Bryant

“ Bryant was a man of very striking appearance, especially in age. “It is a fine sight,” says one writer, “to see a man full of years, clear in mind, sober in judgment, refined in taste, and handsome in person.... I remember once to have been at a lecture where Mr. Bryant sat several seats in front of me, and his finely-sized head was especially noticeable.... The observer of Bryant’s capacious skull and most refined expression of face cannot fail to read therein the history of a noble manhood.” ”

“ Bryant's integrity and discernment, that the only point of attack which embittered enemies have found in his whole life, are his unconsidered mutterings when a stripling of only thirteen, living in times of high political excitement, and among a people who were all of one way of thinking. How few pass through life with characters so pure and unassailable! ”

“ Bryant's face has an immovable tranquillity, a reserve and impassiveness, which yet are not coldness; the clear gray eye calmly looks through and through you, but permits no intelligence of what is passing behind it to come out to you. It is such a face as one of the old Greek kings might have had, as he sat administering justice. All this, it seems to us, Durand's picture gives. ”

“ It is not given to many poets to possess as many residences as Mr. Bryant, for he had three—a town-house in New York, a country-house, called "Cedarmere," at Roslyn, Long Island, and the old homestead of the Bryant family at Cummington. He passed the winter months in New York, and the summer and early autumn months at his country-houses. No distinguished man in America was better known by sight than he.
"O good gray head that all men knew"
rose unbidden to one's lips as he passed his fellow-pedestrians in the streets of the great city, active, alert, with a springing step and a buoyant gait. ”

“ Though Bryant’s retiring and contemplative nature could not overpower his warm human sympathies, it yet dominated them to an extent that made him always, even in his journalistic capacity and in the strenuous prose of daily debate, a councillor rather than a leader. It was after the manner of the poet, the seer, that he was a patriot, standing for principles much more than for measures, and, with an exquisite correctness which belonged to every phase of his being, never prevailing by the accommodation of himself to inferiors in foresight, insight or rectitude. ”

“ With no humor, with somewhat restricted sympathies, with little flexibility or openness to new impressions, but gifted with a high, austere imagination, Bryant became the meditative poet of nature. His best poems are those in which he draws lessons from nature, or sings of its calming, purifying, and bracing influences upon the human soul. ”

“ Bryant's eyes blazed suddenly.
"Great God, you talk as if she were to marry the canal!" he exclaimed. He glowered for a time. "I see now what you mean. You believe she would marry me if I win out with the ditch. Being practical, she would accept money as a substitute for love. That reminds me: she herself once declared that if circumstances necessitated she could take a rich man for his riches." Bryant uttered a harsh laugh. "My Lord, I was frightened lest in a fit of anguish at losing my love she should go to the devil!" Again he yielded to an outburst of laughter that made Imogene shudder. ”

“ Bryant is what all his writings, poetical as well as prose, indicate. His life is that of a student of elegant and lofty literature. He is reserved in his manner, almost to repulsiveness, yet in the social circle is witty, amiable, and affectionate. When his sympathies are interested, the spirit of tenderness and benevolence gleams like a flame from his eyes, and plays around his features in a beautiful radiance. In his opinions of men, he endeavors to be just; but when he is not just, the leaning is towards the side of mercy. ”

“ Mr. Bryant himself was a neat, quiet, orderly sort of a man, regular as clockwork, and steady as time, the very pink of punctuality and the essence of exactness. He had been in business nearly forty years, in the same shop, conducted precisely in the same style as in the days of his predecessors; he lacked not store of clothes or change of wigs, but his clothes and wigs and three cornered hats were so like each other, that they seemed, as it were, part of himself. ”

“ Bryant was scrupulously silent on the subject of Charles' absence or his neglect, suffering it to produce its own effects. Yet Eliza loved him not. But since she had loosed her hold on Charles, she seemed to be out on the boundless sea—without a spot on which to cast hope's anchor; and woman must love something—she loves to love. And yielding to the importunities, the frequent suggestions of her father, who thought it would be a very prudent match, and a very agreeable one with a little exertion on her part—she determined to hazard the throw, and granted Mr. Bryant her hand. ”

