Chapter V: Part 5

Soon after the book was published Irving was one night in the room with Mrs. Siddons, the Queen of Tragedy. She carried her tragic airs even into private life, it is said, and when Irving was presented to her, he, being young and modest, was somewhat taken aback on being greeted with the single sentence, given in her grandest stage voice and with the most lofty stateliness, "You have made me weep." He could find no words to reply, and shrank away in silence. A very short time after he met with her again, and, although he sought to avoid her, she recognized him and repeated in tones as tragic as at first, "You have made me weep;" which salutation had the effect of discomfiting Irving for the second time.

He returned to New York in 1806, and was much sought after in society from that time on. It was a very convivial company, that of old New York in the early part of the century, and Irving entered into its pleasures with the rest of his friends. Late suppers and good wine sometimes rendered these young men rather hilarious, and one evening, going home, Harry Ogden, Irving's chum, fell through a grating into a vault beneath. He told Irving next day that the solitude was rather dismal at first, but in a little while, after the party broke up, several other guests came along and fell in one by one, and then they all had a pleasant night of it, "who would have thought," said Irving to Governor Kemble, in alluding, at the age of sixty-six, to these scenes of high jollity, "that we should ever have lived to be two such respectable old gentlemen!"

It was during these years that he made the acquaintance and learned to love so deeply Matilda Hoffman, a beautiful young girl, daughter of one of his older friends. She was a most lovely person, in body and mind, and in his eyes the paragon of womanhood. He was young, romantic, full of sensibility, and his love for this beautiful girl filled his whole life. He was poor and could not marry, but he had many arguments with himself about the propriety of doing so even without an income. "I think," he finally writes, "that these early and improvident marriages are too apt to break down the spirit and energy of a young man, and make him a hard-working, half-starving, repining animal all his days." And again: "Young men in our country think it a great extravagance to set up a horse and carriage without adequate means, but they make no account of setting up a wife and family, which is far more expensive." But while he was looking about on every side for some way to better his fortunes, that he might take to his home this woman he loved so tenderly, her health began to fail, and in a short time he was deprived by death of her companionship. His sorrow was life-long, and it was a sorrow which he held sacredly in his own heart. He never mentioned her name, even to family friends, and they learned to avoid any allusion to her, he was so overcome with emotion when merely hearing her name spoken. This was in his early youth, and throughout a long life he held himself faithful to her memory,--never, it is believed, wavering once in his allegiance. Thackeray refers to this as one of the most pleasing things he knew of Irving.

It was at this time that he was writing the "History of New York." He wrote afterward:--

"When I became more calm and collected I applied myself by way of
occupation to the finishing of my work. I brought it to a close as
well as I could, and published it; but the time and circumstances
in which it was produced rendered me always unable to look upon it
with satisfaction."

His countenance long retained the trace of his melancholy, and he was ever after a more subdued and quiet man. After his death a beautiful picture and lock of hair were found among his private papers marked in his hand-writing, "Matilda Hoffman." He also kept by him throughout life her Bible and Prayer-Book. He lay with them under his pillow in the first days of his anguish, and carried them with him always in all lands to the end of his life. In a little private notebook intended only for his own eye were found these words after his death: "She died in the beauty of her youth, and in my memory she will ever be young and beautiful." Truly, not an unhappy fate as the world goes,--to live thus in the memory of such a man. What would years and cares and the commonplace of existence have done for such a love as this, we wonder? We shall never know. But we have all seen loves apparently as pure and as strong, worn away by the attritions of life,--by the daily labor for daily bread, by little incessant worries and faults and foibles upon the part of one or both,--until there was nothing left of the early color of romance; only a faded web of life where once was cloth of gold. How sweet to many a faded and careworn woman would be the thought of being always young and beautiful to the man she loved. Fortunate Matilda Hoffman of the olden time!

In 1817 he went again to Europe, and while there definitely made up his mind to look upon literature as his profession,--an almost unheard of thing in America at that time. He writes to his brother:--

"For a long while past I have lived almost entirely at home,
sometimes not leaving the house for two or three days, and yet I
have not had an hour pass heavily; so that if I could see my
brothers around me prospering, and be relieved from this cloud that
hangs over us all, I feel as if I could be contented to give up all
the gayeties of life; I certainly think that no hope of gain,
however flattering, would tempt me again into the cares and sordid
concerns of traffic. . . . In protracting my stay in Europe, I
certainly do not contemplate pleasure, for I look forward to a life
of loneliness and of parsimonious and almost painful economy."

Some time after this he wrote to a friend:--

"Your picture of domestic enjoyment indeed raises my envy. With all
my wandering habits, which are the result of circumstances rather
than of disposition, I think I was formed for an honest, domestic,
uxorious man; and I cannot hear of my old cronies snugly nestled
down with good wives and fine children round them, but I feel for
the moment desolate and forlorn. Heavens! what a hap-hazard,
schemeless life mine has been, that here I should be at this time
of life, youth slipping away, and scribbling month after month, and
year after year, far from home, without any means or prospect of
entering into matrimony, which I absolutely believe indispensable
to the happiness and even comfort of the after-part of existence."

