Prince Napoleon blames M. Taine for quoting "eight times" 'Bourrienne's Memoirs,' and then, letting his feelings loose, he takes advantage of the occasion and cruelly besmirches Bourrienne's name. Does he tell the truth or not? is he right at the bottom? I do not know anything about it; I do not wish to know anything; I do not need it, since I know, from other sources, that 'Bourrienne's Memoirs' are hardly less spurious than, say, the 'Souvenirs of the Marquise de Crequi' or the 'Memoirs of Monsieur d'Artagnan.' But if these so-called 'Memoirs' are really not his, what has Bourrienne himself to do here? and suppose the former secretary of the First Consul to have been, instead of the shameless embezzler whom Prince Napoleon so fully and so uselessly describes to us, the most honest man in the world, would the 'Memoirs' be any more reliable, since it is a fact that he wrote nothing? ...

And now I cannot but wonder at the tone in which those who contradict M. Taine, and especially Prince Napoleon himself, condescend to tell him that he lacks that which would be needed in order to speak of Napoleon or the Revolution. But who is it, then, that has what is needed in order to judge Napoleon? Frederick the Great, or Catherine II., perhaps,—as Napoleon himself desired, "his peers"; or in other words, those who, born as he was for war and government, can only admire, justify, and glorify themselves in him. And who will judge the Revolution? Danton. we suppose, or Robespierre,—that is, the men who were the Revolution itself. No: the real judge will be the average opinion of men; the force that will create, modify, correct this average opinion, the historians will be; and among the historians of our time, in spite of Prince Napoleon, it will be M. Taine for a large share.



THE LITERATURES OF FRANCE, ENGLAND, AND GERMANY

Twice at least in the course of their long history, it is known that the literature and even the language of France has exerted over the whole of Europe an influence, whose universal character other languages perhaps more harmonious,—Italian for instance,—and other literatures more original in certain respects, like English literature, have never possessed. It is in a purely French form that our mediaeval poems, our 'Chansons de Geste,' our 'Romances of the Round Table,' our fabliaux themselves, whencesoever they came,—Germany or Tuscany, England or Brittany, Asia or Greece,—conquered, fascinated, charmed, from one end of Europe to the other, the imaginations of the Middle Ages. The amorous languor and the subtlety of our "courteous poetry" are breathed no less by the madrigals of Shakespeare himself than by Petrarch's sonnets; and after such a long lapse of time we still discover something that comes from us even in the Wagnerian drama, for instance in 'Parsifal' or in 'Tristan and Isolde.' A long time later, in a Europe belonging entirely to classicism, from the beginning of the seventeenth to the end of the eighteenth century, during one hundred and fifty years or even longer, French literature possessed a real sovereignty in Italy, in Spain, in England, and in Germany. Do not the names of Algarotti, Bettinelli, Beccaria, Filengieri, almost belong to France? What shall I say of the famous Gottschedt? Shall I recall the fact that in his victorious struggle against Voltaire, Lessing had to call in Diderot's assistance? And who ignores that if Rivarol wrote his 'Discourse upon the Universality of the French Language,' it can be charged neither to his vanity nor to our national vanity, since he was himself half Italian, and the subject had been proposed by the Academy of Berlin?

All sorts of reasons have been given for this universality of French literature: some were statistical, if I may say so, some geographical, political, linguistic. But the true one, the good one, is different: it must be found in the supremely sociable character of the literature itself. If at that time our great writers were understood and appreciated by everybody, it is because they were addressing everybody, or better, because they were speaking to all concerning the interests of all. They were attracted neither by exceptions nor by peculiarities: they cared to treat only of man in general, or as is also said, of the universal man, restrained by the ties of human society; and their very success shows that below all that distinguishes, say, an Italian from a German, this universal man whose reality has so often been discussed, persists and lives, and though constantly changing never loses his own likeness....

In comparison with the literature of France, thus defined and characterized by its sociable spirit, the literature of England is an individualistic literature. Let us put aside, as should be done, the generation of Congreve and Wycherley, perhaps also the generation of Pope and Addison,—to which, however, we ought not to forget that Swift also belonged;—it seems that an Englishman never writes except in order to give to himself the external sensation of his own personality. Thence his humor, which may be defined as the expression of the pleasure he feels in thinking like nobody else. Thence, in England, the plenteousness, the wealth, the amplitude of the lyric vein; it being granted that individualism is the very spring of lyric poetry, and that an ode or an elegy is, as it were, the involuntary surging, the outflowing of what is most intimate, most secret, most peculiar in the poet's soul. Thence also the eccentricity of all the great English writers when compared with the rest of the nation, as though they became conscious of themselves only by distinguishing themselves from those who claim to differ from them least. But is it not possible to otherwise characterize the literature of England? It will be easily conceived that I dare not assert such a thing; all I say here is, that I cannot better express the differences which distinguish that literature from our own.

That is also all I claim, in stating that the essential character of the literature of Germany is, that it is philosophical. The philosophers there are poets, and the poets are philosophers. Goethe is to be found no more, or no less, in his 'Theory of Colors' or in his 'Metamorphosis of Plants,' than in his 'Divan' or his 'Faust'; and lyrism, if I may use this trite expression, "is overflowing" in Schleiermacher's theology and in Schelling's philosophy. Is this not perhaps at least one of the reasons of the inferiority of the German drama? It is surely the reason of the depth and scope of Germanic poetry. Even in the masterpieces of German literature it seems that there is mixed something indistinct, or rather mysterious, suggestive in the extreme, which leads us to thought by the channel of the dream. But who has not been struck by what, under a barbarous terminology, there is of attractive, and as such of eminently poetical, of realistic and at the same time idealistic, in the great systems of Kant and Fichte, Hegel and Schopenhauer? Assuredly nothing is further removed from the character of our French literature. We can here understand what the Germans mean when they charge us with a lack of depth. Let them forgive us if we do not blame their literature for not being the same as ours.

For it is good that it be thus, and for five or six hundred years this it is that has made the greatness not only of European literature, but of Western civilization itself; I mean that which all the great nations, after slowly elaborating it, as it were, in their national isolation, have afterwards deposited in the common treasury of the human race. Thus, to this one we owe the sense of mystery, and we might say the revelation of what is beautiful, in that which remains obscure and cannot be grasped. To another we owe the sense of art, and what may be called the appreciation of the power of form. A third one has handed to us what was most heroic in the conception of chivalrous honor. And to another, finally, we owe it that we know what is both most ferocious and noblest, most wholesome and most to be feared, in human pride. The share that belongs to us Frenchmen was, in the meanwhile, to bind, to fuse together, and as it were to unify under the idea of the general society of mankind, the contradictory and even hostile elements that may have existed in all that. No matter whether our inventions and ideas were, by their origin, Latin or Romance, Celtic or Gallic, Germanic even, if you please, the whole of Europe had borrowed them from us in order to adapt them to the genius of its different races. Before re-admitting them in our turn, before adopting them after they had been thus transformed, we asked only that they should be able to serve the progress of reason and of humanity. What was troublous in them we clarified; what was corrupting we corrected; what was local we generalized; what was excessive we brought down to the proportions of mankind. Have we not sometimes also lessened their grandeur and altered their purity? If Corneille has undoubtedly brought nearer to us the still somewhat barbaric heroes of Guillem de Castro, La Fontaine, when imitating the author of the Decameron, has made him more indecent than he is in his own language; and if the Italians have no right to assail Moliere for borrowing somewhat from them, the English may well complain that Voltaire failed to understand Shakespeare. But it is true none the less that in disengaging from the particular man of the North or the South this idea of a universal man, for which we have been so often reviled,—if any one of the modern literatures has breathed in its entirety the spirit of the public weal and of civilization, it is the literature of France. And this ideal cannot possibly be as empty as has too often been asserted; since, as I endeavored to show, from Lisbon to Stockholm and from Archangel to Naples, it is its manifestations that foreigners have loved to come across in the masterpieces, or better, in the whole sequence of the history of our literature.



