Proud Old World 1834-1836 (LETTERS 288 to 314)

VII Proud Old World 1834-1836 (LETTERS 288 TO 314) ... These dim vaults, These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride Report not. .. This mighty oak- By whose immovable stem I stand and seem Almost annihilated-not a prince, In all that proud old world beyond the deep, E'er wore his crown as loftily as he .... -"A Forest Hymn," 1825. BRYANT'S RELIEF AT SAILING FOR EUROPE in June 1834 Was evident in earlier re marks to Dana. "I am sick of the strife of politics," he wrote in April; "If I have any talents, they are talents for other things." He hoped while abroad to tackle "some literary enterprise of a kind in which I shall take some satisfac tion." But it was soon apparent that the occasional poems he sent to the New York Mirror could not alone provide such satisfaction. After six months in France and Italy he was still "occupied with nothing of importance," he told Horatio Greenough; he was simply trying "to recover what I nearly unlearned in the course of several years, thinking and writing on political subjects; namely, the modes of thought and mechanism of languages which belong to poetry." He missed the stimulus of his countrymen's applause, and wondered what he was doing so far from home. Almost the only poems of note Bryant composed in Europe, such as "Seventy-Six," or "Catterskill Falls," embraced American themes or scenes. He tried, with meager success, to versify local legends, as in "The Knight's Epi taph" and "The Strange Lady." The one or two poems with a European color ing to which he managed to give some vitality concerned external nature "Earth's Children Cleave to Earth" and "Earth." Even here, his thoughts turned homeward: ... Oh thou, Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep, Among the sources of thy glorious streams, My native Land of Groves! a newer page In the great record of the world is thine, Shall it be fairer? But if the Old World offered little poetic inspiration, it heightened Bry ant's awareness of social states, and led him to examine closely the people through whose villages he passed, or in whose cities he settled down. He watched their behavior under their peculiar moral and political imperatives. He saw everywhere the persistence of old customs and the "vestiges of power and magnificence which have passed away." He noted wonders of ancient archi- 410 LETTERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT tecture, just as he did peasant cottages and costumes, patterns of soil culture, and popular amusements. But, viewing the glories of Paris and Rome, the beauties of Pisan churches and Florentine statues, he would not take time, he wrote William Leggett, to "give you a flourish" about them, for such might easily be found in "any book of travels you could lay your hands on." If Bryant found real satisfaction during his travels in any form of writing, it was in the letters he sent to the Evening Post and to a few close friends. His attention was constantly drawn to physical and moral contrasts with his own society. At times his remarks seem those of the artless visitor from a dynamic society who measures the worth of all he sees only by its susceptibility to change. The gay Parisian, surrounded by emblems of ancestral greatness but barred by stern guards from inspecting them closely, turned to fiddling and "jigging," or childish amusements. "Perpetual business, perpetual toil, with in tervals of repose," natural for the American, were alien to him; he could hope only for his spot in one of the "great burial places which lie just without the barriers of the City." The degenerate Florentine, whose heritage of literature, science, and art contained "all the apparatus for making great men," seemed as "indolent and effeminate" as his forebears had been "hardy and enterpris ing." The voluble Venetian, loitering at his coffeehouse in the "most pleasing of Italian cities," gave no thought to its deserted shipyards and decaying wharves. Even the neat, industrious Tyrolese peasant passed his leisure time in docile obedience to the dictates of his parish priest. In the sole instance Bryant reported of open resistance to authority, the young dissenters were quickly banished to a hilltop fortress to strum their guitars in carefree idle ness. Yet there were good things to be learned by the observant democrat. To the Florentine, a work of art was a sacred trust, never, as often in America, to be mutilated or desecrated. In devoutly Catholic Italy, Protestants were "al most everywhere provided with places of worship"-and this at a time when Roman Catholics were mobbed in New York, and one of their convents in Boston burned by Protestant zealots. Sunday, in Italy and Bavaria, was a day not only of rest and worship, but also of harmless amusement at theater, con cert hall, park, or beer garden; nowhere did one see the stealthy depravity common in professedly pious American cities. Bryant was much impressed by the public parks at the centers of crowded cities-the Cascine and the Boboli Gardens in Florence, the Villa Borghese at Rome, the English Garden at Munich. These great green spaces in the midst of dense populations became fixed in his memory, as did the innocent and healthful diversions they offered laboring people on Sundays and holidays. A decade later, urging New Yorkers to set aside a large central park, he cited Munich's English Garden, into which "half the population pours itself on summer evenings," as evidence that "among the people of Europe, who are in the habit of assembling in public gardens and other places of light and agreeable entertainment, there are few or no manifestations of the coarseness and violence which is often seen in this country." Until he met with the "wild splendor" of the "gigantic brotherhood of the Alps," Bryant deplored again and again the wastage of natural beauty he saw everywhere in southern Europe-the lopping of trees, the constriction of wind- Proud Old World 411 ing streams in straight channels, the close cultivation which eroded soil and greenery and left the land hot and dusty. Man's tight rein on nature seemed to symbolize the constraint under which the many labored to enrich the few. Everywhere, idle military forces stood by while women worked in fields divided by ancient hedgerows and overseen by fortress-like chateaux. Bryant was con stantly troubled by the begging, the fraud, the extortion, and the thievery to which a traveler was subjected, and by the widespread corruption evident among public officials. These offenses resulted, he thought, from a lack of self respect induced in the "inferior" classes by their "hopeless dependence and poverty." Repeated observation confirmed his conclusion, soon after starting his journey, that "No American can see how much jealousy and force on the one hand, and necessity and fear on the other, have to do with keeping up the existing governments of Europe, without thanking heaven that such is not the condition of his own country." Slow to make friends, Bryant found few companions during his travels. There were some exceptions. A stay of two months at Florence brought him often into the company of the young American sculptor Horatio Greenough. Throughout a winter at Pisa he saw much of an English widow, Susan Renner, and an Italian literary scholar at the university, Professor Giacomo (?) Rosini. But the following summer at Munich he found life dull, and confessed to an "intense desire to see the faces and hear the converse of old friends." Not until they got to Heidelberg in October 1835 did the Bryants meet a com munity of friends much to their liking. Soon after settling there Bryant learned of the sudden illness of his partner, but hearing soon afterward that Leggett was improving and had competent temporary help, he found his family a house for the winter. In December they were joined by Henry Longfellow and his late wife's friend Clara Crowninshield, and for six weeks the older poet and the young Harvard professor of modern languages exchanged frequent visits and rambled together over the hills or along the Neckar River. Long fellow found his companion "pleasant and talkative" and liked him "exceed ingly," while Clara felt as though she had always known his wife and daughters. But by the third week in January Bryant was advised that Leggett was too ill to attend to the Evening Post, and that there was need at once for the guidance of its senior editor if the business was to be sustained. So, leaving his family in the care of their new friends, Bryant set out hurriedly for home, only to meet with a series of delays which held up his arrival at New York until nearly the end of March. 412 LEITERS OF WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 288. "Journal &c."l [Paris? cJuly 23, 1834] June 24th 1834. I left New York in the packet ship Poland bound for Havre. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon we arrived off Staten Island and took our departure as it is called for Europe. In conformity with the advice of a medical friend I used the precaution of wearing a tight belt round the stomach to prevent seasickness. In the course of an hour or two however I experienced the uselessness of the experiment, and became as sick as heart could wish.2 -25th Still sick. 26th Sea smooth and fair-I was able to walk a little on deck. In the evening I witnessed a most beautiful spectacle the luminous appearance of the sea.

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