Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

[¹] The following copyrighted selections from Wm. Cullen Bryant are inserted by permission of D. Appleton & Co., the publishers of his works.

O him who, in the love of Nature, holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile

And eloquence of beauty, and she glides

Into his darker musings with a mild

And healing sympathy, that steals away

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts