭘ Journalist, Lecturer and Baptist Minister
⭘ Contributor to “Ladies’ Home Journal”
⭘ His Other Works
⭘ ‘The Movement Cure for Rheumatism’
LOUISA M. ALCOTT.
⭘ Architect of her Own Fortune
⭘ Her Father’s Misfortunes
⭘ Her Early Writings
⭘ Her Letters in the Government Hospitals
⭘ Young People’s True Friend
⭘ Her Books
⭘ An Admirer of Emerson
⭘ A Victim of Over-Work
⭘ ‘How Jo Made Friends’
WILLIAM T. ADAMS (OLIVER OPTIC).
⭘ Writer for the Young
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ Teacher in Public Schools of Boston
⭘ His Editorials and Books
⭘ His Style and Influence
⭘ ‘The Sloop That Went to the Bottom’
SARAH JANE LIPPINCOTT (GRACE GREENWOOD).
⭘ Favorite Writer for Little Children
⭘ Birth and Childhood
⭘ Her Marriage
⭘ Contributions to Journals and Magazines
⭘ Her Numerous Books
⭘ Life Abroad
⭘ ‘The Baby in the Bath Tub’
HORATIO ALGER.
⭘ A Wholesome Author for Young People
⭘ His First Book, Great Success
⭘ A New Field
⭘ Birth, Education and Early Life
⭘ Residence in New York
⭘ Some of his Most Prominent Books
⭘ ‘How Dick Began the Day’
EDWARD ELLIS.
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ His Historical Text-Books
⭘ His Contributions to Children’s Papers
⭘ ‘The Signal Fire’
MARTHA FINLEY.
⭘ Birth, Ancestry and Early Life
⭘ Beginning of her Literary Career
⭘ Struggle Against Adversity
⭘ Great Exertions
⭘ ‘Elsie Series,’ Great Popularity
⭘ ‘Elsie’s Disappointment’
MARY MAPES DODGE.
⭘ Writer of Stories for Children
⭘ Birth and Parentage
⭘ Married William Dodge
⭘ Contributor to “Hearth and Home”
⭘ Success of her Works
⭘ Editor of “St. Nicholas Magazine”
⭘ Her Home in New York
⭘ ‘Too Much of a Good Thing’
HORACE GREELEY.
⭘ Birth and Early Taste for Literature
⭘ On the “Northern Spectator”
⭘ Tries his Fortune in New York
⭘ Part Owner of the “New Yorker”
⭘ The “Log Cabin” and the N. Y. “Tribune”
⭘ Elected to Congress
⭘ His Works
⭘ Nominated for Presidency
⭘ His Last Resting Place
⭘ ‘A Debtor’s Slavery’
⭘ ‘The Press’
CHARLES A. DANA.
⭘ One of Our Foremost Men
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ A Remarkable Life
⭘ His Education and College Career
⭘ Joining the “Brook Farm” Men
⭘ His First Journalistic Experience
⭘ On the New York “Tribune”
⭘ Busy Years
⭘ Difference Between Mr. Greeley and Mr. Dana
⭘ Assistant Secretary of War
⭘ One Year in Chicago
⭘ Manager of the New York “Sun”
⭘ ‘Roscoe Conkling’
LYMAN ABBOTT.
⭘ Ancestors, Birth and Education
⭘ Ordained a Minister
⭘ Secretary to the American Freedmen’s Commission
⭘ Work as a Journalist
⭘ Successor of Henry Ward Beecher
⭘ Prolific Publisher
⭘ Successful Pulpit Speaker
⭘ ‘The Jesuits’
⭘ ‘The Destruction of the Cities of the Plain’
HENRY W. WATTERSON.
⭘ Influential Modern Journalist
⭘ Birth and Education
⭘ Editor of the “Republican Banner”
⭘ Service in the Confederate Army
⭘ The “Courier-Journal,” Louisville, Ky.
⭘ Prominent Part in Politics
⭘ ‘The New South’
MURAT HALSTEAD.
⭘ One of the Greatest Living Journalists
⭘ Nativity, Early Life and Education
⭘ Editor of “The Commercial,” Cincinnati, Ohio
⭘ A Continued Success
⭘ Correspondent During the Franco-Prussian War, 1870
⭘ In Washington and New York
⭘ Home and Family Life
⭘ ‘The Young Man at the Door’
WHITELAW REID.
⭘ “Fortune Favors the Brave”
⭘ Birth and Early Training
⭘ War Correspondent to the “Cincinnati Gazette”
⭘ An Important Work
⭘ Editorial Writer Upon N. Y. “Tribune”
⭘ His Most Prominent Works
⭘ His Palatial Home and Family Life
⭘ ‘Pictures of a Louisiana Plantation’
ALBERT SHAW.
