Landor

“ If I were to select the opinions of Savage Landor on half-a-dozen great questions from his works, and quote him in all his undisguised strength upon them, I could show half-a-score men of less fortune who have been immolated by Landor's own admirers for the proclamation of these identical opinions, or whose works have been left unnoticed because they could not very consistently condemn in them what they had eulogized in him! How few men in this country can afford to be honest! ”

“ Landor, as usual, the very finest man’s head I have ever seen, and with all his Johnsonian disposition to tyrannise and lay down the law in his talk, restrained and refined by an old-world courtesy and deference to his bright hostess, for which chivalry is the only right word. ”

“ And presently he came back to consciousness and saw Landor stretched there, with the bluing hole in his brow, and the quiet there is no mistaking on his sternly weary face. And he turned back his head and lay as ashy and almost as still as the dead man, with a look on his own face more terrible than that of any death.
After a time, when a soldier bent over him and held a flask to his teeth, he drank, and then he pointed feebly, and his lips framed the question he could not seem to speak. ”

“ To pass from Moore to Landor is like setting foot on firm ground after rocking on the waves. Landor's distinguishing characteristic is a manly decision; he stands high as an author, but higher still as a man. ”

“ As one man can ever dominate other men it was done that silent noon hour. For that moment the first challenge that had ever passed the lips of How Landor was spoken. The only challenge that he ever made to man or woman in his life found voice; and was not accepted. One step he took toward that listening, expectant throng and halted. With the old, old motion his arms folded across his chest. ”

“ Landor has been very good to me. For his sake I would like to forgive what you have done, what you promise to do. I have tried to forgive it; but I cannot. I am an Indian; but I am also a man. As a race your people have conquered my people, have penned them up in reservations to die ”

“ Landor and his bearer were caught by treachery when some hundred and fifty yards away from their tent, inside which were the rifles and revolver. They made a desperate resistance and fought for over fifteen minutes, struggling to get at their weapons. Thirty men were on Mr. Landor and twelve or fifteen held Chanden Sing, while four hundred soldiers armed with matchlocks and swords, and who had kept hidden behind sandhills, quickly surrounded them. They were tightly bound with ropes round the neck, chest, and legs, and the arms were pinioned behind their backs. ”

“ Landor exclaimed in a sorrowful voice. "Is it really true? Must the old creature lose his young friends as well as his old? Ah me! ah me! what will become of Giallo and me? And America in the condition that it is too! But this is not the last time that I am to see you. Tut! tut! now no excuses. We must have one more drive, one more cup of tea together before you leave."
Pressed as we were for time, it was still arranged that we should drive with Landor the evening previous to our departure. On the morning of this day came the following note:—
"I am so stupid that everything puzzles me. ”

“ In 1802 Landor took advantage of the peace to visit Paris, and came back with prejudices, never afterwards softened, against the French and their ruler. On returning Landor visited Oxford, where his brother was superintending the publication of a new edition of 'Gebir,' with 'arguments' to each book to explain its obscurity, and of a Latin version, 'Gebirus.' He continued to write poetry, lived in Bath, Bristol, and Wales, with occasional visits to London, and managing to anticipate his income. ”

“ Landor, before he writes on this subject again, to read over the allegory of his friend Spenser, describing Occasion and Furor, and not to be refreshing his groundless and mischievous resentments every moment with a ‘Cymocles, oh! I burn!’ It is by no means a sufficient reason to believe a thing that it provokes our anger, or excites our disgust; nor is it wise or decorous to bay the moon, and then quarrel with the echo of our own voice. Mr. Landor keeps up a clamour raised by the worst men to answer the worst purposes, only to persuade himself, if possible, that he has not been its dupe. ”