GIORDANO BRUNO

(1548-1600)

Fillippo Bruno, known as Giordano Bruno, was born at Nola, near Naples, in 1548. This was eight years after the death of Copernicus, whose system he eagerly espoused, and ten years before the birth of Bacon, with whom he associated in England. Of an ardent, poetic temperament, he entered the Dominican order in Naples at the early age of sixteen, doubtless attracted to conventual life by the opportunities of study it offered to an eager intellect. Bruno had been in the monastery nearly thirteen years when he was accused of heresy in attacking some of the dogmas of the Church. He fled first to Rome and then to Northern Italy, where he wandered about for three seasons from city to city, teaching and writing. In 1579 he arrived at Geneva, then the stronghold of the Calvinists. Coming into conflict with the authorities there on account of his religious opinions, he was thrown into prison. He escaped and went to Toulouse, at that time the literary centre of Southern France, where he lectured for a year on Aristotle. His restless spirit, however, drove him on to Paris. Here he was made professor extraordinary at the Sorbonne.

Although his teachings were almost directly opposed to the philosophic tenets of the time, attacking the current dogmas, and Aristotle, the idol of the schoolmen, yet such was the power of Bruno's eloquence and the charm of his manner that crowds flocked to his lecture-room, and he became one of the most popular foreign teachers the university had known. Under pretense of expounding the writings of Thomas Aquinas, he set forth his own philosophy. He also spoke much on the art of memory, amplifying the writings of Raymond Lully; and these principles, formulated by the monk of the thirteenth century and taken up again by the free-thinkers of the sixteenth, are the basis of all the present-day mnemonics.

But Bruno went even further. He attracted the attention of King Henry III. of France, who in 1583 introduced him to the French ambassador to England, Castelnuovo di Manvissiere. Going to London, he spent three years in the family of this nobleman, more as friend than dependent. They were the happiest, or at least the most restful years of his stormy life. England was just then entering on the glorious epoch of her Elizabethan literature. Bruno came into the brilliant court circles, meeting even the Queen, who cordially welcomed all men of culture, especially the Italians. The astute monk reciprocated her good-will by paying her the customary tribute of flattery. He won the friendship of Sir Philip Sidney, to whom he dedicated two of his books, and enjoyed the acquaintance of Spenser, Sir Fulke Greville, Dyer, Harvey, Sir William Temple, Bacon, and other wits and poets of the day.

At that time—somewhere about 1580—Shakespeare was still serving his apprenticeship as playwright, and had perhaps less claim on the notice of the observant foreigner than his elder contemporaries. London was still a small town, where the news of the day spread rapidly, and where, no doubt, strangers were as eagerly discussed as they are now within narrow town limits. Bruno's daring speculations could not remain the exclusive property of his own coterie. And as Shakespeare had the faculty of absorbing all new ideas afloat in the air, he would hardly have escaped the influence of the teacher who proclaimed in proud self-confidence that he was come to arouse men out of their theological stagnation. His influence on Bacon is more evident, because of their friendly associations. Bruno lectured at Oxford, but the English university found less favor in his eyes than English court life. Pedantry had indeed set its fatal mark on scholarship, not only on the Continent but in England. Aristotle was still the god of the pedants of that age, and dissent from his teaching was heavily punished, for the dry dust of learning blinded the eyes of the scholastics to new truths.

Bruno, the knight-errant of these truths, devoted all his life to scourging pedantry, and dissented in toto from the idol of the schools. No wonder he and Oxford did not agree together. He wittily calls her "the widow of sound learning," and again, "a constellation of pedantic, obstinate ignorance and presumption, mixed with a clownish incivility that would tax the patience of Job." He lashed the shortcomings of English learning in 'La Cena delle Ceneri' (Ash Wednesday Conversation). But Bruno's roving spirit, and perhaps also his heterodox tendencies, drove him at last from England, and for the next five years he roamed about Germany, leading the life of the wandering scholars of the time, always involved in conflicts and controversies with the authorities, always antagonistic to public opinion. Flying in the face of the most cherished traditions, he underwent the common experience of all prophets: the minds he was bent on awakening refused to be aroused.

Finally he was invited by Zuone Mocenigo of Venice to teach him the higher and secret learning. The Venetian supposed that Bruno, with more than human erudition, possessed the art of conveying knowledge into the heads of dullards. Disappointed in this expectation, he quarreled with his teacher, and in a spirit of revenge picked out of Bruno's writings a mass of testimony sufficient to convict him of heresy. This he turned over to the Inquisitor at Venice, Bruno was arrested, convicted, and sent to the Inquisition in Rome. When called upon there to recant, he replied, "I ought not to recant, and I will not recant." He was accordingly confined in prison for seven years, then sentenced to death. On hearing the warrant he said, "It may be that you fear more to deliver this judgment than I to bear it." On February 17th, 1600, he was burned at the stake in the Campo de' Fiori at Rome. He remained steadfast to the end, saying, "I die a martyr, and willingly." His ashes were cast into the Tiber. Two hundred and fifty-nine years afterwards, his statue was unveiled on the very spot where he suffered; and the Italian government is bringing out (1896) the first complete edition, the 'National Edition,' of his works.

In their substance Bruno's writings belong to philosophy rather than to literature, although they are still interesting both historically and biographically as an index of the character of the man and of the temper of the time. Many of the works have either perished or are hidden away in inaccessible archives. For two hundred years they were tabooed, and as late as 1836 forbidden to be shown in the public library of Dresden. He published twenty-five works in Latin and Italian, and left many others incomplete, for in all his wanderings he was continually writing. The eccentric titles show his desire to attract attention: as 'The Work of the Great Key,' 'The Exploration of the Thirty Seals,' etc. The first extant work is 'Il Candelajo' (The Taper), a comedy which in its license of language and manner vividly reflects the time. In the dedication he discloses his philosophy: 'Time takes away everything and gives everything.' The 'Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante' (Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast), the most celebrated of his works, is an attack on the superstitions of the day, a curious medley of learning, imagination, and buffoonery. 'Degl' Eroici Furori' (The Heroic Enthusiasts) is the most interesting to modern readers, and in its majestic exaltation and poetic imagery is a true product of Italian culture.

Bruno was evidently a man of vast intellect and of immense erudition. His philosophic speculations comprehended not only the ancient thought, and that current at his time, but also reached out toward the future and the results of modern science. He perceived some of the facts which were later formulated in the theory of evolution. "The mind of man differs from that of lower animals and of plants not in quality but only in quantity.... Each individual is the resultant of innumerable individuals. Each species is the Starting point for the next.... No individual is the same to-day as yesterday."

Not only in this divination of coming truths is he modern, but also in his methods of investigation. Reason was to him the guide to truth. In a study of him Lewes says:—"Bruno was a true Neapolitan child—as ardent as its soil ... as capricious as its varied climate. There was a restless energy which fitted him to become the preacher of a new crusade—urging him to throw a haughty defiance in the face of every authority in every country,—an energy which closed his wild adventurous career at the stake." He was distinguished also by a rich fancy, a varied humor, and a chivalrous gallantry, which constantly remind us that the intellectual athlete is an Italian, and an Italian of the sixteenth century.



A DISCOURSE OF POETS

From 'The Heroic Enthusiasts'

Cicada—Say, what do you mean by those who vaunt themselves of myrtle and laurel?

