At this moment our vernacular is the only tongue in which men can express themselves fearlessly; it appropriately enshrines the literature of freedom. We seldom realize this noble distinction of the English language. I was half-asleep one afternoon, in the cabin of a steamer in the Bay of Naples, when suddenly the violent pitching of the vessel ceased, and I hastened on deck to learn the reason of the change, and found, to my surprise, that we were returning into the harbour, the captain having decided that it was too great a risk to venture to sea in such a gale. Pleasant as was the transition from tossing waves to smooth water, every traveller in that region who has gone through the business of a departure—the passport signatures, the tussle with porters, drivers, and boatmen, the leave-takings, packing-ups, directions at post-office and banker’s, an embarkation in the midst of cries, rushings to and fro, disputes for gratuities, beggars, missing baggage, attempts to secure a berth, wringing of hands, waving of handkerchiefs, and, it may be, embraces at parting,—every traveller, cognizant of this experience, will understand how vexatious it was, within an hour after this tantalizing process, to find one’s self, in travelling costume, once more in the city for the afternoon, with no lodging, no appointment, and no sight-seeing to do. I was not long in resolving to visit once more my old dining-place, the ‘Corona di Ferro.’ At the opposite table to that at which I was seated, appeared a handsome young man, with a dark, intelligent eye, and a bearing indicative of spirit and courtesy. Seeing me hesitate over the carte, he suggested a dish which had proved molto buono that day, and having followed the kindly counsel, we engaged in a desultory chat about the weather, the opera, the last news from France, &c., and by the time dessert came on, had established quite a pleasant understanding. At length he made an inquiry based upon the idea that he was addressing an Englishman. I corrected the error, and his politeness at once warmed into enthusiasm at the discovery that he was talking with an American. After dinner he invited me to his apartments. I found the sitting-room adorned with pictures and littered with books. Having ordered coffee, we were soon engaged in a serious discussion of literary subjects, in which my new friend proved a tasteful votary. He wished for a definite statement as to the extent of the liberty of the press in the United States. I explained it; and he became highly excited, paced the room, quoted Alfieri, sighed, pressed his brow, and at length flung himself into a chair, declaring that, if it were not for kindred who had claims upon him, he would emigrate at once to America. To account for his feelings, he showed me a pile of MSS., the publication of which had been prohibited by the government censors on account of their liberal sentiment. He then exhibited several beautiful poems founded on scientific truths, yet mystically involving great and humane principles—a ruse he had been compelled to resort to in order to express publicly his opinions. As I recognized the evidences of genius, watched his chafed mood, and noted his manly spirit, I felt deeply the crushing influence of despotism upon authorship, and realized the natural antagonism between poets and kings.
There is no greater fallacy than that involved in the notion of an essential diversity between an author and his books. Professed opinions do not reveal the truth of character, but unconscious phases of style, habits of thought, and tones of expression, like what is called natural language, make us thoroughly acquainted with the man. Is not Jeremy Taylor’s religious sentiment manifest in the very method of his utterance? Can we not see at a glance the improvidence and the fascination of Sheridan in the tenor of his plays? Who would not avouch the honesty of John L. Stephens after reading his travels? What reverent heart is not magnetized by the genuineness of devotion in Watts, however crudely expressed? Is not prudence signified in the very style of Franklin? Are we not braced with the self-confident frankness of Cooper in the spirit as well as the characters of his nautical and forest tales? Critics betray their arrogant temper under the most courteous phrases; a gentleman is still a gentleman, and a puppy a puppy, on paper as in life; the sham and the true are equally discernible in print and in society. Montaigne exhibits his worldly wisdom as plainly in his essays as he ever did in his acts. It is not, therefore, the insidious but the obvious perils of authorship that threaten the novice. Lamentable is it to see mediocre men take up as a vocation either literature or art, for in both a certain amount of character alone insures respectability; and this is less requisite in pursuits that do not so openly challenge observation.
