Mr. Taylor

“ Stryker. "How these Taylors have pushed upwards; I never heard of them before I went to Europe this last time, five or six years ago."
"That is just about the moment they first burst upon the horizon. Mr. Taylor seems determined to make up for lost time. He is very disagreeable to us ladies; but the gentlemen like him on account of his cleverness; they say he is a genius in all business matters." ”

“ Taylor.
"Yes, sir; Walter told me this morning, and I was so glad, I could not study at all."
Mr. Taylor turned towards Walter who began to excuse himself.
"I never said a word about a piano!"
"But you said enough for me to guess," said Ella. "I tried not to know," she added, turning to her parents, "but I could not help it. But don't blame Walter. He didn't think."
"I do blame him," said Mr. Taylor sternly. "Walter, will you never have any regard for other people's property? You have no more right to dispose of other's secrets than you have to dispose of their money! ”

“ So Mrs. Taylor read a little aloud to Mr. Mill, while Mr. Taylor took a much-needed nap in the corner.
In a few days Mr. Mill called to return Mrs. Taylor's manuscript and leave a little essay he himself had [Pg 153] written on a similar theme. Mr. Taylor was greatly pleased at this fine friendship that had sprung up between his gifted wife and young Mr. Mill—Mrs. Taylor was so much improved in health, so much more buoyant! Thursday night soon became sacred at the Taylors' to Mr. Mill, and Sunday he always took dinner with them. ”

“ Her smile, which had faded, reappeared. On the lips which Taylor so much admired a little [197] pout became visible, and she looked quite enchanting.
"I do not even remember being at that hotel at all," she protested. "Did Mr. Taylor say I was there?" she inquired, with just that added look of exquisite näivete which the utterance of a lover's name should call up on the face of a prospective bride.
"No," I answered gravely; "Mr. Taylor, unhappily, was not with you that morning." She looked startled. ”

“ Mr. Taylor had set his heart on building a residence in the oak woodland near his old home at Kennett, and now that he was married, his anxiety to see it completed led him to think seriously of returning at once to the United States. Having, however, a vague fear that he might not again visit Europe as a traveller, and being unwilling to leave the largest empire in the world unvisited, he resolved to make a hasty trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg. It was not a tour which he would personally enjoy as he had his stay in Greece, yet it was needed to make complete his knowledge of Europe. ”

“ No man in the country could do so much journalistic work, and do it so well in a given time, as could Mr. Taylor. He was remarkable in brilliant off-hand feats of literary criticism. As an illustration, I might mention that about a year ago two large octavo volumes, containing poems by Victor Hugo, in the French, arrived by steamer, and were placed in Mr. Taylor’s hands on Thursday evening. ”

“ Taylor’s esteemed friend, Mr. E. P. Whipple, of Boston, once beautifully remarked of another, Mr. Taylor was sought by men, “because they learned more of the world and its beauties through his eyes than through their own.” His services in giving an accurate idea of the countries they explored were invaluable, because it was not only necessary to visit those countries and open their ports to commerce, but it was also necessary to give to the American people such a idea of the advantages and conveniences of trade as to induce them to enter upon it. ”

“ The fact that so many travellers have been disappointed in the enjoyment of the bath does not show Mr. Taylor’s account to be so much overdrawn, as it shows the difference between the pleasure to be derived from the pastimes of any people by those who adhere more or less to their own tastes and customs, and those who, like Mr. Taylor, fall wholly and heartily into the ways and thoughts of the native. When in Damascus, he not only did as they do outwardly, but he set his mind in the same channel, and knew what it was to be a Turk in aspirations as well as in dress. ”

“ Taylor, and few have written better. Those of us who know how he owed nothing to chance, how methodical and painstaking he was, how he conquered difficulties which would have dismayed a weaker man, are in a position to judge of his merits, and to accord to him words of praise, little as he needs them, which have a specific meaning.”
James T. Fields, in the tributes published in the “Tribune,” gave this sketch of the acquaintance and friendship existing between Mr. Taylor and himself:—
“The death of a man like Bayard Taylor, awakens universal sorrow. ”