⭘ Birth, Education and Personal Characteristics
⭘ Residence in Baltimore
⭘ On the Minneapolis Daily “Tribune”
⭘ Extensive Studies Abroad
⭘ Editor of the “Review of Reviews”
⭘ Great Success
⭘ ‘Recent Development of the West’
JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
⭘ His Imaginative Power, Vivid Statement
⭘ Parentage, Birth and Travels Abroad
⭘ College Life and Early Training
⭘ Long Sojourn Abroad
⭘ Some of his Most Prominent Works
⭘ Expedition to India
⭘ ‘The Wayside and the War’
⭘ ‘First Months in England’
⭘ ‘The Horrors of the Plague in India’
RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
⭘ Marvelous Skill in Seeing the World
⭘ A Clever Newspaper Reporter
⭘ Birth and Hereditary Bent for Letters
⭘ Interesting Career as a Journalist
⭘ The Book that Made Him Famous
⭘ Some of His Other Works
⭘ ‘The Greek Defence of Velestino’
PATRICK HENRY.
⭘ His Talents as a Popular Orator
⭘ Parentage and Education
⭘ Marriage and Early Life
⭘ A Prominent Lawyer
⭘ Bold Principles
⭘ The Leader of his Colony
⭘ The First Governor of Virginia
⭘ His Death
⭘ ‘Resistance to British Aggression’
⭘ ‘The War Inevitable’
HENRY CLAY.
⭘ The “Great Pacificator”
⭘ Birth, Early Hardships, Toil and Poverty
⭘ Removal to Kentucky and Success
⭘ Marriage and Home
⭘ In the Senate of the United States
⭘ Member of the House of Representatives
⭘ Elected Speaker
⭘ Secretary of State
⭘ The Conflict of 1818
⭘ The Disappointment of His Life
⭘ The “Compromise” of 1850
⭘ The Leading Object of His Life
⭘ ‘Defence of Jefferson,’ 1813
⭘ ‘Reply to John Randolph’
⭘ ‘On Recognizing the Independence of Greece’
DANIEL WEBSTER.
⭘ First among the “Makers of the Nation”
⭘ Birth, Ancestors and Early Life
⭘ The “Webster’s Boy”
⭘ Extraordinary Memory
⭘ Majestic Appearance
⭘ Lawyer, Orator and Statesman
⭘ A Famous Case
⭘ His Most Famous Speeches
⭘ Secretary of State
⭘ Home and Home Life
⭘ Death and Funeral
⭘ ‘South Carolina and Massachusetts’
⭘ ‘Liberty and Union’
⭘ ‘The Eloquence of Action’
⭘ ‘The Twenty-second of February’
⭘ ‘America’s Gift to Europe’
EDWARD EVERETT.
⭘ The Great Charm of His Orations
⭘ Birth, Education and Early Life
⭘ Professor of Greek at Harvard College
⭘ Editor of the “North American Review”
⭘ Member of Congress
⭘ Minister to England
⭘ President of Harvard College
⭘ Secretary of State
⭘ His Lectures and Orations
⭘ Death
⭘ ‘Twenty-five Years of Peace’
⭘ ‘The Father of the Republic’
⭘ ‘The Land of Our Forefathers’
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
⭘ “The Silvery-tongued Orator”
⭘ How He came into Prominence
⭘ A Memorable Speech
⭘ Birth, Parents and Education
⭘ A Popular Lecturer
⭘ His Most Celebrated Addresses
⭘ ‘Political Agitation’
⭘ ‘Toussaint L’Ouverture’
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
⭘ No Superior as Pulpit Orator
⭘ Parentage, Birth and Childhood
⭘ Education and Conversion
⭘ His Marriage and First Pastorate
⭘ Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.
⭘ A Bold Abolitionist
⭘ Ever the Champion of the Right
⭘ His Death and Funeral
⭘ ‘Public Dishonesty’
⭘ ‘Eulogy on General Grant’
⭘ ‘From “The Sparks of Nature”’
JOHN B. GOUGH.
⭘ A Great National Orator
⭘ Birth and Early Life
⭘ A Life of Hopeless Dissipation
⭘ Public Confession and Reformation
⭘ A Popular Lecturer
⭘ Called to England
⭘ A Happy Life
⭘ His Published Works
⭘ ‘Water and Rum’
⭘ ‘The Power of Habit’
⭘ ‘What is a Minority?’
CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW.
⭘ Great Versatility
⭘ Birth, Ancestors and Boyhood
⭘ A Close Student of Politics
⭘ A Highly Successful Lawyer
⭘ A Giant in Politics
⭘ Member of Congress
⭘ Secretary of State
⭘ Minister to Japan
⭘ His Career as a Railway Man
⭘ ‘The Pilgrims’
HENRY W. GRADY.
⭘ Devoid of Sectional Animosities
⭘ The Union His Pride
⭘ Eloquent, Logical and Aggressive
⭘ His Principal Speeches
⭘ Birth, Parentage and Education
⭘ Marriage and Struggle for Existence
⭘ “A Friend in Need”
⭘ Success at Last
⭘ Premature Death
⭘ ‘The New South’
⭘ ‘Regard for the Negro Race’
⭘ ‘Appeal for Temperance’
JULIA WARD HOWE.
