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LETTERS, POEMS AND SELECTED 
 PROSE WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 DAVID GRAY. 
 
 EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, 1836. BUFFALO, NEW YORK, 1888, 
 
 EDITED, WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR, BY J. N. LARNED. 
 
 *% 
 
 LIFE, LETTERS, POEMS, Etc. 
 
 BUFFALO: 
 THE COURIER COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 
 1888. 
 
peer) bo C.. 
 
 A pxstRE for some collection of the writings of 
 David Gray, and for some adequate account of his life, 
 was expressed at the time of his death, last March, 
 very generally in his own city and by many voices 
 elsewhere. Several friends, who felt moved thereby, 
 came together and formed what may rightly be called 
 a self-constituted committee of publication. They 
 were: The Hon. James O. Putnam, the Hon. Henry 
 A. Richmond, Mr. James N. Johnston, Mr. John G. 
 Milburn, Miss Annie R. Annan, and the present writer. 
 In the editorship of the work, which the latter under- 
 took at the request of his associates, he has had their 
 help in many ways and their counsel throughout. 
 
 The labor of collecting the scattered poems of 
 Mr. Gray, from scrap-books and portfolios, from the 
 files of newspapers and magazines, and from other 
 places of obscure burial, was performed by Miss Annan 
 and Mr. Johnston. The exertions of Mr. Johnston, 
 Mrs. David Gray and Mr. John 8S. Gray brought 
 
 together a rich mass of private correspondence, for the 
 
Iv PREFACE. 
 
 use of the editor in preparing the biographical memoir. 
 If the life of David Gray and the development of his 
 mind and character are represented satisfactorily, it is 
 by the self-delineation which his letters afford. Thanks 
 are due to the friends who preserved them and who 
 have permitted them to be used. } 
 
 The editor must likewise acknowledge, very thank- 
 fully, the great assistance he has had, in the proof- 
 reading of the work, from Mr. Walter 8. Bigelow, 
 who has contributed to it his time, his labor and his 
 knowledge, without stint. The same labor has been 
 shared by others. | 
 
 There seems to be nothing to add to these just 
 explanations. The work is offered, primarily, to those 
 who knew David Gray and who loved him; and it 
 needs no introduction to them. So far as it reaches 
 others, it will speak best for itself. 
 
 BUFFALO LIBRARY, December, 1888. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 CHILDHOOD AT EDINBURGH. 1836-1849, 
 BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. 1849-1856, 
 
 First YEARS IN BUFFALO. 1856-1859, 
 APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 1859-1865, 
 YEARS OF TRAVEL. 1865-1868, 
 
 THE PRIME OF LIFE. 1868-1882, 
 
 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, . 
 
 LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 1882-1888, . 
 
 ESTIMATES, 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 THE FoG-BELL AT NIGHT, 
 
 Sir JOHN FRANKLIN AND His CREw, . 
 
 THE CREW OF THE ADVANCE, 
 
 To GLEN IRIs, 
 
 OUTRIVALLED, 
 
 THE LAKE, . 
 
 ELIHU BuRRITT, . 
 
 JEANNIE LORIMER, . 
 
 COMING, . 
 
vl CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE, 
 A Maron ScENB, . « . & #1. 48 See 5 
 THE BARK OF LIFE, 227 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF BODENSTEDT, 229 
 On LEBANON, ... . 229 
 A GOLDEN WEDDING POEM, 231 
 THE SOUL’S FAILURE, . 282 
 FROM THE GERMAN OF BODENSTEDT, 233 
 DEDICATION IN A LADY’S ALBUM, 234 
 To Miss CLARA LOUISE KELLOGG, 235 
 MURILLO’S ‘ IMMACULATE CONCEPTION,’ . 235 
 NEW YEAR GREETINGS, 236 
 THE CROSS OF GOLD, ; 245 
 TO. 3 247 
 DIVIDED, . 247 
 THE Last INDIAN COUNCIL ON THE GENESEE, 248 
 COMMUNION, 250 
 A FRAGMENT, . 252 
 Sort FALLS THE GENTLEST OF THE HOURS, 254 
 
 POEM READ AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE 'TWENTY-FIFTH 
 ANNIVERSARY OF THE YOUNG MEN’s ASSOCIATION OF BUF- 
 FALO, MarRcow 22, 1861, . «sf. 9 ee 
 
 A NINETEENTH CENTURY SAINT, 
 
 THE CHIMES, 
 
 POEM READ AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE YOUNG MEN’S 
 ASSOCIATION OF BUFFALO, FEBRUARY 17, 1862, 
 
 POEM READ AT THE OPENING OF THE NEW LIBRARY BUILDING 
 OF THE YOUNG MEN’s ASSOCIATION OF BUFFALO, JANUARY 
 10, 18655" 65% 
 
 How THE YOUNG COLONEL DIED, 
 
 THE LAST OF THE KAH-KWABS, . 
 
 266 
 
 272 
 277 
 281 
 

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF ART, 
 
 HUSHED IS THE LONG ROLL’S ANGRY THREAT, 
 THE TENTH MUSE, . 
 
 Mary Lenox: A NEW YEAR'S ITEM IN VERSE, 
 THANKSGIVING IN WAR-TIME, . 
 
 THANKSGIVING Day, 
 
 REST, . 
 
 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 ROBERT BURNS AND His POETRY, 
 SCIENCE AND POETRY, 
 NIAGARA FALLS BY WINTER MOONLIGHT, . 
 
 THE GREAT STORM, 
 

 
DAVID GRAY. 
 
 CHAPTER. LE. 
 CHILDHOOD AT EDINBURGH. 18386-1849. 
 
 Davin Gray,—the David Gray of this memoir,— 
 was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the 8th day of 
 November, 1836.* His father, Philip Cadell Gray, 
 was then a stationer in the Scottish capital, living and 
 doing business in Broughton street, at No. 68. This 
 is not far from the Zodlogical Gardens, in that part of 
 Edinburgh called the New Town. Some eight years 
 later, the stationer’s shop was given up, and the father 
 made a new business venture, in the crockery trade, 
 establishing it in Candlemaker Row ; while the family 
 home was removed, first to Clerk street, in the old 
 town, and then to No. 9 East Sciennes street, a little 
 farther south. 
 
 For three generations, at least, David’s family had 
 lived in Edinburgh, or so near to it that they dwelt 
 continually, as it were, within the shadow of its aeropo- 
 lis and the atmosphere of its traditions. His grand- 
 father, whose name he bore, had lived at the ancient 
 village of Cramond, six miles west of the city. His 
 
 * He was not akin in any known degree to the young poet of ‘The 
 
 Luggie,’ David Gray, whose birth, near Glasgow, was two years later, 
 and who died in 1861. 
 
2 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 ereat-erandfather—also David Gray by name—had 
 been an Edinburgh tradesman, in the grocer line; 
 while the father of the latter, described as ‘merchant, 
 teacher, session-clerk and land-surveyor,’ passed his 
 days in the near village of Currie, where he married a 
 farmer’s daughter whose name was, likewise, Gray. 
 
 David’s mother, Amelia Tasker, was the daughter 
 of a farmer, who, during her childhood, removed from 
 the neighborhood of Perth to a farm known as ‘ Maw- 
 hill,’ a few miles west of Loch Leven, in Kinrosshire. 
 This was her home until 1829, when she went to 
 Edinburgh, to live with an uncle, Charles Alison,—a 
 well-known builder, and a man conspicuous for noble 
 qualities. Four years afterwards, she married Mr. 
 Gray. 
 
 The stock from which David Gray came was thus 
 deep-rooted at the historic center of Scottish life; and 
 deep-rooted, likewise, in the fine and refining simplici- 
 ties and sincerities,—the thrift, the plainness, the hon- 
 esty of personal and social habit,—which seem to con- 
 dition life for the Scottish middle class in a nobler way 
 than is known to any class among other English-speak- 
 ing peoples of the world. Those who knew David Gray 
 in after-life, and in a new land, could never fail to find 
 in his character and in his genius a certain subtile, 
 distinguishing flavor—aroma—tone,—how shall we de- 
 fine it?—-which seemed unmistakably to be the quin- 
 tessence of his Scottishness,—a final distillation from 
 those naturalizing and wholesome influences which his 
 ancestry, for generations, had absorbed. He was the 
 product, in fact, of a kind of hereditary culture very 
 different from the garden-tilth of conventional socie- 
 
I EE EEE E———————eor 
 
 CHILDHOOD AT EDINBURGH. 34 
 
 ties, but like the slow soil-ripening of an old vineyard, 
 which yields after some generations an incomparable 
 wine. 
 
 David’s school-education began early, but ended too 
 soon, perhaps, for the best training of a mind like his. 
 His first school was one kept by his ‘ Aunt Ann,’ in 
 Buccleuch street, facing ‘the Meadows,’ and quite near 
 to his home in Sciennes street. Among his school- 
 fellows and playmates at that time was John Pettie, 
 now a Royal Academician at London and one of the 
 foremost British painters of the day. The artist-lad 
 and the poet-lad were drawn together by a sure affinity, 
 and the latter is said to have caught, for a time, the 
 passion of his companion for the pencil, showing no 
 little aptitude ; but it cannot have been the true bent 
 of his mind. From the child-school in Buccleuch 
 street he passed, soon, to what was known as ‘ Brown’s 
 School, at No. 1 Nicholson Square—just a square 
 south from the Edinburgh College, and a short dis- 
 tance from the ‘Heart of Mid-Lothian.’ Finally, be- 
 fore the family quitted Edinburgh, he was a pupil, 
 for a couple of years, at Forester’s Newington Acad- 
 emy, situated at the corner of Newington and Salis- 
 bury Place, on the road from his home in Sciennes 
 street to the Queen’s Park. He made a mark in 
 both schools, by quickness of learning and _ brilliancy 
 of power, which never lessened his faithfulness to 
 study, but kept him always in advance of his ap- 
 pointed work. He thirsted for every kind of knowl- 
 edge and drank from every source that became open to 
 him, his mind growing by what it fed on, with a healthy 
 vigor. The fine, clear quality of his understanding 
 
EL ee: BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 was notable from those earliest days, and, for all that 
 he knew and all that he felt, the inborn faculty of 
 expression was ready-gifted to him. An essay on the 
 then recondite subject of Electricity, which he wrote 
 at that period, when scarcely eleven years old, owes its 
 preservation to the fact that the principal of the New- 
 ington school had it put into print, as a surprising 
 production from a pupil so young. ‘Strange to say,’ 
 writes one who read the piece not long ago, ‘it does 
 not even mention the electric telegraph.’ 
 
 But, while David at school was first in all forms and 
 winner of all prizes, he was none the less a hearty 
 school-boy, as eager for play as the rest,—as full of 
 healthy animal life and a boy’s natural lust for sport 
 and frolic. His brother, five years younger, writing 
 his recollections of those days, says: 
 
 David was as eager for sport as any boy could be, 
 and, once outside the schoolroom, was continually at 
 play. The Meadows and Links,—large parks near to 
 our old house,—afforded ample room for the indulgence 
 in games of ball known as ‘ goff,’ and in many running 
 games which he was fond of. In marbles, he was the 
 terror of the neighborhood. No boy could win from 
 him, but, if reckless enough to undertake it, was almost 
 sure to come off minus his stock in trade; so that 
 David’s pockets were nearly always loaded with the 
 plunder of the game. Indeed, the tendency to win 
 might have taken possession of him, had not his con- 
 scientious nature asserted itself very early in life... . 
 Our Saturdays were spent in taking many long walks 
 about Edinburgh, climbing Arthur’s Seat, wandering 
 round Duddingston Loch, or making a pilgrimage to 
 some of the suburban towns, so beautifully situated on 
 all sides of the ‘ Modern Athens.’ He was the enthu- 
 
CHILDHOOD AT EDINBURGH. 5 
 
 siastic observer of every object in these youthful travels, 
 and the love begotten in him for the old places con- 
 tinued through life, as his letters of later years from 
 there so plainly show. . . . 
 
 Our home, on East Sciennes street, was within half a 
 block of ‘the Meadows’ (a large open park and _play- 
 ground) on one side, and five minutes walk, on the 
 other, of Queen’s Park, in which are Salisbury Craigs 
 and Arthur’s Seat. From our front windows, loomed 
 up the Lion’s Head,—the crowning peak of Arthur’s 
 Seat,—the veritable figure of a crouching lion. Up 
 the side of Salisbury Craigs runs the ‘ Radical Road,’ 
 made famous by Walter Scott. Such places for climb- 
 ing and frolicking cannot be found so near any other 
 city. On our way to the Queen’s Park we often passed 
 the old house known as Jeannie Dean’s house. 
 
 For a boy such as David Gray must have been, 
 emotionally stringed like a musical instrument, and 
 in tune with all the harmonies of the world, both sen- 
 suous and spiritual, there could not well have been 
 given a life more fitly and happily surrounded than 
 that which he lived in Edinburgh. There were the 
 stimulating activities of a great metropolis to play 
 upon the intellectual side of him, and to produce for 
 him, by their frictions, some tempering and quickening 
 of faculty, which a country lad is apt to lack; and, yet, 
 he had that gain of city life without the grievous losses 
 that fall usually on town-bred boys. For Nature is 
 not banished out of Edinburgh, nor made forlorn in 
 captivity, there, as happens to her at most places where 
 the human throng grows thick. She keeps her sover- 
 eignty, and the city is subject to her. She tolerates it, 
 —condescends to it,—smiles on it,—frowns on it,— 
 dominates it,—from her Arthur’s Seat and her Castle 
 
6 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Rock. With Time and History for her architects, and 
 with Romance for her colorist, she has made it a town 
 to her liking, in the spirit and the image of herself,— 
 the town of all towns in the world for the soul of a 
 young poet to be nourished in. 
 
 How David’s heart was held to Edinburgh through 
 his after-life, by the always fresh memory of his short 
 thirteen years of Scottish childhood and youth, appears 
 in the letters which he wrote, on his first visit to the 
 old home, returning from America in 1865,—sixteen 
 years after the migration of the family and himself. 
 They are the letters referred to by his brother in the 
 notes which have been quoted above. Some passages 
 from them will be read with more interest at this point 
 in the story of the life of David Gray than if left to 
 appear in their chronological place. Dating from 
 Edinburgh, August 10, 1865, he wrote to his sister: 
 
 It was on the afternoon of Saturday, the 29th ult., 
 that our ‘somewhat long and meandering and very 
 delightful journey through England, from London, ter- 
 minated at the Tweed. I was on the lookout, of course, 
 for the first glimpse of Scotland, and, in due time, I 
 had it, through a truly national shower of rain. I got 
 off at Berwick, just for the fun of the thing, and felt 
 my feet tingle strangely. Round by the sea-coast we 
 drove, and, soon, the names of the stations became oddly 
 familiar. At last, Arthur’s Seat loomed up, unmis- 
 takably, and a few minutes more landed us at Prince’s 
 street, down-stairs, on a level with the gardens. O, 
 but the old town looked glorious, at that first sight ! 
 It did not seem changed in a single detail, but only 
 gave me an impression of its having, at one or two 
 points, shrunk in its proportions. 
 
 We put up at the Royal Hotel, nearly opposite the 
 
CHILDHOOD AT EDINBURGH. i 
 
 Scott monument, and, as soon as I could go, we were 
 off, up the Bridges for the South Side. South Bridge 
 and Nicholson street were the same, except that ‘ Hutton’ 
 stood for ‘ Brown’ on the Square Academy. I saw old 
 ‘Hooky Walker’s grocery sign, ‘Pie Davy’, even, 
 survived, and half-a-dozen other old names met me 
 from the shop doors. St. Patrick’s square, Gifford 
 Park, Clerk street,—all unchanged. I easily identified 
 our stair, and saw the name ‘ Benton,’ which, I think, 
 belonged to the vicinity of old. Along Clerk street, 
 toward Preston, there is a deal of new building. I 
 looked over and saw that more than half of father’s 
 old garden-ground is built upon; but our corner still 
 holds its ancient green, . . . and No. 9 East Sciennes 
 street, barring a little added out-at-elbows look, is just 
 as ever. Imagine my feelings, as I walked along the 
 old street and turned into Bertram’s yard, to see a lot 
 of youngsters playing, one of whom at the moment 
 proclaimed ‘a scatter o’ papes.’ 
 
 Then he tells of a visit made to old family friends, 
 where he found a warm welcome, and from the pleasant 
 story of it goes on: 
 
 After tea, the three young folks of us took a long 
 daunder over the old ground. We went to No. 9, and 
 Be the stair, and rang the bell of the old house. It is 
 > who shines on the door-plate and the 
 bell, formerly P. C. Gray’s; but he didn’t happen to 
 be in,—so I only saw the door. I looked over the 
 stair-windows, however, and saw the back green, which 
 smells of clipshears and clockers, as of yore. Then 
 we walked round by the Sciennes, past Eden Cottage, 
 and away by Lover’s Loan to the Grange. The place 
 is terribly built up, and only at points here and there, 
 with L ’s help, could I recognize it. We went 
 round by the cemetery, too, and past Sir Thomas 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
8 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Dick Lauder’s, and almost to Pow Burn, in that 
 direction. Returning, we passed the old convent, 
 with its carved rope of stone over the door, near 
 Morning Side, and came down through the Links to 
 the Meadows. There are great changes all about that - 
 locality, now; but we easily identified the trees behind 
 which we often had played ‘Hospy’ and ‘Tig.’ All 
 the way, as we walked, old memories came thronging 
 
 ILpoceas 
 
 In the same letter he gave a charming account of a 
 visit which is explained by the following remark in his 
 brother’s notes: ‘Our school vacations were spent at 
 our cousins’ in Kinrosshire, across the Firth of Forth, 
 and the delightful theme of J/iddleton was one often 
 recurred to among us when we met in after-life.’ It 
 was to that ‘Middleton’ of his summer play-days, in 
 boyhood, and to the aunt and cousins there, that the 
 following,—written to his sister,—refers : 
 
 Only yesterday afternoon, I went down to Granton, 
 loitered on the pier, awhile, with the wind blowing salt 
 about me and savoring of tangle and buckies, and took 
 the boat thence for Burntisland. Although it was 
 half after five Pp. Mm. when I landed, I chose to eschew 
 the railway. I easily found my way up to the top of 
 the Kilaly Braes, where I stood, full of queer emotions, 
 and with you and mother uppermost in my mind. The 
 road has been changed somewhat; so, except at Moss 
 Mevin and Cowdenbeath, I could not, with all my 
 trying, recover my old impression of it. Two hours of 
 brisk walking, however, brought me full in front of 
 Benarty, and then, of course, I was at home. I passed 
 the Blair Adam postoffice, and there was the Lodge 
 and the Lodge-gate,—all unchanged, except that Ben- 
 arty seemed to have moved close down to the back of 
 
CHILDHOOD AT EDINBURGH. 9 
 
 the postoffice buildings. O, it was a strange thing 
 for me to turn my feet up that sweet little road, that 
 I had trodden, last, nigh twenty years before! I fol- 
 lowed the hedge up, close, and, soon, there was Mary- 
 borough glistening through the trees, and the old thorn 
 standing sentry at the turn, as of yore. Then I stood 
 on the little bridge and looked sair at the dell it 
 crosses, which used to seem so deep and shady. A few 
 steps more and I touched the big gate at Middleton, 
 and peered curiously in, at a score of objects dear and 
 familiar. I passed to the little gate and entered,—all 
 was as it used to be. I went up, before going to the 
 door, and examined the places where our gardens used 
 to be, and saw that the bushes and the walks and the 
 porch and the dial,—all—all were there, as if I had 
 only been dreaming a score of years and had waked 
 up among them, a little child again. I rapped at the 
 front door, but nobody heard me; so I stole through 
 the little gate to the back of the house, and rapped 
 there. A little fatter than of old, but rosy-cheeked, 
 hale, and not much older-looking than I remembered 
 her, the dear old body met me at the door of the 
 kitchen. I couldn’t say much, but kind o’ mumbled 
 out ‘didn’t she know me?’ and ‘ would n’t she let me 
 kiss her?’ ‘Na, na,—I’m no’ ane o’ the kissin’ kind. 
 Wha are ye? * Tell me wha ye are, before ye come in 
 here ?’—something like this greeting I got; but I 
 crowded past: her, and in to the fireside; for I heard a 
 voice that was very familiar, thereabout. ‘ Let me see 
 him,’ said Teenie. She was sitting at her tea, dressed 
 in deep black, when I kissed her and vacantly asked 
 if she did n’t know me. For about a minute she looked 
 at me, with a very hunger of eagerness in her eyes, 
 and then, starting up, she cried: ‘It’s David Gray!’ 
 So Teenie knew me,—the only living being in Europe 
 who has, or will. How she did so is a mystery to me,— 
 for I was as unexpected as the Sultan of Turkey... . 
 
10 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Before closing the long letter from which these bits 
 are taken, he broke into a kind of exclamation that was 
 not usual in his writing: 
 
 Scotland! Ah, how beautiful she is! How my pen 
 would run on if I should begin to speak her praise! 
 Strange,—is n’t it ?—from the day I set foot on her 
 soil, my tongue has lapsed into its olden forms of 
 speech, and I am scarcely distinguishable from the 
 braidest of the talkers I meet. ‘ You’renoa Yankee, 
 ony wa,’ is the constant exclamation. 
 
 In a later letter, written from London, he finished 
 the tale of his stay at Edinburgh and his report of 
 familiar places and people; then he tells of his final 
 visit to the dear Middleton, and of a long walk which 
 he took, with a couple of bright lads, his cousin’s chil- 
 dren, ‘away up the burn through the glen’: 
 
 As I sauntered along the ancient foot-paths, and 
 looked and listened, I could not but think that these 
 old plantin’s still hold, in their hushed and shadowy 
 hearts, some sort of sympathy for us who loved them 
 so well;—some sort of dim consciousness that they are 
 dear with the memory of days that can be but once in 
 life. It was very queer to me to be walking there, 
 with my old and unrestful heart, while my companions 
 bounded along with me, now picking a flower, now 
 catching a butterfly, and full of just the same exultant, 
 joyous sense of youth which used to fillme. Alas! I 
 cannot say it made me feel young again. 
 
 When this was written, sixteen years had slipped 
 between David and his Edinburgh childhood, and they 
 had been years very full of changes and experiences 
 for him. He had been transplanted, in the most literal 
 
CHILDHOOD AT EDINBURGH. TE 
 
 sense, from an old world to a new world. The con- 
 trast between the two could not possibly have been 
 made greater than it was; and the effects, on a spirit 
 like his, of the shock of his readjustment, were pro- 
 founder, perhaps, than he ever measured in his own 
 thought. 
 
 At thirteen, he had welcomed the project of removal 
 by his family to America with extravagant delight. 
 His imagination had been set aflame by the idea of a 
 life in the western wilderness, with all the possibilities 
 of adventure that it seemed to hold in store. He was 
 too full of happy visions, as his brother relates, to be 
 saddened much, even when the time that was sore to- 
 his elders came, for parting with old scenes and friends. 
 And, so, he turned his young face, in a fever of glad- 
 ness, away from the venerable country of his birth, and 
 voyaged westward, with as much eagerness for discov- 
 ery as Columbus, and going quite as much as he into 
 the shadowy unknown. His brother, whose recollec- 
 tions supply most of the materials for this earlier nar- 
 rative, has written the following brief account of the. 
 family migration : 
 
 Early one morning in April, 1849, our party of 
 something over a score was surrounded by several 
 scores of old friends, gathered at the station to see us. 
 off ; and the hurrahs for America were heartily joined 
 in by David, as our train pulled out and sped away 
 towards Liverpool. It was April 9th when we boarded 
 the sailing-vessel Constitution at her wharf in the 
 Mersey. Our first night was one never to be forgotten. 
 The bunks were filled with every imaginable article 
 needed for a sea-voyage, and scarcely room enough 
 was left for us to huddle together. Sleep was impos- 
 
12 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 sible, and even David’s ardor was dampened that mem- 
 orable night; but, once out on the broad Atlantic, all 
 his love of the sea, so often manifested in after-life, 
 kept him in continual delight. 
 
 Twenty-one days brought us to New York; so that 
 on the 1st of May we were driving up Broadway to the 
 residence of relatives on Murray Hill,—at that time a 
 country suburb of New York. We sojourned a week 
 in New York, and then came the trip up the Hudson 
 by steamer to Troy, thence by rail to Buffalo. 7 
 
CHOY reh Ri DL: 
 BoyHoop In Wisconsin. 1849-1856. 
 
 AT Buffalo, the family were welcomed and enter-. 
 tained by relatives who had preceded them from Scot- 
 land, arid there was much endeavor to persuade them to. 
 go no farther into the west. The inducements seemed 
 strong, but they did not prevail. David was among 
 the loudest in protestation against a thought of draw- 
 ing back from the original intent. It was the pioneer 
 life of the Far West,—the Great West—the Wild 
 West,—that he had set his heart upon living, and 
 nothing less could satisfy him. How much his eager 
 wishes had to do with the carrying of the decision, we 
 cannot tell; but it was decided, in the end, as he urged, 
 and the family journey was resumed. They took pas- 
 sage, May 22, on the screw-propeller St. Joseph, and 
 were landed five days later at Sheboygan, Wisconsin.. 
 David was the historian of the voyage, and there is. 
 still preserved a letter which he wrote to his uncle, on 
 the 29th, chronicling its few incidents. The hand- 
 writing of the letter is like a piece of copper-plate 
 engraving, for neatness and elegant regularity. 
 
 According to Mr. John S. Gray’s account, the state. 
 in which the party was dropped on the shores of Wis- 
 consin had no encouraging aspect. He writes: 
 
 We were landed at Sheboygan, Wis., one dreary, 
 rainy night. Why we did not all throw ourselves into, 
 
14 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 the lake, as we were left in sorry plight on that long 
 wharf, may have been largely due to David’s hopeful 
 disposition. Scarcely a place could be found in the 
 miserable town for protection; but we did find rooms, 
 while father and Walter Sanderson (our large party 
 from Edinburgh scattered at New York) went through 
 the woods to Waupun to seek a farm. It was during 
 our week’s sojourn there that we first saw the lovely 
 wild-flowers of the west, and David’s admiration of 
 them was unbounded. 
 
 Three days teaming was required to take us to 
 Waupun, a distance of only sixty miles. A short dis- 
 tance out, we met a man of whom we inquired if it 
 was very muddy on the road to Waupun. He replied 
 that there was only one mud-hole, but that extended 
 all the way,—and so we found it. David, trying once 
 to walk, sank into the mud so deep that a friendly 
 woodsman’s aid was needed to pull him out. Our 
 ‘second night was spent at Fond du lac, then a 
 miserable collection of log-huts and a long, low building 
 of a hotel. It was near there that we got our first view 
 of the prairie, covered with spring flowers. 
 
 Several years afterwards, David began’ on one 
 occasion to write his recollections of that epoch, and of 
 the impression which the western wilderness made on 
 _his feelings at the first sight. He seems to have 
 planned a series of ‘ Chapters from a Boy’s Diary ’,— 
 which would now be an invaluable piece of autobiogra- 
 phy to possess. But nothing that fulfills the design has 
 been found, except a few introductory sentences, which 
 it will be proper to quote in this place: ‘I come to 
 the true beginning of these chapters,’ he wrote, ‘on a 
 cold, dull morning in April,* which broke very dully 
 and slowly, some ten years ago, over a prairie in. Wis- 
 
 * It must have been early June, according to the dates given above. 
 
BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. 15 
 
 consin. In the person of a small twelve-year-old boy, I 
 looked over that prairie, early that morning, in no very 
 exuberant state of mind. ‘The belt of trees, the brook 
 and the farm-house where I had spent the night, 
 appeared to be, as indeed they were, the outskirts of 
 life and civilization. Far to the westward, nothing was 
 visible but the waving line of prairie-horizon, as smooth 
 and unbroken as the ocean, which, if geologists say 
 truly, once rolled there, and which has left for all 
 time a likeness of itself, as nearly as one could be 
 made from solid earth.’ There his pen paused, in the 
 middle of a sheet of paper, which came to light, among 
 other scraps and fragments, thirty years later, after his 
 death. 
 
 The notes furnished by David’s brother continue, as 
 follows : 
 
 Our farm was two miles from Waupun village. 
 There we spent the summer; but we were not pleased 
 with it, and a move to a new farm was proposed. 
 The fall was dry, and soon we had our first fight with 
 prairie fires. One eventful Sunday morning, when 
 ready to shut up the house and go to the village, to 
 church, the approaching fiend was seen. All hands 
 able to fight fire turned out. I was left by the well, to 
 keep the cattle from drinking the water that had been 
 drawn for the putting out of the fire. The others 
 went out as far as possible, to keep it from getting to 
 our hay-stacks and buildings. They were, at first, 
 unable to check the fire, and they came running 
 towards the house, crying that all was lost ;—but a 
 foot-path near our buildings made a second place of 
 defense, and there, much owing to David’s courage and 
 hard labor, the flames were subdued. What a weary, 
 begrimed-looking family we were, after that fight ! 
 
16 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 The winter of 1849-50 was spent by the family in 
 Kingston, a little town 20 miles to the west of Wau- 
 pun; but David and Walter Sanderson (afterwards our 
 brother-in-law) were left on the old farm to care for 
 the stock, our feed being there. Their experience that 
 winter in keeping bachelor’s hall has furnished many 
 an amusing anecdote. It was then, as he has often 
 told us, that he succeeded in cooking something that not 
 even the dogs or pigs would eat. But the novelty of 
 the situation kept it from being too tiresome. Besides, 
 a few miles distant, a Scotch family named Lindsay 
 lived, and the boys from there often came to enliven 
 the time, while David went as often to stay with them 
 for a day or two. So, the winter was not without 
 much jollity and enjoyment. 
 
 With early spring, came the time for driving the 
 stock to the new farm, which had been purchased from 
 the government, on the banks of the Fox River and 30 
 miles west. It took David and Walter three days to 
 drive the short distance. The family was now reunited, 
 on this new farm, in an unsettled neighborhood, far 
 from civilization, and its log-house was the best pro- 
 tection we had for several years. Indians were, at 
 first, our only neighbors, and David’s love for them 
 was not increased by acquaintance. JI remember that. 
 a large encampment of them was established, once, on 
 the bank of the river, only a few hundred yards from 
 our house. One night, after all was quiet, David and 
 I stole quietly down to their wigwams and picked our 
 way amongst many sleeping natives. Their mode of 
 living, as seen at that time, was certainly not what 
 inspired ‘The Last Council.’ They were a thieving 
 set, and we often had articles taken by them. On one 
 occasion, David went on horseback to the little villagé 
 of Packwaukee. He had to tie his horse at the end of 
 the corduroy bridge which spanned the river, and walk 
 across to the town. When he came back, he found his 
 horse gone; but he saw the tracks of the animal and 
 
BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. ie 
 
 followed them, and came on a party of red-skins 
 deliberately leading his horse away. Quick as a flash 
 he snatched the bridle, mounted, and was off at full 
 speed, before they realized what he was doing. In 
 those days he was quick and nimble in his movements. 
 
 The work of clearing the farm began, now, in 
 earnest; and David, from that time, never did less than 
 a man’s work, cutting down trees, splitting rails, lay- 
 ing fence, or breaking up the wild land. 
 
 Although there was all a sportsman could ask for in 
 the way of game, David was never a success in that 
 role. Not long after our first coming to the Fox 
 River, he and I went out on it and paddled our way 
 into a bayou, overgrown with weeds and bottomless in 
 its depth of mud. Ducks were packed in on all sides 
 of us, and David stood up in the boat to give a broad- 
 side amongst them. The gun had been heavily loaded 
 for several days, and the rebound sent him, head over 
 heels, down amongst the slimy weeds. He had not 
 learned to swim at that time, and, even if he had, it 
 would have made him no better off ; for the weeds kept 
 him from helping himself. It was with difficulty that 
 I got hold of him and helped him into the boat, and, 
 for a time, the chances for both of us seemed strongly 
 in favor of the ending of our careers there and then. 
 A pair of badly frightened boys, in a boat half filled 
 with water, and minus our gun,—we did not stop to 
 see how many ducks had suffered, but made our way 
 to shore as best we could. 
 
 Our winters were employed in clearing new fields 
 for cultivation, and, for three years, David had no 
 chance to attend school. It was not till the winter of 
 1853-4, when we had sufficient land under cultivation, 
 that he was able to advance his education, so long 
 neglected, by going back to Waupun to attend the 
 High School. He was joined by several of our old 
 friends, the Lindsays. They took rooms in an old 
 store, belonging to father, and how they got on may be 
 
 Z 
 
18 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 judged from their first day’s experience. On setting 
 up their stove, they put the pipe through an opening in 
 the ceiling, and thought very little of what was to 
 become of the smoke, but started their fire without 
 solving that question. For a minute or two, the fire 
 went well enough; then, suddenly, the smoke began to 
 pour out of every opening in volumes. They cast lots 
 to see who should investigate the cause of this trouble, 
 and it fell to David. Going up-stairs, he found they 
 had run the pipe into the room of another tenant, who 
 had quietly covered over the end with a plate. The 
 boys had many adventures that winter and were very 
 happy together; but their time was well spent in 
 earnest study. 
 
 At the end of this term of school in Waupun, 
 David, with one of his companions, returned to his 
 home at Roslin, on foot, doing what he called ‘a valiant 
 trudge,’ in which ‘we had a chance’ (he wrote a few 
 days after) ‘to become intimately acquainted with our 
 bundles; for my part I felt, for a long time, as if some 
 vast responsibility had been sustained by my shoulders.’ 
 This was said in a letter dated April 8, 1854, which 
 was the first of a long correspondence that he carried 
 on with one of the Lindsays above mentioned, who had 
 been his school-mates and room-mates at Waupun. 
 The friend to whom he wrote, now a prominent busi- 
 ness man at Milwaukee, has preserved all these letters 
 with affectionate care, and they are the earliest which 
 have been found for use in the preparation of this 
 memoir. ‘Iam now,’ continued David, ‘ fairly into the 
 working system, again. Occasionally, I take a lazy fit, 
 and sigh for the happy days we spent in the old room. 
 . . . Alas! I am afraid neither you nor I will see such 
 a good time again in a hurry.’ That he did not drop 
 
BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. 19 
 
 his studies when he came home, even though the work 
 of the farm was hard, appears in this: ‘I am now 
 studying algebra in all my leisure time (which is not 
 very much). I have got as far on as the binomial 
 theorem (which see), and find it very interesting. I 
 am determined, if I can make it out, to prosecute my 
 studies and amass something like a respectable edu- 
 eation. What is the use of spending our lives in this 
 world without having our minds ever lifted above the 
 muck or sand which we cultivate? To be sure, there 
 is little leisure time, but it will increase; the winter, 
 at least, with some calculating, can be ours, and, certes, 
 there’s good long ones in this country.’ 
 
 Some months later, writing again to the same friend, 
 he said: ‘I think I will be better able to push my 
 studies this winter; at least 1 am anxious to do so. 
 I think of adding land-surveying, geometry, and, per- 
 haps, Greek grammar. I ani sure you will not fail to 
 make great advancement this winter under J ’s 
 tuition. I would advise you to devote considerable 
 attention to English composition, than which there is 
 nothing more essential and available for the cultivation 
 and refinement of the mind.’ 
 
 At about this period, some time in the year 1854, 
 David formed an acquaintance which proved to be one 
 of the important occurrences of his life. His brother 
 tells of the beginning of it, in this wise: 
 
 
 
 Our neighborhood had now become well settled, and, 
 in one of the new families, not far from us, was a 
 young man of David’s age, whose name was also David, 
 —David Taylor. During the summer of 1854, or 
 about that time, they began to find in one another a 
 
20 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 common sentiment which drew them together. This 
 was a wakening love of literature. They were together 
 as constantly and as often as if they had been the most 
 ardent lovers,—closeted in their rooms beyond mid- 
 night,—and no one was admitted to the secrets of their 
 conclave. This devotion to each other was continued 
 till David went, in August, 1856, to Buffalo. Not long 
 since, talking with Mr. John Muir,—who was then a 
 neighbor, and who is now the well-known naturalist of 
 California,—he said that he remembered working, one 
 day, on the roads—as was the custom in those days— 
 with the two Davids, and their conversation filled him 
 with envious delight. They had been reading some of 
 Dickens’ works, and their comments on the characters 
 were such as he had never heard before. Their talk 
 gave him the first spurring to read and learn from 
 books that he had ever had. 
 
 David’s knowledge of books and authors had been 
 greatly extended by constant association with Walter 
 Sanderson, who was a walking encyclopedia on these 
 matters ; and, now, the poetical part of his nature was 
 stirred by contact with David Taylor. We found 
 ways and means, sometimes, to discover what was going 
 on behind the locked door. Often, the one was reading 
 to the other an attempt at verse. It took a long time 
 for them to muster up courage enough to send a poem 
 from each to Graham’s Magazine, and then with what 
 disgust did they find an acknowledgment of ‘ two pretty 
 poems’! The word ‘pretty’ was an offense beyond 
 forgiveness. 
 
 It was a rare, strange fortune—if we dare name it 
 so—which brought these two lads, David Gray and 
 David Taylor, out of different parts of Scotland, across 
 the ocean, into one lonely neighborhood of that sparsely 
 peopled region of the earth where they found them- 
 selves together. They seem to have fitted one another 
 

 
 BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. yank 
 
 as if it had been in the decree of their lives that they 
 should meet. ‘There were obviously great differences 
 of character between them, but only such as piqued 
 and stimulated their strong affinities of feeling. They 
 were alike in poetical temperament, and so equally 
 sensitive to the intoxicants of the imagination that they 
 found a common ideal world, into which they were 
 rapt, and where they lived together, feeling themselves 
 mostly apart from other men. The result was a kind 
 of twinship, closer than friendship, which is sometimes 
 seen in the world, but not very often. David Taylor 
 appears to have been, in some respects, the more stren- 
 uous spirit of the two, and the poetic fire had been 
 kindled in him at an earlier time. The inflammable 
 imagination of David Gray, which flashed at the con- 
 tact with this fiery soul, had scarcely discovered itself 
 before. He, always, in after-life, spoke with a kind of 
 awe of the wonderful awakening in him which occurred 
 through his intercourse with David Taylor, and never 
 stinted his acknowledgment of the debt he was under 
 to the latter, for influences that lasted as long as his 
 life. That the influences of that singular and pas- 
 sionate communion were not altogether healthful, in- 
 tellectually, but that they tended toward a certain 
 fantastic exaltation of mind, looks probable, and it 
 may be well that the intercourse of the two friends was 
 interrupted ; but, for so long a time as it continued, 
 one cannot doubt its great importance to the develop- 
 ment of the genius of David Gray. 
 
 David Taylor, who has never quitted the scenes of 
 his companionship with the former, still cherishes the 
 memory of it, with a fondness which time does not wear 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 out, and has told some interesting incidents of it in 
 recent letters.to a common friend. Gray had often 
 spoken, in later life, of a memorable day in the field, 
 when the two Davids, sitting together at the plowman’s 
 dinner which they brought with them, read something 
 in the scrap of newspaper that wrapped it,—something 
 by Gerald Massey, or about him (those who remem- 
 bered the story were not distinct in their recollection 
 of this point)—which stirred them very deeply and 
 marked a notable date in their experience. It is in 
 allusion to this that David eee writes the opening 
 passages of the following: 
 
 I remember the circumstance, for I was the com- 
 panion. Gray brought his dinner in that paper; but it 
 was the spinning of Massey nigh to death, in the silk- 
 mill, that was talked about. Gray was very indignant 
 about his usage, and so was I. Some of his lines may 
 have been read,—I do not remember; but I do remem- 
 ber repeating better poetry,—which was the pretty 
 stanza of Moore, beginning with—‘ Let Fate do her 
 worst, there are moments of joy,’ and ending with— 
 ‘But the scent of the roses will hang round it still,’ 
 together with other scraps I had upon my memory. 
 Gray was greatly taken with the matter and the man- 
 ner, and, from that day forth, we were bound together 
 like a team of wild horses which no impediment or 
 barrier could stop. 
 
 Byron was my poet in those days. I had read Lara, 
 but I had not the book. After a great deal of manceu- 
 vering, for there was scarcity of capital, I bought 
 Byron complete for a dollar and a half. Then, the 
 opening lines of Z’he Bride of Abydos, and the grand 
 cadences scattered through The Corsair, ete., had to 
 take it. Then Gray got Moore—a splendid book; but, 
 
BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. yey 
 
 as I had told the bookseller to send for it, on that 
 ground I claimed it. I have both the books, yet. 
 
 We lived little more than a mile apart, and visited 
 one another in the night. Had that mile been water, 
 and that water the Hellespont, I have no doubt it 
 would have been crossed, or a brand-new tragedy given 
 to history. At our meetings, we passed through won- 
 derful states of excitement, which I can hardly under- 
 stand at the present day. Gray complained, once, that 
 my eyes frightened him; fire from them, he said, being 
 actually seen. The light in his own eyes, no doubt, 
 contributed to the illusion. Every night that we met, 
 our pockets, of course, contained original compositions 
 in prose and verse, to be commented upon, approved or 
 condemned. Poe, I remember, was a great gain. We 
 ran across The Faven in a magazine. We had never 
 seen nor heard of Poe, before; but all earthly cares 
 were set aside till the three volumes of his poems and 
 tales were got. 
 
 Of all our lucubrations I can remember little. One 
 couplet of his struck me very forcibly. It was before 
 a battle, fought at night, both sides for the most part 
 invisible. The enemy’s bugles are heard, challenging, 
 but faintly and from afar, and 
 
 Then shrieking echoes throng the glen, 
 For ours are answering back again— 
 
 prelude to the onset. The whole yet lingers in my 
 mind like a picture of Rembrandt’s. 
 
 Night after night we had it,—not in succession, but 
 at uncertain intervals; each giving the other always 
 the old-country ‘convoy, —that is, going nearly home 
 with him. One night, I remember, we were greatly 
 delighted with the northern lights,—a most unusual 
 display,—but, as we remarked, more to the east than 
 was common; and, indeed, they were,—for before I 
 got home it was broad day. 
 
 Before he left for Buffalo I thought it a pity he 
 
24 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 should go unprovided; so I bought another Byron for 
 him (Gray did not like Byron very well; his private 
 character being in the way), and, in return, he gave 
 me Coleridge. .. . 
 
 He had the one quality that might be blazoned on 
 all the ensigns of his nation, as their own transcendent, 
 embodied word—courage ; although that was not his 
 own opinion, either, and he used to complain to me of 
 his lack of it. I remember distinctly of his writing 
 to me of the great fear that possessed him on the train, 
 when he first went to Buffalo. 
 
 In a subsequent letter, David Taylor tells more sig- 
 nificantly the story of the purchase of Moore’s poems, 
 which he had mentioned above: 
 
 ' That time he got ‘ Moore,’ I remember, he came over 
 with it, not caring to keep it, seeing I had a sort of 
 claim on it, although he had really bought the book. 
 I recollect he had his good clothes on. Now, neither 
 of us cared a pin for what we wore, and why he was, 
 in a manner, dressed on that occasion, I know not; but 
 I noticed it in the middle of the excitement. After 
 mentioning the way he had got the book, and signifying 
 his wish to keep it, if I was so minded, he undid it 
 from its wrappings and gently handed the splendid 
 volume over tome. I seized it, greedily, ran rapidly 
 through the engravings,—paused at one, in which the 
 view was carried to the sea-line: ‘The light above the 
 ocean,’ I cried ;—‘ see the light along the far horizon! 
 Isn’t that beautifully done?’ Selfishness got the bet- 
 ter of me; the book must be mine. Gray, a little 
 sorrowful at seeing me thus giving way to temptation, 
 and doing by him what he would not have done to me, 
 was pleased, too, on the whole, turning his face toward 
 me, patiently bearing with me and forgiving me. The 
 memory of that transaction haunts me, ever since I 
 
BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. 25 
 
 have recalled it. It is all in Gray’s favor; but, at the 
 same time, not altogether against me,—seeing he could 
 borrow the book as long and as often as he pleased. 
 
 The following is related in still another letter by 
 the same writer : 
 
 One day I found him rather quiet and thoughtful, 
 and expected something of moment; for whoever is 
 quiet and thoughtful has generally something to make 
 him so. I was not disappointed when he began, very 
 softly, by asking me if my folks ever bothered me 
 about the poetry business and our carryings-on. I said, 
 no, they never did; that they rather inclined to curtail 
 the storing-in of so many books, all of the same kind, 
 it was true,—but, continued I, ‘they have found out 
 that that’s no go.’ 
 
 ‘Well,’ said he, ‘you are well off’; and proceeded 
 to inform me of what he had to undergo with his 
 papers,—his sister generally pilfering and irreverently 
 reading and deriding our ‘best efforts.’ ‘ But,’ said 
 he, ‘I have put a stop to it; I have been to Portage, 
 and—look here!’ He then showed me a large leather 
 folio, with a little lock and key attached. ‘I can put 
 our things in there, now,’ said he, ‘and lock them up.’ 
 ‘ How much did you give for it?’ said I. ‘Ten wretched 
 shillings.’ ‘Oh!’ said I,—‘ Campbell might have been 
 got for that.’ ‘Well, but what could I do?’ ‘You 
 could have made a box,’ said I, ‘and I have a little 
 brass padlock,—just the thing.’ ‘ Well, well,’ said he, 
 ‘it’s done, now, and we are safe, anyway.’ But, alas, it 
 appeared that the safety proved as fanciful as our 
 wares; for his sister informed me, long afterwards, 
 that, by squeezing in the edges of the ‘folio, it opened 
 at the ends, where the female hand could be deftly 
 introduced and the whole precious documents of Apollo 
 taken out and read without difficulty. 
 
26 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Returning now to the notes furnished by Mr. John. 
 S. Gray, we take up the thread of David’s life on the 
 Wisconsin farm, as it is traced in them: 
 
 One of the duties of backwoods life was going to 
 mill, and, for several years, our nearest grist-mill was. 
 Kingston, eighteen miles away. An early start in the 
 morning was necessary, and David was the one often 
 chosen to go on the long, lonely drive. The return 
 home was delayed by waiting for the grist, and it was 
 always far into the night before we would hear the 
 welcome sound of his return. The drive was a lonely 
 one, but David had always so much ‘communing with 
 nature’ to do that he never seemed to mind it. It was 
 in the summer of 1854 that, coming home very late 
 one night from Kingston, he was caught in a terrific 
 storm. The lightning flashed continuously, and the 
 thunder kept up a deafening cannonade, while wind 
 and lightning together tore up trees in the woods, as he 
 passed along; but, beyond the wetting, he enjoyed it 
 all, and gave a most graphic description of it, many 
 years after. 
 
 Early in the summer of 1854 we began to build our 
 new farm-house on the hill. A raftsman, taking his 
 lumber up the Fox River, was induced to make an 
 exchange of lumber for a gold watch and some money ; 
 so that the materials were landed at our door. David 
 was helping to excavate for the cellar, one day, when 
 he struck what had the appearance of a round, smooth 
 stone, but which proved to be an Indian’s skull; and, 
 soon, the whole skeleton, with Indian ornaments, was 
 exhumed. Some of the latter were given to a museum 
 in Portage City, and the former was laid in another 
 resting-place. 
 
 We remember that fourth of July well, when we all 
 went to a grand celebration at Packwaukee. A band 
 was advertised to furnish music. There were to be 
 volunteer toasts and mimute-guns, and a free dinner to 
 
BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. 1. 
 
 all. David was greatly amused at the band, which was. 
 composed of two drums and one fife. The minute- 
 guns were fired from a blacksmith’s anvil. 
 
 Through all our years on the farm, the Vew York 
 Tribune was a constant visitor. When Uncle Tom’s 
 Cabin was published, the two were enough to work us 
 up to fever-heat on the subject of slavery, and largely 
 to that is due the fact that David became a radical 
 abolitionist. The fall of 1854 was a time of great. 
 importance, for it was then we moved into our new 
 house. 
 
 In the autumn of 1854, David had planned going to: 
 Portage, for a term at the academy, there, and was 
 hopeful of securing, again, the companionship of his 
 friend Lindsay, who had been one of his mates at 
 Waupun the previous winter; but circumstances caused 
 a change of plan, and he became school-teacher instead 
 of pupil. Ina letter to Lindsay the following January 
 he wrote: 
 
 You will be rather astonished when I tell you that 
 I have, instead of going to Portage, as I talked of, 
 taken upon myself the duties and responsibilities of 
 dominie in veritas. I got a pretty good chance, there 
 being a small school and easy duties, with $15.50 per 
 month; and, as we were none too plentifully supplied 
 with the sinews of war, I concluded it was best to take 
 it. I get on first-rate, have no difficulty at all, and 
 consequently like it pretty well. I have taught just. 
 half of my term (three months), and have not wearied, 
 searcely. The location is about ten miles north of 
 Roslin, near Montello, and on the banks of that classic: 
 stream, the Fox. Isabella [his sister] is also teaching, 
 about four miles from here, on the same road; she gets 
 ten dollars per month and board at one place, close to 
 
~ 
 
 28 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 the school-house. So, you see, there is quite a learned 
 circle of dominies assembled at Roslin every week. 
 
 Another passage found in this letter seems to indi- 
 cate that there were thoughts, that winter, in the family 
 _ at Roslin, of a fresh migration, Kansas-wards. 
 
 The public mind [of Roslin] appears, with regard 
 to the subject of emigration, to have a hankering a 
 little farther south, instead of north, as Minnesota is. 
 From comparing the temperature with that of Green 
 Bay, the winters average four degrees colder at Fort 
 Snelling, and a corresponding shortness of summer 
 season is observable, also. So, I think, if we take a 
 trip this fall, we should try it somewhere in the Kansas 
 direction. 
 
 But, however much it may have been talked of, the 
 projected reconnoissance beyond the Mississippi was 
 never undertaken. Another spring and summer found 
 David hard-bound to farm-work, deeply interested in 
 the ravages of the potato disease and quoting the 
 prices of potatoes and oats in letters to his friends. 
 At the same time, he was making diligent use of all 
 his scant leisure hours in reading and study, and was 
 preparing, more determinedly than before, for a term 
 in the fall at the Portage academy. Towards the end 
 of October, that year, he wrote to his friend Lindsay 
 that he hoped to be able to go in about a month, and 
 expected ‘to get board for two dollars per week.’ Again, 
 striving to persuade his former school-chum to go with 
 him, he adds: ‘I think we could do better for our- 
 selves than we did at Waupun. We might take 
 monastic vows for the winter, and eschew wrestling 
 and evening parties, which things are a snare.’ 
 
 eee 
 
BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. 29) 
 
 This time, the ambitious hope was realized, and 
 David entered the school in Portage (Brittain’s School,, 
 his brother calls it); but it can have been for a few 
 weeks, only. He left it, even before the end of Decem- 
 ber, to engage once more in teaching, ‘tempted,’ as he 
 writes, ‘by lust of gold,’ to earn twenty dollars per 
 month for three months. He had greatly enjoyed his. 
 little taste of student-life at Portage, as he wrote to. 
 Lindsay, who had failed to accompany him: 
 
 There was a number of good scholars, evidently 
 bent on improvement, and I had a most excellent, 
 boarding-place; so that, if there was less of ‘game 
 a-foot,’ there certainly was a proportionally less degree. 
 of rowdyism than at Waupun, during our ever-to-be- 
 remembered, never-to-be-forgotten campaign of 1854. 
 The young men have a lyceum, at which your humble 
 servitor, of course, cut a figure; and the scholars make: 
 up a paper regularly, the editorial chair of which, 
 during a fleeting season, was occupied by the afore- 
 mentioned servitor. Besides my old studies, of alge- 
 bra, etc., I have commenced geometry, and—and— 
 Latin and Greek, to what end deponent saith not—yet.. 
 By the by, I have two ‘right smart’ scholars in algebra. 
 and geometry ; so I have some encouragement to study,, 
 just now, to keep ahead of them. 
 
 _ This letter was written January 20, 1856, and he: 
 had then been, he says, teaching for a month, with two. 
 months more of his engagement to fill. ‘I get along 
 very easily,’ he adds; ‘have fifteen scholars, and board 
 at one place,—which circumstances, combined, tend 
 greatly to the amelioration of my social state.’ His. 
 school was four miles east from his home at Roslin. 
 There is nothing in his letters at this period—the. 
 
30 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 few which have been found—to show that David was 
 depressed in spirits or lacked ambition in his work; 
 but his brother states that some disheartening had 
 happened to him. During the summer of 1855, his 
 uncle William, from Buffalo,—an uncle much loved and 
 admired by David, always,—had visited the household 
 at Roslin, and the visit had been a great delight. It 
 was the wish of this uncle that David should quit the 
 farm and quit the west, to try his fortunes at Buffalo. 
 The idea of such a change in his scheme of life, being 
 once lodged in his mind, produced an inevitable unrest. 
 As his brother writes : 
 
 Hard labor had begun to tell on him. The enthu- 
 siasm of the first years was giving way to a sober con- 
 viction that nothing but a life of toil could be looked 
 for on the farm, and, instead of the once happy boy, 
 he was sadly silent and abstracted, nearly all the time. 
 The exception was when the two Davids got together, 
 to consult on literary subjects, and that was as often as 
 circumstances would permit. Their separation during 
 the winters was generally followed by a several days 
 session, to make up for lost time. 
 
 More than ever, during this interval of anxiety and 
 unrest, he found solace in books and in his ,en. By 
 good fortune, some moderate fund for a town library 
 had come into existence, and the expenditure of it was 
 wisely entrusted to David and his brother-in-law. He 
 enjoyed a feast beyond description in the selecting and 
 the reading of the books got together for this little 
 library, which remained, for the time, in his custody, 
 at his father’s house. Meanwhile, he and David Taylor 
 were writing a deal of verse, more or less overstrained 
 
EEE Ee 
 
 BOYHOOD IN WISCONSIN. 31 
 
 in motive and more or less rough in workmanship, no 
 doubt, but full of lyric promise. His first published 
 poem, Outrivalled, which appears elsewhere in this 
 volume, was written during some of these last months 
 of Gray’s life in Wisconsin. It was contributed to a 
 magazine issued by students at Carrol College, on the 
 solicitation of a young gentleman whose acquaintance 
 David had made at Portage, and who is now an eminent 
 clergyman at Chicago—the Rev. Charles Thompson. 
 In August, 1856, the new path in life which he had 
 
 jonged for was opened suddenly before him. There 
 
 eame to him, from his uncle at Buffalo, the offer of a 
 place which seemed to have been niched for him by 
 the kindest of all kindly fates. It was the post of 
 secretary and librarian to the Young Men’s Christian 
 Union of Buffalo,—an institution in its prosperous 
 youth. He accepted the proffered office with glad 
 eagerness; but, when the time came for quitting his 
 home, his parents, his sister, his brother, his friends, 
 he suffered as only a warm nature can. His heart was, 
 most of all, wrenched by the parting with his mother, 
 for whom his love exceeded the common bounds. 
 