Tansillo—Those may and do boast of the myrtle who sing of love: if they bear themselves nobly, they may wear a crown of that plant consecrated to Venus, of which they know the potency. Those may boast of the laurel who sing worthily of things pertaining to heroes, substituting heroic souls for speculative and moral philosophy, praising them and setting them as mirrors and exemplars for political and civil actions.

Cicada—There are then many species of poets and crowns?

Tansillo—Not only as many as there are Muses, but a great many more; for although genius is to be met with, yet certain modes and species of human ingenuity cannot be thus classified.

Cicada—There are certain schoolmen who barely allow Homer to be a poet, and set down Virgil, Ovid, Martial, Hesiod, Lucretius, and many others as versifiers, judging them by the rules of poetry of Aristotle.

Tansillo—Know for certain, my brother, that such as these are beasts. They do not consider that those rules serve principally as a frame for the Homeric poetry, and for other similar to it; and they set up one as a great poet, high as Homer, and disallow those of other vein and art and enthusiasm, who in their various kinds are equal, similar, or greater.

Cicada—So that Homer was not a poet who depended upon rules, but was the cause of the rules which serve for those who are more apt at imitation than invention, and they have been used by him who, being no poet, yet knew how to take the rules of Homeric poetry into service, so as to become, not a poet or a Homer, but one who apes the Muse of others?

Tansillo—Thou dost well conclude that poetry is not born in rules, or only slightly and accidentally so: the rules are derived, from the poetry, and there are as many kinds and sorts of true rules as there are kinds and sorts of true poets.

Cicada—How then are the true poets to be known?

Tansillo—By the singing of their verses: in that singing they give delight, or they edify, or they edify and delight together.

Cicada—To whom then are the rules of Aristotle useful?

Tansillo—To him who, unlike Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, and others, could not sing without the rules of Aristotle, and who, having no Muse of his own, would coquette with that of Homer.

Cicada—Then they are wrong, those stupid pedants of our days, who exclude from the number of poets those who do not use words and metaphors conformable to, or whose principles are not in union with, those of Homer and Virgil; or because they do not observe the custom of invocation, or because they weave one history or tale with another, or because they finish the song with an epilogue on what has been said and a prelude on what is to be said, and many other kinds of criticism and censure; from whence it seems they would imply that they themselves, if the fancy took them, could be the true poets: and yet in fact they are no other than worms, that know not how to do anything well, but are born only to gnaw and befoul the studies and labors of others; and not being able to attain celebrity by their own virtue and ingenuity, seek to put themselves in the front, by hook or by crook, through the defects and errors of others.

Tansillo—There are as many sorts of poets as there are sentiments and ideas; and to these it is possible to adapt garlands, not only of every species of plant, but also of other kinds of material. So the crowns of poets are made not only of myrtle and of laurel, but of vine leaves for the white-wine verses, and of ivy for the bacchanals; of olive for sacrifice and laws; of poplar, of elm, and of corn for agriculture; of cypress for funerals, and innumerable others for other occasions; and if it please you, also of the material signified by a good fellow when he exclaimed:

"O Friar Leek! O Poetaster! That in Milan didst buckle on thy wreath Composed of salad, sausage, and the pepper-caster."

Cicada—Now surely he of divers moods, which he exhibits in various ways, may cover himself with the branches of different plants, and may hold discourse worthily with the Muses; for they are his aura or comforter, his anchor or support, and his harbor, to which he retires in times of labor, of agitation, and of storm. Hence he cries:—"O Mountain of Parnassus, where I abide; Muses, with whom I converse; Fountain of Helicon, where I am nourished; Mountain, that affordest me a quiet dwelling-place; Muses, that inspire me with profound doctrines; Fountain, that cleansest me; Mountain, on whose ascent my heart uprises; Muses, that in discourse revive my spirits; Fountain, whose arbors cool my brows,—change my death into life, my cypress to laurels, and my hells into heavens: that is, give me immortality, make me a poet, render me illustrious!"

Tansillo—Well; because to those whom Heaven favors, the greatest evils turn to greatest good; for needs or necessities bring forth labors and studies, and these most often bring the glory of immortal splendor.

Cicada—For to die in one age makes us live in all the rest.



CANTICLE OF THE SHINING ONES

A Tribute to English Women, from 'The Nolan'

"Nothing I envy, Jove, from this thy sky," Spake Neptune thus, and raised his lofty crest. "God of the waves," said Jove, "thy pride runs high; What more wouldst add to own thy stern behest?"

"Thou," spake the god, "dost rule the fiery span, The circling spheres, the glittering shafts of day; Greater am I, who in the realm of man Rule Thames, with all his Nymphs in fair array.

"In this my breast I hold the fruitful land, The vasty reaches of the trembling sea; And what in night's bright dome, or day's, shall stand Before these radiant maids who dwell with me?"

"Not thine," said Jove, "god of the watery mount, To exceed my lot; but thou my lot shalt share: Thy heavenly maids among my stars I'll count, And thou shalt own the stars beyond compare!"

THE SONG OF THE NINE SINGERS

[The first sings and plays the cithern.]

O cliffs and rocks! O thorny woods! O shore! O hills and dales! O valleys, rivers, seas! How do your new-discovered beauties please? O Nymph, 'tis yours the guerdon rare, If now the open skies shine fair; O happy wanderings, well spent and o'er!

[The second sings and plays to his mandolin.]

O happy wanderings, well spent and o'er! Say then, O Circe, these heroic tears, These griefs, endured through tedious months and years, Were as a grace divine bestowed If now our weary travail is no more.

[The third sings and plays to his lyre.]

If now our weary travail is no more! If this sweet haven be our destined rest, Then naught remains but to be blest, To thank our God for all his gifts, Who from our eyes the veil uplifts, Where shines the light upon the heavenly shore,

[The fourth sings to the viol.]

Where shines the light upon the heavenly shore! O blindness, dearer far than others' sight! O sweeter grief than earth's most sweet delight! For ye have led the erring soul By gradual steps to this fair goal, And through the darkness into light we soar.

[The fifth sings to a Spanish timbrel.]

And through the darkness into light we soar! To full fruition all high thought is brought, With such brave patience that ev'n we At least the only path can see, And in his noblest work our God adore.

[The sixth sings to a lute.]

And in his noblest work our God adore! God doth not will joy should to joy succeed, Nor ill shall be of other ill the seed; But in his hand the wheel of fate Turns, now depressed and now elate, Evolving day from night for evermore.

[The seventh sings to the Irish harp.]

Evolving day from night for evermore! And as yon robe of glorious nightly fire Pales when the morning beams to noon aspire, Thus He who rules with law eternal, Creating order fair diurnal, Casts down the proud and doth exalt the poor.

[The eighth plays with a viol and bow.]

Casts down the proud and doth exalt the poor! And with an equal hand maintains The boundless worlds which He sustains, And scatters all our finite sense At thought of His omnipotence, Clouded awhile, to be revealed once more.

[The ninth plays upon the rebeck.]

Clouded awhile, to be revealed once more! Thus neither doubt nor fear avails; O'er all the incomparable End prevails, O'er fair champaign and mountain, O'er river-brink and fountain, And o'er the shocks of seas and perils of the shore.

Translation of Isa Blagden.



OF IMMENSITY

From Frith's 'Life of Giordano Bruno'

'Tis thou, O Spirit, dost within my soul This weakly thought with thine own life amend; Rejoicing, dost thy rapid pinions lend Me, and dost wing me to that lofty goal Where secret portals ope and fetters break, And thou dost grant me, by thy grace complete, Fortune to spurn, and death; O high retreat, Which few attain, and fewer yet forsake! Girdled with gates of brass in every part, Prisoned and bound in vain, 'tis mine to rise Through sparkling fields of air to pierce the skies, Sped and accoutred by no doubting heart, Till, raised on clouds of contemplation vast, Light, leader, law, Creator, I attain at last.