He was thus described at this time:--

"He was thoroughly a gentleman, not merely in external manners and
looks, but to the innermost fibres and core of his heart;
sweet-tempered, gentle, fastidious, sensitive, and gifted with
warmest affections; the most delightful and invariably interesting
companion; gay and full of humor, even in spite of occasional fits
of melancholy, which he was, however, seldom subject to when with
those he liked; a gift of conversation that flowed like a full
river in sunshine,--bright, easy, and abundant."

In his fiftieth year he returned to America, far from rich, though he had made money from his books. Although he had thought he could not support a family of his own, he found himself with two brothers and several nieces upon his hands for whom he must provide. He was very fond of them all; and, being the least selfish of men, enjoyed making them all comfortable. But to do so he had to be industrious with his pen, and he never gave himself much rest. He bought a home at Tarrytown, upon the Hudson, which he called Sunnyside, and where he resided till his death. The farm had on it a small Dutch cottage, built about a century before, and inhabited by the Van Tassels. This was enlarged, still preserving the quaint Dutch characteristics; it acquired a tower and a whimsical weathercock, the delight of the owner, and became one of the most snug and picturesque residences on the river. A slip of Melrose ivy was planted, and soon overrun the house; and there were shaded nooks and wooded retreats, and a pretty garden.

It soon became the dearest spot on earth for him; and although it ate up his money almost as fast as he could earn it, he never thought of parting with it. The little cottage soon became well stocked. He writes:--

"I have Ebenezer's five girls, and himself also whenever he can be
spared from town, sister Catherine and her daughter, and occasional
visits from all the family connection."

Thackeray describes him as having nine nieces on his hands, and makes a woful face over the fact. He dispensed a charming hospitality here, and no friend who ever visited him forgot the pleasure. He was a most genial and cordial host, and loved much to have his friends bring the children, of whom he was passionately fond. His nieces watched over his welfare with most tender solicitude; and the cottage at Sunnyside, although without a mistress, was truly a home.

It was with great reluctance that he left it after his appointment as minister to Spain, and all the pleasure he received from that high mark of the appreciation of his country did not compensate him for the hardship of leaving home. During this third visit to Europe "it is easy to see that life has grown rather sombre to Irving,--the glamour is gone, he is subject to few illusions. The show and pageantry no longer enchant; they only weary." He writes home: "Amidst all the splendors of London and Paris I find my imagination refuses to take fire, and my heart still yearns after dear little Sunnyside." Those were exciting times in Spain, and Irving entered into all the dramatic interest of the situation with a real enthusiasm, and wrote most interesting letters to friends at home, describing the melodrama in which he had sometimes an even perilous interest. Throughout his four years' stay the excitement continued, and the duties of minister were sometimes perplexing enough. From the midst of court life, in 1845, he wrote:--

"I long to be back once more at dear little Sunnyside, while I have
yet strength and good spirits to enjoy the simple pleasures of the
country, and to rally a happy family group once more around me. I
grudge every year of absence that rolls by. To-morrow I shall be
sixty-two years old. The evening of life is fast drawing over me;
still I hope to get back among my friends while there is a little
sunshine left."

In 1846 he did return, and enjoyed thirteen years more of happy life there.

George W. Curtis thus delightfully sketches the man:--

"Irving was as quaint a figure as Diedrich Knickerbocker in the
preliminary advertisement of the 'History of New York.' Thirty
years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon,
tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with low-quartered
shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak,--a short garment that hung
from his shoulders like the cape of a coat. There was a chirping,
cheery, old-school air in his appearance, which was undeniably
Dutch, and most harmonious with the associations of his writings.
He seemed, indeed, to have stepped out of his own books; and the
cordial grace and humor of his address were delightfully
characteristic."

Through all the honors which he received--and he was one of the most honored men of his day--he was always modest, unassuming, and even diffident. He was the most cheerful of men, and seemed to diffuse sunshine wherever he went. He was essentially lovable, and could hardly be said to have made an enemy during his life. Indeed, one of his lacks was that of aggressiveness; it would have given a deeper force to his character and brought out some qualities that were latent in him.

He died on the 28th of November, 1859, at the close of a lovely Indian-summer day, and was buried on a little elevation overlooking Sleepy Hollow. Near by winds the lovely Hudson, up and down which go the white-winged boats bearing tourists to view the river he so loved, and over which hangs the blue haze he has so often described, softening everything in its gauzy folds. The feet of those he loved go in and out at Sunnyside, and his memory is a benediction.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

In a fragment of autobiography which Mr. Bryant left among his papers, he speaks thus of his childhood:--

"So my time passed in study, diversified with labor and recreation.
In the long winter evenings and the stormy winter days I read with
my brother books from my father's library,--not a large one, but
well chosen. I remember well the delight with which we welcomed the
translation of the Iliad by Pope when it was brought to the house.
I had met with passages from it before, and thought them the finest
verses ever written. My brother and myself, in emulation of ancient
heroes, made for ourselves wooden shields, swords, and spears, and
fashioned old hats in the shape of helmets, with plumes of tow; and
in the barn, when nobody observed us, we fought the battles of the
Greeks and Trojans over again.