“ Landor, you do look like a lion," I said at another time.
He smiled and replied, "You are not the only person who has said so. One day, when Napier was dining with me, he threw himself back in his chair, exclaiming, with a hearty laugh, 'Zounds! Landor, I've just discovered a resemblance. You look like an old lion.'"
"That was a compliment, Mr. Landor. The lion is the king of beasts."
"Yes, but he's only a beast after all," was the quick retort.
Landor always spoke with enthusiasm of General Sir William Napier, and in fact lavished praise upon all the family. ”

“ As a matter of fact, Landor strove with everybody. He was one of the most quarrelsome men that ever lived. The only man who could tolerate him was Browning. But in his mellower moments, at least, he was “ready to depart”, quietly acquiescing in the scheme of things. ”

“ We own we like Mr. Landor best when he introduces the great men of antiquity upon the carpet. He seems then to throw aside his narrow and captious prejudices, expands his view with the distance of the objects he contemplates, and infuses a strength, a 248severity, a fervour and sweetness into his style, not unworthy of the admirable models whom he would be supposed to imitate. ”

“ Landor keeps a private still of his own, where the unrectified spirit remains in its original vigour and purity,—cold indeed, and without the frothy effervescence of its first running, but unabated in activity, strength and virulence. ”

“ He, too, looked down at the horse, pulling at his mustache with one gauntleted hand. He had played with Cabot when they had been children together, in that green land of peace and plenty which they called the East. They had been schoolmates, and they had the same class sympathies even now, though the barrier of rank was between them, and the dismounted man was a private in Landor's own troop. Landor liked the private for the sake of the old times and for the memory of a youth which had held a better promise for both than manhood had fulfilled. ”

“ Oh, yes! I read Landor last summer—Walter Savage; a theological student from New York, working along with me out in Kansas, put me on to Landor. Quite a man—Landor, I mean. The theolog’s a bully chap, too, for that matter. Look at that! No; sending ’em back. Wow! That’s first blood for us! Well, you might like Landor if you took a whack at him. That referee’s awful fussy. Wonder where they got him. Remember that day we read ‘The Passing of Arthur,’ sitting on a log by that gay little creek in the woods? I’ve thought a lot about that and the way [102] you cried. Yes; you did, Grace ”

“ The poet was giving ‘an after-dinner party’ in his rooms. The men were mostly from Christ Church; for Landor was intimate, he says, with only one undergraduate of his own college, Trinity. On the opposite side of the quadrangle a Tory and a butt, named Leeds, was entertaining persons whom the Jacobin Landor calls ‘servitors and other raff of every description.’ The guests at the rival wine-parties began to ‘row’ each other, Landor says, adding, ‘All the time I was only a spectator, for I should have blushed to have had any conversation with them, particularly out of a window. ”

“ With the great and good about him, Landor sleeps well. His genius needs no eulogy: good wine needs no bush. Time, that hides the many in oblivion, can but add to the warmth and mellowness of his fame; and in the days to come no modern writer will be more faithfully studied or more largely quoted than Walter Savage Landor. ”

“ She was able to allow Landor 600l. a year and to provide sufficiently for the younger children. In the summer of 1814 Landor went to Jersey, where he was soon joined by his wife. An angry dispute took place betneen them in regard to his plans for settling in France. Landor rose at four, sailed to France without his wife, and by October was in Tours. His wife, as her sister wrote to tell him, was both grieved and seriously ill. Landor meanwhile found his usual consolation in the composition of a Latin poem on the death of Ulysses, and so calmed his temper. ”

“ The following papers, in so far as they relate to Landor personally, are not reminiscences of him in the zenith of fame. They contain glimpses of the old man of Florence in the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, just before the intellectual light began to flicker and go out. Even then Landor was cleverer, and, provided he was properly approached, more interesting than many younger men of genius. ”

“ Landor’s father, who had been much tried by his unmanageable temper, then allowed him £150 a year to live with as he pleased, away from home. He lived in South Wales—at Swansea, Tenby, or elsewhere—and he sometimes went home to Warwick for short visits. In South Wales he gave himself to full communion with the poets and with Nature, and he fastened with particular enthusiasm upon Milton. ”