“ He did not believe that all the great and noble and good belonged to the past. He recognized the great fact that dead men have better reputations than living ones, and that the longer a man lies in his grave the greater seem his virtues, and the less the number and magnitude of his faults, i. e. if he is not forgotten altogether. So, Mr. Taylor inserted such thoughts in his letters and conversation, for the sake of seasoning his enthusiasm, which he feared was too active. ”

“ Taylor’s lovely home of Cedarcroft there hangs a large painting, of considerable merit, and said to be an excellent portrait, which was executed by a friend from that sketch. [192] It represents Mr. Taylor sitting in Oriental posture, on the mountain-side, with the domes, minarets, and embowered walls of Damascus on the distant plain. He always held that painting to be a treasure, connecting him, as it did, with those scenes of early travel, and with the friend who made the painting, and with those who admired it. ”

“ He is one of the same human family. They know it, and feel it, and he is welcome.
The German acquaintance, who had not intended to go farther than Cairo, was so delighted with Mr. Taylor’s companionship and Mr. Taylor was so interested in him, that he decided to go up the Nile as far as Assouan, which was on the border of the Central African countries. Mr. Taylor speaks with sentiments of enthusiastic thankfulness of his good fortune in thus securing a travelling companion, whose tastes and sentiments were so akin to his own. ”

“ Taylor. Mr. Taylor's my frien', Huddesley. All my frenge here——" He made a sweeping gesture, and knocked over a preserve-dish with a stunning clatter, gazed at the ruin a minute, then burst into a yell of laughter, in which, sad to relate, he was joined by more than one at the table. Teddy suddenly straightened up and looked around with profound gravity. "Somebody's makin' great deal noise!" said he, with elaborate distinctness of utterance. And then returned to the charge: "Why'n't you take some champagne, J. B.? Free's air, doctor's champagne. You do' wan' hurt doctor's feelingsh, J. B.?" ”

“ Without bringing the living into a notoriety which they certainly do not seek, and which might be unpleasant for them, we cannot give an extended account of that summer trip of Mr. Taylor and his friends in the countries of Europe, already so familiar to him. ”

“ It may appear somewhat strange to attribute ancestral pride to an out-and-out democrat like Mr. Taylor; but it is impossible fully to understand his character without taking the markedly liberal tendencies of his forefathers, both in politics and religion, into account. Mr. Taylor may be described as a hereditary Radical of two and a half centuries standing. ”

“ Taylor, was that gifted scholar, Berthold Auerbach.
Mr. Taylor’s first acquaintance with Alexander von Humboldt, was in 1856, when Mr. Taylor called upon the great naturalist at his home in Berlin. The reading of Humboldt’s works had been of great benefit to Mr. Taylor, as a correspondent, and he so informed the Professor, at which he seemed much pleased. Humboldt took great pains to secure all of Mr. Taylor’s letters, as they appeared from time to time in the “Tribune,” and most warmly praised him for the remarkable manner in which he pictured the scenes he visited. ”

“ The traveller who now lounges in the luxuriant carriages of the railway trains between Bombay and Calcutta, can have no idea of the trials of such a journey as Mr. Taylor undertook. Then, there were no railroads, no regular stages, even; nothing but lumbering carts drawn by oxen and decrepit old horses. But he endured the fatigue with his usual fortitude and good fortune, while his already remarkable experience among hospitable people was repeated there in a most praiseworthy style. Friends, friends, everywhere! Men divided their meals and [217] beds with him. ”

“ Taylor. In his address made at Mr. Taylor’s funeral in Berlin, where were gathered a large number of such men as Dr. Joseph P. Thompson, Prof. Lepsius, Paul Lindau, Julius Rodenberg, Prof. Gneist, Dr. Lowe, Count Lehndorff, and numerous government officials, he thus addressed the mourning friends:—
“Here, under flowers which have grown on German soil, rests the perishable encasing wherein for fifty-three years was enshrined the richly-endowed spirit which bore the name of Bayard Taylor. ”