"I was always, from my earliest years, a delighted observer of
external nature,--the splendors of a winter daybreak over the
wide wastes of snow seen from our windows; the glories of the
autumnal woods; the gloomy approaches of the thunderstorm, and its
departure amid sunshine and rainbows; the return of spring with its
flowers; and the first snowfall of winter. I cannot say, as some
do, that I found my boyhood the happiest part of my life. I had
more frequent ailments than afterward; my hopes were more feverish
and impatient, and my disappointments were more acute; the
restraints on my liberty of action, although meant for my good,
were irksome, and felt as fetters that galled my spirit and gave it
pain. After-years, if their pleasures had not the same zest, were
passed in more contentment, and the more freedom of choice I had,
the better, on the whole, I enjoyed life."

Among the prayers of his childhood he mentions that he often prayed that he might be endowed with poetic genius, and write verses which should endure. And he began at a very early age to make attempts in this direction, which seem somewhat less crude than the mass of such productions. He was taught Latin by the Rev. Thomas Snell, his uncle, and Greek by the Rev. Moses Hallock, a neighboring minister, who boarded and instructed him for a dollar a week. He continued his studies at Williams College, although he never was graduated, being taken from college from motives of economy.

The town of Cummington, where he was born, is a little hamlet among the hills in Hampshire County in western Massachusetts. The country around is mountainous, and the valleys very beautiful. The poet was always much attached to the region, and when he had become an old man bought the old family home and fitted it up as a summer residence, where he used to gather together the remaining members of the family, and enjoy himself highly in exploring the country round about as he had done in the days of his boyhood. Many stories are told of his pedestrian feats, even after he was seventy-five years old; and he sometimes walked ten or twelve miles when in his eightieth year. He retained his boyish love for plants and flowers, and was as enthusiastic as in youth over a rare specimen or a beautiful bit of landscape. He further evinced his interest in the old home by presenting the town with a fine library of six thousand volumes, and building a suitable house for its accommodation upon a beautiful site which he purchased for that purpose.

Upon leaving school Mr. Bryant pursued the study of law, and entered upon its practice, first in Plainfield, and afterward in Great Barrington, a pleasant village in Berkshire County, on the banks of the Housatonic. While studying at Worthington, a distinguished friend of his father came from Rhode Island upon a visit, bringing with him a beautiful and accomplished daughter, to whom the young poet at once lost his heart. The passion seems to have been reciprocated, if we can judge by the assiduity with which the correspondence was carried on after her return; but some unknown cause seems to have broken off the fascinating romance, and after a year or two we hear of it no more. That the end was painful to Mr. Bryant, we have reason to suspect from his poems and letters; but as to how the lady felt, we have no evidence. The verses show little promise of the work which the young poet soon afterward did, but they are not entirely without charm:--

"The home thy presence made so dear,
I leave,--the parting hour is past;
Yet thy sweet image haunts me here,
In tears as when I saw thee last.

"It meets me where the woods are deep,
It comes when twilight tints depart,
It bends above me while I sleep,
With pensive looks that pierce my heart."

In another little poem we are informed,--

"The gales of June were breathing by,
The twilight's last faint rays were gleaming,
And midway in the moonless sky
The star of Love was brightly beaming.

"When by the stream, the birchen boughs
Dark o'er the level marge were playing,
The maiden of my secret vows
I met, alone, and idly straying.

"And since that hour,--for then my love
Consenting heard my passion pleaded,--
Full well she knows the star of Love,
And loves the stream with beeches shaded."

The poet had quite a lengthened season of darkness and despair after this love-dream came to an end, and it must be confessed wrote a good deal of very bad poetry, none of which he placed in collections of his poems, but some of which have been published by his biographer. They are rather worse than the usual run of such poems, which may indicate that the feeling was really deeper,--too deep for expression in verse,--or that it was not as deep and lasting as some of the first loves of poets. As he had already written "Thanatopsis" and other fine poems, it is rather surprising that there are so few gleams of the true poetic fire in these amatory verses.