LIFE WELL LOST

Winged by desire and thee, O dear delight! As still the vast and succoring air I tread, So, mounting still, on swifter pinions sped, I scorn the world, and heaven receives my flight. And if the end of Ikaros be nigh, I will submit, for I shall know no pain: And falling dead to earth, shall rise again; What lowly life with such high death can vie? Then speaks my heart from out the upper air, "Whither dost lead me? sorrow and despair Attend the rash." and thus I make reply:— "Fear thou no fall, nor lofty ruin sent; Safely divide the clouds, and die content, When such proud death is dealt thee from on high."



PARNASSUS WITHIN

O heart, 'tis you my chief Parnassus are, Where for my safety I must ever climb. My winged thoughts are Muses, who from far Bring gifts of beauty to the court of Time; And Helicon, that fair unwasted rill, Springs newly in my tears upon the earth, And by those streams and nymphs, and by that hill, It pleased the gods to give a poet birth. No favoring hand that comes of lofty race, No priestly unction, nor the grant of kings, Can on me lay such lustre and such grace, Nor add such heritage; for one who sings Hath a crowned head, and by the sacred bay, His heart, his thoughts, his tears, are consecrate alway.



COMPENSATION

The moth beholds not death as forth he flies Into the splendor of the living flame; The hart athirst to crystal water hies, Nor heeds the shaft, nor fears the hunter's aim; The timid bird, returning from above To join his mate, deems not the net is nigh; Unto the light, the fount, and to my love, Seeing the flame, the shaft, the chains, I fly; So high a torch, love-lighted in the skies, Consumes my soul; and with this bow divine Of piercing sweetness what terrestrial vies? This net of dear delight doth prison mine; And I to life's last day have this desire— Be mine thine arrows, love, and mine thy fire.



LIFE FOR SONG

Come Muse, O Muse, so often scorned by me, The hope of sorrow and the balm of care,— Give to me speech and song, that I may be Unchid by grief; grant me such graces rare As other ministering souls may never see Who boast thy laurel, and thy myrtle wear. I know no joy wherein thou hast not part, My speeding wind, my anchor, and my goal, Come, fair Parnassus, lift thou up my heart; Come, Helicon, renew my thirsty soul. A cypress crown, O Muse, is thine to give, And pain eternal: take this weary frame, Touch me with fire, and this my death shall live On all men's lips and in undying fame.



WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

(1794-1878)

BY GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP

Distinguished as he was by the lofty qualities of his verse, William Cullen Bryant held a place almost unique in American literature, by the union of his activity as a poet with his eminence as a citizen and an influential journalist, throughout an uncommonly long career. Two traits still further define the peculiarity of his position—his precocious development, and the evenness and sustained vigor of all his poetic work from the beginning to the end. He began writing verse at the age of eight; at ten he made contributions in this kind to the county gazette, and produced a finished and effective rhymed address, read at his school examination, which became popular for recitation; and in his thirteenth year, during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, he composed a political satire, 'The Embargo.' This, being published, was at first supposed by many to be the work of a man, attracted much attention and praise, and passed into a second edition with other shorter pieces.

But these, while well wrought in the formal eighteenth-century fashion, showed no special originality. It was with 'Thanatopsis,' written in 1811, when he was only seventeen, that his career as a poet of original and assured strength began. 'Thanatopsis' was an inspiration of the primeval woods of America, of the scenes that surrounded the writer in youth. At the same time it expressed with striking independence and power a fresh conception of "the universality of Death in the natural order." As has been well said, "it takes the idea of death out of its theological aspects and restores it to its proper place in the vast scheme of things. This in itself was a mark of genius in a youth of his time and place." Another American poet, Stoddard, calls it the greatest poem ever written by so young a man. The author's son-in-law and biographer, Parke Godwin, remarks upon it aptly, "For the first time on this continent a poem was written destined to general admiration and enduring fame;" and this indeed is a very significant point, that it began the history of true poetry in the United States,—a fact which further secured to Bryant his exceptional place. The poem remains a classic of the English language, and the author himself never surpassed the high mark attained in it; although the balanced and lasting nature of his faculty is shown in a pendant to this poem, which he created in his old age and entitled 'The Flood of Years.' The last is equal to the first in dignity and finish, but is less original, and has never gained a similar fame.

Another consideration regarding Bryant is, that representing a modern development of poetry under American inspiration, he was also a descendant of the early Massachusetts colonists, being connected with the Pilgrim Fathers through three ancestral lines. Born at Cummington, Massachusetts, November 3d, 1794, the son of a stalwart but studious country physician of literary tastes, he inherited the strong religious feeling of this ancestry, which was united in him with a deep and sensitive love of nature. This led him to reflect in his poems the strength and beauty of American landscape, vividly as it had never before been mirrored; and the blending of serious thought and innate piety with the sentiment for nature so reflected gave a new and impressive result.

Like many other long-lived men, Bryant suffered from delicate health in the earlier third of his life: there was a tendency to consumption in his otherwise vigorous family stock. He read much, and was much interested in Greek literature and somewhat influenced by it. But he also lived a great deal in the open air, rejoiced in the boisterous games and excursions in the woods with his brothers and sisters, and took long rambles alone among the hills and wild groves; being then, as always afterwards, an untiring walker. After a stay of only seven months at Williams College, he studied law, which he practiced for some eight years in Plainfield and Great Barrington. In the last-named village he was elected a tithingman, charged with the duty of keeping order in the churches and enforcing the observance of Sunday. Chosen town clerk soon afterwards, at a salary of five dollars a year, he kept the records of the town with his own hand for five years, and also served as justice of the peace with power to hear cases in a lower court. These biographical items are of value, as showing his close relation to the self-government of the people in its simpler forms, and his early practical familiarity with the duties of a trusted citizen.

Meanwhile, however, he kept on writing at intervals, and in 1821 read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Harvard a long poem, 'The Ages,' a kind of composition more in favor at that period than in later days, being a general review of the progress of man in knowledge and virtue. With the passage of time it has not held its own as against some of his other poems, although it long enjoyed a high reputation; but its success on its original hearing was the cause of his bringing together his first volume of poems, hardly more than a pamphlet, in the same year. It made him famous with the reading public of the United States, and won some recognition in England. In this little book were contained, besides 'The Ages' and 'Thanatopsis,' several pieces which have kept their hold upon popular taste; such as the well-known lines 'To a Waterfowl' and the 'Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood.'



The year of its publication also brought into the world Cooper's 'The Spy,' Irving's 'Sketch Book' and 'Bracebridge Hall,' with various other significant volumes, including Channing's early essays and Daniel Webster's great Plymouth Oration. It was evident that a native literature was dawning brightly; and as Bryant's productions now came into demand, and he had never liked the profession of law, he quitted it and went to New York in 1825, there to seek a living by his pen as "a literary adventurer." The adventure led to ultimate triumph, but not until after a long term of dark prospects and hard struggles.

Even in his latest years Bryant used to declare that his favorite among his poems—although it is one of the least known—was 'Green River'; perhaps because it recalled the scenes of young manhood, when he was about entering the law, and contrasted the peacefulness of that stream with the life in which he would be

"Forced to drudge for the dregs of men, And scrawl strange words with the barbarous pen, And mingle among the jostling crowd, Where the sons of strife are subtle and loud."

This might be applied to much of his experience in New York, where he edited the New York Review and became one of the editors, then a proprietor, and finally chief editor of the Evening Post. A great part of his energies now for many years was given to his journalistic function, and to the active outspoken discussion of important political questions; often in trying crises and at the cost of harsh unpopularity. Success, financial as well as moral, came to him within the next quarter-century, during which laborious interval he had likewise maintained his interest and work in pure literature and produced new poems from time to time in various editions.