One day, I was told a gentleman had called and waited for me in the drawing-room. As I entered, he was gazing from the window in the shadow of a damask curtain, which threw a warm tint upon as strongly moulded a face as I remembered to have seen in one so young. His forehead was compactly rounded, his hair curly and raven, and his eye dark and luminous. As I approached, he handed me a note of introduction from a friend, refused the proffered seat, and wore so earnest and grave an expression that I almost thought he was the bearer of a challenge. ‘Sir,’ he began, ‘I have come to you for sympathy in a great undertaking. I wish to be cheered in a mission, encouraged in a career, advised in an experiment.’ There was a certain wildness in the manner of this sententious address which breathed of an excited fancy. I expressed a willingness to aid him to the extent of my humble ability. He drew a thick packet from his coat, and proceeded: ‘I am a native of a little village in a neighbouring State. My father is an agriculturist, and has endeavoured to render me content with that lot; but there is something here’—and he laid a large red hand on his capacious breast—‘that rebels against the decree. I aspire to the honours of literature. I long to utter myself to the world. Here is a tragedy and some lyrics; and I have come to town to test my fortune as an author.’ I saw that he was an enthusiast, and calmly pointed out the obstacles to success. He became impatient. I enlarged on the healthfulness and wisdom of a country life, on the precarious subsistence incident to pencraft. His eye flashed with anger. I urged him to consider well the risk he incurred, the danger of failure, the advantages of a reliable vocation, the comfort of an independent though secluded existence. He advanced toward me with an indignant stride. ‘Sir,’ he exclaimed, ‘I have been misinformed; you are not the man I took you for; farewell, for ever!’ and he rushed from the house. Six months had elapsed, and I was sitting over a book in my quiet room one day, when a terrific knock at the door aroused me, and an instant after the stranger entered and impetuously grasped my hand. ‘Sir—my dear friend, I mean,’—he said, ‘I have done you injustice, and I have come to apologize. For a month after my former interview, I passed a feverish novitiate, hawking my manuscripts around, deceived by plausible members of the trade, snubbed by managers, frozen out of the sanctums of editors, yawned at by casual audiences, baffled at every turn, until worn out, mortified, and despairing, I went home. The feel of the turf, the breath of the wind, the lowing of the kine, the very scent of hay was refreshing. I thought over your counsel, and found it true. I now farm the paternal acres on shares, write verses during the long winter evenings, lead the choir on Sundays, am to marry the pride of the village next week, and am here to beg your pardon, and invite you to my wedding.’
The delectable quality of authorship is its impersonality. Consider a moment the privilege and the immunity. If we address a multitude or an individual, the impression may be pleasing or wearisome, but courtesy requires that it be endured with equanimity. A book is unobtrusive, silent, objective. It can be taken up or let alone. In it, if genuine, there is a thought that craves hospitality to be caught in a favourable mood, as the fallow hillock receives the seed borne on the vagrant wind. It may take root, and the originator thereof has unconsciously given birth to an undying impulse or yielded spiritual refreshment. The whole process is like that of nature,—unostentatious, benign, and of inestimable benefit; and yet how latent, beyond observation, secreted in consciousness! All power of expression—whether by means of pen, colour, or chisel,—all artistic development, is but a new vocabulary that reveals character. The author and the artist differ from their less gifted fellows simply in this—that they have more language; the endowment does not change their natures; if coarse, artificial, vain,—if brave, truthful, or shallow,—they thus appear in books and marble, or on canvas; and hence it is that character is the true gauge of authorship, and wins or repels confidence, respect, and love, in the same proportion as do living men. ‘By their fruit shall ye know them.’ Therefore authors themselves most effectually disenchant readers. They are disloyal to their high mission; they compromise their own ideal, write gossip instead of truth, describe themselves instead of nature, dip their pens in the venom of malevolence, corrupt their style with vulgarity, keep no faith with aspiration, truckle to power and interest, and so bring their vocation itself into merited disdain.
How charming, on the other hand, is the spontaneous bard, who sings from an overflowing and musical nature! There is a court in one of the most populous quarters of London which rejoices in the name of Spring Gardens. Doubtless the spot, at one time, was a rural domain; at present, a few trees peering over a wall, and a retired and quaint look about some of the brick domiciles that line the street, alone justify the pleasant name it bears. In one of these houses is the office of the Commissioners of Lunacy; and there, one winter morning, I had the satisfaction of a brief tête-à-tête with Procter. His plainly-cut frock-coat, long and black, his white hair and quiet bearing, made him appear a curate such as Goldsmith portrayed. It is a curious vocation for a poet—that of testing the wits of people suspected of being out of their mind,—and a painful one for a sensitive nature, to inspect the asylums devoted to their use. But I remembered that Procter’s early taste drew him into intimate love and recognition of the old English dramatists, whose natural element was the terrible in human passion and woe; I considered the profound tenderness of his muse, and I felt that even the tragic scenes it was his duty to witness and to study, were not without a certain sad affinity with genius. Kean visited madhouses to perfect his conception of Lear; and he who sings of human weal and sorrow is taught to deepen and hallow his strain by the misery as well as the amenities of his life. The heart of courtesy, the mood of aspiration, have not been quelled in Procter by the stern professional business which is his daily task. They loomed up even in that dusky office, and kept faith with my previous ideal; but it was especially in the poet’s eye that I read the spirit of his muse; ineffably mild and tender is its expression, deepening under the influence of emotion like the tremulous cadence of music that is born of sentiment. I saw there the soul that dictated ‘How many summers, love, hast thou been mine?’ ‘Send down thy pitying angel, God!’ and so many other lays of affection endeared to all who can appreciate the genuine lyrics of the heart identified with the name of Barry Cornwall.