 So ended David Gray’s Lehrjahre—apprentice years 
 —in the then far west. The life and the labors of a 
 pioneer family in middle Wisconsin, thirty years ago, 
 among neighbors dispersed at mile-wide intervals, with 
 the chances of intellectual companionship that such a 
 neighborhood would offer, with two brief terms of 
 schooling at the high school or academy of a small 
 western town,—these are not quite the training and 
 education that one would plan for a boy of genius, 
 between his thirteenth and his twentieth years. But 
 
ov BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 who can say that they were not better for David Gray 
 than Harvard, or Oxford, or Heidelberg might have 
 been? His natural genius was never warped, as might 
 possibly have happened to it from a more artificial cul- 
 tivation. The unique, idescribably charming native 
 quality that was so marked in it, may have owed no 
 little development to the long brooding-time of that 
 isolated, worldless, primitive life. He kept his orig- 
 inality of imagination and speech, his independence of 
 thought and of act. He did not stay uncultured,—for 
 he was of those who cannot be uncultured ;—of those 
 who will find the means of culture in all situations, 
 under all circumstances. On Fox River, the cireum- 
 stances were more difficult than they might have been 
 at Oxford; but the boy on Fox River found more in 
 his Weekly Tribune, his half-dozen books, his one inti- 
 mate intellectual companion, and the wilderness around 
 him, than another would find in the Bodleian Library. 
 
 It is possible that he had the rare fortune to be full- 
 fed, without being over-fed. If he did come to man- 
 hood with some leanness of knowledge, there seems no 
 certainty that even that was ill to him, in after-life. 
 He made himself a scholar whom any college might 
 have had pride in producing, and he carried no burden 
 of learning which he could not use. 
 
lc 
 
 Ct AN. Pa late da bsL. 
 Frrst YEARS IN BurFato. 1856-1859. 
 
 On his coming to Buffalo, in the summer of 1856, 
 David found a home among his relatives which replaced, 
 as far as could be, the hearth he had left; and the new 
 life into which he settled himself was, undoubtedly, 
 pleasant to him from the first. He seems to have 
 looked at Buffalo with expectant eyes, that were ready 
 to grow fond; while the good city turned a kindly face 
 to him, as though promising that she would take him 
 to her heart. His employment was to his liking, and 
 the surroundings of it were delightful. The Young 
 Men’s Christian Union—it was styled so at that period 
 —was then in the fourth year of its existence, and 
 fairly well sustained. It had collected a well-chosen, 
 small library of miscellaneous literature, and most of 
 its books were still invitingly new. Its rooms, on the 
 third floor of the Kremlin Hall building, at the corner 
 of Eagle and Pearl streets, were extremely attractive, 
 and the prospect from their windows, looking west- 
 ward, towards the river and lake, was one which lives 
 in the memory of the people who used to enjoy it. In 
 those days, there was no city hall, nor other tall build- 
 ing,—nor many buildings of any description, in fact, 
 —to shut in the view. In Gray’s first letter, after 
 settling himself in Buffalo, to his friend David Taylor, 
 
 he gave this description of the place: 
 3 
 
34 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 The Kremlin Hall, in which I am at present sitting, 
 is a large four-story building, on a rising ground, about 
 half a mile from the shore of Lake Erie. A little to 
 the right, I look and see the mouth [the head] of the 
 Niagara River,—the spot where the accumulated waters 
 of the great lakes first get the hint about Niagara. 
 The very Fox River sends its dribble right past 
 my nose. And, then, away in front, the great lake 
 stretches, full in sight, without a break, into the dim 
 distance. In storm and calm it is splendid. At night, 
 I see the long sea-line dimly illuminated, like the ocean 
 in the picture in Moore; and, sometimes, in a storm of 
 wind, the waves come down upon the long breakwater 
 like a thousand regiments of Scotch Greys. It takes 
 no great stretch of imagination to make it into the 
 ocean. . . . If you had n’t written ‘ Beyond the Ocean’ 
 I would have penned it myself. Something must come 
 out of that, and shortly, too. 
 
 These last words intimate a stir of impulse which 
 he felt little of, on the whole, during those first weeks 
 or months in Buffaio. He was not quite himself in 
 his new environment. He experienced a certain dis- 
 traction from the life of the city. After a month of 
 it, he wrote to his school-friend, Lindsay: ‘It is a 
 great change—so great that I am almost inclined to 
 think that I have not fully realized it, yet; but, on 
 the whole (it is a dull, wet day, to-day, and my spirits 
 are tolerably sober),.and on the whole, I say, I think 
 the change, whatever the ultimate upshot may be, is 
 for the better. It is rather a comfortable thing to 
 keep your hands clean and your back dry in all 
 weathers, and never to feel the oppression of labor, 
 dragging at your boots and making you an inch shorter 
 at night than at morn.’ He possessed, as he knew, a 
 
 ; 
 es. 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 3D 
 
 wonderful protean quality of talent and temperament. 
 ‘I can adapt myself,’ he wrote to David Taylor, ‘to 
 everybody and take everything as a matter of course. 
 I am always wondering that I don’t wonder. I’ve 
 never been surprised at anything.’ So, it amuses him 
 to find himself ‘spinning along the broad streets of 
 Buffalo, jostling beaux and belles,’ and he ‘laughs in 
 his sleeve,’ he says, ‘at passing for one of them.’ He 
 is forced, nevertheless, to confess, that he has not yet 
 found new inspirations to replace the old ones. ‘There 
 is a great temptation,’ he writes,.‘to smother the flame.’ 
 ‘Not that the city can furnish,’ he goes on to explain, 
 ‘any purer or keener pleasures ; but the bustle and con- 
 fusion, the brick walls and paved streets and lamp- 
 posts, form a scene for dreaming not quite so favorable 
 as sunset from the end of your house, or moon-set from 
 John Mahaffy’s fence.’ 
 
 But, if the new surroundings are a little distracting, 
 he would not have it supposed for a moment that he is 
 discontented with them, or unhappy in them. It is 
 true that he looks forward with strong hopes to a pos- 
 sible visit home, the next spring; and he notes it as 
 very strange that he has ‘lost all idea of going to visit 
 Scotland,’ because ‘thinking of Wisconsin has fairly 
 scorched Scotia out of my head; but do n’t think,’ he 
 makes haste to protest, ‘that I am homesick and rue 
 coming here. No, sir! I don’t intend to do that, by 
 any possibility. The fact is, as far as the world goes, I 
 am a hundred per cent. better off, here. But, if I had 
 been transported into the Mussulman’s heaven of houris’ 
 eyes, I should have occasionally fallen asleep in their 
 full blaze, and taken a quiet doze and dream of home.’ 
 
36 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Then, ‘ talking of eyes,—and valiantly dashing, per- 
 haps, a homesick tear or two out of his own,—he runs 
 off into a slightly rattling discourse about the ‘ stun- 
 ningly bright kipples’ he has seen since he came to 
 Buffalo. He finds it ‘a perfect study to walk down 
 Main street and draw blanks and prizes out of the lot- 
 tery of passers-by. All sorts and sizes are exhibited.’ 
 
 The half-understood confusion of mixed feelings 
 which he found in himself, at that transition-time of 
 his life, is revealed in the outpouring letters which he 
 wrote to his supreme friend, ‘ Davie,’ during his first 
 months in Buffalo. There is a medley of topics and a 
 medley of moods in every one of them. Somewhat 
 slowly, David worked himself back into occasional 
 states of mind fit for verse-making, and began to ex- 
 _ change bits, outlines, and sometimes complete poems, 
 with his correspondent, for reciprocal criticism. His 
 first venture was an attempt at the ‘something’ which 
 ‘must come out,’ as he had said, of that inspiring view 
 of Lake Erie from his windows. Unhappily, it was only 
 a fragment—a few lines of melodious, fanciful verse— 
 which he seems to have never finished. He wrote to 
 his friend that it ‘had birth from Lake Erie one fine 
 summer-like day, and would have been Z’he Vision of 
 the Lake if it had lived.’ The lines were these: 
 
 Oh, never breaks the sound of oars 
 
 Along these misty mantled shores ! 
 
 Oh, never stirs among the trees 
 
 The spirit of the slumbering breeze ! 
 
 But, like a freighted bark with golden sails, 
 The sunset fails and fails, 
 
 Without a breath, into the blest 
 
 Enchanted regions of the West. 
 

 
 FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 37 
 
 Oh, never on these changeless shores 
 
 Pale winter blights and spring restores ; 
 
 But, gathering glory year on year, 
 
 The flowers their living faces rear, 
 
 While over all forever streams 
 
 A summer rich and dim with mist and dreams. 
 
 Oh, silence, silence! Not a breath 
 Troubles the calm—the calm of Death. 
 And never, never, as I wist, 
 
 Stand dimly pictured on the mist, 
 
 The ships, or phantom-ship-like things, 
 With spectral light upon their wings. 
 
 This is in the spirit of Poe; and Poe was, at that 
 time, very nearly, if not quite, Gray’s first favorite 
 among the poets. His tastes were rather catholic,—he 
 had a hungry appetite for everything that was really 
 poetry; but the music and the mysticism—the weird 
 dream-haze in Poe’s poems—were peculiarly fascinating 
 to his imagination and his ear. 
 
 The two Davids, in their correspondence, exchanged 
 opinions on many poets, and on many poems besides 
 their own, and the frank criticisms of the one whose 
 letters we are permitted by his friend to read are ex- 
 tremely interesting. Some passages may be quoted 
 with justification : 
 
 BUFFALO, September 23, 1856. 
 
 ... That... brings me back to a favorite topic— 
 Poe. Almost the first thing I did when I got into this 
 library, was to lay violent hands on an old volume of 
 the Southern Literary Messenger, wherein, you know, 
 our spink figured as editor. I found nothing new, 
 except some critiques which we have not seen. No 
 new poems,—but a good many of the old ones, in dif- 
 
38 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 ferent stages of progression towards the state in which 
 they are booked. I tell you, Poe was an awful fellow 
 to revise and alter. You could hardly tell some of 
 his pieces in their primal form. Partly to give you an 
 idea of this, and partly because there is little that is 
 new, I will copy Zhe Valley Nis: 
 
 No wind in Heaven, and lo! the trees 
 Do roll like seas in Northern breeze 
 Around the misty Hebrides. 
 
 Don’t you think he should have left that as it is, 
 which commences ‘No wind in Heaven’? That ‘Do 
 roll like seas’ is first-rate. You’ve seen, in a storm of 
 wind, the trees roll and sway, and, especially if you are 
 looking down on them from a hill, the white backs of 
 the leaves turned up, the pitch and turmoil of the 
 whole, give it the very look of a sea in a storm. 
 
 . .. I have never made out to see an edition of 
 Chatterton, yet, although I have tried several times ; 
 neither have I seen Tenny* in his last coat and trow- 
 sers ; but I shall make it out soon and report faithfully. 
 
 BUFFALO, October 28, 1856. 
 
 . . » Now for general remarks: You have written, 
 this time, too wildly, too savagely. You must calm 
 yourself down, or you won’t fulfill printing requisites, 
 which are, care, perfect guardedness at all points—not 
 a rib exposed nor a useless feather flying. ... In 
 writing about love, great caution is required, for it’s a 
 risky business. There ’s no fear of your writing silly 
 things in this line; your error is, galloping splash- 
 dash, and drawing in things out of place. You would 
 always need carefully to review, and if you could, in 
 some kind of way, have your steed well bitted when 
 you start out with her, it would be well. Do you write 
 
 * Tennyson. 
 

 
 FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 39 
 
 with printing in view? ‘That should help you greatly. 
 For I do believe that you have in you what the favored 
 few only possess,—namely, imagination. Again, before 
 you can stand up in print, you will have to undergo a 
 world of labor and study. Your powers are the most 
 undisciplined I ever knew. If I had half your brain 
 I could make Buffalo vocal. As it is, a dry meal-pock 
 _ occupies the region of my caput, and whatever is shaken 
 out is unmistakably dry. 
 
 BuFFALO, November 17, 1856. 
 
 . . . L’m bursting to divulge. Tenny is yours, and 
 with the morrow’s sun will be speeding to your em- 
 brace. I am afraid you will be disappointed ; and yet, 
 if you have any bowels, I do’nt see how you can. The 
 fact is, 1 am aware that you like a large book, and the 
 book is a small book; but oh! gem! pearl! chucky! 
 what a book. The portrait, I cannot pick a flaw in; it 
 far transcends the one in my copy. There are numer- 
 ous pieces not to be found in mine, and all that are in 
 mine or elsewhere are here. The type and arrange- 
 ment, according to my ideas, are beautiful, and the 
 eilt—Finis.* ... 
 
 I am glad you are coming to your senses at the 
 eleventh hour. I have long known The Lotos-eaters 
 as a poem which swayed me mightily. I don’t see how 
 the idea of dreamful calm and repose could be better 
 conveyed. . . . The fact is, Tenny does a thing inva- 
 riably after a way of his own—as nobody else would 
 think of doing it. He is silly on his own model, and 
 his namby-pamby (an abominable word—a word of 
 my father’s) is nobody else’s namby-pamby. Enough. 
 My sentiments on Tenny are well defined. . . . Altho’ 
 his powers are none of the mightiest, they are unques- 
 tionably of the finest kind. The piece you quoted in 
 
 * It was undoubtedly a copy of Ticknor & Field’s ‘blue and gold’ 
 edition. 
 
40 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 your letter has long been a favorite passage. I knew 
 a kiplet of it and used to operate on it, long before I 
 saw Moore between boards... . 
 
 Having botched a sea-piece, I turned my energies to 
 the construction of a ‘ Love-song;’ but I was so thor- 
 oughly heart-whole that not a whine could I emit. I 
 endeavored repeatedly to tear up some old gashes, fail- 
 ing the infliction of any new ones; but the whole was 
 such an entire failure that I immediately conceived and 
 mentally executed a device, with motto. (The thing 
 is not entirely original, but never mind.) Heraldically 
 described the thing is this:—a heart gules, on a field 
 azure; Cupids twain kicking and otherwise maltreat- 
 ing the heart, in which they have vainly endeavored 
 to stand a good article of the harpoon description. 
 Motto (foreign): ‘ Devi lishto ughw ork.’ 
 
 BUFFALO, December 18, 1856. 
 
 ... You must know that the strange, migratory 
 tribe of strolling lecturers, musicians, men with pano- 
 ramas, ete., are brought into immediate connection with 
 your servant, he being guardian of a public hall. 
 Well, a couple of this tribe hove in sight one day, pro- 
 posing to hire the hall for a lecture on ‘ The Spiritual- 
 ism of Poetry, to be illustrated by copious recitations 
 from the poets, English and American.’ One of the 
 coves I soon discovered to be the operator himself,—a 
 short, broad man, who carried his breadth to a climax 
 in the regions of alimentativeness and ideality. An 
 enormous red beard and whiskers only added breadth. 
 He was yelept Edward A. Z. Judson, and has, doubtless, 
 been familiar to you as ‘Ned Buntline,’ a New York 
 editor, romance- and tale-writer. . . . My lad came 
 betimes, with a bundle of books under his arm; among 
 Scott, Shelley, ete., I was swift to perceive the second 
 tome of the despised Hdgar. ‘Hillo!’ says 1; ‘you 
 have one of my men there, I see.’ ‘ Which?’ quoth 
 Ned. He then opened and told off, in pithy sentences, 
 
 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 41 
 
 how Poe and he had been bosom friends; how, amid 
 all the caprices and misfortunes of both, the friendship 
 had been-warm and close to the last; and how, among 
 all the men that America was proud to call her sons, 
 none was fit to be compared with the unmourned one 
 she had lost. I fairly leaped and yelled. Enough of 
 Poe; he’s sure enough to 
 
 Win futurity’s plaudit note, 
 And rise like the dead from the river’s bed, 
 But deaf to the cannon that bid them float. 
 
 BUFFALO, January 10, 1857. 
 
 ... L am beginning to detest letters as a medium 
 of intercourse. That part of me which is my share of 
 the currency between us defies me to nail it in a letter. 
 I get prosing away on something else, or, if held to the 
 subject, it is the mere body that is put on paper,—the 
 soul all the while skimming out of arm’s reach and 
 daring me to touch a feather of her. Davie, my boy, 
 it takes actual contact to strike fire, like what was 
 wont to blaze o’ nights. . . . Doesn't it have a 
 strange appearance to you, looking back, now? ‘To be 
 sure, you are not so fairly out of it as I am, and may 
 not feel as I do; but, here, plucked up by the roots, so 
 to speak, and without a single outlet for the old stuff, 
 except these paltry letters, the recollection of some of 
 those fiery nights comes over me like an experience got 
 in some other planet. I don’t think our case is often 
 paralleled, nowadays. Just think! Two minds, to all 
 appearance in mortal slumber, suddenly burst into 
 voleanic action of an extraordinary character. For I 
 maintain, without intending to insinuate that our pow- 
 ers—mine, at any rate—are anything more than com- 
 mon,—I maintain, I say, that seldom is the human 
 imagination, the ideal and supernatural of the mind, 
 so wildly excited, so unnaturally distended, as were 
 ours at intervals during the years of our ‘treck.’ Of 
 course, drugs, fevers, ete., I don’t put in the count. 
 
42 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 You remember the era of tales grotesque and _hor- 
 resque? You remember the two nights —the first 
 especially—in which the act of Fascination was prac- 
 ticed onme? Enough. Iam sure, if I should present 
 myself for your inspection, now, you would find that 
 vast alterations have passed over me and over the spirit 
 of my dreams. What they are, I have not the slightest 
 idea; so, of course, I can’t be expected to describe 
 them. Since leaving you, I have sort of lost track of 
 my inner self. 
 ‘O’er many a wild and magic waste, 
 
 Thy footsteps, Psyche, I have traced.’ 
 
 But now the shadows fall so thickly 
 
 Above me, round me, and so fickly 
 
 Do thy pinions gleam before, 
 I shall see thee nevermore. 
 
 I would that we might take again 
 
 The backward path by glade and glen ; 
 That thou would’st clasp my hand in thine, 
 And thrill me with thine eyes divine, 
 
 And breathe low in mine ear the themes 
 That angels sing to thee in dreams. 
 
 Oh! once, before me, far and clear, 
 
 I heard thy singing, ‘Here! ’tis here !’ 
 But all so loudly jarred the strife, 
 
 The clangor and the battle of life, 
 Alas! the affrighted echoes bore 
 
 The voice away—I hear no more. 
 
 Pretty fair, that. What do you think? Positively 
 an off-hand shot... . 
 
 I have got Mrs. Browning’s new book, Aurora Leigh, 
 and partly read it. It is a perfect pyramid of poetical 
 accretions. Inexhaustible imagination—mines of words 
 —new ideas in myriads, and piercing eye-sight for 
 human nature in all its forms, done up in blank; and 
 after all—what? I admit it all: Shakspere is good; 
 so is Mrs. B.; but give me Tammy’s Canadian Boat- 
 song,—let me doze over Poe’s Sleeper, or thrill with 
 his Laven, or grow weirdly happy in The Lotos-eaters, 
 —and, rising from my carouse, I will maintain, with 
 
 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 43. 
 
 all my might and mind, that I have imbibed more 
 poetry than can be squeezed or bittled out of Shak-. 
 spere, with Awrora Leigh thrown in... . 
 
 Do n't, for love’s sake, Davie, ever hunt for some- 
 thing to praise in anything I write,—to break the stroke 
 of the correcting rod, as it were. Let it come. At. 
 least do as well by me as I do by you. I am honest. 
 Every abominable thing I’ve sent you has been only 
 fit to be scouted into annihilation, and you should have 
 said so. I would have felt better, when telling the 
 truth about you. But Ill send you something soon, 
 my boy, that will gar ye jump. 
 
 BuFFALO, February 16, 1857, 
 
 . .. I occasionally take an opportunity to sing a. 
 few verses of a favorite poet, after your own style and 
 tune, and with all the rhetorical tremor I learned at 
 your feet. I heard my uncle say, the other day, that 
 I was a good reader of poetry—he liked to hear me 
 read poetry—or something of that sort. Very good. 
 I'll give him Across the Lake* some day. The fact is, 
 Davie, I have sounded a good few youths since I came 
 here, and, in various ways, gathered a good deal of 
 observation. I know of no one in whom poetry is the 
 same article it is in us, at all. Many like poetry; but 
 I have yet to meet one who has’ trod on the lonely 
 shores we were wont to haunt. Here’s for you: 
 
 ke 
 
 It is a thing that few have ever gained, 
 Or (being ignorant) have cared to gain— 
 
 The key, whereby our souls step forth unchained— 
 The power that launches worlds within a brain. 
 
 Few, few, can follow when the viewless train 
 Of Poesy sweeps by ; when, face unveiled, 
 
 Wild Wonder leads ; when space and years are slain, 
 And seas, whereo’er the wing of Dreams had failed 
 Spread backward, till undreamed-of shores are hailed. 
 
 * One of David Taylor’s poems, which had just reached him. 
 
44 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 II. 
 The scenery of Earth hath might to dart 
 Angelic longing thro’ the sluggish vein; 
 But quicker, wildlier thrills and throbs the heart 
 Who steers his bark forth on the mighty main 
 Of mind: O! wanderer, why seek Earth again? 
 Dew-giving stars do guard these regions. Moons 
 Above the valleys circle ever, nor wane. 
 There dwell in dance and dream a thousand Junes, 
 And Dawn, star-chainéd in the east, forever upward swoons. 
 
 BuFFALO, March —, 1857. 
 
 . No, Davie,—I am not the man to slur Shelley, 
 or take an inch from the measure of his mighty genius, 
 because he utters sentiment utterly repugnant to my 
 soul and mind. I will enjoy him in the face of all the 
 world, and no one shall decry Shelley in my hearing 
 without hearing something from me direct. But try 
 to put yourself in my position, for a moment; try and 
 realize the relation which I believe (to use no stronger 
 word) to exist between Almighty God and myself; 
 and then you will see that, in doing what I have said 
 above, I strain endurance and charity to the utmost. 
 I am not, like some you have probably seen, pretending 
 to the same name that I myself appropriate, who can 
 listen coolly, and even smile wanly, when they hear the 
 Being they believe to be their Creator reviled. I can’t 
 stand it, and my emotions towards you are what they 
 are because you never asked me to stand it. Now I 
 have done on this subject. 
 
 Of all the glorious things that ever I read, I think 
 The Spirit of Solitude cows the gowan. Have you 
 ever read it? If not, don’t delay a day. I can’t 
 understand that, jargon of Poe’s, about Shelley’s poetry 
 requiring to be improved on in Tennyson’s person, in 
 order to reach the ideal of what poetry should be. It 
 appears to me that Shelley’s poetry is as perfect, as 
 regards style and diction, as ever poetry will be, or 
 need to be. Do you know that piece in Prometheus, 
 

 
 FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 45, 
 
 where Asia (or Panthea) sees the Hours chasing 
 Eternity thro’ Space? What a picture! Talk of 
 erouping and effect on canvas! There never was any- 
 thing put on by brush to approach that, for terrific 
 power; every word gives the idea of speed, speed— 
 fearful! When I read it and hold the book away, so. 
 that I can scarcely distinguish the words, I seem to see 
 speed in the very arrangement of the sentences. . . . 
 
 I am weary, I am dead-tired and heart-broke to see 
 how blind and more than brainless, with regard to. 
 poetry, the bulk of mankind are... . 
 
 There is nothing to be seen, here, but the eternal 
 swing of women’s dresses and men’s legs on the street. 
 I don’t think I study faces as much as I used to do,, 
 when I saw fewer. I am often driven, when I do, to. 
 the conviction that they are a miserable, mysteriously 
 restless, hurrying set of beings that swarm upon this. 
 earthly ball. Nothing in their faces but uneasy hurry, 
 as a general thing. I sometimes think that my own 
 phiz ought to be a matter for exhibition, in regard to. 
 serenity and apparent peace among the wretches. 
 
 BuFFALO, Apri 19, 1857. 
 
 . . . | trudged contentedly with you, the other day,, 
 to the moon and Venus; so bear with me if I jaunt 
 you a little, where I have been sojourning a good deal 
 of late myself. Kxpect nothing wonderful, or beau-. 
 tiful; but, if you feel as I feel, you will be full of 
 
 lorious sadness while we tarry in the far away Valleys 
 of Childhood. Childhood is a mystie thing—a scroll 
 if you will—with strange lettering and characters, 
 committed for a little while to every member of the 
 human family. For a little while, only; for, before he. 
 is able to know the writing,—before he even knows. 
 that it is secret and mysterious,—the scroll is drawn 
 out of his reach, rolled up and sealed. He may philos- 
 ophize as much as he pleases on it, afterward,—he can. 
 
46 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 never experiment. I don’t know whether it was you 
 who struck me with a love of sunsettings; I rather 
 think it is born, always, with any share of the poetic 
 temperament; at any rate, I always go ‘jaunting’ in a 
 country of sunsets. It was in a broad, breezy meadow, 
 with slopes in it, where the boys could lie down and 
 roll horizontally to the bottom, and towards the end of 
 the afternoon, that I struck into the Land of Child- 
 hood, lately. It seems to me that the scene is a memory, 
 not a fancy, and, if so, very, very far distant. At any 
 rate, when I went into the meadow, there were a great 
 number of boys and girls playing ; some of them seemed 
 big, like; but I know it was only because I was very 
 little, myself, and very young, that they seemed so. 
 They were all really young and small, and could not, 
 most of them, speak other than childishly. The noise 
 of play was boisterous, while the sun kept moderately 
 high; but by and by the shadows began to lengthen, 
 and the children gathered into little knots and talked 
 to each other, and the sound of voices was the only 
 sound ;—whereas, before, the sport was deafening and 
 indistinguishable as to speech. The wind had blown 
 pleasantly, thro’ the afternoon, and kites were high, 
 high up. As sunset came on, everything fell motion- 
 less, and the kites stood away off, serene and far, with 
 their strings tight and visible, the whole length up. 
 The children, I say, had gathered into knots. They 
 were mostly little girls,—I rather think I was the only 
 boy; but that could n’t be, for there were kites,—and 
 some of the lassies had curly hair and had their bonnets 
 swinging behind them by the ribbon round their necks. 
 Presently, they began a quiet kind of game. In it 
 they had to sing. They made strange motions and 
 actions to one another, and their song came every little 
 ‘while to me (I was walking away by this time): 
 
 Water, water, wall-flower, growing up so high, 
 We are aj] maidens, and we must all die. 
 
 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 47 
 
 Everything was done soberly and without mirth. 
 The sun set, and the whole air was an ocean of amber 
 light, that colored the faces of the children, and gave 
 all the landscape an air of unreality. It stayed a long 
 time so; they played the same game over and over 
 again, and their voices got sadder and sweeter, as if 
 they were mourning for something. But, at last, the 
 whole meadow with the amber light upon it took the 
 aspect of a shore, which grew slowly into distance, as 
 if I had been sailing away. All the children kept 
 playing on, solemnly, taking no notice of me; and 
 away they faded, with the song floating behind them: 
 
 Water, water, wall-flower growing up so high, 
 We are all maidens, and we must all die. 
 
 And so the shore remained, with them playing on it, 
 while I was wafted backwards, towards the evening 
 star. Finis. 
 
 I astonish youngsters, here, sometimes, by my actions. 
 I make numerous acquaintances in my daily peregrin- 
 ations. JI ask sometimes for a ‘hudd’ of a fine, 
 steady-flying kite, and I feel her tugging (tweging— 
 much better, isn’t it?) with all my old pride. I tell 
 you, sir! a kite is good play for boys, but it is also 
 good enough for men. There must be delicious agony 
 in pulling the thing out of the clouds. 
 
 BUFFALO, April 30, 1857. 
 
 . . . I have been, just now, as near having the crys- 
 tal fountains unsealed as is often my lot in this drying, 
 scorching world. Over what, do you think? Nothing 
 less than old Wordswords! There’s a quality in some 
 of his things which melts you down into a little child. 
 You lose all manliness and weep like a wean; i. e., 
 going in that course, such is the result. 
 
48 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 A simple child, dear brother Jem,* 
 That lightly draws its breath, 
 
 And feels its life in every limb, 
 What should tt know of death? 
 
 I met a little cottage girl, 
 
 She was eight years old, she said, 
 Her hair was thick with many a curl 
 That clustered round her head. 
 
 Wordsworth has a kind of weanly way of giving a 
 life and speech to humble animals, and even plants, 
 and especially children, which, if not poetry, is yet 
 unclassed in literature... . 
 
 - TI often feel, about nightfall, a sort of wanting some- 
 
 thing. I strive to recollect what it is lacking, and then 
 it flashes: I would just jump over the fence and 
 thro’ the pasture-lot, and ower the swamp, and be on 
 you in a crack! Alas! alas! ‘Tears, idle tears—I 
 know not what they mean.’ (Read it)... . 
 
 Let me give you some pickings from my readings. 
 lately. Wordsworth has the finest description of a 
 cataract at a distance from the beholder! He describes. 
 it as ‘frozen in distance.’ Does that not hit the thing? 
 There is a fine line, speaking of a flower in a lonely 
 place, and giving it a sort of woman or spirit life in 
 the solitude. It is like so and so, or 
 
 lady of the mere, 
 Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance ! 
 
 De Quincey thinks this, perhaps, the finest line in the 
 poetry of earth. I don’t. But isn’t it rather a start- 
 ling idea,—to be called on to point out the highest line 
 that ever formed beneath a mortal pen? Where would 
 you go? Certainly not to Shakspere. Shelley, perhaps. 
 
 I am too late of beginning, now, but I had it in my 
 head, last week, to give you a kind of recantation of 
 
 * Coleridge, who improvised the first stanza of the poem We are 
 Seven, gave this form to the first line of it. Wordsworth cancelled 
 the ‘dear brother Jem,’ and it has usually been published with the 
 line incomplete. 
 

 
 FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 49 
 
 my former poetic belief. I abjure Tennyson, in a cer- 
 tain sense, and cling to Shelley and Robert Burns. 
 Tennyson, in this sense: He is a poet—a true poet— 
 but not a model, as Poe would have us believe. He 
 has made no advance in the riddle of poetic diction. 
 It is as much a riddle as it ever was. What, in your 
 idea, is the true language of poetry? It isn’t the lan- 
 guage of carters and idiots, as Wordsworth would have 
 us believe. It isn’t full of dictionary words ending 
 osity and ation, as Barrett says it is. It isn’t draw- 
 ing-room clack, as Tammy Moore has it. What in 
 thunder is it? 
 
 BUFFALO, June 17, 1857. 
 
 I am taking lessons from a tall, officer-like 
 Teuton, in the mysteries of the German tongue. AI- 
 - ready, | begin to have the veil lifted a little, and, of 
 course, it is to the poetic quarter in the new language 
 that I first resort. My feelings are not so strong as 
 yours. It is a rare occasion that makes my voice falter 
 and my eyes feel in the least like tears. I never re- 
 member of crying for anything, short of a whipping or 
 a severe scolding. Stumbling across an extract from 
 Goethe, though, the other day, | was powerfully moved, 
 again and again. I don’t expect you will care any- 
 thing about it; for, of two coves who ever covenanted 
 together, you and I, in most things, are the most un- 
 speakably different; but I will tell it, at all events: 
 ‘ Mignon,’ says a foot-note, in the coolest possible voice, 
 ‘Mignon is one of the most interesting characters in 
 Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister. In her earliest childhood 
 she was secretly carried off from her home in Italy by 
 a company of strolling jugglers and trained to perform 
 feats on the rope, ete. Meister, who one day happened 
 to witness the performance of this troupe, during which 
 the child was unmercifully abused, obtained possession 
 of her and became her protector. One morning, he 
 
 + 
 
50 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 was surprised to find her before his door singing this 
 song [I will append it]* to a cithern which had acci- 
 dentally fallen into her hands. On finishing her song 
 for the second time; she stood silent for a moment, 
 looked keenly at Wilhelm, and asked him, Anowest 
 thou the land? Jt must be Italy, said Wilhelm (the 
 history of the child was yet a mystery to him); where 
 did’ st thou get the little song? Italy! said Mignon, 
 with an earnest air,—if thou go to Italy take me along 
 with thee, for I am too cold here. Hast thou been 
 there already, little dear? said Wilhelm. But the child 
 was silent, and nothing more could be got out of her.’ 
 Oh, Davie! I think that is the most pathetic, the most 
 tenderly touching thing I ever read. . . . ‘ Jtaly, said 
 Mignon, with an earnest air; if thou go to Italy take 
 me along with thee, for I am too cold here’! Qh, 
 man! I tell you that touches me in a tender spot, some- 
 how or other. 
 
 BUFFALO, July 10, 1857. 
 
 Behold me a hulk, from which the lowest ebb of the 
 tide has drawn away the water, so far that only a dis- 
 tant sound of the sea comes where there once was the 
 fresh lash of waves. Whether there ever will come a 
 time which shall set me afloat, anew, is a question. I 
 think—floating being understood to mean the motion 
 of the pure poetic temperament in which, with you, I 
 once gloried—not. Can it be possible that I shall 
 subside into the miserable, contented, evenly-balanced 
 wretch my present dispositions indicate? When I have 
 any stirrings of the old kind in me, now, they never 
 amount to anything above the merest commonplace. 
 I am totally out of the land of visions. ... I think, 
 now, it must have been your influence upon my sus- 
 ceptible (no more) mind that made me, for a time, 
 what I was. J have no power within myself,—none. 
 I could almost throw up everything, now, and come 
 
 * Kennst du das Land wo die Citronen bltihn ? 
 
 a 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 51 
 
 back and sojourn with you, away on the hills, up from 
 your high field, as far as Wilson’s and the Observatory. 
 I think if I was there it would be all right. 
 
 2 BUFFALO, September 22, 1857. 
 
 Yours of the fifth September has lain, a thorn in 
 my side, till now. I have not felt able for the effort. 
 . . . Of all my experiences, down among the dry, dark, 
 rocky barrens of the ‘valley,’ I think none are so 
 thorough and far-reaching as my late ones. Poetry— 
 fled. Not a rag of her raiment left; nothing but a 
 vague, gnawing regret, at best, and a dull, aching 
 vacancy, at worst, where she used to reign. If I could 
 fall in love; if I could meet somebody who could raise 
 me; if I could get letters from you every day,—I 
 might feel like my old self again. But, alas! none of 
 these turn up, and I am in the very depths of soulless- 
 ness. ... The fact is, the old Davie Gray had better 
 be declared defunct, at once. I don’t feel as if one of 
 my old powers was left me,—those which I counted so 
 much on improving. ... O,I1 wish you had me a 
 day, the now, Davie—ony a day—up there somewhere 
 between your field and the old Observatory! It would 
 be worth millions to me... . 
 
 The weather has lived out the summer, now; the air 
 to-night is clear and cold, with a brisk breeze. I can _ 
 faney you in the old howff, as vividly as possible, and 
 almost persuaded myself, a minute ago, that I was 
 threading my way among the trees, between Willie’s 
 and Davie Mair’s. If I am— 
 
 The stars are out, and eastward fly 
 Some scattered clouds along the sky; . 
 The night is clear, but sharp and shrill, 
 The wind is whistling o’er the hill, 
 And with a dreary autumn sound 
 
 The trees are stirred, above, around. 
 Oh! with a sweet and strange surprise 
 Each sigh o’erfloods me, soul and eyes, 
 And every sound— 
 
a2 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Bless me! I’m far on the road to tool-ool,—which is 
 an exercise unworthy manhood; so avaunt, such lugu- 
 brious imaginings! .. . 
 
 What do you ever read now? Are you still among 
 the old books? I have n’t read a book this summer. 
 
 BUFFALO, October 28, 1857. 
 
 Since I have had yours by my side, my mind, to 
 quote from some fair authoress or other, has been ‘a 
 tumult of conflicting emotions.’ One thing only is 
 clear in my mind: poetry must go up, now. The star 
 is clear and in the ascendant. All my old literary fire 
 is aglow, again, and Davie, my boy, I will stick by you 
 in this till something gives. ... Let me tell you of 
 a scheme now in motion among myself and one or two 
 others. It is, to start a weekly paper, or magazine, to 
 be devoted purely to literature and art,—something 
 after the model of Chambers’ Journal, although not, 
 perhaps, so large and ambitious, at first. It would be 
 designed to subsist for a while solely on a city cireula- 
 tion; but might and would undoubtedly thence expand, 
 as Chambers’ did. Now, if this goes off, you are 
 nailed as a constant contributor. It is with my eye on 
 you that I mostly feel so sanguine. 
 
 Before the close of his first year in Buffalo, Gray 
 had gathered around him a considerable circle of young 
 men, more or less congenial in character and tastes. 
 He had exercised a kind of selective attraction on the 
 bookish and thoughtful-minded youth of the city, draw- 
 ing them together, as to a place of rendezvous, at the 
 pleasant library-rooms of the Christian Union. One 
 and another had found him out there; had discovered 
 that the quiet charm of the place gained another charm 
 when they got speech with the young Scot who reigned 
 

 
 FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 53 
 
 in it. Making acquaintance with him, they were led 
 to acquaintance with one another, and thus was formed 
 a considerable group, which became cemented by strong 
 friendships, lasting far into the years that were then 
 to come, even down to the present day. ‘The first- 
 comers of this group, which had David Gray for its 
 nucleus and the Christian Union Library for its rally- 
 ing-point, presently organized themselves into a modest 
 and small literary club, which held formal weekly 
 meetings, for the reading, discussion and criticism of 
 original papers, and for self-improvement in other 
 modes. Four countries—Ireland, Scotland, America 
 and England—were represented in the membership of 
 the young club: and so they framed an odd name for 
 it out of the initials I, S, A, E. It was called the 
 ‘Isae Club.’ But the weekly club meetings of this 
 ‘Isae’ group were the mere formalties of their inter- 
 course. They came together, additionally, on all oppor- 
 tunities. It was an understood principle of conduct 
 among them that, whenever one had the smallest half- 
 hour of time at his command, he should carry it 
 straight for expenditure to that certain southwestern 
 corner of the Christian Union Library which was the 
 appointed trysting-place. There were not many after- 
 noons and evenings that did not witness a gathering of 
 David’s confederates, there, in full force or partly, for 
 high talk, about many things. Sometimes they sus- 
 pended their own talk for an evening, to take part in 
 the public debates which the Christian Union had 
 instituted, and which took place, for a time, in an 
 adjoining committee-room. From among the visitors 
 to those debates they drew occasionally a new recruit 
 
54 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 into their ranks, and the group gradually increased to 
 a dozen or more in number. One who was really the 
 first to be joined with David Gray, in gathering up the 
 other friends into that most natural growth of com- 
 radeship, wrote about it some years afterwards, as 
 follows : 
 
 Whether debates were held on not,—let the weather 
 be foul or fair,—let amusements be many or few,—in 
 the afternoon and evening of each day, more or less 
 young men could be found in that library-room. Seri- 
 ous, earnest and profitable conversations were held 
 there; strong and vigorous discussions of varied and 
 
 endless character, on science, history, philosophy, polit- 
 ical economy, politics and poetry. All subjects and all 
 matter were themes for those hours. Art, too, was 
 studied, from Ruskin, whose fine rhetorical sentences 
 carried the young mind captive. Then, in the quiet 
 
 evening, those wonderful sunsets, away over Lake Erie, 
 
 down by the Canadian woods, (surely there have been 
 no such sunsets since, or the Kremlin is the only place 
 to see them!) when the purple and crimson and filmy 
 white shot up the deep azure, and, with other gorgeous 
 tints and hues, painted lake and island, tower and pin- 
 nacle, away above the western horizon! Never poet. 
 expressed such beauty; never painter caught on the 
 canvas the resemblance of it! You may think this 
 language extravagant; but every one who watched, 
 night after night, those summer and autumn sunsets, 
 will bear witness to their inexpressible glory. 
 
 Perhaps the glory of the sunsets and the fine fury of 
 the talk which we enjoyed, on those long-ago nights, 
 borrowed some effect from the exalted glow of feeling 
 which Gray could so easily kindle in himself and com- 
 municate to others, around him. It is certain that the 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 55 
 
 scenes and the feelings of those nights are burned as 
 with fire in the memory of all who shared them. 
 The organized club of the ‘Isae’ had no long exist- 
 
 ence. It was drowned out, as it were, by the freer 
 
 and larger association that followed it and went on 
 around it. But, after a little time, it was succeeded by 
 another organization, which enveloped the companions 
 
 - of the Kremlin in an ampler way and acquired a more 
 
 permanent character. This was a club which, in sheer 
 despair of finding a satisfactory name, called itself ‘The 
 Nameless.’ Its objects were those common to its kind. 
 
 - It debated all sorts of questions and practiced all sorts 
 
 of literary composition, in verse and prose; but its 
 chief end, after all, was to cultivate good-fellowship 
 among its members,—and it did so with excellent suc- 
 cess, for many years. _ 
 
 As factors in the life of David Gray, these clubs, 
 and the more spontaneous rallyings in the Kremlin 
 Hall library-rooms, out of which they came, were un- 
 questionably of great importance. They gave him some 
 of the enduring friendships of his life. They stimu- 
 lated him when few other stimulations were acting on 
 him; they stirred his interest in a greater variety of 
 things, among the subjects of thought and knowledge, 
 than he was naturally disposed to give attention to; 
 and so they contributed some breadth to his develop- 
 ment. . 
 
 Meantime, he was becoming considerably known in 
 larger circles, outside of these more intimate comrades. 
 He had given several short poems to print, in one of 
 the newspapers of the city, which discriminating eyes 
 quickly recognized as being poetry, in very truth. The 
 
56 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 first of them was Zhe Fog-Bell at Night, which ap- 
 peared in the Buffalo Express one day in October, 
 1856. It was followed by Elihu Burritt, The Crew 
 of the Advance, and other modest ventures, all of 
 which will be found among the poems printed else- 
 where in this volume. The reputation they gained for 
 the writer was, so far, slight and very limited, of 
 course; but they were helping to open his way in life 
 —the way that he was appointed to tread. A little 
 later, he began to make himself known as a prose-writer 
 to the reading public of Buffalo, by a series of charm- 
 ing essays, on such simple topics as Houses, A Winter 
 Night and its Visitors, A Word about Grave-yards, 
 and the like, which he contributed to The Home,—a 
 literary monthly then published in Buffalo, by Mrs. 
 H. E. G. Arey and Mrs. C. H. Gildersleeve. 
 
 During the year 1858, and most of 1859, David's 
 life is traced sufficiently in a few passages taken out of 
 his letters to his friends. His father and family had 
 lately quitted the Wisconsin farm, at Roslin, and set- 
 tled in a new residence, at Detroit. The first letters 
 from which we quote were written during a visit to 
 them, and were addressed to one of his Buffalo friends : 
 
 TO JAMES N. JOHNSTON. 
 
 DeErroit, January 21, 1858. 
 
 . . « Day before yesterday night, I was at a friend’s 
 house, where a lively, friendly party prevailed. My 
 friend has two of the most prettily beautiful little 
 girls!) You have often heard me express myself on 
 this portion of created things, and I will only say 
 again, that, notwithstanding my fervid appreciation of 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. ae 
 
 female humanity in a more advanced stage, I would be 
 content to forego all, if | might but be permitted to 
 dwell in the perfect purity and quaint delicious happi- 
 ness of little girls’ society. There is something in it 
 that satisfies me almost to tears. Ye shades of Par- 
 nassus!—all the glory of the rose is in the rosebud, 
 and the veiled mystery of the bud is dearer to me 
 than the flaunting openness of the full blossom! I 
 discovered, here, at my friend’s house, a new power,— 
 namely, for faery tales. I addressed myself to the 
 little girls, and I speedily had them touching me with 
 their delicate, feathery-soft hands and coaxing me to 
 tell a story. And, at once, the flood-gates of faery 
 romance opened and the stream flowed. I took them 
 up to the top of a high hill, lush with flowers and 
 crowned with a brake of bells—bluebells—and built a 
 little bower for a fairy in a moccasin flower, furnished 
 faery fashion; and I filled them with longing for the 
 sweet shadow and ecstacy of the flower-land. Then, I 
 took one of themselves to be a little kilmeny—and so 
 forth, and so forth, and so forth. At any rate, they 
 hung around me for the rest of the story, and took my 
 heart away, up-stairs, with them to bed, and only left 
 the sweet press of their soft faces on mine, to keep me 
 happy forever. .. . 
 
 There’s an industrial school here, which, mentally 
 viewed, in connection with the region of the Canal 
 Street Sunday-school, stirs strange desires and designs 
 in my mind. I am more and more convinced that, if 
 a fellow does not make himself useful, he is losing his 
 time in this world, whatever may be the result in 
 another. I believe this is a conclusion demonstrable 
 on strict principles of logic. Don’t you feel as if an 
 unlimited field is discerned through the scarcely open 
 portals of Canal Street Mission ? 
 
 Did you ever see such a winter? Of course not, 
 nobody ever did. The sun is monarch of an untainted 
 realm of pure ether. Winter! perish the thought ! 
 
58 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Take it out into the sunshine,—melt it,—dry it,—scat- 
 ter it, upwards, in the immeasurable heights of light 
 and heat. I put for the nearest point of woods, this 
 morning, and again realized the truth that the city is. 
 not universal, but rather a dot, or blot, surrounded by 
 an expanse of unpolluted country, inhabited only (or 
 for the most part) by things of God’s own instituting, 
 and traversed by the wandering winds. 
 
 TO EDMOND LINDSAY. 
 BuFFALO, March 5, 1858. 
 
 ... Your account of John L ’s death fills me 
 with sorrowful thoughts. JI mind not only of hin, 
 though his quiet face and modest demeanor are vivid 
 enough with me, but of a time when it seemed to me 
 death came very near and grew familiar with me. I 
 mean, when Robert P died, when his sister’s death 
 was still fresh in our minds, and when the thrill of 
 your sickness and possible death were all so terribly 
 close upon me. Oh! I tell you I was better and wiser 
 then than I am now, with forgetfulness and the pres- 
 ence of the new all but smothering the old out of my 
 mind. Just think of it! Robert’s life and mine were 
 parallels. Since his stopped, what a rugged and strain- 
 ing line mine has drawn, and by how many rough, 
 winding stages will it draw itself, till the long line of 
 the parallel be, also, cut off by a grave? ‘Then the 
 prayer of that old impracticable anomaly of a father 
 of his comes audibly into my mind: ‘Fit us a’ for 
 leevin’, faither! but, above a’, prepare us for deein’!’ 
 
 
 
 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 BuFFALO, May 9, 1858. 
 
 Your very acceptable letter, long and most interest- 
 ing, awaited me on my return home, two weeks ago. 
 ‘Return home’ implies absence, and I may as well tell 
 you, now, the delightful journey I took. I went as 
 delegate from the Y. M. C. Union, here, to a national 
 
 i? te ~—C 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 59 
 
 convention of similar bodies, held April 22, at Charles- 
 ton, S. C.; so that, when you were writing the sheet. 
 now at my side, I was pacing, in delicious mood, the 
 almost tropical vicinities of Charleston. I went to 
 New York, thence by steamboat to C. The voyage 
 was glorious,—perfect halcyon days, three in number, 
 —calm, sunny, and in the face of a gentle wind that. 
 softened to absolute balm as we sailed south. Then, 
 ~ Charleston! Just think of leaving ice in the harbor,. 
 here, and, at the first sight of land, seeing the luxuri- 
 ance of the tropics—almost (again); for, what with 
 palmettos, figs and a hundred other trees and products 
 strange to my eyes, I seemed floated into a new world, 
 altogether. J can only think of Columbus at San 
 Salvador. My time in the city and the convention was. 
 spent in a continual festival of enjoyment. I returned 
 to New York again by sea. 
 
 TO JAMES N. JOHNSTON. 
 CHARLESTON, S. C., April 18, 1858. 
 
 I should have written you sooner, had I not, in the 
 first place, been made somewhat lazy by the glorious 
 tropical weather, and, in the second, been fain to indulge 
 mine eyes, ears, soul and sense in the torrent of sur- 
 rounding novelty... . My host is a Mr. N , an- 
 ciently of Scotland,—a retired and very wealthy mer- 
 chant, keeping a regal establishment. A carriage and an 
 immense crowd of darkies are at my command. Verily, 
 this is seeing life! My room-mate (O, such a room! ) 
 is Richard C. McCormick, editor of the Young Men’s 
 Magazine,—the man of all others whom I wished to 
 come across. Singularly enough, all has come out in a 
 peculiarly favorable manner. ... If I weren’t too 
 lazy, I should laugh incessantly at the darkies. They 
 are amusing, numerous and perfectly opaque. Slavery, 
 in my mind, however, does not change its position the 
 one-hundreth of a hair’s breadth. 
 
 
 
‘60 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 BuFFALO, August 2, 1858. 
 
 . .. The other night it rained, in brief showers, 
 and, in the pauses, the moon came out brightly upon 
 the wet leaves. The fresh smell, the stillness, the light, 
 —everything, brought up to my mind yon piece of 
 yours, The Thunder-King, and I would have given 
 my purse to have had it by me. 
 
 Every leaf of the soundless oak 
 Lent its voice as the melody broke. 
 
 ~ Oh, bliss! What a rapture came over me with these 
 
 lines! I thought they portrayed a sort of hidden inner 
 life in nature, which only revealed itself in such rare 
 seasons, and I was happy,—happy almost to tears. If 
 it isn’t too much trouble, hunt up that piece and copy 
 it off for me; or, better, take a copy and send me 
 down the old original. I remember every flourish. Do 
 this last without fail, next letter. ... 1 am sure, 
 nobody but you or I can see anything very meritorious 
 in that poem; and yet I know it gets deeper into a 
 certain ecstatic vein of poetic passion than any lines 
 extant in any language. Or, rather, it touches a vein 
 untouched,—totally untouched,—elsewhere. Hither 
 that, or it must be by association with ideas originated 
 and in play in our minds about that time. It is an 
 indubitable fact, that lines of your poems have a 
 firmer hold upon me, and stir me up to the true, 
 delicious thrill, more, far more, than any lines of any 
 poem in print. 
 
 TO EDMOND LINDSAY. 
 BuFFALO, September 3, 1858. 
 
 . Iam sorry to hear such poor accounts of your 
 crops, this year.... I am beginning to be in the wheat 
 trade, myself, a little now. I act as clerk, half my 
 
 
 

 
 FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 6% 
 
 time, for my uncle, who is engaged in milling, again. 
 I am already considerably initiated into the mys- 
 teries of book-keeping, etc. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 BuFFALO, March 11, 1859. 
 
 . .- When I wrote you last, I was in a somewhat. 
 uncertain state as to my occupation for the year to. 
 come. I have now got that matter settled, thank 
 Heayen? It gave mea great deal of worry. I stay 
 as book-keeper with my uncle’s firm—engaged in the 
 milling business; so I expect, though I shall have 
 harder work than ever, hitherto, that my pecuniary 
 matters will be in a convalescent condition. Well, 
 about six weeks ago, I took a sudden notion in my 
 head and threw up my situation in the library. It was 
 a nominal one, as regards salary, and I felt myself be- 
 coming too much of a fixture; so I bolted. Then, in 
 the interim, before my uncle’s folks decided that they 
 wanted me, I had a queer time, walking about the 
 streets with all the strange feelings of an isolated, 
 independent mortal; independent to roam the world 
 and seek adventure; independent to lie down in some. 
 quiet corner and die; free to get rich or to starve. I 
 tell you, I had some funny times. All the while, I had. 
 a vague vision at the back of the whole, of me, coming 
 some night—one of those warm moonlight nights in 
 which we used to walk and talk half-way into morning 
 —and wakening you up and telling you that I was. 
 coming to stay with you; and then of us, working 
 together, up on the hill, and sitting at the side of the. 
 field, having long confabs, and taking journeys off, 
 when it suited us, and being able between us to make 
 an easy living out of the land.... If you were ta. 
 take a new location, in some new place, I think I would 
 join you, to-morrow. ... Iam likely to do well; my 
 friends tell me that my prospects are good, and I sup-. 
 
} 
 
 62 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 pose they are. I suppose this means that, as far as 
 
 eye can reach or imagine it reaches, ahead, there is 
 
 unlimited worldly work, and that all the old joys and 
 toys are left forever behind. Oh, I can hardly bear it 
 —this change—this pushing off into the desert! 
 
 I sit on this last oasis of youth ; 
 Before me stretches the dim desert-sand;— 
 No more—no more,—I feel it now, in sooth,— 
 Shall gushing streams refresh and glad the land. 
 Around me, risivg slow, the phantom-band 
 Of hopes and joys, that all my way beguiled, 
 Fade backwaid from me—wave the parting hand, 
 And leave me lonely in this desert’s wild, 
 With no more heart or hope than a forsaken child. 
 [ Exit funeral. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 BUFFALO, April 19, 1859. 
 
 . .. L was up at Detroit in the beginning of the 
 month, and I may as well tell you a thing or two about 
 that. . . . Next night, after everybody was in bed, I 
 
 called Walter to account, in a matter which he had un- 
 -dertaken under oath to do for me—to wit, the keeping 
 
 of my documents, gathered in Wisconsin. He pro- 
 duced them, all safe, under seal. Did I ever tell you 
 the agonized attempt I made, the morning I got up to 
 go away from Roslin, to put them (the papers) in 
 a bottle? I could n’t get one big enough in the neck, 
 
 and so was obliged to give them up to Walter. I 
 
 meant to bury the bottle, over about the big hollow. 
 I was very much surprised to see many things so 
 
 good as they are, of that early period; and very much 
 -amused at many of them, too,—especially the ones I 
 
 thought, once, were least amusing. With scarce an 
 
 -exception, the pieces I thought were hits, beyond con- 
 
 troversy—these are perfect trash. It was like taking 
 
 off my grave-clothes—as if I had been a mummy— 
 
 undoing the wrappages, one by one. Some pencilings 
 
 of yours are on some of the papers, which brought to 
 mind many queer things. 
 
FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 63 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 BuFFras.o, May 5, 1859. 
 
