CHAPTER VIII
HIS FIRST LOVE AND GREATEST SORROW
At the very first school which Bayard Taylor attended there was a little Quaker girl who would whisper with a blush to her teacher, "May I sit beside Bayard?" Her name was Mary Agnew. As schoolmates and neighbors the two children grew up together; and in time Bayard began to confide to his diary his dream of happiness with her. Toward this object, all his thoughts and plans were gradually directed.
Mary Agnew's father did not countenance this neighbor lover, however, and when Bayard set out for Europe he was not allowed to write to her. He sent messages through his mother, and occasionally heard from the young girl in the same way. On his return, however, he grew more bold, and soon became openly engaged to her. The romance is a sadly beautiful one; for this fair girl who was his inspiration during the years of his hardest struggles, finally fell into a decline and died just as he was beginning to earn the money that would have made them happy together.
"I remember him," says a neighbor, speaking of the two at this time, "as a bright, blushing, diffident youth, just entering manhood; and with him I always associate that gentle and beautiful girl, with matchless eyes, who inspired many of his early lyrics, and whose death filled the nest of love with snow."
Mary Agnew reminds us of Poe's beautiful Virginia Clemm, his "Annabel Lee." Grace Greenwood wrote of her as "a dark-eyed young girl with the rose yet unblighted on cheek and lip, with soft brown, wavy hair, which, when blown by the wind, looked like the hair oft given to angels by the old masters, producing a sort of halo-like effect about a lovely head."
And Taylor at this time was evidently her match in looks as well as spirit. A German friend describes him thus: "He was a tall, slender, blooming young man, the very image of youthful beauty and purity. His intellectual head was surrounded by dark hair; the glance of his eyes was so modest, and yet so clear and lucid, that you seemed to look right into his heart."
On his return from Europe, young Taylor found that his letters to the newspapers had attracted some attention, perhaps largely owing to the fact that one who was almost a boy had made the journey on foot, with little or no money. At the same time he had told his story in a simple, straightforward way, which proved him to be a good reporter. Friends advised him to gather the letters into a volume, which he did under the title, "Views Afoot; or Europe Seen with Knapsack and Staff." Within a year six editions were sold, and the sale continued large for a number of years.
Yet this success, quick as it was, did not solve all his difficulties at once. He was anxious to earn a good living as soon as possible, that he might marry Mary Agnew. After looking the field over, he and a friend bought a weekly paper published in Phoenixville, a lively manufacturing town in the same county as his home. This, with the aid of his friend, he edited and managed for a year. He not only failed to make money, but accumulated debts which he was three years in paying off. At the same time he found that he could no longer endure a narrow country life. He tried to give his paper a literary tone; but the people did not want a literary paper. They cared more for local news and gossip, which he hated.
The old ambition and aspiration to be and to do something really worth doing was still uppermost with him. In a letter to Mary Agnew he says: "Sometimes I feel as if there were a Providence watching over me, and as if an unseen and uncontrollable hand guided my actions. I have often dim, vague forebodings that an eventful destiny is in store for me; that I have vast duties yet to accomplish, and a wider sphere of action than that which I now occupy. These thoughts may be vain; they spring only from the ceaseless impulses of an upward-aspiring spirit; but if they are real, and to be fulfilled, I shall the more need thy love and the gladness of thy dear presence."
He wrote to his friends in New York about getting work there, but they did not encourage him much. Horace Greeley bluntly advised him to stay where he was. The editor of the Literary World, however, offered him employment at five dollars a week. He thereupon sold out his interest in his country paper at a loss, and went to try his fortunes in New York. Before he had been there many weeks, Horace Greeley offered him a position on the Tribune at twelve dollars a week. The connection thus begun lasted for the rest of his life. It was as the Tribunes correspondent that he traveled all over the world. He was soon able to buy stock in the Tribune company, and this was the foundation of his future fortune.
He had many literary and other distinguished friends in New York. And during these first few years he worked very hard indeed, hoping soon to earn enough money to provide for Mary Agnew. In 1850, after three years in New York, he was able to set the date of their marriage. But it was postponed from time to time on account of her illness. At last he knew that she could never be well again; yet in any case he wished the marriage ceremony performed. They were accordingly married October 24, 1850; and two months later she was dead.