As is usual in such cases, he did not recover from the old love until he had discovered a new one, and he did this in his new residence, not long after his arrival there. The second lady of his choice was Miss Fanny Fairchild, daughter of a well-to-do and respectable farmer on the Green River. She was nineteen years old at the time, a "very pretty blonde, small in person, with light-brown hair, gray eyes, a graceful shape, a dainty foot, transparent and delicate hands, and a wonderfully frank and sweet expression of face." She was as sensible as beautiful, and had great charm of manner, which she retained to the end of her life. He soon engaged himself to Miss Fairchild, and the course of their love ran smoothly throughout a long life. To show with what deep feeling and earnestness they entered upon their new relations, the following prayer, dated 1820, has been printed, which was found among Mr. Bryant's private papers after his death:--

"May God Almighty mercifully take care of our happiness here and
hereafter. May we ever continue constant to each other, and mindful
of our mutual promises of attachment and truth. In due time, if it
be the will of Providence, may we become more nearly connected with
each other, and together may we lead a long, happy, and innocent
life, without any diminution of affection till we die. May there
never be any jealousy, distrust, coldness, or dissatisfaction
between us, nor occasion for any,--nothing but kindness,
forbearance, mutual confidence, and attention to each other's
happiness. And that we may be less unworthy of so great a blessing,
may we be assisted to cultivate all the benign and charitable
affections and offices, not only toward each other, but toward our
neighbors, the human race, and all the creatures of God. And in
all things wherein we have done ill, may we properly repent our
error, and may God forgive us, and dispose us to do better. When at
last we are called to render back the life we have received, may
our deaths be peaceful, and may God take us to his bosom. All which
may He grant for the sake of the Messiah."

If ever a prayer was granted, it seems to have been so in this instance, for in every detail it was fulfilled in the lives which followed. So rarely beautiful a marriage has seldom been seen, as the one which was entered into in this solemn and lofty manner, by this young and high-minded couple. The days of their pilgrimage were many, but they grew more and more beautiful until the final parting; and when the separation at last came, in the fulness of time, the old poet mourned, with a grief which could not be comforted, for the companion of his youth, the delight of his mature years, and the idol of his old age. Forty-five years they lived together, and after her death he wrote to his brother:--

"We have been married more than forty-five years, and all my plans,
even to the least important, were laid with some reference to her
judgment or her pleasure. I always knew it would be the greatest
calamity of my life to lose her, but not till the blow fell did I
know how heavy it would be, and what a solitude the earth would
seem without her."

To another brother he said:--

"Her life seemed to me to close prematurely, so useful was she, and
so much occupied in doing good; and yet she was in her seventieth
year. It is now more than forty-five years since we were
married,--a long time, as the world goes, for husband and wife to
live together. Bitter as the separation is, I give thanks that she
has been spared to me so long, and that for nearly a half-century I
have had the benefit of her counsel and her example."

In a brief memoir of their intercourse, prepared for the eyes of his daughters alone, he said:--

"I never wrote a poem that I did not repeat to her, and take her
judgment upon it. I found its success with the public to be
precisely in proportion to the impression it made upon her. She
loved my verses, and judged them kindly, but did not like them all
equally well."

One who knew her well thus describes her character:--

"Never did poet have a truer companion, a sincerer spiritual
helpmate, than Mr. Bryant in his wife. Refined in taste, and
elevated in thought, she was characterized alike by goodness and
gentleness. Modest in her ways, she lived wholly for him; his
welfare, his happiness, his fame, were the chief objects of her
ambition. To smooth his pathway, to cheer his spirit, to harmonize
every discordant element of life, were purposes for the
accomplishment of which no sacrifice on her part could be too
great."

Another who visited them familiarly in their home wrote:--

"In the autumn of 1863, we visited Mr. and Mrs. Bryant at West
Point, where they occupied Mr. John Bigelow's charming cottage,
'The Squirrels.' From there we accompanied them to Roslyn, and
spent a week under their own roof-tree. How much we enjoyed those
days, I need not say. Mrs. Bryant's health was very delicate, and
she sat much in her large arm-chair by the open wood-fire which
blazed under the old tiles of the chimney-place. Mr. Bryant sat at
her feet when he read in the autumn twilight those exquisite lines,
'The Life that Is.' Such was our last meeting with our dear Mrs.
Bryant. I never saw her again, but the thought of her dwells like a
sweet strain of music amid the varied notes of human life, and will
be ours again when 'beyond these voices there is peace.' The union
between Mr. and Mrs. Bryant was a poem of the tenderest rhythm. Any
of us who remember Mr. Bryant's voice when he said 'Frances' will
join in his hope that she kept the same beloved name in heaven. I
remember alluding to those exquisite lines, 'The Future Life,' to
Mrs. Bryant, and her replying, 'Oh, my dear, I am always sorry for
any one who sees me after reading those lines, they must be so
disappointed.' Beatrice and Laura have not received such tributes
from their poets, for Mrs. Bryant's husband was her poet and her
lover at seventy as at seventeen."

After Mrs. Bryant had been dead seven years, Mr. Bryant wrote the following poem, showing how tenderly he cherished her memory:--

The morn hath not the glory that it wore,
Nor doth the day so beautifully die,
Since I can call thee to my side no more,
To gaze upon the sky.

For thy dear hand, with each return of Spring,
I sought in sunny nooks the flowers she gave;
I seek them still, and sorrowfully bring
The choicest to thy grave.