From this point on until his death, June 12th, 1878, in his eighty-fourth year, he was the central and commanding figure in the enlarging literary world of New York. His newspaper had gained a potent reputation, and it brought to bear upon public affairs a strong influence of the highest sort. Its editorial course and tone, as well as the earnest and patriotic part taken by Bryant in popular questions and national affairs, without political ambition or office-holding, had established him as one of the most distinguished citizens of the metropolis, no less than its most renowned poet. His presence and co-operation were indispensable in all great public functions or humanitarian and intellectual movements. In 1864 his seventieth birthday was celebrated at the Century Club with extraordinary honors. In 1875, again, the two houses of the State Legislature at Albany paid him the compliment, unprecedented in the annals of American authorship, of inviting him to a reception given to him in their official capacity. Another mark of the abounding esteem in which he was held among his fellow-citizens was the presentation to him in 1876 of a rich silver vase, commemorative of his life and works. He was now a wealthy man; yet his habits of life remained essentially unchanged. His tastes were simple, his love of nature was still ardent; his literary and editorial industry unflagging.

Besides his poems, Bryant wrote two short stories for 'Tales of the Glauber Spa'; and published 'Letters of a Traveler' in 1850, as a result of three journeys to Europe and the Orient, together with various public addresses. His style as a writer of prose is clear, calm, dignified, and denotes exact observation and a wide range of interests. So too his editorial articles in the Evening Post, some of which have been preserved in his collected writings, are couched in serene and forcible English, with nothing of the sensational or the colloquial about them. They were a fitting medium of expression for his firm conscientiousness and integrity as a journalist.

But it is as a poet, and especially by a few distinctive compositions, that Bryant will be most widely and deeply held in remembrance. In the midst of the exacting business of his career as an editor, and many public or social demands upon his time, he found opportunity to familiarize himself with portions of German and Spanish poetry, which he translated, and to maintain in the quietude of his country home in Roslyn, Long Island, his old acquaintance with the Greek and Latin classics. From this continued study there resulted naturally in 1870 his elaborate translation of Homer's Iliad, which was followed by that of the Odyssey in 1871. These scholarly works, cast in strong and polished blank verse, won high praise from American critics, and even achieved a popular success, although they were not warmly acclaimed, in England. Among literarians they are still regarded as in a manner standards of their kind. Bryant, in his long march of over sixty-five years across the literary field, was witness to many new developments in poetic writing, in both his own and other countries. But while he perceived the splendor and color and rich novelty of these, he held in his own work to the plain theory and practice which had guided him from the start. "The best poetry," he still believed—"that which takes the strongest hold of the general mind, not in one age only but in all ages—is that which is always simple and always luminous." He did not embody in impassioned forms the sufferings, emotions, or problems of the human kind, but was disposed to generalize them, as in 'The Journey of Life,' the 'Hymn of the City,' and 'The Song of the Sower,' it is characteristic that two of the longer poems, 'Sella' and 'The Little People of the Snow,' which are narratives, deal with legends of an individual human life merging itself with the inner life of nature, under the form of imaginary beings who dwell in the snow or in water. On the other hand, one of his eulogists observes that although some of his contemporaries went much beyond him in fullness of insight and nearness to the great conflicts of the age, "he has certainly not been surpassed, perhaps not been approached, by any writer since Wordsworth, in that majestic repose and that self-reliant simplicity which characterized the morning stars of song." In 'Our Country's Call,' however, one hears the ring of true martial enthusiasm; and there is a deep patriotic fervor in 'O Mother of a Mighty Race.' The noble and sympathetic homage paid to the typical womanhood of a genuine woman of every day, in 'The Conqueror's Grave,' reveals also great underlying warmth and sensitiveness of feeling. 'Robert of Lincoln,' and 'The Planting of the Apple-Tree' are both touched with a lighter mood of joy in nature, which supplies a contrast to his usual pensiveness.

Bryant's venerable aspect in old age—with erect form, white hair, and flowing snowy beard—gave him a resemblance to Homer; and there was something Homeric about his influence upon the literature of his country, in the dignity with which he invested the poetic art and the poet's relation to the people.



[All Bryant's poems were originally published by D. Appleton and Company.]



THANATOPSIS

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 nourished 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 for ever 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 mold.

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-ribbed 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, poured 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, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound Save his 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 fresh spring and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron and maid, The speechless babe and the gray-headed man— Shall one by one be gathered 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, sustained 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.



THE CROWDED STREET

Let me move slowly through the street, Filled with an ever-shifting train, Amid the sound of steps that beat The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come! The mild, the fierce, the stony face— Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some Where secret tears have lost their trace.

They pass to toil, to strife, to rest— To halls in which the feast is spread— To chambers where the funeral guest In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair, Where children, pressing cheek to cheek, With mute caresses shall declare The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here, Shall shudder as they reach the door Where one who made their dwelling dear, Its flower, its light, is seen no more.

Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, And dreams of greatness in thine eye! Go'st thou to build an early name, Or early in the task to die?

Keen son of trade, with eager brow! Who is now fluttering in thy snare? Thy golden fortunes, tower they now, Or melt the glittering spires in air?

Who of this crowd to-night shall tread The dance till daylight gleam again? Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead? Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?

Some, famine-struck, shall think how long The cold dark hours, how slow the light; And some who flaunt amid the throng Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.

Each where his tasks or pleasures call, They pass, and heed each other not. There is Who heeds, Who holds them all In His large love and boundless thought.

These struggling tides of life, that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end.

D. Appleton and Company, New York.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves; the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold November rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hills the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south-wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty died, The fair meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side. In the cold moist earth we laid her, when the forests cast the leaf, And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief; Yet not unmeet it was that one like that young friend of ours, So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

THE CONQUEROR'S GRAVE

Within this lowly grave a Conqueror lies, And yet the monument proclaims it not, Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought The emblems of a fame that never dies,— Ivy and amaranth, in a graceful sheaf, Twined with the laurel's fair, imperial leaf. A simple name alone, To the great world unknown, Is graven here, and wild-flowers rising round, Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground, Lean lovingly against the humble stone.

Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart No man of iron mold and bloody hands, Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands The passions that consumed his restless heart: But one of tender spirit and delicate frame, Gentlest, in mien and mind, Of gentle womankind, Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame; One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made Its haunts, like flowers by sunny brooks in May, Yet, at the thought of others' pain, a shade Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away.

Nor deem that when the hand that molders here Was raised in menace, realms were chilled with fear, And armies mustered at the sign, as when Clouds rise on clouds before the rainy East— Gray captains leading bands of veteran men And fiery youths to be the vulture's feast. Not thus were waged the mighty wars that gave The victory to her who fills this grave: Alone her task was wrought, Alone the battle fought; Through that long strife her constant hope was staid On God alone, nor looked for other aid.

She met the hosts of Sorrow with a look That altered not beneath the frown they wore, And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took Meekly her gentle rule, and frowned no more. Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath, And calmly broke in twain The fiery shafts of pain, And rent the nets of passion from her path. By that victorious hand despair was slain. With love she vanquished hate and overcame Evil with good, in her Great Master's name.

Her glory is not of this shadowy state, Glory that with the fleeting season dies; But when she entered at the sapphire gate What joy was radiant in celestial eyes! How heaven's bright depths with sounding welcomes rung, And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung! And He who long before, Pain, scorn, and sorrow bore, The Mighty Sufferer, with aspect sweet, Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat; He who returning, glorious, from the grave, Dragged Death disarmed, in chains, a crouching slave.

See, as I linger here, the sun grows low; Cool airs are murmuring that the night is near. O gentle sleeper, from the grave I go, Consoled though sad, in hope and yet in fear. Brief is the time, I know, The warfare scarce begun; Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won. Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened thee; The victors' names are yet too few to fill Heaven's mighty roll; the glorious armory That ministered to thee, is open still.