“ An early number of the Southern Literary Messenger regretted that Bryant was to be found “dashing in the political vortex” with those who “engage in party squabbles.” The New York Courier and Enquirer, in an utterance of 1832 which is to be discounted because of editorial jealousy, remarked that “he has embarked in a pursuit not suited to his genius and utterly at variance with all his studies and habits of mind. ”

“ Bryant wept as loud and deeply As a father for a son— "He's a finished 'coon, is Slingsby, And the brandy's nearly done!"
FYTTE SECOND. In a 033trance of sickening anguish, Cold and stiff, and sore and damp, For two days did Bryant linger By the dreary Swindle Swamp; Always peering at the water, Always waiting for the hour When those monstrous jaws should open As he saw them ope before.. Still in vain;—the alligators Scrambled through the marshy brake, And the vampire leeches gaily Sucked the garfish in the lake. ”

“ That Bryant could write agreeable narrative verse, ‘The Children of the Snow’ and ‘Sella’ bear witness. That he is at his best in meditative poems, lofty characterizations of Nature, grand visions of Life and Death, is proved by hundreds of felicitous verses which have become an inalienable part of our young literature.
He never really excelled the work of his youth. Bryant will always be known as the author of ‘Thanatopsis.’ This great vision of Death is his stateliest poem and his best, the most felicitous of phrase and the loftiest in imagery. ”

“ The previous conviction was confirmed; every one spoke of Bryant as the American poet. Even the professional critics—those sapient fellows whose320 obtuseness is the wonder of posterity, the clique which pooh-poohed Keats, and ha-hahed Wordsworth, and bear-baited Carlyle—made in Bryant’s case no mistake. Although one of them, indeed, declared that there was “no more poetry in Bryant’s poems than in the Sermon on the Mount,” yet the opinions were generally laudatory, and the critics were quick in defining the qualities of the new poet. ”

“ In the portrait of Bryant we have the results of an intimacy of the most cordial kind, of years' duration,—an almost absolute unity of sentiment and similarity of habits of regarding the things most interesting to each. Of nearly the same age, Bryant and Durand have grown old together, loving the same Nature, and regarding it with the same eyes,—the painter catching inspiration from the poet's themes, and the poet in turn getting new insight into the mystery of the outer world through the painter's eyes. ”

“ Edward Fuller.
“A convenient, clear, and thoroughly readable biography.”
“Is more critical than sympathetic.”
“While his story lacks something of the ‘detailed verisimilitude of his predecessors,’ it does present a view of Bryant the poet that is, perhaps, a little more integral and impressive. No one has yet written at length of Bryant with a firmer hold on the American origins of his poetry or a wider perspective of general literature.”
“Little that is valuable or striking is added to the sum total of estimates of Bryant’s place in American literature. ”

“ Bryant's heirs, it seemed necessary for him to step into this breach. Moreover, he had abated none of his interest in public affairs or in those things that make for culture, enlightenment, [228] and human betterment. He had never ceased to write for the Evening Post upon matters of such kind when occasion called for strong, virile utterance. ”

“ If this man, Major Bryant, is personable and is fond of Camille, and she of him, I wish that you would do all you are able to bring it to pass. I think, for many reasons, it would be well to have a man at the head here. I think I remember your saying that Major Bryant is an able man?”
“Oh, very able. I have no doubt.”
“I do not feel quite satisfied with Lawyer Fields,” said Hélène. “I think that he means entirely well, and serves us to the best of his ability, but I doubt his ability. None of us know much about business. I think a man at the head of this house would be very desirable.” ”

“ Bryant he finds very cold and totally unwilling to lead the conversation, as he should do when they are together, as he justly remarks, he being so much younger—but never a word without cart and horses to fetch it. ”

