ALDRICH IN NEW YORK

By Ferris Greenslet

WITH CONTEMPORARY PORTRAITS

OT the least fortunate oc­ of commission business on the water front, currence of Thomas Bailey and a house at 41 North Moore Street. Aldrich's singularly fortu­ Here the poet, then five years old, spent nate life was the chance that, four years, quite devoid of significant in­ in 1852, sent him to New cident, so far.as can now be discovered; York rather than to Boston though by an odd fortuity, in 1843, in or Cambridge to spend his early years as a a house just around the corner, on Hud­ young commencer in literature. His finely son Street, Laurence Hutton, his friend individual talent would have gained little of later years, came into the world. In from the over-nutriment of academic 1846 Elias Aldrich moved his family to studies, and in Boston in the fifties,th e close, New Orleans, and there, for three years, bright risen stars of Longfellow, Lowell, the boy had a taste of the exotic life of Holmes, Emerson, and Whittier were likely that strange, half-tropical city, and seeds to dazzle the eye, and silence or constrain were sown in his fertile imagination that the song of the poetic beginner. In New were to bear rich fruit in some of his earlier York the chief literary potentates of the ventures in both verse and prose. In 1849 time, Bryant, Halleck, Willis, and Gen. the cholera claimed Elias Aldrich among its George P. Morris, were scarcely of such victims, and his son went back to Ports­ magnitude as to produce this pernicious re­ mouth to live with his grandfather Bailey, sult. There was, too, in New York, a group to enjoy the advantages of a New England of young men of poetic talent, in some cases schooling before entering Harvard College, of poetic genius, ready to welcome and cheer and to amass those memories of boyish es­ any new-comer in the Muse's Bower. And, capades in the old seaport town that he was finally, there was in the tone of this circle a to immortalize in one of the best books of certain worldliness, a disposition to render its kind in the world. But when, at the age unto Caesar the things that are indubitably of sixteen, his preparation was completed, his, that was an excellent corrective for it became evident that the income from the the ineffective other-worldliness which was little property left by his father was scarcely likely to befog the young New England poet adequate for his support in a college town. in those years, and of which Aldrich, with When, therefore, his uncle, Charles Frost, an odd contradiction of the essential qual­ head of the prosperous commission house ity of his genius, had already shown pre­ of Frost & Forest, proposed that he should monitory vapors. Some of his finest and enter his office, young Aldrich cheerfully most characteristic poems were written acquiesced, and in the autumn of 1852, in­ during his residence in New York, and stead of going to Cambridge to study belles bear the clear impress of the Metropolitan lettres with Professor Longfellow, he re­ Muse. moved to "the great city," as it was even then called, and spent the next four years Aldrich was by no means a stranger in of his life in a busy office at No. 146 Pearl New York when, with a portfolio full of Street. New York was now to be his home poems in manuscript, or cut from the for more than a decade, and the story of " poet's corner " of the local paper, he came these years is momentous in the narrative down from Portsmouth to add up columns of his life. of figures and check off invoices in his uncle's counting-room. In 1841 his father, The circumstances of his abode there Elias Aldrich, a type of the business free­ were happily calculated to give him a full lance not uncommon in those roaring for­ measure of freedom to share the various ties, had settled for a time in "the Me­ life of the city, yet with no lack of those tropolis," with an office for the transaction safeguarding ties that the young urban poet 609

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 610 Aldrich in New York is likely to throw oii to his cost. The fine the imprint of J. C. Derby. In a "Proem'* old house at 105 Clinton Place (now 33 we are told that the volume has been en­ West Eighth Street), which, though fallen titled "The Bells," upon evil days, still stands, looking, some­ what wistfully one imagines, down the Because in bells there something is to me length of MacDougal Street toward Wash­ Of rhythms and the poets of gone years— A sad reverberation breeding tears, ington Square, was in 1852 the scene of a Touching the finer chords of Memory! rich family life. Mrs. Elias Aldrich came on to New York with her boy, and Mrs. Of the fifty poems in the volume not one Frost, the mistress of the house, was his was sufficiently pleasing to Aldrich's fastid­ favorite aunt, only a few years older than ious taste to be retained in any of his later he. Charles Frost himself was a fine type of collections. Yet in its fluency and variety the vigorous, successful merchant; a bluff, of metre, its range of mood, its occasional unconventional, warm-hearted man, whose gleam of vivid phrase, the book was of a portrait can scarcely be distinguished from fine promise. Most significant of all its Thackeray's. He it was who said when traits perhaps is its queer duality of temper. Aldrich told him that Dr. Guernsey of Sentimentality and humor are still at war Harper's had just accepted a poem, and in it, and, in one poem," The Lachrymose," paid him fifteen dollars for it, "Why they come to open blows. After exclaiming don't you send the d d fool one every Perdition catch those lachrymosic bards day?" ': That moan forever about weary earth The years from 1852 to 1855 that Aldrich And sea! as if their dismal dactyles could spent as a clerk in the counting-room of Improve it much! Mr. Frost's commission house' seem : to have left very little impress on his mind. the .youthful poet expresses his own ambi­ Possibly something of his shrewdness "and tion. capacity in business matters, a capacity not very prevalent among poets, may have For my own part I am content if I Can tinker joy, making it waterproof sprung from this early training; but from To keep out tears! the first he occupied himself more with lyrics than with ledgers. His real life was For the present, however, the traditional lived in the little back hall bedroom on the tear is.a.frequent factor in his work, and third floor of the house in Clinton Place, the joy has something of wanness and fever. where amid his books, his pipes, his Japan­ In short, the boy has not yet created his ese fans, of which he was an early collector, world, but is living in a misty mid-region, he saw lighted by the reflection of the moods of his "poets of gone years," Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream, Early in 1855 again, soon after the pub­ lication of "The Bells," Aldrich won his and wrote, as he recalled late in his life, first secure poetic success with his "Ballad "a lyric or two every day before going of Babie Bell." The death of a child in the down town," printing them over various Frost family gave the boy a profound and pseudonyms in the Sunday Atlas, a per­ sincere sorrow that gradually grew musical iodical that has gone even further than in memory. Several of his early poems usual along the way of the journals of yes- dealt with it, and the poetization became ter year. more perfect as time went on until in "Ba­ The year 1855 marked a turning-point in bie Bell" he struck a chord that found an the young poet's life. In that year, at the instant response in the popular heart. The age of nineteen, he published his first vol­ piece was written on backs of bills of lading ume of verse, wrote a poem which gained while he was supervising the unloading at almost at once a national celebrity, and re­ the wharves of goods consigned to his signed his post in his uncle's counting- uncle's firm; it was first printed in a com­ room to follow with single heart the life of mercial paper, the Journal of Commerce, letters. yet it seems to have swept through the coun­ " The Bells. A Collection of Chimes by try like a piece of news. It was reprinted T. B. A." was pubKshed early in 1855, with in the provincial press from Maine to Texas,

