Children's Stories in American Literature, 1660-1860 Part 3

Throughout his childhood Bryant wrote verses upon every subject discussed in the family, and in those days New England families discussed all the great events of the time. The listening children became public-spirited and patriotic without knowing it. At thirteen Bryant wrote a most scathing satire upon the policy of Thomas Jefferson, intended to make the President hang his head in shame. It was quoted in all the newspapers opposed to Jefferson, and a second edition of this pamphlet was called for in a few months. Bryant here prophesies the evils in store for the country if the President insisted on the embargo that was then laid upon American vessels, and advises him to retire to the bogs of Louisiana and search for horned frogs; advice which Jefferson did not feel called upon to follow. It was Bryant's first introduction to the reading public, but it was not that path in literature that he was destined to follow. Only one or two of his earliest verses give any hint of the poet of nature, though it was during this time that he absorbed those influences that directed his whole life. It is from the retrospective poem, _Green River_, that we really know the boy Bryant to whom the charm of sky and wood and singing brook was so unconscious that it seemed a part of life itself. In _Green River_, written after he became a man, we hear the echoes of his young days, and we know that the boy's soul had already entered into a close communion with nature.

But Bryant had not yet reached manhood when the true voice of his heart was heard in the most celebrated poem that he ever wrote, and one of the most remarkable ever written by a youth. This was _Thanatopsis_, which his father discovered among his papers and sent to the _North American Review_ without his son's knowledge, so little did the poet of eighteen, who five years before had published the tirade against Jefferson, realize that he had produced the most remarkable verses yet written in America.

_Thanatopsis_ attracted instant attention in this country and in England. It had appeared anonymously, and American critics insisted that it could not be the work of an American author as no native poet approached it either in sublimity of thought or perfection of style.

But _Thanatopsis_ bears no trace of English influence, nor was it strange that an heir of the Puritan spirit, who had lived in daily communion with nature, should thus set to the music of poetry the hopes and inspirations of his race.

_Thanatopsis_ is the first great American poem, and it divides by a sharp line the poetry hitherto written on our soil from that which was to follow. Henceforth the poets of the newer England ceased to find their greatest inspiration in the older land. At the time of the publication of the poem Bryant was studying law in Great Barrington, Ma.s.s., having been obliged by poverty to leave college after a two years' course. It was in the brief interval before beginning his office studies that he wrote _Thanatopsis_ putting it aside for future revision.

He was already hard at work upon his profession when his sudden literary success changed all his plans. Destined by nature to be a man of letters, he poured forth verse and prose during the whole time he was studying and practising law. Six months after the publication of _Thanatopsis_ the poem ent.i.tled _To a Waterfowl_, suggested by the devious flight of a wild duck across the sunset sky, appeared.

It is a perfect picture of the reedy river banks, the wet marshes, and the lonely lakes over which the bird hovered, and it is full of the charm of nature herself. From this time on Bryant's touch never faltered. He was the chosen poet of the wild beauty of his native hills and valleys, and his own pure spirit revealed the most sacred meanings of this beauty.

In 1821 he published his first volume of poems under the t.i.tle, _Poems by William Cullen Bryant_. It was a little book of forty pages, containing _Thanatopsis_, _Green River_, _To a Waterfowl_, and other pieces, among which was the charming, _The Yellow Violet_, a very breath of the spring. This little book was given to the world in the same year in which Cooper published _The Spy_ and Irving completed _The Sketch Book_.

In 1825 Bryant removed to New York to a.s.sume the editorship of a monthly review, to which he gave many of his best-known poems. A year later he joined the staff of the _Evening Post_, with which he was connected until his death.

From this time his life was that of a literary man. He made of the _Evening Post_ a progressive, public-spirited newspaper, whose field embraced every phase of American life. When he became its editor five days were required for the reports of the Legislature at Albany to reach New York, these being carried by mail coach. The extracts printed from English newspapers were a month old, and even this was considered enterprising journalism. All the despatches from different cities of the United States bore dates a fortnight old, while it was often impossible to obtain news at all. The paper contained advertis.e.m.e.nts of the stage lines to Boston, Philadelphia, and the West; accounts of projects to explore the centre of the earth by means of sunken wells; reports of the possibility of a railroad being built in the United States; advertis.e.m.e.nts of lottery tickets; a list of the unclaimed letters at the post-office, and usually a chapter of fiction. Such was the newspaper of 1831.

During the fifty-two years of his editorship the United States were developed from a few struggling colonies bound together by common interests into one of the greatest of modern nations. And through all the changes incident to this career Bryant stood always firm to the principles which he recognized as the true foundations of a country's greatness.

