Chapter I: Preface

The purpose of this book is to help in making literature and the makers of literature alive and interesting. Few schools have libraries including the bound volumes of the magazines of the past quarter of a century. But what an aid such a collection is to the appreciation of literature! The dignified and abbreviated history of literature cannot indulge in such delightful gossip as is found in the freer essay and fuller biography. To show the excellences of the art and the lovableness of the artist rather than to hunt for defects is the duty and the delight of the teacher of literature. This does not mean, however, that one dare never see the weaker side, the foibles and eccentricities of the man of genius.

I like Macaulay none the less because his cock-sureness and loquacity came dangerously near to making him a bore; Dr. Johnson grows in interest when I learn that he found it a continual and almost hopeless struggle to become an early riser, that he feared death, and could drink tea as long as the housekeeper could brew it; that Tennyson was a slave to tobacco and acted like a yokel when the newly-wedded Muellers entertained him at breakfast does not detract from my enjoyment of the exquisite pathos of _Tears, Idle Tears_; that the marriage of the Brownings was a runaway romance is a whole commentary of explanation when I read their poems of romantic love; that Longfellow is said to have declined an invitation to the Adirondacks because he was told that Emerson was to carry a gun is really far more delightful, and I may add valuable, information than to know the exact date of the birth of either. Of knowledge such as this is the kingdom of literary interest. It is not well to place our literary lights upon a pedestal so lofty that the radiating warmth and light never reach our hearts.

While many of the articles may be somewhat gossipy in tone, the serious phase has not been overlooked. The sketches have been gathered from many sources. Some have been written by myself, others have been gathered from magazines and books. I wish to acknowledge the kindness of _Scribners' Magazine_, of the _Bookman_, and of the _New England Magazine_ in permitting me to use articles originally appearing in these respective magazines. To all who have wittingly or unwittingly made it possible for me to gather my material I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness. Every article has been written, selected, or adapted because of some special value. In these pages the reader may find what Lamb earned during the years of his famous clerkship, or the exciting details of Shelley's death. How many times have we heard of Sir Philip Sidney's immortal act of chivalry as he _lay_ on the field at Zutphen! But definite information has it otherwise. To learn of the prodigious industry of the youthful Mill, the perseverance of Darwin, the heroic struggle of Scott, the gentleness of Stevenson, the modesty of Browning, the lifelong consecration of Motley,--is not the leaven of inspiration made of knowledge such as this?

I have an unshaken conviction that the highest art of the teacher is manifested in the awakening of such an interest that the pupil shall forever after be an eager learner. Am I wrong in hoping that no one, though with but a meager knowledge of literature, can read these sketches without a desire to know more of the men and women who are the glory of England and America? Here is but a taste of a more sumptuous feast.

Dreams, books are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

EDWIN WATTS CHUBB.

CONTENTS

ENGLISH WRITERS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Ancient Tabard Inn 1

II. Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen 4

III. About Shakspere 9

IV. John Milton 17

V. Charles Lamb, the Clerk of the India House 24

VI. Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb 28

VII. The Death of Dr. Johnson 33

VIII. Gray Writes the Elegy 37

IX. Cowper as a Letter Writer 42

X. Gibbon and His Visit to Rome 46

XI. Burns Falls in Love 50

XII. Burns' First Book of Poems 54

XIII. Samuel Taylor Coleridge in School and College 59

XIV. Byron as Swimmer and Feaster 64

XV. Shelley as a Freshman 71

XVI. The Death of Shelley 76

XVII. The School-days of John Keats 82

XVIII. The Heroism of Sir Walter Scott 88

XIX. Walter Savage Landor 93

XX. Leigh Hunt's Business Ability 100

XXI. De Quincey Runs Away 102

XXII. Macaulay's Childhood 108

XXIII. Macaulay Becomes Famous 114

XXIV. Dickens Writes the Pickwick Papers 119

XXV. Charles Dickens as Reader 123

XXVI. On the Death of Dickens 126

XXVII. Ruskin's Childhood 130

XXVIII. The Marriage of the Brownings 135

XXIX. Robert Browning 140

XXX. Knight's Reminiscences of Tennyson 145

XXXI. Emerson on Carlyle and Tennyson 150

XXXII. Literary Recollections of Max Mueller 156

XXXIII. The Early Education of John Stuart Mill 162

XXXIV. Carlyle Goes to the University 167

XXXV. Carlyle and His Wife 170

XXXVI. Carlyle as Lecturer 175

XXXVII. Carlyle on Wordsworth and Browning 180

XXXVIII. The Author of "Jane Eyre" 184

XXXIX. Thackery in America 189

XL. George Eliot Becomes a Writer of Fiction 194

XLI. The Author of "Alice in WonderLand" 200

XLII. About Darwin 203

XLIII. Anecdotes of Huxley 209

XLIV. Stevenson at Vailima 214

XLV. Kipling in India 221

AMERICAN WRITERS

XLVI. Benjamin Franklin Runs Away 226

XLVII. Washington Irving 234

XLVIII. Cooper and "The Spy" 242

XLIX. John Lothrop Motley and Bismarck 249

L. The Youth of George Ticknor 254

LI. Fitz-Greene Halleck 259

LII. The Author of Thanatopsis 262

LIII. Curtis and Hawthorne at the Brook Farm 266

LIV. Hawthorne and the Scarlet Letter 270

LV. Max Mueller's Recollections of Emerson, Lowell and Holmes 279

LVI. Howells Calls on Emerson, and Describes Longfellow 284

LVII. Longfellow, the Universal Poet 290

LVIII. Henry David Thoreau 297

LIX. The Last Days of Edgar Allan Poe 303

LX. Artemus Ward 313

LXI. Edmund Gosse Visits Whittier 317

LXII. Personal Recollections of Whittier 320

LXIII. Henry Ward Beecher 329

LXIV. The London "Times" on Lowell 333

LXV. The Writing of "America" 338

LXVI. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her First Story 340

LXVII. Sidney Lanier 344

LXVIII. The Story of Mark Twain's Debts 349

LXIX. Hamlin Garland's Literary Beginning 358

LXX. Stephen Crane: A "Wonderful Boy" 361

LXXI. Eugene Field 364

ILLUSTRATIONS

Geoffrey Chaucer _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

The Old Tabard Inn 2

William Shakspere 8

John Milton 16

Robert Burns 50

Lord Byron 64

Percy Bysshe Shelley 70

Charles Dickens 122

Robert Browning 134

Alfred Tennyson 144

Ralph Waldo Emerson 150

Thomas Carlyle 175

Benjamin Franklin 226

William Cullen Bryant 262

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 290

John Greenleaf Whittier 320

STORIES OF AUTHORS