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Aldrich in New York 611 and it is hard to find one of those quaint fine piece of luck. The Evening Mirror was scrap-books of the heart that our grand­ but a minor interest of its owners; the main­ mothers liked to keep that does not con­ stay of their fortunes was the Home Jour­ tain it. nal, then at the height of its prestige, with The sudden reputation that followed the Willis as editor, and a young Englishman, publication of "Babie Bell" seems to have James Parton, as sub-editor. Between the

105 Clinton Place (33 West Sth St.), where Aldrich lived in 1852.

confirmed the young poet's sense of voca­ twain displeasures arose. There had ap­ tion, and with the somewhat sceptical as­ peared one day in the office Willis's sister sent of Mr. Frost he left the ledgers and Sarah, better known as "Fanny Fern," the bills of lading to write poetry, and to serve author of "Fern Leaves" and other pop­ also as the junior literary critic of the ular works in the sentimental kind; she had Evening Mirror, which was owned at that lately divorced her second husband, and time by Willis and General Morris. Just at was solicitous of serializing in the Home the end of 1855 an ill wind for certain of Journal a novel, just finished, with "the his contemporaries blew our young poet a heart throb" in it. Willis read it, but, ed-

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 612 Aldrich in New York itorial judgment prevailing over fraternal posed by its author as a serious venture in affection, declined to give it a place in his popular novel writing. There is a fervor in pages. Parton, on the other hand, read it, many passages that precludes the possibil­ and roundly accused his chief of an error ity of the burlesque mood. But when it was in judgment. So far did he carry his cham­ finished, Aldrich's sense of humor seems to pionship that, despite the lady's somewhat have awakened, revealed to him the ab­ disconcerting matrimonial record and her surdity of the performance, and determined eleven years disadvantage of him in age, he him to turn it all to laughter at the end. contracted an engagement of marriage with After a little, however, the singing im­ her, which was speedily fulfilled. He lost pulse came back, and throughout 1857 we in consequence his post on the Home Jour­ find him turning out fluent lyrics of the vers nal, whether by free or forced resignation de soci'ete type, with an occasional venture does not appear, and the young poet-re­ in a deeper vein. Whoever would read these viewer of the Evening Mirror was taken on now must seek them in old files of the Atlas, in his stead. the Home Journal, and the Knickerbocker Willis at this time was beginning to feel Magazine, then nearing its end. But it was the approach of the malady that was even­ characteristic of him then, as all his life, to tually to cause his death, and spent much care little for the brief reclame of a maga­ of his time at Idlewild, his country place on zine poem, and he was soon meditating an­ the Hudson, leaving Aldrich to guide the other book. He was not, however, alto­ more immediate destinies of the paper. We gether trustful of himself, and finally, in get, in,the correspondence and recollections the fall of 1857, applied in his dubiety to of that period, some charming pictures of Willis for advice. In return he received the golden-haired boy of twenty sitting in this wisdom: state in the august editorial chair, with a " It is no harm to keep publishing, that I dignity no doubt enhanced by the fact that know of. Of course, you give handles to he also occupied the post of what is your critics now, which you would not with quaintly termed "literary adviser" to the years. But you are young and can stand it. lively and kaleidoscopic publishing firm of And, after all, there is something in' dam­ Derljy & Jackson. A favorite reminiscence nable iteration.' I should be sorry for you if of his was of an occasion during one of Wil­ you had not faults, and the more critics can lis's absences, when seated at his desk he find to blame, the more they will praise—I was composing with due deliberation an edi­ found that out, long ago." torial which seemed to him at the time likely This advice, chiming so consonantly with to arrest the ruinous course of national his own inclinations, appealed to him as events. His cogitations were rudely dis­ sound, and in the spring of 1858 he came turbed by a loud stranger who, after pur­ before the public with a slender volume en­ chasing from an underling some back num­ titled "The Course of True Love Never bers of the paper, turned to the absorbed Did Run Smooth." The poem, an Arabic editor with "Say, bub, get me a piece of love story in a series of richly painted epi­ string, will you!" sodes, was prefaced by an affectionate ded­ For a time Aldrich's sub-editorial assid­ ication to Stoddard, "under whose fingers uities seemed likely to stand in the way of this story would have blossomed into true verse writing, and his next book was to be Arabian roses." The little book was all in prose. Early in 1856 he contributed to compact of ripening promise. Despite its the Sunday Atlas, a serial story, entitled sensuous, musky subject its structure is "Daisy's Necklace and What Came of It," sound and cleanly-limned, and there is a which was published in book form by Der­ fine dramatic reserve in the right places. by & Jackson in the fall of that year. From the whole volume Aldrich retained in "Daisy's Necklace" purports to be a bur­ later collections but two brief passages, the lesque of the sentimental novels of the " Al- perfect song beginning onzo and Melissa" type, at that time vastly popular in these States, but the burlesque O cease, sweet music, let us rest, inheres wholly in the humorous prologue and the fine descriptive fragment known as and appendices. Reading it to-day one can "Dressing the Bride." Yet throughout scarcely doubt that it was originally com­ there were clear foretastes of the true Al-