When he was born the United States consisted of a strip of land lying between the Atlantic and the Alleghany Mountains, of which more than half was unbroken wilderness. At his death the Republic extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf to Canada. His life-time corresponded with the growth of his country, and his own work was a n.o.ble contribution to the nation's prosperity. In all times of national trouble the _Evening Post_ championed the cause of justice, and Bryant was everywhere respected as a man devoted above all to the "cause of America and of human nature."

The conduct of the _Evening Post_ did not, however, interfere with his work as a poet, and in 1832 he published in one volume all the poems which he had written, most of which had previously appeared in magazines. A few months later an edition appeared in London with an introduction by Irving. It was this volume which gave Bryant an English reputation as great as that he enjoyed in America. Like Cooper, he revealed an unfamiliar nature as seen in American forests, hills, and streams, taking his readers with him into those solitary and quiet places where dwelt the wild birds and wild flowers. The very t.i.tles of his poems show how closely he lived to the life of the world around him. _The Walk at Sunset_, _The West Wind_, _The Forest Hymn_, _Autumn Woods_, _The Death of the Flowers_, _The Fringed Gentian_, _The Wind and Stream_, _The Little People of the Snow_, and many others disclose how Bryant gathered from every source the beauty which he translated into his verses.

Among the poems which touch upon the Indian traditions are _The Indian Girl's Lament_, _Monument Mountain_, and _An Indian at the Burial-place of his Father_. In these he lingers upon the pathetic fate of the red man driven from the home of his race and forced into exile by the usurping whites. They are full of sadness, seeming to wake once again the memories of other times when the forest was alive with the night-fires of savage man and the days brought only the gladness of freedom.

Besides his original work Bryant performed a n.o.ble task in the translation of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ of Homer. He was over seventy when he began this work, and was five years in completing it. The poems are put into blank verse, of which Bryant was a master, and they have caught the very spirit of the old Greek bard; so faithfully did the modern poet understand that shadowy past that he might have watched with Helen the burning of Troy, or journeyed with Ulysses throughout his wanderings in the perilous seas.

The light of Bryant's imagination burned steadily to the end. In his eighty-second year he wrote his last important poem, _The Flood of Years_. It is a beautiful confession of faith in the n.o.bility of life and the immortality of the soul, and a fitting crown for an existence so beneficent and exalted.

His last public work was to partic.i.p.ate in unveiling a monument to the Italian statesman Mazzini in Central Park, when he was the orator of the day. On the same evening he was seized with his last illness. He died on June 12, 1878, and was buried at Roslyn, Long Island, one of his favorite country homes.

CHAPTER VI

WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT

1796-1859

One of the stories that mankind has always liked to believe is that of the existence of a marvellous country whose climate was perfect, whose people were happy, whose king was wise and good, and where wealth abounded. The old travellers of the Middle Ages dreamed of finding this land somewhere in the far East. Many books were written about it, and many tales told by knight and palmer of its rivers of gold, mines of precious stones, and treasure vaults of inexhaustible riches. But, although from time to time some famous traveller like Marco Polo or Sir John Mandeville described the great wealth of Ormus or Cathay, yet no one ever found the real country of his imagination, and the dream pa.s.sed down from generation to generation unfulfilled. The Spaniards called this country _El Dorado_, and perhaps their vision of it was the wildest of all, for not only were they to find inexhaustible riches, but trees whose fruit would heal disease, magic wells which yielded happiness, and fountains of immortal youth. Thus dreamed the Spaniard of the fifteenth century, and when Columbus found the new world it was believed that it included El Dorado. Leader after leader mustered his knights and soldiers and sought the golden country. They traversed forests, climbed mountains, forded rivers, and waded through swamps and mora.s.ses; they suffered hunger, thirst, and fever, and the savage hostility of the Indians; they died by hundreds and were buried in unmarked graves, and expedition after expedition returned to Spain to report the fruitlessness of their search. But the hope was not given up. New seekers started on the quest, and it seemed that the ships of Spain could hardly hold her eager adventurers.

In a strange way this dream of El Dorado was realized. Two soldiers of fortune, bolder, hardier, luckier than the rest, actually found not one country but two, which were in part at least like the golden world they sought. High upon the table-land of Mexico and guarded by its snow-capped mountains they found the kingdom of the Aztecs, with their vast wealth of gold and silver. Safe behind the barrier of the Andes lay the land of the Incas, whose riches were, like those of Ophir or Cathay, not to be measured. Both of these countries possessed a strange and characteristic civilization. In fact, even to this day, scholars are puzzled to know the source of the knowledge which these people possessed.

In Mexico Hernando Cortez found a government whose head was the king, supported by a tribunal of judges who governed the princ.i.p.al cities.