 ...I1 am going about, these days, in a kind of 
 referee, as Mr. Weller phrased it, consequent on the 
 complete change of the weather prospects and the 
 accompanying results. With May, began a period, 
 unbroken till now, of weather absolutely awful in 
 beauty. Unclouded skies, the warmth and softness of 
 air of the South Sea Islands,—perfect, regal Summer 
 on her throne, already. Slowly, as the days advance, a 
 sort of filmy haze gathers over her features, making the 
 stars, at night, and the sharp semi-circle of the new 
 moon, as they approach the horizon, assume a bright 
 red appearance, as of ship-lamps hung up in unseen 
 shrouds, and, in the day-time, taking the sharp azure 
 from the lake and from the sky and welding them in 
 one sheet of burnished whiteness. High up in this 
 magic element, ships pass, dreamily, to and fro, or 
 mysteriously float upon extended wings, where, a mo- 
 ment before, you saw nothing. The leaves of the trees, 
 the flowers and grass of the fields, all stand in their 
 accustomed places, but with an odd sort of astonished 
 look upon them, as if they had wakened out of some 
 queer dream, and had not yet found their speech. I 
 know this is the way things are going on, altho’, as far 
 as material vision goes, I have seen little but glimpses 
 of the soft sky over tall brick walls. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 BUFFALO, June 24, 1859. 
 
 . . . She holds herself inscrutable. Not a ray, not 
 a hair of light will she suffer to drop through her words 
 tome. She sent me, however, a little bunch of flowers 
 —a common present among young folks, here—and 
 before them, as before a shrine, I have been sitting, 
 solus, for the past two days, at the office... . You 
 
64 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 know, I never cared a great deal for flowers. In hum- 
 ble coincidence with, if not in imitation of, a better 
 man, I always prefer trees, vastly, to flowers. But, 
 as I have been sitting here, hour after hour, I vow, sir, 
 a strange affection has sprung up in me for them. I 
 find the word applied to them sometimes in poetry, 
 ‘breathing ’ fragrance, etc., ete., is a true one. They 
 seem to pulse delicate gusts of perfume, that fleet over 
 my nerves, making them thrill with sweet pleasure. 
 These little currents of scent are never mixed in the 
 same proportions. Sometimes, it is the rose that colors 
 all; anon, that delicious breath of the lily’s waxen lips 
 is predominant; and, again, from the bouquet before 
 me, there is a sweeter than either—a plainer odor, of 
 green leaves, dashed with the shadow of a scent from 
 some little meadow-flower, that brings the blood into 
 my face, it speaks so plainly of some forgotten glory 
 in the past. . . . When I wrote you before, I wrote 
 nothing but what was true atthe time. I did not write 
 for the future, but for the present,—and so I do now. 
 I believe, at the last,—unless a certain presentiment I 
 once had,—a strange glimpse into futurity that, for the 
 time, carried absolute conviction with it, as if I saw 
 what was going to be, with my bodily eyes—unless that 
 presentiment, that I am a bachelor booked to the end 
 of the chapter, prove true,—I say, I believe, at the 
 last, when I do go off, it will be in a perfect unguarded 
 hurry. . . . And yet—and yet—LI have an awful notion 
 that I am going to meet somebody about whom there 
 will be no uncertainty,—upon seeing whom some voice 
 
 will speak in my soul in unmistakable tones, ‘ This is 
 she.’ 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 BuFFALO, August 5, 1859. 
 
 . . . 1 do admire and love Maud Muller ; she has 
 long been a favorite. I agree with you, too, that the 
 moral tacked on to the end would easily break off, if 
 
 — 
 

 
 
 
 FIRST YEARS IN BUFFALO. 65 
 
 the whole thing were cracked like a whip, and no loss 
 would be sustained, either. Tennyson grows more and 
 more into my blood. I can’t help it; he is the man 
 forme. I have just read his new book, /dyls of the 
 King,—four stories in the style of Morte d Arthur, 
 on the same general subject, viz.: King Arthur and 
 his Knights,—all full of the same wild, tender ro- 
 mance... . 
 
 I went to the theater the other night, for the first 
 time in my life, and saw Hamlet. The actor was 
 Barry Sullivan, the greatest British tragedian now 
 living. Everything else, the other actors, the audience 
 —all disgusted me; but that one man—lI was fairly 
 riveted, eyes and ears, to him. From the first moment 
 he stepped on the stage you saw Shakspere’s Prince. 
 I could not help thinking that Shakspere must have 
 studied Aim, instead of its being the other way. I 
 remembered all you said, once, about the depth and 
 mystery of the play, and realized it for the first time. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 BUFFALO, August 18, 1859. 
 
 I am infinitely weary of the city, its business, its 
 clatter—all, to-day. It seems as if I would almost 
 sell my birthright to be out of it for a day, away in 
 the impenetrable stillness of some darkened valley,— 
 yea, or even away out, sitting at some quiet roadside, 
 beside a dyke, where the bees come, where tansy grows, 
 where there is the city with its accursed ways behind, 
 and unlimited scope for wandering on and on, before. 
 
 The perfection of business habits and ability is to 
 create, of the man you are dealing with, the complete 
 ideal of a thief, and then guard and prepare for him 
 at every point. If you trust anything to his honesty, 
 you are soft and unbusiness-like ; and, ten to one, you 
 are also ‘done brown.’ ‘This, disgusting at first, grows 
 funny after awhile, and, finally, intensely wearisome. 
 
 5 
 
66 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 I am living in hope of being a pilgrim in some of the 
 countries of the old world before this time next year. 
 A regular foot-tramp, I propose making. Would n’t 
 you like to go along? 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 BuFFALO, October 31, 1859. 
 
 . . . L feel a perfect fire in my bones to travel, and 
 have determined, by hook or crook [to carry out the 
 scheme]. My plan is purposely left very undefined. 
 I intend to travel in Europe, on foot, in the cheapest 
 and humblest manner, and begin by wandering in 
 Spain, crossing the Atlantic to Gibralter. As a cir- 
 cumstance which may assist me some, financially as 
 well as otherwise, I have an arrangement made by 
 which I shall write letters for the Vew York Times. 
 Now you know all about it. 
 

 
 
 
 (ek bo RD... 
 APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 1859-1865. 
 
 SOMETIME during the summer of 1859, David en- 
 tered, rather curiously, into a connection with the 
 Buffalo Daily Courier which was decisive of his voca- 
 
 tion in life. Rather curiously, because it was the work 
 
 of a commercial reporter—a reporter of the local mar- 
 kets—that he was first engaged to do. He was em- 
 ployed that year as a clerk in the office of his uncle’s 
 firm, Messrs. Kennedy, Gray & Co., and his time 
 was not fully occupied. Their office was on Central 
 Wharf,—the mart in those days of nearly all the 
 greater commerce of Buffalo. These circumstances 
 were favorable for his using a few hours of every day 
 in gathering notes of the market, and there happened 
 to be a want of that service at the publishing-house of 
 the Courier. So, it came about, oddly enough, that the 
 most uncommercial young man in Buffalo (it is hardly 
 too much to say so) was engaged for several months in 
 counting the pulses of the produce-exchange, and _ re- 
 cording them in the jargon of a newspaper commercial — 
 reporter. But this arrangement was undoubtedly made 
 with the understanding, on both sides, that it should 
 lead to something else, and with a distinct perception 
 on the part of the editor and chief proprietor of the 
 Courier, the late Joseph Warren, that he had enlisted 
 
68 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 a pen which he could not afford to waste, very long, ¢ on 
 the writing of market reports. 
 
 As a matter.of fact, the market work seems to have 
 come to an end before the close of the year, and David 
 had quitted the mill-office to make a complete plunge 
 into journalism, as associate editor of the Courier, 
 having charge of its city department, especially, but 
 prepared for a service of general utility, according to 
 the demands of the day and of the press. The provin- 
 cial newspapers of that time had nothing of the ‘ staff’ 
 that is busy about them at the present day. A chief 
 editor and his associate, with a reporter of markets, — 
 were quite commonly the entire editorial corps. A 
 news-reporter, as a distinctly added functionary, had 
 not yet made his appearance among the few servitors 
 of the press in Buffalo,—though the date of his advent 
 was not much later than the time here referred to. 
 The journalism of the city was in that primitive stage 
 when David Gray entered it. Then, and several years 
 afterwards, the large, strong figure of Joseph Warren 
 was often to be seen on the platform at public meet- 
 ings, taking notes of speeches for next day’s print. 
 He shared that kind of labor with his younger assist- 
 ant, and claimed from the latter more or less of aid in 
 the leader-writing and paragraphing of the editorial 
 page. The two were colleagues, to a considerable ex- 
 tent, in all departments of the newspaper work; and 
 much the same arrangement prevailed in the ‘ staff’ of 
 the other city journals. Those were days of hard work 
 in Buffalo journalism, and, generally speaking, of good 
 work. There was an all-round capability demanded 
 and exercised, which the present specializing of tasks 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 69 
 
 is not so well calculated to produce. The newspapers 
 gave less to their readers than they now do; but pos- 
 sibly the readers may have suffered no loss. It is cer- 
 tain that much news was neglected advantageously,— 
 with great conservatism of dignity to the newspapers, 
 themselves, and with a benevolent sparing of those 
 who read them. 
 
 Gray’s introduction to journalism, therefore, was 
 one which opened all its fields to him at the outset— 
 except the political field. It is not likely. that he had 
 aught to do or say in connection with the polities of 
 the paper, for a long time after joining it. There is 
 no touch of his pen in any of its political writing,— 
 and his touch was always unmistakable. He cared 
 nothing, at that period, about politics,—knew nothing 
 about political questions,—-except as concerned the one 
 intolerable thing, Slavery, about which his feelings 
 were very strong. He was an Abolitionist, of the 
 radical school of Garrison and Phillips. He con- 
 demned both political parties of the day, alike, scorn- 
 ing the assent to existing slavery which Republicans 
 conceded, as much as he abhorred the friendlier atti- 
 tude of Democrats towards it. Hence, he could not 
 have assumed political relations with any partisan 
 newspaper ; but, being alien to both sides, could un- 
 dertake the neutral and peaceable labors of journalism 
 under either flag. The Courier was then, as it is now, 
 a pronounced organ of the Democratic party, and 
 David Gray came ultimately to agreement with it, and 
 with its party, in political views; but that was not 
 until after the slavery question had been burned out 
 of American politics. 
 
70 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 The exact time at which David became -associated 
 with Mr. Warren, in the Cowrier, is not known; but 
 it seems to have been near the close of the year 1859. 
 It is certain that he wrote the Christmas article that 
 year, and there is no recognizable mark of his pen at 
 an earlier date. Nobody who knew his work can 
 doubt that he wrote such passages as these: 
 
 For one night and day in the year, we feel disposed 
 to quarrel with the reverend shades of our Puritan 
 grandsires, and to look with loving leniency on that 
 other faith which has given us Christmas. ... Nor 
 would we undertake a chronological argument with 
 any who might endeavor to prove that the twenty-fifth 
 of December was not the day when Bethlehem became 
 the center of the world’s desire, and its manger the 
 cradle of the world’s hope. The air is vibrant with the 
 music of chime and carol; the welkin rings with the 
 joyful sound of Christmas bells; and to us, all this is 
 none other than the echo of that first wonderful chorus 
 sounded over the Judean hills. Passing from year to 
 year,—tfrom century to century,—it is the prolongation 
 of that new song of humanity, begun by angels. . . . 
 Ah! it is not the school-boy, only, who looks forward 
 to the day of evergreens, when trees bear such funny 
 fruitage of toys and candy, and to the week of weeks 
 so snugly tucked in between two holidays, and to all 
 the pleasant things which make old Winter’s harsh 
 visage soften into the most lovable of faces. Thank 
 God that we all, old and young, have these days left 
 us! Mammon must close his temple-gates, rusty on 
 their hinges with standing open so long, to-day. 
 
 This was, probably, his first work on the paper be- 
 yond itemizing and paragraphing, if not actually his 
 first writing in its columns. A few days later, on the 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. T1 
 
 5th of January, 1860, he wrote to his friend David 
 Taylor: ‘I still hold to my purpose of going to 
 Europe next season. Meantime, I have had an oppor- 
 tunity to step entirely over from commercial matters 
 to the newspaper business, and, at present, I am sitting 
 at the editorial desk, where, from day to day, I spread 
 my brains on paper. Although the work is. hard, yet 
 I like it better than anything I ever got into, and it is 
 quite likely this may be the deciding point of my life, 
 leading me henceforth into this paper business, for 
 good and all.’ 
 
 After two months of added experience, he wrote to 
 the same friend, in March: ‘The drudgery of a daily 
 paper, writing from morning till night, and far into 
 the night, nobody knows who has not tried it. Yet, 
 judging from the degree in which I find my inclina- 
 tions follow the work of my hands, this profession, 
 before any other that I know anything of, is the one 
 forme. If so, | am content. ‘“There’s a divinity that 
 shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will”; this I 
 firmly believe, and I am content in great measure to 
 submit, like passive clay in the potter’s hand. Yet, if 
 I am not much mistaken, I shall not for a great while 
 occupy a subordinate position, in this or anything else. 
 It’s a queer, not to say egotistically-appearing thought, 
 —but you will understand me when I express it. I 
 say I think, frequently, that Iam bound to succeed, 
 sometime or other in life.’ 
 
 Of the incidents of his life and of his feeling and 
 thinking during that important year, 1860, and the 
 succeeding year, we have scanty records. He was 
 burdened with much work, and it is probable that he 
 
C2 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 wrote few letters to his friends. At all events, there 
 are few that can now be found. One who looks through 
 the files of the Courier may trace his hand, by the 
 marks of its fine workmanship; but mostly, from day 
 to day, it was employed on very common tasks. Some- 
 times it found the subject and the opportunity for a 
 bit of vignette-writing, like this (Buffalo Courier, 
 March 21, 1860) : 
 
 A FUNERAL SCENE. 
 
 Last Sunday, there were balmy influences afloat in 
 
 the cloudless blue sky; there was a hint of the resur- 
 rection of summer, and all beautiful things; there was 
 more, we think, to make the heart thrill and yearn, in 
 its nameless and indefinable sympathies with nature, 
 
 than a day in the prime of May or the flush of hot — 
 
 July affords. It was a day, last Sunday, with such a 
 heaven brooding over it as makes it most difficult for 
 us—most trying to the flesh—to reconcile the presence 
 of death and shadow with the new-springing life of all 
 nature. Those who have read De Quincey, remember 
 his theory on this subject. Sunday was surely a day 
 when Death ought to have removed himself afar off, to 
 the outer boundary of the world. 
 
 But, walking one of the long, European-looking 
 streets that stretch through the little Germany of our 
 city, we saw what seemed as the dark shadow of the 
 day’s light. A funeral came wending its way towards 
 the outskirts,—Death riding out, in the glad exuber- 
 ance of the afternoon’s sunshine. It carried a little 
 child to the church-yard—a little fraulein, perhaps, of 
 the poorer class of Germans. The train had no hearse 
 —there was but one carriage, followed by several com- 
 mon conveyances. The little coffin, soon to lie so lonely 
 and so far from home, lay, as yet, on the knees of the 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 73 
 
 father and mother, in the carriage. Z'hey carried the 
 child to its burial. The custom may have looked cold 
 and uncouth to some. To us, it was full of a beautiful 
 propriety. Not yet away from the lap, where it was 
 her wont to nestle; not yet removed from the clasping 
 affection which death only could break; not yet com- 
 pelled,—poor little one !—to journey in darkness and 
 solitude, in dreary hearse, to the hillock where she must 
 be left alone with God and the angels; not while it 
 was possible to feel the pressure of their child’s form, 
 did they give her up,—albeit, that gentle burden lay on 
 their knees with the coffin’s strange pressure, when, of 
 old, it was the yielding feel of soft, warm limbs! So, 
 at any rate, whether it were seemly or unseemly, they 
 earried the little one to its earth-bed, in Buffalonian 
 Germany, last Sunday. 
 
 In early April, he found the advent of kites a matter 
 of news which no right-feeling reporter could neglect 
 to make note of. The kite, in fact, was one of the 
 lasting objects of enthusiasm with him, as his letters 
 have indicated to us, already. ‘The kite,’ he wrote, 
 ‘is a sort of aerial plummet, sunk into the deeps of 
 the upper ocean; and we were fain to think, yesterday, 
 as we watched them, high and motionless above the 
 city, that they had reached, beyond the troubled and 
 chilly currents of lower air, a kind of gulf-stream of 
 warmer atmosphere, setting in heavily and _ steadily 
 from the south.’ And, again: ‘It may be blowing 
 cold and cheerless down below, but when you see a kite 
 sitting steadily aloft, among the light passing drifts of 
 vapor, with the sun upon its face, it is impossible not 
 to believe that it has got up to a point where Spring is 
 visible, as she comes, scattering blossoms in her path, 
 from the sunny, southern side of the world.’ 
 
T4 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 But, after a few months on the treadmill of the daily 
 press, the young journalist had little spirit left for 
 themes like these. His busy and tired eye could not 
 catch the suggestion of them so easily, and, when it 
 did, he found, probably, that the springs of eloquence 
 and poetry in his brain were well-nigh dried up. There 
 seems to be a time in the experience of almost every 
 
 young newspaper writer,—and the measure of it is pro- 
 
 portioned, pretty nearly, to the original freshness of his 
 powers,—when that half-paralysis by sheer drudgery 
 is suffered. It fell upon Gray, and there are lone 
 months during which the columns that he filled betray 
 scarcely a gleam of the characteristic qualities of his. 
 writing. 
 
 During the summer of 1860, he made his long-cov- 
 eted visit to the old home-scenes in Wisconsin, and to 
 the friends there; but it was too short for satisfaction, 
 —a mere flashing vision to him. He passed a single 
 night with David Taylor—one night, only, to answer 
 the longings of four years, and to unpack the hearts 
 of the two friends of all that they had laid up for talk. 
 Unhappily, there is no report of that memorable fore- 
 gathering extant. 
 
 A few months later, David was constrained to make 
 a test of himself once more in poetry, and to re-open, 
 as it were, the abandoned shafts and chambers of a 
 mine which he had nearly persuaded himself to be 
 worked out, or to have had no existence. ‘The Young 
 Men’s Association of Buffalo,’ the library and lyceum 
 society which afterwards named itself more simply 
 ‘The Buffalo Library,’ was preparing to celebrate its 
 twenty-fifth anniversary, with notable commemorative 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. Td 
 
 exercises. David had become an active member of the 
 Association, warmly interested in its growing library, 
 and he was solicited to write a poem for the occasion. 
 He found it hard to consent, but he did so, and the 
 result was a poem (printed elsewhere in this volume) 
 which gave a real distinction to the event. This was. 
 the first of a trilogy of poems which he wrote on dif- 
 ferent occasions, as tasks of love, for the Young Men’s 
 Association, and they represent the greater part of his. 
 poetical productiveness during half-a-dozen years. The 
 second of these was read at the annual meeting of the 
 Association, February 17, 1862,—the evening of the 
 day on which news came of the taking of Fort Donel-. 
 son. It was a very noble piece of verse, and one that 
 will hold its place among the most finely-inspired poems 
 of the war. The third and last was written for the 
 celebration (January 10, 1865) of the opening of the 
 library in the building, then just purchased and fitted 
 for it, which it occupied for the succeeding twenty-two. 
 years. This, too, was a glorious war-song, of triumph 
 and of wailing,—an ode and an elegy in one. It con- 
 tained the story of How the Young Colonel Died, 
 which has often been separately printed and is one of 
 the best-known of David Gray’s poems. The ‘young 
 colonel’ whose memory is embalmed in it was Colonel 
 James P. McMahon, of the One Hundred and Sixty- 
 fourth Regiment, New York Volunteers, who fell at. 
 Cold Harbor. 
 
 Before his first year in journalism closed, David had 
 found reason to abandon, definitely, for the time, his 
 projected foot-tramp in Spain. His relations with the 
 Courier were made so advantageous in promise that it. 
 
76 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 looked unwise to break or interrupt them. He was 
 given the opportunity to purchase one-fourth of the 
 establishment and business, on terms that were as 
 liberal and favorable as they could be made by his 
 generous colleague and friend, Mr. Warren. Writing 
 on the subject, October 19, 1860, to another good 
 friend, William P. Letchworth (since known as the 
 President, for many years, of the New York State 
 Board of Charities), while the latter was at his beau- 
 tiful country place, ‘Glen Iris,’ near Portage, at the 
 middle falls of the Genesee River, he said: 
 
 It is not to be wondered, that we, poor dingy souls, 
 here, should think of you, yonder, in your glorious 
 seclusion—in your Happy Valley, where the earth runs 
 to flowers and the air to rainbows; but that you, in 
 ‘Glen Iris,’ should patiently and lovingly think of me 
 and my affairs, is a marvel only to be explained by the 
 fact that you are— William P. Letchworth. Since you 
 have done so, I will even make so bold as to pursue 
 the theme. Well, then, I may consider myself as 
 identified, for some time to come, with the Courier 
 establishment,—stereotyped as a Buffalo editor, in fact. 
 I had a good deal of time to deliberate before I made 
 my choice—a good many talks with my friend Warren. 
 . . . I feel that this opening is much better than I had 
 any right to expect, and is one, moreover, by which I 
 may expect to struggle through to a legitimate inde- 
 pendence and a modest position, quicker than most 
 young men are privileged to do. Therefore I am 
 thankful... . 
 
 Alas, for my ‘ castles in Spain,’-—untenanted, deso- 
 late, emptied of light and beauty,—I fear me they will 
 be Spanish dust before I, their prince and proprietor, 
 may come to occupy! I am painfully conscious that 
 one bubble has burst which never can be re-blown: 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. (ie 
 
 We are stronger and are better 
 Under manhood’s sterner reign ; 
 
 Yet we feel that something sweet 
 
 Followed youth, with flying feet, 
 And it never comes again ! 
 
 Forgive this sophomorical gust of sentiment. Yet,, 
 when the poor corpse of that European project gets. 
 stretched out before me, I think her worthy of an 
 epitaph. 
 
 When shall I get out to Portage? That is a ques- 
 tion I often ask D. G. Not now, not now Cf you 
 comprehend the emphasis ), seems the inevitable answer. 
 I think of Thanksgiving, and two or three more of the 
 antique ‘ Nameless’ with me, in ‘Glen Iris,’ what time 
 the trees are skeletons and the torrents awful in their 
 giant nakedness. If that were to coincide exactly with 
 your plans, perhaps it might be carried out; but it is. 
 only a perhaps. As for me, I have laid myself on the 
 altar!! I’ve got to work and attend to that first. 
 Pardon this (as Stillson would say) Aideously big 
 sheet of paper. It’s the only piece I could lay my 
 hands on when I came home to the wigwam after mid-. 
 night, this blessed date. I have read half a novel and 
 written this, since then, and it must.now be three A. M..,. 
 at least. 
 
 So the yoke of a hard calling was bound finally to. 
 his neck. He bore it with little relief and little inci-. 
 dent during the troubled first year of the civil war. 
 His feelings, that year, were deeply stirred, and none 
 born under the flag were bound to the cause of the 
 Union by a truer patriotism than his. As the war 
 went on, he found much in the conduct of it that made. 
 him impatient and critical; much of what he thought. 
 to be a criminal carefulness of slavery, and much of 
 political intrigue and gross self-seeking ; so that he was. 
 alienated even farther than before from the party in. 
 
78 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 power. But his allegiance to the great cause at stake 
 —the cause of the American Union and of the prin- 
 ciples of self-government and freedom bound up in it 
 —raised his mind above considerations of party. 
 
 His first considerable respite from the grinding 
 labors of the daily press came in February, 1862, when 
 he made a trip to Cuba, which was one of the delight- 
 ful passages of his life. His companion in the excur- 
 sion was Mr. Henry A. Richmond, whose acquaintance 
 he had recently made, and who was counted from that 
 time, for life, among the, nearest of all his friends. 
 A few passages from the letters which he wrote to the 
 Courier while on this brief ‘outing’ deserve to be 
 quoted : 
 
 In THE Bay oF Havana, Feb. 25, 1862. 
 
 . . . On the afternoon of the twentieth, this good 
 ship (all voyaging letter-writers’ ships are ‘ good’) 
 steamed down the bay, past gloomy Fort Lafayette, 
 and into the open Atlantic. It is a grand sensation 
 for one whose stomach, like your correspondent’s, defies 
 the sea-fiend,—this being rushed, by steam, away into 
 the embrace of old Ocean. A fresh, bracing breeze, 
 and a sea which had the long-remembered rapture in 
 its motion, waited outside Sandy Hook to welcome us. 
 Who that has been for years away from the salt sea 
 air, which was native to him, once, could choose but 
 give, with all his soul, the cordial greeting back? .. . 
 All the inevitable cases of sea-sickness were observable : 
 The malignant type, as illustrated in those who capitu- 
 lated immediately after the first dinner, and were not 
 afterwards seen, but abode down-stairs, like spirits in 
 purgatory, dolefully bewailing their state, till, perhaps, 
 the last day of the voyage, when they were laid like 
 wet rags on the deck, limp and bleached,—their cheeks 
 
 cerca cet a ii ti ei i 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. T9 
 
 the color of the pickled oysters they abhorred. Type 
 No. 2, as shown in those who struggled valiantly with 
 the demon, alternately victors and vanquished. They 
 had a way of quitting the table abruptly, without being 
 excused ; and, indeed, for the most part, they were fed 
 atmospherically, the odor of dinner escaping from the 
 cook’s caboose having a very satisfying effect on their 
 stomachs. A still milder variety of the malady haunted 
 a portion of the passengers. Like my friend, X. Y. Z., 
 they were given to fits of abstraction, but were ready 
 at all times to prove that they were not by any means 
 sea-sick. . .. 
 
 We had one or two celebrities on board. Mr. Rarey, 
 whose exhibitions [in the taming of horses] at Buffalo 
 are well remembered, was the first face I identified on 
 deck. His nephew, Mr. Fairrington, the successful 
 professor of Mr. R.’s science, was also with us... . 
 
 So, we wended our way, the perfect circle of the 
 sea-horizon moving with us as we went, under skies of 
 the softest azure by day, and of deep, starry violet by 
 night. The blight of secession has fallen, also, upon 
 the sea; for there were no passers-by on that once busy 
 highway of ocean. We were out of sight of land, but 
 still near enough to fancy, in the lulls of wind and sea, 
 that we heard the thunder of battle along the coast, so 
 strangely and suddenly become that of an enemy’s 
 country. On Sunday afternoon, we seemed to pass 
 through a grand archway of cloud into the realm of 
 perpetual summer. That night, standing on deck, with 
 the luxurious wind sweeping upon us from the land, 
 and the long wake of the vessel stretching behind us, 
 a trail of phosphorescent silver, I could distinctly per- 
 ceive odors of the tropical vegetation which gave the 
 name of Florida to the coast. The breath of strange 
 fruits and flowers, lifted from some land of gardens in 
 the west, filled all the air and made it rife with dreams 
 and fantasy. Next day—yesterday—at daylight, we 
 came alongside the shore, and, till night, when the reefs 
 
80 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 of Cape Florida sank into the sea, we kept close com- 
 pany with the long, singular shore of Florida. It 
 seemed to be a low, wild, barren ridge of sand, in which 
 only the stunted mangrove has a precarious footing. 
 But twice in the whole length of the peninsula was 
 there a sign of human habitation visible,—nothing but 
 the desolate monotony of the ridges, and the mangrove 
 foliage. A glass revealed, in the distance, beyond, 
 flocks of wild fowl darkening the air, far over the 
 eternal solitudes of the everglades. 
 
 Early this morning, we were steering away from the 
 continent—across the Gulf Stream, which sweeps out- 
 ward, with the warmth and balm of the tropics in its 
 current,—and away toward the islands of the Gulf,— 
 the Hesperides of the older world. Blue and bluer 
 grew the water, till the ship’s wheels seemed ploughing 
 a channel through deeps of darkest indigo. A soft 
 and silent dream of rain, in which the morning had 
 been wrapped, melted into softer sunshine, and, at last, 
 suddenly, above the sea-line of the south, a visionary 
 range of high, precipitous mountains formed itself out 
 of the hazy distance, and a shout from a group of 
 eager, homesick Creoles drew our eyes to their first 
 sight of Cuba, the Beautiful. 
 
 HAVANA, March 6, 1862. 
 
 . . . It was a veritable sensation, to- move slowly up 
 the magnificent Bay of Havana, in which the flags of 
 a dozen nations languidly floated above a forest of 
 shipping. A despicable little secession schooner entered 
 before us, just in time to escape our guns. She had 
 run the blockade, with a few bales of cotton, and slunk 
 up the bay with her rag drooping astern like the tail 
 of a scolded cur. Then, the landing, the custom-house, 
 and the first glimpse of an Havana street. What a 
 population, to be sure! Spaniards, Creoles or Cubans, 
 Chinamen or Coolies, and the all-pervading negro, 
 jostle each other in every street of the city. One of 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 81 
 
 the latter, riding postillion-fashion in front of a volante, 
 ‘snakes’ us from the wharf, and, before we are done 
 wondering at the funny vehicle in which we dangle, 
 with its motive power half a block ahead of us, 
 Havana stores and houses are passing in rapid pano- 
 rama, and, in a few minutes, our stock of interjections 
 is exhausted. Through streets fifteen or twenty feet 
 wide, with sidewalks which amount to a prohibition of 
 erinoline,—under one of the antique gateways of the 
 eity wall, at which a guard of soldiers stands sentinel, 
 —and we are at the hotel. 
 
 Havana is built of white stone and whiter HUE 1s 
 one story high, has tiled roofs, no steeples, three or 
 four plazas or squares, any quantity of paseos or drives, 
 very beautiful, and 180,000 inhabitants. Besides these, 
 first to be mentioned, are its forts. The Spanish gov- 
 ernment, in its proclamations, addresses Cuba as ‘ siem- 
 pre fiel, the ever-faithful ; but Cuba is watched, never- 
 theless, with the carefulness of a cat keeping vigil over 
 a lame mouse. An army of Spaniards on the island 
 and a navy on its shores eat up one-third of the twenty 
 to thirty millions of Cuban revenue. These soldiers 
 must be employed, and they build forts... . 
 
 Cuba has churches, about in the proportion of one 
 to every thirty or forty thousand inhabitants, and the 
 supply is vastly in excess of the demand. One of the 
 first I saw, a little, quaint old chapel, against the city 
 wall, had an inscription on its front, telling that on 
 this spot, three centuries and a half ago, mass was 
 celebrated for the first time in the new-found hemi- 
 sphere. That would be a scene for the historical 
 painter. Rembrandt might have wrought that effect 
 of chiar-oscuro, where the single primal ray from the 
 star that rose in the far east fell and glistened, amid 
 the darkness of the west, on the palm-bordered shore 
 of Cuba. 
 
 . But there is even more to strike the foreigner 
 with a sense of strangeness in the dwellings of the 
 6 
 
82 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Cubans. What would a Buffalo lady think of having 
 
 the front door of her house open plump into the stable ; 
 
 or, worse, to have one side of her parlor occupied by 
 the family carriage? The former circumstance is iney- 
 itable, the latter occasional, in Havana; and it is the 
 boast of some senoritas that their feet never touch the 
 soil. They ride out, or do not go out at all. 
 
 MaTANZAS, March 10, 1862. 
 
 ... The first week of our stay in Cuba, we saw 
 only the city life of the islanders. Nature looked in 
 upon us from far-away hills, dotted with the strange 
 foliage of palms. The plaza was brilliant with the 
 bloom of tropical flowers, gorgeous and large. The 
 fruit-stands, with a score of fruits whose very names 
 and existence had been unknown to us before; the 
 orangemen, with diminutive horses and exaggerated 
 panniers, trudging in, dust-begrimed, from the country, 
 with magnificent oranges for sale at half-a-cent apiece ; 
 Regla, a suburb of the city, with its forty or fifty acres 
 of sugar warehouses,—these and a thousand other 
 intimations we had of the wealth and wonders we had 
 not yet seen. A week ago, we came to this place— 
 Matanzas—a city of forty-five thousand inhabitants, 
 on the sea-coast, fifty or sixty miles east from Havana. 
 Every mile of the road hither, tropical Nature met us 
 with new surprises. There were winding streams whose 
 courses we marked, far up and down the rich valleys, 
 by the tortuous rows of regal palms which stood with 
 their white feet washed in the limpid wave. There 
 were fields of plantain, or banana, waving in the sun- 
 light like young forests. Orange trees, golden with 
 their fruit, grew by the houses and way-side as apples 
 in New England. Groves of bamboo; avenues of 
 palm, stretching away in mathematical straightness, to 
 unseen plantations ; waving oceans of sugar-cane, whose 
 shores were hills of timber unknown to the axe of the 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 83 
 
 northern woodman,—all these the locomotive, guided 
 by American engineers, whirled past, till we arrived at 
 Matanzas, built between the two rivers, Yumari and 
 San Juan. 
 
 The valley of the former river is celebrated as, per- 
 haps, the loveliest spot of Cuba. We saw it, first, 
 from the heights of a range of hills overlooking, at 
 once, the valley and the ocean. The morning sun was 
 breaking through clouds, transmuting the mists of the 
 valley to gold, and the dusk of the ocean to brightest 
 blue. Perfectly circumvallated by mountains, the radi- 
 ant region lay far beneath us, like another Eden, into 
 whose lap was gathered the opulence of a continent. 
 If some pencil, such as sketched the Heart of the An- 
 des, should sometime immortalize itself by a picture, 
 here, those who see the copy of nature will agree with 
 us that it were idle to attempt to paint in words the 
 beauty of the valley of the Yumari. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 BUFFALO, April 7, 1862. 
 You will see by this superscription that I am again 
 in ‘ken’d ground,’ and I may add that fifteen additional 
 pounds of bone and muscle accompanied me home ;— 
 that, in short, I am very well indeed. . . . I got 
 here yesterday P. M., after having had forty-seven days 
 of the tallest kind of a time. It seems frightful to 
 have to sit down to the desk again. Never did I ride 
 the winged horse to such an extent before. I have 
 come back, not only heavier in flesh, but with my men- 
 tal stock in trade largely increased. It certainly paid 
 me, richly; but, as I said before, it is awful to go to 
 
 work again. 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 BUFFALO, April 25, 1862. 
 . . . It has been very hard work to knuckle down 
 to the desk again, after such a jubilant stampede and a 
 
84 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 rampage of jollity as I have been on; and, what with 
 trying to attend to my business and nourish a stupen- 
 dous article of the blues at the same time, I have not 
 felt much like letter-writing, I assure you. Blues, did 
 I say? Why, John, really, as you’re a man of honor, 
 did you ever see such splendid weather for the blues as 
 we have had? The idea of suicide actually seemed to 
 gather about it a halo of comparative cheerfulness, on 
 some of these days. Oh, Cuba!—bright skies, palmy 
 valleys, balmy airs, dark-eyed, bewitching senoritas, 
 rides on the paseos, flirtations by moonlight,—how I 
 have yearned after you, as one might yearn after the 
 fragments of a golden dream, when he has risen, with 
 the thermometer below zero, and the water frozen in 
 his pitcher to a boulder! 
 
 The gloomy summer of 1862, after the calamitous 
 Seven Days of the Army of the Potomac and its re- 
 treat from the Peninsula, brought to Gray, as to many 
 others, the feeling that he must not be any more a 
 looker-on at the grim battle in the South. He resolved, 
 seriously, to join the army, and began to make his prep- 
 arations, accordingly ; but was persuaded to abandon 
 the patriotic intent by entreaties of his mother, whom 
 he loved with an exceeding tenderness. Writing after- 
 wards to a friend, he gave this account of his under- 
 taking and its frustration : 
 
 I have been for some time past the most unsettled 
 wretch in all Christendom, as a brief chronicle of my 
 recent career will explain. A few days after 1 wrote 
 you, I actually went and obtained a permit to raise a 
 company, and, with good backers, started as captain. 
 I was comparatively happy, until, after I had begun to 
 get things going swimmingly, down came a letter from 
 my father and mother, so full of agony and despair 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 85 
 
 that I was struck ‘of a heap.’ I went up home to try 
 and reason with them; but they were inexorable. It 
 seemed that I should have to step over my mother’s 
 grave, in the first place. So I just had to back out 
 disgracefully. If you had known how I felt, then, you 
 would have expected me at Groveport by next train. 
 I thought I could not stay another hour in Buffalo. 
 But some of my conservative friends got hold of me, 
 and I did, and am here, yet, still scribbling editorials 
 and, again, the slave of my ‘ prospects.’ 
 
 This was told in a letter, written Sept. 21, 1862, to 
 Mr. Charles° W. Fairrington, whom he met, first, on 
 the voyage to Havana, and with whom, at that time, he 
 entered into relations of warm friendship and intimate 
 correspondence, which continued until his death. 
 
 At the period in Gray’s life which has now been 
 reached, he was drawn deep into that feverish way of 
 living which is called, ‘being in society.’ From the 
 moment he entered those whirling circles in which 
 acquaintanceship becomes a vocation and gaiety an art, 
 he charmed them and was temporarily charmed by 
 them. He could so harmonize himself with all places, 
 all people, all situations—so put himself on terms 
 with everybody— that he helped in a rare way to 
 produce the pleasant feeling of social harmony, wher- 
 ever he went. His temperament was one of the most 
 delightfully sympathetic that ever sweetened human 
 intercourse, and his manner was the naive expression 
 of a gracious feeling. His courtesy was in his nature, 
 —his politeness was one of the gifts with which he 
 was born. When he talked with people, all the 
 faculties of his genius rallied to make the talk 
 
86 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 pleasant to them. He never gave the cold-shoulders— 
 of conversation to anybody. He met all people as 
 though he and they, for the time being, were the only 
 inhabitants of the world, and had nothing to interest 
 them but their present speech with one another. 
 This hospitality of intellectual disposition will make 
 even a dull man agreeable. Given to one who had 
 humor and imagination, a fine mind and a full one, for 
 the service of it, he was made supremely charming as a 
 companion for women or men, for young or old, for the 
 thoughtful or the gay. It used to be often said among 
 his friends, that no one else could say pretty things so 
 prettily, nor witty things so wittily, as David Gray. 
 But that did not half describe the exquisite quality of 
 his conversation. There was no such glitter of bril- 
 liancy about it as this characterizing might seem to 
 intimate. It was too quiet for that. It shone lumin- 
 ously, rather than brilliantly, wath a peculiar glow of 
 warm color in it, one would choose to say, if any 
 metaphor can be used. 
 
 It was to be expected, therefore, that ‘ society ’—in 
 the limited and misappropriated sense of the word— 
 would be delighted with Gray when it made his 
 acquaintance, and would catch him with a thousand 
 hands, to drag him into its unceasing festivities. It 
 did so, not only in his own city, but wherever it encoun- 
 tered him. And he, for some years, was a yielding 
 though unwilling victim to its seductive blandishments, 
 There was one side of his nature which enjoyed the 
 living for gregarious entertainment immensely. There 
 was another and better side which revolted; but the 
 revolt had no success for several years, during which he 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 87 
 
 was bitterly in conflict with himself. His more confi- 
 dential letters, through that period, reveal a profound 
 unhappiness of mind, while, on the surface, he was ap- 
 pearing to be intoxicated with the laborious pleasures 
 of the world. He felt that he had been false to his 
 ideals, unfaithful to his most cherished beliefs. He 
 knew that he was living a more than half-wasted life, 
 unworthy of his powers and forgetful of his responsi- 
 bilities. He was stricken, moreover, with a sense of 
 his moral deterioration. ‘The grave principles and the 
 simple habits in which he had been reared were both 
 being sadly relaxed. Before the stop came, in fact, 
 he had slipped down the flowery decline quite too far 
 for one of his character, and the horror of that smooth 
 sinking was continually in his consciousness. This 
 suffices to explain the bitterness of the tone of some of 
 the letters which follow: 3 
 
 TO CHARLES W. FAIRRINGTON. 
 
 BUFFALO, September 21, 1862. 
 
 ... Write me again of your South American yearn- 
 ings. Is it only a day-dream, or is it a proposition? 
 Certain it is, 1 must and shall travel; but I am twenty- 
 six years old, now, and I feel that I stand at the turn- 
 ing-point of my life. I have to choose, whether I shall 
 turn a rover, ending up a sort of misanthropic, solitary 
 old bachelor, if I live so long, or whether I shall abso- 
 lutely refuse to roll,—gather moss, make a nest of 
 it, and become a domestic animal... . 
 
 You speak of my having a good influence over you, 
 my boy. It cannot be so, I doubt. Never did I, my- 
 self, so feel the need of good influences. I am running 
 down, morally and intellectually, I think. I have been 
 humiliated to despair, to think how utterly the crea- 
 
88 - BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 ture of circumstances Jam. ... I wake up at times, 
 only to see how far down I am, and then to go asleep 
 again and slide. In a multitude of counselors there 
 is safety; but, among hosts of acquaintances, here, I 
 find myself, now, almost without friends. My artist 
 boy has gone to this wild war,* the sword I gave him 
 slung at his side, and the love Ae had for him, I find, was 
 ereater than I knew. Stillson,} also, has plunged in, 
 and so with many of my friends. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 ~ 
 
 BuFFALO, November —, 1862. 
 
 My Dear and Ever-beloved Old Friend David : 
 It is with sensations altogether indescribable that I 
 now turn my face to speak to you, after a silence of — 
 God knows how long! I should be doing myself injus- 
 tice if I came before you with apologies. I have none 
 to make. If ever a man has been in the hands of a 
 fate, hurrying him on, and controlling his action, so 
 that he is left utterly irresponsible for non-compliance 
 with the forms and conventionalities of life, that man 
 is myself. Why have I not written to you? I scarcely 
 know. If you were with me, now, and had an oppor- 
 tunity to know me as I am, now, you would not ask. 
 Perhaps you will be satisfied on this point before you 
 read this letter. 
 
 When your letter, with the old familiar superserip- 
 tion, came into my hands, to-day, I dared not open it. 
 It lay before me for an hour ; while I busied my hands 
 with fifty other duties, my head and heart thought of 
 it, alone; and yet I dared not open it. The reason 
 was, that I feared this, to me, terrible calamity: that 
 you had lost faith in me, and my old friendship. I 
 
 * Charles Caryl Coleman. 
 
 + Jerome B. Stillson, one of Gray’s early companions in Buffalo, of 
 ‘The Nameless”; at this period just entering the field as a war cor- 
 respondent of the New York World. 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 89 
 
 don’t know, now, whether you have or not, and the 
 thought tortures me, as it has often before. ... My 
 God! what a strange life I have led since I saw you 
 last! How utterly the elements of my being have 
 changed! I am almost driven mad when I contem- 
 plate myself,—the identity almost obliterated. Yet I 
 know that my feeling for you has not changed, and 
 never has changed, for an hour. I have thought of 
 you every day; but it has seemed as if you belonged to 
 some pre-existence, with which communication was 
 impossible... . 
 
 I have no ambition, now, as I once had. The fiend 
 comes back and haunts me, occasionally, but it is easily 
 quieted. All I want, now, is quiet—rest—removal 
 from the hurry and turmoil in which I live. Yet, duty 
 seems to keep me here, and I live on, gloomy and 
 resigned. This last summer I had a plan laid to come 
 out again and see you. I meant just to make my way 
 straight for your hill, and live there, within the circle 
 of woods, where I could sit and see the West, and the 
 day die over the river, as in the days of old. I failed; 
 but, if I live, another summer will not pass with this 
 desire ungratified. 
 
 Poetry, with me, is dead and buried, beyond the 
 reach of resurrection. I have not composed a line for 
 nearly a year. I rejoice that the same damnable fact 
 is not true of you. Zhe Gift, which I publish to-mor- 
 row morning, and of which I send you some copies, is 
 a proof of that. Davie, you are a poet. ... Why, 
 there is more of the genuine, deep, passionate spirit of 
 poesy in these lines, than you will find in volumes that 
 pass current for poetry, now. ... If J had the inspi- © 
 ration that God has given you, I should be the greatest 
 poet in America—so ) recognized, in less than two years. 
 I used to think that I was to be the chosen instrument, 
 the medium by which you would be brought into con- 
 tact with the public; but I give that up, now. I have 
 been watching, with a sort of passive curiosity, to see 
 
90 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 whether the poet in you would actually live, and sing, 
 and die, utterly unheard. Perhaps it will be so; and, 
 if so, then ’tis best so. What is the use of making a 
 tempest in this teapot of a world,—of striving to min- 
 gle the irreconcilable element of human effort with the 
 sublime, eternal elements of fate, or providence, or 
 whatever you choose to call it? Submission is wisdom. 
 Whither the mighty current tends, I cannot guess; 
 but I do know that to stem it is madness, to cross it is 
 misery. (God help us! 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 BUFFALO, January 27, 1863. 
 
 Five minutes since, I received at the post-office a let- 
 ter draped in the second-mourning drab of the dead- 
 letter office, and, opening the envelope with curious 
 expectation, I discovered your letter of November 25, 
 1862. It and its contents had passed under the seru- 
 tiny of the Eye at Washington—wherefore, I know 
 not. Have you rebellious tendencies, or have 1? At™ 
 any rate, your letter has just arrived, and I read it 
 with a strange choking in the gullet. Oh, Davie! out 
 of my inward misery I look back to you, through the 
 golden picture you hold up to my eyes, and you stand, 
 far, far away, associated with all that is dearest in my 
 life,—chief in the realm of memory,—one with the 
 blessed sinless past that can return nomore! Oh, if I 
 could only weep out at my eyes the fever that is in my 
 heart,—the restless, throbbing disquietude,—the sink- 
 ing, dull pain of regret and remorse that consume me! 
 But I am here, foreed to run in the preordained 
 grooves, and my only refuge from mental torture is in 
 the culture of a damned, sneering, icy indifference. 
 Why should a man be thus unhappy; what have I 
 done? I have but drifted onward, in obedience to a 
 tide that seemed resistless. I did not bring myself 
 here; I did not want to come here; I did not make 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. LE 
 
 myself the wretch, sinful and demoralized, that I am. 
 Madman or slave, ane man be one?.. 
 
 Let me look, with you, Davie, back to the past of 
 which you are still a part. Could we not build it up, 
 again,—that temple in ruins, in which we made merry,, . 
 in the golden light of poesy and youth! If I came 
 back, could we not rebuild it ?—or would I bring my 
 eursed Buffalo heart back with me, only to find that 
 the vision could never be recalled, and to be more 
 wretched in consequence ? 
 
 I propose you a problem, at which you and I shall 
 work, as if it had come up for the first time, and did 
 not look at us with the gray-browed, ancient, blearing” 
 eyes of the Sphinx—oldest of things. Let us seek 
 ‘how to be happy—how to make the best and most of 
 life.” Let us be earnest, candid, free of prejudices 
 and educational bias,—as if we entered earth, now, and 
 confronted the main question but newly. It may be 
 we shall touch the ‘ Fortunate Isles’ and see God, whom. 
 we knew in childhood. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 BuFFaLo, February 27, 1863. 
 
 Iam inaugurating an attempt to square myself off 
 with one or two of my few correspondents, and, though. 
 it is pretty late to begin (2% a. M.), I hope to get out 
 a little budget, in the first place, for Detroit. ... Buf- 
 falo has had the gayest winter known for a dozen 
 years, and I have been in the thickest of it... . If 
 you have read the recent Cowrier, you would see that L 
 have been in verse, again, a little.* I am also engaged 
 to deliver another paper or poem before the Buffalo: 
 Historical Society, two weeks from to-day. You will 
 
 * Poem read at the celebration of Washington’s Birthday by the: 
 Buffalo Central School. 
 + ‘The Last of the Kah-Kwahs.’ 
 
‘92 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 see that, when it comes. I have also several invites to 
 lecture, which I can’t accept, as I have n’t any lecture. 
 I am steadying down to work, again, and hauling off 
 as much as possible from the gaieties. I hope to do 
 some good business this coming season. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 May 7, 1863. 
 
 . . . How happy a man must be whose work is done 
 at six o'clock. Here I am, at two A. M.—and it’s a 
 regular thing. Still, | manage to weave in so much 
 recreation as is needed for the comfort of the outer 
 man, and so keep my health. 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER. 
 BUFFALO, August 24, 1863. 
 
 . . . I think of you all, and of your quiet lives, and, 
 like the May Queen, am ‘often, often with you when 
 you think I’m far away.’ 
 
 John’s visit, by the bye, was a very pleasant episode; 
 but it was sadly marred by my lack, at the time, of all 
 leisure. . . . He would tell you, doubtless, of how I 
 got through the draft, nicely, and was entirely pacific 
 in my intentions, even had I been drafted. I feel, 
 now, that I have something to work for, and really get 
 up quite an appearance of ambition to myself. Every- 
 thing in a business way is going very well. It is quite 
 wonderful, indeed, that a citizen should be so well off, 
 when his country is engaged in a desperate effort to 
 cut its own throat... . 
 
 How is the work on the farm? Are harvesting and 
 haying well advanced? Does Walter want an extra 
 hand? I wonder how I could rake and bind, now, on 
 a pinch! But poorly, I suspect. Still, it must be the 
 muscle and vitality I acquired in the days of my cap- 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 93. 
 
 tivity which subsist me now. Consequently, I do not. 
 regret that part of the past. 
 
 John would, of course, tell you lots of things about 
 my way of living, here. He may have given you rather: 
 a doleful account of my late hours, hard work, etce.; 
 for I noticed he was not prepossessed in favor of the 
 newspaper business. You must remember, should this. 
 have been the case, that that time was an exceptional 
 one ; moreover that the n. b. aforesaid is the only busi- 
 ness I am fitted for; that I like it and could like no. 
 other, and that I am being tolerably successful in it. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 BuFFALO, November 10, 1863. 
 
 . . . My matters are flourishing as well as I can 
 expect. . . . I feel sure, if the country holds together. 
 and does not bleed and batter itself to death, that I 
 shall work through, all right. Of the country, however, 
 Iam by no means sure. It looks to me, now, as if we 
 were entered upon a real revolution, which may last 
 the life-time of any of us and result, algebraically 
 speaking, in X. Such things have been in the world’s. 
 history, before, and why not again? Manis not a whit 
 a wiser or better animal than he was when Greece and 
 Rome, successively, crumbled away in blood. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 BuFFaLo, February —, 1864. 
 
 . . . L have come strangely out of my blues of late,. 
 Davie, and am driving ahead, whither I know not, in a 
 queer sort of energetic way, with teeth clenched, as it. 
 were, and eyes fixed on vacancy. I am growing, and I 
 know it. Worse, perhaps,—stronger, I know. Men 
 have not power to cast me down, orup.... Out of 
 the ashes of what you and I once knew in common,— 
 
‘94 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 up from the desolate hearth where we fed together 
 that strange fire of truest love for poesy,—has sprung 
 up, for me, a something which is going to make my 
 life. ... The fact is, that old life has become only a 
 memory; for long, it was much—very much—more. I 
 doubt whether the time has not passed, forever, in 
 which I can be thrown back into the phases of feeling 
 which were once to me the best. JI am sentimental— 
 if that is the word—no longer. I think fancy remains; 
 she has a stronger wing than ever, if I am not much 
 mistaken. A sort of business-like, practical imagina- 
 tion remains, also, if you will allow the contradiction of 
 terms. But, long since, the longings, the yearnings, 
 the exaltations which filled me when I knew poetry 
 first, have died of sheer starvation and hard usage. I 
 look back, now, with strange interest, Davie, on our 
 common stock of experience; but the interest is prac- 
 tical, withal. That was what made me what I am and 
 am to be. Can you not see how what I have attempted 
 to describe for you is going to come out of that age of 
 the happy ideal, and the other age of the miserable 
 real, which succeeded it? And you will walk through 
 the valley, and emerge from it, too,—oh, friend of my 
 heart! Davie, I must and shall try to see you, the 
 coming summer. It would be worth gold to us, both, 
 to compare notes and try a sounding again, together, 
 in the new seas we have got into. It must be done. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 BuFFALO, March 10, 1864. 
 
 . I send you the copy of verses you ask. It was 
 published in a little Central Fair pamphlet, from 
 which I cut it. Here is also another copy of the 
 ‘Golden Wedding piece, and of the Ministry of Art, 
 which some of you may like to have. These things 
 won me lots of good words and, what is worth more, 
 served to relight all my old fires of ambition, in that 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 95 
 
 line. It is probable that I shall follow up the verse 
 writing. 
 TO CHARLES W. FAIRRINGTON. 
 BuFFALO, March 10, 1864. 
 
 . . . | have been scribbling a good deal lately,— 
 always, however, because I am cornered into it. I 
 have no time to work my own fancies into verse. The 
 best I can do is to write under pressure of a necessity, 
 begotten by some occasion. I send you two or three 
 ef my latest. Remember, each one of them was the 
 work of the night and day preceding the hour of their 
 recitation. Pardon this burst of egotism. It is only 
 the foretaste of what you will have to stand if I get 
 along-side of you. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 BUFFALO, March 29, 1864. 
 
 Yours of the 25th was, of course, as you may imag- 
 ine, read by me with more than ordinary interest. I 
 think I may safely congratulate, as I most heartily 
 God bless you! ... I hope, by the time I come 
 round to see you next summer, I shall stay at the 
 Hotel de Gray at Detroit. It will be jolly. I would 
 not be precipitate about that, however; for you are 
 both young, or else I am deuced old. I can afford to 
 wait till there is a clear sky, wherein may soar, serene 
 and cloudless, the Moon of Honey. Give A my 
 best love. Aside from the folks yonder, over the river, 
 who else should have it ? 
 
 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER. 
 BUFFALO, Apri 17, 1865. 
 
 . . . There is a possibility that I may be in Europe, 
 before long. Within a few days, I have had a prop- 
 osition made to me by Mr. Fargo* to take his son, 
 
 * The late William G. Fargo, President of the Ainerican Express Co. 
 
96 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 a lad of nineteen, to Europe, and there travel and 
 reside for one, two, or three years, at my discretion. 
 My business would be, simply, to direct the boy’s 
 studies, and see that he did not get into mischief. 
 Mr. F. pays all expenses, handsomely, including tutors. 
 for myself, as well as his son, if I want them, and a 
 salary, besides... . Mr. Warren offers to take care 
 of my interest, here, and, if everything goes on as at 
 present, have it all paid for, by the time I come back. 
 The chance, you will agree, is a splendid one. It 
 would realize what has been my dream for years past, 
 and would give me a fair opportunity to test whether 
 I have got anything in me worth cultivating, in a lit- 
 erary way. I should write and read and study, as 
 well as travel, and could choose a residence just in the 
 places, of all the world, best adapted for these purposes. 
 I have not, by any means, made up my mind that 1 am 
 going, yet, and there are many things which may inter- 
 fere to prevent; still, I think it probable that the 
 thing, wildly unreal as it seems, will become an 
 actuality. I want you to write me and tell me what 
 you think. Of course, I shall see you before I go, 
 which, at the earliest, will be six weeks from now. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 BuFFALO, May &, 1865. 
 