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Aldrich in New York 613 drichean flavor. Not the least pleasing re­ mortality by being quoted in full in the sult of its publication was the letter that it course of a parliamentary debate on the brought the young poet from Longfellow— preserving of the integrity of the British the first of many. Constitution. Halleck he seems to have "The poem," the elder poet wrote, "is known well, and with Whitman there are very charming, full of color and perfume as records of several meetings, though not of a rose. I congratulate you on your success. the most sympathetic nature. With Curtis, Some time when you are passing through who was some years his senior, there grew Boston, I wish you would find time, or up a pleasant acquaintance, which later

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Thomas Bailey Aldrich. From a bas-relief by Launt Thompson, 1863.

make it, to swerve aside as far as Cam­ ripened into friendship. He came also into bridge and the old Washington head-quar­ friendly relations with F. S. Cozzens, the ters. It would give me great pleasure to wine merchant and humorist, author of make your personal acquaintance and to the capital "Sparrowgrass Papers," and assure you of the interest I take in your seems to have had some acquaintance with career." Bryant. By the summer of 1858 Aldrich, at the The circle of his nearer contemporaries age of twenty-two, was thus in the full tide consisted of Bayard Taylor, the Stoddards, of his early success. He was likewise as in­ Stedman, Mr. Winter, Edwin Booth, Launt timate as he ever became with the wits and Thompson the sculptor, and a group of poets of that "Literary Bohemia" of New journalists and magazine writers of great York half a century ago that is a most sin­ repute in their day, but remote and misty gular eddy in the stream of American lit­ to ours—Henry Clapp, Jr., "Ada Clare," erature. It is time, then, to pause in our Fitz Hugh Ludlow, George Arnold, and temporal march and call the roll of his early Fitz James O'Brien. The careers of Bay­ friends. ard Taylor and Edwin Booth are known to Of the older men he knew best, of course, all men; to Launt Thompson the admirable his chief s, Willis, and Gen. George P. Morris, busts of Booth and Bryant, and heroic the author of "Woodman, Spare that Tree," statues of Scott and Burnside, have given which had just achieved a mundane im- the sculptor's immortality, so strangely VoL. XLIII.—65

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Richard Henry Stoddard." Launt Thompson, Edwin Booth. (In early manhood.) (In the eai-lj' 6o's.)

George Arnold. Fitz James O'Brien. ' blended of tangible and shadowy elements. girl who was known as the "queen of Bo­ The three young men of the group that with hemia," married an actor, after a brief Aldrich survived the century, Stoddard, prismatic flight in literary journalism, and Stedman, and Mr. Winter, writers all of soon after died tragically of hydrophobia both poetry and prose, have become famil­ contracted from the bite of a pet dog. Her iar names wherever sound letters are loved vivid temperament may be studied by the and honored. It is perhaps something more curious in her novel, '"'Only a Woman's than a coincidence that all four were New Heart." Fitz Hugh Ludlow made a success England boys. with his weird " Hasheesh Eater," which he Concerning the others a word of intro­ was never afterward able to equal. He duction may not be out of place. Henry died in 1870. Handsome George Arnold's Clapp, Jr., perhaps the intensest person­ sincere and melodious verse was collected ality of the group, the "king of Bohemia," after his early death by Mr. Winter, in was a clever, morose little man, a hater of whose introduction we may read the story the brownstone respectability of his day. of his kindly, ineffective life. He died in early middle age, after a bril­ Of the group that failed to come through, liant, but far from prosperous, career in perhaps the most engaging personality, and variegated journalism. Jane McIUheny, or the one dearest to Aldrich, was Fitz James "Ada Clare," the beautiful and talented O'Brien. Born in Ireland in 1826, he had, as a young man, run through a bequest of * From the origmal drawing in the possession of The Au­ thor's Club, New York City. ;^8,ooo in two years, and come to New 614

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York to make a living with his pen. At first them. " He didn't even invite me," Aldrich he was connected with a forgotten period­ would say sadly. A little later, owing to some ical called the Lantern. " When I first knew misunderstanding between them, O'Brien him," said Aldrich, "he was trimming the challenged Aldrich to fight a duel. The wick of the Lantern, which went out shortly matter was amicably arranged, however, by afterward.'' After the extinguishing of this Aldrich's pointing out to the Irishman that, luminary he became a free-lance, contribut­ according to the punctilio of the duello, it ing stories and poems to all the best period­ was incorrect to chaUenge a man while one icals of the day; and in "The Diamond owed him money. There is also a pleas-

