The Letters of William Cullen Bryant: Volume VI, 1872–1878 9780823287338

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The Letters of William Cullen Bryant VI

LIBRARY

M etropolita:->. Mus eum of Art

Bryant , oil portrait by Thomas Le Clear, 1876.

The Letters of WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT Volume VI

1872-1878 Edited by

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT II

and THOMAS

G. Voss

New York FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS

1992

The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Open Access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities/ Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program.

© Copyright 1992 by Fordham University Press First Open Access edition, 2020

All rights reserved. lc 74–27169 isbn 0-8232-0997-0 (set, vols. I–VI) isbn 0-8232-0996-2 (vol. VI) First edition. Limited to 1,000 copies. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bryant, William Cullen, 1794–1878. The letters of William Cullen Bryant. Bibliography: v. 1, p. [487]–489. Includes indexes. Contents: v. 1. 1809–1836.—v. 2. 1836–1849.—[etc.]—v. 6. 1872–1878 1. Bryant, William Cullen, 1794–1878—Correspondence. I. Bryant, William Cullen, 1908– Voss, Thomas G. PS1181.A4 1975 811′.374-27169

Printed in the United States of America

Visit us online at www.fordhampress.com.

Contents Key to Manuscript Sources Acknowledgments Bryant Chronology, 1872-1878 Bryant's Correspondents1872-1878 XXXII • Mexico, and an Election: 1872 (LETTERS

2034 TO 2107)

(LETTERS

2108

TO

2170)

(LETTERS

2171

TO

2246)

(LETTERS

2247

TO

2349)

(LETTERS

2350

TO

2451)

(LETTERS

2452

TO

2548)

(LETTERS

2549

TO

2602)

XXXIII • Doctor of Laws: 1873

XXXIV • Homage to an Octogenarian: 1874 XXXV • Public Tributes: 1875

XXXVI • An Agonizing Decision: 1876 XXXVII • "Well of English Undefiled": 1877 XXXVIII • The Rights and Duties of Human Brotherhood: 1878 Abbreviations and Short Titles Index of Recipients, Volume VI Index I llu.strations

between pages 248 and 249

VI

vn 1 3 5 94 149 198 269 337 414 459 460 464

Key to Manuscript Sources Often Cited in Footnotes ACL Amherst College Library. BLR Bryant Library, Roslyn, New York. CHS Chicago Historical Society. Columbia University Libraries. CU DuU Duke University Library. HCL Harvard College Library. HEHL Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. HLH Houghton Library, Harvard University. LC Library of Congress. MCL Mills College Library. MdHS Maryland Historical Society. MHS Massachusetts Historical Society. Minn PL Minneapolis Public Library and Information Center. MMA Metropolitan Museum of Art. NYCC New York Chamber of Commerce. NYHS New-York Historical Society. NYPL-Berg Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. NYPL-BFP Bryant Family Papers, Manuscript Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. NYPL-BG Bryant-Godwin Collection, Manuscript Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. NYPL-Bigelow John Bigelow Papers, Manuscript Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. NYPL-BPMP William Cullen Bryant Personal Miscellaneous Papers. Rare Books and Manuscripts Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. NYPL-Bryant-Moulton Letters Letters of William Cullen Bryant to Leonice M. S. Moulton, Manuscript Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. NYPL-GR Goddard-Roslyn Collection, Manuscript Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. OCL Otterbein College Library. PUL Princeton University Library. QPL Queensborough Public Library. RBHL Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial Library. SHSW State Historical Society of Wisconsin. Stanford University Library. StUL UTex Humanities Research Center Library, The University of Texas at Austin. UVa The Clifton Waller Barrett Library of the University of Virginia Library. WCL Williams College Library. WeCL Wellesley College Library. YCAL Collection of American Literature, Yale University Library.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In addition to the 112 sources of Bryant manuscript letters previously drawn upon for this edition, twenty-five institutions are represented here for the first time: the libraries of the State of Alabama Department of Archives and History; Berkshire Atheneum; Boston College; Bowling Green State University; Bryant Free Library at Cummington, Massachusetts; Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society; Concord Massachusetts Free Public Library; Enoch Pratt Library; Hartford Seminary Foundation; Rutherford B. Hayes Memorial Library; Henry Ford Museum; Lafayette College; Lincoln College; Lincoln National Life Foundation; Mississippi State Department of Archives and History; Nassau County Historical Museum; New York Chamber of Commerce; New York State Historical Association; Newark Public Library; Oneida Historical Society; Otterbein College; Smith College; Toronto Public Library; Virginia Historical Society; and the University of Washington. Grateful appreciation is due to the officials of these institutions, and to the one private collector represented herein for the first time. Letters have also been found in twenty printed sources. E. D. Lowry served as Associate Editor, j. W. Boyle was the Assistant Editor, and Richard C. Hare served as Research Assistant. Special thanks are also offered to a number of individuals who have provided services of various kinds. These include Fred Bauman, the late Douglas Bryant Boudra, Francis H: Cabot, Arnold Chapman, Earle E. Coleman, Rodger Friedman, Giovanni Giovannini, Shelley Hight, Carol Morse, Beverley Wilson Palmer, Nancy Parvin, janet Rust, Nancy Sahli, Diane W. Shaw, john R. Shea, Richard N. Sheldon, Diana Snell, john D. Stinson, Leslie Symington, jane C. Voss, and David Wallace. In addition, several persons have been from the outset of indispensable help in the preparation of this work. They are james T. Callow, H. George Fletcher, Kathleen Luhrs, Andrew B. Myers, and Mary Beatrice Schulte. Finally, a particular debt of gratitude is due to several persons and organizations whose generous contribution of funds has enabled publication of the final two volumes in this edition: Elizabeth Bryant Boudra, the late Donald Cross Bryant, june and Ashbrook Bryant, the Catholic University of America, Morris Gelfand, Margot and Eric Hawke, the Herbert L. Shulman and Barbara Silvers Foundation, Mary Frances and David Tennant, the Friends of the Bryant Library of Roslyn, New York, the Friends of the Desmond-Fish Library of Garrison, New York, the Board of Trustees ofTusculum College, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Publication support for this volume has been provided by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, National Archives.

Bryant Chronology

1872-1878

1872. Picturesque America, Volume I. January 25--(;April 15, visits Bahamas, Cuba, Mexico, New Orleans, Cincinnati. April, The Odyssey; 3, death of Samuel F. B. Morse. May 3, "Liberal Republican" convention nominates Horace Greeley for Presidency; 4, Evening Post declares Greeley unfit for office; 22, dedicates statue of Shakespeare in Central Park. June, acquires land and books for library at Cummington; 8, speaks at surprise party for Asher Durand. July 8, refuses to consider running for Presidency. September 23, speaks on reform at Cooper Union. November 4, dedicates statue of Walter Scott in Central Park; 6, President Grant re-elected; 29, death of Greeley. December 14, death of John F. Kensett; 20, death of George Palmer Putnam. 1873. Orations and Addresses. january, Cummington library completed. FebruaryApril, visits Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia. February 22, commemorates Washington's birthday. April 10, death of John R. Thompson. May 7, death of Salmon P. Chase. June, Cummington library opened; 24, dedicates Chancellor Green Library at Princeton, New Jersey, and receives LLD. degree; 27, death of Hiram Powers. Spends August and September at Cummington and gives town new road. September 9, death of Willard Phillips. 1874. Picturesque America, Volume II. Agrees to co-author a Popular History of the United States and co-edit an edition of Shakespeare's plays. January 17, addresses New York Typographical Society on Benjamin Franklin as a poet. March 11, death of Charles Sumner; 25, speaks at Cooper Union on "National Honesty." April 19, gives address on Shakespeare at Saint George's Society. June, lays foundation of public reading room as gift to Roslyn. Spends August and September at Cummington; August 1Q-(;17, visits North Bridgewater and Plymouth. November 3, is honored on eightieth birthday; 28, death of Jonathan Sturges. 1875. Evening Post occupies new building at Broadway and Fulton Street. February 6-8, is honored at Albany by Governor Tilden and state legislature. March, addresses organization meeting of State Charities Aid Society. April19, offers epitaph for Poe monument at Baltimore; 20, death of Joseph W. Moulton. Spends August and September at Cummington; completes road to West Cummington. August 27, speaks at Goethe centennial. September, Christiana Gibson visits Cummington Homestead. October 29, entertains Richard Moncton Milnes, first Baron Houghton, at Roslyn. 1876. January, revised edition of Library of Poetry and Song; speaks at Burns Club. April, calls for conference on worthy candidates for election; 19, speaks on Shakespeare's birthday. May, composes "Centennial Hymn" and visits site of Philadelphia celebration. june 20, receives Bryant Vase; 26-28, presides at Williamstown as president of college alumni association. July, "The Flood of Years." August 28, declines invitation to become Tilden presidential elector, but calls him best qualified candidate. September 30, elected to Archeological Society of Athens. November 7, Tilden-Hayes election indecisive. A Popular History of the United States, Volume I. 1877. March 3, Hayes declared elected. May-June, "Abraham Cowley" published in

2

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

North American Review; May 15, dedicates statue of Fitz-Greene Halleck in Central Park. June 26, gives Bryant Literary Prize at Layfayette College. September, declines presidency of American Red Cross. 1878. February, elected honorary member of American Library Association; President Hayes requests plans of Cummington library; 22, writes verses for Washington's birthday. March-April, gives speeches honoring John G. Chapman and Bayard Taylor. April 23, composes verse tribute to Cervantes. May, reorganization of Evening Post; 29, suffers fatal fall after dedicating bust of Giuseppe Mazzini in Central Park. June 12, Bryant's death; 14, his funeral.

Bryant's Correspondents

1872-1878

DuRING THIS PERIOD, which comprised the last six and one-half years of his life, Bryant is known to have written 680 letters to about 318 recipients, of which 569 are printed in this volume. As far as can be determined, no letters of significance are unrecovered, save for a series of forty-three concerning the construction and equipment of the library he gave to his native village of Cummington, Massachusetts, in 1872-1873, which he addressed to its designated librarian. These were offered for sale some years ago, but their present whereabouts is unknown. Bryant's main correspondents were now his two daughters and his brother John, to whom he addressed about sixty letters, and several women of long acquaintance-Jerusha Dewey, Christiana and Janet Gibson, Leonice Moulton, and Anna Waterston-who were the confidantes, in forty-five letters, of his intimate thoughts on varied subjects. This was particularly true in the case of the widowed Mrs. Moulton, a long-time friend nearly twenty years his junior, and apparently an attractive and stimulating personality-though her letters to him are unrecovered. Other old friends with whom Bryant was not so often in touch were George Bancroft, Richard Dana, Orville Dewey, John Gourlie, and Henry Longfellow. Bryant's unremitting literary activity in the eighth and ninth decades of his life is reflected in over one hundred letters to editors, authors, publishers, and illustrators. These were principally the result of his involvement with such works as his Orations and Addresses ( 1873), a revised edition of the Library of Poetry and Song (187~1878), a final edition of his Poems (1876), and particularly the four-volume Popular History of the United States, two volumes of which were completed before his death. His collaborator in this ambitious effort, Sydney Howard Gay, was the recipient of forty detailed commentaries on English style which give a clearer picture of Bryant's standards of diction than the so-called Index Expurgatorious he had drawn up to guide writers on his journal. Many of Bryant's letters were responses to requests to comment on or arrange publication of verses sent him by would-be poets; the few such responses printed herein are simply representative of the many he wrote patiently. In addition, he was often urged to compose verses for public occasions, and in several cases, such as petitions from J. C. Derby and William Dean Howells, to write memoirs for magazines they edited. In two instances-the presidential campaigns of 1872 and 1876--Bryant departed from his then customary detachment from political issues. The first was the nomination for the Presidency of so unlikely a candidate as Tribune editor Horace Greeley, in opposition to the incumbent Ulysses Grant. This so astonished and disgusted Bryant that he brushed aside the Evening Post's

4

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

editorial writers and wrote a scathing attack on Greeley's principles and his person. Some of his letters to friends echoed these strictures. A surprising by-product of the Greeley choice was a movement in the press to draft Bryant as a candidate, scotched only· when he wrote in his paper that it was "impossible" he should "commit the folly" of accepting a nomination. In 1876 he faced a bitter dilemma when his newspaper's endorsement of the Republican Presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes put it in opposition to the Democratic candidacy of his close friend and earlier political associate Samuel Tilden. As Bryant met this problem in letters to friends and others who sought his opinion, it became clear that he thought Tilden the better candidate. And, although the Evening Post stood by the Republican ticket, it was thought by his intimates that Bryant either abstained from voting or cast his ballot for his friend.

XXXII Mexico, and an Election 1872 (LETTERS 2034 TO 2107)

EARLY IN jANUARY BRYANT COMPLAINED TO DANA that he was SO pestered by the "inconveniences of notoriety" that he was about to escape by visiting the Bahamas, and perhaps Cuba and Mexico. He wrote that requests to criticize a poem, sign an autograph, compose an ode, make a speech, attend a dinner, or explain his verses were "like mosquitoes in your room at night; they break your quiet whether they bite you or not." So, taking Julia, and her cousin Anna Fairchild, and accompanied by his brother John and John Durand, he left New York on January 25 on the Morro Castle for Nassau. Many of their fellow passengers, among them General George McClellan, Senator John Stockton of New Jersey, and Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, were guests of president A. W. Dimmick of the Atlantic Steamship Line, and were going on to Cuba. But Bryant with his party disembarked at Nassau, where for two weeks they visited schools, sponge markets, and pineapple, sugar, and coconut plantations. They were struck by the lushness of the verdure on an island formed wholly of coral, and by the indolence of its people. Perhaps quitting their shipboard companions had been induced by the rough passage from New York, during which seas swept over the ship's forecastle and carried off one of a number of horses tethered there. Leaving Nassau on the steamer Missouri, they sailed to Havana, which Bryant found greatly changed from the city he had seen in 1849. Whereas there had then been no decent hotel by American standards, now there were several, and the city was busier than any Spanish town he knew--even Barcelona. On his earlier visit Bryant had been diverted by the tearful, wailing processions of Holy Week; now he was impressed by a carnival on the first Sunday in Lent, with its "grotesque masks-ladies powdered, patched, and whitened with cascarilla." With some concern, he heard at the office of the Associated Press of dangers from robbers on the route he would take from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. But he was reassured by American and British consular officers, who denied the truth in such reports. So, after being feted by journalists and government officials, and meeting the "iron-fisted" Count of Valmaseda, just then suppressing a rebellion against Spanish rule, and seeing officers of the American fleet, which was at anchor in the harbor, Bryant and his male companions sailed on the Corsica for Vera Cruz, leaving Julia and Anna at the comfortable San Carlos Hotel, which they preferred to the prospect of a rough and perhaps dangerous journey to the Mexican capital.

6

LEITERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

After a four-day voyage across the Gulf of Mexico to Vera Cruz, the travelers went ashore in a boat sent by the port captain at the request of Bryant's friend Matias Romero, former Mexican minister to Washington, and now minister of finance in the government, who had asked that a lookout be kept for Bryant's arrival. During his stay in the United States from 1859 to 1867, Romero had courted American aid for Mexico, first to repel French troops who had installed the Emperor Maximilian on a Mexican throne in 1863, and, after that puppet of Napoleon III had been defeated and executed by Benito Juarez, for financial aid and investment. Throughout that period Bryant had been Romero's steady supporter both in his journal and in person. In 1863 and 1864 he helped arrange banquets in New York at which Romero met merchants and government officials; upon Romero's departure in 1867 Bryant hailed "this gentleman" who possessed "an ability worthy of a great cause, and a fortitude and constancy of purpose equal to his ability." Accounts of each of these occasions were reported in both New York and Mexico City. Though Bryant's unofficial visit to Mexico in 1872 was simply the reflection of a long fascination with the Spanish language and culture, through unforeseen circumstances it became the subject of speculation by both the Juarez government and its opponents. On the day of his arrival at Vera Cruz he wrote Julia that a Mexican paper had printed a report from the United States that he came "in a diplomatic capacity-with instructions to negotiate the dismemberment of the republic." Under the dateline January 2 from Washington a leading newspaper, Siglio XIX, had carried a report that there was to be a sellout in the United States Mixed Claims Commission of Mexican territory, and that President Grant was seeking a personal emissary to close the deal, probably Bryant. This was taken up by another journal, with the implication that Bryant sympathized with the New York Herald's touted policy of "Manifest Destiny." A third paper defended Bryant's integrity and stressed his long support of Mexico since the war of 1846-1848. Adherents of the rebel Porfirio Diaz linked Juarez and Romero to the rumors of betrayal. It seems not to have been widely known in Mexico that two years earlier Bryant had declined nomination as umpire under a convention of 1868 to adjudicate claims arising from the Mexican-American War; nor would his critics have been aware of his longstanding aversion to public office. Against this background of misunderstanding, it is noteworthy that, after a tedious trip from Vera Cruz, Bryant's ten-day stay in the capital city should have turned quickly into a modest triumph. Newspapers ran sketches of his life and career. Several of his poems and prose tales-although not among his best-were hastily translated and published (unfortunately, excellent Spanish versions of "Thanatopsis" and "To a Waterfowl," rendered in 1867 by the poet Ignacio Marical, were not among these). The poet and political writer Guillermo Prieto published a laudatory account of Bryant's defense of Mexico against the French invaders of 1863. At a concert of the Philharmonic Society he was made an honorary member, and after addressing a prestigious group of writers and artists, the Geographical and Statistical Society, partly

Mexico, and an Election

7

in Spanish, he was elected to that organization as well. These were the least strenuous of his activities, for, often with the guidance of the American Secretary of Legation Porter Cornelius Bliss, a veteran of Spanish-American residence and learning, he visited schools, museums, hospitals, cemeteries, a state funeral, country estates, and banquets given by officials and private citizens. The climax came two days before his departure when Matias Romero presented the Bryant party to President Benito Juarez. Bryant described his host as a strikingly fine example of the Aztec race, and was impressed by the courtesy with which, "taking both my hands in his he said: 'Remember, Sefior, that in me you have a servant and a friend.'" Juarez' comments on the current rebellion against his government, and the country's need for capital development and skilled labor, led Bryant to discuss these matters at length in letters to the Evening Post. It is a measure of Bryant's vigor and stamina in his seventy-eighth year that, in addition to days and evenings of strenuous activity throughout his visit, he found the time and energy to send six long letters in as many days to his journal, as well as others to his hosts. A note to M~or George W. Clarke, editor of the English language paper The Two Republics, enclosed at Clarke's request the text of Bryant's remarks at the Geographical Society. After Bryant left, Clarke noted the significance of his visit in words not much different from those printed in several of the city's Spanish language journals. "We believe," he said, "that no foreigner ever was the subject, in this capital, of a warmer, a more sincere and elegant reception .... He came ... with none of the prestige of a great politician .... The honors and hospitality which were so lavishly and generously conferred upon him ... were the spontaneous outpouring of a grateful people, who ... had not forgotten that when Mexico was friendless Mr. Bryant became her friend." Following this encomium Clarke printed Bryant's note of gratitude to his hosts in "this interesting city ... with a sense of regret that I have not been able to study more at leisure, its political and social condition, and its other peculiarities.'' Returning to the coast by way of Orizaba and Cordova, Bryant wrote Romero from Vera Cruz thanking him for his hospitality, and for an armed escort which had ensured a pleasant journey "without molestation." At Havana Bryant's party rejoined Julia and Anna, and on April 2 sailed for New Orleans on the Hamburg liner Germania--all save John Bryant, who had left earlier on another ship. During the voyage Bryant talked with Episcopal bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple of Minnesota, an advocate of better conditions for the Sioux and Chippewa tribes, who thought the Indians of the United States were in general "badly treated beyond belief.'' At New Orleans on April 5 Bryant put up at the Saint Charles Hotel. He walked around the old French quarter with an acquaintance who entertained him later at the Jockey Club. In the evening he was the guest of Louisiana governor Henry Clay Warmoth, an Illinois man then under criticism for trying to harmonize the interests of blacks and whites. On the eighth the Bryant party boarded a Mississippi River steamboat for the return home. Though Bryant's diary entries cease at this point, an admiring Governor

8

LETTERS oF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

Rutherford B. Hayes recorded his impressions of the traveler in a reception given Bryant in Cincinnati. Bryant's first important public act after reaching New York was a speech on May 22 at the dedication of J. Q. A. Ward's statue of Shakespeare on the Mall in Central Park. In this he confessed his absorption with such a great mind as "the Maker of all sometimes sends upon the earth and among mankind, as if to show us of what vast enlargement the faculties of the human intellect are capable." It was Bryant's penultimate tribute to the genius whose works he would thereafter reread in entirety before editing, with Evert Duyckinck, the Complete Works of Shakespeare, lavishly illustrated and published in three volumes after his death. Later that year he spoke at the unveiling of a statue of Walter Scott, also in the park. A project central to Bryant's interest in the town of his birth and in public education took much of his time this year-the gift of a library to Cummington. In June, still seeking a site for the building, he had collected and forwarded to his Homestead for storage I ,600 volumes, later augmented by 2,000 more which his friend the publisher George Palmer Putnam acquired for him in London. After his Homestead superintendent Francis Dawes had found him a centrally located eleven-acre lot, work began on a library of brick and stone, a barn, and a librarian's home of poured concreteone of the first such structures in New England. Engaging a local woman to catalogue his collection, Bryant undertook a careful concern with each step in the process. On the Evening Post's job press he printed cataloging slips, regulations to be pasted in each book, and certificates defining rules for borrowers. He even advised Mrs. Nahmer, the cataloguer, on the safest manner of cutting the leaves of new volumes. When the list of 3,618 volumes was completed in January 1873, he printed it between hard covers on the "Evening Post Steam Presses." His selection of titles ensured that the collection would be entertaining as well as educative. Some of his comments to Mrs. Nahmer were amusing as well as revealing. Directing her to omit one book and send another to his Homestead library, he remarked of a third, "Do what you please with the book of Lola Montez [notorious mistress of "Mad King" Ludwig of Bavaria], but do not include it in the catalogue nor in the collection-Burn it or keep it-I do not want it." He stipulated that his gift to the town should be called simply the "Cummington Library," but after his death the townspeople renamed his benefaction the "Bryant Library." 1872 was a presidential election year. Though Bryant, with other progressive Republicans, opposed the renomination of President Grant because of growing evidence of corruption in his administration, he deplored the rival candidacy of editor Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, for whom he had little respect. The day after Greeley's nomination on May 3 by a "Liberal Republican Convention," Bryant cut short a staff discussion of who would comment by saying, "I will write that editorial myself." His remarks were scathing. Greeley, he charged, lacked courage, firmness, and consistency; his course during the Civil War had been one long wobble. His

Mexico, and an Election

9

associates were so bad that he couldn't avoid corruption; he had no settled principles except that he was "a thorough-going, bigoted protectionist." Abhorrent to Bryant, finally, was the "grossness of his manners," by which Allan Nevins has supposed Bryant meant "a certain Johnsonian grossness which he thought Greeley permitted himself in the drawing room." After writing this denunciation, Bryant remarked to his associates "with a quiet twinkle, 'Well, there are some good points in Grant's administration, after all.' " During the following months Bryant's letters reiterated his disgust with Greeley's candidacy. He termed it as "among the strange vagaries of the times," an "act of gross folly," a "grave discredit to American politics." And, although his preferred candidates to head the Republican ticket in November were the wartime ambassador to Great Britain Charles Francis Adams, Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, or Governor John Palmer of that state, in this order, his newspaper reluctantly supported Grant. A surprising corollary to widespread distrust of the Greeley candidacy were reports in the press that Bryant himself would be put forward as a candidate by Republican leaders dissatisfied with both Grant and Greeley. This led Bryant to print in the Evening Post a "card" rejecting these stories with a finality equaling such later denials as those by General William T. Sherman and Calvin Coolidge, and surpassing these in grace and wit. "The idea is absurd enough," he declared, "not only on account of my advanced age, but of my unfitness in various respects for the labor of so eminent a post. I do not, however, object to the discussion of my deficiencies on any other ground than that it is altogether superfluous, since it is impossible that I should receive any formal nomination, and equally impossible, if it were offered, that I should commit the folly of accepting it.'' Bryant's poetic output in 1872 was limited to two Indian legends, printed in the New York Ledger. His only other literary exercise, and a notable one, was his agreement with the Appletons to write a preface and oversee the letterpress for a two-volume series of descriptive essays on American scenes illustrated by landscape artists with many drawings and steel engravingsnotable as perhaps the final effort of its magnitude to pit the graphic artist against the photographer. Two compliments may be noted here to suggest Bryant's eminence just then in letters and journalism. One correspondent urged him, as "the most prominent literary man of our country," the "editor of one of the most influential journals in America," to "undertake a reformation of the orthography and pronunciation of our language"-a task Bryant declined as almost sure to fail. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., wrote of Bryant, "I doubt if there is a man living whose opinions and actions on the slave question have had more influence on the educated thoughtful man than Mr. Bryant's."

10

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

2034.

To Theodore Weston 1

Dear Sir,

New York Jany. 4th 1872.

I would come to the meeting of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum this evening if I could, but the Century meets tonight, and I am its President, and the same subject which occasions the meeting of the Trustees of the Museum will come up, and my absence will hardly be consistent with a proper decorum. Yours very truly, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: MMA ADDREss: Theodore Weston Esq. I Seery protem.

1. Recording Secretary of the Metropolitan Museum. See 1938.1.

2035.

To Robert Bonner 1

My dear sir.

New York Jany 11th

1872.

I have received the accompanying manuscript from Mr. George Harvey the artist2 with a request that I should put it into your hands as a contribution to the Ledger. If it should be accepted he would expect some compensation. If it should be declined, may I ask of you the favor of returning it to me at the office of the Evening Post. 3 I am sir, very truly yours W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: QPL ADDRESS: Robt. Bonner Esq. DOCKETED: }any 11, 1872 / Wm Cullen Bryant. 1. Editor/publisher of the popular New York Ledger, which had published a number of Bryant's poems and prose writings. See 1137.1. 2. A British friend of Bryant's. See 553.2. 3. Harvey's manuscript is unidentified.

2036.

To Mary L. Bolles Branch 1

Dear Madam.

The Evening Post 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, Jany. 18 1872.

I did not make the compilation called the "Library of Poetry & Song" nor give it its name nor verify the authorship of the poems which compose it. I was only employed to write the introduction, in doing which I advised some one of some of the poems collected and a

Mexico, and an Election

11

few additions. I have no power over the book, but I have sent your letter2 to Mr. JR. Howard of the firm of J. B. Ford & Co publishers in this city, who has had as much [to] do with the compilation as any body, and have recommended that in the next edition the poem be ascribed to you. I have not the volume at hand and am so busy, being, about to sail for the West Indies that I have no time to look up the poem for the purpose you mention. 3 Yours respectfully W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

Smith College Library.

1. Mrs. John L. Branch, the mother of Anna Hempstead Branch (1875-1937, Smith 1897), who was later the first Century prize-winning college poet. 2. Unrecovered. 3. A poem, "The Petrified Fern," published as "Anonymous" in early editions of Bryant's Library of Poetry and Song, was later credited in the 1880 edition, p. 863, to Mary L. Bolles Branch.

2037. To Richard H. Dana

Dear Dana.

New York January 18th

1872.

Your last letter 1 1 have not yet answered. As I am about to leave the country for a few weeks I make it a matter of duty first to pay up my debts. I have taken passage for Nassau in the Bahamas. Julia goes with me and a young lady her cousin, 2 and my brother John. We may go--or probably my brother and myself will probably go farther, and after a short stay at Nassau proceed to Havana and thence to Vera Cruz and from Vera Cruz to the city of Mexico, partly by rail and partly by diligence. I am assured that the road is now perfectly safe and not especially fatiguing even for an old man like me. Of late the inconveniences of notoriety have multiplied upon me, and I shall be glad to get away from them a little while. They keep me writing letters at too much expense of time. Now it is an autograph that they want, then my opinion of a poem which they have written and sent me in manuscript; at one time I am asked to write an ode for an anniversary, at another time a letter in favor of somebody who wants an office. Then I must answer somebody who wants to be a correspondent of the Evening Post or a place on its editorial staff, and again I must write to decline an invitation to attend a public meeting and make a speech, or a public dinner, and next I am asked what is the true meaning of some verse which I have been so unfortunate as to write. I dare say others are pestered like me with these little

12

LETTERS

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

annoyances. They are like mosquitoes in your room at night; they break your quiet whether they bite you or not. I was very sorry to have such an account as you have given me of your daughter's health, and earnestly hope that she is now free from the suffering of which you spoke. The injuries which we receive from violent shocks and bruises of the body often leave a tendency to pains in the nerves which make one miserable for a long time. Julia's young cousin, who goes with us to the Bahamas has been a great sufferer from that cause. She was thrown out of a carriage and much hurt more than two years since and has not quite recovered from the effects of it yet. ... 3 MANUSCRIPTS: NYPL-GR (partial final and draft copies). I. Apparently that dated December 27, 1871 (NYPL-BG), in which Dana had introduced his "manly" grandson, a Harvard sophomore. 2. Anna R. Fairchild, a daughter of Frances Bryant's late brother Egbert N. Fairchild. See 134.2. 3. The balance of this letter has apparently been clipped.

2038.

To Christiana Gibson 1

My dear Miss Gibson,

New York

January 20th

1872

All your friends on this side of the sea will deeply sympathize with you and the other members of your family in the loss which you have met with. 2 These are sorrows which no previous preparation can steel us against. The blow although expected, is severe when it comes. Yet if we did not see our friends leaving us, one by one, how unwilling we should be to die. You speak of the death of Mr. Tuckerman. 3 Few persons could be so much missed from our circle of friends in New York as he. He was always doing kind things; I have heard of many such since he left us. Then his conversation was always interesting; he kept up with every thing that was going on in society, in the world of letters, of arts and of politics, and had some judgment of his own to give on every subject, which we were glad to hear. His disorder was pneumonia. A short time before his death, only four or five days, he sent me a little article for the Evening Post concerning the productions of Mrs. Carson's pencil. 4 Mrs. Carson, you may know, is the daughter of the late Mr. Pettigrew of Charleston, 5 and has lately come before the public as an artist. Soon afterwards, I heard that he was quite ill, at the house of his cousin, Mr. Lucius Tuckerman, and I think it was little more than twenty-four hours after this, that we had the news of his

Mexico, and an Election

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death. His relatives found him at the hotel where he had his rooms, and desiring to look to his comfort, had him conveyed to his cousin's, where he had every attention that a sick man could have. His disorder, though not at first very alarming, ran its course rapidly. I was at his funeral, where Dr. Bellows 6 spoke with great feeling of the many excellent and amiable qualities of his character. I have taken passage for myself and four others for Nassau in the Bahamas. From Nassau my brother, John Durand and myself, and Julia and her cousin Miss Fairchild, if I can persuade them, will proceed to Havana, there to take one of the steam vessels which make the voyage to Vera Cruz on the mainland. From Vera Cruz we expect to go on to the city of Mexico, partly by rail and the rest of the way by diligence. Our return will be by way of New Orleans, which I have not yet seen. If Julia should not care to go further, I shall leave the two young ladies at Nassau, to join us on our return at Havana. I am assured that the journey from Vera Cruz to Mexico may be made at this time with perfect safety. You must have had reason to be ashamed of us when you read the astonishing accounts of the enormous fraud committed by the swindlers, who had got the government of the city into their hands. But we have reformed all that, and now it is the fashion to smite corruption almost every where and to pry into it and expose it. I hope that good will come of it all. I wish you were of our party in the expedition to Mexico. I should then be sure of as agreeable a journey through that country, as we made together through Wales. 7 Julia sends love and the expression of her sympathy to you all. Remember me most kindly to your mother and to all those of your household. I am, dear Miss Gibson, very truly yours, W. C. BRYANT NYPL-BPMP ADDRESS: Miss Christiana Gibson Jan. 20 - 1872 I Death I of Tuckerman.

MANUSCRIPT:

ENDORSED:

Mr. Bryant I

I. A Scottish schoolteacher, formerly of New York but now living in Crieff, Scotland, where Bryant had visited her and her family in 1867. See 502.3. 2. Apparently the death of one of Christiana's three sisters. 3. The American art critic and essayist Henry T. Tuckerman (944.1) had died in 1871. 4. Charlotte Petigru (Mrs. William A.) Carson (1819-post 1880), a portrait and miniature painter of Charleston, South Carolina, had worked in New York City since 1860.

LETTERS oF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

14

5. James Louis Petigru (1789-1863, South Carolina College 1809), a distinguished Charleston lawyer and strong Unionist throughout his life. 6. Rev. Henry W. Bellows (734.3). 7. In July and August 1867. See Letters 1717-1719.

2039.

To George P. Marsh 1

To the Hon. George P. Marsh.