 Your good letter came to-day. I blame myself for 
 not having written you before, but my mind has really 
 been much distracted. As you will see by my note to 
 Isabella, the European idea is nearly wn fait accompli. 
 I wish you were going, too; but it may be some consola- 
 tion to you, when I say, that I would rather stay here 
 and be married, if everything were right for that, than, 
 even, go to Europe. But my usual luck pursues me in 
 that regard, and I am, apparently, as far from forming 
 any matrimonial attachment as I ever was. Conse- 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 97 
 
 quently, the next best thing for me is to travel, and fit 
 myself for some kind of useful single life. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 DETROIT, May 25, 1865. 
 
 Dear and Unforgotien Friend: I felt the dew in 
 my eyes as I re-read your letter, yesterday, coming 
 here on the cars; with my face towards you and my 
 heart in a very tempest of sad and painful emotion. 
 For what you say in reproach, or worse, I blame my- 
 self, not you, David; but, with a confidence born of 
 our ancient love, I call upon you, as you read this, 
 to forget the darksome latter years that have risen 
 between us, and think of me, again, as you were wont 
 of old. . . . Know thou, oh, brother of my heart and 
 soul, that my love for you can never change. Time 
 may intervene, space may intervene, and so, for years, 
 I become hidden from you; but you are, to me, now 
 and ever, what you were once. There are but two 
 others on the wide earth to whom, beside yourself, 
 { am kindred. Life has been all a dark, troubled 
 dream to me, except as it stands associated with you 
 and these. It passes before me, now, all unreal and 
 phantasmal, except as to the sorrow and the torture 
 of it; and there is left to me, of light and reality, only 
 what I owe to you and two others... . 
 
 I have several unfinished letters to you in my desk. 
 They were each smitten with the palsy, in the act of 
 talking with you. Two years ago, this month, I like- 
 wise got out as far as Chicago, on my way to see you. 
 I was recalled and prevented. I shall not see you for 
 years to come, now. On the seventh of next month I 
 sail for Europe, to be gone, probably, three years. 
 Every line of Childe Harold that we used to read and 
 rant together is burning truth to me now. I leave 
 Buffalo under bright external’ auspices, but with a 
 heart of gall. 
 
 ‘ 
 
98 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall ! 
 Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. 
 Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, 
 Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. 
 
 Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail or fire or snow ; 
 For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go, 
 
 Oh, David! we knew it not then, but those were the 
 haleyon and enchanted days and nights! They can 
 never return to us any more. I need not tell you that 
 my life, for six years past, has been very unhappy. 
 Were it not for the dread of something after death,— 
 a consciousness that the capacity to be tortured out- 
 lasts the grave,—I would gladly, gladly, be under the 
 erass, with the one word, ‘ Infelix,’ pointing to my 
 place of rest. You, too, have been unhappy. Is it 
 not strange? What does it mean? Is Love or Hate 
 the god of this wretched earth? ... My faith and 
 opinions are all at sea. My conscience is more sensi- 
 tive than a whipped back, pickled, and gives me un- 
 told agonies. This, alone, I have: I can endure, with 
 a face which tells no tales. J have not hope, but some- 
 thing which, perhaps, answers the same purpose,—a 
 sort of intellectual perception that a change must come, 
 before long, and that it cannot be for the worse. . . . 
 
 I was looking, the other day, over some of your old 
 pieces, and the conviction came back to me that the 
 lyrical element exists in your mind as it does in no 
 other mind in America. I think I could sing myself 
 happy if I had your gift. I wish I could stir you up 
 to try it for yourself. I shall try my hand, again, when 
 I get out of this country. I shall, perhaps, be happy 
 then, and when I am happy, if only for a minute, my 
 ears still fill with unutterable music. 
 
 Here is a photograph which I want you to look at, 
 and know that its eyes are the eyes of one who will 
 never cease to see you in memory. The gold of per- 
 petual sunlight and the silver of moons that were mag- 
 ical surround you, in my mind, forever, Davy! 
 
 I have not seen for a long time. He is an 
 
 
 
 
 
APPRENTICESHIP IN JOURNALISM. 99 
 
 honest man and a true friend; but I cannot make my- 
 self agreeable to everybody, as I once could. Men do 
 not interest me, as once, and they discern the fact, and 
 I go on my way alone, or among those who are content 
 with only the plating of friendship. David, it is my 
 opinion there are many more women in the world whom 
 aman might love and marry, than men whom a man 
 can take as the twin and brother of his heart. As I 
 said, I found but you and two others. They know 
 you, and, sometime, we shall all meet and see what the 
 spiritual kindred means. 
 
 I have to break off here. Good-by, Davy, dear 
 friend of my youth. Write, if this reaches you in time 
 _ to allow you to answer me before the seventh. I will 
 write to you from some nook wherefrom I shall -look 
 forth and see the purple of the heather. 
 
CHAPTER V, 
 YEARS OF TRAVEL. 1865-1868. 
 
 WHEN the letters given last, in the preceding chap- 
 ter, were written, Gray saw himself near to a happy 
 turn in his life, which was reached, as he expected it, 
 a few days afterwards. Early in June, 1865, he sailed 
 for Liverpool, with the young gentleman who had been 
 confided to his care. He left behind him the strain 
 and the drudgery of an exhausting profession—the 
 fret of bondage to a mode of life which was disappoint- 
 ing his best desires. He left them, with a prospect 
 before him of years of lingering travel in Europe and 
 the farther East, of leisurely observation, of ripening 
 study,—of a calm, slow absorption of the art, the his- 
 tory, the civilization of the older world. It was a 
 promise so beautifully in keeping with the dreams and 
 hopes of his life that it could not fail to charm away 
 the saddened moods which had grown upon him, and 
 to recall the healthier spirits of his youth. The very 
 winds of the Atlantic, on his outward voyage, appear 
 to have blown the melancholy vapors out of his brain, 
 and he landed on the other shore well prepared for the 
 best enjoyment of his great opportunity. 
 
 Beginning on ship-board, June 15, 1865, and end- 
 ing, likewise, in mid-Atlantic, April 14, 1868, he wrote, 
 during his travels, for publication in the Buffalo 
 
 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 101 
 
 Courier, a series of letters, fifty-eight in number, 
 which will now form the contents of the second volume 
 of this memorial collection of his writings. Not many 
 who look into that volume will leave the letters unread ; 
 probably no one who reads them will ask why they 
 _have been reprinted. They are; most of them, from 
 ground that has been traveled over and written about 
 until the world is tired of it, in books, and yet their 
 charm is wholly fresh. They have a quality which is 
 quite their own,—a pervading, unobtrusive poetry, 
 touched with a humor akin to poetry,—for the delicate 
 vein of which it will not be easy to find any just com- 
 parison in the literature of travel. 
 
 It is not the intention to repeat at all, in this place, 
 the narrative of travel and life that is given in the 
 letters referred to. But something will be drawn from 
 the private letters which Gray: wrote to his friends, 
 while abroad, to trace the movements of his feeling 
 and thinking, and to follow the effect upon him of the 
 powerful new influences under which he was brought. 
 
 TO WILLIAM P. LETCHWORTH. 
 
 rl 
 
 ON BOARD THE BS. S. ‘ CHINA,’ 
 NEAR QUEENSTOWN, June 15, 1865. 
 
 It was a bitter disappointment to me to be obliged 
 to leave Buffalo, without having felt the friendly grasp 
 of your hand in farewell. ... I wanted to talk to 
 you, as to the way in which I might make the very 
 most of this European pilgrimage of mine. I tremble 
 lest I shall not be able to do the best with such a 
 golden opportunity. My general idea is, to absorb as 
 much as possible of literary culture, and to settle, if I 
 ean, before I come back, the question, whether I am to 
 
102 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 be justified in making of literature a life. Believe me, 
 I shrink from the assumption involved in this inten- 
 tion; and yet I will try to do the best I can. If my 
 friends have misjudged the character or degree of my 
 ability, I shall be sorry—very sorry—but it will not 
 have been my fault. . . . I conjure you to keep me in 
 your rememberance, and, also, to guard with added jeal- 
 ousy, for my sake, the gates of the ‘ Happy Valley.’ 
 When I come back, I hope to be worthier of it and 
 you, and we shall talk of beautiful things together, yet, 
 with the waterfall sounding a symphony for us. 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 ON BOARD THE ‘ CHINA,’ 
 In ST. GEORGH’S CHANNEL, June 16, 1865. 
 
 I wrote you, I think, from Boston, and on Monday 
 of last week, the day after I sailed, I sent a note, to 
 John, ashore at Halifax. Since then, we have been 
 steadily pursuing our voyage,—the sea, for the most 
 part, having been as calm as a mill-pond.... Of 
 course, I do not fail to think, every other minute, now- 
 a-days, of the first voyage of us all, across the Atlantic. 
 There is much difference, to be sure, between the 
 steamer China and the ship Constitution. We are 
 lodged comfortably, and fed better than one would be 
 at most first-class hotels. The passengers are mostly 
 of the kid-glove variety, and everything is arranged 
 with reference to the elegant habits of the kid-glove 
 animal. Yet, I question whether there are so many 
 strong, cheery, brave hearts, crossing for pleasure or 
 sentiment, on the China, as there crossed on the Con- 
 stitution, to the tune of ‘Cheer, Boys, Cheer,’—the 
 emigrant’s song... . It seems very strange to be 
 going back, over the track which we traveled sixteen 
 years ago, and I can scarcely convince myself that one 
 or the other of the experiences—that or the present— 
 is not a dream. . 
 
 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 103 
 
 My young companion greatly improves upon ac- 
 quaintanee, and I have far higher hopes now, than 
 before, of doing him and his father a good service. I 
 think I have his confidence and respect, fully. 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 LONDON, July 9, 1865. 
 
 . . . You cannot imagine how jolly it is to be abso- 
 lute master of one’s movements,—to go or stay just 
 wherever taste leads, in this paradise of the student or 
 observer. ... My young friend, F , is turning 
 out a hundred per cent. better than my most sanguine 
 expectation of him foretold. I am really getting fond 
 of him, and earnestly ambitious to be of service to 
 him. ... As for myself, this experience is just what 
 I needed. It has, even now, put more life and energy 
 into my mind than I have felt in five years at Buffalo. 
 I am sure I shall be richly paid for the time I am 
 absent. Hven to have seen London and breathed its 
 atmosphere, seems to have given me a mental leverage 
 that I never could have obtained at home... . Our 
 lodgings are very plain, but pleasant. They are situ- 
 ated within a stone’s throw, almost, of the Thames, 
 near Waterloo Bridge. 
 
 
 
 While at London, David received from his friend, 
 Mr. Letchworth, a gift which, then and always, was 
 very precious to him. This was Edgar A. Poe’s watch, 
 —the watch which the poet had carried for many years 
 before his death, and which, preserved by his mother- 
 in-law, Mrs. Clemm, at Baltimore, had lately come, 
 well authenticated, into Mr. Letchworth’s possession. 
 Regarding David Gray as fitly the heir to such a relic 
 and memento of the most original genius among Amer- 
 
104 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 ican poets, he transmitted the watch to him* The fol- 
 lowing are passages from a letter which David wrote 
 to Mr. L., on meeting Mr. Josiah Letchworth in Lon- 
 don and receiving the watch from his hands: 
 
 Lonpon, July 22, 1865. 
 
 . I know that friendship does not, like justice, 
 flourish a pair of scales, and I accept and have accepted 
 your friendship as one of God’s choice gifts to me. 
 And, now, of this, its latest and crowning manifesta- 
 tion, I need scarcely say that I receive the treasure 
 you commit to me; that it will be sacredly kept and 
 guarded, and that the stipulation you make will be 
 religiously respected. Furthermore, permit me, though 
 it may seem conceited, to say that you have not mis- 
 judged, in choosing a repository for this precious relic. 
 I do not think Edgar Allen Poe has had a more loving 
 and reverent student than, for ten years past, I have 
 been. With the first money I ever earned I bought 
 his works, and, deep in the Wisconsin backwoods, I 
 devoured every word of them, over and over and over, 
 and literally lived under the spell of his weird and 
 magnificent genius. .. . As I look upon this golden 
 souvenir of his brief life, I thrill with a recollection 
 of times when the intensity of my sympathy with his 
 writings had almost seemed to call his spirit to my 
 side, and when I would gladly have spent my years in 
 labor to have taken him by the hand and gazed into 
 his eyes, but fora moment. When I think of these 
 things, and remember, as well, that I have often met 
 him (almost alone of the authors I love) in dreams, 
 and held dim converse with him, thus, I do not won- 
 der much that I am so strangely chosen to keep this 
 
 *Since the death of David Gray, this watch has been given by 
 Mrs. Gray (with Mr. Letchworth’s approval) to the Buffalo Library, 
 and added to the very valuable and interesting collection of literary 
 souvenirs which that institution exhibits. 
 
 
 
\ YEARS OF TRAVEL. =EL0D 
 
 last relic of him. It seems, rather, to be fit and proper 
 that you have done as you have. . . 
 
 The effect already produced upon - me by the change 
 of continents has been gratifying beyond my most 
 sanguine expectations. I am renewing my youth and 
 freshness ; my mind has not been so happy and wide 
 awake, as it is now, for ten years. I almost hope that 
 I am, at last, making up for opportunities lacked or | 
 wasted in my past life, and that something like a 
 regular process of culture has begun for me. All my 
 old ambition, and more than that, seems to have 
 revived in me, and, therefore, it is superfluous for me 
 to say, that whatever my capacity and these golden 
 opportunities, taken as factors in the sum, may be able 
 to work out, will be wrought to the last figure. I have 
 always told you my incredulity as to the estimate you 
 and others place upon my abilities; and I cannot say 
 that my faith in this respect has at all increased. But 
 this I can assure you, and all others who love me: 
 what God has enabled me to do, by His help will be 
 done. .. . You know how I was haunted and dogged 
 by ‘evil things in robes of sorrow’ while I remained 
 in Buffalo. All these have ceased to hound my steps. 
 I think the ghosts are laid for good and all. Iam 
 very happy, and I want to refine and climax that 
 happiness by having you with me, next winter. Is it 
 asking too much? 
 
 Leaving London, the day on which the above was 
 written, Gray and his companion traveled slowly into 
 Scotland and reached Edinburgh at the end of July. 
 The long, full letter which he wrote, then, from his 
 native city—revisiting it after sixteen years—has been 
 liberally quoted from in the first chapter of these 
 memoirs (page 6). Before quitting Edinburgh and 
 Scotland, where they stayed some weeks, he wrote to 
 his partner and friend, Joseph Warren: 
 
106 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 EDINBURGH, September 1, 1865. 
 
 . . . Leannot quite justify to myself the fact that 
 I am here while you are there ; and I tell you gravely, 
 although I know full well what I should lose, I would 
 start for the Courier office to-morrow if I thought you 
 would be less displeased than gratified by the move... . 
 I know so well what you have to struggle under, at the 
 office, that I am scarcely less unhappy, thinking of 
 you. I repeat it in all seriousness,—you have but to 
 say half a word, and I am home. I have already 
 reaped a vast benefit from my trip, and I would not. 
 consider that I had achieved an abortion, coming back 
 now. But I want to be guided by you, in my coming 
 back as I was in my going out; and I hope you will 
 give the subject your best consideration, allowing no 
 sort of romantic regard for my interests to swerve you 
 unduly, in deciding what is the best practical, matter- 
 of-fact course for me to pursue... . 
 
 Except my letters, | have written nothing since I 
 came over here; but I venture to hope that, when the 
 subject I am trying to think out shall form itself, I 
 shall be able to go at it with good heart. The faith 
 which you and other good friends so strangely have in 
 me almost serves me, instead of the faith in myself 
 which I wish I possessed. 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 
 LONDON, October 5, 1865. 
 
 ... You speak of the possibility of my voluntary 
 divorcement from its [the Couwrier’s] ancient service. 
 For myself, I do not see the slightest chance of that. 
 I trust, in the past three or four months I have gained 
 a good deal of mental strength and capital; but I 
 certainly have not grown greatly in my estimate of 
 my own powers. I have contracted, as yet, no higher 
 ambition than that of returning to Buffalo, with my 
 liabilities in part cleared off, and of settling down to 
 
 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 107 
 
 be a first-class editor—if I can ever be that individual. 
 I believe that life, with some little modifications, would 
 give all the chance for the working out of whatever 
 ability may be in me that any other would; and I am 
 almost ready, now, to come home and go to work with 
 an earnestness I have not felt for years. So, please 
 never to think of me except as your traveling asso- 
 ciate, who is soon to return, a much more valuable man 
 than he went away. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 Paris, November 30, 1865. 
 
 . We have settled down in quiet, comfortable: 
 quarters, here, and are intent on getting a little French 
 picked up. Devoting ourselves almost exclusively to 
 that, we have taken no time for sight-seeing, and I 
 have not even gathered material, since I have been 
 here, for a letter to the Courier. French comes rather 
 toughly; but, I think, in a few weeks more I shall 
 have it under the fifth rib. Iam sure I shall be repaid 
 for all the labor I am expending, now. We have lots 
 of pleasant acquaintances here. 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 
 Paris, December 7, 1865. 
 
 . I have not found my life in Paris at all pro- 
 ductive of newspaper letters. I have been trying hard 
 for several weeks to start some natural sort of corre- 
 spondence out of it; but thus far in vain. It is like 
 this: We came here and settled down in a quiet hotel 
 to study French. We have scarcely begun the round 
 of sight-seeing, and I am not at all en rapport with 
 the sources of Parisian news. What I could write, 
 now, would be either of things which everybody knows 
 too much already, or of which I do not know enough. 
 Therefore, have patience for a little. 
 
108 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 Paris, December 20, 1865. 
 
 . . . We have been living for the past six weeks at 
 a sort of private hotel, kept by a nice old French 
 couple, in which we have a comfortable suite of rooms, 
 along with two other young Buffalonians. We break- 
 fast, commonly, about noon—all France does—and 
 then sally forth to a French lesson; after which, the 
 day is spent in sight-seeing, walking about the city, or 
 study. Dinner, at table d’héte, comes off at six o’clock, 
 when we sit down to a snug little meal of ten courses, 
 the table-talk being a lively melange of English, Ger- 
 man, French and Spanish. In the evening we go to 
 the theater, opera, or some other of the thousand Par- 
 isian shows, or spend the time socially, with some one 
 of the score or two of American families of our ac- 
 quaintance, resident in the city. ... My general 
 purpose in staying so long in Paris has been to learn 
 something of France and the French language, here, 
 at the very center and source of everything French. 
 About ten days more will probably finish our Parisian 
 experience, for the present, and we will then take up 
 our traps and proceed to Rome. I have got a little 
 start in French, which will suffice for the exigencies of 
 travel, and upon which I hope to build, by and by, a 
 tolerable knowledge of the language. 
 
 We are to be met in Rome by Henry Richmond, my 
 true and tried friend. With him, we will explore Italy, 
 this winter, and, in the spring, it is my purpose to find 
 some quiet town or village, in the neighborhood of 
 Switzerland, probably, where we will settle down to 
 study French and German... . | 
 
 I celebrated my twenty-ninth birthday last month. 
 Did you think of it? That makes us all pretty old, 
 doesn’t it? I only hope and pray we may be all 
 spared to meet, at least once more, in Detroit. As for 
 
 a 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 109: 
 
 me, I am ten years younger in feeling and five in 
 appearance than when I left the editorial room. 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 NaPuLeEs, February 4, 1866. 
 
 . . . | wrote a long letter to the Courier from Nice, 
 and another from Genoa. I have another one on the. 
 stocks, from Naples. The scow is afloat again, and I 
 dare-say the water deepens. Be merciful and forgive! 
 The fact, simply, was, that I couldn’t write letters from 
 Paris in the two months I was there. Imagine the 
 consolation administered when I learned, from a letter 
 written to me by a friend in Buffalo, that my silence 
 was generally attributed among my home acquaintances. 
 to the fact that I had fallen into dissipated habits! I 
 suppose I allow these things to trouble me more than. 
 I ought; but it did make me boil with indignation. I 
 would not go aside a step, myself, to put my heel on 
 the wicked, cruel lie; but, if it should ever find its way 
 where it might work me harm, I think I can rely on. 
 you and the true friends I have at home to clear me 
 of an utterly baseless charge. 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 
 FLORENCE, April 15, 1866. 
 
 . Although I am deriving all the benefit I ex- 
 pected from Europe, and feel myself expanding and 
 strengthening every day, I still yearn to get back to 
 the serious business of life, and grudge every moment: 
 which may even seem to be devoted to pleasure, merely. 
 You may think this is a wondrous change over the 
 spirit of my dream; but such as I write the truth is. 
 I am, a thousand times a day, thankful for the chance 
 I have had, and I value it, perhaps, chiefly because it. 
 has lifted me out of the dust and bustle in which I 
 was merged, and enabled me to review, long and well, 
 
110 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 all the outs and ins of my career. Besides all this, I 
 know I am fairly shoveling in general information, at 
 present, and my old poetic tastes and ambitions are 
 Stronger upon me than ever before. I have actually 
 written some verse pea and I have even a scheme 
 for a long poem (!}) to be worked out the present 
 summer. 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 GENEVA, June 21, 1866. 
 
 . We have now been three weeks settled; our 
 home is the ‘bosom’ of a very kind, pleasant family, 
 on the outskirts of this quiet little city, and we get 
 French, and nothing but French, the whole day long. 
 Besides that, we are living very cheaply, simply and 
 virtuously,—getting up at six in the morning, taking 
 walks after tea with madame and going to church 
 Sundays, like young Christians, as we are. Altogether, 
 we could not have made a better hit; the place is the 
 very one I had been wishing for, while doubting the 
 probability of finding it. I shall soon be a tolerable 
 French scholar, if that will be worth anything to me. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 GENEVA, August 24, 1866. 
 
 . Returning to the pension one evening, about 
 five weeks ago, I found a telegram telling me that my 
 old and dear friend Stillson had arrived at London 
 and was seeking me. <A few days after, he bounced in 
 on me, and, for a week, we had a glorious time together, 
 here. We went up the lake and among the mountains, 
 and fairly revelled in the joy of our meeting, until he 
 was forced to leave me. Europe used to be a dream 
 with Stillson and me, so hopelessly far away and so 
 ravishingly bright that, you may imagine, the joint 
 fulfillment of it brought some genuine pleasure. 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 111 
 
 TO COL. JOHN HAY. 
 BRUSSELS, November 29, 1866. 
 
 . Can’t you run up, now, and dip your fist with 
 us into the moss of Flemish antiquity? I find Bel- 
 a exceeding rich in interest, historic and other. 
 
 . Lam reading what I can and writing a little; but 
 I feel sadly the want of some mental stimulus. 
 Colonel, if you’ll come anywhere and meet me, I'll 
 engage we shall do something that shall make the 
 age tremble. It is not often that immortality is thus 
 thrust upon the young. (‘Circular sent on receipt of 
 a dollar in postage stamps.’ ) 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW. 
 BERLIN, December 30, 1866. 
 
 . The fact is, the life of a traveler is a very 
 ordinary and unexciting one, after the first year’s har- 
 vest of sensations has been gathered in. I have a gen- 
 uine eagerness to see Jerusalem and the Nile; but, 
 with these exceptions, all places I have not seen are 
 about equally indifferent to me. I shall only visit 
 them as I would read books from which to get needed 
 information. I take a great deal of interest, just now, 
 in European politics, which are in a very attractive 
 state at present, as you are doubtless seeing. My lit- 
 tle stay in Berlin has been useful, in giving me some 
 idea of the character of the people, which has suddenly 
 thrown off its disguise and come out as the dominant 
 nation of Europe, and which, moreover, is by no 
 means yet at the summit of its powers. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER. 
 CONSTANTINOPLE, February 16, 1867. 
 . . Here I am, with my window looking full out 
 
 on that Bosphorus of which we have all seen pictures 
 since our infancy. Do you remember the little framed 
 
112 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 steel engraving of it, which used to hang somewhere im 
 our little parlor, in the Sciennes? I am not sure but 
 it is in the house, yet. Well, I recognized every feat- 
 ure of the wondrous scene from my memory of that. 
 There was the Golden Horn—Seraglio Point—the 
 lovely shore of either continent. Look at the little 
 picture, again, for me, and fancy me sailing up and 
 down in these waters in a Turkish caique. 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 
 Bryrout, Pebruary 21, 1867. 
 
 The date of this letter will show you how badly my 
 plans epistolary have prospered. I have positively had 
 no leisure—no leisure unless I stole it from hours 
 which, to me, have been the most valuable of my 
 life. Bear with me, therefore, and I will try to do 
 better. We start, to-day, for Jerusalem, on horseback 
 and with tents, by way of Baalbec, Damascus, Caper- 
 naum, Nazareth, etc. We have a fine party with us 
 and are in splendid trim. In twenty days we shall see 
 the Holy City. 
 
 TO HIS PARENTS. 
 
 Beyrrour, March 22, 1867. 
 
 About ten days ago I dropped you a little note, say- 
 ing that I was just recovering from an attack of the 
 small-pox, my headquarters being, then, Damascus. 
 I improve the opportunity of the very first * mail 
 for the civilized world since that time to write you, 
 again, and dilate fully on affairs personal, being con- 
 vinced that your liveliest interest is, by this time, 
 awakened there anent. To begin, therefore, away at 
 the beginning: You remember, I wrote you a note 
 from this very place, about a month and a day ago, 
 saying that I was about starting, with a nice party, for 
 Jerusalem, by way of Damascus, ete. We left, the 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 118 
 
 day I mailed that note, and, that very day, our chapter 
 of mischances began. A terrific storm caught us in the 
 afternoon, on Lebanon, and, before we got housed for. 
 the night, we were pretty roughly used and our ladies 
 rather frightened. The weather continued bad for 
 three days, so that our cavalcade could not be started, 
 but was forced to cling for shelter to the mud walls of 
 the house in the little mountain Arab village which we 
 had made in the storm. I got impatient at this wait- 
 ing, and, with a Russian gentleman of our party, con- 
 ceived the idea of starting in advance, and gaining 
 sufficient time on the party to permit us to visit the 
 famous Cedars of Solomon, in the mountains. We 
 started, accordingly—we two—and threw ourselves 
 on the country for lodgings and provisions. Four 
 days we lived with the Arabs, in quite a charming 
 way, as I will describe to you sometime. The fourth 
 day, I, alone, reached the Cedars, the snow being so 
 very deep and the climbing so steep that my friend 
 was obliged to give it up, half-way. That day was a 
 pretty toilsome one, but it was a success, and I got 
 back to Baalbee (look up your map) late at night, 
 tired but victorious. The next day I started out to 
 study the splendid ruins of Baalbec, and I had just 
 daylight enough given me in which to doit. Before I 
 had quite got through, the blood had begun to congest 
 in my head, and my eyes were closed to the faintest ray 
 of light. We started on (the party reassembled by 
 this time) for Damascus,—I with my eyes guardedly 
 bandaged, and suffering intensely from pain in them. 
 This pain and total blindness continued, for the three 
 days during which we were on the way to Damascus, 
 and finally I was led in, like Paul of old, and lodged 
 not far from ‘the street called Straight,’ if not quite on 
 it. I thought I should be all right when the inflamma- 
 tion of my eyes was allayed a bit; but I soon discoy- 
 ered that something else was to pay. In short, I was 
 obliged to go, in a very few hours, to bed, and that 
 8 
 
114 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 bed I kept for fifteen days. The third day, to my and 
 my doctor’s surprise, the small-pox showed itself im 
 full blaze. My head and face were one mass of pus- 
 tules, and the attack, in fact, was, though short, very 
 sharp, indeed. As I told you, I was well cared for. 
 My friends stayed by, till I was out of danger, and my 
 friend Fargo, from beginning to end, stuck by me like 
 a brick, despising danger and- behaving nobly. I 
 wanted for nothing,—even away out there in the heart 
 of Syria, where an European face is as rare as a Turk’s 
 in Detroit, almost. Everybody befriended me, in fact. 
 A week ago to-day, I got the doctor’s permission to get 
 up, and, once on my legs, my strength and spirits came 
 back as rapidly as they had fled, before. Hach day I 
 gained. Iwas able to visit all the sights of Damascus, 
 —to take long rides in its glorious vicinity,—to appre- 
 ciate fully, with eyes both bodily and mental, its world- 
 old associations, and, finally, to make the journey thence 
 hither. We arrived here yesterday evening, safe and 
 sound, having been absent just a month ;—not a long 
 time, considering the events crowded into it. I feel 
 myself, now, as well as ever, bating, perhaps, just a 
 little feebleness of legs and eyes. You will ask, next, 
 how has my beauty fared in the visitation? I hasten 
 to inform the entire fair sex, that I have come off so 
 little the worse that it will not be safe for them to 
 calculate on any damage done. I have a few pits on 
 the brow, and one or two on the chin, and my nose is 
 a leetle mottled. Seriously, I thank God with my 
 whole heart for the mercy and goodness He has showed 
 me in this unusual providence of His. His ways are 
 wise and good. Praise Him with me, all you whom I 
 love, and whom I dreamed of in my delirium, and 
 prayed for so often, in the long watches of my sick 
 nights. 
 
 You may wonder how I caught the disease, especially 
 as, if my memory serves me right, I had it slightly 
 once before. My theory is, that the virus struck me 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 115 
 
 on board the steamer in which we came from Constan- 
 tinople to Smryna, which was swarming with Moslem 
 pilgrims, bound for Mecca. They are famous as con- 
 ductors of disease, and I have no doubt I owe mine to 
 some unfortunate of them. My experience in going 
 to the Cedars, of course, precipitated and intensified 
 the malady. 
 
 And, now, as to our future movements: It rejoices 
 me to say that we are not to be defrauded of our 
 journey through the Holy Land to Jerusalem. We 
 start to-morrow morning, again, by way of Tyre, Sidon, 
 Mt. Carmel, Nazareth, Tiberias, Samaria and Bethel, 
 to Jerusalem, and have our old dragoman, who took 
 eare of us, before, more like a father than a servant. 
 I believe he verily loves me like one of his own boys. 
 In ten or twelve days, D. V., we shall be at the Holy 
 City, when I shall write you again. Meanwhile, be 
 happy as regards me, for this is the crowning part of 
 my travels, and I am to be regarded with envy, but 
 with no graver sentiment. 
 
 The journey to Jerusalem was made as it had been 
 arranged for, and it is certain that David found more 
 in it to interest him than in any other part of his 
 travels. His note-book gives evidence of the fact, in 
 the minuteness and uncommon fullness of the mem- 
 oranda which he entered. But he wrote nothing of it 
 to the Courier, and there is a singular break at this 
 period in his private correspondence. In a later letter 
 he attributes the delinquency to days of hard travel 
 and sight-seeing and nights of weak eyes. It was 
 known, afterwards, to some of his friends, that he had 
 planned a book, in which the fruits of his visit to the 
 Holy Land would be used; but nothing is known 
 definitely of the plan, nor why it was given up. 
 
116 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 By a passing glance, only, as it were, he saw Egypt 
 and the Nile, sailing from Alexandria to Brindisi, and 
 arriving in Rome, for a second visit, on the 238d of 
 April. At Rome he found his artist friends, Coleman 
 and Vedder, with others, and passed some delightful 
 days; after which he journeyed northwards, and his 
 letters are resumed : © 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 : VENICE, May 5, 1867. 
 
 . . . [ have been working hard and earnestly of late, 
 as often as I have been able to do so, and I am sure I 
 have written some better poems than any of mine you 
 have yet seen; albeit I begin to see, as I never did 
 before, how perfectly mottled with imperfection they 
 are, and how altogether puny is my grasp of any 
 subject. But, perhaps, in the year that is coming, I 
 shall do better, and will bring or send home a little 
 ‘volume.’ I would like to start with a little v. of 
 poems, and, after that, I have several ideas for books 
 in mingled prose and verse, which I think would work 
 up well. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 MILAN, ITauy, May —, 1867. 
 
 It is nearly eleven years since the strange and close 
 communion of long ago was broken up; it is, at least, 
 half-a-dozen since I last saw your face; but, as I read 
 your letter over again,—as I look on its familiar hand- 
 writing,—it seems to me that I have parted with you 
 and lost your figure among the brush of the Wisconsin 
 openings, yonder, only a moment since. Oh, this 
 mystery of life!—what does it all mean? That we 
 were brought together in that strange way; that we 
 lived together, as we did, and that we were so divided, 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 117 
 
 —you to remain as a sort of landmark to me of my 
 lost years,—I to enter and wander in such a labyrinth 
 of circumstances as I have found this world to be! 
 Always, when I think of it, David, it appears to me 
 that our discovery of each other was an extraordinary 
 thing. I have met thousands of men, since, of taste, 
 education and all that; but, in the whole lot, never 
 have I met but one, except yourself, who has even that 
 understanding of poetry which was ours in common,—- 
 to speak of nothing more. It is a sort of pastime of 
 mine,—a sort of necessity with me, rather,—to seek the 
 acquaintance of man after man, as the stream of new 
 men sweeps by me, and to sound them, one by one, to 
 see if I may not find, some time, even some faint 
 repetition of the experience I used to have when we 
 were together. It never comes. I doubt if the rest of 
 the world contains the material for it. 
 
 I do not discover much change in you, judging from 
 your letters. You are a trifle older,—your features 
 seem to be a little more fixed and sternly set,—but 
 the old look is in them, still. I fear as much could 
 not be said of myself. You know my character, the 
 weakness of which has permitted me to be, all these 
 years, a kind of shuttlecock, batted about from phase 
 to phase of change. But that is of little importance, 
 as affecting our relations, I think... . If we should 
 come together twenty years from now, I know we 
 should feel the very same, and fall into the very ways 
 of old, saving that now and then we would miss the 
 presence of our youth. 
 
 I want to imitate your example and begin by writing 
 something about myself; but what to write on that 
 subject puzzles me. I feel like saying—Wait a little, 
 till the smoke clears away, before you ask to know 
 about the battle. I am traveling on a road, Davie, the 
 end of which I do not see, yet. I have solved nothing, 
 thus far. The Sphinx looks at me implacably, with her 
 riddle still unread. Yet, a hope draws me on, that . 
 
118 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 sometime I will stop groping and suddenly see. As 
 for worldly affairs, they give me very little trouble. 
 There is no danger of my ever being rich, nor of my 
 ever wanting a living, as long as I can work. My 
 philosophy stands me perfectly, as far as all such 
 questions are concerned. Since I have come abroad, 
 traveling through the greater part of Europe and in 
 the East, I have had many experiences, that memory 
 will amuse herself with, sufficiently, and, on the whole, 
 Iam glad I came. But, after all, travel is of little 
 use to a man who has any imagination of his own. 
 He sees it all, or something perhaps far better, sitting 
 in front of the sinking fagots of his hearth, or watch- 
 ing the whirl of the snow out of his window. I do not 
 know that I have anything more to say about myself. 
 I shall be home in about a year from now, and then 
 shall try to see you as soon as possible. 
 
 Your two poems are the truest bits of yourself in 
 your letters. . . . Send both pieces somewhere. ‘They 
 might as well be in print as not: though it makes but 
 little difference to you or me, I fancy,—the attainment 
 of that dazzling distinction. The days of pee s 
 Magazine are long past, aren’t they? 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER. 
 Paris, May 24, 1867. 
 
 . We stay here two or three weeks, then say 
 good-bye to our friends and move off to some quiet 
 home in Germany for the summer. . . . I am not so 
 much to be ‘ pitted’ as I was, and never felt so well in 
 my life, as now. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW. 
 Paris, July 3, 1867. 
 . This Paris is the worst place I ever saw for a 
 letter-writer to be stationed in, or, in fact, for any one 
 
 who would perform any sort of serious business. One’s 
 room, more or less elevated towards the seventh heaven, 
 
 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 119 
 
 is a locality which one visits, here, only once in the 
 twenty-four hours, and that for purely animal pur- 
 poses. As soon as sleep is through with, there is 
 nothing thought of but to dart down into the great 
 eating and drinking, talking and sight-seeing world. 
 And the peculiarity of this world in Paris is, that it is 
 always glad to see you, always entertaining, always 
 exciting, even, and never by any chance a bore. 
 
 TO WILLIAM P. LETCHWORTH. 
 GoTHA, July 11, 1867. 
 
 ... Ah, Glen Iris! Shall we ever be there together, 
 again? And if I should be able, some time, to lay 
 down, there, my pilgrim-staff, will we have the youth 
 in our hearts which made us so happy, long ago? God 
 knows; but the place and the days that belong to it 
 seem all to be lifted so far, far away, that I catch my- 
 self dreaming of your deeded and titled property as of 
 some lost land,—of faery or fancy, or what not. Well, 
 that is not bad advice which Longfellow’s psalm sings 
 to us, in regard to our duty in the time present; and 
 you must not think, because I boo-hoo so easily over 
 by-gones, that I have no heart for what lies under my 
 hand. On the contrary, | think I can say that my 
 European privileges have been most healthily enjoyed 
 and profited by. Iam not in the least dlasé, but pre- 
 serve as keen an appetite as ever for all that is worth 
 seeing and studying. In the past year, I have acquired 
 a tolerable mastery of French, have traveled a little in 
 ten countries, and have had small-pox. I am now, 
 with my friend Fargo, paying vigorous court to Ger- 
 man, and I hope to master that and do some reading 
 therein before I get home. So you see the dolce far 
 niente does not enter largely into my plans. I have 
 great literary ambition, too; but the percentage which 
 gets accomplished of what I plan is so dismally small 
 that I will not say much on that score. Suffice it 
 
120 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 that, if God has given me anything to say to people, I 
 will try and have it decently said before I die. If He 
 has n’t, I shall not pretend that He has, but shall rest 
 very content. 
 
 At least, I hope to do many things a great deal 
 worthier than The Bark of Life, of which your par- 
 tiality leads you to speak too warmly. It was so 
 thoroughly a forced performance, done to order on a 
 given subject (I think I had filled nine or ten iden- 
 tical orders before)—that I cannot in conscience help 
 you to defend it. . . . As to the last stanza, I think 
 the idea I had, regarded the translation from Life to 
 Immortality, which we suppose to lie in the future of 
 the individual. The Bark,—poor, old hackneyed 
 means of conveyance—is conventionally considered as 
 individual property, I think, and so I intended to use 
 it to the end. But I see how these last lines may 
 easily be applied in a general sense; and so they are 
 faulty and highflown and vague, as I feel in my 
 inmost marrow. 
 
 I would give a great deal to see and read Amanda 
 Jones’ book.* If it contains some of her older pieces, 
 which I know, it is worth its weight in gold. Except 
 Mrs. Browning, I can name no woman, living or dead, 
 who has shown such a mastery of poetic expression 
 and such a grandeur of poetic conception, as are 
 evinced in that piece of Miss Jones’ from the Egyptian 
 mythology. It rang in my ears all the while I was in 
 Egypt, and there seemed to be something of mysteri- 
 ous grandeur about it which made it kin to Cheops 
 himself. 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 
 GorHa, August 20, 1867. 
 
 . . . Knowing as much as I do, now, about Ger- 
 many, I find we are fixed about as well here as we 
 
 * Poems. By Amanda T, Jones. New York: Hurd & Houghton, 
 1867. 
 
 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 121 
 
 could expect. It is true, my darling idea of getting 
 into a family rests unachieved; but, in order to suc- 
 ceed there, we would have to go into some large city, 
 or place where more English is spoken, where manners 
 are not so simple, and where, consequently, tempta- 
 tions are more numerous than here. We can live 
 cheaply, quietly and studiously, here, if anywhere in 
 Germany, and I am content for some months to come. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER. 
 
 GoTHA, September 15, 1867. 
 
 ... Lam not doing anything like what I expected 
 in the writing line; and, perhaps, my German and a 
 pretty fair knowledge of Germany will be all that I 
 shall have to show for this six months. The fact is, I 
 am a social being, and I do not work well when entirely 
 deprived of the stimulus of the right kind of com- 
 panionship. Mental solitude, however, is said to be a 
 good master in some branches, and, if so, then I shall 
 reap some advantage of this period of my European 
 life. At all events, we shall remain in Germany till 
 perhaps 1st February, and then, ho! for Petersburg. 
 
 TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 GoTHA, October 7, 1867. 
 
 . . . L cannot describe to you my emotion on read- 
 ing of your sickness and your recovery therefrom. 
 Somehow, for a month before, I had had a presenti- 
 ment of something happening to you, and had had 
 times of the deepest anxiety and longing for news. 
 Your letter brought at once a fulfillment to my fears 
 and an answer to my eager hope. God be thanked 
 that you got through it and are up again! For my 
 sake, and all our sakes, do take care of yourself; 
 
1 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 do n’t do anything beyond or even up to your strength, 
 if it should never be done,—and be careful not to 
 expose yourself in the coming winter. I have all along 
 felt an abiding faith that we are all to be spared to 
 meet, next year, at home, and that faith or feeling has. 
 sustained me in a good many hours of loneliness. The 
 longer I stay away, and the nearer the period of our 
 reunion approaches, the more my heart yearns towards 
 Detroit, and, above all things, my dearest mother, 
 towards you. I often think, and in my deepest heart 
 realize, that if you should be taken away from earth I 
 should have nothing left to live for. This may seem 
 strong language from one who has done so little to 
 testify his filial love; but it is strictly true and a 
 faithful picture of my constant feeling, nevertheless. 
 . . . In the wide world, there is no spot which has a 
 special attraction for me other than that where you 
 are. So, you see, you have a deal to live for and much 
 reason to take care of yourself; for I know that each 
 one of your children feels just as Ido... . 
 
 We live in a very simple community, where there is 
 as much gossip retailed as in any village I ever saw, 
 and in which die Amerikaner make somewhat of a 
 sensation, being courted sedulously by some mothers 
 with marriageable daughters, and held in awful dread 
 by others. Upon the whole, I am getting a little tired 
 of the monotony of the thing, and shall be glad to get 
 on the tramp again. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 GoTHA, October 23, 1867. 
 
 : I cannot explain the reason, but it is a fact, 
 that I need to be in a certain rare mood, in order to 
 write you. When I am in my normal condition, the 
 utterance of my thoughts on paper does not seem to 
 be the thing to send you, at all. The world I have so 
 
 
 
a 
 
 YEARS OF TRAVEL. 125 
 
 long lived in is one you could have little patience or 
 sympathy with, and it would appear that a certain 
 amount of cleansing from it is requisite, before I can 
 present myself and be recognizable before you. To-day,. 
 a peculiar atmosphere bathes the many-colored trees. 
 lt is the October you love, and loved to paint long ago,. 
 and I feel my way to you more easily through its hazy 
 air than usual. I wild write to you. 
 
 To show you that I am as much of a fool as ever,. 
 I am going to copy various fragments of verse which 
 have lately effused from my sodden brain.* My sober 
 opinion, at the solemn age of 31, Davie, is that both 
 you and I escaped being poets by less than a hair’s 
 breadth. <A single drop of this chemical or that, more 
 or less,—an atom added on this side or subtracted on 
 that,—and the mass would have been inflammable and 
 blazed in sacred fire. As it is, it is something to have 
 a little of the poet’s nature, if not of his faculty... . 
 It is strange, Davie, what a long, incurable, chronic 
 ailment is this one of poetry; for disease it certainly 
 is,—inasmuch as no man in an entirely healthy state 
 thinks of writing verses. It has disappeared in me, 
 sometimes, for nearly a year at a stretch, but invari- 
 ably breaks out again. I have no doubt your experi- 
 ence is the same. 
 
 Enough of poetry,—perhaps I will never speak of it 
 again; and now to practical matters. J have no news 
 of myself to tell you. [ am much the same as I have 
 been, any time within five years; moodier, perhaps,— 
 for the hypochondria I inherit from my father grows 
 upon me, steadily. Its attacks are longer and more: 
 violent, and the reaction proportionally slower and of 
 briefer duration. 
 
 * The poems copied were the sonnet entitled, ‘The Half-world’s 
 Width Divides Us,’ ‘On Lebanon,’ and ‘The Soul’s Failure,’ all of 
 which are printed elsewhere in this volume. 
 
124 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 TO CHARLES W. FAIRRINGTON. 
 
 GotHa, November 5, 1867. 
 
 T saw the announcement of Rarey’s death* in 
 a Dutch paper in Rotterdam. How it stunned and 
 shocked me, and how strangely it struck me, when I 
 read in your letter that my message was the last he 
 ever read. And our day is coming, too, surely, surely. 
 Ah! I cannot bear to think of it. It seems as if we 
 must be made exceptions to the pitiless general rule. 
 But we will not be. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 GotTHa, November 6, 1867. 
 
 . . We have made some good, kind friends, here, 
 in Gotha, whom I shall be sorry to leave, and who will 
 be sorry to have me leave; but, apart from these few, 
 there is nothing here I shall not be glad to get away 
 from. One advantage the place has had for us,—it 
 has been sheerly impossible to speak English in it. 
 Since Bayard Taylor left, I have scarcely exchanged 
 an English word with anyone except Fargo. I got 
 pretty well acquainted with Bayard, here. ... He is 
 a very clever and remarkably well-informed man. 
 
 TO DAVID TAYLOR. 
 
 St. PETERSBURG, December 28, 1867. 
 
 Your letter reached me to-day, and made all my soul 
 glow with divine warmth. I rushed with it, the first 
 instant I could, under cover, and read it, to the amaze- 
 ment of a huge Russian official, in one of the museums 
 where Russia has piled up specimens of her subterra- 
 nean and other natural treasures. You remember one. 
 of the wonders of our boyhood,—the story of that 
 huge corpse of a mammoth, found by a Tungusian 
 
 * John S. Rarey. 
 
 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 125. 
 
 fisherman on the shores of the White Sea, to the bones. 
 of which the frozen flesh, with antediluvian hair 
 thereon, still clung in masses. It was in the shadow 
 of that identical monster that I devoured your epistle. 
 
 . Let me tell you, in the first place, that it pleases. 
 me amazingly to find you still so warm on the subject. 
 of our long-ago life and experiences. I believe that, 
 to this day, I am softer on that point than on any 
 other. I often spend hours in aimless wandering: 
 through that portion of my past life, and emerge, 
 dazed and wondering what it all has meant, but, 
 withal, soothed, if not happy, from the exercise. I 
 fully agree with you, that our mutual intercourse in 
 those few years was the crisis,—the deciding circum-. 
 stance of both our lives. As for myself, I thought, 
 once, I had outlived the influence of it, or nearly so; 
 but, no! I have only been going round in a circle, and 
 I verily believe we are liker to each other to-day than 
 ever before. . . . You have remained in your isolation 
 and solitude, while I have nearly boxed the compass. 
 of human sights and experiences. It is rather queer, 
 therefore, that we should stand, to-day, after all these 
 years of separation, on, as near as may be, the identical 
 point of space in the realm of mortal feeling and 
 speculation. ... 
 
 Ink is weak and paper is vain, when a man wants to. 
 empty his soul of the whirlwind which inhabits him. 
 I would like to have one long summer-night session 
 with you. We would start from the river-side, about 
 gloaming, and sit a half-hour on every fence, as we 
 came up. By that means, the moon would be large 
 and white ere we reached the weird swamp, where the 
 mist used to meet us and the tamaracks were wont to. 
 whisper and shudder as they listened. Passing the 
 Peutherer shanty (is it haunted ?—it ought to be; for 
 was ever a cleaner bit of domestic tragedy than it 
 knew, enacted ? )—passing that, I say, we would mount, 
 the knoll and look down into those round basins of’ 
 
126 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 mist, which I see often in my dreams; and then we 
 would go back, again, I think, by Davie Mair’s fence; 
 and the marsh is about the best place for us,—there, 
 accordingly, we would seat ourselves and have it out. 
 Oh, unutterable mystery of life! No man can help us 
 to unriddle it; and, yet, there is consolation in the act 
 of confronting it,in company with one who also knows 
 that it is. I hope, once again, at least, to have that 
 consolation; and,—who knows ?—perhaps, when we 
 meet again, one or other will have made a discovery, 
 and will know something. . 
 
 TO JOSEPH WARREN. 
 ViENNA, February 16, 1868. 
 
 . I am satisfied to come home, albeit Spain 
 ‘grieveth me sore and plucketh me by the beard in an 
 exasperating wise. I am content, I say, as I ought to 
 be, if I have a conscience. I feel that I am coming 
 home, if I say it myself, well paid for my three years. 
 My mind is rich; my character has settled into some- 
 thing like symmetrical shape; my views on a good 
 many things have become clear; I trust, with God’s 
 help, to keep the momentum I have got, and lay myself 
 now to my work in earnestness, honesty and industry. 
 Whether I am going to make a good Democratic editor, 
 I cannot say till I get at it... . 
 
 I have had, here, in Vienna, nearly four weeks of 
 moneyless waiting for money, and, in that time, thanks 
 to the influence, partly, of my glorious friend John 
 Hay, I have done much toward putting in order the 
 argo I have been, for nearly three years, picking up. 
 I have a book begun,—had I had three months 
 ‘more it would have been finished. When I do finish it, 
 I think it will be something out of the usual run... . 
 
 A week or two of my stay here was made pleasant 
 by the presence of Gen. McClellan, my hero, and his 
 wife, whose acquaintance and friendship I enjoyed im- 
 mensely. 
 
YEARS OF TRAVEL. 127 
 
 TO HIS SISTER. ; 
 VIENNA, February 16, 1868. 
 
 Perhaps you will pardon the long delay into which I 
 have fallen before answering your good letter, in con- 
 sideration of the news I have now to tell you. As our 
 good Methodist brethren used to sing, up in the woods, 
 so, now, [:—‘I’m on my journey home!’ That is my 
 ditty, at last. Yesterday I received the summons 
 which turns our faces westward. We go from here, in 
 four or five days, to Paris; thence, in two or three 
 days, to London; thence, I will run up, if possible, for 
 a week in Scotland, and then we sail. And I, oh, I 
 am well content to think of this near prospect of tak- 
 ing you all to my heart again. To give up Spain,— 
 the bonne bouche of all,—grieveth me sore; but the 
 compensations are too great for me to think of that. 
 Oh, I am glad, glad! ... 
 
 As for myself, I hear always good accounts from 
 Buffalo, and affairs there, and I go back feeling strong 
 and well-furnished for useful and hard work. You see, 
 I did write-some Russian letters. The Palestine busi- 
 ness I am keeping for some better purpose; but, before 
 that fructifies, I hope to have long spells at yarn-spin- 
 ning ‘with you, about all the manifold and strange 
 sights and adventures which there and elsewhere me 
 befell. I am, on the whole, well satisfied with the 
 results already gathered in, of my stay abroad. I feel 
 it will probably lengthen and enhance the value of my 
 life, inestimably. I have a memory, now, which I would 
 not sell for all A. T. Stewart’s gold; and never did I 
 feel so spirited and strong as now, in the use of my 
 pen. I hope to do something with it, one of these 
 days, which will be creditable. 
 
 And now, after all this braggadocia about myself, 
 you have to take this wretched apology of a letter as 
 an answer to yours. Fact is, I feel too good to do any- 
 thing more than tell you the news and shout over it. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 THe Prime oF Lire. 1868-1882. 
 
 BrEForE the end of April, 1868, Gray was at home, 
 in Buffalo, settling himself again to his work, after the 
 
 long fallow-time that he had enjoyed under foreign 
 
 skies. The change which three years of wide travel 
 and leisurely study had wrought in him was immense. 
 He had been singularly ‘ cultivated’ by his experience, 
 in the best sense of the word. It had ripened him in 
 character, matured him in powers, perfected him in 
 bearing and manners. The old personal charm which 
 he possessed, of voice and speech and look, was all pre- 
 served, in its naturalness, with something added to it, 
 of the grace that comes from a full and assuring knowl- 
 edge of the world. He came back, too, with mind and 
 body in thorough health, with feelings rejuvenated, 
 which ambitions revived, and with a strong desire, often 
 expressed, for the hard work which he saw before him. 
 
 He was soon grappling it, and found nothing to dis- 
 appoint him in the burden that waited for his shoulders. 
 Two months after taking it up, he wrote to his parents 
 —June 28, 1868: 
 
 This is really the first hour of leisure I have had 
 for some weeks. Mr. Warren has been a good deal 
 away, and I have been anxious to get the complete 
 run of things in the office. Consequently, I have given 
 
 Ce ee ee eee hit ia 
 

 
 THE PRIME OF LIFE. 129 
 
 my whole mind to details of business, and have taken, 
 temporarily, on my shoulders, much more of a burden 
 than I mean permanently to carry. 
 
 You would smile if you knew how far you strike 
 from the mark in speaking of worldly ambition and 
 the desire of human praise and approbation as heading 
 the list of temptations to which I am subject. No 
 more of this, at present, however. Suffice it to say, 
 that my life abroad seems to have crystallized, as 
 regards its results in my character, into an intense 
 desire to do my duty, as far as I can see that. ‘ Karn- 
 est — honest — industrious:’ — these three words I 
 brought home with me, and have inscribed on the 
 tablets of my mind. I hope to live them and make 
 progress with them toward greater light than I am now 
 permitted to enjoy. 
 
 In September, he wrote to his brother-in-law : 
 
 You guess rightly that I am busy these days. Mr. 
 Warren has turned so much of a ‘political necessity ’ 
 in Albany, Utica and elsewhere, that he scarcely does 
 anything in the office, of late, and I am consequently 
 conductor and somewhat of brakesman and stoker, too, 
 of the daily newspaper train. But I like it, for my 
 health is good and my faculties sound; and it seems as 
 if a man ought to feel a little flattered when the world 
 demands and puts a value on even the moments of his 
 time. So I scrub away and keep the blues at a safe 
 distance by incessant industry. 
 
 Soon after this was written, David met for the first 
 time the lady who became, afterwards, his wife,—Miss 
 Martha Guthrie, then residing in New Orleans. They 
 were guests, together, for a few days, at ‘ Glen Ivis,’ the 
 romantic country-place of Mr. Letchworth, and began 
 their acquaintance in the midst.of scenes as lovely as 
 
 9 
 
130 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 nature and man have ever combined to create. The 
 wooing followed quickly on the acquaintance, and 
 David’s cup was filled with happiness that autumn, 
 even while he toiled the hardest. When the secret of 
 his happiness was ripe for disclosure, he wrote to his 
 brother : 
 
 BuFFALO, November 27, 1868. 
 
