Same. No date. I am like Father John of the Funnels and do perceive that my age hath passed the meridian, for I have a more awful apprehension than before of meeting bad verse. The public keeps reading it, and the waste paper basket swallows it. An ass called keeps badgering me to run my rhymes into an appalling chaos of poetasters he edits: all the star-dust of the Rossetti cycle, with essays on each other by each other. I am glad your "darg" is done, my "darg" is editing the Waverley novels, which compels me to skip like a flea over many periods of history. No Parliament of Religions for me, thanks. Religion is moribund, when once persecution is got rid of. I could burn a few dissenters, and Professor Huxley. R. W. Latham. Politician. Washington, January 25 and February 11, 1864. Giving an insight into the second Lincoln campaign. Mr. Cleveland of the Tribune and Mr. Orton, Collector of Internal Revenue in New York, were at the Committee last night. Orton did everything he possibly could to dishearten every man connected with the Chase movement, and argued there was no earthly chance of sending one delegate for Chase from New York. This man has been bought up by the Lincoln concern (Mr. Weed at the head of it) beyond all doubt. He has been sent here in my opinion to cripple the movement at any rate, and to break it up if he can. Can't you and Ellis set a trap for him and catch him? They will attempt to bribe you and Ellis, and I want Orton caught. Same. Washington, May 11, 1864. Speaking of Secretary Chase, he says: I fear our friend Chase is getting his foot in deep by holding on to Clark. If he insists upon it, he will not only ruin his own reputation and lose his best friends, but he will defeat Lincoln's re-election and destroy the Republican Party. If what I hear is true, or half of it, there is no gambling house in New York anything like as corrupt as the Treasury Department. James Russell Lowell. London, December 11, 1880. I agree with you entirely in what you say about the three months' Clause. But the newspapers have misled you. I am not to conclude any treaty. That will be done at Washington. I have merely presented the draft to H. M's Govt.—as a basis for future negotiations. That is the real importance of the thing & no more— The fact is that our publishers have been driven to the wall & admit the principle of international copyright. Nobody here likes the three months' clause (I mean no author) & few, by the way, know that the interests of Authors & publishers are by no means identical & often opposed. I have just been reading your essay on Whitman which is excellent. What you say of his conventionalism is very subtle. I thank you for your kind allusions to myself. I had began to think my countrymen had forgotten me. A man of sixty-one doesn't mind it much, to be sure, but to be remembered is pleasanter, & I think I have done something for American letters, though less than I ought. Louise Chandler Moulton. Boston, December 26, no year. Lost! Ah, my dear Ned-what I too have lost since 1893 began! It's awful. I do think the State ought to take care of the welfare of poets, painters and others who help to make the world beautiful. A letter from the Author (October 30, 1866) to Albert Rhodes at Rotterdam, written at a time when the poet's early struggles as a poor journalist in New York were about coming to a close: I have been in a state of ebullition consequent upon the sale of our little house and our removal to "lodgings" for the winter. Moreover, I am started in business again (every Yankee must earn a living) and am now, for the first time, able to look around and attend to pleasures and friendships I do not intend to give up literature, tho' in business traces again. Bayard Taylor. Cedarcroft, October 31, 1866. I see your name among the stars of the Atlantic programme. Rejoice, my friend! Boston hath accepted you! But in all-this is a good thing, because the Atlantic is accepted by the populace as the representative magazine of American Literature, and your name there secures you the respect of all the small fry. I had a charming letter from Lowell to-day about "St. John": he considers it "an honest and beautiful work" I don't believe (never did) that the book will be popular, but it will achieve for me what I am thirsting for, a recognition as a real poet. Same. Kennett Square, January 11, 1867. Mentioning to Stedman that he wants to sell a share of stock in the Tribune. Our profits in '65 were $170,000 (dividend $135,000) in '66 (Dividend $85,000). In the latter year, the enlargement of Cable News, &c., cut down our profits, but we have a splendid prospect for this year. I have 5 shares, and would not think of selling, but I miscalculated my income in advance, and made some investments elsewhere. Now I prefer to sell a share (determining privately to buy another, two years hence) rather than borrow $5,000 and take 5,000 anxieties with me to Europe. Same. Cedarcroft, December 16, 1868. Stedman asks him to choose a name for his poem-The Blameless Prince. I reply at once A Court Secret is much better than Dross in the Gold, nay, it is intrinsically good. Of the others Prince Constant is the best. Were I you, I think I should take one of these two. Behind the Mask is not bad-but on the