New York 1872

January 20th

My dear Sir. This note will be handed to you by Miss Laura T. Leupp, who visits Europe with her two younger sisters, Miss Isabella and Miss Margaret Leupp. 2 They intend to make Italy their residence for a considerable time. They are much esteemed friends of myself and my family, and I write to ask for them those acts of kindness which your station as the representative of our republic in Italy enables you to perform for the people of our country. I am sir very truly yours W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-Crane Family Papers ADDRESS: To the Hon. George P. Marsh. 1. American minister to Italy since 1861. See 828.7, 1269.2. 2. Daughters of Bryant's late friend and traveling companion Charles M. Leupp. See 421.1, 1111.1, Volume V, p. 67.

2040.

To Enoch C. Wines 1

My dear Sir

The Evening Post 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, January 22 1872

I should have no objection to be one of the Vice Presidents of the meeting on Friday Evening2 only I am expecting to sail for the Bahamas on the day before, so that it will be impossible for me to be present. I will see that attention is properly called to the meeting which is an important one. 3 I am, Sir, truly yours W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: Pennsylvania Historical Society ADDRESS: Dr. E. C. Wines. 1. Enoch Cobb Wines (1806-1879), a Congregational clergyman and prison reformer, was secretary of the National Prison Association, cl870-1877.

Mexico, and an Election

15

2. This meeting of the National Prison Association at Steinway Hall, presided over by Horatio Seymour (1299.2), was reported in the EP for January 27. 3. Bryant's evident interest in prison reform dated from 1844, when he had been elected president of the New York Society for the Abolition of the Punishment of Death. See Volume II [1], 190.

2041. To Mrs. M. G. DeHaro 1

My dear Mrs. De Haro.

New York January 24, 1872

I return with this note, the copy of Senor Vicuna's translation of the Evangeline of Longfellow, 2 which you were so kind as to lend me and which seems to me beautiful. I am much obliged to you for the opportunity of reading the work in your noble idiom. I also thank you for the two charming poems which you were so obliging as to copy for me with your own hand. I am about to sail for the Bahamas to be absent about two months. I am, dear Madam, very truly yours. W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

ACL ADDREss: Mrs. M. G. DeHaro.

1. Unidentified. 2. Evangeline: romance de la Acadia. Traducido del ingeles . .. por Carlos Morla Vicuna (Bogota, 1888) is the earliest edition listed in the National Union Catalogue.

2042. To the

EvENING

PosT

Nassau, New Providence, February 5, 1872.

We arrived at this place on Tuesday, the 30th of January, after a signally rough passage, during one day of which our steamer, the Morro Castle, made scarcely any progress. Yet she is a good sea-boat and, though with a good deal of motion, rode the waves well, rough as they were. Once she shipped a sea, the effect of which was described to me by a passenger who happened to be on deck at the time. The water swept over that part of the bows where twenty horses were standing. There appeared a man in that quarter, shouting at the top of his voice, and gesticulating violently. Another man ran forward from the after part of the steamer, exclaiming, "All overboard!" which startled the passenger, who supposed that some of the crew were lost. It appeared that the wave had swept one of the horses from his place, and that the affrighted animal had leaped into the sea. A horse in a high sea in mid-ocean is a helpless creature; nothing could be done, and the steamer passed on.

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

The land was a welcome sight to our somewhat woful-looking company of passengers early on Tuesday morning. We cast anchor among the semicircular curves of coral rock, green with a scanty vegetation, mostly of shrubs. The sea in this region is full of such rocks; they count them by thousands, and there are more than two thousand islands of different sizes composing the cluster of the Bahamas. The approach to the town presented a pleasant view, with its white stuccoed and sometimes whitewashed buildings among the fruit trees-the mamey, the sapodilla, the mango and the avo[c]ado pear, with the cocoa palm towering above them all. We landed amidst a crowd of several hundred persons thronging the wharf, mostly colored. A barouche took us up a declivity over a well-macadamized road, between rows of colored people on each side, smiling and nodding, to the Victoria Hotel, kept by Mr. Cleaveland, where our party was soon settled comfortably in a little cottage, a dependency of the hotel. I had scarce time to look about me when an American acquaintance who was staying at the hotel, and whose carriage stood at the door, invited me and another of our party to take a drive. "Will you drive about the town, or into the country?" he asked. "Into the country," was the answer, and into the country we went. I never saw finer roads, smooth and as hard as rock; in fact, the rock in many places comes to the surface, and all that needs to be done is to fill up the holes with which it is penetrated, and make a gutter on each side. A company of convicts, called the chain-gang, keep them in order. We passed here and there enclosures of fruit trees surrounded by high walls, topped with a row of broken bottles, which seemed to imply that but for such a safeguard the passer-by might help himself to what was within. On each side of the road were habitations of the colored people, who literally swarmed in the highway, sauntering about, or sitting at their doors, or windows, or standing in groups, as many women as men; the women tall and spare, as tall as the other sex and wonderfully erect, the shoulders thrown back and the chest brought forward, an attitude acquired by balancing on their heads the burdens which they carry to market or elsewhere. Some of them trailed as long skirts as were ever seen in a New York drawing-room. I think I have never seen in any part of the world what appeared to be so lazy a population, and what I have since learned convinces me that the appearance is by no means deceptive. Of all whom I saw in this drive only one was at work, and he was mending a breach in a stone fence next to the road. As we went on we saw what the island is made of. It is a coral rock, upheaved in gentle undulations above the level of the sea, and covered in most parts by a thin coating of soil. At the surface these

Mexico, and an Election

17

rocks are for the most part perforated with innumerable holes, from the diameter of a man's finger to that of his wrist or ankle, which often contain all the soil on which the plants and trees depend for their nourishment. Into these holes the orange and other trees insert their roots and flourish and bear fruit. When a man dies at Nassau, a grave is cut for him in the coral rock, the chips of which are returned to cover his coffin, and he sleeps with the millions of coral insects by whom these vast masses were built up, thousands of years ago, from the bottom of the sea, to be first their habitation and then their tomb. One of the most remarkable sights seen by the newly-arrived visitor is the brilliant blue tint of the sea as beheld from the shore in a clear day. It is of a brighter blue than I have seen anywhere in the waters of the Mediterranean, seeming as if lighted by an indwelling beam. I could only compare its color to that of the globular vessels of glass in an apothecary's window, filled with a blue liquid and placed in front of a gaslight. Our way was for a little distance beside waters thus beautifully tinged. One of the curiosities seen on this drive was the banyan tree, which all travellers must see, and which, though not large, is a good example of its kind. The long, horizontal branches send down slender twigs in search of the earth, which reach it and root themselves there, and increasing in size become auxiliary trunks, supporting the branches. There are at least a dozen of these on the tree which we saw. Not far from this I saw a solitary house, pleasantly situated, and made some inquiry concerning it. "That," said my friend, "is a house to which, in conformity to a singular custom prevailing in Nassau, newly-married couples go to pass the honeymoon. They take a servant or two and steal away from the town to this place, from which, after a becoming period is passed, they come forth again. There is nobody there now, but it will be occupied soon, for the rector of one of the churches in Nassau is to be married in a few days." We took the market of Nassau on our way home. "It is a meagre show that our fruit market makes," said my friend. "A hurricane which swept over the island last August uprooted many of the fruit trees, and stripped the fruit from more of them;" and truly the display of fruit was rather disappointing. Yet this was not altogether the fault of the hurricane. There are between forty and fifty different species of edible fruits raised on the island, of which twenty-three are indigenous, yet few of them are ripe at this season. Near to the market are the low warehouses in which lie heaps of sponge ready to be sent from the island. Men go out in boats to the coral reefs, detach the sponges from the rocks to which they cling, squeeze out the salt water, string them on ropes and bring them in boats to the town, from which they are almost immediately sent to the

18

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

old continent or the new. "The sponge trade and the pineapple trade," said the intelligent person who showed us the separate heaps of sponge and explained their different qualities, "are all that we have to depend on in our intercourse with foreign countries, and these two are nearly equal in importance. Our rocks under water abound with sponge, and our soil produces excellent pineapples. We send a few oranges abroad; but that trade is of little consequence." One might, perhaps, expect that the colored population would apply themselves to the culture of the pineapple, which yields sure returns, but in those parts of the island which they inhabit I have seen no indication of this. The pineapple requires careful garden culture, and this does not agree with their indolent dispositions. They have patches of ground close to their dwellings, where they might cultivate them; but they prefer to live from hand to mouth, on a chance cocoanut, on a stick or two of sugar-cane, on wild fruit found in the thickets, and now and then a fish caught on the shore. I saw a sturdy-looking lad the other morning in the market tearing in pieces, with his fine teeth, a stick of sugar-cane a foot and a half in length. "How many of these can you eat in a day?" I asked. "Four." "And each one costs a cent?" "Yes, but I don't get nothin' else to eat, boss." I have been assured that at this season, when fruit is not plenty, many of these people subsist entirely on sugar-cane. When they were emancipated, thirty-four years since, they simply thought that to be free was not to be obliged to work, and they seem to cling to that fancy yet. Life is so easily supported in this climate, with such slight clothing and so little shelter, and food so cheaply obtained, that there seems but little probability of this race ever betaking themselves to regular industry. With two of our party I strolled on the day of our arrival through Granttown, a district inhabited altogether by the negro population. Every dwelling has its plot of ground planted with fruit trees, including the banana and plantain, but these are often intermingled with idle shrubs, that here in Nassau take the place of weeds in our gardens, and keep green all the year, and the inhabitants often decline the trouble of extirpating them. Seen from an eminence Granttown looks like a ragged forest dotted with the roofs of houses. We found here one man at work, an old man, eighty years old he "believed" he was. He had cleared away the shrubs from a small piece of ground to be planted with bananas, and was busily gathering loose fragments of the perforated rock which formed the basis of the soil and peeped out on the surface. These he used to mend the stone fence which kept out the pigs that ranged the surrounding forest. We entered into conversation with him. His name, he said, was Antonio Edinbro; he was born in Florida, born free, migrated to Cuba when the United States took

Mexico, and an Election

19

possession of Florida, and afterwards came to this place. "I live alone here, master, alone wid God. My wife died standin' at her washtub; my son died wid a cough; my daughter she died, and I am alone wid God. I do dis because I must do someting for a livin'. And now, please give an old man a few cents." They reckon money here in dollars and cents as in the United States. We wanted a green cocoanut, to try the milk. The old man shouted for Adam, and Adam came, a boy ten years old, in a brown shirt, his only clothing. "Here, Adam, take dis gentleman's knife and climb dis tree and cut off two cocoanuts, de biggest." Adam obeyed, embracing the tree with his dusky arms and legs; but before he could reach the pendent nuts it became a pretty serious question whether he should proceed further or slip down the smooth bole of the tree to the ground. The old man encouraged him with words much as a ploughman encourages his cattle, and at last the nuts were reached and cut off and came to the ground, and we bore them home in triumph. The next day we climbed an eminence overlooking the town, to an old fort which commanded some beautiful views of the island in different directions. Seen from this spot the greater part of the island appears to lie in forest, with here and there an opening of pastureland or a small field cleared of wood and planted with the pineapple. In fact, large tracts, as we afterwards found, are not cultivated at all, but are overgrown with a dense thicket of low trees. We descended on the northern side of the eminence till we found ourselves in a broad field planted with fruit trees, where a man was at work, whom we asked to show us to the highway. He took us through a little gate, when we suddenly found ourselves in the presence of a venerable man of majestic stature, who courteously bowed and asked if we would like to see the grounds. This, of course, was exactly what we wanted. So he took us from place to place, showing us the various trees and plants of the tropics which he had collected in the course of a long life, for he was born on the island, and all of which were to us novelties and curiosities. He dismissed us at the gate close to a large banyan-tree. "This," said he, "is of the sort that we call the embrant. It never springs from the ground; the seed vegetates on the top of a wall or on the branch of a tree, and sends down shoots to the ground, which root themselves there. Here, you see, it has clasped and strangled the tree on which it was born. This tree, which has died in its embrace, was that which we call the Pride of India." We then took our leave, our aged entertainer bidding us come again whenever we pleased, bringing our friends with us. The same day our party followed one of the lanes leading from the principal highway that passes by our hotel, until they reached the

20

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

house of a man named McKennon, who cultivates the sweet orange, and the fruit resembling the orange called grape-fruit. Close to the house are the ruins of an old church built by his grandfather, a black man, of the coral rock, in which he gathered a Baptist congregation and preached to them. A terrible whirlwind, which in 1866 devastated the island, lifted off its roof and threw down its walls. It never was rebuilt again, and its dusky worshippers sought another place for their meetings. Descending a steep rock from this place we came upon· an abandoned plantation, where stood the remains of a mansion of considerable extent, ruined and roofless, in which the founder of the old church once lived. The stretching boughs of the useless banyan tree overshadowed the place, and ants built their habitations, as large almost as haystacks, on the highest part of the ruins. Indeed, the whole island bears marks of a much higher and more general cultivation than it now receives. Remains of dwellings are seen among the thickets, and stone fences, mossy with time and full of breaches, uselessly divide the waste places. Some years since a great deal of cotton was raised on these islands, but they produce cotton no longer. The thin soil soon became exhausted, the country fell back upon the fruit trees. I have left myself but little space to speak of the climate, which at this season is delightful. We have here the temperature of early June throughout the winter, and the variations of heat and cold are but slight. The Bahamas lie in the same latitude as the southern extremity of the peninsula of Florida. They have a tropical vegetation, but they are not within the tropics, nor do they feel the fierce sunshine which scorches the fields of Cuba. The three coldest months are January, February and March, and those have a temperature like that which with us marks the transition from spring to summer. This place becomes more and more, with every year, the resort of invalids from the United States, who seek to escape the rigors of a northern winter. At some time not far distant this will become one of the most thronged watering-places in the world. I send this by the steamer Morro Castle, in which we came to Nassau. The passage was stormy, but we all had confidence in the staunchness of our vessel; and for my part, I never had for a moment the least sense of danger. The president of the company by which the Morro Castle is owned was with us, and his cheerful presence helped to keep us in spirits-as much, at least, as could be the case in such weather as we had. The greater number of the passengers were invited by him to take a pleasure excursion to the tropics, and but for him many of them would never probably, have thought of seeing what they will now for the rest of their lives remember with pleasure.

Mexico, and an Election

21

May favorable gales and a smooth sea attend the Morro Castle and its precious freight of kindly and well-graced men and women back to the country in which her keel was laid. MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered TEXT: EP, February 14, 1872.

2043. To Isaac Henderson 1

Havana

February 17th. 1872

My dear Sir We arrived here on the morning of the day before yesterday, after a favorable passage from Nassau. Yet the wind was northwest, blowing over the great Mexican Gulf and rolling up such seas that our good steamer, the Missouri, had a most uneasy motion which communicated itself to the stomachs of the passengers. Our baggage and that of all the visitors to Cuba passed a very lenient examination at the Customs, though we had to wait for some time at the bar for the appearance of the customhouse officer who had not finished his breakfast. The weather thus far is delightful, a soft June-like temperature, though on the day of our arrival the natives and others long resident here thought it cold. Havana is a [place?] noisy with commerce, and in this aspect contrasts singularly with every Spanish town in the old world that I have seen, even Barcelona, the most bustling of all of them. It is large, too, a population of more than two hundred thousand. Clean it cannot be called, and I am persuaded that the sewerage is defective so that the yellow fever finds some encouragement to make its visits. When I was here twenty years since 2 there was no hotel to which Americans would go--now there are several-among which is the San Carlos, where we are staying. The rooms are airy and the table excellent, but just now it is crowded. Of the insurrection I hear nothing, but its seat is at the east end of the island where it smoulders yet, and where its partisans hope yet to see it break into a flame. 3 The Spanish race is remarkable for its [persistency?] and the leaders and followers of the revolt hide themselves in the thickets of the upland wastes. We have heard since we came reports of the insecurity of travel on the road between Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico. They seem however to be merely verbal rumors. If literally taken, it would be little short of madness to attempt the journey to Mexico. But we find that most sensible people do not give them much credit, and they seem to have no basis but verbal rumor. We shall therefore go to Vera Cruz and there expect to learn the truth. If they prove true we shall content

22

LETTERS

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

ourselves with what can be seen of Mexico in that neighborhood. If they have no foundation we shall go on to the capital. The womankind we shall leave behind here-both of them think they have had enough of the sea for the present. It is not necessary to give any direction concerning our letters and papers beyond what has been given, except that I do not want Harpers Bazaar. The letters &c for Julia and Miss Fairchild should still come to Havana. Discharges of artillery are announcing the arrival of the Grand Duke Alexis. 4 Yours very truly W C BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: UTex ADDREss: I

Henderson Esq.

I. Bryant's partner and business manager of the EP. See 806.1. 2. Bryant had first visited Cuba with Charles Leupp in 1849. 3. Since 1868 there had been sporadic revolt on the island against its parent country, Spain. 4. Alexis Aleksandrovich (1850-1908), Grand Duke of Russia and brother of Czar Alexander Ill.

2044.

To Julia S. Bryant

Vera Cruz, February 27

1872

Dear Julia I reached this place this morning after a very agreeable passage of three days and a half. The sea was never more calm and smooth, and we sat all day under awnings on deck, not incommoded by the heat, for it was tempered for the most part by a breeze. I was expected, and the Captain of the Port, instructed by Mr. Romero, 1 the Minister of Finance came with a government boat to take us and our luggage to the town. In this way we escaped the customhouse inspection. I have presented my letters here and have been overwhelmed with attentions. Mr. Newbold 2 of Mexico had written to an English house here of which he is a partner to offer us rooms in a house overlooking the bay and refreshed by the sea breeze. We declined them for today, for we start for Orizaba tomorrow morning at six o'clock, but accepted them for our return from Mexico. We find the stories about robberies greatly exaggerated and some of them are but repetitions of old ones. One of the Mexican newspapers contains a paragraph dated somewhere in the United States-a letter-affirming that I visit the Mexican republic in a diplomatic capacity-with instructions to nego-

Mexico, and an Election

23

tiate for the dismemberment of the republic. &c &c. Other Mexican papers notice this assertion and deny it. We are all of us very well glad to have made the passage so successfully and glad to be on land again. If you and Anna had taken passage with us you would have reached this place without fatigue, but what will be the journey to Mexico the capital, we are yet to know. Yours affectionately W C BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

NYPL-GR ADDRESS: To Julia S. Bryant.

1. Matias Romero, with whom Bryant had become acquainted when Romero was Mexican minister to the United States in 1862-1867, was largely ·responsible for Bryant's invitation to Mexico. See 1442.3. 2. Not further identified.

2045.

To Julia S. Bryant

Dear Julia

City of Mexico March 2d 1872

We got to this place last night-safe sound and strong. We had beautiful weather and for twenty miles a bad road, and a tiresome journey in the diligence, through a cloud of dust. I was very glad as we were jolting over the road smothered with the fine white dust that you and Annie were not with us. The sights which we saw, however, were curious-the queer population, the unaccustomed scenery etc. Yet the greater part of the country is far from beautiful though some spots are so-vast arid plains without trees, hemmed in by mountains, are what is most generally seen. We shall stay here ten days and then return to Vera Cruz stopping at Puebla a fine town at Orizaba and at Cordova. We expect to take the steamer "at Vera Cruz on the 20th of this month. Yours affectionately W C BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

2046.

NYPL-GR.

To the

EvENING

PosT

City of Mexico, March 5, 1872.

After I wrote last from Nassau I visited the schools of the place and saw what led me to form a more favorable opinion of the people. At the Central School, kept by a teacher from England, Mr. Begrie,

24

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

whose whole heart is in his work, I saw evidences of a proficiency that surprised me. In mental arithmetic the pupils apprehended the complicated questions put them with astonishing readiness, and the answer was on their tongues almost before the question was concluded. Their familiarity with geography was almost as remarkable, and I certainly have never seen in any school such examples of elegant penmanship-the letters formed with such perfect precision and proportion. This was a school for boys. I was afterward taken to one for girls, the principal of which was a quadroon lady with an assistant of the pure African type, who put the pupils through several exercises in grammar, and I never heard questions of the kind answered more readily and satisfactorily. I next saw the Wood School, a private endowment for boys and girls, in which a system of rewards for good conduct and scholarship makes part of the discipline, and this, also, seemed to be exceedingly well conducted. In these schools there was but a mere sprinkling of the white race-scarcely one white child in twenty. I heard some complaint that the parents of the colored scholars were not sensible of the value of education, and therefore took but little pains to make their children punctual in their attendance. The public schools are now secular only, recognising no religious denomination. The Episcopalians, who till lately had the control of them, are not pleased with this change, but strive to obviate what they esteem its disadvantages by a zealous attention to their Sunday schools. Their own church, also, in the Bahamas, has been disendowed of late, almost contemporaneously, I believe, with the disestablishment of the Irish church, and the support, which had previously been a public charge, made voluntary. The large majority of the inhabitants of these islands are, in fact, dissenters. The Bishop of the Bahamas, Dr. Venables, a most excellent and laborious prelate, passes from island to island, visiting the churches of his charge, and it is not impossible that they will flourish all the more for their dissociation from the state. In one respect the spread of education among the colored population will be certain to elevate their character. It will introduce among them what they are now deficient in-a taste for the refinements of life-and will multiply their wants, which are now but the wants of a rude people and an imperfect civilization. The new tastes and wants can be only gratified by industry, and occupation is one of the greatest securities against the temptations of vice. I was told by a gentleman occupying a distinguished post in Nassau, that in some of the outlying islands of the Bahamas the prejudice of the whites against the blacks is so strong that they decline to let their children attend the same schools, and that in consequence their families are growing up in

Mexico, and an Election

25

ignorance. The blacks in those places are becoming the most intelligent part of the population, and begin to rank as the aristocratic class. This much by way of postscript to my letter concerning Nassau, in whose balmy climate I passed a pleasant fortnight, and from whose courteous and hospitable dwellers I could not but part with regret. We crossed an unquiet sea on our passage to Havana, which I found a third larger and twice as bustling as it was when I saw it twenty years since; but of that city and the island of Cuba I may, perhaps, speak on my return from Mexico. Our voyage from it to Vera Cruz was in all respects a holiday. The temperature was most agreeable, the airs the softest that ever blew, the sea like a looking-glass, and the steamerthe British steamer Corsica--comfortable and roomy. In a little more than three days we were at Vera Cruz, in the middle of the night, anchored in the harbor. The morning showed us the city, somewhat picturesque in its aspect, with its spires and stuccoed houses; and with its ancient fort on a little isle in front of it. A range of blue mountains lay to the west, and high above these the peak of Orizaba, white with perpetual snow, was seen among the clouds. I was told that the Captain of the Port desired to speak with me; and, meeting him, was informed that by direction of the Minister of Finance he had come with the government boat to take me and my party to town. We landed at a wharf against which the sea was beating with its gentlest ripples, but this is not always its mood. When a strong north wind blows, it rolls up vast waves, beginning at the coast of Louisiana and Florida, and sweeps them into the roadstead before Vera Cruz. The surf is hurled against the sea-wall that protects the city, and the outer streets are drenched with the spray. No vessel can discharge or receive its cargo, and it often happens that several days elapse before there can be a communication between ship and shore. The harbor at Tampico is no better, indeed it is said to be worse and equally exposed to the fury of the northers. In fact, there is no good harbor on the eastern coast of Mexico, and the proper communication between that country and all others that lie to the east of it must be by means of railways and through the United States, unless, indeed, the Mexican government should build artificial harbors for its towns on the coast, an undertaking for which it has no money. Yet I am told there is a pretty good harbor at Anton Lizardo, less than twenty miles south of Vera Cruz, but at Anton Lizardo there is no town. Moreover, there is the yellow fever, which broods almost perpetually over the towns on the low coasts. At Vera Cruz they told me that the place was never without it, but they made light of the distemper, as a sort of seasoning process which every stranger residing there for three months must assuredly go through. The American consul, Dr. Trowbridge, landed at Vera

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Cruz in the last week of June, and on the 6th of July was attacked with the yellow fever. His wife and children all had it in their turn, and he spoke of it as a disease which need not alarm the patient, provided he understands what is the matter with him, and submits in season to proper treatment. But nobody likes to run the risk of taking the yellow fever, and if the interior of the Mexican republic can be visited without that danger, neither the merchant nor the traveller for health or pleasure will go to ports where he is exposed to it. The far greater part of the republic of Mexico consists of high table-lands. "Ninetenths of our country," said a Mexican gentleman to me, "belongs to what we call the tierra templada-the region which produces the harvests of the temperate zones." Perhaps this is an excessive estimate, but no one who has the map of that country before him can fail to see that a railway, beginning at our own frontier, might convey the traveller from one cool upland valley to another, till it landed him, almost without a consciousness that he was under a tropical sun, in the capital of the republic. This will yet be the principal means of communication between the two countries. "You will find Vera Cruz a dirty, miserable place," said the bluff English commander of our steamer, the Corsica; but he did it injustice. The city lies low, and is under the suspicion of being badly drained, but the streets are a great deal cleaner than those of New York, and the black vultures which are seen hopping about its streets or sitting by scores on the cupolas of its churches, devour everything above ground that can corrupt in the heat and poison the air. The dwellings and warehouses are necessarily built, each of two stories, around a square court, they have lofty ceilings, spacious rooms and airy galleries, the sitting rooms so arranged as to admit the fresh sea-breeze that comes in from the harbor. I had letters to several of the courteous inhabitants, who showed me and my friends every possible attention, and furnished us with letters for the capital and other towns in the interior. Early the next morning we were on the railway which is partly constructed from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico. It was a somewhat dreary road for the first fifty miles, yet not without its interest. The iron track swept by a somewhat circuitous course through vast grazing grounds of a russet hue, thinly set with low trees, yet leafless, for the most part, but now and then blossoming with great strange flowers, bright yellow, or pink or crimson. Here and there we passed a village of the aborigines, in which the dwellings were mere wigwams, built with four stout posts sustaining a roof thatched with coarse grass or leaves of the aloe. The walls of these cabins were rows of sticks or reeds set in the ground so thinly as scarce to afford a shelter from the

Mexico, and an Election

27

wind. There were a few houses of more pretension, built of sun-dried bricks whitewashed, and roofed with coarse tiles. The brown inhabitants, a race of rather low stature, but square built, loitered, in the simplest possible attire, about their dwellings, the women, for the most part, sitting on the ground at their doors. It could be seen at once that they were a people of few wants, and that these wants were easily supplied. About fifty miles from Vera Cruz the country began to wear a different aspect. There were tokens of irrigation, or, at least, of more frequent rains in this, the dry season; the trees and shrubs were all in leaf; and there were fields green with harvests and plantations of the banana. As we went on we found ourselves on the border of a stream flowing in a deep ravine, between almost perpendicular banks, hundreds of yards below us. A tall forest rose on each side, the trees sprouting with half a dozen air plants, some of which were in bloom. The castor-bean grew by the track to the size of a tree, and the morning-glory, which here never feels the frost, climbed the trees and tied her blue or crimson blossoms to the branches a hundred feet from the ground. We stopped at the present termination of the railway, seventy miles from Vera Cruz, at a place called Fortin, from which we were taken by a diligence to the city of Orizaba, situated among sugar estates, orange gardens and coffee plantations. We had heard stories of robberies committed on the road between Vera Cruz and Mexico, and we did not feel quite sure that they were not the mere echo of what had happened some time since; but here, at Orizaba, the landlord of our hotel told us of a recent incident of the kind. "If you go on," he said, "you will stop for the night at San Agustin de Palmar. Not far from that place two or three days since the diligence was stopped, and two passengers, a Mr. Foote and a companion, were robbed of fifteen thousand dollars, their trunks and all the valuables they had with them." It now became a question whether it was prudent for us to proceed. We consulted together, and concluding that the robbers would not be likely to repeat their crime immediately, we determined to go on. We threaded the long valley in which Orizaba lies, passing between banana patches and hedges in which the finest roses were in bloom, and beside little rivulets running by the wayside to water the fields. There are points in Orizaba commanding some of the most beautiful views of mountain scenery that ever met my eyes-summits, crests, ridges, spurs of mountains interlocking each other, with valleys penetrating far between, the haunt of eternal spring, with the white peak of Orizaba overlooking all from the region of eternal winter.

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Coming to where the mountains bounded the valley at its western end, our vehicle ascended what are called the Heights of Aculcingo, by a zigzag path cut in the rocks, and in one place crossed by a pretty waterfall. These heights are famed for the fine views they afford of the gulfy valleys below and the great mountain buttresses one behind another. But of these we had little more than a glimpse, for the mist gathered round us, and the darkness fell. A man who sat at the left hand of the driver of the diligence lighted a rope of combustibles, which served for a torch to light our way. And this was soon shown to be necessary, for the road, which since we left Fortin had been for the most part a good macadamized highway, became one of the worst on which I ever travelled. The track was full of inequalities; it lay deep in fine dust, which concealed them from sight; and we plunged from one to another with fearful jolts, which almost seemed as if they would shake the old diligence to fragments. We drove on in a cloud of white dust, surrounding us at every step. I have never seen our good old mother, the Earth, under a more ghastly aspect than that which she wore in the light of our torch. Everything looked white, the road, the banks, the fields, as far as we could see on each side, and the vegetation which bordered our way was of the ugliest and grimmest that the earth produces: cactuses with their angular and unshapely growth, twelve or fifteen feet in height; the stiff pointed leaves of the maguey or aloes, and, grimmer than they, a kind of palm with branches, and at the end of every branch a tuft of bayonet-shaped leaves, pointing in every direction from a common centre, like the hair of a human head standing on end with horror. It seemed the very region where one might expect a robber to spring from the bank of the road, put his pistol to your breast and demand your money. At eleven o'clock in the evening we were at the little town of San Augustin de Palmar, and finding that our vehicle was to start again at half-past one, we exchanged places with some passengers who desired to go on immediately, but whose conveyance would not be ready till five o'clock in the morning. The morning found us journeying over a broad, arid, herbless, treeless plain, encircled by mountains equally bare of vegetation and of a pale brown hue. We were still shrouded and almost choked with the dust. Little whirlwinds of dust crossed the highway before us and passed off towards the mountains. This is the season when the earth is at rest-the barren season of the year-in the summer, when the rains fall, these now bare fields are green and fresh with the growing harvests. The mountains gradually come nearer the highway, and we passed from this highland valley into another, which I was told is of still higher elevation, and so we journeyed on from one region en-

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closed by high mountains to another, the cool spring-like airs indicating that we were in the temperate regions of the republic. Vast fields of the Maguey, the Agave Americana, sometimes called the aloe, from which the intoxicating liquor called pulque is drawn, now made their appearance-the dark-green plants set in rows at such a distance from each other as allowed the cultivation of maize and other grains between them. Here and there was a field green with irrigation, and soon the spires of Puebla were seen against the evening sky. The roads were full of people of the aboriginal race, returning to their cabins from the town, which we entered a little after sunset. The next morning, while waiting for the train, I walked with my friends the streets of Puebla, which have a cheerful look. Above all the dwellings rises the cathedral with its domes and spires. We entered it and found the floor covered with worshippers, three-fourths of whom were women, murmuring aloud their prayers in a supplicating, halftremulous tone. The exterior of the edifice is imposing, the ribbed columns of Roman architecture are both tall and massive, and not without a certain simplicity in the detail, which, joined to the somewhat dark color of the marble, gives to the whole a grave aspect well suited to the house of prayer. At half-past 11 the next morning we took the railway train which was to convey us over the hundred and fifteen miles lying between Puebla and the capital. The region was much like that over which we had travelled, save that in approaching Mexico we passed by abandoned habitations, the tokens of a dwindling population, and for a space skirted the shallow waters of the Lake Tezcoco, which, in places, covered the ground on its edge with a sediment as white as snow. The train stopped at a rather shabby station in the suburbs of the capital. Our luggage had to undergo an inspection at the Custom House, and shortly after we were installed in pleasant quarters at the Hotel Iturbide, named after the young adventurer who resided for a short time in the building, and who, aspiring to be the emperor of Mexico, paid for his ambition with his life. 1 MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered

TEXT:

EP for April19, 1872.

1. Augustin de Iturbide (1783-1824), a military commander who led in the liberation of Mexico from Spain, was briefly Emperor Augustin I (1822-1823) before being forced to abdicate. In 1824 he was executed.

2047. To the

EVENING POST

Mexico, March 8, 1872.