 I think, now, I may speak with a little assurance 
 of my plans,—premising, however, that there may be 
 alterations made, even at fifty-nine minutes past the 
 eleventh hour. Well, then, [ am coming to see you, 
 before this old year goes out, God willing. But I am 
 going somewhere else, first. Not to put too fine a 
 point upon it, I am going to start next Tuesday for 
 New Orleans, for the purpose of visiting the young 
 person who, in the not far distant future is, if all be 
 well, to be Mrs. David Gray. This thing has been 
 going on for some time, but, partly because of the 
 liability of slips between lip and cup, and partly be- 
 cause I would have much preferred to tell you all about 
 it by word of mouth, I have refrained from making the 
 tender confession. . . . John, congratulate me, my boy. 
 Tam a fit subject. Far, far better than I deserve has 
 the beneficent Father dealt with me in this thing. 
 All my utmost expectations are fulfilled. Iam content 
 and happy, as not before in a decade of years. I want 
 to leave something to tell, against my coming, and so 
 refrain from quite unveiling the mystery. Pardon me 
 for this. 
 
 He was married at New Orleans on the 2d of the 
 next coming June, and the happiness of life began for 
 him, in the serene, domestic phase of it which he had 
 coveted most. While the slow-footed days of spring 
 were still fretting him with their tardiness, he wrote to 
 his father and mother : 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 131 
 
 BUFFALO, April 4, 1869. 
 
 . Lam wearying very much for the 20th of next 
 month, when I shall start for the south. I look for- 
 ward to the time, not only because of the happy change 
 it will bring to my way of life, but for the rest I shall 
 have, which I considerably need. I am hoping, now, 
 that I will be able to make my marriage a pretext for 
 a radical change in my hours of work. If I can only 
 shift some of the night work to other shoulders, I shall 
 be much better off. Perhaps I will be able to do so. 
 
 He was able, perhaps, to relieve himself, for a time, 
 after his marriage, of some part of his wearing editorial 
 labors; to diminish a little the long night-watches of 
 his responsible post, and to gain a little more leisure 
 than he had known before, for the enjoyment of his 
 newly founded home. But it cannot have been for 
 long. ‘Those who remember the. pretty cottage home 
 on Niagara street to which David Gray brought his 
 bride, and which she and he made hospitable and de- 
 lightful to their friends for a decade of years, remem- 
 ber, too, how scanty was the freedom which David, 
 himself, had for ‘slippered ease’ in his snug library, 
 there. Only one weekly evening he was sure of, for 
 his own, and that was the Saturday night. Hence, that 
 came to be, ere long, a kind of consecrated and priv- 
 ileged night for some of Gray’s long-time friends, 
 who grew into the expectation and habit of gathering 
 at his cheerful hearth, to spend the final hours of every 
 week. During several years, those ‘Saturday nights 
 at Gray’s,’ as they came to be called, were seldom inter- 
 rupted, and they ranked before everything else among 
 the enjoyments of the small number who shared them 
 
(Ra BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 The prime factor in their delightfulness was Gray, 
 himself, with his geniality, his many-sidedness, his 
 imaginativeness, his humor, his rich equipment for 
 conversation, his exquisite reading. Very often, the 
 evening was spent in listening to the great poems of 
 the master-singers, as David read them, with pauses 
 for comment. His reading was unlike any other which 
 those who heard it ever knew. It was a perfect voicing 
 of the music of poetry. One had the feeling, while he 
 listened, that it gave him the very melody and the very 
 tones that were singing in the imagination of the poet, 
 when his thoughts caught step with the rhythm of his 
 words. Ina letter that has been quoted in a former 
 chapter, he called his way of reading poetry a ‘ singing 
 of verses,’ and said that he learned it from his old Wis- 
 consin friend, David Taylor. But it only suggested 
 singing so far as it, brought out, with the wonderful 
 effect that it did, the whole melody and musical quality 
 of the verse; and, whatever hint of it may have come 
 from another, the delicious art of his reading could 
 only have been perfected by Gray himself. It needed 
 his voice, his face, his manner, his emotional sensitive- 
 ness, his quick, sympathetic following of a poet’s 
 thought —even Browning’s —through all turns and 
 changes, to make David Gray’s reading of poetry the 
 exquisite, unique performance it was. Of elocution, 
 there was nothing in it that could be taught to anybody. 
 
 But, if our host was first in the pleasure-making of 
 those ‘Saturday nights,’ he had a rare auxiliary in 
 one of his guests—the one who resembled him, per- 
 haps, as little as any, but who was most perfectly com- 
 plementary to him in character and genius. This was 
 
 OI 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 138 
 
 Dr. William B. Wright, author of The Brook, and 
 Other Poems ; physician by profession, and teacher of 
 languages in the State Normal School at Buffalo by 
 preference for the avocation that committed him to a 
 studious life. Dr. Wright, who had served in the 
 Union army until the duty of war was wholly done, 
 (he was Major Wright, then), lived so quietly there- 
 after, and so entirely within the round of his school 
 work, his studies, and the few friendships which suf- 
 ficed him, that not many people knew him for what he 
 was. But when he died, at the prime of life, in 1880, 
 the feeling of his friends was not exaggerated by one 
 of them who said: ‘ He was the best and the greatest 
 man I ever knew; I have never come in contact with 
 another who made on me such an impression of great 
 qualities.’ There was, in fact, that effect of greatness 
 in the superiority of mind and character which those 
 who drew close to him were made to feel, but which 
 was veiled to stranger eyes by the beautiful simplicity 
 of his nature. A grave, meditative, often silent man, 
 but easy and unreserved in talk,—oddly humorous, 
 loving homely, expressive phrases and words, and 
 always seeming to bring out, as it were, the primitive 
 flavors of the language in his conversation! A man of 
 perfect honesty, of profoundly reverent but unshrink- 
 ing courage in his thinking, with a large-souled toler- 
 ance for all faithfulness of belief! A man who fed his 
 mind equally on the old philosophies and the new 
 sciences, but who found the breath of the life of his 
 spirit in the atmosphere of poetry! A man who was 
 so impelled to seek, first, after wisdom, and, beyond 
 wisdom, righteousness, that no lower ambitions were 
 
134 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 possible to him! There was perfection of companion- 
 ship in the association of this character with that of 
 Gray,—the large strength of the one with the fine 
 sweetness of the other; and much of the memorable 
 delightfulness of the ‘ Saturday nights at Gray’s’ came 
 from the meeting of those two, with other bright and 
 pleasant company around them. 
 
 But the house on Niagara street was hospitable on 
 many nights and days, and to many people. Gray 
 found his best enjoyment in agreeable society, and 
 opened wide doors to it whenever he could. His 
 acquaintance at home and abroad had become large, 
 especially among men and women of letters and of art, 
 ‘and no one in Buffalo, during those years, entertained 
 more visitors of distinction than he. 
 
 The period now reached in Gray’s life was one in 
 which he devoted his energies and his powers most 
 entirely to his newspaper, and permitted himself to do 
 almost no writing outside of it. The result of his 
 devoted labors was a notable elevation in the character 
 and reputation of the Courier. He gave it a standing 
 much more independent of partisan relations than is 
 often achieved by any party journal, even among those 
 of the highest rank. But this eminent success for his 
 paper was gained at great cost to himself, as appeared 
 a few years later. 
 
 Meantime he wrote little, as has been said, outside 
 of the Courier columns. He did prepare a lecture for 
 the closing of the winter course of the Young Men’s 
 Association, in February, 1871, of which neither the 
 manuseript nor any full report appears to have been 
 preserved. The better things in literature that he had 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 185 
 
 hoped to do were all put off to an unpromising future. 
 He wrote to his brother, in January, 1870: ‘ As for 
 the volume you speak of, it will not be forthcoming till 
 I possess more of my own time. I want to give some- 
 thing better than the fag-ends of days to that.’ But 
 nothing better than the ‘fag-ends of days’ ever be- 
 longed to him, again, until he had lost the strength to 
 use it. 
 
 One poem he wrote, however, in 1872, which is more 
 likely, perhaps, than any other that he left us, to have 
 a lasting place in literature. It was one entitled Zhe 
 Last Council, written for an interesting occasion at 
 Glen Iris, when nineteen representatives of the Seneca 
 and the Mohawk tribes of Indians, including descend- 
 ants of the great chieftains, Red Jacket, Cornplanter 
 and Brant, were assembled, on the invitation of Mr. 
 Letchworth. They came together to re-open the long- 
 abandoned and neglected old Council House of the 
 Seneca nation, which Mr. Letchworth had caused to 
 be removed from Caneadea to Glen Iris (eighteen miles 
 from its original site) and to be carefully re-erected 
 and restored for permanent preservation. The event 
 was afterwards fully recounted by Gray in a fine his- 
 torical article, published with illustrations in Scribner’s 
 Monthly of July, 1877. 
 
 Naturally, his correspondence during the years of 
 this laborious period was limited, and not much of 
 interest or significance can be gleaned from it. Some 
 passages, however, have been found that will help to 
 carry forward the story of his life. 
 
 August 8, 1870, his first child was born, a son, who 
 received his father’s name. Writing to his sister, a 
 
136 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 few days after, David informed her that, the ‘little 
 rascal begins already to emerge from the state of pulp- 
 itude and shows the moulding influence of a dawning 
 soul within.’ 
 
 Writing November 6, 1870, to his friend, Col. John 
 Hay, he touched what was, no doubt, often wistfully in 
 his mind—the thought of a field in journalism different 
 from that of the political daily newspaper. ‘How I 
 wish,’ he exclaimed, ‘ you and I could get hold of some 
 good thing together. I think we could infuse new 
 blood into any carcass of decent promise; leastways, 
 you could, and I could make you do it. But tell me 
 what you are doing and thinking about.’ 
 
 A couple of months later—January 14, 1871— 
 Col. Hay having joined the staff of the Wew York 
 
 Tribune, Gray wrote to him: 
 
 Ah! my boy; it is my hour of triumph. You are 
 now on the treadmill and yow, too, are turned into a 
 poor fiend and do not write letters any more. But it 
 is a triste victory. I want to hear from you. Almost 
 daily I meet happy people who have seen J. H.; but 
 what is that tome? I want to get your own affidavit 
 that you are alive and occasionally have a thought for 
 those who love you well. You are doing splendidly. 
 Of course, everybody may tell you that, but none have 
 so good means of knowing it and so good a right to 
 say itas I. I am not going to dream any more dreams 
 for you, or make any more plans. You are well enough 
 off as you are, for a while. 
 
 In a letter dated May 19, 1872, to his brother, then 
 
 abroad, traveling in the east, he wrote: 
 
 ... As for me, I keep on in the same unvarying 
 round of unremitting and exhausting employment. I 
 
 ee 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. rive 
 
 went to Cincinnati and assisted (in the French sense) 
 at the nomination of Horace Greeley for President. .. . 
 I am much interested in seeing the democratic party 
 coming up to the point of supporting him. I fully 
 believe that, by this unexpected turn of affairs, there 
 will be an opportunity for parties to get out of some 
 bad ruts, and that an impulse in the direction of purer 
 and better government will be given to the country. 
 But what do you care,—pilgrim to the ruined shrines 
 of buried empires and civilizations,—for the latest rip- 
 ple on the surface of American politics? I change the 
 theme. ; 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 BuFFALO, November 3, 1872. 
 
 I write now principally to say that, this long 
 and wearisome political campaign having almost closed, 
 we are looking forward to the near prospect of seeing 
 you all, again... . This past summer and fall have 
 been very toilsome and tedious to me, as you may 
 imagine, and I rejoice at the prospect of being able to 
 emerge a little from party politics, soon. ... I have 
 not been so well in three years as I am now, in spite 
 of politics. 
 
 TO COL. JOHN HAY. 
 
 BuFFALO, December 15, 1872. 
 
 I think it must be all along of my not writing to you 
 _ that the world has been going to rack and ruin in the 
 year past. | am going to re-establish communications 
 and restore the normal order of things. 
 
 We have seen some curious happenings, since the 
 year began, haven’t we? You remember, you and I 
 assisted at the féte of Sedan, and now there are the 
 Cincinnati convention, the liberal campaign and the 
 death of Greeley, added to the roll of strange events. 
 
138 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 How many times I have wished to talk with you and 
 rub my rustic views against your cosmopolitan ones. . . . 
 
 By the way, in last Thursday’s Tribune appeared an 
 announcement of a new book of verse, Zhe Brook, and 
 Other Poems. That book I have a deep interest in, 
 
 and its author is one of the grandest men and friends | 
 
 I ever saw. When it comes out, read it through, and 
 see if it does not contain some grand verse. Your 
 critic didn’t quite get the idea of it; for, I think, be- 
 neath its surface of ‘woods and waters’ is some of the 
 rarest poetic thinking. Look especially at the last two 
 parts of The Brook, and at some of the shorter pieces, 
 such as oontide, Coquette, ete., and I think you will 
 agree with me... . 
 
 What are you doing or contemplating in a literary 
 way? Or are you working too hard to think of any- 
 thing outside of newspapers? As for me, I am drudg- 
 ing away, but hoping also that things may open up, so. 
 that I can have a little leisure for better thoughts. 
 
 And now good-night, and let me hear from you, if 
 you still are John Hay of Vienna. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 BuFFALO, Apri/ 6, 1873. 
 
 It makes me more ashamed than I can tell to think 
 that, since I saw you, four months have passed, in which 
 I have not given any of you the scrape of a pen. 
 Well, I have pretty good material out of which to 
 frame excuses, if I chose to. These have been months 
 of hard, constant, absorbing, exhausting work,—work 
 which so nearly uses up my vital energies that the 
 smallest opportunities for absolute relaxation are per- 
 force improved to the utmost. Saturdays, when the 
 strain is partially lifted—and Sunday nights, which [ 
 always try to spend at home, usually find me even too 
 languid and lazy for reading, which I so much need ; 
 and writing seems out of the question. But, all the 
 
 ~ 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 139° 
 
 more, I think, we keep you all in our minds and talk 
 of you, Mattie and I. Then, too, her pen has done 
 something to bridge the gap of my silence and keep us 
 from altogether slipping out of your minds. Between 
 you and me, I should be a pretty poor stick without. . 
 her, in many ways. 
 
 Further, in this letter, he gave his brother an account 
 of some financial embarrassments that had come upon 
 him, in connection with his newspaper interest, and 
 remarked upon them: 
 
 Fortunately, my utter lack of business habits and 
 disposition has its advantages as well as disadvantages ; 
 for, as I fail in carefulness, as to getting into trouble, 
 so also I stand the trouble, when it comes, with tolera- 
 ‘ble equanimity. But, of all this, perhaps, you had 
 better say ‘nothing to nobody.’ I shall work out, 
 somehow, and be a wiser if a sadder man. The most 
 I regret is, the shutting off of the prospect of future 
 easier times and the opportunity to do some other work. 
 than that of the daily editorial drudge. 
 
 Three months later, in allusion to the same matters,. 
 he wrote: ‘I keep up a good heart and have faith that 
 I will come out, all right. My life is one that does not 
 leave a large margin for leisure; but I try to be con- 
 tent and think it is the very thing I need,—the raal 
 hat, as Davie Taylor used to say.’ 
 
 In June of that year he wrote one of his last occa- 
 sional poems, at the invitation of the Press Association 
 of the State of New York. It was read at a meeting 
 in Lockport, and the following letter, written soon 
 afterwards to his friend, Mr. L. B. Proctor, is inter- 
 
140 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 esting as a frank expression of the view which the 
 writer entertained of his own relations to poetry and 
 to journalism. 
 
 BuFFALO, June 19, 1874. 
 
 I have passed through the ordeal,—please let me call 
 it that,—of the editorial convention at Lockport. AlI- 
 though my poem is not all I could wish it to be, in 
 phrase and in thought, yet I feel, after all, a sort of 
 ‘consciousness, which I venture to express only to you, 
 that it was favorably received. The room in which 
 the convention was held is very large. As it was 
 crowded, I have thought my voice was not sufficiently 
 heavy for the room, and audience. I expected, cer- 
 tainly, to meet you at the convention, and your absence, 
 I confess, affected me somewhat; for, on such occa- 
 sions, nothing strengthens me so much, nothing gives 
 me so much courage, as the presence of my more inti- 
 mate friends. 
 
 As I am a journalist, it was expected my theme 
 would relate to my profession; but to bring such a 
 subject into the domain of poetry! ‘Aye, there’s the 
 rub.’ And, yet, specialists of consummate ripeness and 
 culture, in all departments of knowledge, wait upon 
 the bidding of journalism. The laureate, with his 
 chastened measures; the novelists of both hemispheres ; 
 the patient compiler,—even the imperative, sure-sighted 
 eritic,—all are bringing their best tribute to journal- 
 ism. Why, then, should I not have ‘cudgeled my 
 brain’ for a poetic offering to it? For, as I once said 
 to you, I am a poet by nature, and a journalist by 
 compulsion? Could I have consulted my own taste in 
 choosing an occupation, I should have dwelt in those 
 regions where poetry is born and nourished and plumes 
 itself for its glorious flight. But, perhaps, my wings, 
 like those of Icarus, being only fastened to my shoul- 
 ders with wax, would have melted as I flew, leaving 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 141 
 
 me to fall, like him, to the ground. I cannot deny the 
 fact that, like Thomas Noon Talfourd and Lord Ten- 
 derden, I am more proud of my iambics and hexa- 
 meters than of any laurels I ever won, or expect to. 
 win, in the editorial chair. And yet, by determination,, 
 by unremitting toil, I have learned to love journalism. 
 Habit, you know, does everything; and, so, I now come 
 easily to the task of aiding in the great work of fur-. 
 nishing the public that intellectual aliment which, in 
 these days, can be found only in newspapers,—to: 
 which, every morning, the people come, eager to break 
 their mental fast. This brings me to say, that fresh 
 and eager minds should alone minister to the news-- 
 paper; for there is no other work which consumes 
 vitality so fast as carefully executed newspaper com- 
 position. With these views, I sat down to write my 
 poem on journals and journalism, for the late editorial 
 convention. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 BUFFALO, July 15, 1874. 
 
 . . We sail to-morrow evening on the Badger 
 State for a trip up the lakes, probably not farther than 
 Mackinaw, and return. . I have been off duty now 
 for a month, skirmishing about. the country for the 
 benefit of my nervous system, which had got a little 
 below par, and think that ten days of the lake air will 
 put me in good condition. 
 
 After returning from Mackinaw, he made a long- 
 promised visit of a week, with his friend, Dr. Wright, 
 to the home of the latter’s father, at Campbell Hall, 
 Orange County, N. Y., and seems to have been greatly 
 the better for it. The visit was repeated a year later, 
 - with his family. Monotonous hard work filled the. 
 
142 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 interval, as it filled the succeeding twelve months 
 
 until he escaped again for a brief vacation,—this time 
 
 -to Block Island, off the New England coast. 
 
 TO DOCTOR WILLIAM B. WRIGHT. 
 Biock IsLanpD, R. 1, July 21, 1876. 
 
 We have been islanders, now, just a week, and I can 
 ‘speak confidently. Never before have I been in any 
 place where the facilities were so abundant for making 
 the acquaintance of old Ocean. And I find the old 
 fellow as interesting as I had: hoped—quite capable of 
 making up all defects of society, and what not, from 
 which I might otherwise have suffered. Surf-bathing 
 every day .. . ; long walks on bare downs, overlook- 
 ing the sea, and with its ‘ break, break,’ ever in sight 
 and hearing; cod-fishing in a Block Island boat of 
 two masts, and with an antique mariner or two to sail 
 you and bait your hooks, out on the banks, a half-score 
 miles from the island; a run of twenty minutes, after 
 tea, up to the top of Beacon Hill, whence the sunset is 
 ‘seen,—these are the leading events of my life, here. 
 And are they not enough? The interstices are filled 
 with lazy lounging in the shade and occasional readings 
 (piece-meal) of Emerson, Ruskin and Hawthorne. I 
 am perfectly reconciled to the routine. The place 
 ensures safety, health and enjoyment to the children, 
 and I feel so permeated with the spirit of it, and of my 
 new life, that I have almost lost recollection of a state 
 of hard work and anxiety. My face is as red as the 
 ‘sunset I gaze on, nightly, and I can run, jump, swim 
 and walk like a young savage. 
 
 Of course, I have little hope of tempting you out 
 here; but, if it were convenient for you, and you had 
 the inclination, you might do worse than to come. . . . 
 You would at first think the Island bare and burned 
 up; it has no trees and the season has been unusually 
 
 Ee 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 143 
 
 dry and hot;—but in a day or two the ocean would 
 embrace you and you would be grandly happy, as I 
 am ;—all the more if you choose to use your legs vig- 
 orously in tramping, as I do. If you come, bring the 
 oldest suit of clothes you ever saw. I dress like a 
 gaberlunzie. . . . I shall be here ten days yet, at any 
 rate. | 
 
 This brief rest, taken so much to his liking, in the 
 lap of the sea, was followed by the strain and labor 
 of the presidential canvass of 1876. It was followed, 
 too, in the midst of that canvass, by the sudden death 
 of Joseph Warren, senior editor of the Courier and 
 long-recognized leader of the democratic party in 
 Western New York. This death was doubly serious 
 to Gray. It deprived him of a friend, towards whom 
 his feeling was very warm, and it threw upon him 
 responsibilities and duties which were new to his 
 experience, uncongenial, in every way, and trying to 
 him, beyond any possible description. Succeeding, 
 now, to the chief editorship of the Courier, he was 
 brought, directly, into those relationships with practi- 
 eal politics and with practical politicians which he had 
 known and felt only in an indirect way while Mr. 
 Warren lived. That he was gravely affected by this 
 serious change in -the conditions of his journalistic 
 work, is unquestionable. 
 
 But, if the political campaign of 1876 was an 
 extremely trying experience to the new chief-editor of 
 the Courier, the result of it was the bitterest dis- 
 appointment, no doubt, of his life. He had become 
 personally acquainted with Mr. Tilden,—even inti- 
 mately and confidentially so,—while the latter was 
 
144 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 Governor of the State of New York, and had acquired 
 an enthusiastic regard for him. He looked upon Mr. 
 Tilden as one of the wisest of statesmen, one of the 
 purest of patriots, one of the most excellent of gentle- 
 men. He expected his election to the presidency, and 
 anticipated from it a great purification of politics and 
 a notable elevation of the character of our adminis- 
 trative government. He fully believed, afterwards, 
 that Mr. Tilden had been elected, and that he and the 
 nation were defrauded, by dishonest manipulations of 
 the result in Louisiana and elsewhere. It was a black 
 and evil and exasperating outcome, to him,—very hard 
 to be submissive to. No doubt he suffered, moreover, 
 _ a half-conscious disappointment of personal ambitions 
 in the matter, which few people knew of. His relations 
 with Mr. Tilden were such that, while it is not probable 
 he would have accepted any political office, he was sure 
 to have stood among the trusted counselors of the 
 president, if the democratic candidate had entered the 
 White House. The failure to secure what he believed 
 had been won fairly, at the polls, was an immeasurably 
 hard blow to him, therefore, in his friendship, in his 
 patriotism, and in his personal ambition, as well. 
 
 But he bore it with equanimity, with dignity, with 
 the temper of a Christian man. There is no sign of 
 passion in his editorial writing during all the discus- 
 sions of that threatening crisis. On the contrary, he 
 exerted the whole influence of his journal to calm the 
 dangerous excitement of the time, and to inspire trust 
 in peaceful measures for the settlement of the moment- 
 ous dispute. Four days after the election, on the 11th 
 of November, he wrote, under the caption Heep Cool : 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. ne RSS 
 
 In these days of excitement and suspense, the Courier 
 has no sympathy with those hot-headed people, whether 
 democrats or republicans, who indulge in loud talk 
 about the terrible things to happen in the case of the 
 happening of such and such other things. It is not 
 necessary or desirable to have the public feeling any 
 more inflamed than it is now. The votes are being 
 counted, of a close election, and all the people can do 
 is to keep quiet and wait for full returns. We have 
 not the slightest doubt of Mr. Tilden’s election, and 
 believe that it will soon be triumphantly established. 
 But, in any case, the good sense and moderation of 
 the people will be equal to any crisis that can possibly 
 develop itself. Let us keep cool and good-natured. 
 Let nothing be said or done to irritate political oppo- 
 
 nents, or sow the seeds of violence in the popular mind. 
 _ Permit no insult or abuse on the part of republicans, or 
 republican journals, to disturb democratic self-control 
 or poison democratic patriotism. Remember that the 
 country is greater than party. This thing will come 
 out all right if we only have patience. Justice will 
 be done; the right will triumph. Keep cool! 
 
 To bring himself to this pacific temper and this 
 spirit of moderation, which he firmly and calmly pre- 
 served through all the agitated four months of the 
 undetermined electoral count, required, under the cir- 
 cumstances, a most admirable subjugation of personal 
 feelings, and a thoughtful fidelity to the welfare of the 
 country, which are not too common among the con- 
 ductors of partisan journals. 
 
 But the strain he was under, during all that trying 
 period, from the beginning of the presidential canvass 
 of 1876 to the closing of the ‘count’ on the 2d of 
 March, 1877,—the unresting labor performed and the 
 
 excitements gone through,—had done him mortal harm. 
 10 
 
146 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 He wrote to his brother in April: ‘I cannot stand so 
 much work as I once could.’ Early in July he went 
 with his family to Block Island for a few weeks of rest, 
 and ended a brief letter, written just before starting, 
 with the remark—not a common one with him—‘I 
 am tired to death.’ Writing from Block Island to 
 Mr. Letchworth, he said: 
 
 Biock ISLAND, R. L., July 14, 1877. 
 
 In my long solitary walks by the ocean, a vision of 
 the Glen rises before me. This is good enough as a 
 place in which to seek health for the body; but health 
 and peace for the spirit are elsewhere, and I don’t 
 think I shall find them till I sit amidst the lights and 
 airs and sweet scents and sounds of our beloved valley. 
 . .. I expect to look down on you in passing home- 
 ward again, sometime about the 25th inst. I will 
 leave my benediction in the upper air. 
 
 On the 25th, he was still lingering’on the island for 
 another week of its tonic air, and wrote to his brother: 
 ‘I am having a gorgpous time, physically ; am getting 
 great good from it.’ 
 
 Early in August, he returned home, sumone ab- 
 ruptly by news of the railroad riots then outbreaking, 
 at Buffalo and elsewhere; and, not many days after- 
 wards, he was smitten with what must have been a 
 genuine coup de soleil, though it seemed but a slight 
 touch at the time. He thought lightly of the matter, 
 after he had recovered a little from the first effects of 
 the prostration, and barely mentioned it in a letter to 
 his brother, written August 28th: 
 
 I had a little touch—a premonition rather—of a 
 sun-stroke, last week, and my head is not feeling first- 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 147 
 
 rate, yet. But, happily, by prompt measures, I was 
 able to ward off danger and shall be all right, soon. . 
 We have safely accomplished our transportation from 
 192 Niagara street to 77 Park Place and enjoy the 
 change very much. 
 
 But he had not yet begun to feel the real hurt of 
 the stroke that seemed so light. It was a deeper 
 wound than he knew, and he had received it at a time 
 when his vital energies were seriously impaired. _ Its 
 mischievous effects on him were wrought with some 
 slowness and in a deceptive way. Going back to his 
 work, after a few days of repose, he soon found that 
 his strength was waning, and his brain refusing to be 
 tasked. Even yet, it was thought that a few weeks of 
 quiet would suffice to restore him, and he went away, 
 to his favorite resting-place—always open to him—at 
 Glen Iris. While there, he wrote the little poem 
 * Rest,’ which is believed to be the last that came from 
 his pen. 
 
 But, before September ended, his physician and his - 
 friends had become convinced that something more 
 radical was needed to lift him from his prostration, 
 and he crossed the Atlantic, for the benefits of the 
 sea-voyage and for such stay in England and Scotland 
 as might prove to be good. ‘The journey was a lonely 
 one, for his family was necessarily left behind, but it 
 gave him renewed strength and life. From the many 
 letters which he wrote to his wife during this pilgrim- 
 age of convalescence, a few passages only will be 
 quoted. 
 
1448 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 STEAMSHIP ‘ C1ITy OF RICHMOND,’ 
 Sunday, October 7, 1877. 
 
 . My pusillanimous heart looked with devouring 
 envy, for a little, on a happy father who had his little 
 ones with him. It made me think, of course, with 
 double sharpness of regret, of the ‘dear boys I was 
 leaving. But the inspiration of the ocean overcame, 
 speedily, all painful feelings. . . . This morning, I 
 woke about seven, after ten hours of the best sleep I 
 have had in many weeks; and, when I went on deck, 
 I almost walked, or ran, on tip-toe,—so light and 
 strong did I feel. The weather is superb,—scarcely a 
 cloud in the sky, and a light breeze which just tips 
 the waves with a feather-a-piece of foam. . . . A little 
 land-sparrow has been following us, very wing-weary, 
 evidently, and I have been wishing it would come on 
 board and share my room with me. I would be very 
 good to it. But I fear it will fly until it is forced 
 to drop into the hungry deep. 
 
 A few days at Bradford, with his friend Colonel 
 Shepard, U. S. consul there, a fortnight in Scotland, a 
 night at Fryston Hall, as the guest of Lord Houghton, 
 and a week in London, filled his time until near the 
 end of November. From London he wrote: ‘I cer- 
 tainly keep gaining. My physical strength is unques- 
 tionably greater than it has been at any time since my 
 stroke. I go about all day, now, without thinking of 
 fatigue, till night.” His few days in London were 
 busily and agreeably spent, among friends who brought 
 him into acquaintance with many people of the literary 
 world whom he found it delightful to meet. He also © 
 renewed friendship with his old Edinburgh school- 
 mate, Mr. John Pettie, the artist, whom he had not 
 seen since they were boys together. Going, then, to 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 149 
 
 Paris, for a few days, he found it ‘a little too lively’ 
 for him, and he returned to England, writing from 
 Folkestone, November 30th: = - 
 
 I am back in Folkestone, where I arrived last even- 
 ing, and where I have had a thoroughly healthful day, 
 roaming over the Kentish downs. I walked almost to 
 Dover, and am able to testify that ‘there ’s milestones 
 on the Dover road,’ in the words of old Aunt Betsey 
 Trotwood. . . . I feel nearer to you, in England, and 
 that is the sweetest feeling Europe has now to give 
 me. . . . My present plan is to go up to London, to- 
 morrow or next day, to get the things I left there; 
 thence to run down to the Isle of Wight, or some place 
 in that neighborhood, and stay there till the day before 
 my ship sails. Yesterday, coming from Paris, I met a 
 very pleasant Englishman and his wife, from whom I 
 learned a deal as to attractive places on the south 
 coast. When we parted we exchanged cards, and my 
 compagnon de voyage proved to be Mr. Trevelyan, 
 author of that book you liked so much—the Life of 
 Macaulay. 
 
 From Ventnor, Isle of Wight, he wrote, Dec. 6th: 
 
 I arrived at two this afternoon, from Southampton, 
 where I stopped last night, and a walk along the coast, 
 from which [I have just come in, inclines me to think 
 that the praises of this island have not been tuned in 
 too high a key. In the first place, I have seen the sun 
 for the first time in a week, and the sky is blue when 
 clear, not turnip color. Then the climate, as it appears 
 to-day, is a sort of mild semi-spring. The lanes and 
 hedges are green, many shrubs are in blossom, and I 
 heard the birds singing cheerily, away in the depths of 
 a thicket, surrounding a grand mansion. The shore, 
 too, is superbly picturesque in its conformation,—bold 
 
150 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 headlands and long reaches of sandy beach; while, 
 above, tower quite high hills, to the top of which I 
 shall make my way to-morrow. The place, however, 
 has a decidedly high-priced and aristocratic flavor. 
 On all sides, as you walk, you are warned against tres- 
 passing, here, and violating the sanctities of something 
 or other, there. But I shall, no doubt, enjoy it for the 
 five or six days I have to spend, and I’m sure I shall 
 enjoy leaving it for the purpose of taking my way 
 homeward. 
 
 He sailed from Liverpool for home December 18th, 
 and, in his last letter from Ventnor, before leaving the 
 Isle of Wight, written December 9th, described his 
 state of health, as follows: 
 
 I feel confident that, if I take care of myself and 
 arrange my work so as to avoid extra fatigue, I shall 
 be all right, now. I consulted a doctor in Paris and 
 he told me he thought there would be no danger. Of 
 course, I shall not be as strong as I once was; but I 
 shall be able to resume my place and be at my post, 
 and I feel that it is time that were done. You know, 
 niches that are left empty, even by the most distin- 
 guished statues, have a way of filling up. ‘So I shall 
 come, as I have planned. 
 
 Reaching home, happily, on Christmas morning, he 
 seemed to be in fairly good health and his hope of 
 being able to resume work was fulfilled. Little more 
 than a month passed, indeed, before he reported to his 
 brother: ‘Iam again up to the eyes in work.’ But 
 he was able to add: ‘In the midst of it all, I have 
 been steadily gaining strength and tone. Indeed, my 
 progress, the past month has been surprising, and 
 
THE PRIME OF LIFE. 151 
 
 a subject to me of devout thankfulness. I can work 
 with as much ease, now, as ever, while I take care not 
 to work late or exhaust myself too much.’ 
 
 He continued in this state of health for some two 
 years, always working to nearly the limit of his 
 strength, and always feeling that he might pass the 
 breaking point at any moment. Early in 1880, the 
 line was overstepped, and he was forced to quit his 
 post for several weeks, which he spent with friends at 
 Norfolk, Va. He wrote to his brother at this time: 
 
 I do not think that my physical condition is as bad 
 as you seem to fear. A week of rest has had a marked 
 effect, in restoring my nerve-vigor, and I dare say that 
 a month of it will put me in condition to resume work 
 with safety; the more, as I now see my way clear to 
 taking it easy and dropping night-work. If, however, 
 the event should prove otherwise, I will cheerfully 
 accept my physical break-down as an indication from 
 God that I am to leave my present business. No 
 doubt, some other way of making a living will be 
 opened to me. 
 
 Recovering, again, from the prostration, he resumed 
 once more the editorial direction of the Courier, work- 
 ing prudently, at first, a few hours daily, but being 
 gradually drawn, by the exactions of his post, into the 
 over-work which was so surely fatal to him. He knew 
 the danger and saw no escape from it. An exclama- 
 tion which appears in one of his letters ( July, 1881 ) 
 —‘]| keep up remarkably well; but O! I would be glad 
 to get out of this business! ’—expressed, no doubt, the 
 continual, sad longing he felt. In the summer of 
 1882, the inevitable catastrophe occurred. He fell in 
 
152 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 the galling harness, again, and so had riddance of it, 
 finding no more strength to put it on. He lived after- 
 wards for six years, and with usefulness, but only as a 
 shattered man. 
 
 As he was stricken at this time, his brain seemed 
 partly paralyzed for a season,—not producing the slight- 
 est derangement of mind, but only a general numbness 
 of its faculties. -He had no comprehension of his own 
 state, and was helpless in the hands of ready friends 
 and of a courageous wife. The co-operation of these 
 sent him, once more, over the sea, with his whole fam- 
 ily, this time, to care for him and to give him com- 
 panionship. He was saved by that measure, for the 
 time, and owed entirely to it, no doubt, the precarious 
 strength of body and the perfect clearness of mind 
 which he regained. 
 
CHAPTER: Att OG 
 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 
 
 THE religious sentiment was a profoundly inherent 
 one in David Gray’s nature. It was by that, and- by 
 his poetical sensibility, that he was fashioned as a man. 
 ‘These two were elemental in his character and his life; 
 but the strain of natural piety was the more powerful 
 of the two and dominated everything else. Its de- 
 mands were the need that he always felt to be supreme ; 
 his spiritual cravings were the spring of his sorrow and 
 his joy. The time in his life when he lost, for some 
 years, the satisfaction of them, was the period of dark 
 unhappiness which his letters have disclosed. 
 
 The parental and home influences which surrounded 
 him in his boyhood were all tenderly but strictly re- 
 ligious. He was bred in an atmosphere of piety, and 
 educated to the considering of questions of religious 
 belief and religious practice as though all other matters 
 were insignificant in the comparison. His parents 
 were members of the Baptist church at Edinburgh, 
 until 1839, when their views underwent some change, 
 which David’s brother has described in the following : 
 
 The Christian Baptist, a religious periodical, pub- 
 lished by Alexander Campbell of Bethany, Va., had 
 found its way into father’s hands and led him to the 
 belief that ‘the Bible and the Bible alone is an all- 
 
154 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 sufficient guide in faith and practice.’ Feeling that 
 
 this could not be strictly lived up to in the Baptist. 
 connection, he, with four others, met for the first time 
 on the last Sunday in 1839, in Roman Eagle Hall, 
 Lawn Market, as a little body of Disciples of Christ. 
 In a year and a half their numbers had, swelled to one 
 hundred and fifty. In August, 1847, Alexander Camp- 
 bell, then traveling in Great Britain, delivered a series. 
 of discourses before large audiences in Waterloo Rooms, 
 in the interest of the cause of truth, generally, and to 
 strengthen the little congregation whose views coin- 
 cided with his own. He was a frequent visitor at our 
 house while in Edinburgh, and I well remember with 
 what enthusiasm both young and old of us turned out 
 to hear the great American orator. David, though 
 young at that time, was well informed on religious 
 subjects and especially intelligent in the Scriptures ; 
 so that when, two years later, we were living near 
 Waupun, Wis., and found there a meeting of Disciples, 
 it was with a very competent knowledge of what he 
 was doing that he publicly confessed his faith in Christ, 
 and was ‘ buried with him in baptism,’ in the creek that. 
 ran near the school-house, where meetings were held. 
 During all his stay in Wisconsin, he continued faith- 
 fully and earnestly devoted to a life consistent with his 
 profession. He took much interest in religious subjects 
 and read a great deal. 
 
 It was just before the Crimean war that Dr. John 
 Thomas, of New Jersey, published a book called ‘ Elpsis 
 Israel,’ in which was set forth a complete outline of 
 prophecy to be fulfilled by Russia, the ‘King of the 
 North.’ David’s interest in that book and in passing 
 events was intense. He thought that Dr. Thomas held 
 the key to unfulfilled prophecy, and, for a time, at least, 
 was captivated by his teachings—hbelieving that the 
 European war, then commencing, was the beginning of 
 the fulfillment of prophecy, and that, soon after, the 
 Kingdom of Israel was to be established in Palestine, 
 
 Ss se 
 
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 155. 
 
 with Christ as their King. Dogmatism took possession. 
 of Dr. Thomas in subsequent writings, and so displeased 
 David that he lost, in time, all faith in him; and in 
 one of his letters from Edinburgh he alluded to Chris- 
 tadelphian teaching as the doctrine of ‘corner lots in 
 Palestine.’ 
 
 David came to Buffalo with religious feelings of the 
 utmost fervor still animating him, but with opinions 
 so peculiar that he found none among the Christian. 
 churches of the city that he could join himself to swith 
 a sense of fellowship, or with an approving conscience. 
 He wrote at that time (September 26, 1856) to his: 
 friend Lindsay : 
 
 I feel rather destitute, as far as religious matters go.. 
 Few ‘means of grace, as the Babylonish slang is, 
 are mine, other than may have fallen to the lot of 
 Robinson Crusoe on the desolate island. I find that 
 between me and the generality of religionists there is 
 a great gulf fixed, and passage on my part is out of 
 the question. I debated with myself the propriety of 
 joining the Baptists in the ordinance of the Lord’s. 
 Supper; but, as far as I can see, such is not my duty. 
 My sentiments, if declared to most of them, would be 
 pronounced monstrous, and I think it would be some- 
 thing of deceit to sit down. . . . And this is supposing 
 such an act to be perfectly salutary to my own religious. 
 constitution. But, in communing with a body, do I 
 not, in a manner, identify myself with said body, all 
 its follies, etc., included? I don’t know about that; 
 perhaps it is this way: A company are found pro- 
 fessedly following Jesus, and, in pursuance of such 
 profession, orderly fulfilling one of the Master’s re- 
 quirements ; now, can I not take them simply at their 
 word, as to the reality of their discipleship, and reap 
 the blessing in thus fulfilling with them, tho’ on my 
 
156 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 own account, the institution of the Lord? Give me 
 your ideas on this matter, my dear Edmond, for I need — 
 all the help I can get. I mentioned Robinson Crusoe 
 before, and really, when I think of it, I am on a spiritual 
 Juan Fernandez here. 
 
 In a letter to the same friend, November 26, 1856, 
 he wrote: 
 
 I do not mix a great deal with people here, altho’ I 
 have met some real good young men . . . who, if they 
 could be drawn out of the clutches of error, would 
 ornament any cause. But this I have little hope of ; 
 for I am not rooted and grounded in the faith enough, 
 myself, yet, to do any more than creep slowly on to 
 firmer footing. Oh! how I wish that I were like 
 Apollos, ‘mighty in the Word.’ How puny, then, 
 would the arguments and foils of the enemy seem; 
 for, it appears to me, there is a direct answer to every 
 objection to the truth, ready, somewhere in the Word of 
 Truth, to be read. ‘Till we can in some degree master 
 this power of applying and using Scripture, we must 
 be content often to fall and rise,—often to remain 
 under a cloud when we could wish to be lightning, 
 almost,—and often to feel the chagrin of knowing that 
 something might be said to advantage and that we 
 can’t say it. I think I shall, as my convictions go 
 now—in fact, I have determined to—take the first 
 opportunity for re-immersion. J am growing more 
 settled on that point, and I feel it a decided comfort 
 that I am settling, at last. 
 
 The following spring found him still troubled by the 
 question of ‘re-immersion,’ which had not been settled - 
 in his mind as he thought it to be, and evidently 
 acquiring some distrust of the guide whose interpreta- 
 tions of Scripture he had been faithfully following. 
 He wrote to Edmond Lindsay, May 27, 1857: 
 
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 15T 
 
 Respecting the question of re-immersion, I am still 
 in my old position of painful indecision. How it will 
 result with me, I know not. I am sometimes inclined 
 to think that John Thomas has got hold of some 
 technicalities, and is pushing things far beyond where. 
 the spirit of revelation will sustain him. It certainly 
 weighs against him, when he subverts our previous. 
 ideas of Scripture, that he substitutes a something 
 which I confess to be hard of comprehension; and 
 that, moreover, a complete re-translation of Holy Writ 
 is necessary to its establishment. However, that is 
 nothing to the point. If J. T. has been simply a falli- 
 ble man, and has run his theories to the ground, the 
 truth which he has been the means of bringing to 
 light claims attention, still. I, certainly, speaking of 
 the Gospel now, would speak of it as the ‘Gospel of 
 the Kingdom,’ and not merely as the ‘things concern- 
 ing Jesus.’ Iam very sorely tried, in not having any 
 intercourse tending to sharpen and strengthen me in 
 these matters. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 BUFFALO, August 20, 1857. 
 
 Touching the subject of re-immersion, . . . I am 
 sorry to say that I have no progress to report. I have 
 been corresponding with Walter, with Mr. Beattie, 
 soliloquizing with myself, growing alternately angry 
 and interested over John Thomas’ Herald, and now I 
 believe I am in a position which calls for—a continua- 
 tion of the process. My views, however, are decidedly 
 modified, as well, I perceive, as Walter’s, respecting 
 the Gospel, and, if I settle down somewhere into the 
 position my father used to hold, you must not rail on 
 me for retrograding, but rather pity me for having 
 been so long driven about of the winds and tossed. 
 God knows, if I had seen re-immersion. to be an end to. 
 my perplexities, [ should almost have submitted if it. 
 had been a baptism of fire. 
 
158 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 BuFFALO, March 5, 1858. 
 
 I think I have extended my vision and learned a 
 little, in the past year or two that I have struggled and 
 striven through. If it amounts to anything, it is that 
 brother John Thomas has not gathered up all the 
 truth into the circle of his belief ;—a discovery which 
 it took me a long and painful time to make, and which 
 I had to work into from the most fortified state of 
 opposite belief. The fact is, I think, that J. T. has, 
 like many other men, got hold of a valuable idea, and 
 has been so transported with his discovery that he has 
 made it a kind of all-in-all, to the exclusion of every 
 other. Following him closely, I could not see the 
 error in which I was, except by a kind of reductio ad 
 absurdum ; | saw where his course had led me, and 
 thereby saw its falseness . . . I confess to you, my 
 experience since surmounting this long existent diff- 
 culty has been a most pleasant one. Instead of my 
 mind being in a perpetual struggle, in consequence of 
 my faith, I find my faith the one composing and sup- 
 porting element,—a most salutary change, I assure 
 you. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 -  BuFFao, May 19, 1858. 
 
 I desire very much to talk with you, now, on the 
 things of the Kingdom. I think a happy change has 
 come Over my mind since you saw me; as I have been 
 able to correct my ideas on almost everything, so it 
 has been with my understanding of Scripture, and with 
 my ideas of the Christian system. The isolated, con- 
 tracted kind of life which was mine in Wisconsin gave 
 me corresponding ideas. I think intercourse with my 
 fellows has had a corrective influence on me. But on 
 this I will not enlarge. May God in His infinite 
 mercy keep me from trusting in my own strength and 
 ‘wisdom ! 
 
 =_— =" 
 
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 159 
 
 The state of feeling expressed in the last of these 
 letters was one in which David continued, probably, 
 for some time longer. If not joined with any church, 
 he was actively engaged in Christian work, not only in 
 his connection with the Young Men’s Christian Union, 
 but also, and especially, as one of the teachers of a 
 mission Sunday-school, which he helped to carry on for 
 several years in the worst district in the city,—the 
 ‘Five Points of Buffalo,’ as it was called in those days. 
 He was greatly interested in the class of waifs whom 
 he had gathered under his teaching in this school, and 
 on whom he exerted an influence—there can be no 
 doubt of it—which affected the lives of some among 
 them, if not all. He kept acquaintance with them, as 
 far as possible, and watched their course in after 
 years, with great satisfaction from the knowledge that 
 several of these ‘children of the street’ had become 
 successful, trustworthy, useful members of society. 
 
 But a chill of some nature came upon David’s relig- 
 ious feelings after a time, and his life for several years 
 was much troubled by it. His brother states that ‘he 
 came in contact with men whose influence was against 
 Christianity, and that an effect was produced on his 
 mind, at first imperceptible to himself.’ The effect of 
 that influence, whatever it may have been, was un- 
 doubtedly helped by the excitements and distractions 
 into which he was led, first by his newspaper associa- 
 tions, and afterwards by the gay life of ‘society’ into 
 which he plunged. As early as in August, 1861, he 
 wrote: ‘In religious matters I seem to suffer a total 
 eclipse.’ But, as he said a little later to one who 
 questioned him: ‘These things are never out of my 
 
160 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 mind.’ It was the always present thought of his 
 spiritual alienation which clouded his life at that 
 period, and which gave their tone of bitterness to some 
 of the letters that have been quoted in a former chap- 
 ter. The following is from a letter which he wrote to 
 a very near friend, in March, 1865: 
 
 I know your loving Christian heart would like to 
 have me say that I, too, had found that rest and 
 refuge which are better than any philosophy or experi- 
 ence afford. I cannot say it, H., yet. I only know 
 that I am wretched, and must be, till a great change 
 comes. I do not seek to evade the wretchedness, until 
 I can exchange it—not for pleasure, nor happiness, 
 even, but for blessedness. But how that change is to 
 be made I know not yet. Anything that anybody, 
 even you, could say to me, instantly resolves itself into 
 a theory or system, and then it is assailable; then the 
 whole pack of doubts and questionings leap on it like 
 mad and tear it down, and trample it into the undis- 
 tinguishable mire into which other systems have been 
 worried to death before it. But just let me wait and 
 ruminate and suffer. It cannot be wrong, that. While 
 I feel, more keenly than words can speak, my loathsome 
 baseness and utter weakness, I still have a forlorn 
 feeling that God is love, and that love is leading me 
 even now. Remember, I don’t use that feeling as a 
 justification of my miserable status. 
 
 The change which he hoped and waited for was long 
 in coming to him. He did not find it during the years 
 of his old-world pilgrimage, although his religious feel- — 
 ings were much touched and wakened, several times. 
 While traveling in Italy, in 1866, his attention was 
 first turned, as it seems, to the simple and earnest 
 communion of the ‘Plymouth Brethren, so called, 
 
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 161 
 
 which he afterwards joined. The incident that inter- 
 ested him in them was related in a letter to his father 
 and mother, written from Venice, May 9th of that 
 year : 
 
 At Bologna, a week or ten days ago, at the hotel 
 there, I got into conversation with an English gentle- 
 man, who, from some remarks he let fall, at once 
 seemed to be a Christian, and not of the kind who 
 rely much on churches or ministers. I found he had 
 become converted, as he said, by reading the New Tes- 
 tament and hearing the word preached by an Italian 
 evangelist, and had found himself drawn to sympathy 
 with the Plymouth Brethren, although he had never 
 formally joined their communion. Having owed some 
 of his knowledge of the Gospel to Italy, he had, since, 
 as much as possible, for eight years, been devoting 
 himself to testifying among the Italians his gratitude. 
 He was able to tell me some very interesting things 
 about a religious reformation now in progress through 
 Italy,—that to which he is giving his aid. In most of its 
 leading features, this reformation is exactly such as that 
 of Britain and America. It is an uprising of faith and 
 knowledge, gained simply and solely from the Scrip- 
 tures, and in which the thraldom of the priesthood is ut- 
 terly repudiated. The little churches of these believers, 
 scattered throughout Italy, almost altogether composed 
 of the poor in this world’s goods, and often subjected to 
 grievous persecutions from the Catholic Church, have 
 struck out a form of church order and government 
 precisely that of the Reformation called Campbellite. 
 They meet once a week to break bread. They likewise 
 recognize the necessity of the believer’s baptism, and 
 profess to have no other rule or authority than that of 
 the Bible for their conduct. Their evangelists, men who 
 give their strength to the work for no money remuner- 
 ation, are now busily spreading what I have no doubt 
 
 11 
 
162 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 is the very Gospel, in every part of a country which, 
 five years ago, was hermetically sealed against the 
 light. A good proof of the genuineness of the move- 
 ment is, that the various missionary societies and evan- 
 gelizing agencies of the orthodox churches in Britain 
 look coldly on the ‘Free Christian Church of Italy,’ 
 and invite it to declare its creed and take to itself a 
 distinctive name, before they will give it aid,—an invi- 
 tation, [ am glad to say, which the Italian believers 
 courteously but firmly decline. This is interesting, isn’t 
 it? My friend, Col. Cartan—like Mr. Symonds, he is 
 a retired officer—seemed to be a devoted and intelligent 
 man, and I enjoyed the two or three days communica- 
 tion T had with him, very much. 
 
 The next year he was in the Holy Land, and no 
 other part of his travel interested him so much as the 
 visiting of the scenes of the Gospel history. It was 
 the interest of a Christian believer that he felt, and he 
 was probably never shaken in that belief; but his faith 
 had become spiritually cold, and, even yet, there was 
 no kindling of it anew. Soon after his return from 
 Palestine, while at Gotha, Germany, in July, 1867, le 
 wrote to his friend David Taylor: _ 
 
 The idea struck me suddenly with a thump, the other 
 day, to ask you whereabouts you have arrived nowadays 
 on the religious question. I almost smile when I re- 
 member how we arranged that subject between us, long 
 ago: how sore and sensitive I used to feel on it, and 
 how religiously we avoided it. For better or worse, 
 that is all changed with me, now, and I would really 
 like, if you happen to feel interested in this respect, 
 when you next write, that you would speak out what- 
 ever you may have to say. As for myself, touching 
 religion, I am almost led to doubt whether some im- 
 portant faculty has not been omitted in my make-up, 
 
 
 
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 10a 
 
 so utterly have I failed to find foothold in the dark 
 and dubious realm,—so totally barren of results does 
 my life seem to be, so far as the forming of beliefs, or 
 even of opinions, goes. I am altogether a negative, 
 while you are a positive man; and thus I cannot but 
 think that you must be pretty well defined and fixed in 
 your notions. If so, give me the benefit, as you can. 
 Life is too short for discussions and arguments ; so you 
 need dread nothing of that sort on my side. 
 
 Ten more years were yet to pass before the light 
 which he looked for—the light which had shone upon 
 his spirit in youth and which his manhood had lost— 
 reappeared to him. In 1877 he experienced a change 
 which made him, for all the remainder of his life, a 
 totally different man. larly in the summer of that 
 year, his thoughts became fixed on the questions of 
 religion with more seriousness than he had shown 
 
 before. Mrs. Gray says: 
 
 When we were at Block Island, that year, he carried 
 a copy of the New Testament with him in all his walks. 
 Davy [their young son] was his almost constant com- 
 panion on these walks, and he used to tell me how his 
 father would lie down on the cliffs near the sea and 
 read his Testament, very often reading aloud to Davy 
 and talking with him about what he had read. From 
 that time until he died, there was no subject that had 
 for him so deep an interest. 
 
 Soon after coming home from Block Island, he suf- 
 fered the prostration which first broke his strength, 
 and he then went abroad, as has been told, for three 
 months. On returning from England, he paid a visit 
 to his parents at Detroit, and while there, at a Sunday 
 morning meeting of the Disciples, he made a public 
 
164 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 confession of faith which impressed those who heard — 
 it very deeply. His brother writes of this: ‘He 
 confessed that he had been a wanderer, subject to 
 very great religious aberration; but he thanked the 
 Heavenly Father that he had been spared to see his 
 folly. He desired to humbly acknowledge his wrong, 
 and for the future to live by help from above, as a 
 true and devoted servant of Christ.’ On the 30th of 
 August following he was received ‘by experience’ 
 (the church record states) into the Washington Street 
 Baptist Church, at Buffalo. ‘Rev. Dr. Hotchkiss, a 
 man of profound research and knowledge of the Serip- 
 tures’ (says David’s brother), ‘was then pastor, and 
 with him David held much in common, enjoying his 
 expositions as well as his spiritual life. But the divided 
 state of the church filled his mind with sadness, and 
 led him often to speak of it, as ‘the church in ruins ;” 
 _ and at the same time he became gradually convinced 
 that faithful allegiance to Christ required him to take 
 a position of separation from all the confusion prevail- 
 ing in the religious world.’ 
 In June, 1879, he wrote to his brother: 
 
 I do want to have a long talk with you about many 
 subjects. My heart is full. ... Meantime I am 
 waiting and inquiring as to my duty. But, thank 
 God! although I am undecided on some points of 
 conduct, I have peace and joy and the assurance of 
 forgiveness of sin through the merey of God in Christ 
 Jesus; and what could a man wish for, more,—save 
 that he might grow in grace and in the knowledge of | 
 that Blessed One who has not only died that we might 
 live, but has entered into the heavens to appear for us 
 in the presence of His Father ? 
 