THE-BATTLE-FIELD

Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands, Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, And fiery hearts and armed hands Encountered in the battle-cloud.

Ah! never shall the land forget How gushed the life-blood of her brave— Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they sought 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-mouthed 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-weaponed 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, crushed to earth, shall rise again— The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshipers.

Yea, though thou lie upon the dust, When they who helped 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 pealed The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.

D. Appleton and Company, New York.



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 painted on 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 fanned, 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 sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply has 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 drest, 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 seeds 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.

1855

JUNE

I gazed upon the glorious sky And the green mountains round; And thought that when I came to lie At rest within the ground, 'Twere pleasant that in flowery June, When brooks send up a cheerful tune And groves a joyous sound, The sexton's hand, my grave to make, The rich green mountain turf should break.

A cell within the frozen mold, A coffin borne through sleet, And icy clods above it rolled, While fierce the tempests beat— Away! I will not think of these: Blue be the sky and soft the breeze, Earth green beneath the feet, And be the damp mold gently pressed Into my narrow place of rest.

There through the long, long summer hours The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by; The oriole should build and tell His love-tale close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him there, and there be heard The housewife bee and humming-bird.

And what if cheerful shouts at noon Come, from the village sent, Or songs of maids beneath the moon, With fairy laughter blent? And what if, in the evening light, Betrothed lovers walk in sight Of my low monument? I would the lovely scene around Might know no sadder sight nor sound.

I know that I no more should see The season's glorious show, Nor would its brightness shine for me, Nor its wild music flow; But if, around my place of sleep. The friends I love should come to weep, They might not haste to go. Soft airs, and song, and light, and bloom, Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

These to their softened hearts should bear The thought of what has been, And speak of one who cannot share The gladness of the scene; Whose part in all the pomp that fills The circuit of the summer hills Is—that his grave is green; And deeply would their hearts rejoice To hear again his living voice.

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN

Thou blossom, bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own blue, That openest when the quiet light Succeeds the keen and frosty night;

Thou comest not when violets lean O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, Or columbines, in purple dressed, Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late, and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frost and shortening days portend The aged Year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye Look through its fringes to the sky, Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see The hour of death draw near to me, Hope, blossoming within my heart, May look to heaven as I depart.

D. Appleton and Company, New York.

THE FUTURE LIFE

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps The disembodied spirits of the dead, When all of thee that time could wither sleeps And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain If there I meet thy gentle presence not; Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

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?

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?

The love that lived through all the stormy past, And meekly with my harsher nature bore, And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last, Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

A happier lot than mine, and larger light, Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will In cheerful homage to the rule of right, And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll; And wrath has left its scar—that fire of hell Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name, The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?

Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, The wisdom that I learned so ill in this— The wisdom which is love—till I become Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?

D. Appleton and Company, New York.

TO THE PAST

Thou unrelenting Past! Stern are the fetters 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 shadows 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 givest them back, nor to the broken heart.

In thy abysses hide Beauty and excellence unknown. To thee Earth's wonder and her pride Are gathered, as the waters to the sea.

Labors of good to man, Unpublished charity, unbroken faith; Love, that 'midst grief began, And grew with years, and faltered not in death.

Full many a mighty name Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered. With thee are silent Fame, Forgotten Arts, and Wisdom disappeared.

Thine for a space are they. Yet thou shalt 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 perished—no! Kind words, remembered 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.

D. Appleton and Company, New York.



JAMES BRYCE

(1838-)

James Bryce was born at Belfast, Ireland, of Scotch and Irish parents. He studied at the University of Glasgow and later at Oxford, where he graduated with high honors in 1862, and where after some years of legal practice he was appointed Regius Professor of Civil Law in 1870. He had already established a high reputation as an original and accurate historical scholar by his prize essay on the 'Holy Roman Empire' (1864), which passed through many editions, was translated into German, French, and Italian, and remains to-day a standard work and the best known work on the subject, Edward A. Freeman said on the appearance of the work that it had raised the author at once to the rank of a great historian. It has done more than any other treatise to clarify the vague notions of historians as to the significance of the imperial idea in the Middle Ages, and its importance as a factor in German and Italian politics; and it is safe to say that there is scarcely a recent history of the period that does not show traces of its influence. The scope of this work being juristic and philosophical, it does not admit of much historical narrative, and the style is lucid but not brilliant. It is not in fact as a historian that Mr. Bryce is best known, but rather as a jurist, a politician, and a student of institutions.



The most striking characteristic of the man is his versatility; a quality which in his case has not been accompanied by its usual defects, for his achievements in one field seem to have made him no less conscientious in others, while they have given him that breadth of view which is more essential than any special training to the critic of men and affairs. For the ten years that followed his Oxford appointment he contributed frequently to the magazines on geographical, social, and political topics. His vacations he spent in travel and in mountain climbing, of which he gave an interesting narrative in 'Transcaucasia and Ararat' (1877). In 1880 he entered active politics, and was elected to Parliament in the Liberal interest. He has continued steadfast in his support of the Liberal party and of Mr. Gladstone, whose Home Rule policy he has heartily seconded. In 1886 he became Gladstone's Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and in 1894 was appointed President of the Board of Trade.

The work by which he is best known in this country, the 'American Commonwealth' (1888), is the fruit of his observations during three visits to the United States, and of many years of study. It is generally conceded to be the best critical analysis of American institutions ever made by a foreign author. Inferior in point of style to De Tocqueville's 'Democracy in America,' it far surpasses that book in amplitude, breadth of view, acuteness of observation, and minuteness of information; besides being half a century later in date, and therefore able to set down accomplished facts where the earlier observer could only make forecasts. His extensive knowledge of foreign countries, by divesting him of insular prejudice, fitted him to handle his theme with impartiality, and his experience in the practical workings of British institutions gave him an insight into the practical defects and benefits of ours. That he has a keen eye for defects is obvious, but his tone is invariably sympathetic; so much so, in fact, that Goldwin Smith has accused him of being somewhat "hard on England" in some of his comparisons. The faults of the book pertain rather to the manner than to the matter. He does not mislead, but sometimes wearies, and in some portions of the work the frequent repetitions, the massing of details, and the absence of compact statement tend to obscure the general drift of his argument and to add unduly to the bulkiness of his volumes.

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THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES

From 'The American Commonwealth'

Social intercourse between youths and maidens is everywhere more easy and unrestrained than in England or Germany, not to speak of France. Yet there are considerable differences between the Eastern cities, whose usages have begun to approximate to those of Europe, and other parts of the country. In the rural districts, and generally all over the West, young men and girls are permitted to walk together, drive together, go out to parties and even to public entertainments together, without the presence of any third person who can be supposed to be looking after or taking charge of the girl. So a girl may, if she pleases, keep up a correspondence with a young man, nor will her parents think of interfering. She will have her own friends, who when they call at her house ask for her, and are received by her, it may be alone; because they are not deemed to be necessarily the friends of her parents also, nor even of her sisters.