One of the first things which we had to do on arriving at the city of Mexico was to conform our dress to the climate. We were now in a

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

cool region, nearly eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, and the temperature admonished us to resume our winter underclothing. This I did without delay. The sunshine at this season is perpetual and the weather springlike. It is only from May to October that the clouds thicken into rain. In the early part of winter spangles of frost are sometimes seen on the ground. On an estate in the neighborhood of the city, and on the pleasant slopes of Tacubaya, amid stately palms and orange trees loaded with their golden fruit, and roses in bloom, I saw a tree more than fifteen feet high wrapped in matting to the very top. "What does that mean?" I asked. "It is some tender tree," was the answer, "from the hot country south of us, which they have covered in that way to protect it from the frost." The summers in this region, I am told, are but little warmer than the winters, the chief difference being that the summer is the rainy season, when the afternoons and evenings are showery, and the fields are in their fullest luxuriance. The city stands so far above the sea-level that the inhabitants breathe a thin air, which, as the stranger immediately perceives, sooner than elsewhere puts him out of breath in ascending a staircase or a declivity. Those who suffer from symptoms of the heart-disease find them considerably aggravated here, and the remark is often made that deaths from that disease are more frequent here than in most places. The air is as dry as it is thin. It requires very brisk exercise, even in warm weather, to bring out anything like sensible perspiration. "I suppose," said a medical gentleman with whom I was talking on this subject, "that there are persons here, born in Mexico, who never in their lives experienced anything like sensible perspiration." "It is an insidious climate," said another resident. "You take cold easily; you expose yourself to a draught which is neither considerable nor unpleasant, and the next day you have a severe cold." The disease of the lungs which they call pulmonia in Madrid, and which is there so violent and fatal, is almost equally so here, and carries off its victims after a short illness. Yet Mexico is a healthy city, notwithstanding that it is badly drained; indeed, it can scarcely be said that it is drained at all, so slight is all the descent that can be given to the drains. There can be no cellars to the houses, for on digging two or three feet in the ground, you come to water. Great, shallow, plashy lakes cover vast tracts in the neighborhood of the city, and sometimes, in seasons of copious rain, overflow their banks and invade the streets and ripple against the thresholds of the dwellings. Yet is the air, so they say, never charged with moisture, and Mexico will yet be the frequent resort of those who suffer from any disease of the lungs or throat requiring a dry atmosphere. I doubt, however, whether the climate is particularly

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31

favorable to longevity, for I saw few old men, either among the aboriginal inhabitants or those of Spanish descent. One who takes his idea of this city from photographs and engravings is apt to suppose it a city of small houses, but this is a mistake. It is true that the houses are not often of more than one story, but they are spacious and massively built, with lofty ceilings. They generally enclose a court of ample size, round which, on the second story, runs a gallery supported by sturdy columns or square pillars of heavy masonry. From these galleries the doors open into the rooms where the family live, including the sleeping rooms, and standing in the galleries or in the roomy ante-chambers are vases of flowering plants of brilliant bloom, which in this spring-like climate need no other attention than the water which moistens the soil about their roots. I can scarcely imagine a pleasanter abode in a large town than some of these houses belonging to opulent families-houses airy, cheerful, and luxuriously commodious. Yet beside this opulence you see the most squalid poverty; ragged and dirty human beings, who saunter about during the day and lie down at night wherever the night surprises them. In a climate so soft as this, with a soil so genial and productive, people are tempted to be poor. It costs but little labor to obtain the means of living; slight clothing is all that is needed; slight shelter suffices; a few beans, frijoles, and two or three tortillas, or flapjacks, wind up the living machine for the day. Where poverty is so easy a condition of life, and its few wants are so cheaply supplied, there must be many poor. "How many are there in the city of Mexico, rich and poor taken together?" I asked of a resident. "Probably somewhat over two hundred thousand," was the answer, "but no man can speak with any certainty. The moment that any person employed by the government appears and begins to take the .enumeration, the suspicion is awakened that there is to be a conscription or that a new tax is to be levied. The people disappear like a brood of young partridges, and keep out of the way till the supposed danger is over." Side by side with the utter poverty which I have just described there is great luxury. The day after my arrival I was a guest at a private banquet, and without professing an admiration of luxurious dinners I may say that I never sat at any which in sumptuousness exceeded it. The blaze of gaslights, the glitter of plate, the variety and delicacy of the viands, the exquisite wines, the rich attire of the ladies, the number and dexterity of the attendants, were all there in as great perfection as at the tables of the most luxurious of our own merchant princes, with a dessert of fruits of such various flavors as our climate does not afford. Nor should I leave out of the account the profusion

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

of flowers, both of tropical and temperate climates, which sweetened the atmosphere-all gathered from their beds in the open air. The day following was Sunday, and as I went to the cathedral I was struck with the number of persons whom I met engaged in selling lottery tickets. Gambling is one of the besetting vices of the Mexicans, and the numerous lotteries give them the opportunity to gamble as they are going to church. I found the floor of the cathedral occupied by a crowd on their knees, mostly women, while priests in their rich vestments were officiating at the principal altar. The building without is not imposing; its front is covered with a jumble of pilasters and capitals and scrolls, and other architectural ornaments; but within it is grave and grand, though in some parts wanting in simplicity. I have spoken of the vestments of the priests. By the "laws of reform," as they are called, no ecclesiastical costume can be worn in the streets. You might traverse Mexico from Sonora to Yucatan and never meet with any person whom you would recognise as a priest, save when you entered the churches. They are obliged to dress as others do; they can get up no religious processions; all such are forbidden; the convents are suppressed; there is neither monk nor nun in all Mexico; the convent buildings and grounds have been taken by the government; many of the churches have shared the same fate, and the schools, of which at one time the priests had the sole direction, are all secularized and given to the control of laymen. So dissatisfied are the Catholic clergy with these restrictions that, as I am told, they are the most zealous friends of annexation to the United States that are found in all Mexico, in the hope of recovering by it some of their lost privileges. 1 From the cathedral I followed the street till I came to a chapel belonging to what was called the Church of Jesus. This church and another, both of them large, have been sold by the government at a low price to the Protestants. The money for their purchase was procured principally from New York, and the buildings are now becoming fitted up for Protestant worshippers. In the chapel I found about four hundred persons, which were as many as could be seated, in devout attitudes, while in the pulpit a minister in a white surplice was engaged in prayer. The form of the service was partly liturgical and there were occasional responses. After the prayer a hymn was given out and sung by the congregation with great apparent fervor. I looked round upon the assembly, which was composed of men in the proportion of three to one of the other sex, and perceived that they were mostly of the aboriginal race. Most of them, however, were neatly dressed and all were attentive. The minister then preached a sermon;

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33

he spoke with animation and was apparently heard with very great interest. I inquired afterwards the meaning of what I had seen. "The person whom you saw in the pulpit," was the answer, "is Father Aguas, a Catholic priest of no little eloquence, who has been converted to the Protestant faith; but the principal head of the Protestant church here, and the composer of its liturgy, is Father Reilly, who is a citizen of the United States, although reared in Chile. He has engaged with great zeal in the cause of Protestantism, and is aided by several ministers who once belonged to the church of Rome, and are now as zealous as he in making converts from it. The government favors them, and would doubtless be glad of their success, for the government and the Catholic priesthood bear no good will to each other. There are now more than a score of these Protestant congregations in the city of Mexico, and more than thirty in the neighboring country. The priesthood are naturally vexed at seeing the Protestants in churches which once were theirs, but the effect upon them is salutary, for it has made them more attentive to their own personal morals." Those who have read the accounts of Mexico given by travellers will remember that the clergy of this country are generally spoken of as exceedingly loose in their morals. The truth of this was afterwards confirmed to me by a gentleman who had resided for some years in Mexico. "I am a Catholic," said he, "brought up as a Catholic in the United States. When I came here I expected to find the clergy of my church such as they are in the country I left-men of pure lives and watchful guardians of the morals of their flocks. I was disappointed; I found them immoral in their own lives and indifferent to the morals of those who were under their spiritual care. I must say that they have not done their duty; and if the Mexican people are not what they ought to be, the clergy are in a good degree responsible." Afterwards I saw Father Reilly, as he is often called here. He assured me that all which I had heard of his success and the displeasure of the clergy was true, and expressed strong hopes of further success. I mentioned to him that by far the greater part of the worshippers whom I saw in the cathedral were women, and that on the other hand, in his church, I found that the men greatly outnumbered the women. He replied that in some of the Protestant congregations the women were most numerous. There is no question that the Catholic clergy in Mexico have been fearfully corrupted by what may be called the monopoly of religious worship which they possessed, by the immense riches of their church and the power of persecution which was placed in their hands. They

LETTERS

34

OF

WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

will become better men by the effect of adversity and the formidable rivalry to which they are now subjected. MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT: EP for April29, 1872. I. Between 1858 and 1860 the reform government of President Pablo Benito Juarez (1806---1872) suppressed religious orders and confiscated all ecclesiastical property except churches.

2048.

To the

EvENING PosT

Mexico. March 10, 1872.

One of the first visits I made to the country surrounding the city of Mexico was to Chapultepec, a rocky mount rising from the midst of a plain west of the town. A grove of cypresses and other trees shades its eastern slope, and hither the kings of Mexico before the conquest are said to have resorted for recreation. One of these cypresses yet bears the name of Moctezuma's Tree, and even before his time must have seen several generations of the Aztec monarchs. We measured it, and found it thirty-seven feet and four inches in circumference-the largest tree that I ever saw in any part of the world. It is yet in full vigor, and will outlast many generations of men yet to come. I looked into its broad extent of branches, hung with gray, thread-like mosses clinging to them like mist, and thought of the dim antiquity which dwelt there, and of the unwritten histories, both sorrowful and pleasant, bound up in the long life of that silent tree. It was a holiday, and there were several parties of pleasure in these ancient shades. In one part was a family group at a picnic; in another a guitar was tinkling, and two or three couples dancing; in another were a young man and woman withdrawn from the restmost likely lovers-engaged in such talk as lovers use. I climbed with my companions to the top of the hill, where is a palace, which had been fitted up by Maximilian for his own residence, but in which the poor fellow during his short and most unhappy reign could be scarcely said to have ever resided.' It stands in the midst of a garden, where the air is sweetened all the year with shrubs in bloom. Near it, on the esplanade, the Mexican gentleman who accompanied us pointed out what at first seemed to us a deep well-a circular opening in the ground-walled up with stones apparently hewn. "This," he said, "belongs to the time of the Aztecs. It communicates with a cavern below, having its issue on the west side of the hill, so that it forms an underground passage." The view from the top of Chapultepec is very fine. The Mexicans are fond of repeating a saying ascribed to Humboldt 2 that it is the

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35

finest view in the world, to which I should not agree, for there are finer in the neighborhood of Orizaba. But it was very striking as I saw it-the great valley of Mexico stretching away on every side, the city with its spires, the green fields artificially watered, the brown pasturelands, the great glimmering lakes, the rows and groups of trees in full leaf that mark the place of the floating gardens, and finally the circle of mountains enclosing all. Beyond these in clear weather the snowy peaks of the two great and now silent volcanoes of Popocatapetl and Ixtaccihuatl are seen rising to an immense height. Near at hand and in full sight is the building called the Molino del Rey or King's Mill, around which was fought the bloody battle of that name, just before the entrance of the United States troops into the city in the late war with Mexico. 3 With the narrative of that war before him, one may stand on Chapultepec and trace the progress of the American armies step by step as they drew near to the capital which was to fall into their hands. On the slope of Chapultepec we passed the large basin of a copious spring, forty feet in depth, and so clear that the bottom seems almost close to the eye. A rapid stream rushes from it and is received in a stately aqueduct, which carries it off to the city of Mexico on its tall arches, resembling those which cross the Roman Campagna. Looking to the south you see another and longer aqueduct, which strides across the plain, bringing water from a mere distant point. Lower down on the slope of the hill gushes from the ground another spring, no less copious, which supplies commodious baths, public and private, and then flows on to irrigate the fields, marking its course by tracts of verdure. Leaving these behind us we followed the road a little distance to the village of. Tacubaya, situated on ground somewhat elevated above the plain, and noted for its beautiful country seats, the property of opulent families in the city. We entered and wandered over one of these-the Escandon estate, as it is called, from the name of the family owning it. It was a perfect labyrinth of walks among fruit trees and flowering shrubs. The walks twining through the grove are somewhat neglected, to be sure. Here and there were towering over the palms the fruit trees. A spacious mansion stood in the midst of an ample flower garden. "Is not the family there?" I asked. "No," was the answer, "the family is safer in town. The members sometimes come out to visit this place in the daytime and return by daylight, but they never venture to remain here over night. They might be robbed, or perhaps kidnapped and made to pay a heavy ransom." I looked round on the orange trees dropping their fruit and on

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

the neglected walks where the weeds were beginning to make their appearance, and, beautiful as the place was, I did not much wonder that it was not more carefully tended by those who were able to enjoy its beauty only by snatches, or in constant fear of a visit from banditti. That Tacubaya was not a safe place for those who had anything to lose, I had a proof before I got home, for arriving at the railway station just before sunset, I entered the cars amid a crowd of people returning to town, and soon after having occasion to consult my watch I found that it was missing. The most unsafe place, however, at present seems to be the railway between this city and Puebla. The newspapers here give accounts of attacks made by robbers on the trains conveying pulque, which is the beverage drawn from the plant called here the Maguey. These attacks, however, have been generally repulsed. Not so fortunate has been the superintendent and paymaster of the railway which is yet constructing between Puebla and Orizaba, Mr. Quin, whom I saw the day after my arrival, just returned from an adventure with the robbers. They seized him when he happened to be without money, took away his watch, and after a detention of two hours, bargained with him for his release on the payment of fifty dollars, which he brought them, and they returned him his watch. But the watch he was not to keep, for two days afterwards I heard that they found him with sixteen hundred dollars on his person and took that and the watch also. Soon afterwards news came that Mr. Quin was kidnapped a third time. He had no money with him, and after detaining him a day or two the robbers allowed him to depart with the message to his employers that if forty thousand dollars were not immediately sent them, they would tear up the iron rails. The money, however, has not been paid, and the railway is yet untouched. The leader of these bandits is one Negrete, who calls himself a General and claims to be a revolutionist, instead of a robber. I have passed the greater part of one day among the cemeteries. The American Cemetery lies to the west of the city, at a little distance; a spot till lately much neglected and overgrown with weeds. They are now putting it in order. A rivulet, diverted from those which irrigate the neighboring fields, passes through it, and with a little tendance this resting place of the dead might be made beautiful and kept in perpetual bloom and verdure. Here is a monument to the American soldiers who fell in the war of our country with Mexico, a war in which I take no pride, though its result was the acquisition of California, and the acquisition of California finally led to the abrogation of slavery. From this we passed to the Mexican Cemetery, where was to be celebrated the funeral of General Leyva, a gallant officer who fell in a

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37

combat with those who are engaged in the present revolt. 4 While the funeral train was on its way to the cemetery we looked at the monuments, some of them massive and sumptuous and mostly in good taste, with which the place was crowded. Here we read the names of many eminent actors in the series of revolutions which have so long and unhappily convulsed the country. As we passed from one to another the secretary of the American Legation, Mr. Bliss, who accompanied us, and who is well read in Mexican history, referred to the manner of their deaths. Here and there was one who had fallen in battle or died in his bed, but a large proportion of them were sentenced to be shot as political offenders. It is the natural death, he remarked, of the public men here who put themselves forward in a great political movement. So we went from monument to monument, with increasing surprise at the number of those who died this natural death. One of the most massive and sumptuous of these monuments, hung with garlands of flowers, records the virtues of the wife of Juarez, who is now the President of the Mexican Republic. She was a lady of Italian extraction, accomplished and greatly esteemed. Her death, it is said, was deeply felt by her husband, and has cast a shadow over his wonted cheerful and lively manner. 5 The funeral train now arrived, soldiers with military music, and the brother officers and friends of General Leyva. Two of these officers standing by the coffin pronounced his eulogy. Then it was carried to the grave, and there Senor Guillermo Prieto, a poet and political economist, spoke with great animation of the virtues and services of the dead. The crowd listened with deep attention, and but that it was a funeral I am sure would have broken into loud applause. 6 I have mentioned that Senor Prieto is a political economist. I have a book of his, made up of lectures on the science of political economy, delivered last year in the School of Jurisprudence in the city of Mexico. He is a zealous champion of the free exchange of commodities between nation and nation, and sees clearly that an unobstructed trade with foreign countries is one of the great needs of Mexico, one of the surest means of weaning her people from their rude way of living and prompting their advance in civilization and all the arts which adorn and dignify life. MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered TEXT: EP for May 4, 1872.

1. The Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph (1832-1867), who had been imposed upon Mexico as its emperor in 1864 by France, was defeated in battle by Juarez in 1867, and executed after French Emperor Napoleon III had withdrawn his support on the demand of the United States government. 2. The German naturalist Baron Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) visited

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Central and South America in 1799-1804, and in 1805-1834 successively published his observations in Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland at Paris. 3. On September 8, 1846 American forces under General William J. Worth (1794-1849) drove Mexican troops from this fortress outside Chapultepec after a fierce engagement. 4. After losing to Juarez in the presidential election of 1871, Porfirio Diaz (18301915) led an unsuccessful revolt against the government. 5. Senora Juarez died in January 1871 only three months after her husband had suffered a stroke. 6. Several years later Bryant and Prieto evidently corresponded. See letters from Prieto to Bryant dated May 10 and October 24, 1877, NYPL-GR. None from Bryant to Prieto has been recovered.

2049.

To the

EVENING PosT

Mexico, March 11, 1872.

One of the most interesting things to be seen in Mexico is the School of Tecpan de Santiago, a charitable institution, founded and supported by a Mexican lady, the Senora Baz, wife of an opulent gentleman who has formerly filled the post of Governor of the province of Mexico. We called first at the house of Governor Baz, as he is called, one of the finest mansions in Mexico, fitted up with great taste and attention to comfort. His lady, a native Mexican of a somewhat slight but elegant figure and quiet manners, came out and accompanied us in our visit to the school. Just in the skirts of the city, or perhaps a little outside of them, stands a spacious building, once the Convent of Tecpan de Santiago, and this has been taken by Senora Baz for the charitable purpose to which she devotes a large income and gives her daily care. In this school five hundred boys, picked up in the city, parentless, or neglected by their parents, utterly friendless, and if not taken from the streets certain to belong to that miserable class called the leperos, 1 and to grow up in ignorance and habits of indolence and vice, are clothed, fed, educated, taught a variety of trades and employments, and fitted to become useful members of society. We passed from room to room, in some of which the lads were studying their lessons, and in others attending to the occupations in which they were to be trained. Here were the future shoemakers of Mexico, busy over their lasts and lapstones; there the tailors, learning to sew and cut out and fit garments, and in another place the printers busy at their types. "The proceedings and ordinances of the Common Council are printed here," said Senor Baz, and we were shown several samples neatly executed. In one room, were the young cabinetmakers, smoothing and polishing slabs of rosewood; in another, carpenters learning to handle the saw and plane; in a third several turning-lathes were humming. The boys were all neatly and comfortably clad in the

Mexico, and an Election

39

garments made by their own tailors. We passed through the prodigiously long halls which serve as dormitories, with their neat beds, numerous enough to lodge a regiment of soldiers, and came last to the kitchen, where ample preparations were making for their meals. In this school the course of education includes grammar, drawing and music. The benevolent founder of the school visits it every day, observes the progress of the pupils, sees that their comfort is not neglected, and that her plan is faithfully carried out. Such an inroad as her institution is making into the worthless class of leperos must at length reduce their number and increase the proportion of those who live in comfortable houses and follow habits of regular industry. I can hardly imagine a fairer omen of the future peace and prosperity of Mexico than this noble example of one of her daughters, who applies her large fortune and gives the leisure which her fortune allows her to the work of rescuing such numbers of her fellow-creatures from the degradation and misery to which they seemed to be doomed by the circumstances of their birth. There is yet another department of this school, which answers to our House of Refuge, just as the department which I have already described answers to our Children's Aid Society. There are seventyfive boys sent to it from the criminal tribunals for reformation. These young delinquents are all kept by themselves, and never see the other inmates. I fancied that I saw in the faces of some of them a peculiar expressions a premature sharpness and slyness. One of them, and one of the youngest, was asked for what cause he had been sent there. His answer was a little too discreet. He was charged, he said, with taking something that belonged to another. The same day we visited the market which lies beside the canal connecting the lake of Tezcoco with t~at of Chalco. There the flatbottomed boats come in loaded with the products of the Chinampas, or floating gardens, as they are sometimes called, though they are only narrow parallelograms of fertile soil surrounded by canals, from which they are watered and kept constantly green. Over a large space of this market we saw women squatted on the ground in the dust beside their vegetables, their fruits and their wares, for at this season the sunshine is constant and the showers are not to fall till May. If any shelter from the sun is wanted a rude one is formed by a piece of matting supported on poles. No season in Mexico seems to be without its fruits; the banana may be had in perfection all the year round; the orange is now as fine as it can be; the granadita, or fruit of the edible passion-flower, is at this time common in the markets, as well as the sapote prieto, or dark-colored sapote, a green fruit filled with a rich jetty pulp, like a sort of marmalade. Meantime the aguacate, or what in the English

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

West Indies is called the alligator pear, is reserved for a later season, and the Manilla mango, the finest variety of mango, is just putting forth its clusters of red blossoms; its fruits are not to be ripe before next summer. Other fruits follow in their order till the year completes its circle. On our return to our hotel we saw a crowd of people about an open door, and looking in we saw the drawing of a lottery, in which the bystanders seemed to be much interested. A hollow cylinder, full of bits of paper indicating the blanks and prizes, was made to revolve a few times; a little boy then thrust in an awl through an opening among these bits of paper, and on its point drew out either a blank or a prize, and this determined the fate of the ticket of which the number was read just before the cylinder was made to revolve. A large proportion of the earnings of the humbler class in Mexico is thrown away in the purchase of lottery tickets, and it is not to be wondered at that where the passion for this sort of gambling is so very common there should be such extreme poverty. I have since visited an institution in which, until the era of Mexican independence, orphan children of the emigrants from Biscay to Mexico were educated. It was a munificent endowment, founded by the opulent Biscayans while the country was under the rule of Spain. A million of dollars was expended in erecting a building of vast dimensions-a perfect palace, enclosing several quadrangles, and half a million dollars set aside for the support of the inmates. It was originally called the Colegio de las Biscayinas; but the Basques in Mexico might, I suppose, now be counted on the fingers of one's hand, and the Mexican government has taken possession of the institution and named it the National School for Girls. Here seventyeight orphan girls of all the different races in Mexico are sheltered, reared, educated and provided with a home till they marry. Drawing and music are among the accomplishments which they are taughtembroidery, of course. The inmates were of all ages; some had already reached middle life, and as spinsters were sure of a shelter till they died of old age. We were shown over the whole, and could not but admire the clean and comfortable appearance of everything in their airy apartments. The long sleeping-rooms, in which were rows of neat little beds, stretched away like the galleries of the Louvre in Paris. The matron who showed us these rooms, and who accompanied us to the great kitchen, where the dinner of the inmates was simmering, smoked, as she went, a cigarillo, a pinch or two of fine tobacco rolled up in paper so as to form a little cylinder. It is customary among the elderly Mexican women and those of middle age to smoke tobacco in this form, but when I spoke of this to a Mexican lady she answered,

Mexico, and an Election

41

"The practice is going out of vogue; the young women now do not smoke." But I have not yet done with the school. All these ample accommodations are not alone for the orphans who are gratuitously provided for. A hundred and forty girls of Mexican families are received here as boarders and pupils on payment of ten dollars monthly. Besides these, there is kept in the building a day school for little girls of the poorer class, who amount to an indefinite number, and for whom nothing is paid. From the National School for Girls I went to the Foundling Hospital, which is here called the Cuna or Cradle. Here I found myself in a swarm of three hundred of these parentless creatures, from grown-up boys and girls down to the babe of yesterday. Some of them were plump-looking infants, asleep in their little beds, and there were one or two lying uneasily and panting with fever. I was surprised at the small number of boys in the hospital. "How is this?" I asked; "what is the proportion of boys to girls in this institution?" "Three-fourths are girls," was the answer. "But why should they send girls to this place rather than boys?" "Simply because there are more of them. The births settle that matter. Here in Mexico are born three girls to one boy." I expressed my astonishment at this, but I was assured that the statistics of the country showed the fact to be as has been stated; and indeed the register of the Foundling Hospital is pretty good evidence of the vast predominance of female over male births in Mexico. A smiling ecclesiastic, with an asthmatic laugh, conducted us over the building, or rather the two large private houses so connected as to form one, and caused one of the inmates, already a woman grown, to play for us on the piano, which she did very creditably. Fourteen of the girls then sang in chorus two or three songs, with a precision which showed that they had been carefully trained. We closed the day, as it is often closed here, with a drive on the Paseo west of the city. On our way we passed through the Alameda, a fine grove of tall trees intersected with walks and carriage roads. Hither on holidays come crowds of the Mexican people in their best dresses. Here some sit on benches and listen to music, while others in couples move to thejarabe, a peculiar and not ungraceful dance of this country and of Cuba. Hither resort on these occasions the sellers of sweetmeats and fruits, and find a ready market for their wares. The sober shadow cast by those great old trees is then lighted up through all its extent by the brilliant hues, not only of the women's dresses, but

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

of the sarapes or light shawls, with bright-colored stripes, worn by the broad-brimmed Mexicans. The Spanish minister, a most amiable man and a favorite among the Mexicans, sent from Spain, doubtless, to win their hearts and keep them in good humor, had given me a seat in his carriage, and we drove to the broad space beyond the city bounds, about an eighth of a mile in length, where the carriages were passing backwards and forwards and by each other, from one end of the Paseo to the other, a favorite amusement of the Mexicans and adopted from the Spaniards. The earth in this dry season requires profuse watering, and on that day the place had been but slightly sprinkled, so that we were involved in clouds of dust. After several rounds we drew up on one side of the Paseo, where a row of carriages had already ranged themselves, and observed the handsome equipages and gaily-dressed women as they passed. Two or three turns more on the Paseo completed the entertainment, which seemed to me excessively dull, considering the dust, and with the setting sun I returned to the Hotel Iturbide. MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered

TEXT:

EP for May 9, 1872.

1. I.e. "low, base, wretched persons."

2050.

To the

EvENING

PosT

Mexico, March 11, 1872.

In company with my travelling companions I have been presented to Senor Jwirez, the President of the Mexican republic. We went to the Palace, a spacious building of massive construction, where in the time of the Spanish dominion the Viceroys dwelt in semi-regal state. Mr. Romero, the Minister of Finance, had promised to accompany us, and we called on him at his cabinet in a corner of the building, where we found him, as usual, closely engaged in the business of his department. It is no holiday task to have charge of the exchequer of Mexico, the expenditures of which are greater than the income, and we wondered not that our friend should have the look of one who is greatly overworked and beset by many perplexities. We followed him through spacious ante-chambers and long halls to the cabinet of the President. The Palace, in its present state, is large, including several quadrangles; but it was considerably larger before the time of Maximilian, who pulled down a considerable part of it, with a view of rebuilding it in a style more conformable to his taste. He had just time to demolish, but defeat and death overtook him before he had time to rebuild. We reached the cabinet of the President and found him expecting

Mexico, and an Election

43

us. I was struck with his appearance. There stood before me a man of low stature and dark complexion, evidently of the Aztec race, square built and sturdy in figure, with a mild expression of countenance, yet with something in his aspect which indicated inflexible resolution. He is sixty-six years of age, but time seems to have dealt gently with him; his hair is not sprinkled with gray, nor his face marked with wrinkles. The image of him which remains in my memory is that of a man not much older than fifty years. I had already seen three of his daughters at an evening party, children of the lady of Italian extraction whom I have already mentioned in these letters. They seemed to me to be favorable samples of the blending of the European with the Aztec race. He received us courteously. We spoke of the signal defeat of the insurgents a few days before by the government forces under General Rocha, the news of which had been received with great rejoicings in the capital. "It is," he said, "the end of the revolt. We shall hear but little more of it. After the first of May, when the rainy season begins, and the insurgents find themselves without shelter, they will come out of their hiding-places in the woods and submit." We talked of the state of the country. "We have," he said, "great advantages of soil and climate, but we want capital for enterprises important to the country, and we want the strong arms of skilled laborers to execute them." He might have added that more than all the country wants internal quiet. The revolt by which the republic is now disturbed will certainly be suppressed; the rebels will submit; the roads will be again safe from robberies perpetrated in the name of revolution; but those who have lived for some years in the country do not feel certain that the quiet will last. "We shall have a peaceful condition of things," said one of them to me, "for about two years; then these fellows who are now running away from Rocha will become uneasy again; we shall have another pronunciamiento and another revolt, and fresh robberies on the highways." I hope this anticipation will not become a reality. It is founded on the restlessness of the mixed race in Mexico, who are about one-fifth part of the inhabitants. The Aztec race, who form the greater part of the population, I was told, are generally mild, docile and submissive to the government. Hard-working they are not, but nearly all the labor of the fields in Mexico is performed by their hands. It is they who are the handicraftsmen for the most part, and the regular industry of the country, such as it is, is theirs. In the mixed race, I was told, are found the men who will not work, and are ready to engage in a revolt against the government, which gives them an opportunity of living by extorting contributions from the peaceable part of the population. These

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

fellows will fight on any side indiscriminately, and when beaten enlist in the victorious army. President Juarez dismissed me with words which I may cite as a characteristic example of Spanish courtesy. Taking both my hands in his he said: "Remember, Senor, that in me you have a servant and a friend. If at any time you have occasion for my aid, apply to me confidently, and the service you desire shall be performed." To understand the nature of the revolt which now seems to have received its deathblow, it should be remembered that at the last election of President in Mexico there were three candidates-Juarez, who now fills that post; Lerdo, now the principal Judge of the highest tribunal in Mexico, and Porfirio Diaz, who had distinguished himself as an able General in the war which ended in the overthrow of Maximilian. 1 Juarez obtained the office; his rivals complained of unfairness in the election; Lerdo and his friends submitted, but Porfirio Diaz took up arms, issued a pronunciamiento, and attempted to seize upon the government by force. He drew to his standard the desperate men who are too numerous in Mexico, and who saw in the revolt an opportunity of living by contributions wrung from the people. They have met the fate which they deserved; a few of their chiefs yet seem to hold out, but their principal leader, whose military fame and prowess were their boast and their great reliance, has disappeared, and whether he be dead or concealed in some hiding place in Mexico, or have run away, nobody knows. Of course Mexico cannot prosper until these disturbances cease without a probability of their being renewed. Capital will not flow into Mexico without some assurance that it shall be secure and that its earnings shall not be wrested from the hands of the owner. Skilled laborers will not seek employment in Mexico unless they can be sure of keeping the accumulations of their wages. Ten years of perfect quiet would make an immense difference in the condition of the country. Capital would enter from other regions and bring with it the skilled and energetic labor that is wanted. Railways would be constructed and safely guarded; highways would be opened; the waters that fall on the mountains would be gathered in great reservoirs on the declivities, and in winter led in rivulets over the fertile valleys which for half the year are now beds of dust, and would keep them through all the dry season green and overspread with perpetual harvests. The only difficulty which I see in the way of these enterprises is a certain jealousy of foreigners, which influences, to some extent, not the government, but the mass of the people. At one time, since the independence of Mexico was declared, the expulsion of all foreigners from the republic was decreed, and in obedience to the fierce demand

Mexico, and an Election

45

of the populace they were all driven out. That feeling has since been greatly moderated, but it is not yet wholly extinct. I asked an intelligent member of the Mexican Congress how it was that instead of submitting quietly to the result of an election as we here submit, even when it is pretty manifest that the successful party has used unfair means, his countrymen so often resort to the sword, as if the question of fairness could be settled by cutting each others' throats. "It is in our blood," he answered; "it is owing to the impatience of our temperament. The cure must be to invite emigration from countries like yours, where the popular vote decides the matter, and the beaten party takes its revenge by obtaining the majority at the next election." The remedy is a sure one, but there is this difficulty in applying it, that the emigrants will not arrive until the evil shall be already cured, and the country in a state of perfect quiet. Yet there are changes going on in Mexico as great as would be this of quietly submitting to an election without an immediate revolt. I once heard Mr. Peter Cooper, the New York philanthropist, 2 relate an incident which happened some years since, while his brother was residing for a few months in the city of Mexico. A procession passed through the streets bearing the host, or consecrated wafer, probably to some sick person. All the people in the street kneeled save an American who kept a little shoe shop and happened to be standing at its door. One of the crowd struck at him to make him kneel, on which he retreated into his shop. This so enraged the people in the street that several rushed after him into the shop, and one of them with a dagger gave him a mortal wound. The American consul was informed of the murder without delay, and he applied to the proper authorities, requiring them to bring the offender to justice. He was told that nothing could be done, for such was the temper of the populace that if any steps were taken to punish the guilty man, the house of his victim would undoubtedly be pulled down and its inmates torn in pieces. Such was Mexico not long since. This savage fanaticism has had its day. Now the host is not permitted to be openly carried through the streets; Protestant worship is held in churches with doors opening upon the public way, and the worshippers are not molested. 3 I have heard of a method taken to put an end to these demonstrations of reverence for the host in the streets, which is more remarkable for its ingenuity than its decorum. After the laws of reform had required the host to be carried only in a close carriage, the priests made the driver lay aside his hat while he passed slowly on his way. The populace were given to understand that when they saw a carriage slowly driven by a man without a hat it contained the consecrated wafer, and of course the real presence. Accordingly all kneeled as they

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

had been wont to do when the host was borne openly by the priests. One day a carriage was seen to pass, driven with great deliberation by a solemn-looking coachman without a hat through one of the principal streets. The foot passengers on the right and left all kneeled in worship. At a place where the crowd was most numerous, the carriage stopped and two women, notoriously of the most degraded and shameless class, got out of it, to the great confusion of the worshippers. This, I was told, put an end to the adoration of the host in the public streets, and nobody is likely hereafter to be murdered for declining to show it the accustomed reverence. Other changes have been made in the customs of the country. There is scarce any public entertainment so well adapted to encourage and cherish a spirit of cruelty in a people than the bull fights of Spain. When I came to Vera Cruz I heard something said about the Plaza de Toros. "Where are your bull fights held?" I innocently asked. "They are held no longer," I was answered. "They are forbidden by law." Here are two important steps taken in civilization-the extinction of a fierce religious fanaticism and the suppression of one of the most cruel of public spectacles known to modern times. Who shall say that the country which has made these advances may not yet accustom itself to submit quietly to the arbitrament of the ballot, as a lesson learned from a long series of bloody experiences? There is one peculiarity in the political constitution of Mexico which must be done away, or it will prove a serious obstacle to her prosperity. Spain left, as an unhappy legacy to the republic, the practice of requiring duties to be paid at the frontiers of the different provinces on merchandise conveyed from one of them to another. The several states which comprise the republic are now accustomed in this way to raise the revenue which each state requires, and there seems to be little disposition to renounce the system. According to the doctrine of the protectionists this should result in making each state the richer by taxing heavily the products of its sister states. It is felt, however, as a cruel burden upon the industry and the internal trade of the country, and it must be thrown off before the republic can fully avail itself of its own rich and numerous resources. MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT: EP for May 11, 1872.

1. Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada (1825-1889) was chief justice of the supreme court, 1867-1872. Porfirio Diaz, who overthrew Lerdo in 1876, was president of Mexico, 1877-1880 and 1884-1911. 2. The New York manufacturer and inventor Peter Cooper (1791-1883) had

Mexico, and an Election

47

founded the free college Cooper Union in 1857-1859. Here Bryant had introduced Abraham Lincoln to the East in 1860 (see 1131.3). Friends and fellow communicants since 1838, in later years he and Bryant were often seen together in public. See illustration. 3. Juarez "would have welcomed Protestantism, he once said, since Protestant ministers would have taught the Indians to read instead of making them spend their money on candles for the saints." Henry Bamford Parkes, A History of Mexico (Boston: Houghton Mifflin [1969]), p. 279.

2051.

To the

EvENING

PosT

Mexico, March 11, 1872.

One of the curiosities of Mexico is the Pefl6n Nuevo, or New Crag, a rocky eminence close to the Lake of Tezcoco, which I visited the other morning. It is a great volcanic rock of no very remote origin, from the summit of which you have a noble view of the plane of Mexico, of its mountain barriers, and the city and the broad lakes. The crest of the rock leans to the south, and there overhangs its base, looking as if, when the huge billow of molten lava was spouted into the air, the wind had swayed it from the perpendicular, and it had cooled, and stiffened as it was about to fall, forming several caverns on the side opposite to the wind. In these chambers of the rock live two or three Indian families and their dogs. The wild-looking inmates, with their children, came about us as we peeped into these strange abodes, and wanted money. The women were cooking fish caught on the lake close at hand. I went to the lake, and on my way passed a warm spring smoking from the ground; the internal fires which caused that eruption of the lava are smouldering yet. The water of the lake is salt, though not intensely so, and the neighboring soil is so impregnated with salt that the Indians extract from it a dark-colored salt by passing water through it. Not far from the Pefli6n are some halfruinous buildings enclosing a hot spring, to which invalids resort, and an old church, in the shadow of which some of them have found a grave. We returned to town over the extensive low grounds, now dry, but elevated only two or three feet above the level of the lake, and therefore sure to be laid under water when the copious summer rains falling on the sides of the mountains are gathered in the great basin of the Mexican valley. We breakfasted at the Tivoli Gardens, to which we were taken by the American consul, Dr. Skilton. This is a favorite resort of the Mexicans, and often the place of their public banquets. For this purpose there are broad galleries open to the air, but under a roof, while for small parties there are little summer houses beneath the shade of great trees. Rivulets of water keep up a perpetual

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

verdure; there is turf always green, and flowers always in bloom. For the recreation of visitors there are three or four bowling alleys. It was a holiday, and we went to the Viga, a public drive just without the city, beside the canal which connects the salt lake of Tezcoco with the fresh-water lake of Chalco. This time we found the ground sufficiently watered to keep the dust in its place, and all the finest equipages in Mexico were out, with many of humbler pretensions, passing and repassing each other, as they drove backwards and forwards. Sometimes the equipage was a neat carriage drawn by a pair of mules, the handsomest creatures of their kind that I ever saw, with a spirited look which they certainly do not inherit from the parent donkey. Mingled among these were horsemen with their handsome barbs, their massive, glittering stirrups and spurs, and showy saddles, their slashed pantaloons, their gay sarapes of many colors and their broad-brimmed white hats with ornaments of silver. The Mexicans ride well and gracefully, and sit their horses in such a manner that the rider seems a part of the animal. On the canal, which bordered this public drive, flat-boats, some of them quite large, were passing, filled with people from the Indian villages south of the city-women with chaplets of flowers on their heads, and young people dancing with a slow swaying motion-for there was no capering-to the light sound of some musical instrument, as their boat slid along the water. By the canal and under the trees which bordered it sat people who seemed to enjoy the spectacle of the showy equipages, and still more showy cavaliers on horseback, quite as much as those who sat in the carriages. On the opposite side of the Viga were people grouped about the houses of entertainment under the trees, some of whom were amusing themselves with swings. As the sun touched the horizon the carriages turned homeward, the foot-passengers trooped toward the town and the flat-boats disappeared from the canals. The next day, in company with Mr. Porter Bliss, the American Secretary of Legation, 1 we explored the canal. Going to the Paseo de Ia Viga we took one of the boats, with two men carrying poles to push it forward and guide its course, and soon came to the narrow fields enclosed by canals which are called the Chenampas, and are all that remains of the floating gardens spoken of in Mexican history. They are as fast at the present time as any of the meadows in the valley of Mexico. Here are cultivated all the garden vegetables of temperate climates-every root that comes upon the dinner table, and a great variety of fruits. The peach and almond were now in full bloom, and the fruit of the apricot was, as the gardeners say, already set. The brown cultivators of these gardens were busy in places with a sort of long-handled ladle scooping up the water from the canals and flinging

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49

it upon the thirsty little islands. We passed the Indian town of Santa Anita to another named Ixtacalco, where we landed. There an Artesian well had been sunk, where the cool waters, of the brightest transparency, gush up with force from the ground, filling a spacious tank, and then running off into the canal. An old church was near, with graves by its side, only one or two of which had any monumental stone. The rest were dusty hillocks, the newest of which had little crosses made of reed planted at the head. We returned to the town of Santa Anita, where the Indian cooks gave us a breakfast of chocolate, which here in Mexico is excellently well prepared, eggs and frijoles or beans, together with a roast chicken. But the most palatable dish-so I thought-was that which they call tamales, made of the meal of Indian corn baked in the husks of the ear. The Indians often eat them seasoned with red pepper, enchiladas as their phrase is, but a single trial of the tamales prepared in this manner set my mouth on fire and satisfied me. While the Indian women were preparing our breakfast we looked about us. The place which we were in was evidently a great resort on holidays, for here were counters for dispensing pulque2 and other beverages, on the walls of which were drawings rudely executed by Aztec artists, accompanied by ill-spelled inscriptions, mostly in rhyme, by the village poets. I could not help comparing this simple breakfast furnished by the coarse cookery of these Indian villagers, with one at which I was present a few days before, at Tacubaya, on the gentle declivities which overlook the city from the west. A Scottish merchant invited a large party, including several ladies, to a breakfast on the Barron estate, a fine country seat, kept in the most scrupulous order, although no one ventures to live there or even to pass the night, on account of the frequent robberies which are committed in the neighborhood. The founder of the Barron family was from Ireland, and is said to have made his immense wealth by trade, not without the suspicion of having benefitted the community in the way approved by Jeremy Benthamthat is to say, by redressing the rigors of a tyrannical system of revenue laws. 3 However this might be, the mansion on the estate is a palace, and the grounds, with their shady walks and fragrant blossoming thickets, and smooth lawns, and groups of trees laden with tropical fruits, and little streams traversing the ever-verdant groves, and sheets of water reflecting beds of roses in bloom, is one of the most beautiful spots I can imagine. We were on the ground at eleven o'clock, and the breakfast was to begin not far from that time, but one or two of the guests, the most distinguished, were late in arriving, and we did not sit down till nearly one. But the breakfast-if I were to describe it I could

50

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

hardly do better than to borrow the words of Milton, in "Paradise Regained," in which he gives the bill of fare provided by the Tempter in the wilderness. 4 It was too sumptuous and exquisite to be soon over-and when we rose from the table the rain, a most unusual circumstance at this season of the year, was beating on the roof. Ere long, however, the clouds dispersed, the air was the clearer for the shower, and the volcano of Popocatapetl, which in the winter is generally concealed from sight by the haze, showed its white summit in the bright sunshine of the mid-heaven. Then there were the grounds to look at again, and the bowling alley to visit, where the ladies distinguished themselves by their address in knocking down the pins, and thus the short space between the breakfast and the hour of sunset was passed. Suddenly towards sunset we saw the attendants busy in packing up the plate and china in order to take them back to the city, and we all got into our carriages again to return from a breakfast which might be almost said to have taken up the whole day. In the afternoon we visited the Museum of Antiquities, to which the Minister of Justice, Senor Alcarras, was kind enough to accompany us. The samples of ancient Aztec pottery, the hideous idols, the implements and ornaments of stone, and the sharp blades of obsidian, or volcanic glass, which before the Mexican conquest were used as knives, are curious, but the description of them would be tiresome; only engravings can give anything like an accurate idea of them. Under the same roof is a cabinet of natural history, which seemed to me well arranged. I should have mentioned an earlier visit to the Mexican Academy of Arts. Here is an ample collection of casts from the antique, much larger than I expected to see; here are also a great number of Mexican pictures, centuries old, of quaint design, yet not without talent; but of the works of eminent European painters, by the example of which the pupil might be guided in his art, there are very few. I saw, however, recent pictures by native artists, which bespeak the possession of a decided talent for the art. Among them was a picture of Dante and Virgil looking over a precipice into the fiery gulf prepared for the wicked, by Rafael Flores. Other pictures of merit were Cimabue in company with Giotto, by Obregon; the Sacrifice of Isaac, by Santiago Rabull; Ishmael, by Pablo Valdez; San Carlos Borromeo Distributing Alms, by Salome Piiia, and a Christ by Ramon Sagrado. 5 There were also some creditable samples of Mexican statuary-among which I saw a statue, yet in plaster, of San Carlos Borromeo and a child. Of Mexican engravings I saw no example. The artist here finds two obstacles in the way of his success. In the first place there are few good pictures from which he can obtain an idea of his art in its highest

Mexico, and an Election

51

forms of excellence. In the second place-and perhaps I ought to have put this first-there are few persons here who buy pictures. I was told of native artists, who had given proofs of no little talent, that they had been obliged to take to mending shoes. The art of music is cultivated with some zeal. There is a philharmonic society here, and I attended one of its concerts, as an honorary member newly installed. The piano was played with a skilful execution, and a choral melody was sung by several young girls in white. They sang with a precision which showed, I thought, careful training and accurate musical perception; but there was something sharp and stridulous in their voices. A few evenings since I heard at an evening party Senorita Peralta, famed for the sweetness of her voice. "The Mexicans," said a gentleman who was present, "are proud of Peralta, and with reason. She sings well; but she did not succeed in Paris. Her very plain face and ungraceful action carried the day against the voice, and she returned to Mexico." But what of the literature of Mexico? Of that, as I know but little yet, I can say but little. Yet Mexico has her men of science, her eloquent orators, her eminent antiquaries, her historians, her successful novelists and her poets, who, I am told, are numerous, so easily does the melodious language spoken here run into verse. All who have obtained distinction in this way are gathered into an association called the Geographical and Statistical Society-a very narrow appellation for one which embraces so wide a circle of notabilities. 6 I was present the other day at one of the meetings of this society, at which several persons were admitted as members, of whom I had the honor to be one. It was held in the Mineria, or School of Mines, one of the finest buildings in Mexico, stately and spacious, with airy galleries surrounding an inner square,. and with ample rooms for its cabinets of minerals and its fossil animal remains, which had a somewhat meagre appearance in so extensive a receptacle. The members assembled in a large hall capable of holding several thousand people; the Ministro de Fomento, an officer of the government who answers to our Secretary of the Interior, presided, and honored the occasion with an animated speech. By his side sat a gentleman evidently of the pure Aztec race, who, I was told, generally presided at the meetings of the society-it was Senor Ramirez, the vice-president. At a desk in front of the president sat Senor Allamirane, the first secretary, who bore equally manifest tokens of Aztec descent. Many of these descendants of the people subdued by Cortez are men of cultivated minds and engaging manners. The greater part of the works of art in the galleries of which I have spoken are from their hands. I was curious to see the Monte Pio, a national institution for

52

LETTERS

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

lending money on pledges of personal property, and accordingly Mr. Bliss conducted us thither. It occupies what was once the palace of Cortez, looking upon the Cathedral Square, and built, it is said, on the very spot where stood the royal dwelling of Moctezuma. Cortez must have brought over from Spain his artisans to hew and lay the stones of this massive structure, which has furnished a pattern for all the mansions of the wealthy residents of Mexico which have been built smce. I found the great building filled from the ground floor to the roof with articles pawned by persons in need. The lower part, under the galleries, was crowded with every kind of carriage, from the heavy family coach to the light gig, and with every movable that could be sold for money. In another part of the building, in a well-secured apartment, and kept in drawers safely locked, are jewels of every kind, diamonds, rubies, pearls, sapphires and the like, in the shape of wreaths for the brow, necklaces, bracelets, eardrops and every other kind of ornament worn by women. Elsewhere I saw garments of various kinds, from the most costly silks and shawls to the plainest chintzes and coarsest handkerchiefs. All these things are appraised at their just value, from which the interest for six months is deducted and the remainder paid to the owner. At the end of six months the objects pawned are sold by auction, and if they bring more than the original valuation the owner receives the difference. It is worth remarking that the institution is managed with perfect integrity-at least in such a manner that there is no complaint of unfairness or wrong. I could not help thinking with shame on the extent to which some of our own savings banks, established under pretense of aiding the poorer class, have swindled those who gave them their confidence, and was obliged to own to myself that Mexico, in this respect, was more honest than New York. I am now about to leave the capital of this republic, with a view of passing two or three days at some of the places between it and Vera Cruz which are well worthy the attention of the traveller. MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT: EP for May 16, 1872. l. Porter Cornelius Bliss (1838-1885), a journalist and expert on Latin America, served as secretary oflegation in Mexico from 1870 to 1874. 2. Fermented agave juice. 3. Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), British writer on economics andjurisprudence, is best remembered for his philosophy of Utilitarianism. 4. Lines 337-347. 5. Biographical notes on the artists mentioned can be found in two works: Jean Charlot, Mexican Art and the Academy of San Carlos, 1875-1915 (Austin, 1962); and Ida Rodriguez Prampolin, La Critica De Arte en el Siglo X1X, 3 vols.

53

Mexico, and an Election

6. This society gave Bryant a formal reception and made him an honorary member.

2052.

To George W. Clarke 1

My dear sir,

Mexico, Hotel Iturbide, March 12th 1872.

I send you, as you have requested for your journal, a memorandum of what I said at the meeting of the Geographical Society. 2 I leave this interesting City, where I have received so much kindness, with a sense of regret that I have not been able to study more at leisure, its political and social condition, and its other peculiarities. I leave it with gratitude for its hospitalities, with reverence for its enlightened men and with the warmest wishes for the prosperity of the nation of which it is the capital. I am, Sir, Very Truly Yours, W. C. BRYANT. NYPL-GR (partial draft) TEXT: The Two Republics (Mexico City), March 16, 1872 ADDRESs: Maj. Geo. W. Clarke, I Present.

MANUSCRIPT:

1. Editor of the English language newspaper The Two Republics, which reported Bryant's activities in Mexico City at some length. 2. Bryant's speech on March 9 was printed in The Two Republics on March 16. After apologizing in its first paragraph for his "bad Castilian," he had continued in English. But a Spanish language paper praised the "very correct phrases" and "correct pronunciations" of this opening paragraph in his "eloquent discourse."

2053.

To Julia S. Bryant

My dear Julia.

Orizaba

March 16th

1872

Here I am safe and sound, returned from Mexico, where I have been dined and breakfasted, and diplomad and sent hither with an escort of cavalry, where I find myself amidst some of the most glorious scenery in the world. I expect to remain here today-tomorrow to go to Cordova, not far from this place but in a warmer region, where the luxuriant growth of tropical plants is something extraordinary. After that we shall proceed to Vera Cruz, God willing, and embark, on the 20th of this month, on the steamer City of Merida for Havana. Every thing has favored us thus far. The only disagreeable part of our visit to Mexico has been the inconveniences and the dust of the road between this place and the city of Puebla. I never travelled on a worse road and no where in so much dust. But we have all of us been amply

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

compensated by what we have seen of the country and its people. For my own part I have been overwhelmed with attention and if I had staid longer should have been invited to a banquet by the newspaper press of the city of Mexico, and to a literary party where the poets were to contribute verses which were to be formed into a "Bryant Album." -Love to Anna and kind regards to all my friends in Havana. Yours affectionately W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

NYPL-GR

2054. To the

ADDREss: Miss Julia Bryant.

EvENING

PosT

Vera Cruz, March 20, 1872.

One of the things which the stranger ought to see in the city of Mexico is the archives of the government, reposited in the lower rooms of the National Palace. Here is a vast collection of the manuscript histories of the different provinces into which Mexico was originally divided, all fairly copied and bound in volumes. I saw them the day before I left the capital. Volume after volume was shown me, composed by the local historians of other days, who set themselves to record the events of the early planting and subsequent growth of the colonies in which they dwelt. Here is matter for the future historians of the United States, for here are the annals of Texas and California and New Mexico. Diligent hands will yet turn the pages of these voluminous records, and critical eyes will search for characteristic incidents worthy to be selected from the undigested mass thrown together by these early chroniclers. I left Mexico by rail on the morning of the 13th of March, regretting that my plans did not allow me to give more time to a place so interesting in many respects-the history of which is so full of remarkable incidents, the people of which have so many quaint peculiarities, and the physical geography of which is so different from that of any country which I had ever seen. Several of the acquaintances whom we had made at Mexico kindly came to see us off at the station. Among them was Mr. Black, a gentleman who formerly for many years held in Mexico the post of United States consul, and was greatly esteemed. His presence in Mexico at this season is a testimony to the benignity of the climate. After his long sojourn at the capital he had returned to the United States, but finding the present winter setting in with a severity which somewhat affected his health, he now sought a temporary refuge in the region where he had lived through so many seasons without any experience of a temperature lower than that of

Mexico, and an Election

55

May in our own climate. As he rose from his seat to take leave he declaimed with good emphasis a little poem which I could not but recognize as an old acquaintance, for I remembered having written it myself more than forty years since. Soon after issuing from the city we passed, at a considerable distance from us on the right, a small village of mud cabins, to which a fellow-passenger directed our attention. "There lives," he said, "a peculiar tribe of people, of the most degraded and beastly habits. There are no marriages among them, and their practices are free love in its grossest form. Incest of the most revolting kind is common, and there is the utmost confusion of kindred." One of the cars attached to the train on which we travelled was full of armed men, so that we regarded ourselves as secure against any attack from those who rob travellers in the name of what they call a revolution. At one of the stations where we stopped we found an intrenchment and breastworks thrown up to defend the trains, while they stopped, against robbers coming upon them from the hills that lay to the north of the track. Soon after leaving the capital we were among the fields of maguey, the plant with stiff, thick, dark-green leaves, from which the common drink of the country, called pulque, is drawn. On each side we saw them stretching away over the champaign country to the bare hills that inclose it. Near at hand the broad spaces, left for other crops between the rows, were visible to the eye, but at a distance the rows seemed to run together and the earth was completely hidden for leagues around, under what seemed to the sight a close mass of dark green leaves. This plant after several years' cultivation and growth suddenly sends up a thick, vigorous stem. Into this the sap of the plant, a milky juice, flows rapidly, pushing it upwards to the height of some fifteen feet, when its summit phts forth horizontal branches hung with flowers. If left to itself it there perfects its seeds, and then the plant perishes. But the Mexican, while the sap is rushing upwards, cuts off the stem at its base, and there scoops out a sort of basin among the leaves, near the root. Into this the sap intended for the stem-the Mexicans call it the milk, from its color-flows in great abundance, and with the help of a tube at the mouth of an Aztec laborer, is drawn out by suction. This, when fermented, is the pulque, the ordinary drink of the country, and by distillation yields a spirit like whiskey. To one who at this season casts his eyes over the country it would almost seem as if there was nothing but the maguey cultivated, so few are the other crops at this time of the year, and such is the great breadth of the region occupied by this plant. The railways also attest the extent of this traffic. The freight-trains drag huge cars loaded with it, in barrels

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

and also in skins, the primitive method of keeping wine in Spain. At the railway stations were piles of barrels and huge heaps of skins filled with pulque waiting their turn to be transported to market. "This pulque"-said a Mexican gentleman to me-"this pulque and the spirit drawn from it are the bane of our country. It is drunk immoderately, and our people when full of pulque are good for nothing. We must contrive to wean them from its use if we mean that our country shall advance in civilization." Of course, here is an ample field for the apostles of temperance. I was amused by hearing a young Englishman lately arrived, whom we saw at Fortin, say very innocently that he had fallen in with some Indians who had been drinking a kind of sour wine-meaning their pulque. It disagreed with them, he said, and made them sick. The train arrived at Puebla a little before two o'clock in the afternoon, and we hired a carriage to take us to the pyramid of Cholula, in the neighborhood. We had been told in Mexico that this excursion would not be quite safe without an escort, but at Puebla they laughed at this apprehension, and we determined to go. So we went by one of these rough, neglected Mexican roads, through brown pasture grounds and russet fallows, and fields of'maguey, and crossing a little river overhung with trees in full leaf, came at length to the decayed little town of Cholula. Here is a conical hill apparently of dark-colored earth, two hundred feet high. Examine it and you see that it is composed of tiers of sun-dried brick, with many fragments of pottery, and small rough stones, and here and there a horizontal line of a whitish mortar-all evidently built up from the level plain. On its broad sides grow shrubs and trees, and in one or two places the ground has been terraced and cultivated. At the top is a broad level space where the Aztecs once worshipped, but now a church is standing-an old building, but undergoing repairs, which, I was told, were done by subscription-the government neither building nor repairing any more churches. The interior of the building was in good taste and really beautiful. From the summit we had an extensive view-the little town of Cholula, immediately below, once swarming with inhabitants, but now scarcely more than a hamlet, yet with half a dozen churchesgreen fields artificially watered, roads crossing each other, bordered with rows of the dark-green maguey, the spires of Puebla in the distance, and that circle of mountains which everywhere embraces these upland plains. Near this pyramid is a smaller one, on the top of which we found small Aztec knife-blades of obsidian or volcanic glass; and yet another, the sloping parts of which had been cut down and carried away, leaving the sides completely perpendicular, and, as I judged, almost forty feet high.

Mexico, and an Election

57

Returning to Puebla I waited on General Alatorre, to whom I had a letter from the Minister of War, Senor Balcarcel, procured for me by the kindness of Senor Romero, requiring him to furnish me with an escort to Orizaba. I found a handsome man of a fine military presence, who asked me if it was necessary that I should set out next day. "It is necessary," I answered, "in order to arrive seasonably at Vera Cruz." "Then," said he, "I must send a messenger to some distance for the cavalry you will want." The escort was ready to proceed with us the next morningthirteen men, good riders all, well mounted and armed with carbines. There were four of our party; we had taken a diligence as far as Orizaba for ourselves only, and we were about to set out, when two gentlemen from Guadalajara, who were about to proceed first to the United States and then to England, asked leave to take seats with us. We gave our consent and had no reason to regret it. They were courteous, intelligent men, and no smokers, one of them about thirtytwo years of age and the other a little more than ten years younger. They were lawyers going abroad to make themselves acquainted with the jurisprudence of our own country and that of England. Both had some knowledge of English; the memory of the elder one was well stored with passages from Milton's Paradise Lost, and he repeated them with an accent which the residence of a few months among those who speak our language can hardly fail to improve. We were joined by another diligence, containing a Mexican family, and traversed again those arid plains encircled by mountains, our armed escort trotting faithfully by our side. We met with no enemy save the dust rising from roads where the earth, by the constant passing of heavy vehicles, had been ground into powder, from which we protected our eyes and nostrels by gauze veils. Before the day ended our escort had stopped and had been relieved by another of the same number. But instead of caps our new protectors wore broadbrimmed white hats, and leathern pantaloons instead of woollen ones. Another night at San Agustin de Palmar and another day on the dusty uneven road to the heights of Aculcingo, upon reaching which our escort was again changed. Let me say here that there will be no occasion for any further complaints of this road after the present year has closed. On the 31st of December the railway from Mexico to Vera Cruz is to be finished, and the journey between the cities will be made in a single day. The enterprise is in vigorous hands. A New Jerseyman, Mr. Branniff, is pushing it forward, and it can hardly fail to be completed at the day appointed. All along our journey eastward we

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

met with teams of mules, fourteen harnessed together, dragging huge bundles of railway iron over the rugged roads. A little before reaching Orizaba our escort turned back, as it was no longer necessary, and at three o'clock we stopped at our hotel. We dined immediately and drove to Cocolata, a little without the town. Cocolata is the name of the estate of Mr. Grandisen, a Scottish gentleman, to whom we had letters, and who, with his son-in-law, Mr. Ashby, an American, is the proprietor of cotton and paper mills. Here the White River-Rio Blanco, as it is called-rushing through the machinery of the mills tumbles noisely into a woody glen, perpetually overhung with flowering shrubs and creepers. Mr. Grandisen received us cordially, and showed us from his balcony some of the finest mountain views I ever looked upon, so bold and varied were the outlines, the steeps sprouting with plants of vivid green, and the huge buttresses by which they were flanked, running far into the meadows. Whichever way we looked, to whatever quarter of the compass, the view was equally striking. In returning to our hotel Mr. Grandisen took us to his garden watered by little rivulets from the White River and full of the peculiar plants of the region. Among these were parasitic plants of various kinds which had been brought from other places and lodgments made for them in the fork of a tree or in some cleft of its bark. The green stranger, kindly and carefully installed, adopted its new home, took root and put forth its little sprays and opened its blossoms as if that had been its birthplace. The next morning Mr. Grandisen called and took us through various pleasant lanes of the neighborhood, one of which crossed a deep ravine where ran a noisy stream in which women were washing linen. The ravine was as picturesque as the mountain region about it. Here and there it was flanked by massive pieces of ancient masonry gray with time and overhung with shrubs and other plants in bloom. Here was a large flour mill humming, with an orange orchard beside it hung with fruit; here were summer-houses and flower-gardens and tanks brimming with transparent water, and rows of bananas hanging out their huge clusters. We were next taken into a large fruit orchard back of a tannery, where, our friend having taken two or three oranges, the keeper appeared and began to scold, but was pacified with a few cents, after which we purchased of him as many as we cared to take-the finest and most delicious of their kind. "Will he give his [employer?] the money?" I asked. "Certainly; there is no reason to doubt it; these people are perfectly faithful." In the afternoon we went to visit a pretty waterfall in a brook that descends from one of the steep mountain gorges. On our way we

Mexico, and an Election

59

passed through an Indian village, the appearance of which much interested me. It seemed a forest, but it was a forest of mango and orange trees, and bananas, and granaditas, and various other trees producing the tropical fruits. All the ground is laid out in squares, each with its rude cabin, and roads at right angles intersect the whole tract. "These people," said our friend, "live in this shady neighborhood on the produce of their lots. Here we get our laborers when laborers are needed, but they lead an easy life in the main. They are prolific; they have large families of children, but most of the children die." Another gentleman, a Mexican, whom I afterwards met, said to me: "The Indian race is diminishing in numbers, while the whites and the mixed class increase. The aborigines are careless of their health; they live in an unwholesome manner, and numbers of them are carried off by complaints of the lungs." We left Orizaba by diligence at eight o'clock the next morning, and passing through a green and pleasant region, with the white peak of the Orizaba occasionally in sight, reached Fortin at ten, where we waited two hours longer for the train which was to take us to Cordova. At Cordova we went to the Casa de las Diligencea[s], a decayed hotel, the only one in the place, where we found rooms on the lower floor little better than stables. We asked for dinner. "The dinner has already been served," was the answer. "But you can give us something to eat." "There is nothing." "No bread, no eggs, no beans, no chocolate?" "There is none." This was all that we could get out of them. "No hay" was their constant answer. But it happened to be market day; the public square not far off was full of country people, and in some kitchens opening on the market-place were cooks busy in ministering to customers. Here we found what satisfied our hunger for the present. We had letters to Mr. Finck, a German gentleman, and Senor Nieto, a native Mexican of the Spanish stock, both of them engaged in the cultivation of such useful plants and trees as might be advantageously introduced into their country from foreign parts. They both accompanied us to the noble experimental garden of Senor Nieto. The spacious and well-watered grounds of this enclosure were planted with a vast variety of trees and shrubs and herbs, of which I shall spare the reader the catalogue-every production of the temperate climes side by side with everything that springs from the earth in the torrid climes-for we were now in the tierra caliente. I perceived that Senor Nieto was a sufferer from some cause, and on inquiry learned that

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LETTERS oF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

twenty-one years before he had been attacked in his house by robbers and a ball lodged in his breast. It lies there yet. He seeks to divert his mind from his sufferings by the tendance of his garden, in which he takes great interest. Among the plants which he has introduced, is the Ramie, the bark of which yields a fibre for the spinner, of great fineness and strength, and as lustrous as silk. The next day Mr. Finck took us to a coffee plantation of which he has the care. Here the shrubs were loaded with berries nearly of the size of a cherry, with a red cheek and not unpleasant to the taste. Overshadowing them were palms and trees of the Manilla mango and orange; the lemon here is little prized, its fruit is scarce anything but rind. Here flourishes with a rapid growth the cinchona tree, or Peruvian bark, just introduced. But what surprised us most was the growth of the banana, which in a single season sends up a trunk of the size of a stout man's body and fifteen or twenty feet in height, and hangs out a cluster of fruit which would fill a half barrel. One season sees both its growth and death. The huge juicy stalk, after having borne fruit, perishes. We left our miserable quarters in Cordova after a rainy night, in which the water came through the roof into our room, and reached Vera Cruz in a few hours. I had letters to several intelligent men in this place, both Mexicans and foreigners. I have been kept here for two days by a north wind which makes it impossible to have any communication between the town and the steamer-the City of Merida-in which we are to depart. Meantime I have seen what this town has to show me-its new library, of which an old church is the spacious receptacle, and its Ospicio, an institution for the relief and support of poor orphan children and of very old and disabled persons. Both are comfortably provided for. The neat little beds for the boys and girls had each its mosquito net. The children swarmed in the place and were extremely frolicsome. One of our party entered with all his heart into their sports and the place rang with their laughter, while the good-natured superintendent looked on with pleasure. As I am about to close this letter it occurs to me to say that I have often, while in Mexico, heard from men engaged in trade the expression of a wish that the United States would either undertake the protectorate of Mexico, or annex it to their federation. They are weary of the constant disturbances of the public peace, which interrupt the course of business, and what is worse, make property insecure and life unsafe. Yet I do not believe that the mass of the population share in this feeling, and it seems to me that if any administration in Mexico were to attempt a negotiation with our government for a protectorate, it would do so at the risk of being hurled from power. The jealousy of

Mexico, and an Election

61

foreigners which once led to their expulsion in a body from Mexico yet subsists. My friend at Orizaba said to me: "I am still looked upon as a foreigner, although I have been here forty years-though I like the country and the people and desire to stay among them-though I married here and expect to die here-though all my interests are here, still I am not regarded as one of them." Who shall venture to say what cause will yet restore to Mexico the internal peace which seems all that is now wanted to make her prosperous? Another morning will probably see us embark for Havana. MANUSCRIPT:

2055.

Unrecovered

TEXT:

EP for May 24, 1872.

To Matias Romero

My dear Mr. Romero

Vera Cruz

March 20

1872

I cannot leave this country without sending you my thanks for your favors to me while I have been [here?]. I made with my companions the journey from Mexico to this place pleasantly and without molestation. A day spent in the pleasant town of Orizaba and another [amidst the luxurious vegetation?] of Cordova added greatly to the interest of the journey and the escort which you were so good as to furnish .... MANUSCRIPT:

2056.

NYPL-GR (partial draft).

