In a fragment of autobiography which Mr. Bryant left among his papers, he speaks thus of his childhood:--
"So my time pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sages 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.s.s 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 c.u.mmington, where he was born, is a little hamlet among the hills in Hampshire County in western Ma.s.sachusetts. 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 pa.s.sion seems to have been reciprocated, if we can judge by the a.s.siduity 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 pa.s.sion 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 f.a.n.n.y 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sisted 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 G.o.d. And in all things wherein we have done ill, may we properly repent our error, and may G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 n.o.ble 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 inst.i.tutions 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 inst.i.tuted 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 n.o.bler 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 G.o.dwin, 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 cla.s.s: 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 t.i.tle 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, n.o.ble in deed,--an inspiration toward the True Life to all who watched his course. No errors of pa.s.sion or of overheated blood did he have to mourn over, even in youth; yet he was not cold or unimpa.s.sioned, 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.
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