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 165 
 
 He found himself, now, drawn by an increasing 
 attraction towards the people known as the Plymouth 
 Brethren, among whom were already counted some of 
 the friends who were dearest to him. Writing to one 
 
 of these, on the 2d of April, 1880, he said: 
 
 It is grand to see the glories of Christ shining out 
 of every page of Scripture. Everywhere He is ‘set 
 forth’ as the object of our wonder, adoration and love. 
 O, that my wretched lean and cold heart might be 
 filled with Him. I am conscious of suffering sadly 
 for lack of more intimate and simple communion with 
 His people than I now enjoy, and I long for the time 
 when [ shall see my way clear to have fellowship with 
 your brethren. But, for the present, I dare not follow 
 my inclination in this matter. If these Washington 
 Street Baptists are God’s people, as I believe they are, 
 what right have I to leave them? Admit that they 
 are uninstructed, and that their order in some things is 
 not that of the New Testament; still, it should be my 
 business, rather to try and set them right than to turn 
 my back on them. And, then, while I feel that the 
 position held by your brethren is the true one, and I 
 intensely desire to be with them in their separation from 
 the world and oneness with Christ, I cannot compre- 
 hend how they can stand in resistance to the (to me) 
 plain and unmistakable appointment of Christ, in 
 regard to baptism. Something wrong in both places, 
 I am forced to think ; and what right have I to think 
 of making (if I may use the phrase) a choice of evils? 
 There is no such thing tolerated in the Word of God. 
 The logic of my present reasoning would be, come out 
 of both, or all, and stay out till the way be made clear. 
 And yet, and yet,—I shrink from that as a great 
 peril! I pray that, while I am waiting for more light, 
 I may be strengthened and built up in the life of 
 Christ,—that He may dwell in my heart by faith, and 
 
166 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 that I may know His- love which passeth knowledge. 
 I know that He alone can keep me, in this state of trial 
 and transition, and I do want to look only to Him. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 BuFFALO, February 15, 1881. 
 
 I read with great interest the articles in the papers 
 you sent me, and have very little criticism to make on 
 the editor’s presentation of the subject. I would give 
 baptism just the place and just the importance the 
 Word gives it; but, at the same time, would be careful 
 not to let it obscure other and greater truths. See 
 Luke iii: 16, where a comparison of baptisms is made. 
 It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which gives us 
 our union with Christ (1 Cor. xii: 13), our life and 
 standing in Him; and it appears (among other pas- 
 sages, see Acts x: 44) that that mighty change some- 
 times took place before water baptism was administered. 
 I merely throw these out as suggestions, and not at all 
 as taking up a controversy with you; for I don’t 
 think you and I would differ on the subject. I do 
 wish we could often get together for conversation and 
 communion regarding the things of Christ. I have 
 but poor opportunities ; nevertheless, I have had great 
 joy and comfort in my recent studies of the Seriptures. 
 Can’t you run down soon and spend a Sunday with us, 
 again? 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 “BuFFALo, May 18, 1881. 
 
 I have devoted all the few spare hours I have had 
 since you kindly sent me Mr. Patton’s book to its 
 perusal, and have been greatly interested in it. He 
 certainly has a great deal of truth, some of which is 
 new to me and very valuable. But I fear he goes 
 farther in some things than the Word, fairly read, will 
 sustain him. . 
 
 —' s>. ee 
 
ee 
 
 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 167 
 
 In fact, we must always be entirely ready to stop 
 and unload the most attractive theory when we collide 
 with a plain statement of the Word. Our theories 
 may easily be wrong; but the Word cannot be. Let us 
 hold ourselves perfectly subject to it, even though that 
 leave us to wait in great confusion and ‘ignorance. 
 More light will come, if our hearts be right before God. 
 It was with his heart (not head) that David set him- 
 self to understand the times of his people, and imme- 
 diately the angel was sent to enlighten him. I would 
 very much enjoy a long talk with you all,—not an 
 argument; I don’t think much good comes of arguing. 
 But it is delightful to go to the Book and question it 
 and bow before its wondrous answers. Patton’s book, 
 at any rate, is very suggestive; and he certainly has 
 brought out a new and vivid meaning in many Scrip- 
 tures that were meaningless to me, before. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 BUFFALO, August 24, 1881. 
 
 . . . By the way, I have chanced to learn a little, 
 lately, of those people in Pittsburgh (‘Zion’s Watch 
 Tower’) with whom Mr. Patton seems to be in sympa- 
 thy. I think I saw one of their tracts in your possession. 
 I have read a little of Mr. Russell’s writing, myself— 
 perhaps the same tract I saw you have. It is very 
 significant that, here and there throughout the country, 
 we are seeing a breaking away of earnest, hungry souls 
 from the corruptions of the professing church. There 
 is a movement of a similar kind just now in Chicago, 
 and it seems to me that Moody’s Conference at North- 
 field is squinting decidedly in the same direction. But, 
 alas! I find the Pittsburgh Watchmen of Zion do not 
 always seem to be content simply with what is written. 
 They want to know more than is revealed, and draw on 
 their imaginations to make up the deficiency. At least, 
 that is what I am bound to think of much of their 
 
168 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 teaching (and Mr. Patton’s) as to the destiny of the 
 unsaved dead, the various ‘orders’ and classes of 
 saved, and some other subjects. But, with this, they 
 have much of the inspiring truth which has been 
 brought out among our so-called ‘ Plymouth’ friends, 
 and this activity of inquiry is surely better than the 
 spiritual death we find inside the churches. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 BuFFALO, May 2, 1882. 
 
 In this day of ruin and apostacy of what calls itself 
 the Church, there is nothing left for us but the un- 
 changeable Lord Jesus Christ, himself. The day of 
 man’s building for God is past. Gathered to His name 
 —to that alone—and waiting for Him in the place 
 of humiliation and rejection, where He once was for 
 us,—that is the Christian’s position, as it seems to me. 
 Diligent, fervent in spirit in His service, alert in testi- 
 mony for Him; but, most of all, watching and yearning 
 for His coming,—having no ties or plans in this world 
 that would keep our hearts here a moment,—that is 
 how He would have us be, for the ‘very, very little 
 while’ (Heb. x: 87, literal translation) until He come. 
 Ah, John, may He give us grace and strength and love 
 for Himself in our hearts, that we may be thus kept ! 
 
 The precise time at which David became finally per- 
 suaded to join the little company of the Plymouth 
 Brethren in Buffalo does not appear; but his affiliation 
 with them occurred, probably, within the year 1882. 
 His brother, who understood his religious feelings bet- 
 ter than any other person, perhaps, has this to say on 
 the subject: 
 
 Amongst this people, he felt that he was in a meas- 
 
 ure answering to the promptings of his mind, as enlight- 
 ened by careful study of the Scriptures. Though his 
 
 
 
RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE. 169 
 
 old friends might often charge him with narrowness 
 and bigotry, still he never shrank from making known 
 his views, believing that his former indifference but 
 obligated him the more to faithfully bear witness for 
 the truth. That his position was often one of severe 
 suffering to his sensitive nature cannot be doubted, in 
 view of what he once said on this subject in connection 
 with his family: ‘Do you think it costs me no pain 
 to sever myself from all that is dearest to me? No 
 mere sentiment, nothing but loyalty to Christ, could 
 induce me to take this position.’ But, in taking it, 
 there was the result of that deep earnestness which 
 earried his mind to the extreme limit of self-abnega- 
 tion, and which sought rather the infliction of sacrifice 
 that he might bear witness more faithfully. His prin- 
 cipal question to himself was, ‘ How shall I best declare 
 my gratitude for the unspeakable mercy that has been | 
 bestowed upon me?’ His thought was that if he had 
 formerly served the things of time and sense, he had 
 been spared to see the folly of that, and all his care 
 was that he might live no longer to these things, but 
 to Him who died to save the world. Following his 
 sickness in 1882-4, this was especially true; for in 
 his removal from journalism he recognized, again, the 
 wisdom and goodness of a Father’s care, and he be- 
 heved it a direct interposition of that higher will. 
 
 His sojourn at that time in Europe was marked by 
 the enjoyment he found in communing with little bod- 
 ies of those who had heard and followed the teachings 
 of Scripture, as expounded. to them by John Darby, 
 years before, on his sojourn in the French and Swiss 
 Alps; and it was his delight to find so many of his 
 own brethren who were faithful and true to what 
 they had learned. In Great Britain, many of those 
 little assemblies were enlivened by his presence and 
 strengthened by his words. 
 
CHAPT HT Ray ie 
 
 Last YEARS AND DraTtTH. 1882-1888. 
 
 Ir was by an act of high courage on the part of his 
 wife that Gray was taken across the Atlantic, in 
 September, 1882. The strange cloud upon his mind 
 had thickened, until he knew nothing of what was. 
 done; he was as helpless as the youngest of the three 
 children—a babe of eight months—who went with 
 them. He was so ill on the voyage that the ship’s 
 surgeon expressed doubt of his living to the end of it. 
 Mrs. Gray was inexperienced in ocean travel, and a 
 situation more forlorn than her’s cannot easily be con- 
 ceived. But a brave, affectionate heart, with great 
 hopefulness and resolution, carried her through the 
 terrible trial; and she had her reward. Before a week 
 passed, after landing at Liverpool, the darkness in 
 David’s brain began to be lighted with gleams of con- 
 sciousness. He recognized, for the first time since 
 leaving home, the strangeness of his surroundings, and 
 was soon able to understand what had happened to 
 him and whither he had been brought. When he 
 knew that he had his family about him, his joy was very 
 great. His mental recovery was rapid, and his physical 
 improvement so encouraging that he had strength for 
 considerable walks in Liverpool, before his stay of a 
 fortnight in that city was ended. 
 
 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. LTE 
 
 From Liverpool, the family went, first, under advice, 
 to Clifton, a beautiful suburb of the old city of Bris- 
 tol; but unfavorable weather, there, drove them further 
 south, and they settled themselves at Ventnor, in the. 
 _ Isle of Wight. It was a place which David had found _ 
 pleasant on his visit in 1877, and he now came back to. 
 it with much delight. He improved visibly, from day 
 to day, during three months at Ventnor, and the time 
 was a happy one for all. His first letter home was 
 written from that place, in November, to his brother. 
 He touched in it, a little, on some questions as to the 
 future, and remarked: ‘It is a subject on which | 
 _ think little, knowing as I do that the way will be 
 opened for us as we proceed. But this much I may 
 say: It does seem as if I had done my last news- 
 paper work, and as if my connection with politics were 
 definitely closed.’ 
 
 On the ist of January following, he wrote again : 
 
 A happy New Year to you and yours! And please 
 extend the fervent wish and prayer to Randolph street, 
 as well as to the dear ones on Adams avenue. How 
 blessed it is for us that we know where the highest— 
 the only true—happiness is unfailingly to be: found, 
 and that it is not for a paltry year, but for eternity ! 
 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! In 
 Him is happiness—reasonable, unfailing, infinite. To 
 Him be praise! .. . 
 
 That I am doing well and gaining strength, this 
 letter will in itself show you. As it is the biggest 
 thing yet out from my hand, I regard it with some 
 pride and amazement. 
 
 The beginning of the new year brought fog and 
 damp weather to the Isle of Wight, and it was thought 
 
172 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 best to proceed to the south of France for the remain- 
 
 der of the winter. At Paris, the party halted for some 
 time, waiting the arrival of David’s brother, who 
 joined them there early in February, with his wife. 
 While at Paris, David wrote to his father and mother: 
 
 Paris is, by long odds, the most magnificent and 
 brilliant city in the world; but the Christian is con- 
 tinually made to feel that the god of this world is 
 supreme in it, and that it is, for God’s people, an 
 enemy’s country. Yet, even here, 1 have found a few 
 who meet together every first day in the week, to 
 remember the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; and, in 
 breaking bread with them and joining in their simple, 
 warm-hearted worship, I have had unspeakable joy and. 
 blessing. There are about fifty or sixty of them, I 
 should think. . . . How wonderful have been the 
 grace and loving-kindness that have kept us as a fam- 
 ily! Even in the stroke that has laid me aside, I can- 
 not fail to feel a Father’s hand, and that in love. It 
 assures me that J am a son, and the object of His 
 tender, watchful care. And, though it seems as if I 
 shall have to begin life all over again when I get 
 through with this vacation, yet I know He will prepare 
 my path. Infinite power, infinite wisdom, infinite love, 
 —all these are ours in our Blessed Lord. ‘ All things 
 are your’s, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ 
 What a chain is that! 
 
 The two brothers, with their families, traveled south, 
 together, in February, as far as the little town of St. 
 Raphael, on the Mediterranean, between Marseilles 
 and Cannes, where David, and his, were advised to 
 remain through the spring. ‘ Here,’ writes Mrs. Gray, 
 “our invalid was by the sea, once more, and we could . 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. LS 
 
 see him grow strong. His spirits rose and he reveled 
 in the beauties of sea and land. We saw the spring 
 come, and many long tramps the family took, together, 
 by the ocean and inland among the Esterelle mountains, 
 no one standing the fatigue better or getting more 
 enjoyment from the lovely scenes about us than he.’ 
 
 The improved state of David’s health while at St. 
 Raphael, and afterwards at Cannes, was shown by the 
 industry of his pen in correspondence. <A few passages. 
 only can be culled out of many letters that he wrote 
 to his father and mother, to his brother, then traveling 
 in Italy, and to other friends. 
 
 TO JAMES N. JOHNSTON. 
 
 St. RAPHAEL, March 9, 1883. 
 
 . Let me suggest and urge that you come over 
 in May and join us in Switzerland. There, on the 
 high, tonic summits of God’s mountains, you and I 
 could perchance breathe fresh, vigorous health. For 
 myself, as you know, I have everything to be thankful 
 for. The first stages of my convalescence were simply 
 marvelous. Afterward, however, the pace slowed down 
 a little, and, for six weeks past, I have been reminded 
 not to expect too much. This is the first day since we 
 left Ventnor, two months ago, that I have felt equal to. 
 a letter, and even now my right side admonishes me to. 
 hasten to a close. It was a pretty hard knock-over, 
 James, and deep wounds need time to heal. That we. 
 have made no mistake in coming here, my improved 
 sleep and recovered strength happily assure me. 
 
ale:! BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 TO HIS PARENTS, ON THEIR GOLDEN WEDDING 
 ANNIVERSARY. 
 
 St. RAPHAEL, March 15, 1888. 
 
 You may imagine that you have been much in our 
 thoughts and in our talks and prayers these days, and 
 especially are we all with you in spirit to-day. It 
 seems a little hard that neither of your sons should be 
 with you on so memorable an occasion; but that, I 
 feel well assured, has all been wisely and lovingly 
 ordered, and so we bow to it thankfully. I wish I 
 could send you a wedding present worthy of the occa- 
 sion, and which would in some small measure express 
 the love that is in my heart for you both; but, that 
 being impossible—‘ silver and gold have I none ’—I do 
 the next best thing,—a better thing, perhaps, after all: 
 ~I invoke for you the best blessings that can flow from 
 the source of Divine Love. If God will that we shall 
 all be spared to meet again in the body, I am sure it 
 will be to praise Him together for all His goodness. 
 
 TO HIS SISTER. 
 
 St. RAPHAEL, March 31, 1883. 
 
 . . . I have just learned of a little meeting of breth- 
 ren at Cannes, about twenty miles from here, and hope 
 to break bread with them to-morrow. Wherever we 
 have been, I have been rejoiced by sweet fellowship with 
 the Lord’s people. It is especially pleasant in this God- 
 less country to find such simple-hearted lovers of the 
 Lord Jesus and such intelligent students of His Word 
 as I have lately met. Truly our way has been wonder- 
 fully prepared for us, and we should be faithless and 
 ungrateful, indeed, if we did not trust in the Father’s 
 continued love and care of us for the days to come. 
 
 
 
 { 
 ‘ 
 ee a i i ee i i a 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. sea, 
 
 TO JAMES N. JOHNSTON. 
 St. RAPHAEL, March 31, 1883. 
 
 . . . Your ideas as to the future of the Gray family, 
 Lam glad to see, are ours. Sometimes I am tempted to 
 an anxious thought, when I look forward to beginning 
 business life again ; but when I remember how lovingly, 
 graciously and tenderly I have been dealt with by my 
 Father, my heart well may murmurings cease. The 
 37th Psalm has been a useful scripture to me; like- 
 wise a verse. or two in the 13th of Hebrews. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER. 
 CANNES, April 25, 1883. 
 
 We have been tenderly and lovingly guided in every 
 step of our journeyings; but in none has the wise care 
 of our Father been more strikingly displayed than in 
 our choice of this place as a waiting-station. It is a 
 lovely spot, with a superb winter and spring climate, 
 and the air of the ocean and the mountains, both of 
 which distil their aérial chemicals for our benefit, is 
 good for us all and is doing me especial good. Then, 
 the resources of the place are so varied as to be almost 
 inexhaustible; [ mean in the way of walks and exeur- 
 sions. Every morning, Guthrie* and I discover some 
 new ramble among the hills or among the nooks of the 
 sea-shore, which fairly inspires us by its rich and _bril- 
 liant beauty. But, best of all, I have, also, company, as 
 much as I want, and of the best. I had the address of 
 a brother in the Lord here at Cannes, but I somehow 
 got the idea that there was no meeting, and so I did 
 not make haste to put myself in communication with 
 him. When, finally, I did write him, however, the 
 second day after brought him and another brother, an 
 evangelist, to St. Raphael, to see me, and I have had 
 
 * His younger son. 
 
176 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 the privilege of remembering the Lord’s death at His 
 table every Lord’s day since; for they told me of the 
 meeting, here, which has been to me a great blessing 
 and joy. It was through the friend to whom I wrote, 
 Mr. Gounet, that we came to Cannes, and secured de- 
 lightful quarters at a less rate than we had been pay- 
 ing at St. Raphael. . . . Indeed, wherever I turn, I 
 am made to realize what a wondrous bond that is 
 which binds together members of Christ’s body. In 
 company with Mr. Gounet, I have visited a number of 
 the brethren at their houses, and you ought to see me, 
 some time, talking with them about the things of God, 
 in my bad French, and enjoying a fellowship as inti- 
 mate as if I had known them all my life... . 
 
 I note with interest what you say about getting on to 
 a piece of land, after I get back, if I am spared to see 
 America again. I may say that I have often had sim- 
 ilar plans in my mind, and in most respects, perhaps, 
 yours is feasible. It is best, however, I think, that I 
 should let my way open up before me as I go along. I 
 certainly have no fear but that I shall be able to find 
 some way of getting an honest and quiet living. The. 
 promises are too numerous and positive to admit of 
 doubt on this head. My constant prayer is that I may 
 be guided absolutely by the Word of God; that I may 
 have no will of my own in the matter, and that, what- 
 ever I do, whether in word or deed, I may be enabled 
 to do all in the name of the Lord Jesus. It certainly 
 looks to me as if the Lord had meant, in His recent 
 dealings with me, to take me out of the business I was 
 in. He knows I waited for Him to do that in His own 
 time and way; but, if I am mistaken in this, I will 
 know the fact in due time. 
 
 Leaving Cannes about the middle of May, Gray 
 went next to Geneva, with his family, and was received 
 into the same household in which, eighteen years before, 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. aT 
 
 he had lived and studied French for six months. From 
 Geneva he wrote to his brother, June 10th: 
 
 During our sojourn here, I have made numerous in- 
 quiries and one or two excursions with a view to decide 
 where we had best move to. I have some thought of 
 starting to-morrow into the Canton de Vaud, to see 
 what I can find. There are meetings of brethren in 
 _ almost all the villages of that country, which would 
 make it preferable, if I can find other essential condi- 
 tions fulfilled. The gathering here is a large and very 
 happy one, and I have profited by that not a little. 
 
 Two weeks later he was at the opposite end of Lake 
 Leman, at Clarens, which he described to his father 
 as an ‘earthly paradise.’ ‘There is no water in the 
 world,’ he added, ‘so deeply blue as that of Lake 
 Leman, and the superb mountains that tower from its 
 shores, all round, make it look still more mirror-like. 
 In some places, the mountains are vine-clad or wooded 
 far up their sides, while in other directions the glitter- 
 ing, snow-clad peaks of the Alps look down at us, and 
 fairly peek in at our windows.’ Writing, also, to his 
 friend Johnston, from Clarens, he said: 
 
 Please overhaul your Byron ( Childe Harold, third 
 eanto, I think) and read .what he says of Clarens. 
 You might also glance over the once familiar screed 
 about The Prisoner of Chillon; for I rowed the 
 family up the lake from our hotel door to the prison 
 of Bonnivard this forenoon. It was a couple of hours of 
 good rowing, there and back, and I was not a bit tired ; 
 so you may imagine, as a skilled oarsman, that I am 
 not ina very feeble physical condition. Indeed, James, 
 I am happy to say that I feel myself unmistakably 
 
 12 
 
178 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 gaining in health and strength. Progress has been 
 slow and symptoms often discouraging, but, though the 
 sears are still fresh, I feel that a cure has been made. 
 For this I humbly thank my God and Father. I take 
 it from His hand as signifying that He wills I should 
 re-enter, by and by, the struggle of this earthly life. 
 I should have been quite content, I trust, had He willed 
 otherwise ; but, as it is, trusting to His strength, to be 
 manifested in my weakness, His wisdom in my folly, I 
 shall come back thankfully and renew the fight. And 
 I can add in truth and verity, that my main, if not my 
 only, anxiety is, that I may be kept faithful to Him 
 whose Iam and whom I serve. But enough of that. 
 Talk is cheap; the rough event will show. . . . 
 
 Before we came here I had spent over a week in the 
 mountains, studying up the question of high places of 
 resort. My Paris doctor strongly recommends a month 
 or two at an elevation of not less than 4,000 or 5,000 
 feet, and I have been testing a few such stations. 
 Where we shall mount to is not yet decided, nor will 
 it be for a week, yet; for the season continues cold and 
 the high altitudes are not habitable till the heat begins. 
 Probably you will next hear of me as a chamois hunter, 
 or a member of the Alpine Club. 
 
 The mountain station finally chosen was at Morgins, 
 Canton de Valais, which David described in his first 
 letter, written from it (July 6th), as ‘a valley, about 
 4,600 feet above sea-level, high, green hills around it, 
 densely wooded with hemlock and pine on one side; a 
 “mountain torrent rushing down the center and the high 
 Alps peeping over at us.’ ‘The air,’ he added, ‘is 
 very bracing and I feel sure it is going to do me good. 
 Moreover, it is not very expensive.’ A week later he 
 wrote to his father: 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 179 
 
 When I go out in the mornings and smell the smells 
 of the woods and take in the atmospheric champagne, 
 I feel like walking on my tip-toes.... The green 
 hill-sides are dotted with chalets of the natives, whose 
 sole industry and occupation is the keeping of cows. 
 The dairy people drive them up, as soon as the snow 
 leaves the lower hills, and they (the cows) keep grazing 
 on the fresh young herbage, higher and higher up, as 
 the season advances, till you meet them, sometimes, 
 7,000 or 8,000 feet up. The weather has been rather 
 unsettled since we came; but I have managed, never- 
 theless, to have a long ramble over the hills nearly 
 every day, and I find that even a five hours vigorous 
 excursion of this sort does not tire me unduly. 
 
 Those ‘vigorous excursions,’ however, were a sad 
 mistake, as would seem to be proved by the result. 
 The bracing mountain-air tempted him beyond his 
 strength, to a measure of bodily exercise which harmed 
 rather than healed. his disordered nerves. His need 
 was still the same that it had been—rest—and he mis- 
 understood it. Mrs. Gray writes: ‘I cannot but 
 believe that his strength was greatly overtaxed and 
 the chance for his recovery lost by that summer in 
 the mountains. Each day, he used up his vitality in 
 exercise, and when, the latter part of August, we went 
 down into the plain again, a great depression fell upon 
 him, from which he never really rallied.’ 
 
 On coming down from the mountains, the family 
 stayed ten days at Lucerne, from which place David, 
 feeling badly affected by the change, wrote: ‘It occurs 
 to me that perhaps I am not to recover my former 
 health and strength entirely ; but will always be a sort 
 of barometrically-affected being and “lame duck.” If 
 
180 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 so, why, so be it. I surely have enough already to be 
 thankful for.’ While at Lucerne, he had an oppor- 
 tunity to consult his Paris physician, and was advised 
 by him to go to Badenweiler, a charming little spa 
 on the edge of the Black Forest, and to try the effect 
 of its baths. ‘The doctor,’ says Mrs. Gray, ‘saw that 
 David had lost ground, and when I told him how he 
 had gone mad on the subject of exercise, he shook his 
 head and forbade long walks or anything that would, in 
 the least, fatigue.’ The baths were tried, but did not 
 prove to be beneficial. After a fortnight at Baden- 
 weiler, the patient invalid was forced to say: ‘I’m not 
 exactly where I would like to be, physically, yet.2 A 
 week afterwards, he had become convinced that he must 
 not hope to return home for any kind of work or busi- 
 ness until another year. His physician, he wrote, found 
 ‘a condition of weakness of the involuntary nerve 
 system (and, by consequence, of the digestive and other 
 organs and functions), which looks to a still longer 
 time for recovery than I had hoped.’ ‘The doctor inti- 
 mates,’ he continued, ‘that I have been overdoing all 
 summer, and that I must now come down to a regimen 
 of rest and no end of coddling.’ In another letter to 
 his brother, he reported a still more emphatic expression 
 from the doctor,—that it would be madness for him to 
 think of any kind of business in his present state; and 
 ‘I am admonished,’ he added, ‘in various ways, from 
 within, that he is right.’ Hence the decision to remain 
 in Europe through another winter. ‘This side the 
 ocean,’ he remarked, ‘is better than the other for an 
 idle man. There is no place in the United States for 
 an invalid who is able to be out of the hospital. So, 
 
 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 181 
 
 if the Lord will, we leave here for winter-quarters at 
 Montreux, on Thursday morning.’ 
 
 From October until the following March, the family 
 was settled quietly in ‘ pension’ at Montreux, on Lake 
 Leman, or the Lake of Geneva, with the boys attend- 
 ing school. ‘A beautiful spot,’ was David’s account 
 of it, ‘ with delightful surroundings; and the air agrees 
 with us all.’ Whether, on the whole, he made any 
 clear progress towards health through the winter, 
 seemed doubtful; but his letters were all contented and 
 
 hopeful: 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 PENSION MOOSER, 
 MONTREUX, November 6, 1883. 
 
 . Time is wearing on with us, here, so quietly 
 and stealthily that the winter is like to get past with- 
 out notice, almost. I have subsided so completely into 
 the laziness of my life that the little routine of eating, 
 sleeping, walking, etc., quite fills it up, and leaves me 
 no leisure to get weary or dull in. My commonest 
 thought is one of lively thankfulness, as often as I 
 realize how wonderfully I am being blessed, in getting 
 this opportunity for rest and recuperation. Indeed, 
 John, from the moment I ceased to be able to do for 
 myself, I seem to have been lying on a bed of down; 
 perfectly cared for, and with the strength of the 
 Almighty arms supporting my weakness. I feel quite 
 confident that I am to be a well man again, and I hope, 
 even, that in some way the last bit of my life may be 
 of some use in the Blessed Master’s service; but, 
 surely, after what has befallen me, I should have no 
 misgiving, whatever His will may be concerning me. 
 In fine, what a discovery it is, when one finds out, 
 actually and really, that ‘ He careth for us’! 
 
182 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 And you may be sure, dear John, that I count 
 among’ the choicest of God’s gifts the brother’s love 
 of which I am having such an experience these days. 
 You have fairly got my burden on your back, and I 
 am getting so I do not worry about it... . 
 
 There is a little meeting here, in Montreux, where 
 the loaf is broken, every first day of the week, in 
 remembrance of the Lord’s death. 
 
 TO HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. 
 
 MONTREUX, December 1, 1883. 
 
 . . . The routine of my life is uneventful enough, and 
 the large amount of time-killing it includes would surely 
 lie heavy on my conscience, were it not that, on the 
 authority of the doctors, it is just the kind of thing 
 that I am to make a business of for the time being. 
 And so I fill my empty days with sunshine and medi- 
 tation, and praise the grace that sends them to me in 
 my need. 
 
 TO JAMES N. JOHNSTON. 
 
 MonrTREvX, December 18, 1883. 
 . . . Ah! James, I wish you could drop over here, one 
 
 of these fine, sunny, southern winter mornings! This — 
 
 morning, I sauntered down the hill from high Montreux 
 and struck the lake-shore in its northwestward trend. 
 Half or three-quarters of an hour brought me under 
 the walls of Chillon, and I gazed off, on each side of 
 the castle, at the blue expanse of the lake, and the 
 Alps beyond. Half an hour further, still along the 
 lake, and there were the Hotel Byron and Villeneuve, 
 the former place, with its beautiful grounds and view, 
 redolent to me of Stillson. You can imagine, perhaps, 
 what thoughts accompanied me. . . . If you could 
 come over, what walks and talks we would have, 
 around the poetic lake! 
 
 
 
 ia 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. rss 
 
 TO HIS FATHER. 
 
 ' MONTREUX, February 12, 1884. 
 
 . .. I feel myself of late improving, although but 
 slowly, and not in all respects, yet. My sleep con- 
 tinues more or less unreliable, but, in spite of that, 
 there is a decrease in nervous irritability,—which is a 
 great comfort, both to me and to the good folks I live 
 with. In short, my belief is confirmed, that it is the 
 gracious purpose of our loving Father to restore me, 
 in His own good time, to physical health. .. . 
 
 Our meeting here is very small, and has no highly- 
 gifted brethren; besides, we speak divers tongues and 
 do not always perfectly understand each other. But, 
 all the same, each Lord’s day morning we do marvel- 
 ously realize the presence and blessing of a loving, 
 living Lord; and what could we ask for more? Every 
 Monday afternoon, too, we have an English meeting, 
 to which friends gather from various towns along the 
 lake-shore, for the study of the Word. We have had 
 a very interesting time in this meeting over the Hpistle 
 to the Romans. 
 
 TO HIS BROTHER. 
 
 MonTREUX, March 26, 1884. 
 
 . . . Lam very well, except that my sleep continues 
 defective, which prevents me from gaining nervous 
 strength, as I am sure I otherwise should. But I feel 
 confident that when I get away from here, and snuff 
 the salt of the ocean once more, there will be a marked 
 improvement. For that reason, I am not sorry that our 
 days in Montreux are numbered. The Lord willing, 
 we expect now to leave for London, Wednesday or 
 Thursday of next week... . 
 
 You ask me what I think I had best turn my hand 
 to, when I get through with my long holiday, and I am 
 forced to reply that I have not an idea. I believe I 
 
 ‘\ 
 
184 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 am spoiled for literary work, unless it be of some purely 
 hack kind, in a newspaper or elsewhere, which would 
 be as legitimate a way of earning a living as breaking 
 stones. What I mean is, that if I undertook to ‘look 
 into my heart and write,’ as Longfellow enjoins upon 
 authors, the product would certainly not be such as 
 could have any cash value. For mercantile business, I 
 never have developed any talent; but no saying what 
 I may yet do! All the same, I had to smile at your 
 amiable suggestion, that I could be useful to you as a 
 sort of counselor. But, John, I do have the firmest 
 confidence that something honest will turn up for me 
 when the time comes. When I look back and see how 
 our way has been opened for us, I cannot doubt nor 
 feel anxious. 
 
 Leaving Montreux at the beginning of April, the 
 party traveled, without stoppage, to London, and made 
 a stay of some weeks in the great city, having excellent 
 lodgings in Horbury Crescent, Nottinghill Gate. The 
 change into ‘the bracing air of England,’ as he de- 
 scribed it, was of notable benefit to Gray. ‘Almost 
 from the first night,’ he wrote, ‘I have been sleeping 
 better—I might almost say luxuriously—and in every 
 other respect I am feeling better, as a consequence. It 
 really seems as if my old frame were, at last, getting 
 satisfactorily tinkered and put together again.’ Among 
 the letters which he wrote from London was one to his 
 father, containing the following passage : 
 
 I do indeed feel the kindness of God to you, my 
 dear parents, as among the choicest of His blessings 
 and mercies to myself. When I think of the way in 
 which He has spared you to us all so long, in quietness, 
 comfort and happiness,—independent of all men and 
 
 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 185 
 
 dependent only on Himself,—my eyes fill with sweet 
 waters and my heart melts in gratitude. And if it 
 should be His will that we should all be in the body 
 for a little while longer, and thus permitted to meet 
 again here below, will we not rejoice in praising and 
 exalting together His blessed and holy name? For, 
 surely, He is good. My life, both physically and 
 spiritually,—both for time and eternity,—He surely 
 has ‘redeemed from destruction ;’ while of a truth, as 
 a family, we can all say that ‘He crowneth us with 
 loving-kindness and tender mercies.’ And, above all, 
 when I think of ‘the exceeding riches of His grace’ 
 that he has made ours in His Son,—the unspeakable 
 revelation of His love to us, that we have in that 
 Blessed and Holy One,—I feel constrained to that 
 ‘continual offering’ of praise of which the apostle 
 speaks (Hebrews xiii: 15); which is assuredly the 
 fitting service of those who have gone forth to Jesus, 
 without the camp, bearing His reproach, and who have 
 in this world no continuing city, but are seeking one 
 to come. May the Lord keep us all, while we praise 
 Him for His goodness to us, with true pilgrim hearts 
 in our breasts! If His grace can thus make us sing 
 with joy on the road, what will it be to be with Him— 
 to see Him as He is? 
 
 
 
 The stay at London was prolonged into May; then 
 Edinburgh and the friends there were visited, and, on 
 the 7th of June, the family sailed from Liverpool for 
 home. Twelve days later, David wrote to his brother 
 from Buffalo, to announce their arrival, to say for him- 
 self that he was ‘feeling first-rate,’ and to promise a 
 speedy visit to Detroit. 
 
 He came home quite undetermined as to plans for 
 the future. His interest in the Buffalo Courier had 
 been sold before his return, through the agency of his 
 
186 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 brother, and he regarded his connection with journalism 
 as wholly severed. It was an unspeakable relief to 
 him to feel free from what had been, for many years, a 
 most wearing yoke of bondage, to his spirit and his 
 body alike. The proceeds of the sale of his stock in 
 the Courier Company had been profitably invested at 
 Detroit, in the business of his brother, and whether 
 that city or Buffalo should be made his future residence 
 was the question now uppermost in his mind. His 
 father, mother, sister and brother were in one; the 
 friendships and acquaintanceships of his life were 
 chiefly in the other. For his own part, he rather 
 feared the strong attractions of the latter character 
 which drew him towards Buffalo. His past life in that 
 city, with its ambitions, its social activities, its political 
 agitations, had been a life of worldliness, in his present 
 view of it, which he looked back upon with a certain 
 loathing, and the possibly surviving influences from 
 which he dreaded to place himself under. He foresaw, 
 moreover, an incongruity between his old relations to 
 Buffalo and the new relations that he would need to 
 form, which might make itself unpleasantly felt. He 
 expressed himself partly on the subject in his letter to 
 his brother, written the day of his arrival in Buffalo: 
 
 Friends, many, devoted and affectionate, crowd round 
 us here, and already I have assurances that employment 
 of some suitable kind will be forthcoming, soon, if we 
 will but stay in Buffalo. But these good people do not 
 yet realize that Iam no longer the David Gray they 
 knew, and that as soon as they find out what a different 
 world I am now in, they must lose interest in me. 
 
 Thanks be to the Lord Jesus, I do feel myself a 
 
 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 187 
 
 stranger in these scenes, in which I was once a familiar 
 dweller; and I look to Him to keep me, amidst all 
 seductions and attractions they may present, in some 
 measure faithful to Him. And I am quite content to 
 wait till His mind and will are made apparent, as to: 
 our future. 
 
 The considerations which favored a continued resi- 
 dence at Buffalo, having reference more especially to. 
 his own employment, and to the future prospects of 
 his family, prevailed in the end, and a new home was 
 settled in the autumn of 1885, on West Utica street, 
 exchanged later for one on Summer street. Of the 
 quiet life which he led after this settlement, even in 
 the midst of the presidential canvass which placed his. 
 friend, Grover Cleveland, at the head of the national 
 government, he wrote October 13th: 
 
 As yet this easy, vegetable existence does not worry 
 me, though I foresee that some occupation will ere long 
 become a necessity for me. For the nonce, as to this 
 there are no new developments. Pretty nearly all my 
 friends are plunged over head in politics, and little else. 
 will be thought of till after election. Whenever I 
 want to realize a truly luxurious sensation, I only need 
 to recollect how I should be feeling and perspiring,,. 
 about now, had I not been delivered from that sort of 
 thing. Thanks be to God! 
 
 After the election he wrote: ‘I feel satisfied that a 
 good thing has happened to the country in Cleveland’s 
 election. . . . Depend upon it, he will disappoint the 
 spoilsmen, but not those who want better government.’ 
 For the sake of the country, and as a friend of Mr. 
 Cleveland, the result of the election pleased him ; but of 
 
188 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 personal interest in it, as a party success, he had none 
 whatever. ‘Strange,’ he wrote, ‘that the result 1 
 fought so hard to bring about for twenty years should 
 now, when realized, be a matter of not the slightest 
 consequence to me. When a man has been taken into 
 the Vanderbilt family he doesn’t set much store by a 
 ticket for soup.’ There was talk among some of his 
 friends of an official place for him, under the new 
 administration at Washington, and it was well under- 
 stood that President Cleveland felt cordially inclined 
 to encourage the proposal. Indeed, there is extant a 
 personal letter from the President to Gray, which left 
 no doubt of his disposition. But David had reached a 
 state of feeling which he expressed in writing to his 
 brother on the subject: ‘I could touch no office that 
 carried with it any political obligation;’ and so he 
 declined, gratefully, all suggestions of that nature. 
 
 At the same time, he had a great longing for some 
 continuous and regular employment. He tired of 
 idling, and his income was narrow, without personal 
 earnings to reinforce it. But such employments as he 
 could venture to undertake were not easily found. He 
 was able to put very little strain upon himself, either 
 in labor or in excitement, without breaking under it. 
 Thus two years and more passed, after his return from 
 abroad, before the occupation that would fit his strength 
 and fill his time was discovered. Meantime, he under- 
 took some occasional tasks, like that of preparing 
 editorial matter for a monthly trade journal—the Real 
 Estate and Builders’ Monthly—which he did for a 
 time and very happily. ; 
 
 At one time he wrote to his brother—May 22, 1885: 
 
 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 189: 
 
 I have thought, if other things fail, of establishing 
 myself in an accessible office, and advertising to do. 
 any and all sorts of literary job-work,—writing business 
 pamphlets, advertising matter, revising and correcting 
 manuscripts, translations, ete. Do you think I could 
 make it go? I need not say it is rather dreary busi- 
 ness, waiting as I have to do; but I feel assured that 
 He who took me out of journalism will see that I don’t. 
 have to go back into it again. I suppose I could get 
 an editorial place any day; but I shudder at the 
 thought. 
 
 At length, in November, 1886, an appointment came 
 to him which met his wishes in an admirable way. He 
 was chosen Secretary to the Board of Commissioners of 
 the State Reservation at Niagara—a board entrusted 
 with the care and management of the lands lately taken 
 by the State of New York for the preservation of the. 
 scenery of Niagara Falls. The commissioners were 
 most of them his personal friends; the duties of the. 
 office were light and pleasant, and it was detached 
 from partisan politics by the nature and constitution 
 of the board. David accepted the appointment with 
 ereat pleasure and was happy in it, until the following: 
 October, when the secretaryship of the Park Com-. 
 mission of the City of Buffalo became vacant and was 
 tendered to him. This latter appeared, for several. 
 reasons, to be the preferable place, and he resigned 
 from the Niagara board to enter it. But the commis- 
 sioners of the Niagara Reservation requested a con-. 
 tinuation of his service with them until the end of the 
 year, and the labors of both secretaryships were thus. 
 laid upon him for two months. It was a fatal over- 
 taxing of his strength. A man in health might easily,, 
 
190 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 perhaps, have gone through the double task, and it is 
 probable that David himself had no thought, at the first, 
 that he was putting an overstrain upon his weakened 
 powers. He had made a great gain of strength, ap- 
 parently, during the preceding summer. Having spent 
 some weeks with his brother and friends at Oak Camp, 
 in Michigan, they thought him better than he had been 
 for years,—more interested in things,—more capable of 
 enjoyment,—more like his younger self. But the terms 
 on which nature gave him this better state of feeling 
 were evidently very rigorous, and unwittingly he vio- 
 lated them when the duties of the two offices came 
 upon him. There were two annual reports to prepare ; 
 there were journeys to New York and Albany to make ; 
 there was the slight friction of adjustment to new 
 duties and the little anxiety of a quittance from older 
 ones—and, altogether, they proved too much. After 
 the strain had mostly ended and the mischief had been 
 done, writing in January, he told how it had affected 
 him. 
 
 In getting through the double work devolved on me 
 for a month past, and not yet completed, I have been 
 obliged to practice the most rigid economy of my 
 physical and mental strength. For I soon found, to 
 my alarm, that my old nervous and cerebral symptoms 
 were recurring under the pressure, and I have been 
 just feeling my way along, like a blind man, not 
 knowing the moment I should strike something hard. 
 Thank God for His merey! I have been kept up 
 through the worst of it and I feel quite confident as to 
 what remains. I went to New York, the last days of 
 December ; but even then did not get rid of the Niagara 
 end of my load, since I was requested to stay on another 
 
 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 191 
 
 month. ... Remember, the work I am making such 
 a fuss about would n’t ruffle a hair of an ordinary busi- 
 ness man; but there are times when even the grass- 
 hopper is a burden, and that has been my plight. 
 
 But he had not yet felt the worst of the effects of 
 his overwork. They came later, after another journey 
 to New York and a final clearing away of the duties 
 of his Niagara secretaryship. Then the signs of. break- 
 ing began to show themselves in him, very rapidly. 
 Early in March it became apparent that he must give 
 up his work entirely, for a time, and he received a 
 leave of absence from the Park Commission. For 
 some days he remained at home, weak and shaken, and 
 apprehensive of a more helpless prostration, but always 
 cheerful and unrepining. He had never, from the 
 beginning of his invalidism, made any complaint. Mrs. 
 Gray has written: ‘I never heard a murmur escape 
 his lips ; no matter what came, it was all right. ‘God 
 knows best ”—‘ His will be done.” The last Monday 
 morning, after he had eaten his breakfast, propped up 
 with pillows in bed, as I took away the tray and 
 arranged his pillows, he looked up at me and said: 
 “It’s all mercy and goodness, Mums,—mercy and 
 goodness.” He had complained to me during the pre- 
 vious week that he could not pray; but this morning 
 he told me joyfully that he had thawed out morally— 
 he could pray again.’ 
 
 His mind was clouded, somewhat as it had been in 
 the first stages of his illness in 1882; and yet he kept 
 a curious mastery of himself. Attempting one day to 
 tell something, he lost the thread, and, after hesitating 
 
192 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 a moment, being unable to finish, he laughingly said: 
 ‘Well, Gray, why don’t you go on?’ , 
 
 Something more than rest being evidently needed 
 for his recuperation, and the ocean having been always. 
 his best physician, a voyage to Cuba was determined 
 on, and his faithful brother came from Detroit to be 
 his companion in it. The following, from the pen of 
 the brother, Mr. John 8. Gray, tells what remains of 
 the sorrowful story : } 
 
 We were ready to start just when the great ‘bliz- 
 zard’ of March 12th blocked the eastern roads and 
 stopped all travel. This delayed us until Thursday, 
 the 15th. David was thankful for the storm that 
 gave him a reprieve, and kept him longer at home. 
 We were assured that the Delaware, Lackawanna and. 
 Western Railway Co. would send a train through, 
 leaving Buffalo at 5 p. M., with a sleeper attached ; 
 but, on arrival at the depot, we found they were unable 
 to get a sleeper ready until the 9 Pe. M. train. So we 
 were obliged to take the long drive back to the house. 
 
 Calling another hack, we were surprised to find it had - 
 
 just returned from a funeral, well furnished with the 
 signs of mourning. David asserted that, if we were: 
 superstitious, we might conjure: some meaning out of 
 these unexpected fittings, but finally agreed to the con- 
 viction that if we heard of the 5 P. M. train running off 
 the track, we would know why there was no sleeper on. 
 it, and we not permitted to go by it. 
 
 At the house he passed two hours in a sleep by the 
 fireside. When the time came to be off we roused him 
 against his inclination, and said, ‘Don’t you want to go 
 to the depot?’ ‘Show me the man,’ he said, ‘ that. 
 wants to go to the depot.’ ‘Yes, but you are going to 
 take a sea-voyage, which has always done you so much 
 
 good in like circumstances, and you surely want to do 
 
 
 
 \ 
 + 
 
LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 193 
 
 what is to improve your health.’ ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ 
 he said, and rose with some effort to take the painful 
 farewell from each of the home circle. 
 
 We were soon in the sleeper, and the fatal journey 
 began. We talked pleasantly together until it was 
 proposed to retire. ‘John,’ he said, as he was helped 
 to his bed, for he was tired and weak and needed a 
 good deal of help, ‘you are a perfect brick—a p. b.’ 
 He dropped asleep immediately in his berth, No. 4, 
 opposite to mine. Sleep was out of the question with 
 me, and I often looked to find him resting quietly. 
 Hour after hour passed, and he did not move. Stop- 
 ping at a station, shortly after midnight, I heard rail- 
 road hands under the car testing the wheels, and one 
 said, ‘ These trucks are not fit for a freight car.’ The 
 words were not at all soporific, and when we started up 
 again, the train flew round curves at a high rate of 
 speed, and the car pitched from one side to another 
 more violently than a ship in a rough sea. An extra 
 lurch came, a crash of broken glass and _ timbers, 
 darkness, shrieks and screams—all in an instant,—and 
 the car lay on its side in the bed of an old canal. Be- 
 ing on the under side, I was covered with débris, and 
 unable to move for some time. As I began to work 
 myself loose and climb up, to where I thought to find 
 David, I called him again and again, then groped in 
 the darkness for him, all to no avail. An alarm was 
 given that the car was on fire, and, from a lamp that 
 had not been extinguished, the flame was spreading ; 
 but, fortunately, some one managed to put it out. An 
 open window overhead was the only means of exit, and 
 through that the passengers made their escape. 
 Perched by the side of the window, I sat calling for help 
 to rescue my brother, but none came for a long time, 
 nearly every one being disabled. Efforts were being 
 made, with snow, to put out a fire that was spreading 
 in the wreck of the day-coach ahead of us. When it 
 was seen to be impossible to stop the spread of the 
 
 13 
 
194 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 flames, the most active of the workers came running 
 back, and asked if every one was out of the sleepers. 
 I called to him that my brother was in the wreck, and 
 immediately our rescuer, who was Dr. P. L. Graham, 
 of Lobo, Ont., entered te ear and found him, but was 
 unable to move him till more help came. Farmers 
 from the neighborhood began to arrive, and, with their 
 help, David was borne out on a mattress and laid upon 
 the snow. But his pulse was so low that Dr. Graham 
 pronounced him dying. A little spirits strengthened 
 the pulse, and we were assured that there was little 
 probability of immediate death. The flames spread 
 rapidly, and, in a few minutes after David was out of 
 the wreck, the entire three cars were in a sheet of flame. 
 The telegraph wires overhead were melted by the heat, 
 
 and, as they began dropping about us, we hurriedly 
 
 moved him away. 
 
 The time of the accident was about 2.45 a. M. of 
 the 16th inst., and it must have been 6 A. m. before 
 the rescuing train came up from Binghamton. We 
 quickly got him up the twenty-five foot embankment 
 and into the car. The physicians who came with the 
 train could find no outward signs of injury, but were 
 so busy doing what they could for those whose wounds 
 could be helped, that no critical examination was made 
 till we reached the hospital in Binghamton; then it 
 was. decided that his injury was concussion of the 
 brain. No word, look or sign of consciousness ever 
 came from him, and, though no outward injury was 
 manifest, it was easy to see that he was beyers the 
 hope of recovery. 
 
 At midnight of the 16th, his wife and Mr. J ohn G. 
 Milburn arrived from Buffalo. In addition to them. 
 was Dr. Graham, who had proved an invaluable friend 
 from the first and who remained with us to the last. 
 The hours of watching at the bedside were only varied 
 by frequent changes in his respiration or temperature, 
 which all too surely foretold the fatal end. 
 
 4 
 

 
 LAST YEARS AND DEATH. 195 
 
 Warm-hearted citizens of Binghamton came often, 
 to offer their services and sympathies, and we cannot 
 forget their kind words. Sunday evening, while hos- 
 pital physician Dr. W. A. Moore was making his regu- 
 lar visit, we noticed a sudden change. The sun was 
 setting in a clear sky, for the first time since the great 
 storm. The asylum to the east of Binghamton, and the 
 hills about it, were lighted up in golden tints, making 
 a scene from the window, near which David lay, of rare 
 and radiant beauty. His eyes were closed to all earthly 
 scenes; but we thought, when the last faint glimmer 
 of daylight disappeared, as he quietly passed away, 
 that they were but opening to the more radiant scenes 
 of a brighter and better world of immortality. 
 
 It was 8.387 Pp. M. when he breathed his last, and on 
 Monday we returned to Buffalo with his remains, ar- 
 riving at the home on Summer street exactly one 
 short and eventful week from the time he was watching 
 at the window for my coming. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ESTIMATES. 
 
 Davip Gray died in the faith that God had or- 
 dered his life and ordered it wholly for the best. He 
 believed, with no doubting, that the gracious hand of 
 a Divine Father had led him, with wise and loving 
 purposes, through all the turnings of the way, from 
 his cradle to his grave. Is there one of us who will 
 question that faith? And yet—David Gray was worn 
 to death by a yoke which his neck was never fitted to 
 bear. He spent his life in a calling which did not 
 exercise the best of his gifts and did not satisfy the 
 highest of his aspirations. How inexplicable it is! 
 Judging humanly, one would say that he belonged to 
 Religion or to Letters, or to both, and that the affairs 
 of the forum, of the market-place and of the street, 
 which daily journalism has to deal with, were alien, 
 altogether, to the ends for which his temper and his 
 genius were shaped. He lifted journalism, it is true, 
 to a higher plane, so far as one example might do it. 
 He kept one newspaper clean, while springs of filthi- 
 ness were breaking open in so many; he gave it a qual- 
 ity and a tone which have not been common enough in 
 our press to pass without note. That was the worthy 
 outcome of a laborious life; but it does not seem to be 
 an adequate remainder from David Gray. It was 
 
 
 
 | 
 | 
 ‘ 
 
 C—O ll —Fa PE 
 
 a ee 
 
ESTIMATES. 197 
 
 impossible to know him and not want more,—more of 
 a lasting product from the brain and heart that he 
 wore out on things of the hour and the day. 
 
 Of course, it is worse than futile to mar the memory of 
 a life that has been well lived and of work that has been 
 nobly done with ‘ifs’ and idle guesses of what might 
 have been. But how can one put away the thought of 
 some different career, that will rise in a case like this ? 
 The thought of David Gray as a religious teacher, for 
 example! Not as a preacher, in the common sense— 
 for his fine gift of speech had little oratory in it—but 
 as a teacher of religion,—as a teacher of the primitive 
 truth and practical life of Christianity, apart from all 
 ecclesiasticism and all theology, which came to be, for 
 him, the one, only worthy object of human knowledge. 
 His fervor and fineness of spirit, his moral delicacy, 
 his fullness of sympathy, his many-sided openness of 
 nature, his clearness of thought, his pictorial speech, 
 and the exquisite coloring that it took from a dozen 
 cooperative faculties and qualities of his mind,—they 
 could not have failed to be.a powerful influence in the 
 religious world, if he had employed them at his prime 
 as he strove to employ them in his feeble later years. 
 
 Or, if we think of David Gray as living the life 
 which invited him most in his youth,—the life of a man 
 of letters, simply and wholly so,—it seems to be certain 
 that the world would have been something richer than 
 it is, by reason of the work he would have done in it. 
 As a poet, it is not to be expected that he would have 
 found a place in the choir of the supreme singers. He 
 produced nothing which would seem to promise so 
 much as that. Yet nothing that he did produce can 
 
198 : BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 fairly be held to denote the limitations of his genius ; 
 for, after his powers matured, there was no year of his 
 life when the poet-soul in him was not under fetters, 
 forged and riveted upon it by inexorable circumstances. 
 If there is one avocation in life more deadly to poetical 
 inspiration than another, it is the avocation of political 
 daily journalism; and David Gray was delivered to 
 the slavery of the political press for more than twenty 
 years. It was only as a fugitive, so to speak, that he 
 ever ran for an hour into the fair fields where visions 
 may be seen and songs may be sung; and it is amazing» 
 that he was always able to bring back from those stolen 
 flights so much melody and beauty as he did. 
 
 Of spontaneous poetry—of poetry that is a natural 
 blossoming of moods and thoughts—he wrote almost 
 none after his twenty-third year. Nearly all that we 
 have from him, except the earlier verse, was written, 
 as he said in one of his letters, ‘under pressure of a 
 necessity, begotten by some occasion,’ and because he 
 was ‘cornered into it!’ It is useless to say that he 
 could not write otherwise while treading the inexorable 
 mill of the daily newspaper; and the few years of his” 
 respite from it, when abroad, were scarcely more favor- 
 able. Those years of travel were the years of his lib- 
 eral education. He was an itinerant student, with the 
 old world at large for his university,—having matricu- 
 lated at no other. It was a time of his life which he 
 gave, purposely, to an hungry absorption of ideas and 
 emotions, as well as to a diligent study of languages, 
 of literatures, of countries and of people. It was not 
 a time for productive work. 
 
 Yet he did produce in that time a body of writing 
 
 
 
ESTIMATES. 199 
 
 which is the one adequate and satisfying performance 
 of his pen. The series of letters that he wrote asa 
 traveling correspondent, for current publication in the 
 Buffalo Courier, and which fill the volume ‘appended 
 to this, are really unique of their kind. For the most 
 part, they relate to the very commonplaces of European 
 travel,—to scenes and things which are pointed at in 
 all the guide-books, and which have been ink-spattered 
 by the tourists of many generations. But one reads 
 them as if they told the story of a new world, first- 
 visited and freshly described. The landscapes, the 
 cities, the monuments, the legend- and history-haunted 
 places of Europe, are set before us like new discoveries. 
 It is as though one had visited them who was able, with 
 the strong breath of his enthusiasm and imagination, 
 to blow away the dust of commonplace sentiment which 
 settles so easily on the highways, and to uncover freshly, 
 again, the whole beauty and venerableness and poetry 
 that are underneath it. 
 