To L. H. McFadden 1

Dear Sir

New York

April 22

1872

On returning from the West Indies and Mexico where I have passed the winter I find your note written in February. I shall certainly regard it as an honor to be nominated as a member of the Literary Society of your University and thank you for the obliging offer to present my name. I am sir, respectfully yours. 2 MANUSCRIPT:

OCL

ADDREss:

L. H. McFadden Esq.

1. McFadden, otherwise unidentified, was apparently an officer of the Otterbein Philomathean Literary Society. See Letter 2064. 2. Bryant failed to sign this letter.

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

62

2057. To Fanny Bryant Godwin

Dear Fanny.

New York

April25, 1872.

I have two engagements for tomorrow evening, so that I cannot come to your house-thanking you all the same. But I shall expect both you and Mr. Godwin on Saturday at six in the afternoon to meet Mr. and Mrs. [Manelles?]I at dinner. Affectionately W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-GR ADDRESS: Mrs. F. Bryant Godwin I No 19 East 37th Street I NewYork1. Unidentified.

2058. To Henry Demarest Lloyd 1

Dear Sir

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, April25, 1872

I understand that you supply with tickets for the railroads the gentlemen who are to attend the Cincinnati Convention. 2 My friends Edward A. Stansbury3 and John A. Graham, 4 purpose to be present at the Convention, and knowing that they are men of the right stamp, most respectable in character, highly intelligent and having no object in view but the public good, I take the liberty of asking for them the facilities which are afforded to others. Yours very respectfully W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-BFP ADDREss: To H. D. Lloyd Esq. 1. Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847-1903), ajournalist, lawyer, and anti-monopolist, was the author in 1894 of a pioneering study of corporate exploitation, Wealth Against Commonwealth. He has been called the "first and best of muckrakers." See Letter 2069. 2. A Liberal Republican Convention called for May 1, 1872, by a number of prominent men, including Bryant, who opposed the renomination of President Grant. 3. See Letter 540. 4. See 1176.1.

2059. To John Howard Bryant

Dear Brother-

New York

May 8, 1872

! think of going to Cummington the beginning of next week. If you do not come at the same time I may if assured of your coming

Mexico, and an Election

63

wait for you a day or so. If not I shall despatch what I have to do and come away. I ought to be there now to look to some transplanting of trees. We are all sorely disappointed at the result of the Cincinnati convention and no less in Trumbull who supports that nomination. 1 Your affectionately, W C BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

NYPL-BFP ADDREss: Jno H

Bryant Esq.

1. Horace Greeley was the unexpected nominee at this Liberal Republican Convention, having been maneuvered by politicians led by Whitelaw Reid (18371912), his associate on the New York Tribune, to defeat the more likely candidates Charles Francis Adams (634.6) and Lyman Trumbull. See Nevins, Fish, II, 597ff.; Letter 2060.

2060. To Lyman Trumbulli

My dear sir

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, May 8th 1872.

It has been said that you will support the nomination of Mr. Greeley for President. 2 I have no right to speak of any course which you may take in politics in any but respectful terms, but I may perhaps take the liberty of saying that if you give that man your countenance, some of your best friends here will deeply regret it. We who know Mr. Greeley, know that his administration, should he be elected, cannot be otherwise than shamefully corrupt. His associates are of the worst sort, and the worst abuses of the present administration are likely to be even caricatured under his. His election would be a severe blow to the cause of revenue reform. The cause of civil service reform would be hopeless with him for President, for Reuben E. Fenton, his guide and counsellor, and the other wretches by· whom Greeley is surrounded, will never give up the patronage by which they expect to hold their power. As to other public measures, there is no abuse or extravagance into which that man, through the infirmity of his judgment, may not be betrayed. It is wonderful how little, in some of his vagaries, the scruples which would influence other men of no exemplary integrity restrain him. -But I need not dwell upon these matters-they are all set forth in the Evening Post, which you sometimes see. What I have written is written in the most profound respect for your public character, and because of that respect. If you conclude to support Mr. Greeley I shall of course infer that you do so because you do not know him. 3 Yours truly W. C. BRYANT

LETTERS oF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

64

MANUSCRIPT: NYHS ADDRESs: Hon

L. Trumbull.

I. Connecticut-born Lyman Trumbull (1813-1896) had been a United States Senator from Ohio since 1854-first as a Free Soiler and later as a Republican. See 1188.1; 1191.3. 2. After Trumbull had lost the nomination to Greeley on May 3, he kept a promise to support the convention's nominee by backing Greeley. Nevins, Fish, II, 597; Mark M. Krug, Lyman Trumbull, Conservative Radical (New York: A. S. Barnes [ 1965]), pp. 331-335. 3. On hearing the news of Greeley's nomination, Bryant entered the Evening Post office "in hot haste" and announced to his editors, "I will attend to that editorial myself." Nevins, Evening Post, p. 396. The result, "Why Mr. Greeley Should Not Be Supported for the Presidency," was probably the sharpest, most scornful article he had ever written. Greeley's nomination, he said, was no longer the "good joke" it had once seemed; though it lent an air of "low comedy" to the coming election, it must now be seriously considered. This unlikely candidate lacked courage, firmness, consistency. His course during the Civil War had been "irresolute and cowardly." His political associations and intimacies would ensure a "corrupt administration." His only settled political principle was that of a "bigoted protectionist." Finally, his social manners were "bearish and brutal." EP, May 4, 1872, leading editorial. There had been bad blood between the two editors for many years. As early as 1831 Greeley, then a young journeyman printer recently hired by the EP, was summarily fired by Bryant's partner William Leggett, who, finding Greeley "bobbing" over the type case in his "peculiar way," shouted to the foreman, "For God's sake let's discharge him, and let's have decent-looking men in the office, at least!" In 1849 Greeley, responding to a Bryant editorial, wrote: "You lie; you old villain, you basely, wickedly lie!" See James Parton, The Life of Horace Greeley, Editor of the New York Tribune (New York, 1855), pp. 133-134, 321. Thereafter Bryant had no use for his vituperative critic. At a social meeting in 1864, when the host asked Bryant if he knew Greeley, he replied, "No, I don't; he's a blackguard-he's a blackguard," Edwin L. Godkin, quoted in Nevins, Evening Post, p. 395.

2061.

To Richard H. Dana

Dear Dana.

New York

May 9th. 1872.

I have never sent you a copy of the latest edition of my poems, for which I take shame to myself. I now send it, 1 remembering that just before it appeared last autumn you took so much interest in it as to write to me about it. I have been on my travels again, and have escaped a hard winter, besides seeing a remarkable country, Mexico. Kind regards to all. Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. P.S. I send by Adams's Express. W.C.B. MANUSCRIPT: Longfellow House, Cambridge, Massachusetts ADDRESS: R. H. Dana Esq. I. The edition published in 1871 by D. Appleton.

Mexico, and an Election

2062.

To W. Buxton Forman 1

Dear Sir

65

New York

May 14th

1872

I have received through Mr. Winthrop 2 your note and the little volume containing Mr. Horne's poem the Great Peace Maker, 3 for both of which you have my thanks. Mr. Horne has well comprehended the office of the Electric Telegraph to add a new and strong tie to those which bind the nations together in peace, and has illustrated it with poetic associations of a grandeur entirely worthy of the subject. I am, sir, faithfully yours, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

UTex

ADDRESS:

W. Buxton Forman Esq.

I. Unidentified. 2. Probably Robert C. Winthrop of Boston. See 1189.4. 3. Not further identified.

2063.

To George B. Cline 1

New York 1872

My dear Sir.

May 20

A note which I have just received informs me that the ceremonies attending the unveiling of the Shakespearean statue will begin at three o'clock in the afternoon precisely. 2 Will you be so good as to send word to that effect to Dr. Ely3 and add that in tomorrow's papers the Programme of the Exercises will be published. Yours truly W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

Andrew B. Myers

ADDREss:

Geo. B. Cline Esq.

I. Superintendent of Bryant's Roslyn property, Cedar Mere. 2. On May 22, 1872, Bryant gave the principal address at the dedication of a statue of William Shakespeare on the Central Park Mall, by sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward. Bryant's speech was published in his Orations and Addresses, pp. [371]378. 3. Rev. Samuel R. Ely of Roslyn. See 1165.3.

2064. To L. K. Powell!

Dear Sir.

Roslyn Long Island. May 27th 1872.

I beg through you to return my thanks to the Members of the Otterbein Philomathian Literary Society for the compliment they have

66

LETTERS

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

paid me in constituting me an honorary member, and to assure them that I accept with much pleasure. I am, Sir, respectfully yours. W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: OCL ADDRESs: Mr. L. K. Powell I Corresponding Seery., &c. &c.

I. Unidentified, except as in descriptive note.

2065.

To Julia Hatfield 1

New York, May 30th

My dear Miss Hatfield.

1872.

If your package contain part of your work, putting the Scarlet Letter into the form of a drama, I will look it over for you, and in that case if you leave it with Dr. Wilder, 2 he will send it to me, but if it be anything relating to myself, I must be excused from taking any part in it, as that would imply an egotism, to the charge of which I do not wish to expose myself. I am sorry you have been put to the trouble of writing twice-but I have been little at the office lately and mostly out of town in New Jersey and elsewhere. From Dr. Wilder I had no message. Yours truly W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: Andrew B. Myers ADDREss: Miss

J.

Hatfield.

I. See Letters 1808, 1809. 2. Alexander Wilder, Albany correspondent for the EP. See 1077.4, Letter 1807.

2066.

To Francis H. Dawes 1

My dear Sir.

Roslyn 1872

Long Island

June 4th

I have forwarded several cases of books to your care for the Library, 2 by way of Williamsburg. Will you oblige me by looking after them, paying the freight & charges, and causing them to be stored in some convenient place where they will be safe till the proper receptacle is provided for them? There are over sixteen hundred volumes including a Cyclopedia and several dictionaries and works of reference, which should not be lent out, and only consulted in the Library. I hope to hear from you soon concerning the Flynn place. Mr. Tower 3 writes me that the house is not worth repairing, which should make a good deal of difference in the price. 4 Yours truly W. C. BRYANT.

67

Mexico, and an Election Bowling Green State University Library East Cummington I Massachusetts.

MANUSCRIPT:

ADDREss:

F. H. Dawes Esq.

1. Caretaker of Bryant's Homestead property at Cummington, Massachusetts. 2. Bryant was in the process of acquiring land on which to build a library which he would then give to the town of Cummington, and for which he would provide the books. 3. Lorenzo H. Tower (b. 1830), a Cummington farmer, who would be the first librarian of the Bryant Library. Only One Cummington, p. 338. 4. However, Bryant bought a nearby parcel of eleven acres from one Hiram Holmes. Ibid. In a letter dated June 4? 1872 (Ms unrecovered) Bryant acknowledged a cost estimate for the library of eight thousand dollars, and objected that he had paid only seven thousand for a much larger stone house on his Roslyn property only a year earlier.

2067.

To Jervis McEntee 1

My dear sir,

Roslyn, Long Island, June 6th, 1872.

I did not get your note until last evening and I reply to it at six o'clock this morning sending my answer by the earliest possible conveyance. I cannot answer for my daughter and Miss Fairchild for they are in town, and will not be here until toward noon. It is doubtful whether they will be able to come, expecting I think some company from town. But I accept the invitation with pleasure. 2 Yours truly, W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

Esq.

Unrecovered

TEXT:

Typescript in NYPL-GR

ADDREss:

Jervis McEntee

1. Jervis McEntee (1828-1891) was a landscape painter and member of the National Academy. 2. "1872 I A committee of five, including Jervis McEntee, Daniel Huntington, and J. F. Kensett, organize a 'surprise party' in Durand's honor June 8. Inclement weather changes the scene of the event from the woods of Maplewood [New Jersey] to the veranda of Durand's house. Twenty painters and long established friends including William Cullen Bryant come out from New York with food and champagne to salute the pioneer 'of our pathways which have now become highways.'" A. B. Durand, 1796-1886 (Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey, October 24November 28, 1971), p. 28.

2068.

To Jervis McEntee

My dear sir.

Roslyn, L. 1., June 6, 1872.

Since I wrote you this morning my daughter Julia has arrived from town. She accepts with pleasure the invitation to the pic-nic on

68

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Saturday, but it will not be convenient for Miss Fairchild to accompany us. You will see us therefore on that day if the weather permits. I am glad to join in any method of doing honor to so eminent an artist and so excellent a man as Mr. Durand. 1 I am, Sir, truly yours, w. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT: Typescript in NYPL-GR ADDRESS: Jervis McEntee Esq. 1. The landscape painter Asher B. Durand and Bryant had been friends and associates in artistic enterprises for nearly half a century. See 214.1, 487.1, Ill us. Vol. II.

2069.

To Gideon Welles 1

New York

June 6th

1872

The undersigned desire to have a conference of gentlemen who are opposed to the present Administration arid its continuance in office and deem it necessary that all the elements of the opposition should be united for a common effort at the coming presidential election. They respectfully invite you to meet a number of gentlemen belonging to the different branches of the opposition at the 5th Ave. Hotel N.Y. on June 20th, at 2 P.M. for the purpose of consultation and to take such action as the situation of things may require. 2 Your attention is respectfully drawn to the fact that this invitation is strictly personal to yourself and a prompt reply is earnestly requested addressed to Henry D. Lloyd, Secretary of the Committee. P.O. Box. 2209. N.Y. (Signed) William Cullen Bryant and others 3 MANUSCRIPT (fair copy, not in Bryant's holograph): Connecticut Historical Society. ENDORSED: "Confidential." 1. An early journalistic associate of Bryant's who had been United States Secretary of the Navy from 1861 to 1869. See 353.1. 2. The June 2 meeting was apparently an outgrowth of one at which Bryant presided at Steinway Hall on May 30, whose purpose was to field a presidential ticket in opposition to Grant and Greeley, and to their high tariff views. According to a Greeley biographer, nominations were made for an independent ticket in November, with William Slocum Groesbeck (1815-1897), an Ohio lawyer and congressman who had been an outstanding defense lawyer in the 1868 trial of President Johnson for impeachment, as the presidential candidate, and Frederick L. Olmsted (406.4) for vice-president. "But there the matter ended. Schurz later made speeches for Greeley."

Mexico, and an Election

69

William Alexander Linn, Horace Greeley (New York and London: Chelsea House, 1981; a reprint of the 1903 edition published by Appleton), p. 247n. 3. Other signers were Carl Schurz (1829-1896), Civil War general,journalist, and United States Senator from Missouri, who had chaired the Cincinnati Convention; Jacob Dolson Cox (1828-1900) of Ohio, another Civil War general, and Secretary of the Interior under Grant; David Ames Wells (1828-1898, Williams 1847, Lawrence Scientific School 1851) of Connecticut, an economist who, like Cox, had left the Grant administration after opposing its tariff policies; Oswald Ottendorfer (d. 1900), like Schurz a former German revolutionary, and editor/publisher of the New Yorker Staats Zeitung; and Jacob Brinkerhoff (1810-1880), Ohio jurist and former congressman. A copy of this letter was also sent to Samuel J. Tilden (389.3, 1059.1, 1263.1), like Bryant active in the American Free Trade League. See John Bigelow, ed., Letters and Literary Memorials of Samuel]. Tilden (New York: Harper, 1908), I, 305-306.

2070.

To Horatio N. Powers 1

June 12, 1872 .

. You are quite right in placing the nomination of Horace Greeley as President of the United States among the strange vagaries of the times. I should, at any time beforehand, have said that the thing was utterly impossible-that it could not be done by men in their senses. But it is a fact that bodies of men as well as individuals sometimes lose their wits, and that the average reason of a large assembly is sometimes sheer insanity. It is certain that another candidate will be proposed to be supported by those who can neither support Grant nor Greeley .... MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered

TEXT

(partial): Life. II, 323.

I. A Chicago clergyman. See 627 .I.

2071.

To Christiana Gibson

Dear Miss Gibson,

Roslyn, Long Island June 13th. 1872.

It was my intention to answer your letter immediately and for some time I fancied that I had done so, but on thinking the matter over, I could not remember any thing I had written, and became convinced that I had neglected to write. Your mother left this world ripe for that better world to which she went. What you tell me of the frame of mind in which she was after the death of her daughter, Mrs. Rankin, is remarkable. One of the happy peculiarities of her character was her cheerful contentedness with the allotments of Providence-her disposition to make the best of life, looking always upon its sunny side. When therefore the time arrived in which, contrary to her usual habit, she began to speak

70

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

of her desire to depart, and to be with the friends who had gone before her, and with Him who had died for her, you must all have been sensible that the close of her life on earth was near. That life was one of singular energy and usefulness, and it was fitting that it should end in peace and without pain, like one of the fine days of this glorious time of the year, in which the sun, having brought out the flowers and nursed the fruits of the season, sinks serenely to his rest. Miss Leclerc is with us today, looking in excellent health.' Her life has been a life of overwork, and a little rest fills out her cheeks again and brightens her eyes. We were glad-Julia and I-to hear some of what you and your sisters from one who had seen you all so lately. Particularly we were glad to be told that you appeared to be in much better health than when she had previously seen you. For the complete reestablis[h]ment of your health, I am inclined to think you must come to this continent. Will it never be-and so many here to welcome you? This reminds me of a visit which I paid last winter to the Bahamas, to Cuba, and to Mexico. I dropped Julia and Miss Fairchild at Havana, and with my brother John and Mr. John Durand, son of the painter, took passage to Vera Cruz, and then journeyed to the capital of the Mexican Republic. But you see the Evening Post in which the story of our rambles is told as well as I knew how to tell it. The Mexicans received me with very special attentions and honors, and we all escaped the hardest winter ever known in these parts. They speak of the breath of the north wind last March as most cruel and deadly. It took the life out of thousands of red cedar trees on this island. But it is all over and we are in the midst of full blown roses, and ripe strawberries pouting at being neglected, and an abundance of cherries just putting on their blushes, and a liberal promise of every other kind of fruit, and fields deep in herbage and woods drooping with leavesa most luxuriant summer. We are in the midst of a discussion of the question who is to be our next President. An act of gross folly has been committed in setting up Horace Greeley as a candidate. Genl. Grant is really incompetent to the duties of the place-but Greeley is unfit in almost every possible respect. There will be a third candidate, but I think Grant will be elected. Best regards to your elder sister and to all the others. I am dear Miss Gibson truly yours,

w. c. BRYANT.

MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-BPMP ADDRESS: Miss Christiana Gibson ENDORSED: W. C. Bryant I June 13, 1872 I Mother's I death.

1. Former French teacher at the girls school run by the Gibson family on Union Square, New York. See 502.3, 798.2.

Mexico, and an Election

2072.

To Robert Bonner

71

Roslyn Long Island June 19th. 1872.

My dear Sir.

Enclosed I send you a little poem-the first instalment of the year. 1 Yours truly W C BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

466.

UTex

ADDREss:

R. Bonner Esq.

1. "Tree Burial," New York Ledger, August 17, 1872. See Poems (1876), pp. 464-

2073.

To John R. Thompson 1

Roslyn, Friday June 21st

Dear Mr. Thompson,

1872.

If you have nothing better to do tomorrow, will you do us the favor to come and pass the Sunday at Cedarmere. The strawberries are fine and the cherries abundant. Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

UVa ADDRESS:

J. R. Thompson Esq.

1. Literary editor of the EP. See 1951.3.

2074.

To Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. 1

Gentlemen:

Roslyn, Long Island

June 24, 1872

I have your letter of the 21st of this month before me, relating to the conditions on which I am to undertake the editorship of your new publication, the work called "Picturesque America." 2 I agree to those conditions, and will undertake to edit the work on the terms proposed in the letter. I am, gentlemen, very truly yours. WM. C BRYANT. P.S. I agree to the conditions above referred to, with the understanding that the publication is not to proceed beyond fifty numbers. WM

c

BRYANT.

LETTERS oF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

72

MANUSCRIPT: Indiana University Library ADDRESS: To Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. ENDORSED: W. C. Bryant I June 24, 1872 I Editorship of P. A. 1. Since 1854 Appleton had published successive editions of Bryant's poems. 2. This two-volume collection of illustrated descriptions of American scenes, for which Bryant wrote an introduction and oversaw the text, appeared in 1872 and 1874.

2075.

To John Howard Bryant

Dear Brother.

New York June 25, 1872

I have a site for the Library. Mr. Dawes has bought for me the Holmes lot of which I spoke in my last letter-eleven acres for $350.00, and I have this morning sent him a cheque for the amount. Mr. Dawes and Mr. Tower have been perambulating the probable line of a road from the William Packard place to the East Village, and find that it will issue on the river road at one corner of the Holmes lot. 1 The deed has been made out to me and is in Mr. Dawes's hands. They say that there is plenty of good stone. Yours affectionately W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-BFP ADDRESS: Jno. H. Bryant Esq. PUBLISHED (in part): Life, II, 324. 1. This was largely the stretch of the present Route 112 from Route 9 to the entrance of the Bryant Homestead at Cummington.

2076.

To [Francis H. Dawes]

Dear Sir.

New York June 25

1872

I have this moment got your letter of the 23d. 1 You have done well in securing the Holmes Lot, and I am glad that it is so well situated. I send you a Cheque for the $350.00-which you paid for it. Now I wish to have the cellar excavated or at least the ground for the basement as soon as possible and have written to Mr. Tower to that effect. 2 Mr. Topps wants to begin the work on the fifteenth of July. I hope therefore the bargain will be made with Mr .... 3 MANUSCRIPT (partial): Du U. 1. Letter unrecovered. 2. Letter unrecovered. Lorenzo H. Tower (1830-post-1900), a Cummington farmer, was the first librarian of the Bryant Library in that town. 3. The balance of this MS is missing.

73

Mexico, and an Election

2077. To Henrietta S. Nahmer 1

Roslyn, Long Island, N.Y. June 27th. 1872.

Dear Madam.

I do not know how long I shall conclude to retain the control of the Library which I am to give to the town of Cummington, but I suppose not long. While I do retain it, the place of Librarian is already spoken for. But there will be a catalogue to be made out, with the books ranged under different heads, and under each head in alphabetical order, and the books will have to be protected with covers of tough paper-some of them already are so. I do not see why you might not be employed in doing this-. But it will be proper to wait until the books are all purchased. Those already sent are but about half the number intended for the library. I am, madam, truly yours W C BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

UVa

ADDRESS:

Mrs. H. S. Nahmer.

I. Henrietta Smith (Rogers) Nahmer (b. 1841) was a Cummington widow with two children. Vital Records of Cummington, pp. 211, 303, 314.

2078. To Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co. 1

Gentlemen.

Roslyn Long Island June 27th 1872

N.Y.

I hope you will excuse me for mentioning a matter which I may reasonably infer has been overlooked by you in the press of your affairs. The first payment for the translation of the Odyssey was to have been made as you will remember at the time when the translation was published. The work appeared in April before my return to New York from Mexico. I do not write now because I am in any hurry for the money but simply because I suppose that the matter has escaped your attention. If it be not convenient to send me the money now, please let me know. I am, gentlemen, very truly yours, W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

UVa ADDRESS: To Messrs.

J. R. Osgood &

Co.

I. Publishers of Bryant's translations of Homer. See 1826.2.

74

LETTERS

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

2079. To the EvENING PosT 1

New York, July 8, 1872.

Certain journals of this city have lately spoken of me as one ambitious of being nominated as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States. The idea is absurd enough, not only on account of my advanced age, but of my unfitness in various respects for the labor of so eminent a post. I do not, however, object to the discussion of my deficiencies on any other ground than that it is altogether superfluous, since it is impossible that I should receive any formal nomination, and equally impossible, if it were offered, that I should commit the folly of accepting it. WILLIAM

c. BRYANT. 2

MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT: EP, July 8, 1872. 1. "During the summer of 1872, there were rumors that Mr. Bryant himself would be the Presidential candidate of the dissatisfied members of the Cincinnati Convention. To silence this report he printed the following card." In Memory of William Cullen Bryant. Born, 1794-Died, 1878 (New York: Evening Post, 1878), p. 51. Bryant's editorial "card" was reprinted in the New York Times on the next day, and presumably in other journals. 2. In view of Bryant's repeatedly expressed opposition to the candidacies of both Grant and Greeley, and his activity in seeking an alternative, it is perhaps natural that there should be suspicions of his political ambitions. But the rumor-mongers might well have recalled his disclaimer in a similar card in the EP on April 1, 1861, when it was thought he might expect preferment from President Lincoln: "Those who are acquainted with Mr. Bryant know that there is no public office from that of the President of the United States downwards which he would not regard it as a mistake to be obliged to take." See Volume IV, 194. Nonetheless, this was not the first suggestion of an interest in Bryant as a potential President. In 1857 the Virginia anti-slavery leader John Curtis Underwood (18091873) had written Massachusetts Congressman Eli Thayer (1819-1899), of Bryant, "What a glory it would be to our country if it should elect this man to the Presidencythe country not he would be honored & elevated by such an event." Letter dated March 11, 1857, Brown University Library.

2080.

To Edward Everett Hale 1

July

1872

I said that I would rather write something for your periodical2 concerning some of the elder poets of our language than concerning my contemporaries. To show you that I have not forgotten what I ... said I ~end you a paper on Oldham's poems .... 3 MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT (partial): The Rendells Catalogue No. 145. 1. See 1896.1.

Mexico, and an Election

75

2. The Old and New.

3. This essay on the verse writings of the British poet and satirist John Oldham (1653-1683) appeared in The Old and New, 6:329-335 (September 1872). It was reprinted in Bryant's Prose Writings, I, 115-128.

2081. To John Howard Bryant

Dear Brother

Roslyn July 15th

1872

I have been diminishing very considerably the sum which you would have to spend on the Cummington Library in case I do not finish the undertaking. I have expended on books and transportation $2,450 and have put into Mr. Putnam's 1 hands $1,600 to be expended for books in England. I think I shall buy no more books. I have paid for the lot of eleven acres $350 and I have sent to Mr. Tower a thousand dollars to be expended on the building, and have handed to Mr. Topps the mason $50 for the expenses of him and his men going to Cummington2-in all $5,450. Mr. Dawes writes me .... MANUSCRIPT:

NYPL-GR (partial draft).

1. Publisher George P. Putnam. See 433.1. 2. Topps, a Long Island stone mason, was just then building a stone house at Bryant's Cedar Mere on Long Island. See Letter 2076; Goddard, Roslyn Harbor, pp. 95-96.

2082.

To Fanny Bryant Godwin

Dear Fanny.

Cummington July 29, 1872

I have talked with Mrs. Smith at the Snell house 1 and she has consented to board you for three weeks, or less, if you choose to go sooner-though she is full of fears that her cookery may not suit one accustomed to a New York table. The price will be four dollars a week for each of your party. Julia tells me that you would like to let your Fanny pass a few weeks here in Cummington. We have plenty of room for her here during the month of August, but with September we expect some company which will occupy the rooms we have.-So she might remain with us till that time. My brother John is expected here this week. I see by a Princeton paper that he presided at a Greeley ratification meeting, but slipped away before it was over.

76

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

It is quite cool here. We had fires morning and evening the two first days after we arrived. Doubtless you also are no longer sufferers from the heat. Yours affectionately W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-GR ADDRESS: Mrs. F

B. Godwin.

l. The former home of Bryant's maternal grandfather, Ebenezer Snell (see Volume I [9]), which Cullen had bought from Samuel Ellis in 1870 and enlarged the next year. Only One Cummington, p. 355. The Smiths, who occupied one unit of .this two-family house, acted as its caretakers.

2083.

To Julia S. Bryant

Dear Julia.

Cummington Friday morning August 2d 1872.

My brother [John] arrived this morning about half past seven, nobody with him. He left all our friends in Princeton well. I shall take him down to the Library lot very soon. The building comes on very well and is rising above ground, but the great perplexity is to find sand within a convenient distance. They are searching for it in every corner, and if I build the dwelling house of concrete a good supply of it will be needed. The day after you left us was a dull day, with rain from morning to night, but yesterday was again beautiful-though cool-today promises a warmer temperature, and the sun is melting off the fogs to convince us that he has some power yet. I have received a letter from Miss Dewey which I enclose.' As for the old [shirts?] I can say nothing, but I have answered her that she can dispose of the boxes of books in any dry place about the premises. There is nothing more I believe that I can tell you of what is going on here. We both-John and I miss you much and shall rejoice to see you back again. Best regards to the kind family with whom you are 2and please bring back the Doctor of Divinity3 with you. Yours affectionately w. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: BLR ADDRESS: Miss Julia Bryant I care of J. M. Mackie Esq. I Great Barrington I Massachusetts. POSTMARK: Cummington I MS I AUG I 3. 1. Roslyn 2. 3. 307.4.

Orville Dewey's spinster sister Jerusha, who occupied a cottage on Bryant's property. See 718.3. Julia was visiting her cousin, Estelle (lves) Mackie. The Reverend Orville Dewey, then living at Sheffield, Massachusetts. See

Mexico, and an Election

2084. To Fanny Bryant Godwin

Dear Fanny.

Cummington

77

August 6. 1872

If this should find you at home please let me know at what time, that is on what day we may expect you at Cummington, so that Mrs. Smith may have every thing in readiness for you. I have got a few articles of furniture without which you would not be comfortable for you at Northampton, and I hope they will be put in order for you before you arrive. Love to all. Yours affectionately W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

NYPL--GR ADDRESS: Mrs. F. Bryant Godwin.

2085. To William A. Croffot 1

Dear Sir.

Cummington, Massachusetts. August 12th 1872.

I am able to contribute less to the biography of Professor Morse than you seem to suppose. I did not know him in his youth, and saw very little of him in the later years of his life. My acquaintance with him began about the year 1825 when I came to New York, when he was one of the few artists who were noticed by what is called fashionable society. Not far from that time he painted his picture of Una and the Knight, and I remember how warmly the figure of Una was commended by the sculptor Greenough.2 There existed at that time an Association in New York called The Academy of the Fine Arts, 3 of which Colonel Trumbull the eminent painter was President, but the other members with scarce any exception, I believe, were not artists. The Academy had its annual exhibitions, at which the same pictures from year to year were shown on the walls together with such new ones as they could obtain. It was a well meant institution, but Morse saw that it was not what was wanted. He desired to found an institution which should be entirely managed by artists, which should give them a common interest, should attract the public attention to them as a body, and which should provide for giving instruction to pupils. He therefore went among the artists of New York, brought them together, reconciled their differences, invited them in a common effort and by their aid founded the National Academy of the Arts of Design, which found immediate favor with the public. I well remember how thronged were its early exhibitions

78

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

and how much they were talked of. From that time, artists as a class were more considered than before. The Academy of the Fine Arts for which there was no further occasion yielded to its more attractive rival and quietly dropped out of existence. Mr. Morse about the same time was active in forming a club composed of artists, literary men and others who were the especial friends of art called the Sketch Club which continued in existence for more than thirty years and but for becoming merged, in the club called the Century, would no doubt be in existence at the present moment. Mr. Morse took great interest in these earlier annual exhibitions of the Academy of Design. He wrote for the Evening Post notices of the works exhibited, in which he gave generous praise to the works of his brother artists whenever he was able. When his own works were to be considered I took the pen and in such manner as I could, spoke of their claims to attention. He interested himself also in getting up courses of lectures delivered before the pupils of the institution. Some of these he delivered himself-on what subject I do not remember. Weir4 gave lectures on perspective with illustrations. Cummings 5 gave one or two on Miniature Painting. To me was assigned the subject of ancient mythology on which I gave a course of four lectures. The members of the Academy took a fancy to ask for my portrait painted by Morse, and I sat to him for the purpose. Thirty dollars was at that time his price for a portrait without the hands. The money was handed to me by Mr. John Morton one of the members,6 and I passed it over to Morse. "You will want a frame of course" said Morse. I assented and contributed a frame, and the picture enclosed in it was sent to the Academy in whose possession I suppose it now is. 7 While Morse was occupied in perfecting his great invention of the electric telegraph, and bringing it before the public8 I saw him occasionally, but all that I could relate in regard to that matter I have already said in my address on the unveiling of his statue in the Central Park. 9 To that address I take leave to refer you. I am sorry that I can recollect no further anecdotes of his life. What I have put down may perhaps guide you somewhat in your further search for materials of his biography. I am, sir. respectfully yours. W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: SHSW ADDRESS: wm A. Croffot Esq. 1. William Augustus Croffot (1835-1915) published many works on varied subjects, but none identifiable as relating to Samuel F. B. Morse. His enquiry is unrecovered.

Mexico, and an Election

79

2. The full title of this painting, shown at the National Academy in 1828, was "Una and the Dwarf Relating the Capture of the Redcross Knight to Prince Arthur and His Squire." It illustrated a scene in Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene (15891596), I, vii. For Samuel F. B. Morse, who had died on April 3, 1872, see Volume I, 181-182, and passim; for Horatio Greenough, 195.1. 3. More correctly, the American Academy of Fine Arts. 4. Robert W. Weir. See Letter 279. 5. Thomas S. Cummings (477.1). 6. John Ludlow Morton (1792-1871), a portrait, historical, and landscape painter, a founder of the National Academy and the Sketch Club, who was secretary of the NAD in 1828. 7. This portrait, first shown at the NAD in 1829, is still in its possession. 8. Morse first demonstrated the telegraph in 1844 in a message from Washington to Baltimore. 9. On June 10, 1871. See 1996.2.