Thomas Bailey Aldrich. From a ferrotype, 1854,

Lens," written during a visit to 105 Clinton ant anecdote, that once when Aldrich was Place, and printed in the first volume of the keeping bachelor's hall at 105 Clinton Atlantic Monthly, he achieved a tale of im­ Place, in the absence of the Frost family, aginative marvels that still ranks among O'Brien said to him, "Let's live for a week the best American short stories. At the out­ after the Venetian manner." "What's break of the war he enlisted as an officer in that?" said Aldrich. "Why, sleep all day the Union Army, and was mortally wound­ and live all night," was the reply. They ed in an unimportant cavalry skirmish, in tried it for a time, exploring the streets all February, 1862. night and going to bed at seven A.M., but Of the ardent friendship between Aldrich it seems soon to have palled on them. and O'Brien there are many documentary Indeed, despite his close friendship with and other records. The former liked to tell many of the men, Aldrich never went very how once, when he had loaned O'Brien $40 far with the self-conscious Bohemianism for the purchase of a suit of clothes, the lat­ that, transplanted from its native Paris soil, ter had indulged in malversation of the never attained other than an unfragrant funds to the extent of giving a dinner with growth. He was an occasional attendant at

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Bayard Taylor. Edmund Clarence Stedman. (In the '6o's.) (1864.) the compotations at PfafE's —-• have served the paper faith- famous resort in the base­ N. P. Wiiiis. fully, writing his due quota ment of 647 Broadway. of its " Hugoish paragraphs But there is plenty of evidence that he was of one or more syllables," sharing in the edi­ usually glad to escape to the quiet of his torial councils, and even joining in the de­ little hall-room. There was a kind of criti­ fence when, as was not uncommon, persons cal reserve at the root of his temperament whose names had been mentioned in the that always made noisy and promiscuous Press endeavored to carry the office by as­ hilarity distasteful to him. Throughout his sault, vi et amis. It was in this office, too, life he liked better a friend or two with their and in his intermittent frequentation of pipes, than a brilliant roomful. Pfaff's, that his wit was tempered. It was The most momentous result of his asso­ give and take there by the brightest minds ciation with the Bohemians was that when, in New York. The retold story and the re­ in October, 1858, a new paper called the peated Ion mot were rigorously barred, but Saturday Press was started by Henry Clapp, the new good thing was sure of applause. to carry pure literature as it was conceived In this fierce light Aldrich at first played a by the Bohemians, and express epigram­ shrinking part, but soon he became known matic views of current pretences, Aldrich as the wielder of a rapier that no man cared was made associate editor, and O'Brien to trifle with. dramatic editor. Despite the variety of his occupations, he The vivacity and epigrammatic valor of found time, in the autumn of 1859, to col­ the Saturday Press gave it a succes d'estime, lect another volume of his verse, " The Bal­ at least, from its first inception. On Decem­ lad of Babie Bell and Other Poems." In ber 17,1858, Aldrich wrote to F. H. Under­ this volume we find for the first time a wood, assistant editor of the Atlantic, "The sprinkling of pieces that have gone into the Saturday Press is on its feet. It is growing. body of his poetic work. Beside the titular It will be a paper." For the first year of its poem, the volume contained "Cloth of life its young editors were in very hopeful Gold," " We Knew it Would Rain," " After spirits. It was indeed an excellent period­ the Rain," "Nameless Pain," "Palabras ical, and, save only the Atlantic Monthly, it Carinosas," "When the Sultan Goes to Is­ carried more " mere literature" than any of pahan," and the " Invocation to Sleep," to­ its contemporaries. Among its contributors, gether with twoscore pieces of a less disci­ besides the editors, were Mr. Howells, Mr. plined poetic temper that the poet wisely Stedman, Mr. Winter, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, discarded in the course of years. It was and, as Mr. Howells has said, "Whoever this volume apparently that Aldrich had else was liveliest in prose or loveliest in chiefly in mind when he wrote the "L'En- verse at that day in New York." yoi," that appeared fifteen years later at The youthful associate editor seems to the end of "Cloth of Gold and Other 616