⭘ Her Home a Meeting Place for Great Men
⭘ Birth, Parentage and Education
⭘ Marriage and Tour Abroad
⭘ Her First Book
⭘ Interest in the Anti-Slavery Question
⭘ Her Famous “Battle Hymn”
⭘ Visit to England
⭘ A New Journey Abroad
⭘ ‘The Battle Hymn of the ♦Republic’
♦ ‘Rebublic’ replaced with ‘Republic’
⭘ ‘Our Country’
⭘ ‘The Unspeakable Pang’
MARY A. LIVERMORE.
⭘ Her Early Experience
⭘ Birth, Parentage and Education
⭘ Teacher of Latin and French
⭘ In the South
⭘ Marriage
⭘ An Active Temperance Worker
⭘ Her Literary Work
⭘ War Service
⭘ An Ardent Woman-Suffragist
⭘ Her Pen Never Idle
⭘ ‘Useful Women’
BELVA ANN LOCKWOOD.
⭘ One of the Greatest Benefactors of Her Sex
⭘ Birth, Education and Early Life
⭘ Professor at Lockport Academy
⭘ Admission to the Supreme Court of the U. S.
⭘ A Remarkable Nomination
⭘ Great Popularity
⭘ Several Times Delegate to International Congresses of Peace
⭘ Assistant Editor to the “Peacemaker”
⭘ ‘Address before the Committee of the House of Delegates,
Washington, in Support of Woman Suffrage’
SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
⭘ Early Life and Education
⭘ How She Became an Abolitionist, Woman-Suffragist and Temperance
Worker
⭘ Arrested, Tried and Fined for Voting
⭘ Speeches and Lectures
⭘ Celebration of Her Seventieth Birthday
⭘ ‘Woman’s Right to Suffrage’
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
⭘ Forceful, Logical and Eloquent Orator
⭘ Primarily a Woman-Suffragist
⭘ Birth, Childhood and Education
⭘ How She Became a Woman’s Rights Believer
⭘ How She Became an Abolitionist
⭘ The First Woman’s Rights Convention
⭘ Her Addresses and Speeches
⭘ Her Literary Works
⭘ A Thoroughly Domestic Woman
⭘ ‘A Plea for Equal Rights’
⭘ ‘Address to the Legislature of New York’
FRANCES E. WILLARD.
⭘ Birth, Childhood and Early Life
⭘ Teacher and President of Evanston College
⭘ The Women’s “Crusade against Rum Shops”
⭘ Joining in the Crusade
⭘ The Result of Her Work
⭘ ‘Home Protection’
LYDIA MARIA CHILD.
⭘ Activity against the “Fugitive Slave Law”
⭘ Birth, Education and Early Life
⭘ Her First Book a Success
⭘ Marriage and Anti-Slavery Work
⭘ The First Anti-Slavery Book in America
⭘ ‘A Little Waif’
⭘ ‘To Whittier on His Seventieth Birthday’
⭘ ‘Politeness’
⭘ ‘Flowers’
⭘ ‘Unselfishness’
ANNA ELIZABETH DICKINSON.
⭘ A Fearless Girl
⭘ Birth, Childhood and Education
⭘ Her Debut Before the Public
⭘ Cast Upon the World
⭘ How She was Named “The Girl Orator”
⭘ The Mistake of Her Life
⭘ Misfortunes and Difficulties
⭘ Rare Eloquence and Dramatic Fervor
⭘ ‘Why Colored Men Should Enlist in the Army’
MISCELLANEOUS MASTERPIECES.
⭘ ‘Home, Sweet Home’
⭘ ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’
⭘ ‘The American Flag’
⭘ ‘Blind Man and the Elephant’
⭘ ‘Hail, Columbia!’
⭘ ‘Betty and the Bear’
⭘ ‘Visit of St. Nicholas’
⭘ ‘Woodman, Spare that Tree’
⭘ ‘Sanctity of Treaties, 1796’
⭘ ‘The Bloom was on the Alder and the Tassel on the Corn’
⭘ ‘The Declaration of Independence’
⭘ ‘Washington’s Address to His Soldiers, 1776’
⭘ ‘The General Government and the States’
⭘ ‘What Saved the Union’
⭘ ‘The Birthday of Washington’
⭘ ‘Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud?’
⭘ ‘Columbus in Chains’
⭘ ‘The Bivouac of the Dead’
⭘ ‘Address at the Dedication of Gettysburg Cemetery’
⭘ ‘Memory’
⭘ ‘All Quiet Along the Potomac’
⭘ ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’
⭘ ‘The Blue and the Gray’
⭘ ‘Roll-call’
⭘ ‘Theology in the Quarters’
⭘ ‘Ruin Wrought by Rum’
⭘ ‘To a Skeleton’
⭘ ‘Pledge with Wine’
⭘ ‘Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua’
⭘ ‘The Crabbed Man’
⭘ ‘Putting up O’ the Stove’
⭘ ‘The Poor Indian!’