2086.

To Theseus A. Cheney 1

My dear sir.

Cummington, Mass. Aug. 16, 1872

If, as your judicious medical adviser says, you ought not to proceed in writing your history till you are decidedly better, it is clear to me that it would be still more imprudent for you to engage in political discussion at a time when so much heat is shown on both sides. I would therefore counsel you by all means not to write the letter to Mr. [Salmon P.] Chase which you have thought of writing. It would be impossible to do it without some considerable excitementmuch more I think than would be caused by proceeding with your history. Mr. Chase's address I cannot give you. I regretthat he has thought fit to come out for Mr. Greeley, but wise men sometimes do foolish things, and this is one of them. I do not think that even his support will ensure Greeley's election. Mr. Chase I think has all along been dissatisfied with Grant's administration, for which he had some reason, no doubt, but I hardly thought that he would resort to a remedy so much worse than the disease. Certainly I do not expect you to return the note of Mr. [William G.] Simms. Of Mr. [William H.] Prescott's hand writing I have not a scrap. I am, sir, very truly yours. w. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

NYHS

ADDRESS:

Dr. T. Apoleon Cheney.

1. An archeologist and local historian, Cheney (1439.1) was apparently also an eager autograph collector.

80

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

2087.

To John H. Gourlie 1

Dear Mr. Gourlie,

Roslyn

August 23d

1872.

I am on a flying visit to this place intending to return tomorrow to my place in Cummington. You promised to come and see me there. By this time I hope you are ready to come, as we are to receive you. The rainy weather which lately made journeying unpleasant seems to be over,-at least it does not now rain every day as it did and we can promise you on our hills a cooler atmosphere than you have even at Lenox. All the summer long at Cummington there has been nothing like the heat which I have experienced here today, and in consequence of which my clothes have been literally wring[ing] wet from head to foot with perspiration. I came down to see how things were getting on-how [soon?] a stone house which I have been building was likely to be finished, and how the fruits were ripening. There are apples by the waggon load, cart loads of pears and bushels of plums. So much fruit I think was never on the place before. But I shall be glad to breathe the mountain air again after being sodden in this sweltry-mark the old word 2-sweltry atmosphere. Regards to the ladies-and come to Cummington as soon as you please. Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: Collection of Edith C. Gourlie ADDRESS: john H. Gourlie Esquire.

1. An early associate of Bryant's in the Sketch and Century clubs; see 653.1.

2. The last instance of its appearance cited by the Oxford English Dictionary was in

Blackwood's Magazine in 1843.

2088. To Richard H. Dana

Dear Dana.

Cummington

September 1st

1872.

I was glad the other day to see your familiar handwriting again, but the reading of your letter saddened me, as I learned how ill your sister had become, and how much your daughter suffered. Yet what you tell me of Miss Charlotte agrees well with the idea which I already had of the cheerfulness with which she devotes all her time to the comfort of others. You all have reason to thank God for her. It must have been a great privation for you all, particularly during the late extreme heats, to miss your usual summer sojourn by the sea side. Here on these hills we have been quite [comfortable?]! during the hottest weather while the people whom we left at New York were

81

Mexico, and an Election

sweltering night and day. I could not help thinking that it was almost shamefully selfish, on my part, to hug myself, as I sometimes did, in the consciousness that while others were miserable with the heat we here were only enjoying a temperature a little softer than usual. You exaggerate somewhat my activity. It is not so great as you seem to suppose and such as it is, I am drawn to it by this motivethat I am uneasy when unemployed. My bodily faculties are in pretty good preservation, considering my age, and I feel rather urgently the need both of bodily and mental exercise. Yet though while employed I am not much haunted with the consciousness of being old yet the fact is almost always present to my mind that the time of my remaining here is necessarily short, and that whatever I am to do must be done soon or it may not be done at all. What a queer state our politics are in, and what an able and timely letter was that of your son relative to the two candidates for the Presidency of the United States. 2 It is a grave discredit to American politics that such a man as Greeley should be seriously thought of for the Chief Magistrate of this country by any set of men. I would not be too confident, after such an absurd nomination, but I do not think that he can be elected. I do not think that he can stand the exposures which have been made of his remarkable unfitness for the office. Remember me most kindly to your sister and daughter. Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

336.

NYPL-BG

ADDRESS:

Richard H. Dana Esq.

PUBLISHED

(in part): Life, II,

1. Word omitted. 2. This letter has not been identified.

2089.

To Henrietta S. Nahmer

Dear Mrs. N ahmer,

Roslyn, Long Island October 1st, 1872

I have just got your letter of the 28th of last month. With regard to the arrangement of the books, perhaps Mr. Putnam is right. I have the catalogue of the Hinsdale Library and in that the books are alphabetically arranged according to the subjects and not the authors. Perhaps that will be the more convenient way for the persons inquiring at the Library for books, and therefore I think that you should change the arrangement. It will give you some trouble, but that must be considered in the compensation. As to Wikoffs book, 1 leave it out of the catalogue and the Library.

82

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Do what you please with the book of Lola Montez, 2 but do not include it in the catalogue nor in the collection-Burn it or keep it-I do not want it. "The Celebrities" you may send to my private library in Cummington at the Homestead where Mr. Dawes lives. I would have you number each volume of a series or set, with a different number-for example, each volume of Shakespeare's works should have its separate and respective number. This will be important in taking out the books. I will write to Mr. Putnam concerning The Living Age, the [courses from Early History?] and Miss Alcott's Little Women, to see if I can get the missing volumes. As to the six volumes of Vocal and Instrumental Music, I am somewhat at a loss. If lent out, they may be spoiled; if not, they may do no good. Put them for the present among books of reference. If any tunes are much wanted they may be copied by the person wanting them. As to the other very large books, if any of them are of such a kind that they will pretty surely be defaced if taken from the library, put them also under the head of books of reference. I should like to know how many cases of the last set of books-those from England-have come to hand. Yours very truly. W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: UVa ADDRESS: Mrs. H. S. Nahmer. I. Probably My Courtship and Its Consequences (1855) by the trans-Atlantic author and adventurer Henry Wikoff (1813-1884). 2. Lola Montez (1818?-1861) was a much-married Irish-born dancer who became the mistress of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, and subsequently settled in New York after making her stage debut there in 1851. Failing to hold audience interest by dancing, she turned to the lecture platform. Some of her talks, with such titles as "The Comic Aspects of Love," "Wits and Women of Paris," and "On Fashion," seem to have led to her publication in the late 1850s of The Art of Beauty-probably the book to which Bryant refers. See George C. D. Odell, Annal5 of the New York Stage (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931) VII, 96-97,293, and passim.

2090. To Henrietta S. Nahmer

Dear Madam.

New York October 15th

1872.

I sent you yesterday by Express a bundle of printed papers for the Cummington Library. The numbers which are in small squares that contain only figures are to be pasted on the backs of the books near the top of the volumes. The other slips which bear the words "Cummington Library No .... " are to be pasted on the inside of all

Mexico, and an Election

83

the volumes, not on a fly leaf, but against the binding-and afterward the number of the book is to be written 1 after the word "No." The "regulations" are to be pasted on the paper cover of the books, except when there is no such cover on the book, and in that case they are to be pasted inside, against the binding. The Certificates in blank are all to be kept for the Librarian, to be issued by him when persons not inhabitants of Cummington apply to be admitted to the use of the Library. I am very sorry to hear from Mr. F. H. Dawes that you have been ill in consequence of being too laboriously occupied with making the catalogue. You should not hurry your task. There is plenty of time before the building can possibly be ready to receive the volumes. I hope that this letter will find you entirely recovered. Yours very truly. W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

UVa

ADDREss:

Mrs. H. S. Nahmer.

1. The italics are Bryant's.

2091.

To Henrietta S. Nahmer

Dear Madam.

Roslyn. Long Island. Oct. 17. 1872

I am sorry for the trouble which Mr. Putnam's failure to send on all the books at a time has given you. I had no knowledge of this until I got your letter today. The only way now is to take time from the performance of your tasks. I do not suppose that the Library can be opened until Spring, and you will find time I hope on Saturdays to finish the catalogue. As to numbering the volumes in the Catalogue, I find that it is so done [as?] 1 that of the Hinsdale Library-but in that there is no arrangement according to the subjects. Here is a sample of the manner in which they are arranged. 2288 Little Women Vol. 1. Miss [AlcottF " " 2 2289 " " 2290 Little Men. I think that I should prefer that the Catalogue should have a separate line for each volume, and that the number should precede the name of the book as for example 22 Edinburgh Review Vol 1 23 " " 2 24

"

"

3 &c.

But if in looking over the Williams College Catalogue it should

84

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

seem to you that every good purpose is answered by putting the volumes more in a lump I consent that you should number them in that manner according to the method you mention. I will write to Mr. Putnam about the missing volumes you mention and ask him to let you know whether all the books have been sent. As to the book on Physical Geography it is at your service until the whole are sent to the Library Building. The sheets of which you speak have not yet reached me, but I suppose that I shall have them very soon. Yours truly w. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: UVa ADDREss: Mrs. H. S. Nahmer. 1. Word omitted. 2. Bryant seems to have written "Scott," surely an oversight, since in the printed catalogue the titles are correctly attributed to "Louisa J. Alcott."

2092.

To Henrietta S. Nahmer

Dear Madam.

Roslyn, Long Island. Saturday, October 19, 1872

The sheets of the Catalogue made by you of the Cummington Library reached me today at noon, and I cannot send this answer off until Monday, but I hope it will reach you soon enough to prevent the delay in returning your manuscript from causing you any serious inconvenience. You have made it out very neatly indeed and I am well satisfied with the manner in which you have accomplished the task. Perhaps it would be well to take a little more care in making the orthography of the proper names exact-for example I found an error in the name of Garibaldi, which I corrected. I would recommend, also that you take special pains in writing the unusual names and appellations distinctly-The letter r you make often just as you make the i with the exception that you do not add the dot over it-but this makes some proper names obscure to the reader. For example you have a name which you write "Mrs. Kitty Turylan." Now whether it be Tierylan or Turylan I cannot tell, or perhaps it may be TrirylanAs I shall not have the books before me when I correct the printed proofs for the press, 1 that may embarrass me. Yet you write a very good hand and but for the proper names it would be perfectly clearas in fact it is even in proper names with but few exceptions.

85

Mexico, and an Election

I hope that you will have no further impediments to the speedy finishing of the catalogue-not that I am in a hurry for it but that you may not be further perplexed. I am, madam, very truly yours, W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

UVa

ADDRESS:

Mrs. H. S. Nahmer.

I. Bryant had the catalogue printed at the EP.

2093. To F. Lee 1

Roslyn Long Island October 25th 1872.

Dear Sir.

I am sorry not to be able to answer your inquiries. All that I have to do with the Picturesque Annual 2 is to write the preface and revise the descriptions of the places illustrated. The proprietors are D. Appleton & Co of New York who would give you all the information you require respecting terms &c. I have no copy of their prospectus or I would send it. Respectfully yours, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

NYPL-BG ADDRESS: F. Lee Esq.

I. Unidentified. 2. Picturesque America. See Letter 2074.

2094. To L. H. McFadden Esq. 1

Dear Sir.

New York October 26th

1872.

Last summer while in Massachusetts, in the country, I received a note from you requesting me to send to the Library of the Philomathean Society some of the books published by me. I have this day sent off three volumes containing poems written by me, addressing them to the Philomathean Society of Otterbein University. 2 I should like to know of their being received. I am, sir respectfully yours. WM. MANUSCRIPT:

OCL ADDRESS: L. H. McFadden Esq.

I. See Letter 2056.

c. BRYANT.

86

LETTERS

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

2. Otterbein College, founded at Westerville, Ohio, in 1847, was named for the German minister of the Reformed Church William Otterbein (1726-1813), who came to the United States in 1752 and established the United Brethren in Christ.

2095.

To John Howard Bryant

Dear Brother.

Roslyn, L.I.

Nov. lith

1872

I thank you for reminding me of the case of young Mr. Olds. 1 But for that I should have forgotten all about it. I think that it would be well to settle it in this way, if he will give up the contract, which in fact is broken already on his part, and which I suppose he never can fulfil. Make a conveyance as my attorney to him and his sister Julia, 2 either as proprietors in common or with such division of the land as shall seem to you advisable, and burn up the papers which he had relating to the contract. I believe that there are two houses on the place, and perhaps the division might be made by giving the smaller one to Julia. I should like to do as much for her as for her brother, and as for Sarah, 3 I understand that she is very well off. What do you think of this arrangement[?] If you see any objection to it .... 4 MANUSCRIPT: WCL. I. John Hixon Olds (b. May 21, 1847), son of Bryant's sister Charity Olds. 2. Julia Louisa Olds (b. May 7, 1840), second daughter of Charity Olds. 3. Sarah Snell Olds. See 1079.7. 4. Balance of Ms missing.

2096.

To T. R. Morrelli

Dear Sir.

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, Nov. 11th 1872.

There was a portrait of William Coleman 2 in his family and a good one, but I cannot tell what has become of it. The only person of whom I can think as likely to inform you is Mr. James St. John Gray, a nephew of Mrs. Coleman who now lives at Berlin in Wisconsin. Perhaps he knows where it is. I have sent you a copy of the Verplanck pamphlet. 3 Yours & W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: YCAL ADDRESs: ToT. R. Morrell Esq. I. Unidentified.

Mexico, and an Election

87

2. Bryant's predecessor as owner/editor of the EP from its founding in 1801 until 1829. See 80.4. 3. Bryant's memoir of his old friend Gulian C. Verplanck. See 1928.1.

2097. To C. W. Frederickson Esq 1

Roslyn Long Island November 13th 1872.

My dear sir.

I thank you for the additional page of the Scott manuscript which you have been so kind as to send me. I am glad of the opportunity of performing as a trifling return the little task mentioned in your last. 2 The poem accompanies this note and I am still greatly your debtor. 3 I am, sir, very truly yours. W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

HCL ADDRESS: C. W. Frederickson Esq.

1. Unidentified.

2. Probably sending Frederickson a coy of Bryant's speech at the dedication of

the statue of Walter Scott on the Mall in Central Park on November 4, 1872. Orations and Addresses, pp. [389]-393. 3. This poem is unidentified.

2098. To John Howard Bryant

Dear Brother.

Roslyn, November 18, 1872.

Mr. Thaddeus Rood has written tQ me from South Haven in Van Buren County Michigan asking for a loan of eight or ten hundred dollars to be secured by mortgage on his homestead-the interest to be paid annually. He married you know Samuel Snell's daughter- 1 His object is to purchase a tract of a hundred and sixty acres of woodland-ninety rods from his place and about the same distance from a sawmill, and seems to think that he can make money by it. I do not care to send any money out from here-not having much to draw upon now, and have referred him to you. If you have the money let him have it-if you think the security tolerably good-at the Michigan interest but not more than seven per cent. Yours affectionately W. C. BRYANT. P.S. I have sent you the Odyssey-Vol 2. Let me know when you get it. W.C.B.

LETTERS

88

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

MANUSCRIPT: HEHL ADDRESS: Jn". H. Bryant. 1. On January 1, 1857 Thaddeus Rood (b. 1834), a Plainfield farmer, married at Cummington Martha (b. 1835), daughter of Samuel and Vesta (Beals) Snell. Samuel (b. 1801) was Cullen Bryant's first cousin. Vital Records of Cummington, pp. 71, 98, 150. It is uncertain when the Roods emigrated to Michigan.

2099.

To Messrs. Scribner & Co.

Gentlemen.

New York

Nov. 18th

1872.

I have your note enclosing a Cheque for twenty five dollars. You inquire whether the amount is satisfactory. Perfectly so; it is more than what I sent you is worth in any point of view. 1 I am, gentlemen, truly yours. W C BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: Newark Public Library ADDRESS: To Messrs. Scribner & Co. 1. Bryant seems not to have contributed to Scribner's Monthly at this time. Perhaps he simply sent his autograph.

2100.

To Messrs. Geo. P. Putnam & Sons.

Gentlemen.

Roslyn, Nov. 19. 1872

I have this moment received a letter from Mrs. Nahmer, who is making the Catalogue of the Cummington Library in which she says: "Mr. Putnam wrote me some time since that an 'Early English Literature' was on the way. By the catalogue he sent, I see there are a hundred and fifty volumes yet to come. In consequence of the horse disease no freight is brought from Williamsburgh and I cannot do any thing towards the catalogue until the books are here." Will you oblige me by letting me know whether all the books including the Early English Literature have been forwarded? Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: WCL ADDREss: To Messrs. Geo. P. Putnam & Sons.

2101.

To Jerusha Dewey

cNovember 1872?

... As you ask for my address at the unveiling of the statue of Scott, 1 I send it enclosed. The day when the ceremony took place was fine;

Mexico, and an Election

89

the concourse large-six or seven thousand persons on the ground; a regiment of bare-kneed Highlanders, with each a feather in his cap; and kilted pipers, twice the number that King Cole had, marching round the Scott statue, and emitting the loud pibroch from their bagpipes. The arrangement of the audience was not good, and very few, I think, could have heard what was said on the platform .... Unrecovered

MANUSCRIPT:

TEXT

(partial): Life, II, 328.

I. See 2097.2.

2102. To L

Schlesinger 1

New York. Dec. 5th, 1872

Dear Sir.

You send me a "printed scrap" for "my decision." Whether you wish for an opinion concerning it, as [a] matter of business, or as to its grammatical correctness you do not say. If the former I am not competent to give a judgment;-if the latter I must say that it is incorrect-very much so. In the first sentence shall should be used instead of will and the words "from it" should be omitted. In the second sentence, "though" should be omitted, and sent substituted for "send." 2 Yours respectfully W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

Newberry Library

ADDRESS:

L. Schlesinger Esq.

I. Unidentified. 2. This correspondent had sent Bryant a news clipping (unrecovered) asking his advice on its grammatical correctness.

2103. To Fanny Bryant Godwin

Dear Fanny-

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, Dec. 10, 1872.

Mr. Lawrence Smith 1 has written me from Cummington that your butter is "ready for shipment," and he asks when and how you will have it sent. Will you write to him and let him know. Yours affectionately W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

NYPL-GR ADDRESS: Mrs. F. Bryant Godwin.

I. The Cummington farmer (b. cl826) who acted as caretaker of the Snell Farm, or "upper Bryant Place." Vital Records of Cummington, p. 316.

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LETTERS

2104.

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

To Leonice M. S. Moulton 1

Dear Mrs. Moulton.

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, December 10, 1872

When I left Roslyn, the other day I thought that I might return this week to pass a little time, but we now have Mr. and Mrs. Mackie at our house in Sixteenth Street, and for that and other reasons I remain. I hope however to be in Roslyn ere long and will see you concerning the matter to which you refer. Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-Bryant-Moulton Letters ADDREss: Mrs. L. M. S. Moulton. 1. See 648.1.

2105.

ToW. Hamilton StockwelP

Dear Sir.

New York, December 11, 1872.

The orthography of our language is it is true very complicated, confused and perplexed, but I am not the man to reform it. Whoever takes it in hand with a view of making it what it is desirable that it should be, has the task of a life before him with ten chances to one, or even more, that he will be unsuccessful. It is not to be undertaken by a man who is almost eighty. 2 Yours respectfully W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: YCAL ADDREss: W. H. Stockwell, Esq. 1. This resident of Orange, New Jersey, had urged Bryant to take the lead in a movement to simplify English orthography and pronunciation. 2. Writing again on December 13 (manuscript in YCAL), Stockwell said he had simply hoped Bryant, "as the most prominent literary man of our country and moreover the leading Editor of one of the most influential journals in America," would try to induce the Federal government to organize "an Academy of Letters & Science, somewhat after the model of the French Academy" to establish an "unquestioned standard of authority for the whole nation & indeed for all English speaking Peoples."

2106.

To an Unidentified Correspondent

[New York] December, 1872

I have just heard from Mr. William Oland Bourne 1 a touching anecdote, illustrative of the spirit which animated the soldiers of the

91

Mexico, and an Election

Union in the late civil war. In one of the battles on the Mississippi, a soldier, who carried the standard of the United States, was mortally wounded. His fellow soldiers bore him out of the combat and laid him under a tree. One of them offered to take the standard out of his hand. "No, comrades" said he, "let me hold it till I die." They obeyed his wish, and when his breath had passed away the flagstaff was still clenched in the dead man's hand. The thought that this fair, 2 got up under the auspices of the benevolent ladies of this city, is for the relief of men like him who were disabled in the war and for the relief of the widows and orphans of men like him who fell, should make it largely successful. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

UVa.

I. Unidentified. 2. Unidentified.

2107. To an Unidentified Correspondent'

1872

... I am afraid that I can not say much that will interest you or any body else. A hundred years since this broad highland region lying between the Housatonic and the Connecticut was principally forest, and bore the name of Pontoosuc. In a few places settlers had cleared away woodlands and cultivated the cleared spots. Bears, catamounts, and deer were not uncommon here. Wolves were sometimes seen, and the woods were dense and dark, without any natural openings or meadows. My grandfather on the mother's side 2 came up from Plymouth County, in Massachusetts, when a young man, in the year 1773 and chose a farm on a commanding site overlooking an extensive prospect, cut down the trees on a part of it, and built a house of square logs with a chimney as large as some kitchens, within which I remember to have sat on a bench in my childhood. 3 About ten years afterward he purchased, of an original settler, 4 the contiguous farm, now called the Bryant Homestead, and having built beside a little brook, not very far from a spring from which water was to be drawn in pipes, the house which is now mine, he removed to it with his family. The soil of this region was then exceedingly fertile, all the settlers prospered, and my grandfather among the rest. My father, a physician and surgeon, 5 married his daughter, 6 and after a while came to live with him on the homestead. He made some enlargements of the house, in one part of which he had his office, and in this, during my boyhood, were generally two or three students of medicine, who sometimes accom-

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

panied my father in his visits to his patients, always on horseback, which was the mode of traveling at that time. To this place my father brought me in my early childhood, and I have scarce an early recollection which does not relate to it. On the farm beside the little brook, and at a short distance from the house, stood the district school-house, of which nothing now remains but a little hollow where was once a cellar. Here I received my earliest lessons in learning, except such as were given me by my mother, and here, when ten years old, I declaimed a copy of verses composed by me as a description of a district school. 7 The little brook which runs by the house, on the site of the old district school-house, was in after-years made the subject of a little poem, entitled "The Rivulet." 8 To the south of the house is a wood of tall trees clothing a declivity, and touching with its outermost boughs the grass of a moist meadow at the foot of the hill, which suggested the poem entitled "An Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood." 9 In the year 1835 the place passed out of the family; and at the end of thirty years I repurchased it, and made various repairs of the house and additions to its size. A part of the building which my father had added, and which contained his office, had, in the mean time, been detached from it, and moved off down a steep hill to the side of the Westfield River. I supplied its place by a new wing with the same external form, though of less size, in which is now my library. The site of the house is uncommonly beautiful. Before it, to the east, the ground descends, first gradually, and then rapidly, to the Westfield River, flowing in a deep and narrow valley, from which is heard, after a copious rain, the roar of its swollen current, itself unseen. In the spring-time, when the frost-bound waters are loosened by a warm rain, the roar and crash are remarkably loud as the icy crust of the stream is broken, and the masses of ice are swept along by the flood over the stones with which the bed of the river is paved. Beyond the narrow valley of the Westfield the surface of the country rises again gradually, carrying the eye over a region of vast extent, interspersed with farm-houses, pasture-grounds, and wooded heights, where on a showery day you sometimes see two or three different showers, each watering its own separate district; and in winter-time two or three different snow-storms dimly moving from place to place. The soil of the whole of this highland region is disintegrated mica slate, for the most part. It has its peculiar growth of trees, shrubs, and wild flowers, differing considerably from those of the eastern part of the State. In autumn, the woods are peculiarly beautiful with their brightness and variety of hues. The higher farms of this region lie nearly two thousand feet above tide-water. The air is pure and health-

Mexico, and an Election

93

ful; the summer temperature is most agreeable; but the spring is coy in her approaches, and winter often comes before he is bidden. No venomous reptile inhabits any part of this region, as I think there is no tradition of a rattlesnake or copperhead having been seen here. MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered TEXT: Bryant, The Family Library, 1880 edition, pp. 26--27.

1. The recipient was probably James Grant Wilson, within whose "Memoir" of Bryant in The Family Library (1880) it was incorporated. 2. Ebenezer Snell; see Volume I [9]. 3. Snell bought this property in 1771 from Samuel Buffington and William Robbins. See Only One Cummington, p. 355. 4. In 1788, from the heirs of Noah Porter. Ibid., p. 353. 5. Dr. Peter Bryant. See Volume I [9]. 6. Sarah Snell. Ibid. 7. See Life, I, 22-23. 8. Composed in 1823. See Poems (1876), pp. 69-72. 9. Composed in 1815. See Ibid., p. 26.

XXXIII Doctor of Laws 1873

(LETTERS 2108 TO 2170)

SooN AFTER THE NEw YEAR the Cummington Library was completed, and at about the same time Bryant contracted for a new road with an easy slope leading from the old village center on Cummington Hill to the Westfield River valley, joining the highway at the library. This would replace an earlier road so steep as to be sometimes impassable in the winter and spring. With these projects in hand, Bryant took his two daughters and Anna Fairchild, accompanied again by John Durand, on a Florida holiday. Leaving New York in February, they visited Jacksonville, Saint Augustine, Palatka, Green Cove Springs, and Silver Spring, stopping at Mandarin to see Harriet Beecher Stowe's winter home. In letters to the Evening Post Bryant remarked on noticeable changes since his visit thirty years earlier-particularly in the conditions of the former slaves. They were, he thought, less favorable on the whole, despite emancipation, for the blacks were now not so well fed or clad; probably more intelligent, but less hardy and more easily fatigued at work. On their return trip the travelers stopped at Savannah, Charleston, Norfolk, and Richmond, reaching home in mid-April. In May the Cummington Library received its books, and the next month, with the new "Bryant Road" from the hill completed, it was opened to the public. In June, by a coincidence, President James McCosh of the college at Princeton, New Jersey, who had tried in vain the year before to get Bryant as a commencement speaker, asked him to give the principal address at the dedication of the new Chancellor Green Library. Bryant stayed for two days at McCosh's home on the campus, giving his talk and receiving the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Earlier this year he had lectured at the Roslyn Lyceum on his impressions of Mexico. Neither talk, however, was printed in his only notable publication of 1873, a volume of selected Orations and Addresses, brought out by Putnam, which was very favorably received. James T. Fields is reported to have called these "the most beautiful speeches in the English language." In March Bryant was elected an honorary member of the Russian Academy, founded in 1773 by Catherine II. He was little concerned this year with political matters, although he was busier with his newspaper as a result of the death in April of its literary editor, John R. Thompson. But in one instance at least he made an imprint on American foreign policy. In November Secretary of State Hamilton Fish asked his advice on what action the government should take toward the Spanish colony of Cuba, after a gunboat had seized an American freighter

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carrying arms to Cuban insurgents, and had executed eight American sailors. Fish asked Bryant to "favor me with your views on the subject." Bryant advised that "a war with Spain would be a real disaster" to be "sedulously avoided." We did not need nor want Cuba, he wrote, for "we have trouble enough already with the freed men of our own country" to wish to add to them an ignorant population, white and black, which had lived for centuries under the "most grinding despotism." Two weeks later the matter was settled amicably with Spain without the hostilities against which Bryant had warned. At the end of July, as had become his custom, Bryant went to Cummington. There he busied himself with his two volumes of landscape scenes, Picturesque America. In August a young editor who had taken "very great pleasure" in reading Bryant's Orations and Addresses, William Dean Howells of the Atlantic Monthly, solicited for that magazine "a series of articles-the more autobiographical the better" on his lifetime experiences. But Bryant pleaded preoccupation with other writing and the indolence of old age, and was still undecided when Howells pressed him again later in the year. Soon after his return to Roslyn in late September Bryant was kept by another engagement from dining with the British mystery writer Wilkie Collins, then giving readings in this country. In December he was invited by Robert Waterston to a centennial celebration by the Massachusetts Historical Society of the Boston Tea Party. In declining the invitation Bryant replied, in a letter read at the meeting, with a sweeping review of the century's changes which may have suggested the theme of his last major poem, "The Flood of Years," written three years later.

96

2108.

LETTERS oF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT

To Frederic Huidekoper 1

Dear Sir.

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, Jany. 2d. 1873.

My memory not serving me in the case mentioned in your letter, I put the letter into the hands of Mr. Gay, 2 now in this office and at one time editor of the Anti Slavery Standard, who has looked up what is written on the enclosed paper, 3 which is as near as we can come to answering your inquiry. It may put you on the track of the particulars of the case. I am, sir, very truly yours W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-BG ADDREss: F. Huidekoper Esq. DOCKETED: W. C. Bryant, I Jan. 2, 1873. 1. Frederic Huidekoper (1817-1892) was Professor of New Testament and Church History, 1844-1877, at the Meadville (Pennsylvania) Unitarian Theological School, founded in 1844 by his father, Harm Jan Huidekoper (1776-1854), an immigrant from Holland. The letter Bryant mentions is unrecovered. 2. In 1872 Sydney Howard Gay (1814-1888), previously the editor of the American Anti-Slavery Standard, the New York Tribune, and the Chicago Tribune, had become managing editor of the EP. 3. Unrecovered.

2109. To Christiana Gibson

My dear friend.

New York, Jany. 6th. 1873.

Your last letter to me was dated October 23d, and I was haunted by a dim fancy that I had answered it, until your letter to Julia arrived the day before yesterday. Sad as the tenor of the letter to Julia was, it yet brought the welcome news that your cough, which obliged you to fly your country, had left you, and that your young niece Flora had also found her health restored by the mild climate, and, now about to embark for India, had the hope of a happy future before her. You and yours may be assured of our deep and sincere sympathy in the sorrows which it has pleased Providence to send upon you. Here too the closing days of the year have been saddened by the deaths of those whom we much prized, suddenly removed in the midst of their usefulness-Kensett, the amiable and generous artist 1-Putnam, the liberal-minded and kindly bookseller, 2 and the promoter of every good work-and the much esteemed Treasurer of the Century Asso-

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ciation, Priestly, a man of great worth and intelligence. 3 It is not often that we lose, so near to each other, so many deeply and widely mourned. What a fleeting thing human life is!-like the shadow of a cloud passing swiftly over the field, leaving behind the flowers, which it visits but for an instant, and the prattling brooks and the pools that give back the image of the sky, and the song-sparrow warbling on its perch and the meadow lark brooding on its nest in the grass-leaving all, all-and hurrying to be lost on the dim, distant hills, where the sight can no longer follow it. I miss Putnam greatly. He published two of my books, and I employed him to get together my Cummington Library-about four thousand volumes. What he did for me beyond my special directions, was judiciously and disinterestedly done. I must tell you about the Library. The building containing the books is finished, and is perfectly fire-proof-with a floor of Portland Cement laid on brick arches, and a ceiling of brick laid on iron beams, so that there will be nothing to burn save the shelves. Then there is the dwelling house of the Librarian, ample for a pretty large family, built of concrete, that is to say, a mixture of water, lime and sand. There is also a barn for the household and a shed to shelter the horses of those who visit the library and a croft of eleven acres for the family. The Westfield, a winding brawling stream, with a fringe of thicket, murmurs under the windows. I have procured at some expense a new road to be made from my house to the library, avoiding a steep and high hill which the old road first climbed and then descended. Are we never to see you again on this side of the Atlantic? May it not be that the breath of the climate which filled your lungs for so many-may I not say rather happy years?-have as kindly an influence on your health as the air of Nice? Our people are beginning to go westward on our continent in search of health. Minnesota is full of persons who have gone thither on account of weak lungs, most of whom find a healing power in the air of that region. By and by we shall run down to Mexico, on railways already projected, and the winter of Mexico is one long, temperate, cloudless summer. Your sister, Miss Jessie, must have had a sad winter. Her kind and humane assiduities are always at hand wherever there is suffering and sorrow. I hope her health may not have suffered in consequence of her watchings at the bedside of her poor niece. At Roslyn time brings its changes. Our Dr. Elyt is confined to his chamber with dropsy, and without any hope of recovery. Mis[s] Amy Mudge 5 whom you remember as living on my premises is also confined to her chamber, without any expectation of coming down till she is carried to the burial ground.

