His acquaintances in America included nearly every living author of his generation, and he numbered among his intimate friends the most gifted men in the land. Nearest to him, perhaps, stood Richard H. Stoddard, of New York, and his talented wife, Elizabeth Barstow Stoddard. Both were born in Massachusetts, and have frequently spent the summer months at Mrs. Stoddard’s old home in Mattapoisett, in company with Mr. Taylor and his family. A jolly household it was, when the Taylors and the Stoddards united their families, as they frequently did, in the city, or on the seashore. One of Mr. Stoddard’s many books, viz., the Life of Humboldt, contains an introduction by Mr. Taylor, and many of Mr. Taylor’s poems were submitted to Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard for their criticism, before he published them. With them, and with Mr. George Ripley, he appears to have maintained the most confidential relations to the day of his death.
Many of his early friends have preceded him to that “silent shore,” and many tears did he shed over their graves. Nathaniel P. Willis, his earliest friend in the great city, who encouraged him and introduced him into a literary life, died at his home of “Idlewild,” in 1867. Washington Irving, who in his old ago was earnest enough to leave his home at “Sunnyside” and go to New York, to urge Mr. Taylor to persevere in his poetical undertakings, and whose advice assisted Mr. Taylor so much in his various trips into Spain, died in 1873.
Dr. E. K. Kane, who aided Mr. Taylor in laying out his route through Norway, and whose letters of introduction and commendation to George Peabody, the great banker, and to other influential men in England, opened the way for Mr. Taylor into the best society of that capital, did not live to meet Mr. Taylor on his return from Norway, as had been arranged, but died alone, at Havana, in 1857.
William Cullen Bryant, whose master-pieces were Mr. Taylor’s study, and whose personal friendship was so much valued, that Mr. Taylor visited the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, wherein the “Thanatopsis” had its birth, to note “if the scenes would have the same influence on a stranger, that they appeared to have had on a native,”—he whose counsel and companionship had, through many years, been counted among the “richest boons of life,” died a few months before Mr. Taylor, and the shadow had not passed from Mr. Taylor’s brow, and his poetical tribute to Bryant was hardly in print, before he was called “to join the caravan that moves to that mysterious realm.”
Fitz-Greene Halleck, who used to caution the young poet, and who took pride in every new achievement of the traveller, died in 1867.
Horace Greeley, the editor of the Tribune, whose friendship was of the most steady and substantial kind, and for whom Mr. Taylor felt the respect due to a parent, expired in 1872. It was when writing of Mr. Greeley’s death that Mr. Taylor gave the following sketch of their friendship:—
“My own intercourse with him, though often interrupted by absence or divergence of labor, was frank at the start, and grew closer and more precious with every year. In all my experience of men, I have never found one whose primitive impulses revealed themselves with such marvellous purity and sincerity. His nature often seemed to me as crystal-clear as that of a child. In my younger and more sensitive days, he often gave me a transient wound; but such wounds healed without a scar, and I always found, afterward, that they came from the lance of a physician, not from the knife of an enemy.
“I first saw Mr. Greeley in June, 1844, when I was a boy of nineteen. I applied to him for an engagement to write letters to the ‘Tribune’ from Germany. His reply was terse enough. ‘No descriptive letters!’ he said; ‘I am sick of them. When you have been there long enough to know something, send to me, and, if there is anything in your letters, I will publish them.’ I waited nearly a year, and then sent seventeen letters, which were published. They were shallow enough, I suspect; but what might they not have been without his warning?
“Toward the end of 1847, while I was engaged in the unfortunate enterprise of trying to establish a weekly paper at Phœnixville, Penn., I wrote him—foreseeing the failure of my hopes—asking his assistance in procuring literary work in New York. He advised me (as I suspect he has advised thousands of young men), to stay in the country. But I had stayed in the country, and a year too long; so another month found me in New York, in his office, with my story of disappointment, and my repeated request for his favorable influence. ‘I think you are mistaken,’ he said; ‘but I will bear you in mind, if I hear of any chance.’
“Six weeks afterward, to my great surprise (for I supposed he had quite forgotten me), he sent for me and offered me a place on the ‘Tribune.’ I worked hard and incessantly during the summer of 1848, hearing never a word of commendation or encouragement; but one day in October he suddenly came to my desk, laid his hand on my shoulder, and said, ‘You have been faithful; but now you need rest. Take a week’s holiday, and go into New England.’ I obeyed, and found, on my return, that he had ordered my salary to be increased.”