In the cities of the Atlantic States it is now thought scarcely correct for a young man to take a young lady out for a solitary drive; and in few sets would he be permitted to escort her alone to the theatre. But girls still go without chaperons to dances, the hostess being deemed to act as chaperon for all her guests; and as regards both correspondence and the right to have one's own circle of acquaintances, the usage even of New York or Boston allows more liberty than does that of London or Edinburgh. It was at one time, and it may possibly still be, not uncommon for a group of young people who know one another well to make up an autumn "party in the woods." They choose some mountain and forest region, such as the Adirondack Wilderness west of Lake Champlain, engage three or four guides, embark with guns and fishing-rods, tents, blankets, and a stock of groceries, and pass in boats up the rivers and across the lakes of this wild country through sixty or seventy miles of trackless forest, to their chosen camping-ground at the foot of some tall rock that rises from the still crystal of the lake. Here they build their bark hut, and spread their beds of the elastic and fragrant hemlock boughs; the youths roam about during the day, tracking the deer, the girls read and work and bake the corn-cakes; at night there is a merry gathering round the fire, or a row in the soft moonlight. On these expeditions brothers will take their sisters and cousins, who bring perhaps some lady friends with them; the brothers' friends will come too; and all will live together in a fraternal way for weeks or months, though no elderly relative or married lady be of the party.

There can be no doubt that the pleasure of life is sensibly increased by the greater freedom which transatlantic custom permits; and as the Americans insist that no bad results have followed, one notes with regret that freedom declines in the places which deem themselves most civilized. American girls have been, so far as a stranger can ascertain, less disposed to what are called "fast ways" than girls of the corresponding classes in England, and exercise in this respect a pretty rigorous censorship over one another. But when two young people find pleasure in one another's company, they can see as much of each other as they please, can talk and walk together frequently, can show that they are mutually interested, and yet need have little fear of being misunderstood either by one another or by the rest of the world. It is all a matter of custom. In the West, custom sanctions this easy friendship; in the Atlantic cities, so soon as people have come to find something exceptional in it, constraint is felt, and a conventional etiquette like that of the Old World begins to replace the innocent simplicity of the older time, the test of whose merit may be gathered from the universal persuasion in America that happy marriages are in the middle and upper ranks more common than in Europe, and that this is due to the ampler opportunities which young men and women have of learning one another's characters and habits before becoming betrothed. Most girls have a larger range of intimate acquaintances than girls have in Europe, intercourse is franker, there is less difference between the manners of home and the manners of general society. The conclusions of a stranger are in such matters of no value; so I can only repeat that I have never met any judicious American lady who, however well she knew the Old World, did not think that the New World customs conduced more both to the pleasantness of life before marriage, and to constancy and concord after it.

In no country are women, and especially young women, so much made of. The world is at their feet. Society seems organized for the purpose of providing enjoyment for them. Parents, uncles, aunts, elderly friends, even brothers, are ready to make their comfort and convenience bend to the girls' wishes. The wife has fewer opportunities for reigning over the world of amusements, because except among the richest people she has more to do in household management than in England, owing to the scarcity of servants; but she holds in her own house a more prominent if not a more substantially powerful position than in England or even in France. With the German haus-frau, who is too often content to be a mere housewife, there is of course no comparison. The best proof of the superior place American ladies occupy is to be found in the notions they profess to entertain of the relations of an English married pair. They talk of the English wife as little better than a slave; declaring that when they stay with English friends, or receive an English couple in America, they see the wife always deferring to the husband and the husband always assuming that his pleasure and convenience are to prevail. The European wife, they admit, often gets her own way, but she gets it by tactful arts, by flattery or wheedling or playing on the man's weaknesses; whereas in America the husband's duty and desire is to gratify the wife, and render to her those services which the English tyrant exacts from his consort. One may often hear an American matron commiserate a friend who has married in Europe, while the daughters declare in chorus that they will never follow the example. Laughable as all this may seem to English women, it is perfectly true that the theory as well as the practice of conjugal life is not the same in America as in England. There are overbearing husbands in America, but they are more condemned by the opinion of the neighborhood than in England. There are exacting wives in England, but their husbands are more pitied than would be the case in America. In neither country can one say that the principle of perfect equality reigns; for in America the balance inclines nearly, though not quite, as much in favor of the wife as it does in England in favor of the husband. No one man can have a sufficiently large acquaintance in both countries to entitle his individual opinion on the results to much weight. So far as I have been able to collect views from those observers who have lived in both countries, they are in favor of the American practice, perhaps because the theory it is based on departs less from pure equality than does that of England. These observers do not mean that the recognition of women as equals or superiors makes them any better or sweeter or wiser than Englishwomen; but rather that the principle of equality, by correcting the characteristic faults of men, and especially their selfishness and vanity, is more conducive to the concord and happiness of a home. They conceive that to make the wife feel her independence and responsibility more strongly than she does in Europe tends to brace and expand her character; while conjugal affection, usually stronger in her than in the husband, inasmuch as there are fewer competing interests, saves her from abusing the precedence yielded to her. This seems to be true; but I have heard others maintain that the American system, since it does not require the wife habitually to forego her own wishes, tends, if not to make her self-indulgent and capricious, yet slightly to impair the more delicate charms of character; as it is written, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

A European cannot spend an evening in an American drawing-room without perceiving that the attitude of men to women is not that with which he is familiar at home. The average European man has usually a slight sense of condescension when he talks to a woman on serious subjects. Even if she is his superior in intellect, in character, in social rank, he thinks that as a man he is her superior, and consciously or unconsciously talks down to her. She is too much accustomed to this to resent it, unless it becomes tastelessly palpable. Such a notion does not cross an American's mind. He talks to a woman just as he would to a man; of course with more deference of manner, and with a proper regard to the topics likely to interest her, but giving her his intellectual best, addressing her as a person whose opinion is understood by both to be worth as much as his own. Similarly an American lady does not expect to have conversation made to her: it is just as much her duty or pleasure to lead it as the man's is; and more often than not she takes the burden from him, darting along with a gay vivacity which puts to shame his slower wits.

It need hardly be said that in all cases where the two sexes come into competition for comfort, the provision is made first for women. In railroads the end car of the train, being that farthest removed from the smoke of the locomotive, is often reserved for them (though men accompanying a lady are allowed to enter it); and at hotels their sitting-room is the best and sometimes the only available public room, ladyless guests being driven to the bar or the hall. In omnibuses and horse-cars (tram-cars), it was formerly the custom for a gentleman to rise and offer his seat to a lady if there were no vacant place. This is now less universally done. In New York and Boston (and I think also in San Francisco), I have seen the men keep their seats when ladies entered; and I recollect one occasion when the offer of a seat to a lady was declined by her, on the ground that as she had chosen to enter a full car she ought to take the consequences. It was (I was told in Boston) a feeling of this kind that had led to the discontinuance of the old courtesy: when ladies constantly pressed into the already crowded vehicles, the men, who could not secure the enforcement of the regulations against over-crowding, tried to protect themselves by refusing to rise. It is sometimes said that the privileges yielded to American women have disposed them to claim as a right what was only a courtesy, and have told unfavorably upon their manners. I know of several instances, besides this one of the horse-cars, which might seem to support the criticism, but cannot on the whole think it well founded. The better-bred women do not presume on their sex, and the area of good breeding is always widening. It need hardly be said that the community at large gains by the softening and restraining influence which the reverence for womanhood diffuses. Nothing so quickly incenses the people as any insult offered to a woman. Wife-beating, and indeed any kind of rough violence offered to women, is far less common among the rudest class than it is in England. Field work or work at the pit-mouth of mines is seldom or never done by women in America; and the American traveler who in some parts of Europe finds women performing severe manual labor, is revolted by the sight in a way which Europeans find surprising.