⭘ ‘Jenkins Goes to a Picnic’
⭘ ‘Sewing on a Button’
⭘ ‘Casey at the Bat’
⭘ ‘The Magical Isle’
⭘ ‘Stray Bits of Character’
FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS.
WHOSE WRITINGS, BIOGRAPHIES AND PORTRAITS APPEAR IN THIS VOLUME.
Abbott, Lyman.
Adams, Charles Follen, (_Yawcob Strauss_).
Adams, Wm. T., (_Oliver Optic_).
Alcott, Louisa May.
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey.
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
Anthony, Susan B.
Artemus Ward, (_Charles F. Browne_).
Austin, Jane Goodwin.
Bancroft, George H.
Barr, Amelia E.
Beecher, Henry Ward.
Bellamy, Edward.
Bill Nye (_Edgar Wilson Nye_).
Browne, Charles F., (_Artemus Ward_).¹
Bryant, William Cullen.
♦Burdette, Robert J.
♦ ‘Burdett’ replaced with ‘Burdette’
Burnett, Frances Hodgson.
Cable, George W.
Carleton, Will.
Cary, Alice.
Cary, Phoebe.
Child, Lydia Maria.¹
Clay, Henry.
Clemens, Samuel L., (_Mark Twain_).
Cooper, James Fenimore.
Craddock, Charles Egbert, (_Mary N. Murfree_).
Crawford, Francis Marion.
Dana, Charles A.
Davis, Richard Harding.
Depew, Chauncey M.
Dickinson, Anna Elizabeth.
Dodge, Mary Abigail, (_Gail Hamilton_).¹
Dodge, Mary Mapes.¹
Eggleston, Edward.
Ellis, Edward.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo.
Everett, Edward.
Field, Eugene.
Finley, Martha.
Fiske, John.¹
French, Alice, (_Octave Thanet_).
Gail Hamilton, (_Mary Abigail Dodge_).¹
Gilder, Richard Watson.
Gough, John B.
Grady, Henry W.
Greeley, Horace.
Grace Greenwood, (_Sarah J. Lippincott_).
Hale, Edward Everett.
Halstead, Murat.
Harris, Joel Chandler, (_Uncle Remus_).
Harte, Bret.
Hawthorne, Julian.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.
Hay, John.
Henry, Patrick.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth.
Holley, Marietta, (_Josiah Allen’s Wife_).¹
Holmes, Oliver Wendell.
Howe, Julia Ward.
Howells, William Dean.
Ik Marvel, (_Donald G. Mitchell_).
Irving, Washington.
Jackson, Helen Hunt.
Joaquin Miller (_Cincinnatus Heine Miller_).
Josiah Allen’s Wife, (_Marietta Holly_).¹
Josh Billings, (_Henry W. Shaw_).¹
Larcom, Lucy.
Lippincott, Sarah Jane, (_Grace Greenwood_).
Livermore, Mary A.
Lockwood, Belva Ann.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth.
Lowell, James Russell.
Mabie, Hamilton W.
Mark Twain, (_Samuel L. Clemens_).
Marion Harland, (_Mary V. Terhune_).
McMaster, John B.
Miller, Cincinnatus Heine, (_Joaquin_).
Mitchell, Donald Grant (_Ik Marvel_).
Motley, John L.
Moulton, Louise Chandler.
Murfree, Mary N., (_Chas. Egbert Craddock_).
Nye, Edgar Wilson, (_Bill Nye_).
Oliver Optic, (_William T. Adams_).
Octave Thanet, (_Alice French_).
Page, Thomas Nelson.
Parkman, Francis.¹
Parton, James.
Phillips, Wendell.
Poe, Edgar Allen.¹
Prescott, William.
Reid, Whitelaw.
Riley, James Whitcomb.
Roe, Edward Payson.
Shaw, Albert.
Shaw, Henry W., (_Josh Billings_).
Sigourney, Lydia H.
Smith, Elizabeth Oakes.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady.
Stedman, Edmund Clarence.
Stockton, Frank.
Stoddard, Richard Henry.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher.
Taylor, Bayard.¹
Terhune, Mary Virginia.
Thompson, Maurice.¹
Wallace, General Lew.¹
Ward, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
Warner, Charles Dudley.
Watterson, Henry.
Webster, Daniel.
Whitman, Walt.
Whittier, John Greenleaf.
Willard, Frances E.
Willis, Nathaniel Parker.
Whitcher, Mrs. (_The Widow Bedott_).¹
¹ No Portrait.
Illustration: “UNDER A SPREADING CHESTNUT TREE
THE VILLAGE SMITHY STANDS.”
_Longfellow._
GREAT POETS OF AMERICA.