“ The song, "O fairest of the rural maids," which has more fancy than is common in Bryant, and which Poe pronounced his best poem, has an obvious resemblance to Wordsworth's "Three years she grew in sun and shade," and both of these nameless pieces might fitly be entitled—as Wordsworth's is in Mr. Palgrave's Golden Treasury—"The Education of Nature."
Although Bryant's career is identified with New York his poetry is all of New England. His heart was always turning back fondly to the woods and streams of the Berkshire hills. ”

“ Here nature, as herself the Life, is simply an hypostasis of the racial imagination in which Bryant so largely shared, just like his intimate personifications of her phenomena, her flowers, her winds, and waters; it is not a philosophic idea, but a primitive instinct. “Nature’s teachings” for men are simply the ideas that suggest themselves to Bryant himself (not inevitably to everyone) when he observes what goes on, or what is before him:
The faintest steak that on a petal lies May speak instruction to initiate eyes. ”

“ Bryant’s poetical work as a whole has an impassive quality often described as coldness. Partly due to his genius and accentuated by the excessive retouching to which he subjected his verse, it grew in still larger measure out of his determination not to impart to his verse any of the feverishness of spirit consequent upon a life of political warfare. The poet held himself wonderfully in check, as a man of iron will allows no mark of the strong passion under which he labors to show in his face. ”

“ He was the first of our poets who, deserting the conventional paths in which imitators move, studied and delineated Nature as it exists in New England, modified by the elements of a comparatively low latitude, a brilliant sky, uncertain springs, short and hot summers, richly colored autumns, and winters of pure and crystal cold. The merit and the popularity of Bryant's descriptive poetry prove how intimate is the relation between imagination and truth, and how the poet who is faithful to the highest requisitions of his art must obey laws as rigid as those of science itself. ”

“ Bryant—when with a chilling effect, the remembrance of early affection came across her—the ghosts of by-gone joys stalked around her—but no distraction ensued—tears came to her relief, and quenched the fires that seemed to consume her heart. Frequently the stroke which crushes the stout and stubborn mind of man, only bruises the more pliable and yielding intellect of woman, as the storm before which the slender reed bows to the ground, but rises when it is past, tears up by the roots, and dashes to a thousand pieces the gnarled oak. ”

“ Bryant lighted the pipe and sank back to his chair. His stern manner relaxed, and for a moment he looked like a very tired old man whose troubles were almost too heavy to bear.
"I know the sort yer cousins are," he said at length. "God knows I ain't got where I am by not knowin' how tuh judge men as well as hosses. They're a pack o' hungry buzzards, just waitin' fer me tuh die so's they can cut this property up among 'em. If they thought fer a second that I was hard of hearin' or of seein' or anything else, they'd pounce on that as an advantage tuh them." Bryant's face lighted for a moment. ”

“ If he stir you at all, it is just, on my soul,
Like being stirred up by the very North Pole. The Cambridge wit has either misjudged the character of Bryant’s genius, or he has sacrificed a man to an epigram, and subordinated fact to a jeu d’esprit. Though “quiet and dignified,” Mr. Bryant possesses a rare vein of humor, but its bubbling fancies are not generally known or suspected for the reason that he unbends anonymously. Only one of the diversions of his muse appears in his published works—and that is his invocation “To a Mosquito,” which begins thus:—
Fair insect! ”

“ On many positive grounds, therefore, Bryant’s324 title to fame rests; he was one of Nature’s men, he shed moral health, he uttered the ideals of a great race in a transitional epoch. His temperament, in making his poetic product small, gave him yet another hostage against oblivion. The poet who, having so many claims to the consideration of posterity, can also plead brevity, need not worry himself about what is called literary immortality. Bryant’s typical and best work is comprised in a dozen poems, the longest not exceeding 140 lines. ”

“ So his early "Thanatopsis" was hidden away for years till his father found and published it, and made Bryant famous in a day. All this at a time when English critics were exalting "sudden inspiration," "sustained effort" and poems "done at one sitting."
Once Bryant had found himself (and the blank verse and simple four-line stanza which suited his talent) he seldom changed, and he never improved. His first little volume, Poems (1821) , contains some of his best work. In the next fifty years he added to the size but not to the quality of that volume ”