“ Such is Walter Savage Landor as a writer, let us now look at him as a man. Landor's physical development is correspondent to that of his mind. He is a tall, large man; broadly and muscularly built, yet with an air of great activity about him. His ample chest, the erect bearing of his head, the fire and quick motion of his eye, all impress you with the feeling of a powerful, ardent, and decided man. The general character of his head is fine; massy, phrenologically amply developed, and set upon the bust with a bearing full of strength and character. ”

“ The clouds above were wild and threatening, and snow soon fell in feathery flakes.
"What are you going to do?" inquired the doctor of me. "I think you had better return to Garbyang, get fresh men, and make another start."
"No, doctor. I will die rather than continue this backward march. There will be a far better chance if I go alone, and I have resolved to start to-night, for I am convinced that I shall find my way over the range."
"No, no, it is impossible, Mr. Landor," cried the doctor, with tears in his eyes. "That must mean death to any one attempting it." ”

“ It is seldom that England gives birth to so rampant a republican as Landor. Born on the 30th of January, two years before our Declaration of Independence, it is probable that the volcanic action of those troublous times had no little influence in permeating the mind of the embryo poet with that enthusiasm for and love of liberty for which he was distinguished in maturer years. From early youth, Landor was a poor respecter of royalty and rank per se. ”

“ Landor, undoubtedly, may be loved; but I fancy that he can be loved unreservedly only by a very narrow circle. For when we pass from the form to the substance—from the manner in which his message is delivered to the message itself—we find that the superficial defects rise from very deep roots. Whenever we penetrate to the underlying character, we find something harsh and uncongenial mixed with very high qualities. ”

“ Farewell! may every good attend you! with as little of evil to endure or to inflict, as national sins can expect from the Almighty.
SOUTHEY AND LANDOR
Southey. Of all the beautiful scenery round King’s Weston the view from this terrace, and especially from this sundial, is the pleasantest.
Landor. The last time I ever walked hither in company (which, unless with ladies, I rarely have done anywhere) was with a just, a valiant, and a memorable man, Admiral Nichols, who usually spent his summer months at the village of Shirehampton, just below us. ”

“ God bless you, my dearest, and reward you.
Your R.B.
Mrs. Shelley—with the 'Ricordi.'
Of course, Landor's praise is altogether a different gift; a gold vase from King Hiram; beside he has plenty of conscious rejoicing in his own riches, and is not left painfully poor by what he sends away. That is the unpleasant point with some others—they spread you a board and want to gird up their loins and wait on you there. Landor says 'come up higher and let us sit and eat together.' Is it not that? ”

“ Landor's handcuffs. The other end was held by a soldier on horseback. The party then continued their career, the Lamas having fallen in. While proceeding at full gallop, the horseman who held the cord attached to Mr. Landor's handcuffs, pulled hard at it to try and unhorse the latter. Had this occurred Mr. Landor must have been trampled to death under the troop of horsemen behind him. Thus they hurried onward till they neared Galshio, [42] when at a turn in the road a soldier was seen kneeling at the "ready," who fired a shot at Mr. Landor as he came abreast of him. ”

“ That last journey alone cost him seven thousand pounds. All Mr. Landor’s books are illustrated with his own paintings and photographs. It must be remembered that he was an artist before he was an explorer or an author.
Though he is contemptuous of hardships and semi-starvation in his explorations, and travels with a lighter equipment than any other explorer, he likes luxurious surroundings when he is back in civilisation, and lives in a charming flat in one of our most luxurious hotels. ”

“ It would have been difficult for any woman to live amicably with Landor. In his youth he was suspended from college, and when he was a very old man he was fined $5,000 for writing a libelous article. Between these two periods his life was made up of many fits of passion. His rustication, or suspension from Trinity College, Cambridge, came about in the following manner: One evening Landor invited his friends to wine. His gun, powder, and shot were in the next room, as he had been out hunting in the morning of that day. In a room opposite to Landor's lived a young man whom Landor disliked. ”