If a judge took a bribe he was put to death. In the king's tribunal the throne was of gold inlaid with turquoises. The walls were hung with tapestry embroidered with figures of birds and flowers. Over the throne was a canopy flashing with gold and jewels. There were officers to escort prisoners to and from court, and an account of the proceedings was kept in hieroglyphic paintings. All the laws of the kingdom were taught by these paintings to the people. The Aztecs had orders of n.o.bility and knighthood; they had a military code and hospitals for the sick. Their temples glittered with gold and jewels, and they had ceremonies of baptism, marriage, and burial. They had monastic orders, astrologists and astronomers, physicians, merchants, jewellers, mechanics, and husbandmen. Their palaces were treasure-houses of wealth. In fact, they were as unlike the Indians of the eastern coast of America as the Englishman of to-day is unlike the half-naked savage who in the early ages roamed through England, subsisting upon berries and raw flesh.

In Peru Francisco Pizarro found a great and powerful empire, ruled over by a wise sovereign. In the whole length and breadth of the land not one poor or sick person was left uncared for by the state. Great highways traversed mountain pa.s.ses and crossed ravines and precipices to the most distant parts of the kingdom. Huge aqueducts of stone carried the mountain streams for hundreds of miles to the plains below. Ma.s.sive fortresses, whose masonry was so solid that it seemed part of the mountain itself, linked the cities together, and a postal system extended over the empire composed of relays of couriers who wore a peculiar livery and ran from one post to another at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles a day. The walls of temples and palaces were covered with plates of gold encrusted with precious stones. The raiment of the king and n.o.bles was embroidered with jewels. The lakes in the royal court-yards were fringed with wild flowers brought from every corner of the empire and representing every degree of climate.

In a word, it was the dream of El Dorado fulfilled.

Although these two countries were alike peopled by races who had lived there since remote antiquity, neither had ever heard of the existence of the other, and thus we have the picture of two civilizations, very similar, springing up independently.

The conquest of Mexico by Cortez in 1521 changed the entire life of the people. Their forts and cities were ruined; three of their kings had fallen during the struggle; the whole country had been divided among the conquerors, and the Aztecs were made slaves. Cortez rebuilt the City of Mexico and filled the country with cathedrals and convents. He tried to convert the natives to Christianity, and Mexico became Spanish in its laws and inst.i.tutions.

But the old civilization had pa.s.sed away; there was no more an Aztec nation; and though in time the Indians and Spaniards formed together a new race, it did not partake of the spirit of the old.

What Cortez did for Mexico, Pizarro accomplished twelve years later in Peru. On the death of their monarch, the Inca, the Peruvians lost spirit and were more easily conquered than the Aztecs. Peru became a Spanish province, and, like Mexico, was considered by the crown only as a treasure-house from which to draw endless wealth. No regret was felt for the two great and powerful nations that had ceased to exist.

In the meantime the settlement of America went on rapidly. Florida, the valley of the Mississippi, Canada, and New England became powerful colonies forming the nucleus of new countries, which had never heard of the civilizations of Mexico and Peru, and whose only knowledge of Indians was gathered from the savage tribes from which they had wrested the soil. In 1610 the Spanish historian Solis wrote an account of the subjugation of Mexico, in which the conquerors were portrayed in glowing colors. This work was read chiefly by scholars. In 1779 the English historian Robertson gave in his _History of the New World_ a brilliant sketch of the Spanish conquests in America. But not until 1847 was the world offered the detailed narrative of the conquest and ruin of the Aztec empire.

This work was from the pen of the American scholar, William H.

Prescott, who was already known as the author of a history of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, a work which had brought him a European reputation.

Prescott was born in Salem, Ma.s.s., in 1796, in an old elm-shaded house. From his earliest years he was a teller of stories, and had a high reputation among his boy friends as a romancer. Walking to and from school with his companions he invented tale after tale, sometimes the narrative being continued from day to day, lessons and home duties being considered but tiresome interruptions to the real business of life. Very often one of these stories begun on Monday would be continued through the whole week, and the end be celebrated on Sat.u.r.day by a visit to the Boston Athenaeum, into whose recesses he would beguile his fellows, while they buckled on the old armor found there, and played at joust and tournament, imagining themselves to be Lancelot, Ronsard, or Bayard, as the case might be.

A life of Gibbon which Prescott read in his teens led to an enthusiastic study of history and to the resolve to become if possible a historian himself. While a student at Harvard one of his eyes was so injured by the carelessness of a fellow pupil that he lost the entire use of it; but he kept to the resolution to fulfil the task he had set for himself. His fame began with the publication of the _History of Ferdinand and Isabella_, which was published almost simultaneously in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Russia. It covers the history of Spain from the Moorish invasion through the period of national glory which illumined the reign of Isabella. The civil wars, the Jewish persecutions, the discovery of the New World, the expulsion of the Moors, the Italian wars, and the social life of the people, their arts and pursuits, their amus.e.m.e.nts, and the literature of that age, are vividly presented.