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Poems," only to be sternly discarded from and similarly employed in song. The thun­ his collected works. der-clouds of civil war that were darkening •over the country v/ere soon to throw their This is my youth, its hopes and dreams; How strange and shadowy it all seems shadow on his life, but for the moment he After these many years! was more concerned with rhymes than re­ Turning the pages idly, so, bellions. In July he went down to Ports­ I look with smiles upon the woe. mouth for the summer, as his custom was, Upon the joy with tears! cruising comfortably along the coast in his After the publication of this book there uncle's yacht. In the quaint old town by were, for the first time, a few critics who the sea he entered upon another of the idyl­ publicly recognized the peculiar individual­ lic seasons of poetic idleness and young sen­ ity of the best work in it, and foretold not timent that played so important a role in unprecisely that keen and unmistakable the furnishing of his imagination. A. letter flavor, that blending of haunting sentiment to Stoddard revives the spirit of that van­ and airy humor in verses refined to the ut­ ished summer: termost by tireless lapidarian toil, that is "A mummy," he wrote, "couldn't have now instantly suggested to the true lover of been more silent than I ever since my ar­ poetry by the name of Aldrich. rival in these latitudes. But the spirit of Early in i860 the Saturday Press came the epistolary pen has seized me this morn­ to the usual end of such belletristic •enter­ ing, and I am going to fill a page or so for prises. As the editor stated in his valedic­ the improvement of your mind. Don't tion, "This paper is discontinued for lack fancy that pen and I have been strangers of funds, which is, by a coincidence, pre­ these five weeks. Bayard Taylor couldn't cisely the reason for which it was started." write more verse than I have in the same Aldrich took the failure with a light heart. number of days. I have two $30 poems on His relation to the paper had never been hand, sold two to the Atlantic, and sent one more than an elastic one, and even had to Harper. 'The Song of Fatima,' in the there been more cause for discouragement, September number of the Atlantic, is mine. an event soon occurred which would have A lyric, 'The Robin,' will be in the October availed to cheer him. For three years he number. I am forty lines into a blank-verse had been sending verse to the Atlantic story. So you see I have been doing better Monthly, then firmly established as the ar­ things than writing letters. ... Is the biter of taste in America, with, for one 'little party' with you yet? Has she been reason or another, ill success. But one fine writing great, big passionate little stories morning, in April, i860, his mail contained and picturesque poems all summer ? I would this note: like to compare poetical notes with her. I would also like to see the 'Loves,' if it is all "My dear Sir,—I welcome you heartily printed—is it ? It will make a splendid book to the Atlantic. When I receive so fine a and do you great credit. I hope circum­ poem as 'Pythagoras,' I don't think the stances didn't render it necessary for you to check of Messrs. T. & F. pays for it. I cut me out of it.—Good Lord, how con­ must add some thanks and appreciation. I tented I am here! I hate a city more than I have put it down for June. do the devil. I would like to have this sea "Very truly yours, and sky and forest around me forever." "J. R. LOWELL." Not the least memorable results of that happy summer were "Pampinea," and the Twenty years later, when Aldrich had smooth yet ardent celebration of the "Pis- himself become editor of the Atlantic, he cataqua River," of which Longfellow wrote accepted the first poem Lowell sent him, to him in his friendly way: " The river will with a copy of this note. Lowell promptly always be more beautiful for that song." came in to say that he was grateful for the But with the beginning of 1861 Aldrich's encouragement, and had about decided to deepest interest was suddenly caught up adopt literature as a profession. and whirled away for a time from his let­ The summer of 1860 found Aldrich free tered pursuits. Throughout the spring and for the nonce from all journalistic and edi­ summer, the season that saw the fall of torial ties, happy as a lark in his freedom, Fort Sumter and the disaster at Bull Run, VOL. XLIII.—66

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the poet had no other thought than that of were the camp fires of friend or foe, I had serving his countr)^ on field or wave. There no means of telling. I put spurs to my lies before me as I write a letter to his ex­ horse and dashed on—now by the black cellency Governor Goodwin, applying for ruins of a burnt farm-house, now by some an appointment on the staff of the colonel shadowy ford where a fight had evidently in command of the New Hampshire regi­ taken place, for I saw trees that had been ment. There seems to have been sorae de­ barked by cannon-balls, and here and there lay in the decision, and when some weeks significant mounds under which slept New later a telegram arrived announcing his ap­ England braves. I did not feel alone at pointment to the staff of General Lander, such places; for my fancy beheld long Aldrich was away from home, and the mes­ lines of infantry, and parks of artillery, and sage never reached him. In consequence, squares of cavalry, moving among the shad­ the appointment went to Fitz James ows, in a noiseless conflict. I wish I'd time O'Brien, with the result that, as Henry to tell you of the ride—how I stole by the Clapp used to say, "Aldrich was shot in sentinels, and at last, feeling that I was go­ O'Brien's shoulder." ing straight to Manassas, stopped and held Nevertheless our poet, distingaished as a council of war with T. B. A. It dawned he always was for a certain, cheerful bellig­ on me that Washington lay in the east. The erency of temperament, could not rest con­ sun was sinking directly before me in the tent until he had smelled powder. Follow­ west, so I sensibly turned my horse and rode ing Stedman's example, he applied for work back. Gracious heavens! How many miles as a war correspondent, and in the fall of I must have ridden. To make a long story 1861 went to the front as a correspondent short, I slept on my horse's neck in the of the Tribune, attached to General Blenk- woods, we two lying cosily together, and at er's division of the Army of the Potomac. sunrise, oh so hungry, I saw far off the Of his experiences in the field he had vivid dome of the Capitol and the Long Bridge. memories—a typical one may be told, in Here I am, a year older in looks. I have his own words, in a letter to his mother, feasted, and after this is mailed shall go to written from Washington, October 30,1861: bed and sleep three days." "I have just returned from a long ride In later years he would tell how, in the into the enemy's country. I have been on course of this trying night, he suddenly dis­ horseback two days—and two nights, I was covered at the turn of a road what seemed going to say, but I did get out of the saddle to him in the dim light to be a guide board. to sleep. What a strange time I had of it. Hope sprang in his breast, and he rode House of the New York Tribune and my­ eagerly forward to peruse it. It was an un­ self started on a reconnoissance under the dertaker's sign! wing of General Stapel and Staff. We had After a few weeks more the poet decided not ridden an hour through those wonderful that his pen might be better employed than Virginia woods when I got separated from in war correspondence, and early in 1862, the party, and haven't laid eyes on 'em in vigorous health from his life in the open since—excepting Ned House, who has just air, went back to Portsmouth and Par­ reached Washington, having given me up nassus. Yet his brief experience of war for lost. I don't quite know how it was, but with its hardships and horrors, its tremen­ suddenly I found myself alone in a tangle of dous pictures and heart-rending dramas, dense forest and unknown roads. Close on was of the utmost moment in improving the rebel lines, not knowing quite in what di­ his work. "Quite So," and "The White rection to turn, without a guide, and nothing Feather," two of the best of his stories, are to eat—you may imagine that I wished my­ the fruitage of this experience, and in some of self on the harmless banks of the Piscata- the finest of his poems, "Fredericksburg," qua. Well, I did. To crown all, a moon­ " Spring in New England," and " The Shaw less night was darkening down on the terri­ Memorial Ode," we have the true martial ble stillness; and as the darkness grew, I thrill in an intensity that could have scarce­ caught glirnpses of lurid camp fires here ly been attained without the reenforcement and there—a kind of goblin glare which of the imagination by living memories. lent an indescribable mystery and un­ Early in 1862 Aldrich published a col­ pleasantness to the scene. Whether these lection of sketches entitled "Out of His