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

98

The ministers whom you have sent us or rather whom we have coaxed away from you, are making quite a stir here. Dr. Hall preaches to crowds. 6 Dr. Tayler fills the Tabernacle to suffocation. 7 The winter, thus far, has been stormy-though hardly to the degree that it has been in England. The streets have been choked with snow, and early in December, the cold was intense, though it has somewhat mitigated. Possibly Julia and I may turn our faces southward in February-but not to leave the United States. Kind regards to Miss Ran ken, 8 and believe me ever Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPTS: NYPL-BPMP (final); NYPL-GR (partial draft) ADDREss: Miss Christiana Gibson DOCKETED: W. C. Bryant I Jan. 6. 1873 PUBLISHED (in part): Life, II, 328-329. I. John F. Kensett. See 1410.1; illus., Volume IV. 2. George P. Putnam. See 433.1, 442.1. 3. John Priestly (d. 1872) was elected a member of the Century in the Club's first year, 1847, and was its treasurer from 1857 until his death. Information from Rodger Friedman, Century Asosciation Librarian. 4. See 1165.3. Rev. Samuel Ely died that year. 5. See 700.5. 6. Probably John Hall (1829-1898), who came from Armagh, Ireland, in 1867 and served as pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York. 7. William MacKergo Taylor (1829-1895), a native of Kilmarnock, Scotland, was pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle, 1872-1892. 8. See Letters 549, 1034.

2ll0. To C. Bates Josselyn'

Dear Sir.

New York January 8th, 1873.

As to the criticism of Lowell, although it is pretty severe it does not become me to express any wish as to your disposal of it. Do exactly as you think fit, and I shall find no fault. 2 The Rhyming Dictionary in my possession is not at hand; I left it at my country place on Long Island. I am ashamed to say that I do not remember the name of the compiler. It is an American reprint in a moderate-sized duodecimo. I am, sir, truly yours, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: William Cullen Bryant, II ADDRESS: C. Bates Josselyn Esq. I. Unidentified. The letter to which Bryant apparently responds is unrecovered.

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99

2. It is not certain whether Bryant refers here to the fun James R. Lowell had made of him in A Fable for Critics in 1848, but Lowell had made handsome amends for his youthful gibes, both in the stirring tribute he paid the older poet on his seventieth birthday in 1864, and in his subsequent remarks to George Bancroft that year, referring to "that granitic temper of mind which keeps him steadfast to principle, buttressed immoveably as one of his own Berkshire Hills." See Volume III, [5]; Volume IV, 342; Martin Duberman, james Russell Lowell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin [1966]), p. 440, n. 27.

2111. To John B. Ford 1

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, Jan. 11. 1873.

Dear sir

I enclose you another letter2 relating to the Library of Poetry & Song. Yours truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

StUL.

1. See Letters 1927 ff. 2. Unrecovered.

2112. To Fanny Bryant Godwin

Saturday Jany 11th

Dear Fanny.

1873.

I am sorry that you have had such an illness. For a part of the time I have also had a severe cold. If Mr. and Mrs. Rogers 1 do not come to dine with us tomorrow as they·have half promised I will come to thirty seventh street. Affectionately W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

NYPL-GR ADDREss: Mrs

F

Bryant Godwin.

1. Probably sculptor John Rogers and his wife. See 1886.1.

2113. To Frederic Huidekoper

Dear sir.

New York, Jan. 14th. 1873.

If it be your purpose to collect the later instances of legal punishment by burning the convict alive I can furnish you with one which I have just met with in reading Evelyn's Diary.! He says. "Passing by

100

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Smithfield, I saw a miserable creature burning who had murdered her husband." The date is May lOth 1652. I am sorry that I cannot help you in looking up the instance of burning a negro to which you refer. It is singular however, that Stroude2 has no mention of it. I am, sir, truly yours. W. C. BRYANT. P.S. On the 9th of July of the same year-1652-Evelyn speaks of a man charged with some crime who, "refusing to plead, was pressed to death." W.C.B. MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-BG ADDRESS: F. Huidekoper Esq. DOCKETED: W. C. Bryant, I Jan. 14, 1873. 1. From 1640 to 1706 John Evelyn (1620--1706) of London kept a diary which was rediscovered and published in 1818. 2. Probably either A Sketch of the Laws Relating to Slavery in the Several States of the United States ofAmerica (Philadelphia, 1827), or Southern Slavery and the Christian Religion (Philadelphia, 1863), by George McDowell Stroude (1795-1875).

2114.

To Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co.

Gentlemen.

New York Jany. [17?] 1873.

Your letter enclosing a cheque for $181.25 has come safely to hand, 1 and you have my thanks. Yours truly W

C

BRYANT.

MANUSCRIPT: Brown University Library ADDRESS: To Jas. R. Osgood & Co. 1. Royalties for Bryant's translations of Homer.

2115. To Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co. The Evening Post,

Gentlemen

Published by Wm C. Bryant & Co New York, January 18 [1873?]

I have this day received your statements of the accounts between us-one dated the first of May last and the other dated the first of November together with your Cheque for five hundred and ninety seven dollars and seventy five cents [$597.75] being the amount which appears due me on account, for which you have-besides the receiptmy thanks. Yours truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: MCL ADDRESS: To Messrs. James R. Osgood & Co.

Doctor of Laws

2116. To George N. Hitchcock 1

Dear sir.

101

New York Jan. 21. 1873.

I cannot say that I had any particular flower in view when I wrote the line in my "Forest Hymn" to which you refer. 2 It might be the wood-anemone or the liver-leaf called by Miss Cooper in "Rural Hours" 3 squirrel cups or it might be the pyrola, of which there are three species, or it might be the yellow violet of my native hills, all of them wood-flowers and often found nestling at the root of large old trees in the forest. I am glad that you are able to speak so kindly of what I have written in verse. I am, sir, very respectfully yours. W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

Edwin H. Miller ADDRESS: Geo. N

Hitchcock Esq.

1. Unidentified. 2. "A Forest Hymn" (1825), II. 63-64: "That delicate forest flower I With scented breath .... " 3. Rural Hours by Susan Fenimore Cooper, which Bryant had praised greatly, pleasing the author's father, the novelist James Fenimore Cooper. See Letter 730.

2117. To Henrietta S. Nahmer

Dear Madam.

New York. Jan 27th

1873.

Your catalogue came to hand on Saturday-this is Monday-It seems to be very well done, so far as I have examined it. 1 The list of Books of Reference is perhaps somewhat larger than is absolutely necessary, but I can judge better when I see the volumes. I will then, if I think that any of the books placed by you under this head should be allowed to be taken out from the library, make a mark against them in the catalogue, to signify that they may be taken. As to the compensation, I perceive that it will be more than the sum which I mentioned to you. If you desire to receive any part of it before you put on the covers I can send it to you, provided that you inform me immediately, as I may make ajourney soon to the south. I am, Madam, truly yours W. C. BRYANT. P.S. I perceive that in the Table of Contents, you make the number of books 3.615, while in the Catalogue as they are numbered you give the last volume the number of 3.570. I think that I may as well omit the number in the table. W.C.B.

LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

102

MANUSCRIPT: UVa ADDREss: Mrs. H. S. Nahmer. 1. Catalogue of the Cummington Library (New York: Evening Post, 1873).

2118.

To Matilda Lieber 1

Dear Madam.

New York. Jany. 29, 1873.

I thank you for the letter which you have sent me. 2 It shows with what a clear forecast your husband perceived the shadows of coming events. If you should favor the Evening Post with anything further be pleased to address Parke Godwin Esq. at this office. I am, Madam, truly yours, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: HEHL ADDRESS: Mrs. Matilda Leiber DOCKETED: Bryant

Jan

1873.

1. Widow of Francis Lieber (217.2), who had died in 1872. 2. Published in the EP for January 31, 1873. This January 18, 1850 letter from Francis Lieber to an unnamed correspondent was prescient in its forecast of the future on the day Senator Henry Clay introduced resolutions in the senate, designed to resolve differences between northern and southern states, which when passed later in that year became known as the controversial Compromise of 1850. No peaceful separation of states from the Union was possible, he wrote, and "A war between North and South would be the bitterest ever recorded." We would "bleed to faintness only to recover to acts of wildness." He decried Abolition, for history tells us that "Slavery is a deciduous institution which always falls at a certain time, as the first teeth are absorbed and give way to the second and permanent teeth." He recounted the conflict a few years earlier when liberal and conservative cantons in Switzerland were on the point of "severing their country," and were dissuaded only by a hermit who rushed into their senate chamber shouting "Concord! concord! concord!" and "painted the dangers so vividly" that compromise was achieved. Would Clay, he concluded, "be the man?"

2119.

To James T. Fields

New York, January 30, 1873

For one of the best of reasons I cannot do what you request in such kind and flattering terms. 1 I am about to make a journey to the Southern States. We old men are like snakes-fond of the sun, and inclined to crawl into sunny places. I must go before the date mentioned in your letter. But, besides this reason, I have yet another difficulty. I have been often asked to deliver public lectures, and I always answer that I never do it. I sometimes make little dinner speeches, and now and then speak at public meetings, when some important matter is up for discussion, but I never give lectures. I cannot well afford to

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deprive myself of so short and easy an answer to such applications as I have mentioned. And then I do not like the idea of coming before a strange audience-and a Boston audience. The people of New York are accustomed to my defects as a speaker, and bear with me. I could not expect from Boston the same indulgence .... MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered TEXT (partial): Life, II, 327.

1. Fields' request that Bryant lecture in Boston is unrecovered.

2120. To Fanny Bryant Godwin

Dear Fanny.

February 6th. 1873. New York

It is our intention to start for the south next week, about the middle, say Thursday, and I shall be happy to have you in the party. Anna Fairchild will go with us. Yours affectionately W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

2121.

NYPL-GR ADDRESS: Mrs. F. Bryant Godwin.

To Jerusha Dewey

New York, February 9th [1873]

... I cannot leave New York on the journey which Julia and myself, with two or three others-Mrs. Godwin, Miss Fairchild, and Mr. John Durand-are to make this week to the warmer parts of the Unionsay as far as Florida-without writing to you. I went last week, on Thursday, to Roslyn, to speak on the subject of Mexico. 1 I looked over my journal, and my Mexican letters, and then held forth for the space of an hour and a quarter, relating what I had seen, without saying all I had in my mind. I had a most attentive audience, the largest which has attended any of their lectures this winter-many coming from Westbury-and so still that you could have heard a whisper from the other end of the room. You wonder what I said to the children at the church in Thirtyfourth Street. 2 Nothing beyond commonplace exhortations, to take the conduct of the Master for their example, and to do everything in their power to make others happy. Mr. Tyndall, who has just sailed on his return, has been much followed after here. 3 I said to Mr. Beckwith, "He is a pleasant man." "No," was the answer; "he is merely a scientific man, and those who are so are too much absorbed in science to be pleasant companions." But I have met him at dinner, and, although

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he gesticulated very vehemently for an Englishman, I thought him agreeable. You ask what books I have been reading. I have just finished one on Madame de Stael, by Amelia Bolte, a German lady of Dresden, whom Fanny (Mrs. Godwin) knows. 4 It professes to be a life of Madame de Stael, but the dialogue is mostly imaginary. What a life! passionate, for she was brought up not to control her passions; almost always unhappy, marrying an old man whom she did not care for, after being twice refused by young men whom she did love, and to whom she offered herself, if not formally, yet in a manner not to be misunderstood; forming, after her marriage, intimate relations with Benjamin Constant, to her father's great grief, and, when he deserted her, marrying, after her husband's death, a half-dead Italian named Rocca, and finally wearing out her life by opium-eating. I am reading now "Evelyn's Diary," which I find very interesting .... MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT (partial): Life, II, 329-330. 1. No report of this lecture has been found. 2. The text of this speech is unrecovered. 3. The British natural philosopher john Tyndall (1820-1893) visited the United States in 1872-1873, delivering lectures on light and heat later incorporated in his published works. 4. Fanny and her family had spent some time in Dresden while traveling in Europe in 1866--1867. The biography to which Bryant refers, probably a German title, is not listed in the National Union Catalogue. Anne Louise Germaine de Stael, Baronne de Stael-Holstein ( 1766--1817) was a French writer.

2122.

To Frederic Huidekoper

Dear Sir.

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, February 10, 1873.

I thank you for the portions of your work which you have sent me. I have looked over them with great interest. The subject which you discuss is altogether new to me and I am amazed-not at the existence of some degree of Jewish influence upon the Greek and Roman mind, before the Christian era, for that was natural enough, but at the great extent of it which your proofs reveal. I shall be curious to see the entire work, and especially your vindication of the emperor Tiberius. 1 I am, sir, truly yours W. C. BRYANT.

Doctor of Laws MANUSCRIPT:

105

NYPL-BG ADDRESS: F. Huidekoper Esq.

I. Frederic Huidekoper,judaism at Rome B.C. 76 to A.D. 140 (New York, 1876). This was reprinted many times during the next quarter century. Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar (42 B.C.-A.D. 37), second Emperor of Rome, ruled from A.D. 14 to 37.

2123. To John G. Whittier

St. Augustine, Florida, March 6th. 1873.

My dear Friend,

I am quite of your opinion that one who has so long and ably served Massachusetts, which I am proud to call my native state, should not be subjected to a public stigma for differing with a majority of the legislature of the state, in regard to the words which are to be inscribed on the flags of the regular army. 1 The vote of censure I have greatly regretted; it was hastily passed, and in obedience to an impulse of the moment, which a little delay would have calmed. It seems to me that it would be highly honorable to the Massachusetts legislature if that measure were immediately rescinded 2-a step which, in my judgment is due to the character of one who, whatever occasional mistakes he may have made, is a man of exalted integrity and honor, who has rendered eminent services to the country and who is an example of public virtue to all who are entering upon political life. I am, dear sir, very truly yours, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

HCL ADDREss: John G. Whittier Esq.

I. In the United States Senate on December 2, 1872, Charles Sumner (751.1, 976. 7) had urged that "No Names of Battles with Fellow Citizens" should be entered on the "Army-Register or the Regimental Colors of the United States." On December 18 the Massachusetts legislature adopted a motion of censure for his words. Information from Beverley Wilson Palmer. 2. Soon after Bryant's letter to Whittier, on February 11 and 13, 1873, largely through the instrumentality of Whittier, this motion was rescinded. Ibid.

2124. To the

EvENING

PosT

Palatka, Florida, March 18, 1873.

It is thirty years since I was last in Florida. In that time several of our western states, which then lay in wildernesses, have become populous and boast their large cities and intersecting railways, and count their millions where they counted their hundreds of inhabitants. East Florida still remains for the most part a forest.

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The long peninsula of sand-sand formed by the disintegration of the coral rock on which East Florida lies, is divided for nearly its whole length by the majestic river of St. John, which rises in the southern part of the peninsula, a broad, deep, placid stream, as black as a Claude Lorraine mirror, 1 with no motion that makes a ripple, and here and there spreading into lakes. Into this great artery scores of smaller streams, just as dark and just as quiet, and either drained from swamps or fed by copious springs, bring their waters and keep its channels full, in some places almost even with the banks. These low tracts are, of course, swamp; they are corded with trees and shrubs of various kinds, the roots of which are in a black mould, which stains the water drained from them. As you pass along this calm, dark river, or its calm, dark tributaries, you sweep by these marshy spots, and come to others where the shore rises a few feet above the water, and the soil is almost pure white sand. On the more fertile of these spots grow more lofty live-oaks and magnolias, and here the settler makes his openings, and builds his dwelling, and plants his orchard of orange trees. In one of these spots, named Mandarin, Mrs. Stowe has her winter mansion, 2 in the shadow of some enormous live oaks, and here she has planted an orange grove. In another, named Magnolia, is an excellent hotel, with a row of cottages for guests, and all around them the solitary woodland. A mile south of Magnolia is Green Cove Spring, where a little village has sprung up, with the yellow jessamine, now in late bloom, clambering over the cottages. The spring itself is one of the most beautiful objects of its kind that I ever saw-a natural well of twenty feet in diameter, throwing up the translucent water in huge gushes. So clear is the water that the minutest object at the bottom is readily discerned as if it were near the eye, and that bottom, pearly white in some parts and bright green in others, gleams through the water with a brilliancy like that of some precious stone. From the spring a copious stream runs rapidly to the St. John, supplying in its way the baths for which the place for many years past has been famous. The beauty of the ground has been marred by cutting away the evergreen shrubs that once hung over the water and putting around it an ugly border of planks. But these are merely stations in the great forest, which for the most part, where it is not swamp, is a sandy plain covered with the trees of the long-leaved pine, under which is a growth of the dwarf palmetto, shading the size of a man's leg. In many parts the trees have been thinned by the gatherers of turpentine; no others have sprung up in place of those that have been destroyed, and the wind sighs drearily through the branches of a few that are left. Sometimes you see a track made by the wheels of carts leading from the river bank,

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and looking that way you discern a log cabin or two in the distance. At times you come upon groups of the palmettos, towering to a height which they do not attain further north, and giving a tropical aspect to the woods. On one side of the river you perhaps see a tangled growth of evergreen shrubs and twining plants apparently impenetrable, and on the other bank small lean cows browsing upon the green things that come within their reach, and you are told that here in Florida, on account of the scarcity of nutriment, the neat cattle soon degenerate. For three hundred years has Florida been open to settlement, and St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States by more than fifty years. 3 How does it happen that East Florida is still for the most part a wilderness? It certainly is not the fault of the region immediately north of it. The ocean winds from the Gulf of Mexico on the west, and the Atlantic on the east, mitigate the summer heats and prevent the winter frosts. It is claimed, and probably with truth, that the diseases which arise from malaria are of a milder character than in the lower parts of Georgia and South Carolina. The reason of the slow increase of population must be the meagreness of soil in the greater part of the peninsula. I remember that a writer in the Evening Post some time since spoke of the soil of East Florida as "the despair of the cultivator." The expression is a strong one, and perhaps, as applied to the whole region is not quite deserved. There are some noble orange groves along the St. John and in St. Augustine, which flourish and yield large returns of profit. The mud is dug from the neighboring marshes and mingled with the sand which forms the greater part of the soil, and the ground becomes fertile. The oranges of Florida are among the finest produced anywhere. The keeper of an apple-stand at Jacksonville, on the St. John, as we stopped coming up the river, asked me if I had ever tasted the Indian River oranges. I thought he said Indian rubber, and answered him accordingly. "Indian River," said he, "and you will find it the finest fruit that grows." I tried his Indian River oranges brought from New Smyrna, many leagues south of this, and could not but own that his praise was not ill-deserved, so rich and agreeably tempered to the palate was the juice, and so delicately tender the little cells in which the juice was contained. How far it is practicable to carry this method of obtaining muck from the marshes to make the immense tracts of sand productive I have not the means of judging. There is an Orange Growers' Association here, who say in their prospectus that the best soil for the orange tree is that of the marshes when "properly drained." But the draining of the marshes seems to me a very doubtful undertaking, on account of their very slight elevation above the surface of the rivers. Could not the marshes in Florida be treated in the manner of the Chinampas in Mexico? There

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the wet ground is trenched with broad and deep ditches like canals, and the earth heaped in narrow parallel-ograms high above the water; and here all manner of vegetables and fruits are cultivated all the year round. In the dry season these narrow platforms are watered from the broad ditches that surround them. But there are some indications of growth in East Florida. Thirty years ago, when I visited it, Jacksonville, on the St. John, was known only by its single orange grove just planted. It is now a thriving town of four thousand inhabitants or more, and two hotels, at this season full of guests. 4 I have just returned from St. Augustine, where thirty years since I passed nearly three weeks. It was then almost bare of trees, the orange groves by which it had been overshadowed having shortly before been killed by a severe frost. It has lost something of its ancient aspect; a few new houses having been built, among which are two hotels, but its orange trees have been renewed and they are now in bloom, sweetening the air for a great distance around them, and the mocking birds are singing among their branches. At present the place is suffering a northern invasion. All the hotels are crowded with guests, and every spare room in town which can be had for money is occupied by persons sent from the hotels, and still the tram-road over which the vehicles are drawn by mules, brings every day its fresh load of visitors. Whatever may be the fortune of the rest of East Florida, this place is likely to flourish on account of the purity of the air and the benignity of the climate, and to become the great winter wateringplace of the United States. In a few years it will probably part with nearly all that is left reminding the visitor of its Spanish origin-its narrow streets, its high garden walls of shell-rock and its overhanging balconies-all but its fine old fort of St. Mark-and look like any other American town in the Southern States, saving its orange groves and the date palms, which, planted within thirty years, are now beginning to peer over the roofs of the houses. It will then be the resort of invalids who need not only a mild climate but the open air, and of idlers who come back to bask in the sunshine of this softer climate and these serener skies. For the sunshine here has been almost perpetual since we entered Florida, and although the climate here sympathizes in some degree with that of the Northern States and the great snow storms of that region chill the air even in these latitudes, yet they only make one the better for a brisk walk, and are a relief from the feeling of enervation which attends one of the warm days here. One of the sights most worth seeing here is the place of the late Mr. Buckingham Smith. 5 That gentleman directed it by his will to be sold and the proceeds to be applied to the support of an hospital for poor and aged colored peopie. His executor, Dr. Bronson, a resident

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of this place and one of its most public-spirited citizens, has already begun the building. The place is one of the finest things to be seen in East Florida. A lane between overhanging orange trees, now shining with their golden fruit, forming a fragrant covered way, leads to the mansion, which is overshadowed by gigantic mulberry trees. All around the mansion are rows of orange trees now in full bloom, yet with their bright yellow fruit glittering here and there among the dark green, and scattered irregularly about are great gnarled fig trees, and pomegranate bushes putting forth their young leaves. The dark color of the soil attests the care which has been taken to enrich it with the dark mould of the marshes, and here and there you have the grateful feeling of treading upon an elastic turf formed by the vigorously growing grass, a sensation quite rare in Florida, where the grass of our northern region is almost a stranger. MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered TEXT: EP, March 24, 1873.

1. Seventeenth-century landscape painter who influenced the Hudson River school of American artists. See 755.2,3. 2. The writer Harriet B. Stowe (1454.3) passed much of her later years at her Florida home. 3. Founded by Spaniards in 1565. Bryant's figure is not quite accurate. Sante Fe, New Mexico, was founded in 1609-also by Spaniards. 4. See Letter 456. 5. A retired American diplomat and early Florida historian who had died in 1871. At Madrid in 1857 he had been attentive to the Bryant party. See Volume III, 410; Letter 1007.

2125. To the EvENING PosT

Green Cove Springs, On the St. John's River, March 23, 1873.

I did not in my last finish what I had to say of St. Augustine. Since I visited it thirty years ago, 1 a great change has taken place in the constitution of society here; the slaves have been set free. I then observed that the negro race in the town had a sleek, well-fed look, and were for the most part neatly attired. In both respects it has seemed to me that there is a change for the worse. A lady who has long resided in the place said to me: "I am sure that the generation which have grown up since the war are decidedly more intelligent than their predecessors, but physically they are inferior. They are not so well supplied with wholesome food, and the consequence is that they are not so strong and hardy. They are easily fatigued with work, in comparison with their fathers and mothers. As to their manners,

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they are not disrespectful, but they are, of course, not trained to the same courtesy as their parents." I was conducted, while at St. Augustine, to their principal school, in which are two departments, each of them with its female teacher from the Northern States. The pay of the teacher in the most advanced of their departments is forty dollars a month, on which she subsists, keeping house in a dwelling erected for that purpose by Dr. Bronson in the school-house yard, and presented by him to the school. In both departments the attendance was not large, but the pupils were quick in their answers to questions, and showed a respectable proficiency. "You should see the school," said a lady who was present, and who took a lively interest in its success, "when the town is not, as now, full of strangers. Every little creature of the colored race who is able to carry a cup of tea on a waiter without spilling it, is kept at home to wait on the guests at the hotels and boarding houses. But the scholars whom we were most proud of have lately left us, and are at the colleges for colored people in Atlanta. They had become experts in algebra and had made a beginning in Latin, and in these and other branches of education were so well trained that professors from our northern colleges, who were here last winter, expressed their astonishment at their proficiency. We shall soon have colored teachers for the colored race." The lady said that the colored people were so eager to learn that she gave, last summer, lessons to washerwomen at ten o'clock in the evening, after the labors of the day were over, and found others waiting at her door for their daily lessons at six o'clock in the morning, before their work was begun. Some of our party were present at a Sunday-school held in a Methodist church in St. Augustine, and were struck with the readiness shown by the little pupils in apprehending their instructions. They are collecting funds for founding a college at a place called Live Oaks. 2 The frame is a specious structure, and has been put up and enclosed; seven thousand dollars have been raised for the completion of its plan, and eighteen thousand more are wanted. I was present at a meeting at which a colored man was setting forth its claim on the public liberality. "We have nothing narrow or exclusive in our plan," he said, extending his arms by way of giving greater emphasis to his words; "we have no prejudices of caste or color, all will be freely admitted into our institution, whatever their profession or their race;" by which I understood that no person would be refused admission on· the ground that he was white. Save in the case of the very young, however, the schools have

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made but little impression upon the ignorance in which the colored race have been reared. Their worship in their churches gives evidence of this. A lady, the other day, gave me an account of a sermon which she heard not long since in St. Augustine, as an example of their mode of embellishing Scripture history. The preacher had dwelt awhile on the fall of man and the act of disobedience by which sin came into the world, and had got as far as the time of Noah. He then said: "De world got to be berry wicked; de people all bad, and de Lord make up his mind to drown dem. But Noah was a good man who read his Bible, and did jus as de Lord tole him. And de Lord tole Noah to build a big ark, big enough to hole part of ebery thing alive on de earth. And Noah built it. And de Lord call upon ebery living ting to come into de ark, and be save. And de birds come flyin' to de ark, and de big lion and de cow and de possum come in, and de horse come trotting to de ark, and de leetle worm come creepin' in; but only de wicked sinner wouldn't come in, and dey laugh at Noah and his big ark. And den de rain come down, but Noah he set comfortable and dry in de ark and read his Bible. And de rain come down in big spouts, and come up to de doo' step of de houses and gin to cober de floo', and den de sinner be scaret and knock at de doo' ob de ark berry hard. And de big lion hear de racket and roar, and de dog bark, and de ox bellow, but Noah keep on readin' de Bible. And de sinner say, 'Noah, Noah, let us come in.' And Noah say, 'I berry sorry, but I can't let you in, for de Lord lock de doo' and trow away de key.' " 3 The fund bequeathed by the late Mr. Peabody4 to the Southern States for the support of schools is found to be very convenient for the people of Florida. I visited a school for white children which received annually a thousand dollars from this source, and is under the care of a most skilful instructor from the North. "At this school, when it was first opened," said the gentleman who accompanied me, "we thought that we could not possibly expect more than fifty or sixty scholars, but we opened with a hundred and twenty." The Catholic priesthood in Florida, as everywhere else, discourage the attendance of the children of their flocks at schools not under their especial care, and the population of St. Augustine is principally Catholic. The result shows that there are many of them who prefer that their children should be educated with those of other religious denominations, instead of being forced to keep by themselves as a peculiar caste. Since my first visit to Florida a new branch of industry has been introduced, the credit of which is given to a lady with a Spanish name, Mrs. Olivarez. Thousands of acres in Florida are overspread with the dwarf Palmetto, a plant which has a shaggy stem lying flat on the ground and rooting itself by fibres from the under side, while its

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summit is crowned with a tuft of fan-like leaves of a tough fibre. Those leaves, dried and bleached in the sun and shredded into strips, are formed into braids and the braids into hats and bonnets of a texture as flexible, and I should think nearly as durable, as that of the wellknown Panama hat. In this way a plant which the settler has regarded as a pest is made to give bread to thousands, and becomes so valuable that its disappearance would be regarded as a misfortune. The names of Mrs. Pucetti, Mrs. Carrana, Mrs. Canova, and Miss U sina, over the shop doors in St. Augustine, show how generally the original population of the town have concerned themselves in this branch of industry. Our party went the other day to the Magnolia Grove, a few miles north of St. Augustine, a noble wood of great live oaks, festooned and curtained with moss, with a magnolia tree in the midst, where picnics are held, and on our way we passed by a solitary cabin, about which the sandy soil was spread with the leaves of the dwarf palmetto, whitening in the sun, which here at this season shines almost perpetually. Some benevolent ladies among the guests from the North at Magnolia have discovered, in the depths of the surrounding forest, a family of Crackers, as they are called, or poor whites, who have attained a certain humble prosperity by this occupation. There is a mother and several children, among whom are daughters, unlettered, ignorant if you please, but not unintelligent, dwelling in a cabin kept with the most scrupulous neatness, kind, courteous, laborious and cheerful. Within the last year they had received eight hundred dollars for Palmetto braid, sent by them to New York. I returned the other day from a little voyage up the Ochlawaha River to Silver Spring. We took passage at Palatka, a little town on the St. John, beyond which the larger steamers do not ascend, and which, therefore, is a sort of mart for the surrounding region. It has its rich orange groves, on both sides of the river, and its little plantations of bananas, from amidst the long leaves of which, withered by the frosts of last January, new ones are breaking forth with a greenness and vigor which give some promise of fruit in the approaching season. Our steamer was a little thing of its kind, rudely constructed, with slight attention to comfort or convenience, for navigating a narrow and extremely winding river, where it must occasionally strike the trunks of the trees rising from the water's edge. We left our wharf at eight o'clock in the evening, and when the morning broke found ourselves in the Ochlawaha, with the steersman, a sturdy black fellow, at the wheel, apparently exerting his utmost strength to keep the little steamer from running into the bank, on some sudden turn of the stream, or dashing itself against the cypress stems that grew directly

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from the dark waters. In the night a lady of our party had her finger stung by a scorpi[o]n. 5 Our way was for more than a hundred miles along a narrow passage made by the river channel through a woodland solitude, mostly a morass, in which the roots of the trees as far as the sight could penetrate were steeped in the water. We looked for alligators, but the sunshine, though bright, was not warm enough to call them forth, but occasionally we passed a huge snake, the water moccassin, coiled up on a log or projecting branch over the stream. The kingfisher chattered and dived for his prey before us, brilliantly colored butterflies crossed from one bank to the other; the water-turkey left his perch, and the noisy, long-necked birds which they call the lepkin flew away screaming into the depth of the woods. Once a deer showed himself on the bank, and quickly disappeared. When night again came on the crew lighted a fire of resinous pine on the upper deck over the bow of the steamer, and then the scene presented was one of the most remarkable that I ever saw. The strong ruddy glare of the fire seemed to bring closer to each other the leafy walls of the green arcade through which we were passing, and, changing their hue to the eye, gave them an unearthly yet beautiful aspect, such as we might ascribe to the groves of the Underworlds. The morning found us moored to the landing in Silver Spring, a basin some five or six rods across, a natural well of transparent water, with patches of a bright green color at the bottom, and so clear that you see at a great depth the fish with which it abounds. It feeds a stream called the Silver Run, which flows with a current of clear white water into the Ochlawaha, and gives to that river a preceptible flow and frequent ripples, which you do not remark in the lower branches of the St. John. Five of the party on board our steamer went in carriages to Ocala, six miles distant, the principal town of Marion county, and before the Indian war of Florida the residence of the famous chief Osceola, 6 which we reached by a sandy road through pine barrens. The town is pleasantly situated, in a region of more varied surface than I had seen in any part of Florida, gentle declivities and long smooth valleys, with groups of lofty and spreading trees, looking like a country long settled, although the town was only laid out twenty-seven years since. It is, in short, such a region as Bartram, in his account of Florida, loves to describe, or rather to exaggerate in his flowery prose. 7 The landlord of the Ocala House, who escorted us to the town, gave us, as we went, some account of his neighborhood. "Here," he said, "in Marion county is some of the best land in Florida. There were large plantations on both sides of the way that we

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are travelling, where Sea Island cotton and sugar cane were raised. They are abandoned; there is nobody to work them. The negroes in this county exceed the whites in number, and the moment they were free they took advantage of the Homestead act and took up lands in the tracts belonging to the government, 8 and refused to work on the plantations. There are plantations on which were machines and implements for making sugar, costing, perhaps, twenty thousand dollars, all of which are useless and ruined for that reason. But we do the best we can. We have thirty public schools in this state, and we cheerfully pay our school tax for the education of the blacks. Our most eminent men sit with them onjuries and associate with them in various departments of public business. We have, in the main, a law-abiding population. I was foreman of the Grand Jury at the term of our court now sitting, and we found but two indictments." I went with Mr. Harris, our landlord, into the Court-house. Two persons stood up, arraigned on one of these indictments, while it was read to them-a man and woman, black as jet. It was an indictment for adultery; from which I inferred that an effort was making to enforce the marriage obligation, hitherto but little respected by the colored race; one of the consequences of a state of slavery. Our guide returned with us to Silver Spring, taking another route, or rather passing from one old plantation road to another. "I do this," he said, "that you may see that Florida is not all swamp and sand, but contains good land. Here is a hummock of twenty-five thousand acres, and there are numerous other large ones between this and the Gulf of Mexico." We passed through a beautiful forest of lofty trees-the sweet and sour gum, the magnolia, the water oak, the prickly ash and others, with a dark soil, a firm road beneath our wheels, and here and there the limestone rock cropping out in the roadsides. We reached Silver Spring after a long drive, and thence made our way to this place. Since writing about the braiding of palmetto leaves I have seen people at work on the leaves of the tree palmetto, which are larger and longer than those of the dwarf species. They claim that it has a tougher fibre and is more durable, and object to the braid made from the foliage of the dwarf plant, that after a certain time it acquires a red tinge. Coming to this place, I found the two hotels crowded with guests, many of whom were quartered in the neighboring cottages. This hotel, the Clarendon, is like a beehive, murmuring all day, and far into the night, with its swarm of inmates. It is so everywhere. Florida is overrun with a northern invasion. The Jacksonville newspapers give long lists of passengers daily arriving. The hotel at Magnolia is full, the two

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hotels at Palatka are full, and accommodations for strangers are sought in private houses. At St. Augustine they come in daily by scores; and people are seen wandering about the streets with their travelling bags, seeking quarters. "We have accom[m]odations in St. Augustine," said the keeper of our hotel, "for twice as many visitors as we had last winter. We were crowded then, and are crowded now." For my part I have no doubt that the number of those who resort to Florida will increase with every season-for this reason, if for no other, that this region may be reached without a sea voyage. With the increase of resort, the accom[m]odations for visitors will be improved and multiplied. There will be better means of reaching Silver Spring and the glades of Ocala, and of penetrating to Indian River, that the children of the North may pluck, where they grow, those apples of the Hesperides, the finest oranges in the world. In many more places the arid sands will be coaxed into fertility and beauty by being mingled with the dark soil of the marshes, and kept perpetually fresh by water drawn from a very little depth by windmills, and distributed over the surface. At some future time here will be groves of the date palm, which has flourished at St. Augustine, and gardens with hedges of myrtle, and walks embowered with the arbutus, and the laurel of Europe, and every beautiful evergreen which grows under the skies of Italy, for the refreshment of those who come from the snow fields of our harsher clime. MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered TEXT: EP, March 28, 1873.

