Journalist, Poet, Traveler 1831-1834 (LETTERS 223 to 287)
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VI Journalist, Poet, Traveler 1831-1834 (LETTERS 223 TO 287) DuRING HIS EARLY YEARS IN NEw YoRK, Bryant's income from editorial work barely supported his little family. But between 1829 and 1832 Evening Post profits increased steadily, and as Bryant's share of the paper's ownership doubled, from an eighth part to a quarter, his income was nearly trebled. The security thus provided led him to undertake several projects which promised greater satisfactions than he found in "drudging," as he termed it, for the Post. First among his projects was one to gather in a single volume about ninety poems he had published during the past fourteen years, all but eight in ephem eral magazines and gift-books. He could only have been heartened, while pre paring this collection at the close of 1831, by the comments of several critics, particularly a dictum in the New-England Magazine that Bryant stood "by common consent at the head of the list of American poets," and another in the New York American that "Mr. Bryant stands forth the first living poet in the language." His Poems appeared in New York at the outset of 1832, in an edition of a thousand copies, half of which were sold within four months. Their early success encouraged the poet to approach Washington Irving, then living in England and at the height of his popularity, for help in securing a British pub lisher. Irving's sponsorship of the book, for which he wrote a generous preface, brought it cordial notices in several leading British periodicals. At home, the North Amaican Review called Bryant's the "best volume of American poetry that has yet appeared." Such praise prompted Bryant, within two years, to bring out another edition to which only a handful of poems were added. Never having seen more of his country than lower New England and the Hudson River valley, Bryant took his first trip southward in January 1832. During a ten-day visit in Washington under the guidance of Congressmen Cambreleng and Verplanck, he was entertained by cabinet members, heard remarks in the Senate by Clay, Hayne, and ·webster, and in the House by John Quincy Adams and Edward Everett, and called on Andrew Jackson at the White House. In May he set out for Illinois to see his brother John, recently settled at Jacksonville. Traveling overland by stagecoach to the Ohio, and down that river and up the Mississippi and the Illinois by steamboat, he ex plored the prairie on horseback with John. Before turning back eastward, he bought Illinois land, in the half-formulated thought that he might one day move to the West. The following summer he and Frances traveled for the first time through northern New England, and visited Montreal and Quebec dur ing a month's journey. Before visiting Illinois Bryant had moved his family-enlarged the sum mer before by the birth of a second daughter, Julia-across the Hudson to Journalist, Poet, Traveler 305 Hoboken, where he rented a roomy, comfortable house !next door to the family of his friend Robert Sands. Here, except for the winter months of 1833-1834 when they boarded in Manhattan, the Bryants lived a quiet suburban life for two years, while Cullen commuted to the city by ferry and his family escaped the cholera epidemic which invaded New York in the summer of 1832. In timacy with the Sands family and their friends brought the Bryants pleasant relief from the city's dirt and heat, but this was sadly interrupted in December 1832 by the sudden death of Robert Sands from apoplexy. Soon afterward Cullen prepared, with some help from its nominal editor, Verplanck, an edi tion of his friend's writings designed to benefit Sands's widowed mother and unmarried sister Julia. With his newspaper's growing prosperity, Cullen could give financial help to his three younger brothers in Illinois, and could pay off for his mother some long-standing debts at Cummington. More leisure allowed him to renew a neglected correspondence with Richard Dana, and to exchange with him criti cal comments on their projected publications. Help for other friends, such as his successful nomination of Robert Weir to the War Department for the posi tion of drawing instructor at West Point, occupied him frequently. Toward the end of 1833 Bryant was becoming impatient to carry out a cherished plan to leave the Evening Post in the able hands of William Leggett, while he took his family for an extended visit to Europe. There, he thought, he might return to the composition of poetry and to the study of foreign languages, important as well in his children's education, while acting at the same time as the Post's European correspondent. But on the eve of his planned departure in the spring of 1834 Bryant ran into unexpected obstacles. William Coleman's widow, to whom Bryant and Leggett had mortgaged the Evening Post property in return for her share of the paper's profits, suddenly demanded a two-thousand-dollar payment on principal before Bryant should leave the country. His spare money already shrunken by his recent purchase of an addi tional share from another stockholder, Bryant was further shocked at the with drawal by Secretary of State McLane of a promised appointment as diplomatic courier which would have paid at least for his own ocean journey. He ad dressed an unhappy letter of protest to President Jackson, whose policies he had supported in the Post for five years, expressing disbelief that an adminis tration which he had thought to be governed by a "strict sense of right" should make him the victim of such a "trivial" evasion. Hearing nothing in reply, however, Bryant adopted the expedients of serving as companion on his jour ney to Italy of the son of a New York merchant of his acquaintance, and of contracting with the editor of the New-York Mirror to send his magazine ex clusive poetic contributions from Europe. At the last moment, Bryant managed to meet Mrs. Coleman's demand by securing a bond from Michael Burnham, former business manager of the Eve ning Post, though only by pledging payment within a year of one thousand dollars on this new debt. Consequently, free at last from the "power of these people who want to hamper my movements," as he described them to his brother Cyrus, Cullen Bryant sailed with his family on June 24, 1834, on the packet boat Poland bound from New York toLe Havre, for an indefinite resi dence in Europe. 306 LETTERS OF WILLIAM CuLLEN BRYANT 223. To John Howard Bryant New York June 25 1831 Dear Brother I got yours of the 29th of May mailed the next day, on the 20th of this month just three weeks after it was sent.1 I enclose you one half of a hundred dollar bill of the United States Bank in this city. You or Rush should early acknowledge receipt of it. Since you ask me what I think about the Michigan expedition I will be so frank as to tell you that al though there are some arguments in its favour yet in other respects I am not greatly pleased with it.2 In the first place you gain nothing in point of climate. You [are] 3 still as far north as Cummington, and will be [pre] vented by the latitude from raising many of the most [des ]irable fruits and plants. It is possible that the winters may be somewhat milder, at least when the lakes are not full of ice-but in other seasons the effect of the proximity of the lakes must be to chill the atmosphere and to fill it with fogs. Besides the lake winds are no very comfortable things. Flint speaks often of the bleak and desolating gales from the lakes.4 Then if timber is [plentiful] there is the labour of cutting it down and the un healthiness consequent upon letting the sun into a new country. Is there [several words clipped] [In ]diana or any other place not so [several words clipped] far north as Michigan where there is an opportunity to procure new lands? As to the want of timber where you are, is there no proba bility that the facilities for transporting lumber will be soon greater-or may not houses be built of brick-a better material-and is there not some prospect of an improvement in the market? Almost [all] new coun tries find a difficulty at first in sending their produce to market. I men tion these things for your consideration. The climate I think the greatest objection to Michigan. In a description of the Huron territory the other day which I copied I saw it mentioned as a recommendation that it was removed from the influence of the air of the La[kes]. As to the young women-if they care any thing for a young man they will go with him to the world's end-[if] not they should be left at home. My mother and wife and daughter left here more than three weeks since for Cummington. Mother had entirely recovered from her cold and was remarkably well. You may of [cour]se expect to hear from me again. I shall go n[ext month?] I think into the country. [complimentary close and signature clipped] MANUSCRIPT: NYPL-BFP ADDRESS: Mr. John H. Bryant I Jacksonville I Illinois POST MARK: NEW-YORK I ]UN I 25 POSTAL ANNOTATION: PAID [2)0. I. Letter unrecovered. 2. John was apparently then thinking of moving on from Illinois to Michigan, to which his brother Cyrus emigrated briefly the following autumn before joining John and Peter Rush Bryant at Jacksonville, Illinois, in the summer of 1832.