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Head and Other Stories." If any lover of just been reading them and find them dewy his prose should happen upon the titular and sweet scented. 'Babie Bell' has most story to-day, minus its title-page, he would of your heart's color in it. ' When the Sul­ scarcely guess its authorship from internal tan goes to Ispahan' is espiegle, lively, evidence alone. It is a striking piece of poetical—'the moons of their full brown fantastic macabresque, composed in para­ bosoms' is succulent and musky. 'The graphs somewhat too short, after the French Lunch' is a little Keatsy, but very neatly manner, and with a curious anxiety for un­ carved and colored. usual rhythms. With its studied impres­ "'Dawn' and 'Morn,' p. 20, 'Dawning' sionism, its musically phrased murder, its and 'Morning,' p. 46, are, as some kind startling picture of the outbreak of the friend has told you before this, inadmissible cholera in New Orleans, its consistent mor- cockneyisms. This utterance is Rhadaman- bidezza, it might almost be mistaken for thine. You must not feed too much on an early tale of Lafcadio Hearn's. Yet at 'apricots and dewberries.' There is an ex­ the end there is a characteristic smiling quisite sensuousness that shows through "Note by the Editor" that is pure Aldrich. your words and rounds them into voluptu­ Save for a private issue of "Pfere Antoine's ous swells of rhythm as ' invisible fingers of Date Palm," in 1866, Aldrich pubhshed no air' lift the diaphanous gauzes. Do not let more prose until 1868. His next volume of it run away with you. You love the fra­ prose was to embody not promise, but com­ grance of certain words so well that you are plete attainment. in danger of making nosegays when you In January, 1863, there was a reorgan­ should write poems. ization in the staff of a popular weekly of " There are two dangers that beset young the time, known as the Illustrated News. poets—young American poets at least. The Aldrich was installed in the post of man­ first is, being spoiled by the praise of women, aging editor, and was thus, after a rather the second, being disgusted by the praise or miscellaneous three years fruitful in rhyme, blame—it makes little difference which— once more entrenched behind an editorial of the cheap critics. You may have noticed desk, with its clutter of alien tasks. Yet that our poets do not commonly ripen well, not to be forgotten of the Muses, his first they are larks in the morning, sparrows at proceeding was to publish through his noon, and owls before evening. One reason friend Carleton a collected edition of his is that our shallow universal culture is want­ poetry containing the pieces he most valued ing in severe standards of taste and judg­ from the first decade of his poetic career. ment. We have no Fahrenheits and Rea- The compact little volume, bound in murs and centigrades to gauge our young blue and gold, in genial imitation of the talent with, and allow it to form false esti­ Blue and Gold Series of immortals pub­ mates of itself. Now your forte is senti­ lished by Ticknor & Fields, and embel­ ment and your danger sentimentality. You lished with an exquisite steel engraving of are an epicure in words, and your danger is the poet after the medallion by Launt that of becoming a verbal voluptuary-—the Thompson, has now become the choice end of which is rhythmical gout, and in­ treasure of a few fortunate collectors of curable poetical disorder. Let me beg you, Americana. Of the fifty pieces in it twenty by your fine poetical sense, not to let the are to be found in the definitive Riverside flattery of insufficient persons render you Edition, a notable increase in percentage too easily contented with yourself, nor yet over any previous volume. The little book the hideous content of reporter-critics is full alike of suggestion for appreciation, alienate you from the love of verse (which and provocation to critical discussion, but does not seem to thrive so naturally and there lies before me a letter from Dr. spontaneously as art in your great city), Holmes that renders other comment super­ nor lastly your tendency to vanilla-flavored fluous. In its urbanity and penetration it adjectives and patchouli-scented participles is a model letter from a middle-aged au­ stifle your strength in cloying euphemisms. thor to a young one: "It would have been cheaper to praise without reading than to prose after doing "My dear Mr. Aldrich,—Thank you very it. Still, I think you will take these few sincerely for your book of blossoms. I have words kindly, for they are really com-