1. See Letters 457-459. 2. This college has not been further identified. 3. Cf. Genesis, 6:5-7:24. 4. George Peabody (1795-1869), America11-born London banker and philanthropist. 5. It is uncertain which of the three ladies this was. 6. A Georgia-born Creek Indian, Osceola (cl800-1838) was a leader in the Second Seminole War against government forces until he was treacherously captured under a flag of truce and died in a Charleston prison. See 457 .1. 7. William Bartram (1739-1823), Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, The Cherokee Country, ... (Philadelphia, 1791). 8. In 1862 the Congress had passed a Homestead Act entitling every adult settler with a five-year continuous residence on government land to 160 free acres thereof.

2126. To Henrietta S. Nahmer

Dear Madam.

Green Cove Spring, Florida. March 26th. 1873.

The leaves of the books should be cut, and it is a question with me whether the Librarian should not do it. Nevertheless, as it may be well

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to have the books ready to be taken out as soon as they are in the building-if you will consent to do the work for half the compensation given for making out the catalogue, that is to say for half as much for each days occupation I agree that you may do it. The making out of the catalogue required qualifications of a higher order than cutting the leaves, and therefore it was just that it should have been more liberally compensated. In cutting the leaves of the volumes, a knife or any metallic instrument should not be used, but a paper-folder-or paper-cutter, made of ivory or hard wood. A knife is apt, either to tear the edges of the leaves, or cut them irregularly. I am just about to turn my face to the north, and leave this land, the winter of which is as warm as a Cummington summer. Yours truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: UVa ADDRESS: Mrs. H. S. Nahmer.

2127.

To Isaac Henderson

My dear Sir

Charleston South Carolina April 2d 1873.

I have agreed with Mr. George H. Putnam to relinquish the security I have by mortgage on lands of his father in Connecticut on his giving me security on certain stenotype plates. 1 I have received from Saml W. Tuttle, his lawyer at No. 20 Nassau Street a blank satisfaction piece which I am desired to execute and return to you. This I now do, and beg that you will be kind enough to receive the security he offers. You will find the paper enclosed with this note. We are all well. Our journey has been prosperous both going to Florida and coming to this place. Charleston is not in so bad a way as has been represented. We are waiting a little while for Julia to rest. Kind regards to all the gentlemen of the office. Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: UTex ADDRESS: I. Henderson Esq. I. In 1872 George Haven Putnam (1844-1930) had become the head of the publishing firm G. P. Putnam and Son upon the death of his father. The firm had just published Bryant's Orations and Addresses when the financial panic of 1873 brought them into difficulties. See George Haven Putnam, Memories of a Publisher, 1865-1915 (New York: Putnam's, 1915), p. 61. It seems likely that Bryant was one of the "older friends" who helped the firm at that time, according to Putnam. See also Theodore

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Hornberger, William Cullen Bryant and Isaac Henderson: New Evidence of a Strange Partnership . .. (Austin: University of Texas Library, 1950), p. 44.

2128. To the

EvENING PosT

Norfolk, Virginia, April 9, 1873.

I have yet one or two things to say [of?] the South, which furnish matter for another letter. On my journey hither I stopped for two or three days at Jacksonville, the principal town in East Florida, and really a flourishing place. When I said, the other day, that its population exceeds four thousand, I merely repeated what somebody told me. I afterwards inquired of one who has lived there ever since the civil war. "The place," he answered, "is rated at ten thousand, but probably that is more than it contains; we may fairly call it eight thousand." It is laid out with very broad streets, shaded with sturdy trees, the live oak and water oak, evergreens both, and through the unpaved sandy streets, without a pebble, the wheel carriages plough their way unheard, or run as noiselessly over the sawdust with which some of them are overspread, while the foot-passengers make their way on sidewalks of plank. Steamers and other river craft lie at the wharfs on the river St. John, new buildings are going up, and the private dwellings are, for the most part, spacious and surrounded by gardens. If the wheel carriages roll silently, the steam sawmills, on the other hand, keep up a continual grating and creaking. The broad, sandy plains around the town are stripped of their huge pines, the growth of centuries, which are here slit into planks, and the refuse parts of the trees are pushed upward on ascending platforms and then flung down upon a fire that blazes and crackles from morning till night. At present, certainly, Jacksonville seems to be prosperous. In approaching Savannah by rail I perceived some striking indications of the ravages of the late civil war. Mansions of the former large plantations reduced to ashes, with the chimneys standing, and new log cabins raised in the clearings of the dreary pine forest, marked the changed relations of the white and black races. Here and there we passed breastworks of earth thrown up for defence. Savannah, however, shows to the casual observer no traces of the late struggle. Its well-built rows of houses, extending over what were open fields when I last saw the city, its great trees spreading a broader shadow, its glossy broad-leaved evergreens peeping over the garden walls, and its warehouses crammed with bales of cotton, give no report of the terrible collision between the North and the South.' Between Savannah and

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Charleston, however, the ruined dwellings of the planters are not infrequently seen .... The war left many white children in utter destitution both in Charleston and other parts of South Carolina. Many of these were orphans, and others belonged to families who had no means of supporting them. They bore the names of some of the most distinguished families in the state; yet they were growing up in utter neglect, unschooled, ragged, dirty, and exposed to the temptations of vice. The Rev. A. T. Porter, an Episcopal clergyman, conceived the idea of gathering them into a school and educating them in such a manner as to make them reputable and useful members of society. He succeeded. He began the "School of the Holy Communion" with small means and few pupils, and has now a school of about two hundred and forty boys, forty-three of whom are clothed, fed and instructed gratuitously, and many of the others at very cheap rates, their kinspeople paying what they are able. I visited the school, and think I never saw a brighter or more intelligent-looking set of boys. Among them were the Allstons, the Haynes, the Marions, the Pinckneys and others, whose names are historical. The honor of these names will be kept up by those who are educated for lives of virtuous industry by this noble charity. The discipline of the school is mild, and great reliance is placed on the pupil's sense of honor. Mr. Porter does not hesitate to solicit pecuniary aid wherever he perceives the least chance of success. Such, at least, is what his Charleston neighbors say, but I perceive, and am glad to perceive, in looking at the prospectus of his school, that it has been "sustained" in great part by benefactions from the North. I shall speak, before I close this letter, of another charity equally noble, founded for the benefit of another class, equally unfortunate, and sustained by the generosity not of the people of any part of the country, but of a single benevolent individual. Meantime a discovery has been made of a substance which is likely to prove of the utmost importance to the agricultural prosperity of South Carolina, and of consequence to the future well being of its principle mart. In the neighborhood of Charleston vast beds of the bones and other remains of extinct animals have been found, of which an average two-thirds are pure phosphate of lime. Spines and teeth of enormous sharks, larger than any now known to swim the sea, are among them. These remains lie near the surface of the ground and are easily shovelled into drays, and, being taken to mills in the neighborhood, are crushed into powder, and are then treated with sulphuric acid to render the mass soluble as food for plants. In the crushed state, though inodorous when dug from the ground, they give out a strong offensive smell, somewhat like that of guano, showing

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that the substance contained some animal ingredient besides mere phosphate of lime. Mingled with the thin soil of the pine barrens, or the exhausted soil of old fields, it brings them into immediate fertility. Two companies have already been formed to excavate these newlyfound beds, and to prepare the substance for market. With this manure it may be hoped that the plantations of South Carolina will more than regain the highest fertility of their virgin state. Perhaps, not content with the staple product of cotton, the cultivator may bethink himself of returning to the cultivation of the indigo plant, which once prevailed so extensively in South Carolina, until it was found to exhaust the soil in which it grew. It was an oppressively sultry day when, with the companions of my journey, I left Charleston for Wilmington, in North Carolina, at ten o'clock in the morning, and arrived at about the same hour in the evening. Scarcely less oppressive in its heat was the Sunday that followed, but I was refreshed by attending, in the afternoon, the religious services of the "Tileston School," as it is called, in which are educated a different class from those who are the objects of Mr. Porter's charity-the children of the Crackers, as they are called, or poor whites, the class of whom the negroes have been accustomed to speak as "white trash." "You can hardly form an idea," said a resident in Wilmington to me, "unless you should go among them of the degradation and uselessness of this class, so averse are they to all occupation of mind or body, so listless, so utterly ignorant, with such stolid looks, so ragged and so dirty. Such have been those about Wilmington and its neighborhood." It was for the children of this class that the Tileston School was founded. Miss Bradley, who during the civil war had proved herself a worthy disciple of Florence Nightingaie, began the school with three pupils, and with such small means as she could command, amid expressions of pity from some and jeers of contempt from others. Her school grew, however, in numbers; she had the art of attaching the scholars to herself, and making them to delight in the acquisition of knowledge; she was persevering and calm tempered, ready in expedients, and utterly fearless. For a long time she was spoken ill of by those who could not comprehend the benevolence and disinterestedness of her purposes; but her perseverance at last carried the day, and now all Wilmington is loud in her praises. It was while she was struggling with the difficulties of slender means, and the opposition, carried even to the point of persecution, of those who did not understand her, that a Mrs. Hemmenway2 an opulent Boston lady, but a native of New York, and daughter of the late Mr. Tileston, 3 the wellknown merchant, became informed of her school and of its condition,

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and immediately became its patroness. She purchased grounds for the school, built a most convenient and spacious school-house, and added a dwelling-house for Miss Bradley and several of her assistants. From time to time Mrs. Hemmenway visits it, making her home with Miss Bradley, and takes the strongest interest in its success, which is now fully assured, for the school, once so derided and its founder so bitterly reviled, has become the pride of Wilmington. I hear that the example of the children who attended it has had the effect of introducing order and cleanliness and industry into their families at home. After the services of which I have spoken, many of the older pupils came about me to speak with me-intelligent-looking youths and pretty girls, neatly dressed and of graceful and modest demeanor. In all my intercourse with the people of the South, although it has not been very extensive nor of very long continuance, I have heard only the expression of a desire to be on friendly terms with us of the Northern States. Especially has this been the case in Charleston, where I saw more than elsewhere of the people of the place. I have never, since I crossed Mason and Dixon's line, heard a single expression of bitterness or malignity towards those who live north of it. It was but the other day that the people of Charleston sent a formal invitation to the President of the United States to visit South Carolina. He declined the civility, and at the same time removed the postmaster of Charleston, Mr. Trott, who was highly esteemed, and for whose continuance in office the citizens, without distinction of party, had earnestly petitioned. In his place he appointed a colored man who, whether justly or not, lies under the odium of being connected with the corrupt fellows who have for several years been pillaging the state. This was like answering an invitation to dinner with a slap in the face, and was a gross blunder to say the least. The place from which I date this letter has its picturesque points, although I never heard them spoken of. Its noble harbor is one of the finest on the Atlantic, and it has its pleasant residences and breezy promontories. Just now its trees are putting forth their tender leaves, and the gardens are full of flowers. MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT: EP, April15, 1873. I. At the conclusion of Union General William T. Sherman's devastating march from Atlanta to Savannah, in the last months of 1864, the city's Confederate defenders withdrew, sparing it from destruction. 2. Mary Porter Tileston Hemenway (1820-1894), a Boston philanthropist, aided freedmen, and introduced domestic science and gymnastics for girls in Boston public schools. 3. Thomas Tileston (1793-1864), a New York shipowner and merchant.

Doctor of Laws

2129.

To Janet Gibson 1

121

Richmond, Va., April 13th [1873]

We are on our way home from Florida, where we have found refuge from the long and bitter winter, which, at New York, has scarcely ended. I have written two or three letters for the 'Evening Post,' which, if you see that paper, will tell you about our journey. We found summer again among the live oaks and pines on the majestic St. John's. I bought a pair of India-rubber overshoes the day before leaving New York, and put them in my travelling bag, and have never taken them out of the paper in which they were wrapped. What has most impressed me in my visit to South, and what, I am sure, will greatly interest you, is the effort, which I have witnessed everywhere, to educate for usefulness both the black and the white population. I found excellent schools, both for the blacks and the whites, at St. Augustine; Sunday-schools in thinly settled neighborhoods; a thronged school at Charleston for the sons of impoverished families, sufferers by the war; 2 a school for the poor whites (a degraded race) at Wilmington, North Carolina, wonderfully successful; and another school, equally thronged with pupils, at Hampton, in Virginia, for educating colored teachers. 3 It would require a letter of several sheets to give you an idea of the extent of these benevolent arrangements, in which people from the Northern States have interested themselves as warmly as the people of the South, and in several instances have contributed more largely to their support. This is a beautiful city, nobly situated on a group of hills, with the James below, murmuring over broad rapids, among little islands, and then gathering its waters into a deep, quiet stream, navigable up to the wharves of the town. The abolition of slavery seems to have given an impulse to its prosperity, and it is growing rapidly in population, having now sixty thousand inhabitants. The season is very late here, as it is throughout all the United States; but the apple-trees are in bloom, and the large, flowering magnolia, a glorious evergreen, is getting its flower-buds ready for openmg. I am sorry to hear that your health, since your excellent mother's departure to a better life, has not been so firm as formerly, and hope that repose and the softer climate of Nice will repair it. If we could have had you with us in our Southern sojourn this winter, I am sure that the genial temperature, and the constant sunshine, and the new sights, and the spectacle of what good people are doing for the rising generation, would have greatly pleased you. The moral influence of the labors and sacrifices of those who are seeking to train up children of both races to virtue and usefulness, I am certain, would have had a

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healing effect on a nature like yours. I am glad that you like what I said about Burns,4 although the subject is so trite .... MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT (partial): Life, II, 331-332. 1. A sister of Christiana Gibson then living in Edinburgh. 2. Established by a clergyman named Porter, according to Godwin in Life II, 332n. 3. Hampton Normal and Industrial Institute, founded in 1868 by Samuel Chapman Armstrong (1839-1893, Williams 1861) to educate Negroes and American Indians. 4. "Mr. Bryant was almost invariably a guest at the annual festivals of the [Robert] Burns Club of New York, and was quite as invariably called upon to say a word in honor of the national poet." See Prose II, [314]n, and [314]-323 for excerpts from several of these speeches, which were printed in large part in the EP.

2130.

To Fanny Bryant Godwin

Dear Fanny.

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, April17, 1873.

Enclosed are $70 [seventy dollars] which I think are about what I had of you on the Florida journey, along with what you spent for yourself but which was properly a part of the travelling expenses. Affectionately W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-GR ADDRESS: Mrs. F. Bryant Godwin.

2131.

To Francis H. Dawes

Dear Mr. Dawes.

New York April23d

1873.

I directed Mr. King 1 to send you on the first of April, a cheque for $250. I have not received any notice of its reaching your hands. Will you please inform me. The roads about us here begin to be good, though the frost of last winter pierced deep, and in a few places there are remains of it in the ground. We-my two daughters and Miss Fairchild and myselffound summer and almost constant sunshine in Florida, an atmosphere fragrant with orange blossoms, and mocking birds singing in the boughs. Kind regards to all. Yours truly, W. C. BRYANT.

Doctor of Laws MANUSCRIPT:

123

Bryant Homestead, Cummington ADDREss: F. H. Dawes Esq.

1. Probably Albert B. King, a member of the EP business staff.

2132. To Hamilton Fish'

Dear Sir.

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, April27 1873.

Mr. [John] Durand 2 who writes the accompanying letter3 is a most respectable and intelligent gentleman, whom I have known from his boyhood. He does not wish to make any copies of the correspondence to which the letter refers, save perhaps of here and there a passage, and has no view of making a political use of any part of it. His researches have reference solely to the social condition of France at the time Mr. Livingston was in that country. I hope it will not be found inconsistent with public policy to grant Mr. Durand the permission he desires. 4 I am, dear sir truly yours W. C. BRYANT. P.S. Mr. Durand is the son of the eminent landscape painter of that name. W.C.B. MANUSCRIPT:

LC ADDRESS: To the Hon. Hamilton Fish I Secretary of State.

1. See 774.1 2. See 812.1. 3. Unrecovered. 4. It is not clear for which of his various writings Durand wished this information, nor whether the reference is to Robert R. Livingston (1746--1813, Columbia 1765), minister to France, 1801-1804, or to his son Edward Livingston (1764-1836, Princeton 1781), minister to France 1833-1835. Perhaps Durand's researches were in preparation for a translation of Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, Les Origines de Ia France contemporaine (1876--1894), which was published under the title The French Revolution (New York, 1878-1885).

2133. To George William Bagby'

Dear Sir.

New York

May 7th

1873.

A suitable monument should certainly mark the grave of our friend Mr. Thompson2 and those who best knew him would most cheerfully contribute the means of erecting it. One, however, could gather very little in going about for that purpose. It requires a very

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OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

long time for any man whatever may be his merit to become generally known in such an overgrown town as this. Mr. Thompson lived here but a short time, and was the last man in the world to take any pains to put himself forward. To look up those in this vast population who knew him well and esteemed him, would be a long and most discouraging task. I have had a paragraph inserted in the Evening Post inviting contributions for the purpose you mention and when received they shall be forwarded to any one in Richmond who is to have charge of them. I am, sir, very truly yours w. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: Virginia Historical Society ADDRESS: G. W. Bagby, Esq. 1. George William Bagby (1828-1883) was an editor, humorist, and contributor to the Richmond Enquirer, and the author of The Old Virginia Gentleman and other nostalgic lectures on prewar plantation life. 2. John Reuben Thompson (1823-1873), a poet and also a contributor to the Richmond Enquirer, had been literary editor of the EP from 1868 until shortly before his death at the home of Isaac Henderson on April 30, 1873. See Nevins, Evening Post, pp. 407-411.

2134.

To Henrietta S. Nahmer

Dear Madam.

Cummington

May 18, 1873.

I have asked Mr. Tower 1 to have the books of the Library transported to the building now ready for them, and as there are but a few of them which require the leaves to be cut, he will see that this is done. Will you be kind enough to send me an account of the number of days that you have been engaged in cutting the leaves. I have already your statement of the time employed in covering the volumes &c. I will on receiving your answer to this send you a cheque for the compensation. May I ask of you in your answer to this, to indicate the most essential of the typographical mistakes in the Catalogue. I perceive that the Table of Contents gives the pages at which the several classes of books begin invariably wrong. I have asked Mr. Tower to correct that part of the Catalogue with pen and ink. Of that error you need not speak but I will be obliged to you if you will refer to the typographical errors on the rest of the Catalogue and give the pages.

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Thanking you in the mean time for the care you have taken to perform your task thoroughly and satisfactorily. I am, Madam, very truly yours W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

UVa

ADDRESS:

Mrs. H. S. Nahmer.

1. Lorenzo H. Tower (1830-post-1880), a Cummington farmer, was first librarian and treasurer of the Bryant Library. Only One Cummington, p. 338.

2135.

To John A. Dix 1

The Evening Post, 41 Nassau Street, cor. Liberty, New York, May 21st 1873

Dear Sir.

We beg to direct your attention to various applications which about this time will be made to you, asking that you will not hesitate to sign the bill repealing the privilege granted to the Gilbert Elevated Railway to occupy Broadway as a part of its track from Chamber[s] Street to the Battery. The mischief which the exercise of this privilege would occasion to that property on both sides of Broadway, is incalculable. A conflagration sweeping off the buildings on that now noble thoroughfare or the batteries of a hostile army beating them to the ground would not do half the damage, for the street could then be rebuilt, while if the property were to be occupied in the way proposed by the Elevated Railway its value is gone forever. We hope that these considerations will have their weight to induce you to give a ready signature to the bilJ.2 We are with high regard & respect, yours, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

York.

CU

ADDRESS:

To General John A

Dix Governor I of the State of New

1. Dix (388.8) was governor of New York from 1872 to 1874. 2. As early as 1864 the EP had urged the construction of a subway under Broadway. By 1871 it declared that elevated railroads were preferable to subways, but not, as Bryant indicates here, over Broadway. The first such railway, opened in 1869, ran from Battery Place to Thirtieth Street and Ninth Avenue, and was greatly extended during the 1870s.

2136.

To Richard Lathers 1

Dear Mr. Lathers

New York

May 22d

1873

The volume of posthumous Essays by Mr. Calhoun on the subject of government, 2 which you have been so kind as to send me, came

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safely to hand and I write to express my thanks. As yet I have read but a small part of it, though quite enough to see that it has all the characteristics of his ablest productions-the skilful analysis the acute ratiocination and the clearness of statement for which his speeches in Congress were so remarkable, and which made him instructive even to those who differed from him in his conclusions. For my part I have always believed that if Mr. Calhoun had lived he would never have counselled the people of the southern states to sever the ties that bound them to the North with the sword. He regarded war as one of the greatest of evils and the great aim of his life seems to have been to secure to the South what he deemed to be its political rights by means which should avoid the necessity of a resort to force. Thanking you again for the volume I am, dear sir, truly yours, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: CU ADDRESS: Richard Lathers, Esq. 1. At the beginning of April Lathers (1820-1903) had entertained Bryant and former New York Governor Horatio Seymour (1299.2) at his home on the South Battery in Charleston, where a "most select" gathering of the city's leaders praised Bryant's poetry, particularly his "Song of Marion's Men," to which Bryant responded in a "brief but beautiful and touching address." Richard Lathers, Reminiscences of Sixty Years of a Busy Life in South Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York, ed. Alvin F. Sanborn (New York, 1907), pp. 308-309. 2. Probably either Disquisition on Government or Discourse on the Constitution of the United States, both published the year after the death in 1850 of John Caldwell Calhoun (231.6).

2137.

To Jerusha Dewey

New York, May 24th [1873]

... I went to Cummington last week, and found the roads dry and in excellent order; the deep snows had protected the ground from frost, so that when they disappeared they left the ground firm, and the fields ready for the plough. But it was a pallid region. Spring had not yet "kindled the birchen spray," 1 but the woods were full of the yellow violet in bloom just on the edge of the drifts of snow lingering yet in the hollows, and the golden-hued erythronium nodded to its fellow in nooks where the sunshine was warmest. I was charmed with my buildings, now completely finished-the library and the dwellinghouse-the library in particular, so solidly built, and so neatly. You have seen that Mr. MacDonald, author of"David Elginbrod," has been giving lectures here, and preaching. 2 I was at Dr. Bellows's

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church one evening when he preached, but found the church packed with a crowded audience before I got there, and though I heard, where I sat, all the noise he made, I could not distinguish the articulations, and lost the discourse altogether. His lecture on Wednesday evening, at which I presided, was much liked, and brought him between six and seven hundred dollars. He is quite a favorite in society. I have become feverish in my longing for the green turf, and sprouting sprays, and fresh winds of the country. I saw no green turf in Florida, although under a summer sun. Mrs. Stowe has a lawn before her house that looked of a vivid green as we passed, but it was a patch of oats-the nearest approach that could be made to grass .... MANUSCRIPT:

Unrecovered

TEXT

(partial): Life, II, 333-334.

1. Quotation unidentified. 2. David Elginbrod (Boston, 1862), by the Scottish clergyman and writer George MacDonald (1824-1905).

2138.

To George Barrell Cheever 1

My dear sir.

[Roslyn?] May 28th

1873.

I have copied your poem which is not in the volume that I spoke to you about, having appeared after that volume was published. Although I remember reading it more than once, I do not recollect altering a word of it. 2 To meet it again has made me think of Pope's line"How sweet an Ovid was jn Murray lost." 3 Yours very truly W C BRYANT. American Antiquarian Society ADDRESS: To the Revd Dr George B. Cheever. ENDORSED: Note, by the author. The above poem was published, about the I year 1825, in the Literary Gazette, then edited by M' Bryant I The copy of it having been lost by the author, Mr. Bryant I most kindly wrote it out, as above, with his own signature, and I sent it to the Author, 1873. The autograph is greatly valued.

MANUSCRIPT:

1. George Barrell Cheever (1807-1890), a Congregational minister and reformer, of Englewood, New Jersey. 2. Bryant enclosed a copy he had made of Cheever's poem of seven eight-line stanzas, "Passage of the Red Sea," which had been printed in the United States Review and Literary Gazette for June 1827, pp. 218-219, while Bryant was its joint editor. 3. Bryant seems here to be confusing two verses from The Dunciad ( 1728) (IV, 169-170)-a rare error for him: How Sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast! How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!

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2139.

To James McCosh'

My dear sir.

OF

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Roslyn, Long Island

June 4, 1873.

I have your obliging note of the 31st of May together with the Calendar and Catalogue of the College of New Jersey, 2 for all which I thank you, as well as for the memoranda which form part of your letter. I will avail myself of the hospitable invitation of yourself and Mrs. McCosh to make my home at your house while I am in Princeton. 3 I am yet to ascertain whether it will be most convenient to come on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. I am much relieved at learning that I may be as short as I please in what I shall say. I should bore the audience I am sure if I were not short, and to be long would be difficult, since I should find that I had not much to say. I am dear sir truly yours. W. C. BRYANT MANUSCRIPT: PUL ADDRESS: Revd Dr. McCosh Esq. 1. James McCosh (1811-1894, M.A. Edinburgh 1834) was president of Princeton University from 1868 to 1888. A philosopher and a Presbyterian minister, he had been one of those who seceded from the Established Church to set up the Free Church of Scotland. Between 1852 and 1868 he had a notable career at Queen's College, Belfast, before coming to Princeton. 2. From its founding in 1746 until 1896 Princeton was known as The College of New Jersey. 3. On June 18, 1872, McCosh had written Bryant inviting him to the college's commencement. Letter in NYPL-GR. Bryant's response has not been recovered, but it is evident from his other correspondence that he did not attend. Now McCosh invited him to make the principal address at the dedication of the new Chancelor Green Library on June 24, during commencement week.

2140. To Marcus Bryant'

Dear Nephew.

Roslyn Long Island June 9th 1873.

I have this moment received your note of hand dated the 7th instant for twenty eight hundred dollars. 2 Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT: Bryant Family Association Papers, Bureau County Historical Society, Princeton, Illinois ADDREss: Marcus Bryant Esq. 1. Cyrus Bryant's fourth son, then thirty-one, a Princeton, Illinois, farmer. 2. For details of this transaction, see Letter 2146.

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2141.

To Julia S. Bryant

Dear Julia.

Roslyn

June 12th

1873

On the arrival of the boat I got a letter from Mr. Schuyler, accepting my invitation, and as his "daughters are included" in the invitation, he accepts it for them also. 1 He is to be in town today and "will send word by mail or telegram" what day they can come. They will "come by steamboat and if perfectly convenient will remain one day and return by the boat of the day after." I went into the strawberry patch yesterday as soon as I got home by the five o'clock train. The fruit is ripe-that is to say on the path near the mill. North of Mr. Cline's there is scarce a berry with any color on it. Yours affectionately W C BRYANT MANUSCRIPT:

BLR ADDRESS: Miss Julia Bryant.

1. George Washington Schuyler (1810-1888), author of Colonial New York (1885), was the father of Louisa Lee Schuyler (Letter 2269) and her younger sister Georgina Schuyler, both spinsters.

2142.

To James McCosh

My dear sir.

Roslyn, Long Island, N.Y. [June 20? 1873]

Mr. Godwin informs me that you will send for me to the Princeton Station, if I will let you know at what time I expect to arrive. I think of leaving New York on Monday the 23d in the afternoon, for Princeton-but inasmuch as I do not know at what hour the train sets out, nor whether there be more than one train in that part of the day, it is of no consequence that you send for me, and I can find my way to your house by the ordinary conveyance. Yours very truly W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

2143.

PUL

ADDRESS:

Revd Dr. McCosh

To Jerusha Dewey

Roslyn, June 26th [1873]

... I have just been looking at your cottage, 1 where the roses and honeysuckles are in full bloom, a fragrant kind of rose-very fragrant,

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WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

as you may remember-and the American wistaria is hanging its great blue strings of flowers from the mass of foliage almost to the ground, and before the door is a broad low thicket of a late blooming spiraea, which is getting to bloom in July. If the former inmates had been there, I should say that the grounds never looked so pretty, save that they have just been mown, and the grass wants the silkiness that frequent cutting gives. But the outside of the cottage is getting darker-putting on mourning, in fact-and, if you are never to live in it again, I am afraid I shall have to paint it, were it only to get rid of the melancholy aspect which it wears. When the color is a little brightened, I shall cease to think of what we have lost. But you tell me everybody about you insists that Plymouth is a pleasant summer residence. So is Roslyn, and your cottage at Roslyn especially so. What you want is a pleasant winter residence, and, if you do not get it at Plymouth, you may as well come back. I have just returned from a visit to Princeton. It is a fine old place; an ancient village embowered in lofty elms and other great trees-too shady, in fact, but grandly so--the college buildings, churches, and other edifices all of freestone, from quarries hard by; the Theological Seminary towering among its old trees, and its professors living near in palaces. I was told that these great trees are the second generation. The venerable and quiet aspect of the place interested me much. I was lodged at Dr. McCosh's-the president's house-where they made much of me, seeming to regard me as a very old gentleman who was to be particularly attended to. I made a little speech on the inauguration of a very elegant building2-and commodious, too--as the college library, the gift of Mr. John C. Green, a wealthy New York merchant, and a native, I think, of Princeton, though not a graduate. 3 The college is flourishing, Dr. McCosh taking great pains to commend it to the public .... I hear that the Cummington Library, which is now opened to the inhabitants, is much resorted to, and the road to it from my place is finished, so that we avoid the steep hill that we were formerly obliged to go over. I have been reading Lord Houghton's (Monckton Milnes's) "Monographs, Personal and Social"; moderately entertaining, but one cannot help thinking, as one reads, that it might have been more so. It is an account of persons of distinction with whom the writer was intimately acquainted-eight of them .... 4 MANUSCRIPT: Unrecovered TEXT (partial): Life, II, 335-336 (there printed as two letters, rather than one). 1. See illustration and description in Goddard, Roslyn Harbor, pp. 70-73, of this cottage built by Bryant for Jerusha Dewey in 1862. It has recently been restored as the headquarters of the Roslyn Historical Society.

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2. See 2144.1. 3. John Cleve Green (180~1875), a China merchant and former partner of Bryant's friend John Murray Forbes (1238.1). Green was a benefactor of Princeton University and the Lawrenceville School. 4. Bryant had spent a day on the Thames in 1845 in company with this friend of Tennyson and Thackeray and biographer of Keats. See Letter 540. Among those persons figuring in his Monographs Personal arul Social, with Portraits (London, 1873) were Heinrich Heine, Alexander von Humboldt, Walter Savage Landor (whom Bryant had met on two occasions at Florence; see 299.2), and Sydney Smith.

2144. To James McCosh

My dear sir.

Roslyn, Long Island June 26, 1873

N.Y.

I did not see you and Mrs. McCosh yesterday morning, when I left Princeton, to thank you and her also-the pattern of hostesses, only too kind-for your hospitality and many attentions. Nor did I take leave of the others, your pleasant guests. I write now to make my apology. In my eagerness to explore your pleasant town I had wandered so far that I did not get back till all were in the church to hear the commencement exercises. 1 If in the course of the summer you and your party should find yourselves on or near that part of the Green Mountain range that passes through Massachusetts between the Housatonic and Connecticut rivers, I should be glad to see them under my roof for as many days as they can spare. It is a highland region with a pure air and cool enough to remind a Scotchman of his own country. My best regards to Mrs. McCosh and her daughter aqd son. My daughter Julia, the unmarried one who keeps house for me here desires to join me in thanks for the hospitality shown me. I am, dear sir, very truly yours, W. C. BRYANT. MANUSCRIPT:

PUL ADDREss: Rev