Illustration: WELL KNOWN AMERICAN POETS
N. P. WILLIS
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH • WALT WHITMAN
RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
RICHARD WATSON GILDER • COL. JOHN HAY
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
THE POET OF NATURE.
IT is said that “genius always manifests itself before its possessor
reaches manhood.” Perhaps in no case is this more true than in that
of the poet, and William Cullen Bryant was no exception to the general
rule. The poetical fancy was early displayed in him. He began to write
verses at nine, and at ten composed a little poem to be spoken at
a public school, which was published in a newspaper. At fourteen a
collection of his poems was published in 12 mo. form by E. G. House
of Boston. Strange to say the longest one of these, entitled “The
Embargo” was political in its character setting forth his reflections
on the Anti-Jeffersonian Federalism prevalent in New England at that
time. But it is said that never after that effort did the poet employ
his muse upon the politics of the day, though the general topics
of liberty and independence have given occasion to some of his
finest efforts. Bryant was a great lover of nature. In the Juvenile
Collection above referred to were published an “Ode to Connecticut
River” and also the lines entitled “Drought” which show the
characteristic observation as well as the style in which his youthful
muse found expression. It was written July, 1807, when the author
was thirteen years of age, and will be found among the succeeding
selections.
“Thanatopsis,” one of his most popular poems, (though he himself
marked it low) was written when the poet was but little more than
eighteen years of age. This production is called the beginning of
American poetry.
William Cullen Bryant was born at Cummington, Hampshire Co., Mass.,
November 3rd, 1784. His father was a physician, and a man of literary
culture who encouraged his son’s early ability, and taught him the
value of correctness and compression, and enabled him to distinguish
between true poetic enthusiasm and the bombast into which young poets
are apt to fall. The feeling and reverence with which Bryant cherished
the memory of his father whose life was
“Marked with some act of goodness every day,”
is touchingly alluded to in several of his poems and directly spoken
of with pathetic eloquence in the “Hymn to Death” written in 1825:
Alas! I little thought that the stern power
Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus
Before the strain was ended. It must cease――
For he is in his grave who taught my youth
The art of verse, and in the bud of life
Offered me to the Muses. Oh, cut off
Untimely! when thy reason in its strength,
Ripened by years of toil and studious search
And watch of Nature’s silent lessons, taught
Thy hand to practise best the lenient art
To which thou gavest thy laborious days,
And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth
Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes,
And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill
Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale
When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which thou
Shalt not, as wont, o’erlook, is all I have
To offer at thy grave――this――and the hope
To copy thy example.
Bryant was educated at Williams College, but left with an honorable
discharge before graduation to take up the study of law, which he
practiced one year at Plainfield and nine years at Great Barrington,
but in 1825 he abandoned law for literature, and removed to New York
where in 1826 he began to edit the “Evening Post,” which position he
continued to occupy from that time until the day of his death. William
Cullen Bryant and the “Evening Post” were almost as conspicuous and
permanent features of the city as the Battery and Trinity Church.
In 1821 Mr. Bryant married Frances Fairchild, the loveliness of whose
character is hinted in some of his sweetest productions. The one
beginning
“O fairest of the rural maids,”
was written some years before their marriage; and “The Future Life,”
one of the noblest and most pathetic of his poems, is addressed to
her:――
“In meadows fanned by Heaven’s life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?
“Will not thy own meek heart demand me there,――
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?”
Among his best-known poems are “A Forest Hymn,” “The Death of the
Flowers,” “Lines to a Waterfowl,” and “The Planting of the Apple-Tree.”
One of the greatest of his works, though not among the most popular,
is his translation of Homer, which he completed when seventy-seven
years of age.
Bryant had a marvellous memory. His familiarity with the English poets
was such that when at sea, where he was always too ill to read much,
he would beguile the time by reciting page after page from favorite
authors. However long the voyage, he never exhausted his resources.
“I once proposed,” says a friend, “to send for a copy of a magazine
in which a new poem of his was announced to appear. ‘You need not send
for it,’ said he, ‘I can give it to you.’ ‘Then you have a copy with
you?’ said I. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘but I can recall it,’ and thereupon
proceeded immediately to write it out. I congratulated him upon having
such a faithful memory. ‘If allowed a little time,’ he replied, ‘I
could recall every line of poetry I have ever written.’”
His tenderness of the feelings of others, and his earnest desire
always to avoid the giving of unnecessary pain, were very marked.
“Soon after I began to do the duties of literary editor,” writes an
associate, “Mr. Bryant, who was reading a review of a little book
of wretchedly halting verse, said to me: ‘I wish you would deal very
gently with poets, especially the weaker ones.’”
Bryant was a man of very striking appearance, especially in age.
“It is a fine sight,” says one writer, “to see a man full of years,
clear in mind, sober in judgment, refined in taste, and handsome in
person.... I remember once to have been at a lecture where Mr. Bryant
sat several seats in front of me, and his finely-sized head was
especially noticeable.... The observer of Bryant’s capacious skull
and most refined expression of face cannot fail to read therein the
history of a noble manhood.”