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plimentary, much more so than the vague gaged in preparation for the launching of a generalities with which I commonly clear poetic argosy of a new sort. He had al­ my table of presentation copies. There is ready written several longer poems in so much that is sweet and true in your best dramatic form, but for some years he had lines that I want you to be fair to yourself been desirous of doing an extended narra­ and pinch off all the idle buds before the tive in blank verse, and had been looking summer of your fruitage. These poems are about for a subject that would at once give most of them must, not wine. Happy man, an opportunity for the employment of the whose voice time will be mellowing when Oriental imagery that he delighted in, and he is cracking those of us your preterplu- afford scope for the epical treatment of an perfect contemporaries! ample episode. In the end, he turned to "Very sincerely yours, scriptural themes, and selected for his pur­ "O. W. HOLMES." pose the striking story of Judith. For many months the poem grew and was the centre It was always characteristic of /ildrich of his thought. In his correspondence there that, himself the most fastidiously critical are many allusions to it. of poets, he was peculiarly amenable to in­ "Don't forget to hand me the MS. of telligent and kindly criticism from others; ' Judith' to-morrow night," he writes in one and the student of his later poetry may dis­ letter, "I want to go over it carefully and cover how faithfully he remembered the finish it to the utmost. The alterations you sound advice of the Autocrat, and how suggested are admirable. I wish you would richly he profited by it. read the poem just once with a view only to By 1863 Aldrich had become one of the find faults. See if there are not any pas­ notable younger literary figures of New sages where the idea is not worked out York; he was, too, personally beloved by a sharply. Obscurity, I think, is a kind of . singularly various circle. Let us conceive stupidity, and I seek to avoid it always." an alert, slender young man, with clear, And again, a little later—"I would like to steady gray-blue eyes, and crisp golden know what is to be done with the poem. hair. Let us imagine his witty, winsome Carleton's would not publish it because it manner, with its slight distinguishing touch was not long enough. The Atlantic refused of Parnassian dignity, and we shall be tol­ it because it was too long, and now I have erably well acquainted with the "lovely fel­ submitted it to the editor of a new literary low" of his friends' recollections. Through­ journal (to be called The Round Table), out his youth and young manhood he had who will probably fall asleep over it. ' Ju­ been a favorite with that appreciative sex dith' has fallen back in good order, like the that always takes kindly to poets. The first army of the Lord on the Rappahannock." stanza of his discarded Herrickean,—or In the event, however, the poem was perhaps we should say, more precisely printed early in 1864, in The Round Table, Willisian,—^verses "The Girls," was vera­ with the readers of which it found great cious autobiography: favor. " says the praise is as absurd as the poem," wrote Aldrich." Poor ! Marion, May and Maud I mean to drive him wild by writing the Have not passed me by— finest poems God will let me." How hope­ Arched foot and mobile mouth And bronze-brown eye! fully he set about it may be seen in this let­ ter to Bayard Taylor: Yet despite his ailairs of young sentiment in New York, in Portsmouth, and in Bos­ "My dear Bayard.—For the past few ton, the Love that makes or mars had not weeks I have been nursing my 'I' like an yet touched his life. Early in 1863, how­ irreclaimable old egotist—shut out from ever, the true love came. In the late fall of books, pen, paper and the ' meaner beauties 1862 he had met at Edwin Booth's rooms of the night.' What was all in my eye is the woman who was to be his life-long now entirely out of it, and I celebrate the companion, and from that first m.eeting our occasion ('I celebrate myself,' like Walt poet lost interest forever in "Marion, May Whitman) by sprinkling some ink in your and Maud." direction. I have been so much alone re­ In the latter months of 1863 he was en­ cently, that I can speak of No. i, which I