Here, where I sit alone, is sometimes heard,
From the great world, a whisper of my name,
Joined, haply, to some kind commending word,
By those whose praise is fame.

And then, as if I thought thou still wert nigh,
I turn me, half-forgetting thou art dead,
To read the gentle gladness in thine eye
That once I might have read.

I turn, but see thee not; before my eyes
The image of a hillside mound appears,
Where all of thee that passed not to the skies
Was laid with bitter tears.

And I, whose thoughts go back to happier days
That fled with thee, would gladly now resign
All that the world can give of fame or praise
For one sweet look of thine.

Thus ever, when I read of generous deeds,
Such words as thou didst once delight to hear,
My heart is wrung with anguish as it bleeds
To think thou art not near.

And now that I can talk no more with thee
Of ancient friends and days too fair to last,
A bitterness blends with the memory
Of all that happy past.

That past had, indeed, been happy and most successful from every worldly point of view. He had published his poems, while still a young man, and they had made him famous at once. For more than fifty years he was honored as one of the first of the poets of America, and for a large part of that time he was held as indisputably the first in rank. His work received honors and commendation over the sea as well as at home, almost from the first. It seems very curious to us now to think of his selling the very finest of his poems for two dollars apiece; yet he did that, and seemed satisfied with the compensation. In later life, when two hundred dollars would have been gladly paid him for such poems, he declined to write, saying that no man should write poetry in old age. The greater part of his poetry was written before he went to New York and became editor-in-chief of the "Evening Post." After that time he was always driven by newspaper work and involved in political controversy, and rarely wrote verses. In old age he made his translations of the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey," which were very remarkable works for a man of his years; but he seldom wrote an original poem, although what he did write scarcely showed a falling off from the work of his prime.

He was very conscientious in his work as an editor, and was honored by the entire nation for the noble and patriotic course he took at the time of the anti-slavery excitement, and throughout the Civil war. Men will long remember the brave and spirited utterances of his paper during that time that so tried men's souls. He did much, during his long career as an editor, for American literature, for American art, and for the general culture of his countrymen. In his numerous visits to Europe he learned much of the workings of the institutions of the Old World, and gave his readers the benefit of his studies of the comparative merits of Old and New World methods; and while always fair in his judgments, he was always patriotic, and stood gallantly by his own land. He was much honored while abroad, as well as at home, and made acquaintance with many distinguished men in foreign lands. Mr. Bryant had been brought up a Unitarian, and he maintained his connection with that church throughout life. Many of his dearest friends were among the ministers of that denomination, and he wrote many of his most beautiful hymns for occasions connected with that church. He was always a devoutly religious man, but grew even more so in later life. During a long sickness which his wife had in Naples in 1858, his thoughts became more and more fixed upon this subject; and meeting with an old friend there, the Rev. Mr. Waterson, he opened his mind to him as perhaps he had never done to any one before. Mr. Waterson tells us:--

"At this time I received a note from him stating that there was a
subject of interest upon which he would like to converse with me.
On the following day, the weather being delightful, we walked in
the Villa Reale, the royal park or garden, overlooking the Bay of
Naples. Never can I forget the beautiful spirit that breathed
through every word he uttered,--the reverent love, the confiding
trust, the aspiring hope, the rooted faith. Every thought, every
view, was generous and comprehensive. Anxiously watching, as he had
been doing, in that twilight boundary between this world and
another, over one more precious to him than life itself, the divine
truths and promises had come home to his mind with new power. He
said he had never united himself with the Church, which with his
present feelings he would most gladly do. He then asked if it would
be agreeable to me to come to his room on the morrow, and
administer the Communion,--adding that as he had not been baptized,
he desired that ordinance at the same time. The day following was
the Sabbath, and a most heavenly day. In fulfilment of his wishes,
in his own quiet room, a company of seven persons celebrated
together the Lord's Supper. With hymns, selections from the
Scripture, and devotional exercises, we went back in thought to the
large upper-room where Christ first instituted the Holy Supper in
the midst of his disciples. Previous to the breaking of bread,
William Cullen Bryant was baptized. With snow-white head and
flowing beard, he stood like one of the ancient prophets; and
never, perhaps, since the days of the Apostles, has a truer
disciple professed allegiance to the Divine Master."

A purer and nobler life than Mr. Bryant led has hardly been chronicled in our day; and the quiet and calm of his closing years was a fitting end to such a life. He was tenderly cared for during these years by his daughters, to whom he was most devotedly attached. His son-in-law, Parke Godwin, thus writes of the closing years:--

"It was very curious to his friends to observe how he had mellowed
with time. The irritabilities of his earlier days had been wholly
overcome; his reluctance to mingle with men was quite gone; and old
age, which makes so many of us exacting and crabbed, if not morose,
imparted to him additional gentleness and sweetness. He had learned
to live more and more in the happiness of others, and was rewarded
for his unconscious devotion by new streams of happiness constantly
opening in his bosom."