 There is no conscious fine-writing in these letters,— 
 no working of emotions for display,—no elaborated 
 description for description’s sake. But the perfect 
 word in unfailing perfect use; the epithet which is a 
 picture rolled small; the phrase that moves one’s feel- 
 ings as though it had struck a secret spring; the glint 
 of humor that is like a smile on an eloquent face,—can 
 we find in English literature another composition of 
 their kind that is so jeweled with these exquisite 
 things? ‘Twenty years ago, the Letters of Travel had 
 their ephemeral publication in newspaper print, were 
 read in a circle comparatively small and outside of the 
 critical world,—were admired and remembered by a - 
 
200 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 few. If their quality were common, that would natur- 
 ally have been their end. But, being what they are, 
 they could not rest in such burial. Literature was 
 wronged by it; the economy of letters was violated in 
 their loss. The twenty years and more which have 
 aged all the incidents of their story take nothing what- 
 ever from the abiding charm that is in them; and so, 
 without apology or hesitation, they are reproduced, now, 
 and given publication in a more permanent form. To 
 those who read them they will justify themselves 
 quickly enough. Taken as a whole, they represent the 
 best of David Gray as a literary artist,—as a poet 
 constrained to prose,—and indicate what, under circum- 
 stances more favorable, he might have done. 
 
 But, after all, it was David Gray as a man, among 
 his fellow-men, in his conversation and daily walk, ~ 
 as we saw his face, as we listened to his voice, as we 
 caught the benediction of his smile, who was loved and 
 mourned by those who knew him. His death was the 
 going out of a candle which God had not chosen to 
 set on any high place, but which shone on many lives, 
 nevertheless, in the community to which he belonged. 
 It drew more tears than often fall on even good men’s 
 graves. The common grief and the sense of private 
 and public loss were tenderly expressed by many voices 
 and many pens. ‘This memoir may fitly be closed by 
 repeating a few of the affectionate tributes that were 
 publicly paid to the memory of David Gray when he 
 died. 
 
 
 
 The death of David Gray, as other men die, would 
 have occasioned profound regret. That death met him 
 
 
 
ESTIMATES. 201 
 
 so unexpectedly and so cruelly, awakes, even in stran- 
 ger hearts, the tenderest sympathy. But for those who 
 knew David Gray, and loved him as few men are ever 
 loved, his death brings a sorrow for ‘the man they 
 held as half divine,’ beyond the reach of words. 
 
 As I recall the personal associations of twenty-five 
 years, and remember the offices of his friendship, his 
 ever suggestive thought, his fine genius, which in a less 
 material age had ranked him with the builders of loft- 
 iest song, I realize that as beautifully equipped a soul 
 has passed away as ever adorns and inspires. 
 
 His journalistic career will be sketched by his asso- 
 ciates of the press; yet I will say that, while Mr. Gray 
 was ever loyal to his party, and heartily accepted its 
 economic theories, his sympathies seemed to me broader 
 than any partisan creed. I well remember the first 
 time I ever saw him. It was in Paris, when he was on 
 his first visit abroad. It was just after the close of our 
 war, and that struggle, its causes and its issue, were 
 the subject of a long talk at our first interview. I 
 shall never forget with what earnest words he held 
 slavery responsible for the war, and his rejoicing at its 
 overthrow. We spoke of the heroisms which overleap 
 the restraints of law in revolutions, for we were on 
 suggestive revolutionary ground, and I was much im- 
 pressed by his broad philosophy and humanity. 
 
 This sentiment, ‘] am aman, and whatever interests 
 humanity interests me,’ underlay all his political and 
 personal character. It entered into his daily life, gave 
 tone to his professional work, and, when most intense 
 in his partisan devotion, the heart of David Gray was 
 his Mentor and guide. This is high eulogium, but it 
 will be justified by his contemporary journalists of every 
 shade of political opinion. Political journalism, which 
 owes so much to our friend, was not the most congenial 
 sphere for his gifts. His nature craved ‘ the still air of 
 delightful studies.” Literature was his natural sphere. 
 He had genius, a philosophic mind, and a style pure 
 
202 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 and melodious. He was a born poet, and his verse 
 easily rose to the plane of the highest themes. But 
 what words can give even shadowy intimation of that 
 social charm which delighted and captivated? His 
 simplicity, his geniality, his glowing friendship, and 
 that loyalty which was his manhood’s crown, made of 
 David Gray the prince of friends and of hosts. Sev- 
 eral years ago, a few friends used to meet him on Sat- 
 urday evenings in his little home on Niagara street,—a 
 home which seemed more regal than the most preten- 
 tious palace, for ‘David,’ as his friends loved to call 
 him, was its master. One of the group, a kindred 
 soul, and most royally endowed, preceded him to the 
 shadowy land. Their common friends will ever asso- 
 ciate Wright with Gray, in their heart of hearts. 
 
 I have said our friend was a philosopher, but he sub- 
 ordinated his philosophy to a simple Christian faith. 
 Instead of the grandeur of churchly ritual and priestly 
 ceremonial, he sought a service simple, meditative, 
 without intervention of priest in stately temple, and 
 found it among the Plymouth Brethren. Here he was 
 teacher and scholar. Here, and in his daily commun- 
 ings, his spirit was brought in closest sympathy with 
 his Master. If there was an element of mysticism in 
 his religious life, it was proof of his kinship with those 
 rare souls who, in all the Christian ages, have sought to 
 unify their spirits with the Divine. 
 
 David Gray’s home! How profound and universal 
 the sympathy with that loving and heroie wife, in all 
 her sad errand, to the end, to the end! 
 
 David Gray was as a son to Buffalo. He gave to her 
 service the vigor of his manhood, and in that service 
 he lost it. He interwove ‘sweetness and light’ with 
 her noisy commerce. He, in large degree, wedded her 
 to the humanities. She will gratefully remember her 
 son.— James O. Putnam. 
 
ESTIMATES. 2038. 
 
 DAVID GRAY. 
 
 While, on the anvil of his life, 
 The daily blows rang full and strong, 
 Forging the hot iron of his thought 
 Into the plowshare or the knife, 
 Whate’er his busy hammer wrought, 
 His wearying toil, or short or long, 
 He lightened with a song. 
 
 Men say the toiler’s task is done, 
 And soon his work they may forget— 
 A rusted share, a broken blade, 
 Cast to one side at set of sun, 
 All that is left of what he made: 
 But, now the sun is fully set, 
 His singing lingers with us yet. 
 —Allen G'. Bigelow. 
 
 With genius of a high order, keen intellect, tender 
 sensibility, fine moral sense, high ambition, untiring 
 industry, conscientious devotion to duty, all consecrated 
 and subordinated to enlightened religious convictions. 
 —a ‘pure and radiant’ soul was David Gray..... 
 Amid the record of even the selected spirits who are 
 continually ‘falling from us,’ Memory must look very 
 far back to find one who was ‘loved with such love, 
 and with such sorrow mourned.’—Jabez Loton, in the 
 Bulletin of the Young Men’s Christian Association. 
 
 Mr. Gray’s editorial style was perfect. With him, 
 the composition of a leader was a fine art. The infi- 
 nite pains he gave to the minutest details of this work, 
 together with the other responsibilities of the position, 
 while it made many of his productions sufficiently fin- 
 ished for a magazine article or an essay for a review, 
 
904 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 kept him at his desk at hours when he should have been 
 at rest, and seriously impaired his health. As a reader 
 of exchanges he was unequaled. Mr. Gray could go 
 through a pile of newspapers and find in them inter- 
 esting matter that everyone else had overlooked. One 
 of his most marked characteristics as a newspaper man 
 was his infinite patience. To those who worked by 
 his side it was a constant marvel. L[legible manu- 
 scripts, which proved too much for the tempers of his 
 subordinates, would go to him and be put into shape 
 for the printer with painful care, but without the 
 slightest indication of disturbed serenity. A constant 
 stream of visitors, with and without errands, poured 
 into his office, and were always graciously received. 
 Even after the most tedious of them all had gone, he 
 never showed to his associates the slightest shade of 
 annoyance over the loss of time which they caused 
 him. His disinclination to discharge a correspondent 
 or other subordinate, who performed his work ill, 
 greatly added to the burden of his own duties. His 
 forbearance in this respect was perhaps carried to an 
 extreme, and his anxiety to avoid hurting the feelings 
 of friends or, in fact, anyhody else, was almost a fail- 
 ing. Could he have cultivated, at times, a little asper- 
 ity, it would doubtless have aided him to escape some 
 of the ills of his later years.— The Buffalo Courier. 
 
 It was John Hay, we believe, who said playfully of 
 David Gray, that he was ‘the loveliest of his sex’ ; 
 and the phrase, in its best sense, was appropriate to 
 the man; but it must be remembered that the amia- 
 bility it suggests was allied to sterling principle, the 
 gentleness to courage, the grace to strength, the poetic 
 sensibility to firm purpose. 
 
 There is something simple yet noble in the very 
 name of David Gray, that suggests the thought of 
 
ESTIMATES. 205 
 
 him that bore it; and in his case nature, who does not 
 always deal in harmonies, took pains to establish a 
 correspondence between a fine, strong spirit and the 
 form in which it was housed.—T7he Rochester Post- 
 Hepress. 
 
 The death of David Gray has drawn from men and 
 newspapers expressions of sympathy and tributes of 
 affection and admiration of an extraordinary character. 
 To those who only knew this ‘rare soul’ in his later 
 years, some of these expressions will seem extravagant, 
 but they who knew the David Gray of twenty years. 
 ago, and who ever felt the spell of his winning and 
 stimulating personality, believe that ordinary language 
 is inadequate to describe his peculiar charm, and that 
 it is not easy to exaggerate the possibilities of a poetic 
 nature and literary taste like his, had they been 
 nurtured and aided by circumstances.— The Buffalo 
 Commercial Advertiser. 
 
 To do justice to the virtue and talents of our dead 
 friend would tax time and space beyond what these 
 busy hours can grant. Of a lovely and loving dis- 
 position, he was, first of all, a poet. Inconsistent with 
 the stern routine of journalism as were his exquisite 
 tastes and delicate fancies, the flowers of Mr. Gray’s 
 poesy grew thick along the iron track of duty.— The 
 Buffalo Haupress. 
 
 David Gray’s was, in every sense, what is called a 
 noble life. His was the sort of spirit to which man- 
 kind owes much. He wrote with the grace of Lamb 
 and the humane humor of the English essayist. In- 
 vincibly modest of his own fitness, he let slip oppor- 
 
206 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 tunities that have made men of half his metal famous 
 and influential. Determined, but not dogmatic, he 
 carried conviction into every incident of daily life.— 
 
 The New York Star. 
 
 Probably no man living in Buffalo was so widely 
 beloved as the kindly, upright, able man who, for many 
 years, made The Buffalo Courier one of the great 
 journals of the country. No man ever more com- 
 pletely impressed his personality on the newspaper he 
 edited. No man ever gave to a newspaper the impress 
 of a nobler personality. David Gray was a pure- 
 minded, generous, kindly man, full of sympathy with 
 all that is good, full of energy and industry in the 
 expression of that sympathy, and in support of every 
 good movement and of the highest ideals of the school 
 of politics which his judgment favored.—The Buffalo 
 Evening News. 
 
 He was so long a part and parcel of Buffalo; his 
 name and genius were so intimately associated with 
 her every effort for all that makes a city great, that 
 she was justly proud of him, as he was loyally devoted 
 to her; nor could the bonds which had so long bound 
 them in mutual affection be severed without a poignant 
 pang piercing the city’s heart... . Gentle without 
 weakness, learned without pedantry, his was a gracious 
 courtesy and singular modesty which enhanced his rare 
 worth, while his deeply religious heart was ever bowed 
 in reverence to Almighty God and the great truths of 
 eternity. Cut down like a flower when its fragrance 
 is sweetest, David Gray goes to the grave sincerely 
 mourned by all who appreciate those qualities which 
 ennoble life— Zhe Catholic Union. 
 
ESTIMATES. Pad Ml 
 
 A rare and interesting study was the character of 
 David Gray. He was a manly man, if to possess a 
 scrupulously honorable and sensitively honest nature 
 could make him so. He preferred to avoid the tur- 
 bulence and strife of an active business career, as he 
 did a literary career that compelled him to dip his pen 
 in the chalice of bitterness, or with the sharpened point 
 of eriticism. As an editor he was calm, courteous and 
 polished, and of a school that has been well-nigh driven 
 out in these rushing and aggressive times. There 
 was no pleasure for him in compassing the downfall 
 of a foe; he would go much further in an attempt to 
 persuade such an one to beafriend. If fortune had 
 been more kind to him, he would have been a poetic 
 dreamer, drifting along life’s river, only seeing that 
 which would satisfy his poetic longings, turning away 
 from that which would tend to mar or disfigure his 
 dream of beauty and peace.— The Sunday Times. 
 
 He was an honor to American journalism, and by 
 his elevated thought, choice diction, and manly, high- 
 toned treatment of all topics that came under his 
 editorial review, made his paper a model for his con- 
 temporaries. He was ever the genial, generous, warm 
 and true-hearted friend. His untimely death is a 
 public calamity — Buffalo Christian Advocate. 
 
 David Gray is dead; he goes to his grave attended 
 by the sincere grief of all who knew the brightness of 
 his gifts and the gentleness of his character. The press 
 notices of him have been especially appreciative and 
 sympathetic. Rarely has a fuller wealth of eulogy 
 been paid to any man than has been paid to his memory 
 by the journalists of this state. His memory is, indeed, 
 
208 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR. 
 
 precious, and all who knew and, therefore, loved him 
 will say that in his death ‘ there cracked a noble heart.” 
 —The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. 
 
 Mr. Gray was one of the gentlest of men, one of the 
 most graceful and able writers the press of New York 
 has had, a poet by nature. His friends are legion, and 
 many who never had a personal acquaintance with him 
 loved him for the manliness of his character, the ele- 
 vating tone of his teaching, the gentleness, sincerity, 
 nobility of his nature. The death of such a man is a 
 loss to humanity.— The Utica Herald. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 THE Foc-BELL at NIGHT. 
 
 Ty 
 
 Out on the dim and desolate lake, 
 Chime on chime falls, measured and slow ; 
 Scarce the dull trance of the night they break, 
 Sounding so wearily, long and low; 
 Telling the hour in its voiceless flight— 
 Stirring old thoughts of our dear, dead joys: 
 QO, dreary, mysterious night, 
 Shadow and fear have at last a voice. 
 
 II. 
 
 Far in a region of dream-delight, 
 Fondly I wandered but moments ago,— 
 Ah, that knell from the distant night, 
 Hanging my dreams with trappings of woe! 
 Sadly, solemnly tolling—tolling, 
 Floating afar on the misty air; 
 Every bell like a dirge is knolling, 
 
 Every chime is a funeral prayer ! 
 14 
 
210 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 III. 
 
 ‘Life!’ they cry to the mariner, seaward,— 
 What to the slumbering thousands near? 
 Father above, do they beckon us Thee-ward ? 
 
 See! I strain thro’ the night to hear ! 
 Sadly, solemnly tolling—tolling, 
 
 Dying away on the ghostly air,— 
 Every bell for a soul is knolling, 
 
 Every chime is a funeral prayer ! 
 
 Sir JOHN FRANKLIN AND His Crew. 
 
 Toll the saintly minster bell, 
 
 For we know they ’re now at rest ; 
 Where they lie, they sleep as well 
 
 As in kirkyard old and blest. 
 Let the requiem echo free 
 
 From the shores of England, forth, 
 Over leagues of angry sea, 
 
 Toward the silence of the North. 
 
 Half a score of years or more, 
 They were phantoms in our dreams ; 
 Many a night, on many a shore 
 Lit by wan Aurora gleams, 
 We have tracked the ghostly band— 
 Seen distressful signals wave— 
 Till we find dim William’s Land 
 Holy with the heroes’ grave. 
 
POEMS. 211 
 
 Toll the bell! that they may rest, 
 Haunting specters of our brain,— 
 They for whom her tireless quest 
 Love pursued so long in vain. 
 Nevermore let fancy feign 
 That the wondering Esquimau 
 Haply sees them toil again, 
 Wild and haggard, through the snow. 
 
 From The Erebus they pass’d 
 To a realm of light and balm ; 
 And The Terror sailed at last 
 Into peace and perfect calm. 
 Toll the bell; but let its voice, 
 Moaning in the minster dome, 
 Change at times, and half rejoice ; 
 For the mariners at home! 
 
 THe Crew or THE ADVANCE. 
 
 They spread their ship’s white sails, and like a dream 
 Fled outward, on the seaward-sighing breeze ; 
 
 Till soon the memory of a dream they grew 
 
 To us, who gazed afar on vacant sea. 
 
 But night by night, to them, and star by star, 
 
 The skies of the great North-land opened and shone, 
 And brighter flashed the icy-jeweled gates 
 
 Of the dim regions, as they neared and entered ; 
 And Solitude, who sat there, heavy-eyed, 
 
 A moment stirred, and rose, and shut them in. 
 
O12 7 POEMS. 
 
 They were the guests of Death, yet feared him not. 
 They knew him in his deepest cavern-haunts, 
 Touching his marble hand, as if in sport, 
 
 And drawing difficult breath beneath the spell 
 
 Of his most stony eye. Ah! never came 
 
 Into those drear dominions whisper of Spring, 
 
 Or far-off echoed voice of those who dwell 
 
 Down in the land of Summer, which, to them, 
 
 Was even as heaven. The very thoughts they sent, 
 White messenger-birds, to southward, failed in flight 
 Winging that deathful bar of frost and darkness. 
 Nor more to us came token that ’t was well 
 
 With this our venture in the realm of Night ; 
 
 Save haply to some sleepless, listening hearts, 
 When Norland winds came wailing down the night, 
 A sigh was borne, that Love would start to hear— 
 A sigh, mayhap, she well would understand, 
 
 And with quick, tremulous fingers would detach 
 From the wild, floating woof of midnight’s music. 
 
 They roamed the chambers of God’s mysteries, 
 And in their wondering sight He rallied forth 
 The Aurora-armies, flashing, till they seemed 
 
 A dance of angels on the slopes of heaven! 
 
 The unsetting moon lit up with myriad gems 
 Valley and berg fantastic ; and the ear 
 
 That ached with depth of silence, caught at times 
 Strange consciousness of music from the air. 
 
 It was a night of wildering dreams, till, lo! 
 Above an icy cliff the timid Dawn 
 
 Stood, draped in white, unearthly robes, and smiled 
 Wan pity o’er them! 
 
POEMS. 21 
 
 They were guests of Death ; 
 But at his very fireless hearth they planted 
 The banner of Life—the banner of more than Life— 
 Of Life’s crowned monarch—glorious, conquering 
 Manhood ! 
 And he, of all that band so brave—so true— 
 Our mouths are mute as his when we go seeking 
 For words that would not wrong his nobleness. 
 He wavered not where giants might have wavered ; 
 He wrested from the thrice-clenched hand of Danger 
 The jewel Victory. 
 
 We thank Thee, God, 
 That Thou hast given our hero back. His grave 
 Is ours, whereon to weep; nor shall the summers 
 Heap moss enough to hide him from our grief. 
 
 To Guten Iris. 
 
 To thee, sweetest valley, Glen Iris, to thee,— 
 
 More fair than the vision of poct may be, 
 
 And beyond what the artist may dream, when his eyes 
 Are dim with the hues of the loveliest skies ; 
 
 To thee and thy forest, whose foliage forever 
 
 Is fresh with the mists of thy light-flashing river ; 
 Thy flowers that are swayed in the softest of airs; 
 Thy birds in the greenest and deepest of lairs ; 
 
 Thy lights and thy shadows, thy sweet river’s fall, 
 That sings into slumber or reverie,—all, 
 
214 POEMS. 
 
 _ To thee, though our lips cannot utter a word, 
 
 Our spirits are singing in rapture unheard ! 
 
 For ’t is part of thy magic—thy beauty-wrought spell— 
 
 What thou whisperest to us we never can tell. 
 
 Sweet Glen of the Rainbow, to thee there are given, 
 
 As fresh as the day when they sprung into birth, 
 
 All the joys and the graces we love most of earth ; 
 
 And the sunlight flings o’er thee the glories of heaven! 
 
 So, The Nameless now drink from thy pleasure-brimmed 
 chalice, 
 
 And pledge thee the rainbow-ideal of valleys,— 
 
 A Beulah where thrice-happy mortals that see thee 
 
 Forget all their cares, for thy waters are Lethe. 
 
 And we shout and rejoice that thou art what thou art— 
 
 The beautiful home of a beautiful heart. 
 
 OUTRIVALLED. 
 
 No tale of days divine with love, or starry eves, is 
 
 mine; 
 
 I only know that One was once who made all life 
 divine ; 
 
 Whose presence circled to my soul its all of earth or 
 skies, — 
 
 Who drew my glamoured sight from heaven, to dwell 
 upon her eyes ; 
 
 And Hope (that fell from heaven to hell) up-soared on 
 wings of light, 
 
 Till that sweet vision darkly changed, and melted into 
 
 night. 
 
POEMS. 915 
 
 It came, a whisper—low at first—that she was false 
 to me; 
 
 And louder grew the words accurst, ‘ Another, and not 
 thee!’ 
 
 They bade me see the signs she wore, howe’er she sighed 
 or smiled, 
 
 That told the Eden of my love a paradise defiled. 
 
 And by his spell upon her eyes, his spell on heart and 
 breath, 
 
 His bridal sign upon her cheek, I knew the Rival, 
 Death! 
 
 I did not rail of broken vows ;—O God! so white and 
 shriven ;— 
 
 I watched her life, my star of life, set in its dream of 
 heaven ; 
 
 And all the haunted nights my prayer was wild, the 
 while I ween 
 
 She could not see my heart at hers, for a shade that 
 dwelt between ; 
 
 But gazing past me thro’ the gloom, the light in her 
 eyes renewed, 
 
 For ghostly in the dark, without, he stood—the King 
 who wooed. , 
 
 He gave her brow the palest pearl, and wildly with her 
 hair 
 
 Inwove a thread of heavenly gold, that made her brow 
 more fair ; 
 
 The rose of love she wore for him blushed with a crim- 
 son flame, 
 
 And in her eyes the fire of life upflickered as he came. 
 
216 POEMS. 
 
 Then over all there fell a veil, pale, chill, like winter 
 breath, 
 
 And forth they went, my love and he, the kingly Rival, 
 Death. 
 
 THE LAKE. 
 
 At the night’s most solemn hour, 
 When the stars are lost o’erhead, 
 
 And the silence hath a power 
 Deeper, thus to darkness wed ;— 
 
 When the lighthouse-lantern keeps 
 
 Vigil, while the city sleeps, 
 
 Circling slowly in the night, 
 
 With its bursts of meteor-light ;— 
 
 Then, although the wind be dead, 
 Miles upon the glooming lake, 
 Deep within its mystic bed 
 Life and motion seem to wake. 
 Hour by hour a stir—a sound— 
 Rises on the stillness ’round ; 
 O’er and o’er, on the shore, 
 Breaks that deep and haunting roar. 
 
 Nightly thus my thoughts, as well, 
 Sink to motionless repose, 
 
 And the murmur that may dwell 
 
 In the heart (as in a shell), 
 Ebbing faint, no longer flows. 
 
POEMS. 217 
 
 Shadows of approaching sleep 
 Fall around me, dense and deep, 
 Save whene’er the fitful gleam 
 Flashes, of some meteor-dream. 
 
 Half-awake and half a-dream 
 Then, in that dim border-land, 
 
 I can watch a stranger stream 
 Break on a more haunted strand. 
 
 In my mind, as o’er the lake, 
 
 Life and motion seem to wake, 
 
 As if in the sea-caves of Thought 
 
 Still the tidal Sprrir wrought. 
 
 So must ever be, I ween, 
 In the Mind’s mysterious sea, 
 Mystic tides, unruled, unseen, 
 Palpitating ceaselessly. 
 And when Death shall work his will 
 In that wave (made strangely chill), 
 Will the roar on the shore, 
 Ceasing then, be heard no more? 
 
 Evinu BurRItrt. 
 
 They know, who wander in o’erarching woods, 
 
 How spreads the whisper of a coming storm 
 
 From leaf to leaf—from eager bough to bough, 
 
 Till answering miles of forest swing and sway, 
 
 And mock the gathering clouds, and with wild voices 
 Call to the hollow Thunder in his lair. 
 
218 POEMS. \ 
 
 So ran the tremor of a coming storm 
 
 Thro’ the old realms of Europe, when he came 
 
 Across the misty sea, to the Queen-Isle,— 
 
 This mild, but dauntless, eager, large-souled Quixote. 
 
 The doves of peace were fluttering in their nests, 
 The gentle olive flung affrighted arms, 
 
 And threw mad leaves, despairing, on the blast— 
 All this, when first I saw him. I remember 
 
 He stilled us, gathered troops of boy-Bedouins, 
 
 And thrilled us into silence with his eyes, 
 
 And drew ours into his, with a quaint story 
 
 Of children, brothers, in America. 
 
 Then, sounding the deep wells of Truth and Feeling, 
 (These lie in Boyhood’s heart so deep, serene, 
 Unruffled, and so clear, they seem not there )— 
 
 He threw great words upon us—spake of Right— 
 Right, broken, bleeding—Right, upraised and victor ! 
 Truth never seemed so noble as when there 
 
 It fell in living vigor from his lips ; 
 
 Peace never seemed a goddess, till she sat 
 
 Throned on the high, white calmness of his brow. 
 
 The dust of Time scarce falls on such an one. 
 The eye as clear, the brain as clear, the soul 
 More sharply obvious in its more-worn robes— 
 In else, my Boyhood’s memory ’s true to night. 
 
 There is a means whereby a soul, unbowed 
 
 By years, may grow with years but more sublime. 
 If one hath placed his feet upon the heights 
 
 Of universal Love, and Truth, and Virtue, 
 
 The envious waves my break themselves upon him ; 
 
POEMS. 919 
 
 They do but toss new conquests to his feet, 
 Whereon he rises higher. Storms of Hate 
 May rend the angry skies; they only serve 
 To bleach the sea-assaulted cliff to marble, 
 That it may gleam, and be, afar, a beacon ! 
 
 JEANNIE LORIMER. 
 
 Oh, bonny Jeannie Lorimer, what glamour has come 
 owre ye? 
 
 What sudden wae is this that swims sae watery in 
 your ee? 
 
 Your braw white gown came hame yestreen, your bridal 
 is before ye, 
 
 Oh, bonny Jeannie Lorimer, what ill have you to 
 dree ? 
 
 The birds sing cheery in the wood aboon the Elder’s. 
 How; 
 
 The flowers are fairest on its brae, the berries biggest 
 erow ; 
 
 But eerie, aye, it seems, to pass the cot sae bleak and 
 bare, 
 
 And think on sic a warm fireside as ance was keepit 
 there. 
 
 “Tis twelve gude years and mair sin syne—’t was at the 
 Martinmas term— 
 
 The neebors a’ plad sair ; but, no—the laird maun hae. 
 the farm ; 
 
220 POEMS. 
 
 Sae, gatherin’ up his sma’ estate, the Elder turned his 
 face, 
 
 And took his ae bit callant’s hand, sad-hearted frae the 
 place. 
 
 And soon the hares cam’ loupin wild owre a’ the 
 garden knowe, 
 
 And cock and pheasant o’ the laird’s ran thick about 
 
 the How. 
 
 A fine bit lad, the Elder’s was—sae blue and gleg 
 his ee; 
 
 And weel baith he and Jeannie lo’ed thegither aye 
 to be. 
 
 How mony a ploy they had their lanes, what warlds o’ 
 nests they kenned, 
 
 What dams they biggit in the burn, and houses with- 
 out end ; 
 
 Their lives were like the burn’s twa banks, as tt 
 matched and green, 
 
 While childhood, like the burnie’s sel’, ran singin’ 
 down between. 
 
 Sair heart had Jeannie Lorimer that day they gaed 
 awa’, 
 
 And mony a day, beside, her een were wat when na 
 ane saw ; 
 
 For na ane kenned how big a load sae young a heart 
 could keep, 
 
 Or how ilk gloaming, at the How, she grat her grief to 
 sleep. 
 
 But years draw by, the lass grew fair, in spite the 
 bairnie’s woes ; 
 
 The bud cast off the secret worm and bonny bloomed 
 the rose. 
 
POEMS. 227 
 
 Some said that aye the Elder’s lad was upmost in her 
 thocht ; 
 
 Her mither scoffed: ‘Wad Jeannie wait, and waste 
 her days for nocht ?’ 
 
 For only ance across the seas some word had wandered 
 hame, 
 
 That tauld them in some far-off part, wi’ fearsome: 
 outra name ; 
 
 And though they say that some do well, and keep their 
 fathers’ faith, 
 
 So far, wi’ black and barbarous folk is maist the same 
 as death. 
 
 So folk forgot; and in the kirk, at last, the stated 
 prayer 
 
 That bore the exiles’ name on high, shook Jeannie’s, 
 heart nae mair ; 
 
 And, woman grown, on a’ the Strath, the lads wi’ love 
 gaed wild, 
 
 And still she put their offers by; alike on a’ she 
 smiled. 
 
 ‘There’s mony anither lass,’ folk said, ‘has rued sic 
 reckless play ;’ 
 
 But Jeannie didna wait owre lang to tine her market. 
 day. 
 
 The favored wooer came, at last; she named the bridal 
 hour ; 
 
 And surely love amang the dew ne’er found a fairer 
 flower. 
 
 Oh, bonny Jeannie Lorimer, your lover comes to 
 own ye, 
 
 The morrow is your bridal morn, and blithe it ought 
 to be; 
 
yee POEMS. 
 
 Then wae for some uncanny thing that surely has 
 
 befa’n ye, 
 
 ‘Oh, wae for something in your face your lover mauna 
 see ! 
 
 ‘The licht was fadin’ yester-e’en, the birds to sleep had 
 gane, 
 
 When Jeannie slippit frae the house, and took the road 
 her lane— 
 
 Mayhap it was some pensive thocht that led her ower 
 the knowe, 
 
 And, cross the stile and down the path that skirts the 
 Elder’s How; 
 
 ‘Some thocht o’ by-gone days, perchance, for, oh, what 
 wrang were thine 
 
 If ae last nicht the morrow’s bride be lassie o’ lang 
 syne | 
 
 Here stands the Elder’s cot, its door leans broken on 
 the stair, 
 
 And a’ the smiling shapes it kenned gang in and out 
 nae mair. 
 
 The summer-house is yonder, yet,—the tree that held 
 the swing ; 
 
 But, oh, the waesomeness that clings like mould to 
 every thing! | 
 
 Gae hame then, Jeannie Lorimer, the dew is on your 
 track, 
 
 Nor risk the sweets o’ life ye hae for them that come 
 na back! | 
 
 ‘Come back!’ the word was on her tongue, when quick, 
 wi breast on flame, 
 
 She heard a foot come round the house,—a stranger 
 spak’ her name ; 
 
POEMS. 228 
 
 She ran, but, oh, nor far she fled, nor long her heart’s 
 alarms, 
 
 For a’ he looked sae big and braw, she sprang into his 
 arms ! 
 
 He spak’ her name, ’t was no’ the voice, though saft 
 and sweet it seemed, 
 
 But something when it ceased reca’ed the music she 
 
 had dreamed ; 
 And when she met his saft blue een, their fond licht 
 
 aye the same, 
 
 She kenned, through a’ the change o’ years, the Elder’s 
 lad, come hame! 
 
 But wae for them that only ken the joy their lives 
 have lost, 
 
 And, oh, for love that only gies its blossom to the 
 frost ! 
 
 *And would ye sooth ha’ lo’ed?’ he said; ‘and was 
 your heart sae true?’ 
 
 ‘The years were lang,’ she sobbed him back, ‘I never 
 lo’ed but you!’ 
 
 Then from the How he turned his face, and nane but 
 Jeannie saw ; 
 
 Oh, waesome tryst, for Love was there, but Hope 
 stayed far awa’ ! 
 
 Oh, bonny Jeannie Lorimer, your wedded years be- 
 tide ye; 
 
 Ye’ll gang yon road again, mayhap, wi’ bairns about 
 your knee ; 
 
 But nane will see the wraith to walk wi’ waesome een 
 beside ye, 
 
 Oh, bonny Jeannie Lorimer, forever, till ye dee ! 
 
224 POEMS. 
 
 CoMING. 
 
 She said she ’d come in May, but it seemed so far away 
 That our hearts grew sick at first to think of waiting 
 her so long ; 
 And the months were counted o’er, to the day that. 
 should restore 
 In one rich gift the Spring to earth, to us our light 
 and song. 
 
 And Autumn shed its leaves on the wind that comes 
 and grieves 
 In the wood and ’round the houses, like a ghost that. 
 died of woe; 
 And the dull, cold clouds, at last, drooped and whitened. 
 in the blast, 
 Till all the earth lay still as death, in one long dream 
 of snow. 
 
 But long ere Spring had filled the earth with sap, or 
 thrilled 
 The subtle nerves of flowers, or called to swallows 
 o’er the main, 
 Our hearts had felt the stir of the Spring to come with 
 her, | 
 And yearned with joyous thoughts to greet our dar- 
 ling back again. 
 
POEMS. 225 
 
 And the snowdrop floated up from the snow its fragile 
 cup ; 
 And the violets stole the blue of heaven, one morning 
 after rain ; 
 And the wild anemone met us trembling on the lea,— 
 All with the sole sweet words to tell: ‘She is com- 
 ing back again.’ 
 
 Fast, fast, O March, fleet past, on thy winter-battling 
 
 blast, 
 
 And, gentle April, linger not beneath thy skies of 
 rain ; 
 
 But strew thy scanty flowers, and speed the happy 
 hours 
 
 That bring sweet May to earth, to us our darling 
 back again! . 
 
 
 
 A Marcu ScENE. 
 
 —The time, eleven at night. The scene is this: 
 I followed the long glimmer of city lights, 
 Now loitering on, a lonesome space in gloom, 
 Now, as I neared and passed a shining lamp, 
 Starting to note my shadow black and large 
 Sweep ’round and forward, far into the night. 
 The straggling files of city sentinels 
 
 I followed thus, in a deserted street, 
 
 Whence I could dimly see where lay the lake, 
 With its low mutter and moan of restless ice; 
 And farther on could hear the quicker crush 
 And plash, as mass on mass in dark disorder 
 Slid downward in the current. Wildly rose 
 
 Midnight and storm, together, o’er the lake ; 
 15 
 
226 POEMS. 
 
 The very spirit of desolation seemed, 
 
 Up from that long, low stretch of lifeless night, 
 
 To rise on wings of gloom, and darken earth. 
 
 And, oh! the maniac voices of the wind! 
 
 It must be such a wild, wild wail as this 
 
 Goes up to God from His sin-blighted world ! 
 
 With thoughts of these, I walked,—when quick 
 there came 
 
 A patter of childish feet along the pavement, 
 
 And underneath my very eyes there grew 
 
 A little thing of rags—a little face, 
 
 That showed a moment like a dream before me, 
 
 Then slid from the pale glimmer of the lamp— 
 
 Rags, pitiable face and all—into deep night! 
 
 The wind is wild and cold now— 
 Poor, shepherdless lamb and shorn, 
 Why wander from the fold now 
 Thy tiny feet forlorn ? 
 Hath Squalor cast adrift, to-night, her sorrow-born ? 
 
 The deep of utter joylessness 
 Thy darkling life hath trod— 
 Thy Life! poor blighted boylessness, 
 A dead flower in the sod! 
 Will blessed dew or spring avail for such, O God? 
 
 And heaven is dark and boonless 
 Above thy clouded brow, 
 Midnight is wild and moonless— 
 Will’t ever be as now? 
 I marvel if my God hath ken of such as thou! 
 
POEMS. Pia 
 
 Oh! if the heavenly roses 
 E’er blossom beneath thee sweet, 
 Among the leaves and posies 
 (Soft even to angel feet), 
 What thoughts of these cold stones across thy dreams 
 will fleet ! 
 
 THE Bark oF LIFE. 
 
 *T is the mid-watch of Time, on a mystical sea, 
 With the wind of the night in motion; 
 
 Deep sunk is the shadowy land on the lee, 
 And the ship is alone on the ocean. 
 
 O pilot, who watchest the boreal star, 
 What ship, and where seek ye to moor her ? 
 ‘°T is the Bark of Life that is bearing afar, 
 With a port that none knoweth, before her.’ 
 
 And why do ye leave the delight of the land 
 For the wild sea’s realm of wonder? 
 
 ‘ By the strong wind of fate all her canvas is fanned, 
 And its secret tide rolls under.’ 
 
 And, the bright shore lost, is it long ere again 
 To its haven the bark shall be drifted ? 
 
 ‘No more shall its blue hills rise from the main, 
 Nor an oar, in its calm, be lifted.’ 
 
 But the green glades of youth and its dreams are there, 
 With the rapture of song ringing through them? 
 
 ‘ And forever the sea and the barren air 
 Are met o’er the dim land that knew them.’ 
 
228 POEMS. 
 
 And the graves that we loved there, too, where the heart 
 O’er its beautiful dead sat moaning ? 
 
 ‘No voice of the lover shall mingle its art 
 With the billow their dirge intoning.’ 
 
 There were farewells kissed, and forevermore 
 From ours are the pale lips parted ? 
 
 ‘Oh, nought, save its dream, may the past restore, 
 Or its pang to the sorrowful-hearted ! ’ 
 
 Enough; but the mid-watch passes apace, 
 And, see, o’er the wave, an token : 
 
 O pilot, a smile is on ocean’s face, 
 And the trance of the night is broken! 
 
 And star telleth star of the glory to be, 
 And the billow is flushed with its warning, 
 And, white on the verge of the eastern sea, 
 Lo! the feet of the world’s new morning! 
 
 And away where the skirt of her bright robe streams, 
 And the shadows have parted asunder, / 
 
 Not the faded shore of our vanished dreams, 
 But a fairer, is shining yonder ! 
 
 The orient’s quivering deeps lie bare, 
 And the gleam of the stars has fainted, 
 Where its glimmering emerald swims in air 
 And its wavering lines are painted. 
 
 Then speed where its waiting port shall ope, 
 O pilot, thy sure bark steering, 
 
 For, over its far-away hills of hope 
 The train of the years is nearing ! 
 
POEMS. 
 
 All radiant the Future’s fields outspread, 
 And closes the Past’s dim portal, 
 
 *Till the sea of Time shall give up its dead, 
 And the beautiful be the immortal. 
 
 I heard the Rose make tender moan 
 For the quick waning season’s wrong 
 That stole the soul of odor from her. 
 
 Then said I: Let it, Sweet, atone, 
 That, changed to music of my song, 
 Thy fragrance breathes in endless summer! 
 
 —From the German of Bodenstedt. 
 
 On LEBANON. 
 
 Those days we spent on Lebanon, 
 
 Held captive by the sieging snow— 
 What bright things are forgot and gone, 
 
 While these have kept their after-glow ! 
 It seemed but monotone, in truth, 
 
 That morning gaze o’er mountain mass, 
 Our council with the hamlet’s youth, 
 
 The daily sortie up the pass,— 
 And, last, your father’s fire o’ nights, 
 Sweet Maiden of the Maronites! 
 
 Sometimes the battling clouds would break, 
 And from the rifted azure, fair, 
 
 We saw an eagle slant, and take, 
 Broad-winged, the stormy slopes of air. 
 
 229 
 
230 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 And once, when winter’s stubborn heart 
 Half broke in sunshine o’er the place, 
 We held our bridles to depart, 
 Eager and gleeful—but your face, 
 It did not mirror our delights, 
 O Maiden of the Maronites! 
 
 Bright face! how Arab-wild would glow, 
 Through shifting mood of storm or calm, 
 
 Its beauty, born of sun and snow 
 Between the cedar and the palm. 
 
 Nor, as I watched its changing thought 
 Could alien speech be long disguise ; 
 
 For ere one English phrase she caught 
 I learned the Arabic of her eyes— 
 
 The love-lore of their dusks and lights, 
 
 My Maiden of the Maronites ! 
 
 We parted soon, and upward fared, 
 Snow-fettered, till the pass was ours, 
 And all beneath us, golden-aired, 
 Lay Syria, in a dream of flowers. 
 Then spurred we, for before us burned 
 White Baalbec’s signal in the noon, 
 And, ere to way-side camp we turned, 
 Twixt us and you and far Bhamdun 
 All Lebanon raised his icy heights, 
 My Maiden of the Maronites ! 
 
 Yet, still, those days on Lebanon 
 As steadfast keep their after-glow 
 
 As if they owned a summer sun, » 
 And roses blossomed in the snow ; 
 
POEMS. 231 
 
 And when, with fire of heart and brain, 
 And the quick pulse’s speed increased, 
 And wordless longings, come again 
 Vision and passion of the East, 
 I dream ah! wild are Fancy’s flights, 
 O Maiden of the Maronites ! 
 
 
 
 A GOLDEN WEDDING POEM. 
 
 Read at the Golden Wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. James 
 Goold, of Albany, N. Y. 
 
 I 
 
 O Love, whose patient pilgrim feet 
 Life’s longest path have trod; 
 
 Whose ministry hath symbolled sweet 
 The dearer love of God,— 
 
 The sacred myrtle wreathes again 
 Thine altar, as of old; 
 
 And what was green with summer, then, . 
 Is mellowed, now, to gold. 
 
 II. 
 
 Not now, as then, the Future’s face 
 Is flushed with fancy’s light, 
 But Memory, with a milder grace, 
 Shall rule the feast, to-night. 
 Blest was the sun of joy that shone, 
 Nor less the blinding shower,— 
 The bud of fifty years agone 
 Is love’s perfected flower ! 
 
232 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 III. 
 
 O Memory, ope thy mystic door; 
 O dream of youth, return ; 
 
 And let the lights that gleamed of yore 
 Beside this altar burn ! 
 
 The past is plain; *t was love designed 
 E’en sorrow’s iron chain, 
 
 And mercy’s shining thread has twined 
 With the dark warp of pain. 
 
 IV. 
 
 So be it, still. O Thou who hast 
 That younger bridal blest, 
 
 Till the May-morn of love has passed 
 To evening’s golden west,— 
 
 Come to this later Cana, Lord, 
 And, at Thy touch divine, 
 
 The water of that earlier board 
 To-night shall turn to wine. 
 
 
 
 THE Souw’s FAILURE. 
 
 Is the day dead in yonder blood-stained west ? 
 
 And is the summer fled beyond recalling ? 
 Idle we sat all day, and were unblest, 
 
 Vain hopes and evil dreams our souls enthralling ; 
 Till all is come to nought—the worst and best 
 
 Are even as one—the night is falling—falling ; 
 Our hearts have found no thing of what they craved: 
 
 ‘The harvest is past, 
 The summer is ended, 
 And we are not saved.’ 
 
POEMS. 2338 
 
 Was hemlock in the golden cup of youth? 
 That now we sit and mark the cold Death creeping 
 ‘Over our lives, while yet we feel, in sooth, 
 No sleepfulness of Death, but only, weeping, 
 _ ‘Suffer his wrong and vainly pray his ruth, 
 And rest and shelter from the night-wind’s sweeping ; 
 And from its voice ’round us forever raved : 
 ‘ The harvest is past, 
 The summer is ended, 
 And we are not saved.’ 
 
 I. 
 
 When I see those little feet of thine, 
 Lost am I to know, O sweetest maiden, 
 How such beauty’s burden bear they ever! 
 
 II. 
 
 When I touch that little hand of thine, 
 Lost am I to know, O sweetest maiden, 
 How of wound so deep it can be giver ! 
 
 Ill. 
 
 When I see those ripe rose lips of thine, 
 Lost am I to know, O sweetest maiden, 
 Why their fruit of kisses yield they never! 
 
 IV. 
 
 When I gaze in those deep eyes of thine, 
 Lost am I to know, O sweetest maiden, 
 Why they yearn for love, yet never, never 
 
234 POEMS. 
 
 Vv. 
 
 Look on mine !—O, let this heart be thine, 
 Which for thee more truly, sweetest maiden, 
 Beats, than other heart shall beat forever! 
 
 Vi. 
 
 List what love has sung for ear of thine; 
 List, for lover lips, O sweetest maiden, 
 Softer plaints of love shall sing thee never! 
 
 —F rom the German of Bodenstedt. 
 
 DEDICATION IN A LADyY’s ALBUM. 
 
 I think, now, of some knight in fairy times, 
 
 Whose footstep falters on the charméd limits 
 
 Of some enchanted place, where, in the hush 
 
 Of vacant halls, white Silence is uprisen, 
 
 Her finger high uplifted to forbid 
 
 The impending foot; for, Mary, so my pen 
 
 Hath faltered at the white, untrodden threshold 
 
 Of this, thy Book of Beauty. I would fain 
 
 Some worthier hand than mine had broke the spell 
 
 Which sat till now about its golden rim. 
 
 But, as it is, the spell is broken; and these pages— 
 
 May their unwritten vacancy become 
 
 A beauteous garden, where sweet thoughts shall blos- 
 som ;— 
 
 A place where dear desires and hopes shall nestle ; — 
 
 A fount, where Memory, mayhap worn and weary, 
 
 In after years shall, bending, drink, and rise 
 
 Thrilled with the wild, wild life of long ago! 
 
POEMS. 235 
 
 To Miss Ciara Louise KEeLuoae. 
 
 Rare-gifted child of Song, whose tongue has learned 
 The magic language of that sunnier land 
 Where passion speaks in music—’neath thy wand 
 Of Art our hearts have melted, thrilled and yearned ! 
 Deeper we drink of that enchanted wine, 
 Because the rich Italian draught divine 
 Is poured out to us by no alien hand. 
 Sing on, fair girl; for other lands than thine 
 “Shall hail thy coming; and we say ‘Farewell’ 
 To thee, but not to that sweet Voice, whose spell 
 Has peopled memory with such singing throngs 
 Of fairy echoes. Sing, and we shall tell, 
 With rising pride the more thy fame shall shine, 
 That thou art still Columbia’s child—and Song’s. 
 
 MuRILLoO’s ‘IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.’ 
 
 Whence is the spell—O, fair and free from guile, 
 Thou with the young moon shod!—that binds my 
 brain ? 
 Is thine that orb of fable which did wane, 
 
236 POEMS. 
 
 Darkening o’er sad Ortygia’s templed isle,— 
 Beautiful Artemis, hid from earth awhile, 
 And on the pale monk’s vigil risen again, 
 A wonder in the starry sky of Spain? 
 Comes the Myth back, Madonna, in thy smile? 
 Yea! thou dost teach that the Divine may be 
 The same, to passing creeds and ages given; 
 And how the Greek hath dreamed, or churchman 
 striven, 
 What reck we, who with eyes tear-blinded see 
 Thee standing loveliest in the open heaven ?-— 
 Ave Maria! only heaven and thee! 
 
 New YEAR GREETINGS. 
 1860. 
 
 Toll for the dying Year, O midnight bells ! 
 Twelve times amid the darkness, deep and slow ; 
 The winds are whispering their low farewells, 
 The earth is draped, a bier of funeral snow,— 
 Toll for the dead Old Year! On many a hearth 
 To-night the fires of household joy are lit ; 
 And many a home is filled with laughing mirth, 
 While happy shadows past the windows flit. 
 
 But, in the night without, the last peal dies ; 
 The startled air throbs fainter, far abroad, 
 And up the silence of the winter skies 
 The dead Year wings its solemn way to God. 
 
POEMS. 237 
 
 Forever, with its round of eve and morn, 
 Forever, with its life on land and sea— 
 
 With all its fleeting shapes and shadows, borne 
 From Time, into the past Eternity. 
 
 O Memory! watcher by the bed of death, 
 Who treasurest up last words and parting sighs, 
 In whom the Past has life and form and breath— 
 Who ever walk’st with backward-gazing eyes— 
 Tell us what gleanings of the year are thine? =~ 
 What hast thou gathered that our eyes may see ? 
 Thou art sole heir of vanished Fifty-Nine, 
 What has he left,—bequeathed and willed to thee ? 
 
 He scattered flowers beneath the feet of Joy, 
 The flush of hope,—the thrill of love divine ; 
 Sunlight of heart and bliss without alloy, 
 We had them all with thee, Old Fifty-Nine ! 
 Nor less to some the old, old ache of grief, 
 And tears that all thy sunlight has not dried ; 
 And we have seen, although the time was brief, 
 How in it men have sorrowed, sinned, and died. 
 
 Much thou hast given, but much is also gone. 
 Spring, as of yore, re-clothed the empty bowers ; 
 
 Glad Summer failed not, golden Autumn shone, 
 And Winter swept’us bare of all our flowers. 
 
 To many a heart the dower of love was brought ; 
 To many a heart there is a grave, instead ; 
 
 And so the pictured woof of Time was wrought, 
 And the old story of our life re-read. 
 
238 POEMS. 
 
 But there is more; the scroll of all thy deeds 
 Thine other daughter, thoughtful History, took, 
 And he shall thrill who some time comes and reads 
 Thy storied wonders in her deathless book. 
 For no inert, dull life was thine, Old Year; 
 Thy parting footsteps are not echoless ; 
 And, up from thy dim charnel, we can hear 
 The living issues of the future press. 
 
 The clash of arms awoke thee at thy birth ; 
 The clarion, echoing in wild Alpine vales, 
 And noise of meeting hosts that shook the earth, 
 Came Westward, borne on all thy Summer gales. 
 Thy flowers of Spring were fed with battle’s rain ; 
 The harvests of long years were reaped in thee ; 
 And Destiny has set in thy domain 
 The germ of mightier changes yet to be. 
 
 ‘Thou shalt not be forgotten; in the line 
 
 Of years and centuries thy name shall stand 
 Illustrious and immortal, Fifty-Nine! 
 
 And coming peoples yet shall point the hand 
 And say: In such a year, when Freedom pined, 
 
 Prostrate and bleeding with the Austrian chains, 
 Once more her flag was flung upon the wind, 
 
 And the free blood of heroes gushed again ! 
 
 Nor less in our own annals, though alarms 
 Of gathering ill beset the nation’s way, 
 Men shall look back, and see amid thy storms 
 The crescent morning of a better day. 
 
- POEMS. 239 
 
 For brave words said, for good deeds nobly done 
 In Freedom’s holy war, that grows sublime 
 
 With its long list of battles, lost and won,— 
 Thou shalt not be forgotten in all time. 
 
 Toll for the dead Old Year, O midnight bells! 
 But long ere dawn’s returning hours begin, 
 Speak from yon towers in longer, louder swells, 
 And ring the New Year with its promise in. 
 Ring forth a welcome on the frosty air, 
 For Hope leads foremost in the New Yeavr’s track ; 
 Time’s youngest morn comes flushed with life, and fair, 
 And night with all its clouds rolls swiftly back. 
 
 No stain, as yet, of earthly foot is cast 
 Upon the future’s pure untrodden snow ; 
 Would that no shadow of the evil Past 
 Across this threshold of the year might go,— 
 But Love and Justice, entering hand in hand, 
 To dwell in heavenly temples with us here ! 
 And so, as ne’er before, from land to land 
 Should speed this message of a Glad New Year. 
 
 dito NIP & 
 60. 
 
 The blue-eyed gentian shone with April’s tear, 
 The face of June with roses was a-glow, 
 And Autumn led us onward through the sere 
 And fallen leaves, till, lo! we stand, Old Year, 
 Beside thy grave of snow! 
 
240 POEMS. 
 
 Under the shroud that wraps the world in rest, 
 We lay, with thee, the Past that once was ours 
 Thy bloom returns not at the heart’s behest, 
 But in the book of memory shall be pressed 
 Only thy faded flowers. 
 
 Farewell to thee—to thine, and ours, Old Year; 
 To days that passed in toil or passed in vain, 
 To bright-eyed dreams entombed beside thee here,, 
 To hopes that left us when they seemed most dear,, — 
 
 To loves whose fruit was pain. 
 
 "61, 
 
 The bells have rung a requiem; yet once more 
 They wake, and flood the air with music’s mirth ; 
 And joyful echoes peal it o’er and o’er, 
 And the great heart of nature at its core 
 Throbs with the New Yeavr’s birth! 
 
 A starrier sky of promise bends serene 
 Over the future, pathless and untrod ; 
 And life, re-clothed with Hope’s own evergreen, 
 Stands like the Christmas-tree we reared yestreen,, 
 Hung with the gifts of God. 
 
 O stately daughter—latest born of Time— 
 Heiress of good or evil yet to be, 
 Go bravely forth, though ill may cloud thy, prime ; 
 For History, pausing in her task sublime, 
 Expectant waits for thee. 
 
POEMS. 941 
 
 186 2. 
 Grasp the kindly hand of friendship; bid each dark- 
 
 some thought, away ; 
 Let the heart speak forth its fullness in the greeting of 
 to-day ; 
 Beautiful with youth and promise, hope and radiance 
 in her train, 
 Face to face the New Year meets us, and the world is 
 young again ! 
 
 Take us back, O wizard) Memory, to that way-mark of 
 the past, 
 
 Where we stood and, gazing forward, gave this friendly 
 greeting last ; 
 
 Show again the rising tempest, how it broke the land’s 
 repose,— 
 
 How the south-wind, soft with summer, to a dread 
 sirocco rose ; 
 
 Make us pale with battle tidings ; take our hearts and 
 let them beat 
 
 To the wild and throbbing music of the war-drum in 
 the street ; 
 
 Take us back—but, ah! it needs not, while the drama 
 of the year, 
 
 Moving still to solemn climax, holds us tranced in hope 
 or fear— 
 
 While the flag that drooped at Sumter, flings its eager 
 colors forth, 
 
 Beckoning on the looming thunders of the dark and 
 
 wrathful North. 
 16 
 
242 POEMS. 
 
 Hark! the din is hushed a moment; night and winter 
 fold the earth,— 
 
 Many a face is bent to listen, by the camp-fire and the 
 hearth,— 
 
 Now the dead Year’s dirge has sounded o’er the white 
 and sleeping lands, 
 
 And, with folded scroll of history held aloft in shadowy 
 hands, 
 
 While the bells’ low vibrant murmur quivers faint and 
 far abroad, 
 
 Through the Nation’s stormy midnight, the Old Year 
 goes up to God ! 
 
 Grasp the friendly hand, O people! pass the olden 
 word of cheer ; 
 
 Close the door one day to trouble, while ye greet the 
 new-born Year. 
 
 Mute she stands, and holds the secret of a good or evil 
 fate, 
 
 But the sibyl Hope is whispering at the Future’s open 
 gate: 
 
 ‘Haply joy will come with Summer, and the Winter- 
 night will wane, 
 
 And the New Year’s light may smile us back to happy 
 
 e { 9 
 peace again! 
 