“ Everybody in the office knew how high Mr. Taylor stood in the estimation of Mr. Greeley. A man who had [347] worked his way up; who, beginning as a printer, had come to be an admired writer, who was ambitious of excellence, and not afraid of toil to attain it, Mr. Greeley was naturally fond of. So, when the monument of the great journalist was to be dedicated, Mr. Taylor was properly selected to make one of the principal addresses on the occasion. ”

“ Testimony of the Great Powers for Poesy, innate in MICHAEL ANGELO TAYLOR, Esq.
DR. BURNEY. I shall myself compose Mr. Taylor’s Ode——His merit I admire——his origin I have traced.—He is descended from Mr. John Taylor, the famous Water Poet, who with good natural talents, never proceeded farther in education than his accidence.—John Taylor was born in Gloucestershire.—I find that he was bound apprentice to a Waterman—but in process of time kept a public house in Phœnix-alley, Long-acre [1] . ”

“ He was too feeble to walk that distance without rest, and he was unwilling to be carried in a sedan-chair because he feared the evil influence of what would have been—to him—perfectly innocent. So he made the journey on foot, helped by his son, who carried a stool. Every few rods the stool was placed and Mr. Taylor sat on it and rested. The attention of the Chinese, Christians and Confucianists alike, was attracted. Every little while some one would ask: “Why does not the old man ride?” “Because he will not make any one else work on the Sabbath day.” ”

“ In this, as much as in the views of the present, is found the profit resulting from travel in such lands. One lives over the tales of which he has read, with each locality serving as a fresh reminder of the unnoted details. He is an old man in experience who has travelled in the right spirit over those eldest lands of the world; and few indeed is the number of tourists who can feel that they have done so.
Mr. Taylor, like Longfellow, Tennyson, and Scott, had a gift of looking through the present into the past, and held delightful communion with the old days. ”

“ Mr. Taylor, in a letter to a friend in Washington, laid much stress upon the importance to American commerce of an accurate description of those lands, and hoped to be the instrument by which an interest in such enterprises might be awakened. It was a laudable, patriotic purpose, and was most conscientiously carried out by him.
He left Gibraltar on the 28th of November, on a Peninsular and Oriental steamer, which touched at that port, on its way from Southampton to Alexandria. He arrived at Alexandria December 8, and sought his old quarters in the city. ”

“ Taylor in the adjoining room. The latter told Mrs. Walton about Elder Pratt and his strange mission, and how, failing to get an opportunity to preach, he was on the eve of departing. "He may be a man of God," said Leonora, "I am sorry to have him depart."
At this Mrs. Walton expressed her willingness to open her house for Elder Pratt to preach in, and proposed to lodge and feed him. Here at last was an opening. He began holding meetings at Mrs. Walton's, and was soon afterwards introduced to the investigation meetings held by Mr. Taylor and his religious friends. ”

“ On the land, till valleys brighten.”
—Taylor.
By far the most interesting and valuable part of Mr. Taylor’s experience as a traveller was in India, China, and Japan, if we consider only the welfare of his readers. But so far as its influence upon him was [207] concerned, its impression was far less marked than that in Europe and Egypt. At the time he left Gibraltar for Egypt, the lands of India, China, and Japan were comparatively little known to the reading communities in America. ”

“ Authors may concentrate all their power in a single leap, and reach the heights of fame at one bound. But of such [289] men you seldom hear a second success. Their single work is all that they do well. Not so with Mr. Taylor. The publication of one book only left the way clear for a better successor. His Muse was not uncertain, his genius was not spasmodic. Two of his poems, written in Russia, namely, “The Neva,” and “A Thousand Years,” were afterwards translated into Russian, and received the hearty encomiums of the cultured nobility. ”

“ He rode the little donkeys as well as any citizen of Cairo, and was even more reckless than they, if that were possible, as he rode through the market-places at a furious speed. The Egyptians, like the Germans, Italians, French, Hungarians, and Syrians, felt a kind of fellowship for Mr. Taylor, and admired his good-sense in appreciating and adopting so many of their customs. He was the acquaintance and confidential friend of a dozen old Arabs before he had been two days in Cairo. He was a lover of mankind. ”