He even learned to take good-naturedly what had annoyed him a good deal in an earlier time, namely, the results of his fame. He writes thus to a friend in extreme old age:--

"Is there a penny-post, do you think, in the world to come? Do
people there write for autographs to those who have gained a little
notoriety? Do women there send letters asking for money? Do boys
persecute literary men with requests for a course of reading? Are
there offices in that sphere which are coveted, and to obtain which
men are pestered to write letters of recommendation? If anything of
this kind takes place in the spirit-world it may, perhaps, be of a
purgatorial nature, or perhaps be the fate of the incorrigible
sinner. Here on earth this discipline never ends; and if it exists
at all in the other world, it is of a kind which will, of course,
never cease. On this account I am inclined to believe that the
punishment for sin may be of endless duration; for here the
annoyances and miseries which I have mentioned only cease with
death, and in the other world, where there is no death, they will,
of course, never come to an end."

To another correspondent he writes:--

"How is it in the world to come? Will patience have had her perfect
work in this sphere, or is the virtue to be exercised there, until
we shall have acquired an evenness of temper which no possible
provocation can disturb? Are the bores to be all penned in a corner
by themselves, or are they to be let loose to educate the saints to
the sublimest degree of patience of which our nature is capable?
These are deep questions. I do not remember that you have given any
special attention to the use of bores in the moral government of
the world in your book on 'The Problem of Human Destiny.' I admit
their utility as a class: they serve a most excellent purpose; but
whether we are to be annoyed with them in the next world is the
doubt. Some of them are most worthy people, and capital Christians,
and cannot be kept out of Paradise; but will they be allowed to
torment the elect there?"

Probably the title of the Great American could be as fittingly applied to Bryant as to any man our nation has produced. He has been happily called the Puritan Greek; and this epithet applies equally well to his life and to his writings. If he was a Stoic in his earlier years, he was as unmistakably a Christian in later life. During both periods he was pure as ice, lofty in thought, noble in deed,--an inspiration toward the True Life to all who watched his course. No errors of passion or of overheated blood did he have to mourn over, even in youth; yet he was not cold or unimpassioned, as his deep devotion throughout life to the woman of his choice proved. He led emphatically the intellectual life, with as little admixture of the flesh as possible; yet the warm currents of feeling were never dried up in his nature, but bubbled up freshly to the end. He lived largely on the heights of life, yet he was not uncharitable to the weaknesses and follies he saw everywhere about him, but rather looked upon them with a half-pitying tenderness; and he dropped a tear occasionally where the integrity of his own nature counselled a stern reproof.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

"I have seen Emerson, the first man I have ever seen," wrote George Eliot in her diary many years ago. Carlyle uses similar expressions in his letters at least a score of times. Sentences like the following appear very often:--

"It remains true and will remain, what I have often told you, that
properly there is no voice in this world which is completely human
to me but your voice only."

Again:--

"In the whole world I hardly get to my spoken human word any other
word of response that is authentically _human_. God help us, this
is growing a very lonely place, this distracted dog-kennel of a
world."

Indeed, the personality of Emerson seems to have produced a very marked effect upon all the great men and women with whom he came in contact. We find that he was often described as an angel in appearance in his younger days. Here are one or two instances: Of his appearance to them in their stony solitude at Craigenputtoch Carlyle afterwards wrote to Emerson:--

"Among the figures I can recollect as visiting us in our Nithsdale
hermitage,--all like apparitions now, bringing with them airs from
heaven, or else blasts from the other region,--there is perhaps not
one of a more undoubtedly supernal character than yourself,--so
pure and still, with intents so charitable; and then vanishing,
too, so soon into the azure inane, as an apparition should."

Mrs. Carlyle always spoke of this visit of Emerson to them there as a visitation from an angel.

Mr. Charles Congdon thus writes in the "Reminiscences of a Journalist:"--

"One day there came into our pulpit the most gracious of mortals,
with a face all benignity, who gave out the first hymn and made the
first prayer as an angel might have read and prayed. Our choir was
a pretty good one, but its best was coarse and discordant after
Emerson's voice."

The ancestors of Emerson were all of clean pure blood. Behind him were many generations of fine old New England ministers, and he was but the natural product of his race in character,--though from what source sprang the consummate flower of his genius it is hard to tell. He was brought up to all good things, under the immediate eyes of a superior mother and a gifted aunt. He was a fine scholar during his college days, and entered the Unitarian ministry when quite young. He also married young, but early lost his wife, and soon afterward retired from the ministry to devote himself to literature.