The grand old veteran of verse died in New York in 1878 at the age of
eighty-four, universally known and honored. He was in his sixth year
when George Washington died, and lived under the administration of
twenty presidents and had seen his own writings in print for seventy
years. During this long life――though editor for fifty years of a
political daily paper, and continually before the public――he had kept
his reputation unspotted from the world, as if he had, throughout the
decades, continually before his mind the admonition of the closing
lines of “Thanatopsis” written by himself seventy years before.
Illustration: (‡ decoration)
* * * * *
THANATOPSIS.¹
The following production is called the beginning of American
poetry.
That a young man not yet 19 should have produced a poem so
lofty in conception, so full of chaste language and delicate
and striking imagery, and, above all, so pervaded by a noble
and cheerful religious philosophy, may well be regarded as one
of the most remarkable examples of early maturity in literary
history.
¹ The following copyrighted selections from Wm. Cullen
Bryant are inserted by permission of D. Appleton & Co.,
the publishers of his works.
TO him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;――
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around――
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air――
Comes a still voice.――Yet a few days, and thee
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 nourish’d 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. The hills
Rock-ribb’d 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, pour’d round all,
Old ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,――
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, traverse Barca’s desert sands,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save its 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,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man――
Shall, one by one, be gather’d 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, sustain’d 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.
* * * * *
WAITING BY THE GATE.
BESIDES the massive gateway built up in years gone by,
Upon whose top the clouds in eternal shadow lie,
While streams the evening sunshine on the quiet wood and lea,
I stand and calmly wait until the hinges turn for me.
The tree tops faintly rustle beneath the breeze’s flight,
A soft soothing sound, yet it whispers of the night;
I hear the woodthrush piping one mellow descant more,
And scent the flowers that blow when the heat of day is o’er.
Behold the portals open and o’er the threshold, now,
There steps a wearied one with pale and furrowed brow;
His count of years is full, his ♦allotted task is wrought;
He passes to his rest from a place that needs him not.
In sadness, then, I ponder how quickly fleets the hour
Of human strength and action, man’s courage and his power.
I muse while still the woodthrush sings down the golden day,
And as I look and listen the sadness wears away.
Again the hinges turn, and a youth, departing throws
A look of longing backward, and sorrowfully goes;
A blooming maid, unbinding the roses from her hair,
Moves wonderfully away from amid the young and fair.
Oh, glory of our race that so suddenly decays!
Oh, crimson flush of morning, that darkens as we gaze!
Oh, breath of summer blossoms that on the restless air
Scatters a moment’s sweetness and flies we know not where.
I grieve for life’s bright promise, just shown and then
withdrawn;
But still the sun shines round me; the evening birds sing on;
And I again am soothed, and beside the ancient gate,
In this soft evening sunlight, I calmly stand and wait.
Once more the gates are opened, an infant group go out,
The sweet smile quenched forever, and stilled the sprightly
shout.
Oh, frail, frail tree of life, that upon the greensward strews
Its fair young buds unopened, with every wind that blows!
So from every region, so enter side by side,
The strong and faint of spirit, the meek and men of pride,
Steps of earth’s greatest, mightiest, between those pillars
gray,
And prints of little feet, that mark the dust away.
And some approach the threshold whose looks are blank with
fear,
And some whose temples brighten with joy are drawing near,
As if they saw dear faces, and caught the gracious eye
Of Him, the Sinless Teacher, who came for us to die.
I mark the joy, the terrors; yet these, within my heart,
Can neither wake the dread nor the longing to depart;
And, in the sunshine streaming of quiet wood and lea,
I stand and calmly wait until the hinges turn for me.
♦ ‘alloted’ replaced with ‘allotted’
* * * * *
“BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN.”
O DEEM not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The Power who pities man has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.
There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.
And thou, who, o’er thy friend’s low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.
Nor let the good man’s trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny,――
Though with a pierced and bleeding heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.
For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every secret tear,
And heaven’s long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.
* * * * *
THE ANTIQUITY OF FREEDOM.
HERE are old trees, tall oaks, and gnarled pines,
That stream with gray-green mosses; here the ground
Was never touch’d by spade, and flowers spring up
Unsown, and die ungather’d. It is sweet
To linger here, among the flitting birds
And leaping squirrels, wandering brooks and winds
That shake the leaves, and scatter as they pass
A fragrance from the cedars thickly set
With pale blue berries. In these peaceful shades――
Peaceful, unpruned, immeasurably old――
My thoughts go up the long dim path of years,
Back to the earliest days of Liberty.