In the farther West, that is to say, beyond the Mississippi, in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific States, one is much struck by what seems the absence of the humblest class of women. The trains are full of poorly dressed and sometimes (though less frequently) rough-mannered men. One discovers no women whose dress or air marks them out as the wives, daughters, or sisters of these men, and wonders whether the male population is celibate, and if so, why there are so many women. Closer observation shows that the wives, daughters, and sisters are there, only their attire and manner are those of what Europeans would call middle-class and not working-class people. This is partly due to the fact that Western men affect a rough dress. Still one may say that the remark so often made, that the masses of the American people correspond to the middle class of Europe, is more true of the women than of the men; and is more true of them, in the rural districts and in the West than it is of the inhabitants of Atlantic cities. I remember to have been dawdling in a book-store in a small town in Oregon when a lady entered to inquire if a monthly magazine, whose name was unknown to me, had yet arrived. When she was gone I asked the salesman who she was, and what was the periodical she wanted. He answered that she was the wife of a railway workman, that the magazine was a journal of fashions, and that the demand for such journals was large and constant among women of the wage-earning class in the town. This set me to observing female dress more closely; and it turned out to be perfectly true that the women in these little towns were following the Parisian fashions very closely, and were in fact ahead of the majority of English ladies belonging to the professional and mercantile classes. Of course in such a town as I refer to, there are no domestic servants except in the hotels (indeed, almost the only domestic service to be had in the Pacific States was till very recently that of Chinese), so these votaries of fashion did all their own housework and looked after their own babies.

Three causes combine to create among American women an average of literary taste and influence higher than that of women in any European country. These are the educational facilities they enjoy, the recognition of the equality of the sexes in the whole social and intellectual sphere, and the leisure which they possess as compared with men. In a country where men are incessantly occupied at their business or profession, the function of keeping up the level of culture devolves upon women. It is safe in their hands. They are quick and keen-witted, less fond of open-air life and physical exertion than English women are, and obliged by the climate to pass a greater part of their time under shelter from the cold of winter and the sun of summer. For music and for the pictorial arts they do not yet seem to have formed so strong a taste as for literature; partly perhaps owing to the fact that in America the opportunities of seeing and hearing masterpieces, except indeed operas, are rarer than in Europe. But they are eager and assiduous readers of all such books and periodicals as do not presuppose special knowledge in some branch of science or learning, while the number who have devoted themselves to some special study and attained proficiency in it is large. The fondness for sentiment, especially moral and domestic sentiment, which is often observed as characterizing American taste in literature, seems to be mainly due to the influence of women, for they form not only the larger part of the reading public, but an independent-minded part, not disposed to adopt the canons laid down by men, and their preferences count for more in the opinions and predilections of the whole nation than is the case in England. Similarly the number of women who write is infinitely larger in America than in Europe. Fiction, essays, and poetry are naturally their favorite provinces. In poetry more particularly, many whose names are quite unknown in Europe have attained wide-spread fame.

Some one may ask how far the differences between the position of women in America and their position in Europe are due to democracy? or if not to this, then to what other cause?

They are due to democratic feeling, in so far as they spring from the notion that all men are free and equal, possessed of certain inalienable rights and owing certain corresponding duties. This root idea of democracy cannot stop at defining men as male human beings, any more than it could ultimately stop at defining them as white human beings. For many years the Americans believed in equality with the pride of discoverers as well as with the fervor of apostles. Accustomed to apply it to all sorts and conditions of men, they were naturally the first to apply it to women also; not indeed as respects politics, but in all the social as well as legal relations of life. Democracy is in America more respectful of the individual, less disposed to infringe his freedom or subject him to any sort of legal or family control, than it has shown itself in Continental Europe; and this regard for the individual inured to the benefit of women. Of the other causes that have worked in the same direction, two may be mentioned. One is the usage of the Congregationalist, Presbyterian, and Baptist churches, under which a woman who is a member of the congregation has the same rights in choosing a deacon, elder, or pastor, as a man has. Another is the fact that among the westward-moving settlers women were at first few in number, and were therefore treated with special respect. The habit then formed was retained as the communities grew, and propagated itself all over the country.

What have been the results on the character and usefulness of women themselves?

Favorable. They have opened to them a wider life and more variety of career. While the special graces of the feminine character do not appear to have suffered, there has been produced a sort of independence and a capacity for self-help which are increasingly valuable as the number of unmarried women increases. More resources are open to an American woman who has to lead a solitary life, not merely in the way of employment, but for the occupation of her mind and tastes, than to a European spinster or widow; while her education has not rendered the American wife less competent for the discharge of household duties.

How has the nation at large been affected by the development of this new type of womanhood, or rather perhaps of this variation on the English type?

If women have on the whole gained, it is clear that the nation gains through them. As mothers they mold the character of their children; while the function of forming the habits of society and determining its moral tone rests greatly in their hands. But there is reason to think that the influence of the American system tells directly for good upon men as well as upon the whole community. Men gain in being brought to treat women as equals, rather than as graceful playthings or useful drudges. The respect for women which every American man either feels, or is obliged by public sentiment to profess, has a wholesome effect on his conduct and character, and serves to check the cynicism which some other peculiarities of the country foster. The nation as a whole owes to the active benevolence of its women, and their zeal in promoting social reforms, benefits which the customs of Continental Europe would scarcely have permitted women to confer. Europeans have of late years begun to render a well-deserved admiration to the brightness and vivacity of American ladies. Those who know the work they have done and are doing in many a noble cause will admire still more their energy, their courage, their self-devotion. No country seems to owe more to its women than America does, nor to owe to them so much of what is best in social institutions and in the beliefs that govern conduct.

By permission of James Bryce and the Macmillan Company.

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THE ASCENT OF ARARAT

From 'Trans-Caucasia and Ararat'

About 1 A.M. we got off, thirteen in all, and made straight across the grassy hollows for the ridges which trend up towards the great cone, running parallel in a west-north-westerly direction, and inclosing between them several long narrow depressions, hardly deep enough to be called valleys. The Kurds led the way, and at first we made pretty good progress. The Cossacks seemed fair walkers, though less stalwart than the Kurds; the pace generally was better than that with which Swiss guides start. However, we were soon cruelly undeceived. In twenty-five minutes there came a steep bit, and at the top of it they flung themselves down on the grass to rest. So did we all. Less than half a mile farther, down they dropped again, and this time we were obliged to give the signal for resuming the march. In another quarter of an hour they were down once more, and so it continued for the rest of the way. Every ten minutes' walking—it was seldom steep enough to be called actual climbing—was followed by seven or eight minutes of sitting still, smoking and chattering. How they did chatter! It was to no purpose that we continued to move on when they sat down, or that we rose to go before they had sufficiently rested. They looked at one another, so far as I could make out by the faint light, and occasionally they laughed; but they would not and did not stir till such time as pleased themselves. We were helpless. Impossible to go on alone; impossible also to explain to them why every moment was precious, for the acquaintance who had acted as interpreter had been obliged to stay behind at Sardarbulakh, and we were absolutely without means of communication with our companions. One could not even be angry, had there been any use in that, for they were perfectly good-humored. It was all very well to beckon them, or pull them by the elbow, or clap them on the back; they thought this was only our fun, and sat still and chattered all the same. When it grew light enough to see the hands of a watch, and mark how the hours advanced while the party did not, we began for a second time to despair of success.

About 3 A.M. there suddenly sprang up from behind the Median mountains the morning star, shedding a light such as no star ever gave in these northern climes of ours,—a light that almost outshone the moon. An hour later it began to pale in the first faint flush of yellowish light that spread over the eastern heaven; and first the rocky masses above us, then Little Ararat, throwing behind him a gigantic shadow, then the long lines of mountains beyond the Araxes, became revealed, while the wide Araxes plain still lay dim and shadowy below. One by one the stars died out as the yellow turned to a deeper glow that shot forth in long streamers, the rosy fingers of the dawn, from the horizon to the zenith. Cold and ghostly lay the snows on the mighty cone; till at last there came upon their topmost slope, six thousand feet above us, a sudden blush of pink. Swiftly it floated down the eastern face, and touched and kindled the rocks just above us. Then the sun flamed out, and in a moment the Araxes valley and all the hollows of the savage ridges we were crossing were flooded with overpowering light.