In September, 1835, Emerson was married for the second time, to Miss Lydia Jackson of Plymouth. The wedding took place in the fine old mansion known as the Winslow house. After the marriage they went to reside in Concord, in the house where he passed the rest of his life, and where his family still live. This is the plain, square, wooden house, with horse-chestnuts in the front yard and evergreens around it, which has often been described by visitors to Concord. Near by is the orchard planted by Emerson, and two miles away his wood-lot, which he describes to Carlyle as his new plaything, and where he proposed to build a tower to which to flee from intrusive visitors. Of the planting of the orchard he thus writes:--

"You are to know that in these days I lay out a patch of orchard
near my house, very much to the improvement, as all the household
affirm, of our homestead. Though I have little skill in these
things, and must borrow that of my neighbors, yet the works of the
garden and orchard at this season are fascinating, and will eat up
days and weeks; and a brave scholar should shun it like gambling,
and take refuge in cities and hotels from these pernicious
enchantments. For the present I stay in the new orchard."

In due time came the little troop of children, to gladden the home and to be a perpetual wonder and delight to the father. In his essay on "Domestic Life" he thus talks of the little one:--

"The size of the nestler is comic, and its tiny beseeching weakness
is compensated perfectly by the happy, patronizing look of the
mother, who is a sort of high reposing Providence toward it.
Welcome to the parents the puny struggler, strong in his
weakness,--his little arms more irresistible than the soldier's,
his lips touched with persuasion which Chatham and Pericles in
manhood had not. His unaffected lamentations when he lifts up his
voice on high, or, more beautiful, the sobbing child, soften all
hearts to pity and to mirthful and clamorous compassion. His
ignorance is more charming than all knowledge, and his little sins
more bewitching than any virtue."

Emerson was never a rich man, and his home was always so ordered as to come within the scope of his limited income; but it was always attractive and charming, and pervaded by an air of dignity and repose. And that in it he could dispense hospitality in the old royal manner is shown by the many times he invites Carlyle to come and spend a year with him, and seriously urges him to do so. Thoreau availed himself of such invitation, and spent months at a time in Emerson's home. One wonders if Mrs. Emerson received such instruction as her husband gives in the essay just mentioned, and if she profited by it:--

"I pray you, O excellent wife, not to cumber yourself and me to get
a rich dinner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our
gate, nor a bed-chamber made ready at too great a cost. These
things, if they are curious in, they can get for a dollar at any
village. But let this stranger, if he will, in your looks, in your
accent and behavior, read your heart and earnestness, your thought
and will,--which he cannot buy at any price in any village or city,
and which he may well travel fifty miles, and dine sparely and
sleep hard, in order to behold. Certainly let the board be spread,
and let the bed be dressed for the traveller, but let not the
emphasis of hospitality lie in these things. Honor to the house
where they are simple to the verge of hardship, so that there the
intellect is awake and reads the law of the universe, the soul
worships truth and love, honor and courtesy flow into all deeds."

If the American people had heeded such wise words as these the old-fashioned virtue of hospitality would not have become so rare among us. The "emphasis of hospitality" has been placed upon the material things to such an extent that one hardly dares to invite his friend now, unless it be to an elaborate feast; and the labor, to say nothing of the expense, of preparing the elaborate feast is so great that more and more we neglect to call our friends around us, and to bind their hearts to ours by loving and tender ministrations.

Let us learn of Emerson the meaning of economy. He says:--

"Parched corn eaten to-day that I may have roast fowl to my dinner
Sunday is a baseness; but parched corn and a house with one
apartment, that I may be free of all perturbations, that I may be
serene and docile to what the mind shall speak, and quit and
road-ready for the lowest mission of knowledge or good-will, is
frugality for gods and heroes."

This was the sort of frugality that Thoreau practised in his hut on Walden Pond, and it is a frugality which has made him famed throughout the hero-worshipping world.

The charm of Emerson's home life lay largely in his manners, which were simple, yet faultless. He greeted his friends with all the mildness and serenity of the very god of repose, and induced in them that most enjoyable sensation, a feeling of entire contentment with all the world. No heat, no fret, no hurry, no great call to strenuous exertion to appear well or make a fine impression. All was ease, calm, unstudied attention to every little want, and talk fit for the noblest and the best. He was an example of what he himself honored most.

"I honor that man whose ambition it is, not to win laurels in the
state or the army, not to be a jurist or a naturalist, not to be a
poet or a commander, but to be a master of living well, and to
administer the offices of master or servant, of husband, father,
and friend."

In all these relations Emerson shone resplendently, and in the old-fashioned relation of neighbor he was always at his best. To the family of his old friend Alcott he was as a special providence for many years, and beautiful indeed was the affection in which he was held by them. When, during Emerson's absence in Europe, his house was partly burned, his neighbors promptly rebuilt it, ready for his return. Of these helpers Emerson wrote, in accepting their gift:--

"Judge Hoar has up to this time withheld from me the names of my
benefactors; but you may be sure I shall not rest till I have
learned them, every one, to repeat to myself at night and at
morning."