The recognition of his merits was welcome to Prescott. While doubting which subject to choose for his labors he had heard several lectures upon Spanish literature, prepared for delivery at Harvard College, and at once applied himself to the study of the Spanish language, history, and romance as a preparation for his life work, and two years after began his celebrated work. The book was eleven years in preparation, and is full of enthusiasm for the romance and chivalry of the Old World. Prescott's _History of the Conquest of Mexico_ began with a sketch of the ancient Aztec civilization, proceeded to a description of the conquest by Cortez, and concluded with an account of the after career of the great commander, the whole work seeming a brilliant romance rather than sober history.

The materials for Prescott's work were gathered from every known available source. The narratives of eye-witnesses were brought forth from their hiding-places in the royal libraries of Spain, and patiently transcribed; old letters, unpublished chronicles, royal edicts, monkish legends, every sc.r.a.p of information attainable, was transmitted to the worker across the sea, who because of his partial blindness had to depend entirely upon others in the collection of his authorities. These doc.u.ments were read to Prescott by a secretary, who took notes under the author's direction; these notes were again read to him, and then after sifting, comparing and, retracing again and again the old ground, the historian began his work. He wrote upon a noctograph with an ivory stylus, as a blind man writes, and because of great physical weakness he was able to accomplish only a very little each day. But week by week the work grew. His marvellous memory enabled him to recall sixty pages of printed matter at once. His wonderful imagination enabled him to present the Mexico of the sixteenth century as it appeared to the old Spanish cavaliers, and as no historian had ever presented it before. He made of each episode of the great drama a finished and perfect picture. In fact, the _History of the Conquest of Mexico_ is more than anything else a historical painting wrought to perfection by the cunning of the master hand.

Prescott spent six years over this work, which enhanced his fame as a historian and kept for American literature the high place won by Irving. Indeed, Irving himself had designed to write the history of the conquest of Mexico, but withdrew in favor of Prescott.

Three months after the publication of his work on Mexico, Prescott began the _History of the Conquest of Peru_, the materials for which had already been obtained. But these doc.u.ments proved much more complete than those describing the Mexican conquest.

The conquest of Mexico was achieved mainly by one man, Cortez; but while Pizarro was virtually the head of the expedition against Peru, he was accompanied by others whose plans were often opposed to his own, and whose personal devotion could never be counted upon. Each of these men held regular correspondence with the court of Spain, and Pizarro never knew when his own account of the capture of a city or settlement of a colony would be contradicted by the statement of one of his officers. After the capture and death of the Inca, which was the real conquest of the country from the natives, Pizarro was obliged to reconquer Peru from his own officers, who quarrelled with him and among themselves continually.

The conquest is shown to be a war of adventurers, a crusade of buccaneers, who wanted only gold. The sieges and battles of the Spaniards read like ma.s.sacres, and the story of the death of the Inca like an unbelievable horror of the Dark Ages. This scene, contrasted with the glowing description of the former magnificence of the Inca, shows Prescott in his most brilliant mood as a writer. Perhaps his greatest gift is this power of reproducing faithfully the actual spirit of the conquest, a spirit which, in spite of the glitter of arms and splendor of religious ceremonial, proves to have been one of greed and lowest selfishness.

_The Conquest of Peru_, published in 1847, when Prescott was fifty-two years old, was the last of his historical works. These three histories, with three volumes of an uncompleted life of Philip II., which promised to be his greatest work, and a volume of essays comprise Prescott's contribution to American literature, and begin that series of brilliant historical works of which American letters boast.

Prescott, during the most of his literary life, was obliged to sit quietly in his study, leaving to other hands the collection of the materials for his work. For, besides the accident which during his college life deprived him of one eye, he was always delicate.

Sometimes he would be kept for months in a darkened room, and at best his life was one of seclusion. The strife of the world and of action was not for him. In his library, surrounded by his books and a.s.sisted by his secretary, he sought for truth as the old alchemists sought for gold. Patient and tireless he unravelled thread after thread of the fabric from which he was to weave the history of the Spanish conquests.

If Prescott had had access to doc.u.ments which have since come to light, if he had been able to visit the places he described, and to study their unwritten records, his work would have been a splendid and imperishable monument to the dead civilization of the Aztec and Peruvian.

As it is, it must serve as a guiding light pointing to the right way, one which shed l.u.s.tre on the new literature of his country and opened an unexplored region to the American writer.

CHAPTER VII

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

1807-1892