O FREEDOM! thou art not, as poets dream,
A fair young girl, with light and delicate limbs,
And wavy tresses gushing from the cap
With which the Roman master crown’d his slave,
When he took off the gyves. A bearded man,
Arm’d to the teeth, art thou: one mailed hand
Grasps the broad shield, and one the sword; thy brow,
Glorious in beauty though it be, is scarr’d
With tokens of old wars; thy massive limbs
Are strong and struggling. Power at thee has launch’d
His bolts, and with his lightnings smitten thee;
They could not quench the life thou hast from Heaven.
Merciless Power has dug thy dungeon deep,
And his swart armorers, by a thousand fires,
Have forged thy chain; yet while he deems thee bound,
The links are shiver’d, and the prison walls
Fall outward; terribly thou springest forth,
As springs the flame above a burning pile,
And shoutest to the nations, who return
Thy shoutings, while the pale oppressor flies.
Thy birth-right was not given by human hands:
Thou wert twin-born with man. In pleasant fields,
While yet our race was few, thou sat’st with him,
To tend the quiet flock and watch the stars,
And teach the reed to utter simple airs.
Thou by his side, amid the tangled wood,
Didst war upon the panther and the wolf,
His only foes: and thou with him didst draw
The earliest furrows on the mountain side,
Soft with the Deluge. Tyranny himself,
The enemy, although of reverend look,
Hoary with many years, and far obey’d,
Is later born than thou; and as he meets
The grave defiance of thine elder eye,
The usurper trembles in his fastnesses.
Thou shalt wax stronger with the lapse of years,
But he shall fade into a feebler age;
Feebler, yet subtler; he shall weave his snares,
And spring them on thy careless steps, and clap
His wither’d hands, and from their ambush call
His hordes to fall upon thee. He shall send
Quaint maskers, forms of fair and gallant mien,
To catch thy gaze, and uttering graceful words
To charm thy ear; while his sly imps, by stealth,
Twine round thee threads of steel, light thread on thread,
That grow to fetters; or bind down thy arms
With chains conceal’d in chaplets. Oh! not yet
Mayst thou unbrace thy corslet, nor lay by
Thy sword, nor yet, O Freedom! close thy lids
In slumber; for thine enemy never sleeps.
And thou must watch and combat, till the day
Of the new Earth and Heaven. But wouldst thou rest
Awhile from tumult and the frauds of men,
These old and friendly solitudes invite
Thy visit. They, while yet the forest trees
Were young upon the unviolated earth,
And yet the moss-stains on the rock were new,
Beheld thy glorious childhood, and rejoiced.
* * * * *
TO A WATERFOWL.
WHITHER, ’midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly limn’d upon the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,――
The desert and illimitable air,――
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fann’d,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o’er thy shelter’d nest.
Thou’rt gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallow’d up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
* * * * *
ROBERT OF LINCOLN.
MERRILY swinging on brier and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name:
Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Snug and safe is that nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers.
Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln is gayly dressed,
Wearing a bright black wedding coat;
White are his shoulders and white his crest,
Hear him call in his merry note:
Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Look what a nice new coat is mine,
Sure there was never a bird so fine.
Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln’s Quaker wife,
Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,
Broods in the grass while her husband sings,
Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Brood, kind creature; you need not fear
Thieves and robbers, while I am here.
Chee, chee, chee.
Modest and shy as a nun is she,
One weak chirp is her only note,
Braggart and prince of braggarts is he,
Pouring boasts from his little throat:
Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Never was I afraid of man;
Catch me, cowardly knaves if you can.
Chee, chee, chee.
Six white eggs on a bed of hay,
Flecked with purple, a pretty sight
There as the mother sits all day,
Robert is singing with all his might:
Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Nice good wife, that never goes out,
Keeping house while I frolic about.
Chee, chee, chee.
Soon as the little ones chip the shell
Six wide mouths are open for food;
Robert of Lincoln bestirs him well,
Gathering seed for the hungry brood.
Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
This new life is likely to be
Hard for a gay young fellow like me.
Chee, chee, chee.
Robert of Lincoln at length is made
Sober with work and silent with care;
Off is his holiday garment laid,
Half-forgotten that merry air,
Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
Nobody knows but my mate and I
Where our nest and our nestlings lie.
Chee, chee, chee.
Summer wanes; the children are grown;
Fun and frolic no more he knows;
Robert of Lincoln’s a humdrum crone;
Off he flies, and we sing as he goes:
Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link,
Spink, spank, spink;
When you can pipe that merry old strain,
Robert of Lincoln, come back again.
Chee, chee, chee.
* * * * *
DROUGHT.
PLUNGED amid the limpid waters,
Or the cooling shade beneath,
Let me fly the scorching sunbeams,
And the southwind’s sickly breath!
Sirius burns the parching meadows,
Flames upon the embrowning hill,
Dries the foliage of the forest,
And evaporates the rill.
Scarce is seen the lonely floweret,
Save amid the embowering wood;
O’er the prospect dim and dreary,
Drought presides in sullen mood!
Murky vapours hung in ether,
Wrap in gloom, the sky serene;
Nature pants distressful――silence
Reigns o’er all the sultry scene.