Emerson's personal appearance was that of a scholar and the descendant of scholars,--tall, slender, and with the complexion which is bred in the alcove and not in the open air. His hair was brown, fine, and thick. His eyes were of the deepest blue. His mode of living was very simple, but he was constitutionally fastidious, and very much averse to vulgar or commonplace companionship. He loved all children and simple-minded people, and the very babies in Concord knew and loved him. "Incorrigible spouting Yankee" he called himself; but he was rather a silent man in reality, and did not care to talk excepting when he had somewhat to say. He did not prate eternally of silence, as Carlyle did, while wreaking himself upon speech in the most frantically vehement manner all his days, but he knew when and how to be silent. The glimpses he gives of Mrs. Emerson, in the long correspondence with Carlyle, are all of the most pleasing nature, and his home life was apparently as perfect as music all his life long. Of the boy Waldo, who died, he was fond of speaking, and he evidently mourned him very deeply for a long time. Of his other children he never boasted, but always spoke most kindly. The most entire revelation that Emerson ever made of himself was doubtless in the letters to Carlyle; and it must be said that nowhere else has Carlyle appeared to so good advantage as in this correspondence with Emerson. One loves the grim, sardonic old man better after seeing that he could love his friend faithfully and loyally for so many years, and after reading all the tender and touching things he puts into his letters to him. Especially is this the case in the later days, when both had grown to be old men, and had been saddened by their life experience. Carlyle's letters after his wife's death are very touching. In the first after the sad event he says:--

"By the calamity of last April I lost my little all in this world,
and have no soul left who can make any corner of this world into a
_home_ for me any more. Bright, heroic, tender, true, and noble was
that lost treasure of my heart, who faithfully accompanied me in
all the rocky ways and climbings; I am forever poor without her.
She was snatched from me in a moment as by a death from the gods.
Very beautiful her death was; radiantly to those who understood it,
had all her life been: _quid plura?_"

This which follows in the same letter, written while Carlyle was still in the unbroken possession of his faculties, makes us not only sad but indignant that his determination had not been allowed to be carried out; and that the poor old man, when broken down by age, should have been permitted to expose to view all those sacred things which, when sane and sound, he would so carefully have covered from the prying eyes of the world. He says:--

"All summer last my one solacement in the form of work was writing
and sorting of old documents and recollections; summoning out
again into clearness old scenes that had now closed on me without
return. Sad, and in a sense sacred; it was like a kind of
worship,--the only devout time I had had for a great while past.
These things I have half or wholly the intention to burn out of the
way before I myself die; but such continues still mainly my
employment, to me if to no other useful. To reduce matters to
writing means that you shall know them, see them in their origins
and sequences, in their essential lineaments, considerably better
than you ever did before. To set about writing my own life would be
no less than horrible to me; and shall of a certainty never be
done. The common, impious, vulgar of this earth--what has it to do
with my life or me? Let dignified oblivion, silence, and the vacant
azure of eternity swallow me; for my share of it, that verily is
the handsomest or one handsome way of settling my poor account with
the _canaille_ of mankind, extant and to come."

How would his sad old heart have been torn could he have foreseen that in the weakness of senility he would expose to the 'impious vulgar' all the most sacred secrets of his home life! Oh, the pity of it! As a slight offset to the sad revelations thus made, let us accept this little note in Emerson's diary during one of his visits to Chelsea:--

"C. and his wife live on beautiful terms. Their ways are very
engaging, and in her bookcase all his books are inscribed to her as
they came, year by year, each with some significant lines."

Emerson's regard for Mrs. Carlyle was very great, and there is not one of the many letters but sends a kindly and a warm greeting to her over the sea.

For the rest, this correspondence exhibits Emerson in the light of a true and very useful friend to Carlyle,--taking infinite trouble in the early days to introduce Carlyle's books in America, and to secure to the author in his poverty some return for their publication here. In this he was successful, and sent with great delight little sums of money to his friend. The books met with a quicker recognition in America than in England; and after Emerson had said something to Carlyle of a new edition of "Sartor Resartus," Carlyle writes:--

"As for Fraser, however, the idea of a new edition is frightful to
him, or rather ludicrous, unimaginable. Of him no man has inquired
for a 'Sartor.' In his whole wonderful world of Tory pamphleteers,
Conservative younger brothers, Regent-street lawyers, Crockford
gamblers, Irish Jesuits, drunken reporters, and miscellaneous
unclean persons (whom water and much soap will not make clean), not
a soul has expressed the smallest wish that way. He shrieks at the
idea."

There is also much writing, on both sides, of Carlyle's coming to America. For years this was the most enchanting topic, of which they never grew weary. In one of his saddest moods, while yet almost unknown and very poor, Carlyle wrote:--

"In joy, in grief, a voice says to me, 'Behold, there is one that
loves thee; in thy loneliness, in thy darkness, see how a
hospitable candle shines from far over seas, how a friendly heart
watches!' It is very good and precious to me."

There is, of course, a great deal of mutual admiration of each other's work, very genuine, ever pleasant to hear about, expressed in the warmest language,--even in those superlatives which Emerson derided.