With all its occasional disenchantment, my love of authors imparted a singular charm to the experience of travel; the lapse of time and new localities united then to revive the dreams of youth. What a new grace the first view of the hills of Spain derived from the memory of Cervantes, and the gleanings in that romantic field of Lockhart and Irving; how rife with associations was the dreary night-ride beyond Terracina, near the scene of Cicero’s murder; and what an intense life awoke in desolate Ravenna, at the sight of Dante’s tomb! The rustling of dry reeds in the gardens of Sallust had an eloquent significance; the figures on Alfieri’s monument, in Santa Croce, seemed to breathe in the twilight; the rosemary plucked in Rousseau’s old garden at Montmorency had a scent of fragrant memory; in the cafés at Venice, Goldoni’s characters appeared to be talking, and Byron’s image floated on her waters like a sculptor’s dream; in the Florentine villa Boccacio’s spirit lingered; in the Cenci palace Shelley’s deep eyes glistened; in the shade of the pyramid of Cestus the muse of Keats scattered flowers; on the shores of Como hovered the creations of Manzoni, and a cliff in Brittany rose like a cenotaph to Chateaubriand; while the cadence of Virgil’s line chimed with the lapsing wave on the beach at Naples. I thought, at Lausanne, of Gibbon’s last touch to the Rise and Fall, and his reverie that night; sought the tablet that covers Parnell’s dust at Chester, craved Montgomery’s blessing at Sheffield, looked for Sterne’s monk at Calais, and beheld the crown on Tasso’s cold temples beneath the cypresses of St. Onofrio. Defoe lighted up gloomy Cripplegate, Addison walked in the groves of Oxford, Johnson threaded the crowd in Fleet Street, and Milton’s touch seemed to wake the organ-keys of St. Giles. But it is not requisite to wander from home for such experiences.
It was a delicious morning in June. I had passed the previous night at a village on the Hudson; a violent thunder-storm just before dawn had laid the dust, freshened the leaves, and purified as well as cooled the sultry air. Attracted by the sweet breath and vivid tints of the landscape, I determined to walk to a steamboat-landing four miles off, and on my way make a long-meditated visit to Sunnyside. Taking an umbrageous path that wound through a shady lane, I sauntered along, sometimes in view of the crystal expanse of Tappan Zee, sometimes catching a glimpse of the hoary and tufted Palisades, and again pausing under a majestic elm on whose pendent spray a yellow-bird chirped and swung, or from whose dense green canopy a locust trilled its drowsy note. The breeze was scented with clover and woodbine; sleek cattle grazed in the meadows; amber clouds flecked a heaven of azure; fields of grain waved like a shoreless lake of plumes; the maize stood thick and tasselled; the lofty chestnuts shook their feathery bloom; now and then a solitary crow hovered above, or a brown robin hopped cheerily by the wayside. It was one of those clear, serene, luxurious days of early summer which, in our capricious climate, occasionally unite the gorgeous hues of the Orient with the balm and the softness of Italy; pearly outlines stretched along the hills, the broad river gleamed in sunshine, and every shade of emerald flashed or deepened over the wide groves and teeming farms. As I drew near to Irving’s cottage, the bees were contentedly humming round the locusts, and the ivy-leaves that clustered thickly about the old gables were dripping with the tears of night; every bugle of the honeysuckle was a delicate censer, and the turf and hedge wore their brightest colours; even the old weathercock, trophy of an ancient colonial Stadt-house, dazzled the eye as it caught the lateral rays of the sun; the fowls strutted about with unwonted complacency, and the house-dog bounded through the beaded grass as if exhilarated by the scene. On the veranda that overlooks the river, from which it is divided by a little grove, sat our favourite author, with a book on his knee, the embodiment of thoughtful content. His home looked the symbol of his genius, and his expression the reflex of his life. They harmonized with a rare completeness, and fulfilled to the heart the picture which imagination had drawn. Here was no castle in the air, but a realized daydream. Sleepy Hollow was at hand; an English cottage, like that to which poor Leslie brought his angel wife; a Dutch roof such as covered Van Tassell’s memorable feast; the stream up which floated the incorrigible Dolph; the mountain range whose echoes resounded with the mysterious bowls, and where Rip took his long nap—all identified with the author’s virgin fame,—gave the vital interest of charming association to the silent grace of nature; and, above all, the originator of the spell was there, as genial, humorous, and imaginative, as if he had never wandered from the primal haunts of his childhood and his fame. That he had done so, and to good purpose, however, was evident in his conversation. News had just arrived of a new French émeute, and that led us to speak of the first Revolution; and Irving gave some impressive reminiscences of his visits to the localities of Paris which are identified with those scenes of violence and blood. He recurred to them with keen sensibility and in graphic details. It was delightful thus to commune with a man whose name was associated with my first conscious relish of native authorship, and detect the same moral zest and picturesque insight in his talk which so long ago had endeared his writings. I felt anew the conservative power of a love of nature and an artistic organization; they had kept thus fresh the sympathies, and thus enjoyable the mind. Retirement was as grateful now as when he sought it as a juvenile dreamer; the noble river won as fond a glance as when first explored as a truant urchin; and the kindly spirit beamed as truly in his smile as when he mused in the Alhambra, or walked to Melrose with Scott for a cicerone. My authormania revived in all its original fervour; here were the mellow hues on the picture that beguiled my boyhood; and the man, the scene, and the author blended in a graceful unity of effect, without a single incongruity.