whole, I incline to A Court Secret. Meanwhile Faust advances steadily, if slowly. No week, at least, without a good many new lines. I have just got through one of the heart and head breaking chapters, and Marie thinks with entire success. I don't and won't make a task of it. Same. Cedarcroft, September 28, 1869. "Israel Freyer" is good! I've just read it, and am glad that you also have given a blow to the vile crew. Their infernal orgies seem to have at last disgusted everybody and so perhaps good may come out of it. If you've time, read the Review of Gladstone's Juveniles in to-day's Tribune. I wrote it. Same. Kennett Square, April 10, 1871. I'm glad you have the 2d Faust at last. Don't forget to send me your opinion of the work itself, as well as of my work, when you have read it. I am very anxious to know what impression it pro duces on an unprejudiced intellect, and how far my explanations seem adequate. Same. February 22, 1875. He bids Stedman good-bye and wishes him joy on his trip to the West Indies. Your book is finished,—and that, with the collected vol. of poems, assures you a fixed place among the earnest and achieving authors. You have already made your position, and all you can do hereafter will receive a new consideration from the best part of the public. This is certain. Same. March 6, 1878. Setting the date for a complimentary dinner to be given him, in which Stedman seems to be a leading factor. But I pray you, dear old friend, don't add this burden to those you stagger under. Consider that I have already had enough to make any author satisfied with Fate for a long time, and more is not needed. Since the honor is decreed (and irrevocably as it seems) I must gratefully take it. It would be impossible to close this interesting series more fittingly than with a verse from Mr. Stedman's poem on Dr. J. G. Holland, and the letter from Dr. Holland himself showing Stedman's kindness of heart. It was the Editor's good fortune to know the genial Doctor, a note from whom, written only the day before his death, is one of his treasures. Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit. Who knew him, loved him. His the longing heart October 22, 1881. New York, May 4, 1874. You helped and re-assured me, and to one who never before in his life had been helped, from one whose judgment he respected, in the hour of literary need, you can imagine how grateful that help was. A DICKENS IN AMERICA, 1842 LL Dickens' biographers agree upon his remarkable pedestrian powers, love of travel, and impetuous disposition: but in a letter1 to John Forster, from New York in February, 1842, he refers to a traveling project which had taken his fancy and which shows the two latter characteristics very strongly. It is to be regretted that he did not carry out his plan (apparently it was abandoned on his wife's account) for it would have given him an opportunity of seeing a part of our country so different from those he did see that he might have very materially-and for the better— changed his views about us; while the magnificent mountain scenery he would have passed through would certainly have awakened his appreciation. He writes: I had a design of going from Charleston to Columbia, S. C., and there engaging a carriage, a baggage-tender and a negro boy to guard the same, and a saddle horse for myself with which caravan I intended going "right away" as they say here, into the West, through the wilds of Kentucky and Tennessee, across the Alleghany Mountains, and so on until we should strike the Lakes and could get to Canada. But it has been represented to me that this is a track known only to travelling merchants; that the roads are bad, the country a tremendous waste, the inns mere log-houses, and the journey one that would play the very devil with Kate (Mrs. Dickens). I am staggered but not deterred. If I find it possible to be done in the time, I mean to do it, being quite satisfied that without some such dash I can never be a free agent* or see anything worth the telling. He then has some views on the ocean steamers of 1842: We mean to return home in a packet ship—not a steamer. Her name is the George Washington, and she will sail from here for Liverpool June seventh. At that season of the year they are seldom more than three weeks making the voyage; and I never will trust myself upon the wide ocean in a steamer again. When I tell you all that I observed on board the Britannia I shall astonish you. Meanwhile, consider two of their dangers: First, that if the funnel were blown overboard the vessel must instantly be on fire from stem to stern; to comprehend which consequence you have only to understand that the funnel is more than forty feet high, and that at night you see the solid fire two or three feet above its top. Imagine this swept down by a strong wind, and picture to yourself the amount of flame on deck; and that a strong wind is likely to sweep it down, you soon learn from the precautions taken to keep it (the funnel) up in a storm, when it is the first thing thought of. When I went on deck the day after a great 1 1 None of this matter has been printed before, to our knowledge. *He had been overwhelmed with social attentions in all the cities, so that he felt like a man politely restrained of his liberty. |