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Aldrich in New York 621 shall do kindly, thereby setting a right The record of the year, with this excep­ pious example to all Christian people. . . . tion, is a record of increasing prosperit}- I have just completed another poem of and joy. Part of the summer was spent in about 250 lines, entitled 'Friar Jerome's a visit to some friends at their home on Beautiful Book.' It is to be published in Owasco Lake. In a letter written from the Atlantic for June or July. It is a pict­ there to Taylor is a quaint and charming uresque monkish story, told in an off-hand picture of a Central New York Arcadia in colloquial way, and is so different from any­ the Consulship of Andrew Johnson: thing I have attempted that I am no fit "I take my departure for that place to­ judge of its quality. I like the thing now—• morrow morning. It was my intention to but then my last child always seems the remain in these lovely regions one week; best-shaped whdp. During the past two but my friends would not hear of so short a years I have cut adrift from the influence stay. I have made five starts for home, but of my favorite gods. Tennyson & Co. are each time a picnic on 'The Point,' an ex­ good corks with which to learn to swim; cursion on the Owasco, or a pilgrimage to but for a long stretch a man must depend Cayuga Lake, was purposely proposed to wholly upon himself—the less of anybody detain me. But my trunk is packed, and else he carries with him, the farther he will determination (to go) is the prevailing ex­ go if he has any muscle. . . . One of the pression of my countenance. I fancy that I highest rewards of an artist is the convic­ have made the cream of my summer's milk. tion, in his own soul, of increasing power. To live in an old rambling cocked-hat man­ For a man to be what he was, is damnable. sion with one's betrothed—to have enough " Your true friend, money and plenty of refined people, a choice "TOM." library of 10,000 books, sunsets, moonrises, horses, boats and newly-laid eggs—what In this and the following year Aldrich's could be pleasanter? I thought to write friendship with Booth, who was then at the some poems here, but I have been too happy height of his success at his Winter Garden in the flesh. I have to be a trifle melan­ Theatre, was constantly deepening. He choly—to escape from something—to write likewise saw much of the artistic circle that decent verse. I wanted to escape from noth­ had its centre in the old Studio Building on ing here—especially the library. On the Tenth Street. His letters of this time con­ other side of the lake—a joyous row is it tain many vivid pen-miniatures of the men across—is a place called 'Willow-brook.' he wasmeeting, suggesting, perhaps,that the A gracious little brook winds in and out picture-making talk of the studios was in a among groves of willows, singing all day minor way not unserviceable to his verse and all night long to one of the quaintest and prose. Take, for example, this mem­ old houses in the world. It belongs to one orable vignette of George Augustus Sala—• Mr. Martin. The building consisted origin­ "Straight black hair, a round red face, and ally of jour rooms: additions have been an imp of a nose—just like a prize straw­ made from year to year until now there are berry." thirty. There is no attempt at architecture in the thing, the extensions have been stuck As the year of 1865 went on his life be­ on just where they were most wanted and came more and more marked by the as­ handiest. The result, outside, would set a surance of happiness. The only cloud came lover of the grotesque quite wild with through his love and friendship for Edwin pleasure: inside, the narrow by-ways and Booth, who, after the assassination of Lin­ odd nooks leading into each other, make coln by his brother John, feeling that the me think of midnight murders and Mrs. name of Booth must be forever the syn­ Radcliffe. In this shapeless old pile is a col­ onym of infamy, shut himself moodily in lection of books that would make your eyes his house. There for weeks and months he stare. Shelf after shelf of rare old black- lived, the melancholy target for all the cruel letter volumes, annotated and autographed notes and letters that came daily to his by famous hands—original editions of al­ door. The only mitigation of his depres­ most everything that is rare. I should like sion came through the friendly ministra­ to be confined therewith you for two weeks, tions of Launt Thompson and Aldrich, who on bread-and-water rations. We'd come shared his solitude both day and night.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 622 Aldrich in New York out mere souls. I suppose I cannot tempt remember in Keats's 'Endymion'—a very you to envy me my content, since your own different thing from vulgar sensuousness. summer has been so pleasant. I would like But your cabinet pictures are really so care­ to add your visit to Whittier to my list of fully drawn and so cunningly tinted that I congenial doings. I don't know him at all, am disposed to cease from criticism and but I think he must be a genuine fine trust your Muse to finish them according spirit. I would also like to confiscate your to her own sweet will." delight in writing a long poem. Men who Four days later Aldrich received the ap­ cannot write verse are ignorant of the high­ pointment to the editorial chair of Every est earthly enjoyment—the least earthy, I Saturday, an eclectic weekly that was about mean." to be published by the great Boston house In the autumn of 1865 three events oc­ of Ticknor & Fields. Ten days thereafter curred which definitely mark that year as he was married and on his way to Boston, the true annus mirabilis of our poet's life: which was to be his home for the rest of his his collected poems were published in the life. authentic Ticknor & Fields Blue and Gold As time went on, and the years brought Series; he was established in a singularly their increasing freightage of distinction pleasant editorial chair; and he was mar­ and prosperity, the Boston habit of mind ried. became more and more deeply engrained Of the 1865 volume more than half— in him, and he seldom cared to revisit the and all that he had written since 1863—has glimpses of the Bohemian moon. Yet to gone into the canon of his works. AH that the very end of his life the old days in the need be said of it now was said by Dr. little hall bedroom in West Eighth Street, Holmes in another of those admirable let­ with their high poetic dreaming, the old ters—this one written November 13, 1865: nights at Pfaff's or Niblo's or Booth's "I have been much struck," Holmes chambers, with their long hours of hearty wrote, "with the delicate grace of your de­ fellowship, their friendly rapier-play of scriptions and the sandal-wood aroma (if I repartee, loomed large and bright for him may use so bold a figure) that perfumes all through the golden mists of memory, and the passages which breathe of the Orient. were a favorite field of anecdote. Nor is it I think some of the hints I once gave you perhaps too fanciful to imagine that the were not ill-judged—^your danger is, of great rock-delving, sky-scaling, Babylonian course, on the sensuous side of the intellect city of New York is a little the richer for —you see what I mean—the semi-volup­ having been the home of this fine and true tuous excess of color and odor, such as you poet fifty years ago.

PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED 'THE SINGING HEART" (IN MEMORIAM, :r. B. A.) By Robert Bridges "From Mecca to Damascus, he was known, Hassan, the Arab with the Singing Heart, His songs were sung by boatmen on the Nile, By Bedaowee maidens, and in Tartar camps, While all men loved him as they loved their ej'es; And when he spake, the wisest, next to him, Was he who listened. And thus Hassan sung." From "A Prelude" by Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

MINSTREL of the Singing Heart, Flute-voiced 'mid the noisy mart, Oft men stopped their tasks to hear Your pure voice, upraised and clear, Singing gayly in the crowd—• Winning, bright, and never loud. While the showmen plied their trade, Gaudily their wares displayed. You serene, content, apart Lured them simply with your Art. Toilers lingered on the road. Listened, felt their lightened load. Hummed the tune and trudged along To the music of your song. With them on the arduous way Went some spirit, grave or gay. Summoned by your magic spell From that Star where visions dwell. What a troop the kind years brought! Sprites your nimble Fancy caught— Hamadryads from the hills. Naiads from the whispering rills; Prudence and fair Nourmadee, Edith and sweet Marjorie, The Queen of Sheba—charming Ruth- Brave, tragic Judith, and the youth Beloved of all, that human boy Tom Bailey, a perennial joy; All are ours—his bounteous gift— Visions that our hearts uplift— Lyrics, with a note so fine Herrick might have penned the line.

Now beside the Ivory Gate Weary pilgrims pause and wait, Longing for the old refrain— Eager still to catch the strain; Mute the lyre, the singer's place Taken by an alien face! But amid the noisy mart Still they miss the Singing Heart Still repeat his tuneful words Like the carolling of birds. Closed the Gate, the evening falls— Pilgrim unto Pilgrim calls "Great is Allah! Toll the knell! "Farewell, Singing Heart, farewell!"

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