Then amid the limpid waters,
Or beneath the cooling shade,
Let me shun the scorching sunbeams
And the sickly breeze evade.
* * * * *
THE PAST.
No poet, perhaps, in the world is so exquisite in rhythm, or
classically pure and accurate in language, so appropriate in
diction, phrase or metaphor as Bryant.
He dips his pen in words as an inspired painter his pencil
in colors. The following poem is a fair specimen of his deep
vein in his chosen serious themes. Pathos is pre-eminently
his endowment but the tinge of melancholy in his treatment is
always pleasing.
THOU unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.
Far in thy realm withdrawn
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.
Childhood, with all its mirth,
Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground,
And, last, Man’s Life on earth,
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.
Thou hast my better years,
Thou hast my earlier friends――the good――the kind,
Yielded to thee with tears,――
The venerable form――the exalted mind.
My spirit yearns to bring
The lost ones back;――yearns with desire intense,
And struggles hard to wring
Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.
In vain:――thy gates deny
All passage save to those who hence depart;
Nor to the streaming eye
Thou giv’st them back,――nor to the broken heart.
In thy abysses hide
Beauty and excellence unknown;――to thee
Earth’s wonder and her pride
Are gather’d, as the waters to the sea;
Labors of good to man,
Unpublish’d charity, unbroken faith,――
Love, that midst grief began,
And grew with years, and falter’d not in death.
Full many a mighty name
Lurks in thy depths, unutter’d, unrevered;
With thee are silent fame,
Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappear’d.
Thine for a space are they:――
Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last;
Thy gates shall yet give way,
Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!
All that of good and fair
Has gone into thy womb from earliest time,
Shall then come forth, to wear
The glory and the beauty of its prime.
They have not perish’d――no!
Kind words, remember’d voices once so sweet,
Smiles, radiant long ago,
And features, the great soul’s apparent seat,
All shall come back; each tie
Of pure affection shall be knit again;
Alone shall Evil die,
And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.
And then shall I behold
Him by whose kind paternal side I sprung,
And her who, still and cold,
Fills the next grave,――the beautiful and young.
* * * * *
THE MURDERED TRAVELER.
WHEN spring, to woods and wastes around,
Brought bloom and joy again;
The murdered traveler’s bones were found,
Far down a narrow glen.
The fragrant birch, above him, hung
Her tassels in the sky;
And many a vernal blossom sprung,
And nodded careless by.
The red bird warbled, as he wrought
His hanging nest o’erhead;
And fearless, near the fatal spot,
Her young the partridge led.
But there was weeping far away,
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Were sorrowful and dim.
They little knew, who loved him so,
The fearful death he met,
When shouting o’er the desert snow,
Unarmed and hard beset;
Nor how, when round the frosty pole,
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain-wolf and wild-cat stole
To banquet on the dead;
Nor how, when strangers found his bones,
They dressed the hasty bier,
And marked his grave with nameless stones,
Unmoistened by a tear.
But long they looked, and feared, and wept,
Within his distant home;
And dreamed, and started as they slept,
For joy that he was come.
Long, long they looked――but never spied
His welcome step again.
Nor knew the fearful death he died
Far down that narrow glen.
* * * * *
THE BATTLEFIELD.
Soon after the following poem was written, an English critic,
referring to the stanza ♦beginning――“Truth crushed to earth
shall rise again,”――said: “Mr. Bryant has certainly a rare
merit for having written a stanza which will bear comparison
with any four lines as one of the noblest in the English
language. The thought is complete, the expression perfect.
A poem of a dozen such verses would be like a row of pearls,
each beyond a king’s ransom.”
♦ ‘begining’ replaced with ‘beginning’
ONCE this soft turf, this rivulet’s sands,
Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
And fiery hearts and armed hands
Encounter’d in the battle-cloud.
Ah! never shall the land forget
How gush’d the life-blood of her brave,――
Gush’d, warm with hope and courage yet,
Upon the soil they fought to save.
Now all is calm, and fresh, and still,
Alone the chirp of flitting bird,
And talk of children on the hill,
And bell of wandering kine, are heard.
No solemn host goes trailing by
The black-mouth’d gun and staggering wain;
Men start not at the battle-cry:
Oh, be it never heard again!
Soon rested those who fought; but thou
Who minglest in the harder strife
For truths which men receive not now,
Thy warfare only ends with life.
A friendless warfare! lingering long
Through weary day and weary year;
A wild and many-weapon’d throng
Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.
Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
And blench not at thy chosen lot;
The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown――yet faint thou not,
Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;
For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
The victory of endurance born.
Truth, crush’d to earth, shall rise again;
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
When they who help’d thee flee in fear,
Die full of hope and manly trust,
Like those who fell in battle here.
Another hand thy sword shall wield,
Another hand the standard wave,
Till from the trumpet’s mouth is peal’d
The blast of triumph o’er thy grave.
* * * * *