 18638. 
 
 62. 
 
 As, when a people throng the Monarch’s bier 
 
 Whose evil reign has filled the land with gloom, 
 
 The dirge they chant speaks more of joy than woe,— 
 So, at thy grave, dark Year, we say farewell ; 
 
POEMS. 
 
 But not as when we part with aught beloved. 
 Thy face has not been fair, to win our hearts ; 
 Fleeting and soon forgot were all thy smiles ; 
 Thy shadows stay, to lengthen o’er our lives. 
 Thy birth was ’mid the din and storm of war ; 
 The glare of battle lit thee on the path 
 
 Where wild-eyed terrors chased thy flying feet. 
 Sin’s bitter fruit, the broken dream of love, 
 Dead garlands from the wintry hills of life, 
 And echoes of a music hushed for aye,— 
 These are the gathered trophies at thy tomb, 
 Where Memory sits, enamored of the Past, 
 With steadfast eyes upon the folded scroll 
 Whereon thy name, Dead Year, is writ in blood. 
 
 63. 
 
 But, when the dead king’s infant heir is brought 
 And set amid the purple of the throne, 
 
 ‘The people read a promise in his eyes, 
 
 And all the land rings musical with joy. 
 
 So, robed in winter’s ermine, crowned with light, 
 We give thee welcome, youngest of the years ! 
 The Future’s awful portals move ajar— 
 
 Enter: we send the angel Hope before ; 
 
 243 
 
 And where she may not walk, our prayers shall lead. 
 
 Dark-folded is the nation’s Flower of Fate,— 
 Touch with thy light and warmth the mystic bud, 
 And make it bloom, a glory in all lands. 
 
 Hide with thy snow’s white calm the stain of blood ; 
 Heal with thy Spring’s soft balm the wounds of war ; 
 
244 POEMS. 
 
 Bring Summer, in whose glow the nation’s tears 
 Shall pass in rainbow-gleaming mists away ; 
 
 And, greeting thee, our eyes are turned to Heaven, 
 O glad New Year, for thou dost come from God ! 
 
 1864. 
 
 Over lands that mutely lie 
 
 Wrapped in snow’s white slumber, 
 Under deeps of midnight sky, 
 
 Peals the fateful number. 
 
 Voices of the steeple’s height, 
 Tolling joy and sorrow, 
 
 To the Old ye bid good-night, 
 To the New, good-morrow ! 
 
 Pass, Old Year,—we shed no tear 
 At thy darksome leaving! 
 
 Much is taken that was dear, 
 Much is left for grieving. 
 
 Wreath and garland were not rife 
 Where thy pathway brought us ; 
 Mingled is the woof of life 
 Hands of thine have wrought us. 
 
 Deeps of trouble, heights of rest, 
 Broke the year’s long level ; 
 
 With us, all the road abreast, 
 Angel walked and devil. 
 
 Pass the Old and come the New! 
 Let the bells ring bolder! 
 
 All things hopeful, young and true, 
 Press the New Yeavr’s shoulder! 
 
POEMS. " 945 
 
 Underneath her happier star— 
 Skies serene and stilly— 
 Close the crimson rose of war, 
 
 Blossom forth the lily ! 
 
 Come the New and pass the Old 
 Asphodel and laurel, 
 
 Summer’s green and autumn’s gold, 
 Be her brave apparel ! 
 
 Come! for through her open gate 
 History stoops to enter ; 
 
 And with new-born hopes elate 
 Throbs the heart of winter. 
 
 THE Cross oF GOLD. 
 
 I 
 
 The fifth from the north wall ; 
 Row innermost ; and the pall 
 Plain black—all black—except 
 The cross on which she wept, 
 Ere she lay down and slept. 
 
 II. 
 
 This one is hers, and this— 
 The marble next it—his. 
 So lie in brave accord 
 
 The lady and her lord, 
 
 Her cross and his red sword. 
 
46 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 Il. 
 
 And, now, what seek’st thou here ; 
 Having nor care nor fear 
 
 To vex with thy hot tread 
 
 These halls of the long dead,— 
 To flash the torch’s light 
 
 Upon their utter night ?— 
 
 What word hast thou to thrust 
 Into her ear of dust? 
 
 LY. 
 
 Spake then the haggard priest : 
 ‘In lands of the far Kast 
 
 I dreamed of finding rest— 
 
 What time my lips had prest 
 
 The cross on this dead breast. 
 
 Vs 
 
 ‘And if my sin be shriven, 
 And mercy live in heaven, 
 Surely this hour, and here, 
 My long woe’s end is near— 
 Is near—and I am brought 
 To peace, and painless thought 
 Of her who lies at rest, 
 
 This cross upon her breast, 
 
 VI. 
 
 ‘Whose passionate heart is cold 
 Beneath this cross of gold ; 
 Who lieth, still and mute, 
 
 In sleep so absolute. 
 
POEMS. 247 
 
 Yea, by this precious sign 
 Shall sleep most sweet be mine; 
 And I, at last, am blest, 
 Knowing she went to rest 
 
 This cross upon her breast.’ 
 
 
 
 TO. 7 hi. 
 
 The happy time when dreams have power to cheat 
 
 Is past, dear friend, for me. As in old days, 
 
 So, still, at times, they throng their ancient ways 
 
 And trail their shining robes before my feet, 
 
 Or stand, half-lifted to their native skies 
 
 By the soft oval of white arms, with eyes 
 
 Closing on looks unutterably sweet. 
 
 Then the grim Truth beside me will arise 
 
 And slay them, and their beauty is no more,— 
 
 No more their beauty—saving such as dies 
 
 Into the marble of mute lips, or flies 
 
 With the swift light of dying smiles, before 
 
 The eye that strains to watch can tell, for tears, 
 
 How passing fair it shone—how dusk have grown the 
 years. - 
 
 
 
 DIVIDED. 
 
 The half-world’s width divides us; where she sits 
 Noonday has broadened o’er the prairied West ; 
 For me, beneath an alien sky, unblest, 
 
 The day dies and the bird of evening flits. 
 
 *This poem is printed from a copy which has the following note 
 appended: ‘Written by David Gray, in 1867, at the Legation in 
 Vienna. JOHN Hay.’ 
 
248 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 Nor do I dream that in her happier breast 
 
 Stirs thought of me. Untroubled beams the star, 
 And recks not of the drifting mariner’s quest, 
 Who, for dear life, may seek it on mid-sea. 
 
 The half-world’s width divides us; yet, from far— 
 And though I know that nearer may not be 
 
 In all the years—yet, O beloved, to thee 
 
 Goes out my heart, and, past the crimson bar 
 
 Of Sunset, westward yearns away—away— _ 
 And dieth towards thee with the dying day! 
 
 THe Last INDIAN COUNCIL ON THE GENESEBR. 
 
 The fire sinks low; the drifting smoke 
 Dies softly in the autumn haze ; 
 And silent are the tongues that woke 
 In speech of other days. 
 Gone, too, the dusky ghosts whose feet 
 But now yon listening thicket stirred ; 
 Unscared within its covert meet 
 The squirrel and the bird. 
 
 The story of the past is told ; 
 But thou, O Valley, sweet and lone— 
 Glen of the rainbow—thou shalt hold 
 Its romance as thine own ! 
 Thoughts of thine ancient forest prime 
 Shall sometimes tinge thy summer dreams, 
 And shape to low poetic rhyme 
 The music of thy streams. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 ‘When Indian Summer flings her cloak 
 Of brooding azure on the woods, 
 ‘The pathos of a vanished folk 
 Shall haunt thy solitudes. 
 The blue smoke of their fires, once more, 
 Far o’er the hills shall seem to rise, 
 And sunset’s golden clouds restore 
 The red man’s paradise. 
 
 Strange sounds of a forgotten tongue 
 Shall cling to many a crag and cave, 
 In wash of falling waters sung, 
 Or murmur of the wave. 
 And, oft, in midmost hush of night, 
 Still o’er the deep-mouthed cataract’s roar, 
 Shall ring the war-cry, from the height, 
 That woke the wilds of yore. 
 
 Sweet Vale, more peaceful bend thy skies, 
 Thy airs be fraught with rarer balm! 
 A people’s busy tumult lies 
 Hushed in thy sylvan calm. 
 Deep be thy peace! while fancy frames 
 Soft idyls of thy dwellers fled ;— 
 ‘They loved thee, called thee gentle names, 
 In the long summers dead. 
 
 Quenched is the fire; the drifting smoke 
 Has vanished in the autumn haze; 
 Gone too, O Vale, the simple folk 
 Who loved thee in old days. 
 
 249 
 
250 POEMS. 
 
 But, for their sakes—their lives serene— 
 Their loves, perchance as sweet as ours— 
 Oh, be thy woods for aye more green, 
 And fairer bloom thy flowers! 
 
 
 
 COMMUNION. 
 Yr 
 
 When the great South-wind, loud, 
 Leaps from his lair of cloud, 
 And treads the darkness of the sea to foam ; 
 When wild awake is night, 
 And, not too full nor bright, 
 The moon sheds stormy light 
 From heaven’s high dome ; 
 
 II. 
 
 Then, while I only keep 
 Watch of the sounding deep, 
 And midnight, and the white shore’s curving form, 
 Wakeful, I let the din 
 Of their shrill voices in, 
 And feel my spirit win 
 Strength from the storm. 
 
 IIT. 
 
 Strength from the wrestling air 
 It wins, till I can bear 
 To beckon him who waits for me, apart— 
 Him, the long dead, whom love, 
 Deathless, hath set above 
 All other Lares of 
 My hearth and heart. 
 
POEMS. Paya 
 
 IV. 
 
 The house is still, and swept, 
 
 Save where the wind has crept, 
 And utters at the door its ery of fear. 
 
 While the weak moonbeams swim 
 
 Down from the casement dim, 
 
 I wait for sign of him: 
 
 Hush! he is here; 
 
 Vv. 
 
 Betwixt the light and gloom 
 He fronts me, in mid-room ; 
 I stir not, nor a greeting hand extend ; 
 But the loud-throbbing breast 
 And silence greet him best, 
 Beloved, yet awful, guest— 
 Spirit, yet friend ! 
 
 Vi. 
 
 He speaks not, but I brook 
 In his calm eyes to look, 
 And dare an utterance of my dread delight: 
 Oh, as in midnights flown, 
 Bide with me, thou long-gone ; 
 Are we not here alone— 
 
 We and the night ? 
 
 idLs 
 
 Then, gliding on a space, 
 He takes the ancient place, 
 Vacant so long, a sorrow’s desolate shrine. 
 
vagy: POEMS. 
 
 Night shuts us in, yet seems 
 
 Lit, as in festal dreams, — 
 
 And the storm past us streams 
 In song divine. 
 
 VITI. 
 
 Slips, then, from my sick heart 
 Its covering of sad art ; 
 Joy rushes back in speech as sweet as tears ; 
 Tell me, I ery, O friend, 
 Whose calm eyes see the end, 
 Unto what issues bend 
 The awful years ? 
 
 IX. 
 
 Tell me what view is won, 
 From mountains of the sun, 
 Over this earth’s unstarred and blackened sphere. 
 This life of weary breath 
 Vainly one questioneth— 
 Oh! from the halls of death 
 What cheer? What cheer? 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 Our home is in the city’s dust and strife ; 
 From its too feverish air we breathe our life ; 
 Ours is no soft commune with field and sky ;— 
 Not ours in depth of summer wood to lie, 
 
 And take from Nature’s ever lavish hand 
 
 The stores of pleasure there at our command— 
 
POEMS. 
 
 That bread of soul her hallowed teaching gives ; 
 That wine of heart, which whoso drinketh lives. 
 From all her life and bloom we dwell apart, 
 With news of her, alone, to glad the heart. 
 
 To us, her every beauty, pomp and grace, 
 
 The ever new divineness of her face, 
 
 The year’s sweet fall, the coming of her springs— 
 All have the strange, sad feel of distant things. 
 We cannot watch the flying woof of green 
 
 First fastening on the aspen’s silvery sheen, 
 Then deepening where the buds are late and coy, 
 Till all the woods are waving, wild with joy! 
 
 Or, when the summer’s deep crescendo tune 
 
 Has grown the full-voiced harmony of June, 
 
 We only hear its far-off echo swell, 
 
 And heart-sick, in the dinful street, can tell 
 
 By the quick pulse, the weary, yearning brain, 
 That life and bliss are flooding earth again ! 
 
 . Even now, when, stealing from the autumn woods, 
 A mist of dream-land fills the solitudes, 
 
 Only the wind without, that*sinks and swells, 
 Sings songs of harvest-home to us, and tells 
 How Autumn came and gathered up his sheaves, 
 
 And walks, a gleaner, through the withered leaves, 
 
 253, 
 
254 POEMS. 
 
 SOFT FALLs THE GENTLEST OF THE Hours. 
 
 Soft falls the gentlest of the hours, 
 Whose star is in the blue, 
 
 And comes, across the grass and flowers, 
 The angel of the dew. 
 
 So let us forth, dear wife, and walk 
 While earth is still and love may talk ; 
 For love is of the stars, and gains 
 
 Its luster as the daylight wanes ; 
 
 And earth is sweetest when it lies 
 ’Neath curtains of the evening: skies, 
 To such first happy sleep beguiled 
 
 As comes to the day-weary child. 
 
 The west grows pale, but like the dream 
 That brightens the young eyelid soon, 
 See, over earth’s calm slumber, beam 
 Yon silvery vision of the moon ! 
 
 ‘On the far Highlands’ crest of woods 
 Its mellow light divinely broods, 
 
 And where the river, calm and deep, 
 Spreads like a mountain-lake asleep, 
 By dreamy sail and drifting boat, 
 
 A bridge of silver seems to float. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 * With what sweet discontent the breeze 
 
 Stirs the warm darkness of the trees ! 
 And yonder, through their parted gloom, 
 How bright, like very marble, loom 
 
 ‘The walls, the roof that seems to dome _ 
 The little temple of our home! 
 
 *Our home!’ Ah, wife, a word like this 
 Upbears so deep a freight of bliss, 
 
 I tremble as it floats from reach 
 
 Even on the current of calm speech ! 
 For, when I brought you home to-day, 
 Bride of this morn, true wife for aye— 
 When I had brought you, unaware, 
 Here, where your father lived, and where 
 Your childhood dwelt in fairy bowers, 
 And told you the old home was ours, 
 
 I felt my life so touch the sky 
 
 It scarcely had been changed to die. 
 And now, when all love sought to win 
 Is safe in love’s dear realm shut in,— 
 In this soft day the moonlight makes,— 
 My heart is like the bird that wakes 
 (The full orb beaming on his nest) 
 
 And eannot sleep for glad unrest 
 
 And sense of music in his breast, 
 
 Nor wait, that to the dawn be flung 
 
 The song of morning on his tongue. 
 
 So let us rest a moment yet, 
 
 Till yonder star of eve be set: 
 
 This open bower, where best of all 
 
 We list the river’s lapsing tune, 
 
 Sit here—and closer fold the shawl— 
 
 255 
 
256 POEMS. 
 
 The dew is in this breath of June; . 
 And I, my blissful heart to ease, 
 
 Shall be your bard, to-night, and sing 
 
 A song of true love triumphing. 
 
 And if my lady’s heart it please, 
 
 ’"T will be that long the silent string 
 
 Has guarded it, a sacred thing, 
 
 For her and for these garden trees. 
 
 POEM 
 
 Read at the celebration of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the 
 Young Men’s Association of Buffalo, March 22, 1881.* 
 
 The hearts of men throb faster than of yore ; 
 
 We measure time by centuries. no. more ; 
 
 Life, that but loitered, in the ages gone, 
 
 Now, winged with haste and eager-eyed, speeds. on.. 
 
 Our sires can count the summers that have passed. 
 Since she, the city of our homes, was cast 
 
 A baby-hamlet on the forest-floor 
 
 Of Erie’s savage and untraveled shore. 
 
 They know how Nature nursed her, standing nigh, 
 While lonely waters sang her lullaby ; 
 
 And how the desert blossomed for her sake, 
 
 Wild daughter of the forest and the lake ! 
 
 The years passed on, and Spring, from southern bowers, 
 Threw in her lap the wild-wood’s buds and flowers; 
 
 * The circumstances of the composition of this and two other poems. 
 written for the same Association are related on pages 74-75, 
 
POEMS. Dot 
 
 The lake’s cool breath, in summer, gave her health, 
 Or brought her dreams when Autumn came by stealth, 
 In robes of gold and crimson, through the woods 
 Of Canada’s far-stretching solitudes. 
 
 And thus it was, wild Nature nurtured her ; 
 
 And, even when all her borders were astir 
 
 With tumult and the sound of frontier strife, 
 
 She rose from ashes into statelier life. 
 
 Then came a time, when, o’er the waiting land, 
 Some wizard surely raised his magic wand : 
 
 Forth from the wave sprang Commerce to the light, 
 And spread its myriad glittering wings for flight ; 
 The very wind was wealth, and in our streets 
 
 Was poured the treasure of a hundred fleets ; 
 
 Far empires, that had scarce received a name, 
 
 Paid tribute to our city’s rising fame; 
 
 Till the young West, on many a prairie wold, 
 Wove her at last a crown of harvest gold, 
 
 And all the lakes, upon their shores of green, 
 
 Sang ‘ Coronation’ as they made her ‘Queen’! 
 
 What marvel if we think of her with pride, 
 ‘Queen of the Lakes,’ nor less the river’s bride,— 
 Enthroned above the wave, from out whose strife 
 Niagara leaps majestic into life! 
 
 Gaze o’er her borders, still the visions sees 
 
 That slow-receding wall of ancient trees ; 
 
 But where, of old, the wild-bird sought the pool, 
 Now dart the laughing children forth from school; 
 And now, when stream the sunset’s level fires, 
 Like lighted altars gleam her churches’ spires. 
 
 Nor, only, has her outward life been fair ; 
 17 
 
258 POEMS. 
 
 Look in her annals, for ’t is written there 
 How to the brotherhood and zeal of youth 
 Was wed the love of knowledge and of truth. 
 A blessing rested on the genial rite ; 
 
 And, lo, the ‘Silver Wedding’ is to-night ! 
 
 The night is festive; soul and song divine 
 
 Have filled us, thrilled us, more than flashing wine. 
 But, in our joy, one thought—the first of all— 
 
 To those whose long past labor we recall ; 
 
 One thought to them—the band who met of yore— 
 But who will meet, as then they met, no more: 
 
 We pledge them in our hearts, though festal din 
 May never summon a// the wanderers in,— 
 
 A toast to them! the youth of other years! 
 
 With thoughtful skill, with hope, perchance and fears, 
 They laid for us the goodly corner-stone 
 
 Of the fair fabric time has made our own, 
 
 And on whose half-reared pillars we may set 
 
 A dome that haply shall be classic yet ! 
 
 No storied temple Art hath made sublime— 
 
 No fane is ours, rich with the spoils of time— 
 
 But year by year we build, and slowly rise 
 
 The pillars of our temple toward the skies. 
 
 Even now we fan a spark within its shrine 
 
 Of the same fire that rendered Greece divine: 
 Already History seeks a refuge here 
 
 To trace her record of the pictured year ; 
 
 Anon has Science found congenial home, 
 
 To dream her dreams, beneath our lowly dome ; 
 And Art, the bright-eyed pilgrim from afar, 
 
 Has come and found our portal wide ajar. 
 
POEMS. 259 
 
 But, look within our temple’s inner hall, 
 
 Where books in serried legions line the wall ! 
 They little dream, who lightly enter here, 
 
 To what enshrined mysteries they draw near. 
 Listen! a stir is in the haunted air ; 
 
 Low, echoed voices start and tremble there ; 
 Dim shapes are forming in the yielding gloom, 
 And muffled foot-falls rustle o’er the room. 
 
 A moment since, the dead lay here in state ; 
 Now, from their tombs upstarting, and elate, 
 Rises the living army of the great ! 
 
 They stand—the bard who sang, the sage who taught— 
 Clothed in the immortality of thought! 
 
 Yonder is Shakespeare’s calm and kingly face, 
 Still radiant with serene, immortal grace, 
 
 As when, by Avon’s borders, dew-impearled, 
 He sang, unconscious of the listening world. 
 Here Milton speaks, and lifts his sightless eyes, 
 Blind with too dazzling dreams of Paradise. 
 Beside him, Bacon smiles upon the shame 
 
 That envy vented on a deathless name ; 
 
 And Scott, the wizard Minstrel of the North, 
 Waves, in our sight, his bright creations forth. 
 Yonder, to ‘ Nature’s Bard’ the vision turns, 
 And on us beams the lustrous soul of Burns, 
 Whose song, that ’mid the woods of Ayr had birth, 
 Has carried music’s joy through air—and earth. 
 Nor such as these, alone; for, thronging fast, 
 Up from dim vistas of the farthest past, 
 
 Come poets, heroes of the classic time 
 
 When Rome was young, and Athens still sublime. 
 Here, too, apart, amid the shadows, stand 
 
260 POEMS. 
 
 Statesmen and sages of our native land, 
 
 In the deep magic mirror of whose eyes 
 
 We almost read our nation’s destinies. 
 
 But who may rightly name each noble guest 
 Within this new Valhalla of the West? 
 
 Or tell how thought of every clime and age 
 Is centered here, the people’s heritage? 
 
 So, each goodly arch and pillar wreathed and fair with 
 festive light, 
 
 Full before us stands the temple we re-dedicate to-night. 
 
 On its front we grave the record of the unreturning 
 past,— 
 
 Shade and sheen of many summers o’er the tablet 
 strangely cast ; 
 
 And prophetic Hopes stand smiling at the portal, as 
 they hold 
 
 In our sight the brighter story of the future, half 
 unrolled. 
 
 Who may tell how, in that future, shall the columned 
 fabric rise, 
 
 Shining fairer in the sunlight, towering statelier to the 
 skies ? 
 
 Who shall tell what power may issue, swayed by spoken 
 word or pen, 
 
 From its midst to bless the people, and to rule the 
 hearts of men ? . 
 
 Hark ! without, the wind is moaning, and the clouds of 
 March droop low; 
 
 O’er the hills the lingering Winter trails his ermine 
 skirts of snow; 
 
POEMS. 261 
 
 Yet the wraith of tearful April walks already in the 
 bowers, 
 
 And the far-off sun, in secret, thrills the subtle nerves 
 of flowers ; 
 
 Birds are flying from the southward, buds are shaping 
 in the sod, 
 
 And the Spring is hasting hither, young and beauti- 
 ful, from God. | 
 
 So, beneath the night of error, with its winter scarce 
 away, 
 
 All the world is waiting, yearning for a brighter, better 
 day,— 
 
 For a spring when love and mercy on the highways 
 shall be rife, 
 
 And in earth’s unhappy places bloom the asphodels of 
 life. 
 
 It is ours to wait and labor—God’s to bring that 
 morning in ; ; 
 
 Ours to build, with high endeavor—hope and aim to 
 heaven akin ; 
 
 And our temple’s noble summit, stretching upward, 
 firm and high, 
 
 Shall be dipt in hues of sunrise when the day breaks, 
 up the sky. 
 
 Brothers, met in festive council, surely, forth from 
 yonder shrine, 
 
 I can hear a message, whispered, like the Delphic voice 
 divine ; 
 
 ‘Strong, it tells us, ‘strong for blessing, mighty for 
 the help of truth, 
 
 Is the fervid soul of Manhood—is the throbbing heart 
 of Youth.’ 
 
262 POEMS. 
 
 We have read how fierce in battle shone the eagle’s 
 ~ conquering glance, 
 When Napoleon filled his legions with the fiery youth 
 of France; 
 So, victorious and glorious the issue of the fight, 
 When young Manhood flings the gauntlet for the good, 
 the true, the right! 
 Triumphs, more than flushed the legions of the emperor, 
 evil-starred, 
 Wait, when Youth shall eu the banner, in the world’s 
 ‘Imperial Guard’! 
 Forth, my brothers, we are summoned, wheresoe’er the 
 field may be— 
 Where the Wrong is to be vanquished, or the shackled 
 Right set free! 
 Nor, in duty’s earnest battles, where the spirit burns 
 and strives, 
 Come the only times for proving the heroic in our lives! 
 . When Columbia counts her heroes, think you she can 
 e’er forget 
 Him—her bravest, though his falchion may not flash 
 in battle yet— 
 Who, while sounds of gathering tumult float around 
 him, from afar, 
 By the mute-mouthed guns of Sumter guards the sleep- 
 ing fiend of War? 
 So, perchance, more great than Valor marching grandly 
 to the strife, 
 Is the godlike might of Patience, in the silent tasks of 
 life. 
 
POEMS. 268 
 
 Youth’s unselfish, pure devotion, manhood’s high and 
 conscious power,— 
 
 When, to these, did duty’s summons sound so urgent 
 as this hour? 
 
 O’er the land our evil angels, Strife and Faction, wan- 
 der free, 
 
 And men point the atheist finger, O my country, unto 
 thee ! 
 
 Troubled, trembling, stands the nation, even as Israel 
 stood of old, 
 
 When the foe pressed darkly round them, and the sea 
 before them rolled. 
 
 Stars have fallen from out our heaven; night and tem- 
 pest are abroad ; 
 
 Dimly burns the guiding pillar of the nation’s covenant 
 
 God :— 
 
 But ‘tis darkest just ere morning, and the day has lit 
 the skies 
 
 When the younger, purer spirit of the people shall 
 arise ; 
 
 Wide the wave shall roll asunder, and the nation God 
 once blest, 
 
 Through the Red Sea of its troubles, shall re-enter 
 into rest ! 
 
 A NINETEENTH CENTURY SAINT. 
 
 Beautiful is my darling’s face ; 
 And, yet, I know her heart so well 
 That, thinking always of the pearl, 
 I have not time to praise the shell. 
 
264 POEMS. 
 
 I care not that with words of mine 
 Her eyes’ deep splendor be extolled, 
 
 Nor.any wreath of speech would twine 
 Within her tresses’ wavy gold. 
 
 Not mine to praise the Saxon hue 
 That on her cheek the rose outstrips, 
 Nor see in curving of her lips 
 
 Some Greek ideal born anew. 
 
 Ah, no; far other court is due, 
 
 From such as near her heart may dwell, 
 My darling, whom I know so well. 
 
 _ I think (while softer fancies sleep) 
 Of those old altar-pictures, quaint, 
 Which pure-souled Memling loved to paint, 
 Or those that in fair Florence keep 
 His fame, as limner and as saint, 
 Who, kneeling, painted heaven, and so 
 Was named of men Angelico. 
 All shut, such reliquaries stand, 
 Rich paintings on each folded lid 
 That keeps the inner beauty hid,* 
 And almost one is stopped to gaze, 
 And half—before the doors expand— 
 Would lift the censer of his praise. 
 But, open! and there straightway beam 
 Such glories of the fairer dream, 
 All other light is quenched than its. 
 
 * Some of the most beautiful paintings by the old masters are cov- 
 ered by folding lids, on which pictures have been painted by an inferior 
 hand. ‘ 
 
POEMS. 265 
 
 Unclouded glows the golden air, 
 
 And ringed with heaven’s own aureole, 
 
 The very deep of Beauty’s soul 
 Throbs visible where The Virgin sits. 
 
 So, curtained from the vulgar eye, 
 Abides the vision, chaste and fair; 
 And though the world may pass it by, 
 Or laud its covering unaware, 
 O soul of love! O heart of prayer! 
 Look inward; for the shrine is there! 
 
 THE CHIMES. 
 ‘That fatal bellman ! ’—Macbeth. 
 I. 
 
 A moment, O Niagara of sound !— 
 Tremendous torrent, but a moment hush, 
 For this frail city’s sake, and I will crush 
 My sonnet in the bud! 
 The prayer is drowned 
 In sudden seas of din, that burst unbound 
 And flood the air to mad distraction full, 
 Till night—calm night—is like a turbid pool 
 Stirred up from all its inky depths. Confound 
 The bellman,—bird of storm, whose perch and bower 
 Is in the thickest tempest,—him I hold 
 Even as some Mexique idol, gashed and old, 
 That dwells in the high horror of his tower, 
 i= Among the shrieks of victims ; a grim wonder, 
 | Shrined in perpetual heights of blood and thunder. 
 
266 POEMS. 
 
 II. 
 
 Sweet bellman, grace! I did thee wrong, up there = 
 For in thy stormiest clangor dwells a charm 
 
 To stir the drowsy soul with grand alarm— 
 
 To wake in battle thrills the heart’s despair. 
 Methinks if one should die amid the tear 
 
 Of these mad bells, the ghost, tho’ all unshriven, 
 Would quiver, wild-eyed, on the surging air 
 
 And ride exultant into open heaven! 
 
 Ill. 
 
 Then, oh, to list the peal that drifts afar 
 
 Upon the mute and moveless deep of night, 
 When lullaby winds have sung the toil and jar 
 Of day asleep, and scarce we know aright 
 Whether those sounds we list descend or rise, 
 There is so strange commune of earth and skies! 
 
 PoEM 
 
 Read at the Annual Meeting of the Young Men’s Association of Buf- 
 falo, February 17, 1862. 
 
 To-day, one mighty master-thought rules in all hearts 
 supreme ; 
 
 It leaps to every parted lip; it gives no choice of theme. 
 
 We sit, home-circled, as of yore; we throng in festive 
 
 halls ; 
 
 But, strangely, o’er the glare of mirth, a nameless 
 shadow falls. 
 
 If phantom-fingers of the wind but touch the door ajar, 
 
 We start, and hark, through storm and dark, for tid- 
 ings of the war. 
 
POEMS. 267 
 
 No petty, passing strife, to-day,—no feud of court nor 
 king,— 
 
 Thus grandly shapes to epic form what future bards. 
 shall sing. 
 
 Not lightly sprang the sword unsheathed, to urge a 
 paltry cause ;— 
 
 Pale Freedom stood in tears and plead her wrongs and 
 broken laws. 
 
 Her banner, stained with martyr-blood, and dust of 
 many lands, 
 
 Up through the troublous past she bore, and gave into 
 our hands. 
 
 No trivial strife, in sooth; this cloud that veils our 
 heaven, sublime, 
 
 Rolled hither, thundering in its course, o’er far-off hills. 
 of time. 
 
 It wrapped dim centuries in gloom; it broke in wast- 
 ing showers ;— 
 
 The fateful day of bursting storm and rainbow hope is 
 ours ! 
 
 Annus mirabilis! The heart of coming time shall 
 thrill 
 
 To read the rife historic page these passing moments. 
 fill ;— 
 
 To read how Spring came, laughing, up, to glad the 
 land anew, 
 
 And, lo, the southern flowers she brought were streaked 
 with crimson dew !— 
 
 And how, of all the birds that come, when winds of 
 winter cease, 
 
 Through air of balm, from lands of palm, there came: 
 no dove of peace. 
 
268 POEMS. 
 
 Then shot the signal light of war, a meteor, up the skies: 
 
 What sudden frenzy filled our veins, and flashed in 
 patriot eyes ! 
 
 The giant hand that won the land from Nature dropped 
 the plough, 
 
 And, lo, the steel that broke the soil glitters to guard 
 it, now! 
 
 And they that sowed reaped other grain than waved 
 on Western lea 
 
 When o’er the prairie rose the tides of Harvest’s gol- 
 den sea. 
 
 Brave souls, that went, ’mid cheers and tears, on 
 Glory’s perilous track, 
 
 Our hearts stay with you at the wars, till ye come 
 proudly back! 
 
 Your blood has dyed with richer hue our banner’s 
 glorious red ; 
 
 Ye bring the old chivalric Past back, trooping, from 
 the dead ! 
 
 Not lost shall be the tide that flowed when pallet 
 Baker fell, 
 
 Or Winthrop’s wingéd soul went up to heaven from 
 battle’s hell ! 
 
 Nor soon forgot what years it seemed, while, flushed 
 with noble ire, 
 
 We caught the tidings of your deeds hot from the 
 tremulous wire : 
 
 How wild Zagonyi, battle-mad, with Valor’s breath of 
 flame, 
 
 Charged, like a mountain-torrent, down the slope of 
 death and fame ; 
 
POEMS. 269: 
 
 Or how, through all that week of doom, a hero stood 
 
 : at bay, 
 
 The fiend of thirst within his lines,—without, the roar- 
 ing fray,— 
 
 Till victor, though in victor’s chains, te saw his labor: 
 done, | 
 
 And History wrote thy name again, twice-sacred Lex- 
 ington ! 
 
 And is there heart but leaped, to-day, just for one hour 
 to be 
 
 Where gladly broke through battle-smoke that blaze of 
 victory ? * 
 
 Thank God! the wounded dragon writhes beneath the 
 Nation’s heel ; 
 
 The eye of Treason cannot bide the glance of Northern 
 steel. 
 
 Thank God, and you, so leal and true, whose votive 
 blood has dyed, 
 
 O softly-flowing Cumberland, thy dusk and silent. 
 tide ! 
 
 Thank God! the trampled flag is washed in this wild 
 three-days’ rain ; 
 
 It waves in victory’s jubilant wind ; it shall not droop. 
 again. 
 
 To-night, upon a myriad tents, the snow’s white silence 
 lies, 
 
 And over day’s dark tumult falls the calm of winter 
 skies,— 
 
 * This poem was delivered on the evening of the day which brought. 
 the news of the capture of Fort Donelson. 
 
=) POEMS. 
 
 Grim Battle’s sternly sleeping face, touched with the 
 moon’s soft kiss,— 
 
 Another century shall not look on scene so weird as 
 this ! 3 
 
 To-night, upon its burnished arms, the waiting Nation 
 sleeps,— 
 
 To-morrow, and its gathered might on faithless treason 
 sweeps. 
 
 God give us heart for that stern task the morrow has 
 to do! 
 
 Stand back, false England, frowning France, and let 
 us fight it through ! 
 
 So, by the Nation’s temple gate, 
 Beside fair Freedom’s shrine we wait, 
 Till, by the lightning from the cloud, 
 We read the oracle of Fate. 
 
 O Temple, neath that awful shroud 
 Of tempest and Tartarean gloom, 
 More proudly all thy pillars loom! 
 On the dark background of that sky, 
 We see how grand thou art, and high. 
 Not this young hemisphere, alone, 
 Whose beauteous center is thy throne, 
 Has hewn the marbles, one by one, 
 That, lifted to the sky, have shone 
 
 A wonder in the setting sun! 
 
 Dead centuries bequeathed thee state ; 
 The toiling ages made thee great. 
 Whenever struggling thought, divine, 
 Has sprung to birth of noble words, 
 A gem was wrought to light thy shrine. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 Whenever hero hands and swords 
 
 Have struck a down-trod people free, 
 
 The valor of the sword was thine— 
 The hero wrought for thee. 
 
 The flinty strength of Scottish hills, 
 
 For thee, by blood and toil, was bought ; 
 
 And long-enduring hearts and wills 
 
 - For thee, in Alpine quarries, wrought. 
 
 And what Titanic blows, of yore, 
 
 Woke echoes by AXgean shore, 
 
 That in thy massive walls might be 
 
 The granite of Thermopyle! 
 
 Then, by what loving art and care 
 
 The glorious fabric rose in air! 
 
 ‘ Life, fortune, sacred honor’ given, 
 
 It towered and took the smile of heaven; 
 
 ‘Till, on each gilded spire and cope, 
 Glittered a starry beam of hope, 
 And, in far lands of lingering night, 
 A million tearful eyes, upturned, 
 Saw how its pinnacles of light 
 
 With signals of the morning burned. 
 
 O Temple, not this driving gale 
 
 Shall ’gainst thy pillared front prevail ! 
 
 Within thy sacred ark are shrined 
 
 The future’s folded destinies ; 
 
 The garland of our hopes entwined 
 Upon thy altar lies ; 
 
 And spirits of our sainted sires 
 
 Are hovering guardians o’er thy spires. 
 
 They hung thy walls with triple zone 
 
 271 
 
22 POEMS, 
 
 Of hues that, now, are Freedom’s own: 
 Red—of the hero hearts that perished ; 
 White—of the stainless faith they cherished ; 
 Blue—of the heaven that bends to bless. 
 And, while upon their graves shall press 
 The weight of Freedom’s sacred sod, 
 Sublime thy sacred walls shall stand— 
 A Home of Hope for every land, 
 
 A Fane of Truth and God. 
 
 PoEM 
 
 Read at the opening of the new Library Building of the Young Men’s 
 Association of Buffalo, January 10, 1865. 
 
 ‘Tis written in the Hebrew’s sacred story, 
 When foes beset the mount of Zion’s glory, 
 That Judah’s city rose, with valiant hand, 
 
 To build, at once, and shield her ancient land. 
 The ring of hammer from the rising wall 
 
 Blent with the sudden trumpet’s wakening call ; 
 Peace wore the mail of warfare as she wrought ; 
 Trowel and sword together built and fought ; 
 Till, *mid the din of their alternate blows, 
 
 The gleaming fabric of the temple rose! 
 
 All honor to our city, stately ‘Queen’! 
 
 A kindred task, methinks, her own has been ; 
 For, while the storm of war around her raged, 
 A gentler labor, too, her mind engaged. 
 
 Her heart was with her country at the wars; 
 Her steady hand upbore the nation’s stars ; 
 

 
 POEMS. Bla 
 
 And where was poured the loyal hero-blood, 
 
 Her votive breast gave forth a mingling flood: 
 But still, though War’s wild tumult did not cease, 
 Beneath her touch uprose the walls of Peace ; 
 Her art was busy while her sword was bare ; 
 
 She built, though battle shook the troubled air ; 
 All honor to her generous mind and might! 
 
 We sit beneath the temple’s dome to-night! 
 
 The fires are lit, the waiting portal turns ; 
 
 At every pane the light of welcome burns, 
 
 And, with the host’s proud pleasure in our breasts, 
 We stand expectant of the nearing guests. 
 
 Nor start if, soft, in silent stair and hall, 
 
 A viewless foot shall seem to glide and fall, 
 And, rustling past, we feel the garments move 
 Of her whose birth-place was the brain of Jove; 
 For, round us, here, with double luster, shine 
 The household fire, the temple’s flame, divine, 
 And the fair goddess of the sage’s vow 
 
 Stands in our midst, a stately hostess, now! 
 
 O ye, thrice-honored, more than guests, to come, 
 Here at her shrine we wait to greet you HOME! 
 Come, fervid Science, young and Argus-eyed, 
 Take thou the place of honor at her side! 
 
 Thee Nature beckons to her broad domain, 
 
 And craves the sickle for her bending grain ! 
 Here trim thy weird Aladdin-lamp, to shine 
 And light the mirk of mystery’s haunted mine! 
 Truth, still half-shackled, lifts her ery of pain,— 
 Come thou and rend her last Promethean chain! 
 
 Thou, too, grave History, clad in sober vest, 
 18 
 
274 POEMS. 
 
 Thrice welcome to thy temple of the West! 
 Here shall thy thoughtful vision, backward cast, 
 Recall the pageant of the fleeting past ; 
 
 And on thy magic mirror, lifted here, 
 
 Shall live the image of the pictured year! 
 
 ’T is thine to stand and vigil keep, sublime, 
 
 By the dim death-bed of departing Time; 
 
 To walk, anon, in battle’s track of flame! 
 
 And trace, in lettered light, the roll of fame, 
 The flags that, bright through battle-smoke, revealed 
 The path of death on many a trampled field,— 
 That waved o’er dark Virginia’s crimson mire, 
 Or flapped in wild Antietam’s wind of fire,— 
 The deathless relic of that stormy van 
 
 That turned, and rode to fame with Sheridan,— 
 The starry emblem of the true and free, 
 
 That marched with dauntless Sherman to the sea,— 
 These, won by valor to thy waiting shrine, 
 
 (Oh, priceless offering!) History, these are thine! 
 Come, then, and keep undimmed to farthest age 
 The Nation’s jewels—the Future’s heritage ! 
 
 But, once again, the yielding door is preSt :— 
 
 A greeting to our temple’s fairest guest! 
 
 All rarest flowers of fancy and the heart 
 
 Kiss welcome to thy coming footsteps, Art! 
 
 The light of summer, in far orient isles, 
 
 Beams on thy brow and sparkles in thy smiles! 
 Around thy path the birds of Eden sing, 
 
 And blossoming beauty has eternal spring! 
 Come, for the temple, else, were dark and dull,— 
 O pilgrim-priestess of the Beautiful! 
 
 Come! and, beside thee, in our heart shall rise 
 
POEMS. 210 
 
 Dim memories of forgotten Paradise ; 
 And, lit with hope, thy pencil’s magic dye 
 Shall paint a rainbow on life’s darkest sky! 
 
 These are the guests, and Mercy, too, divine, 
 
 Shall sit with cloistered Learning at our shrine. 
 
 So may they dwell, and Time’s advancing scheme 
 Affirm their welfare and perfect our dream. 
 
 With kindred aims, beneath a single dome— 
 
 Oh, blest be each,—thrice-blest the common Home! 
 
 As one who, o’er a desert’s sultry soil, 
 A. bower’s sweet shadow raises, 
 
 And dreams what fainting souls may bless his toil, 
 What birds may chant his praises ; 
 
 So, to the sun we lift this kindly shade, 
 So, trustful, we bequeath it ;— 
 
 Deep in the soil of faith its roots are laid, 
 Our hearts’ best hopes enwreathe it. 
 
 Not hither, yet, the summer’s minstrels rove, 
 To fill the air with singing ; 
 
 Not yet, on branches of our sacred grove, 
 The golden fruit is clinging ; 
 
 But white, o’erhead, the buds of promise teem, 
 And, softly, ere we know it, 
 
 Forth from us, here, shall float the deathless dream 
 Of artist, sage, or poet! 
 
 Here, too, shall Labor, from the dusty street, 
 Come, and forget his toiling, 
 
 As if the grass grew green beneath his feet, 
 And heaven were o’er him smiling. 
 
276 POEMS. 
 
 Hither shall Youth, with bounding heart, repair 
 To turn the page of story, | 
 
 Till life, transfigured, to his eye shall wear 
 Romance’s robe of glory. 
 
 And Song, to lead his fancy’s airiest train, 
 Shall send her lithest fairies ;— 
 
 To thrill his heart with love’s delicious pain, 
 Her sad-eyed Highland Marys! 
 
 And here are nooks, where, in the shadowy calms, 
 Swing open magic portals, 
 
 And, walking, we may feel within our palms 
 The hands of the immortals! 
 
 The poorest life may come, and, haply, yearn 
 With hopes new-sprung to blossom, 
 
 And, songful, to its lightened task return,— 
 A flower upon its bosom! 
 
 But not alone for dreams and calm delight 
 
 These festal halls are dedicate to-night. 
 
 Here shall the soul, at Learning’s sacred pyre, 
 Kindle with grand resolve and high desire ; 
 
 And, borne within, stern duty’s clarion-call 
 
 Shall echo from each ringing arch and wall. 
 Beneath this dome shall walk in solemn state 
 
 The mighty ghosts of earth’s departed great ! 
 Hero and statesman, warrior, bard and sage, 
 Enshrined, shall hover o’er the pictured page, 
 And, with their subtle presence, shall inspire 
 
 An equal genius and an equal fire. 
 
 What need to show that, strong with trust and truth, 
 Hence, at the call, will spring full-statured youth? 
 
POEMS. 2Q2TT 
 
 Or tell how, from these peaceful walks of life, 
 Already have our heroes sought the strife ? 
 Unguessed till then, we know them heroes, now, 
 With valor’s light a halo on each brow. 
 
 What need? Ah! friends, it were enough to tell 
 That Chapin died and gallant Bidwell fell ; 
 That, while our thought thus wanders to the brave, 
 The snow is drifting o’er a nameless grave, 
 
 And hearts that were the brother-hearts of ours 
 Are mouldering upward into southern flowers. 
 Or would you more of proof, I might recite 
 
 The tale a veteran told me, yesternight. 
 
 Of one you know, and whom [ loved, he spoke, 
 And thus, in simple phrase, his passion broke : 
 
 HOW THE YOUNG COLONEL DIED. 
 
 You want to hear me tell you, how the young Colonel 
 
 died ? : 
 
 God help me, memory will not fail on that, nor tongue 
 be tied. 3 
 
 Aye, write it down and print it, in your biggest type 
 of gold, 
 
 For, sure, a braver heart than his no mortal breast 
 could hold. 
 
 *T was the second weary night of that hot and bloody 
 June ; 
 
 Through the brush, along the picket, we walked beneath 
 the moon ; 
 
 Behind us, sixty miles of death, Virginia’s thickets lay ; 
 Before us was Cold Harbor,—the hell to come next day! 
 
278 POEMS. 
 
 We talked about old Buffalo, and how the girls we knew, 
 
 At the door-steps, with their sweethearts, sat in the 
 silver dew ; . 
 
 And, looking at the fields below, where the mist lay, 
 like a pond, 
 
 We seemed to see the long dark streets and the white 
 lake, far beyond. 
 
 Then, turning sudden: ‘George,’ he said, ‘I’m glad a 
 moon so bright 
 
 Will hold her face to mine, when I lie dead to-morrow. 
 night !’ 
 
 We charged, at noon, the Colonel led green Erin’s old 
 brigade ; 
 
 ’T was Longstreet’s blazing cannon behind their breast- 
 works played. 
 
 We charged, till, full in front, we felt that fiery breaker 
 swell— 
 
 A sea of rattling muskets, in a storm of grape and 
 shell !— 
 
 The Colonel led, in fire and smoke his sword would 
 wave and shine, 
 
 And still the brave sound of his voice drew on the 
 straggling line. 
 
 Then, all at once, our colors sank ; I saw them reel and 
 
 nod ; 
 
 The Colonel jumped and took them, before they touched 
 the sod ; 
 
 Another spring, and, with a shout—the rebs will mind 
 it well— 
 
 He stood alone upon their works, waved the old flag,— 
 and fell ! 
 
POEMS. 279 
 
 As o’er the surf at Wicklow I’ve seen the sea-gull fly, 
 His voice had sailed above the storm, and sounded clear 
 
 and high ; 
 
 It seemed, I swear, I had not heard the hellish rack 
 and din, 
 
 Till then, all sudden, on my ears, the thunder-crash 
 rushed in. 
 
 *T was vain to stand up longer; what could they do but 
 yield ? 
 
 Our broken remnant melted back, across the bloody 
 field. 
 
 I stayed to help the Colonel, and crept to where he 
 lay. 
 
 A smile came, tender, o’er his face, but he motioned 
 me away. 
 
 I bent to watch his parting lips and shade him from 
 the light— 
 
 ‘[’m torn to pieces, George,’ he said; ‘ go, save your- 
 self—good-night ! ’ 
 
 As tender as my mother’s, that smile came up and 
 shone | 
 
 Once more upon his marble face, and the gallant soul 
 was gone | 
 
 Three times the same full moon arose and looked him 
 face to face, 
 
 Before the rebels flung a truce above the cursed place. 
 
 We laid him near Cold Harbor, but the spot is bleak 
 and bare,— 
 
 I hate to think how I’m at home, and he still lying 
 there. 
 
280 POEMS. 
 
 I doubt his sleep will not be sweet, nor his loving spirit 
 still, 
 
 Till he lies among the friendly dust of yonder slanting 
 hill, 
 
 Where, from the streets he loved so well, might float 
 their daily hum, 
 
 And the lake’s low roar upon the beach, in quiet 
 nights, would come. 
 
 Ah! well, the town might plant his tomb, with marble 
 words to tell 
 
 How the bravest of her blood was poured when young 
 McMahon fell ! * 
 
 As o’er the homes of Athens towered and shone 
 
 The sun-smit marbles of the Parthenon, 
 
 So let these walls, with noble purpose crowned, 
 Tower, till their shade shall fall on classic ground,— 
 Till something of the Grecian’s vanished dream, 
 
 A glory on their tinted spires, shall gleam. 
 
 All beauteous shapes shall haunt their hushed retreats, 
 And mingle, viewless, in the hurrying streets, 
 
 Or glide, in happy warmth of household domes, 
 
 The white-winged angels of a thousand homes. 
 
 With nobler life the City’s heart shall beat ; 
 
 A grander rhythm shall time her marching feet ; 
 And History, pausing at these temple gates, 
 
 Shall view the widening of her fair estates. 
 
 Nor, though the sacred mountains loom afar 
 
 That caught the light of Wisdom’s rising star, 
 
 Shall, o’er thy fane, less lustrous heaven be bent, 
 
 O young Minerva of the Occident ! 
 
 * Colonel James P. McMahon, of the 164 Reg’t, N. Y. 8S. Vols. 
 
POEMS. 281 
 
 Far off, against the evening’s purple breast, 
 
 Dim, mute, a giant specter, stands The West: 
 Yonder, the rays of dying sunset tinge 
 
 His slow-receding garments’ forest-fringe ; 
 
 He lingers still, but, lo, I see him turn 
 
 To where these templed fires unwonted burn,— 
 Over his ancient haunts of wood and fell 
 
 Dark waves a hand of wonder and farewell :— 
 
 His shadowy wings are spread and plumed for flight, 
 The glimmering phantom fades—and all is night !— 
 Night, but prophetic; on these lifted spires 
 
 Shall burn a fairer morning’s signal-fires. 
 
 Fresh in its light, the land shall rise, arrayed, 
 
 And softest gales waft in the fleets of trade. 
 Freedom shall watch her ancient faith increase, 
 And Right, sit, smiling, in the lap of Peace. 
 
 So stand, O Temple, by the muses blest, 
 High o’er the empire of the opening West, 
 A beacon and a promise, seen afar, 
 
 Till, through the future’s portals, swung ajar, 
 With spheral music shall advance, sublime, 
 The happier era of millennial time! 
 
 THE Last oF THE KAH-KWAHS. 
 
 Read before the Buffalo Historical Society, March 13, 1863. 
 
 For the thread of story upon which a part of these verses is strung, 
 the writer is mainly indebted to O. H. Marshall, Esq., whose contri- 
 butions to the Buffalo press, some fifteen or twenty years ago, over 
 the signature of ‘Q,’ comprise nearly all that is known of the early 
 Indian history of this locality. The Kah-Kwah, or, as it was termed 
 by the French missionaries, the Neutral Nation of Indians, is shown, 
 
282 | POEMS. 
 
 we think conclusively, by Mr. Marshall, to have been the tribe which 
 inhabited the site of this city previous to the conquest and occupation 
 of the territory by the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois confederacy. The 
 Neutral Nation was so called from the fact that it was observed by 
 the Jesuit travelers to be at peace with the neighboring peoples. The 
 date of the destruction of this remarkable tribe is fixed at about the 
 year 1647, and various legends survive as to the circumstances which 
 occasioned the Iroquois invasion. The most dramatic of these was. 
 transferred to paper by Wm. Ketchum, Esq., in the Commercial Ad- 
 vertiser of July 12, 1845. This is related as a tradition of the Erie or 
 Cat Nation; but we believe ‘Q’ has proved satisfactorily that that. 
 tribe inhabited a region to the westward, and that the tragedy em- 
 bodied in the legend really refers to the Kah-Kwahs. According to 
 the narrative of Mr. Ketchum, the fatal quarrel with the Iroquois 
 arose out of a sort of barbaric tournament, which took place at Tu- 
 shu-way (‘the place of the linden or bass-wood trees’), as the Indian 
 village formerly located here was called, and in which the young 
 men of the Iroquois and of the resident tribe participated. A relent- 
 less war followed this scene of savage revelry, which ended, only, in 
 the almost total annihilation of the Neutral Nation. It is said that the 
 last battle was fought near the old Indian mission-house, a few miles 
 from here. 
 
 Muse of the storied scroll, whose thoughtful eye 
 Watched the long pageant of the years gone by; 
 Whose patient art has touched and kept sublime 
 All that is deathless of departed time ;— 
 Historic muse, whose pilgrim feet have stood 
 Where many a nation’s star has set in blood, 
 
 Or followed where the sacred dawn of Right 
 Crept over Europe’s late and lingering night, 
 Shedding on Roman hills its passing smile, 
 
 And brightening on the ‘ silver-coasted isle ’ ;— 
 Forth from thy home, amid the graves of kings 
 And brooding gloom of half-forgotten things, 
 Come where thy broader path, O History, waits, 
 And walk with empire through her western gates ! 
 
POEMS. 283: 
 
 Come where a fairer day to earth is born 
 
 (The Old World’s evening is the New World’s morn), 
 And, in the luster of that larger sun, 
 
 Look forth and see thy grandest task begun! 
 
 No pomp or kingly glory here has birth, 
 
 Nor crumbling temple sinks to classic earth ; 
 
 But, young and fair, beneath these western skies, 
 The emblems of a hundred empires rise. 
 
 And here are fields, amid whose thunderous strife 
 The Future’s hope, embattled, strikes for life. 
 Even now the wind is warm with wav’s red rain, 
 And Truth and Treason cross the sword again. 
 Hither, O History, come, and, breathless, wait 
 While Freedom trembles in the scale of Fate! 
 Here bring the mirror of thy magic page, 
 
 And catch the features of this grander age! 
 Come, for the path that seeks the West is thine, 
 And, lo, we build thee, here, this way-side shrine! 
 
 And, sooth, its site, that wooes the pilgrim’s stay,. 
 Might lure the muse, herself, to brief delay : 
 Yonder, the lake, with heaven upon its breast, 
 Sleeps at the open portals of the West ; 
 
 And the strong river, like a god in wrath, 
 
 Leaps from the calm upon his fateful path. 
 
 From yon gray ruin’s shade the forms are fled 
 That came, but now, up-thronging from the dead ; 
 But the great heart of Commerce, full and strong,. 
 Throbs to the music of swart Labor’s song. 
 
 Here, in the coming years, the muse shall rest, 
 And here, to-night, we hail her as our guest; 
 And, sleeping by the sounding river’s stream, 
 
284 : POEMS. 
 
 Her slumber with its visioned past shall gleam ;— 
 Hark, while I strive to read from History’s dream :— 
 
 The city sleeps: its changing features fade 
 
 In the green depths of many a rustling glade ; 
 ‘The wind of summer whispers, sweet and low, 
 ’Mong trees that waved three hundred years ago ; 
 The streamlet seeks the path it knew of yore, 
 And Erie murmurs to a lonely shore ; 
 
 The birds are busy in their leafy towers ; 
 
 ‘The trampled earth is wild again with flowers ; 
 And the same river rolls, in changeless state, 
 Eternal, solemn, deep and strong as fate. 
 
 It is the time when, still, the forest made 
 
 For its dusk children a protecting shade, 
 
 And by these else untrodden shores they stood, 
 Embodied spirits of the solitude ;— 
 
 ‘ When, still, at dawn, or day’s serener close, 
 
 The smoke-wreaths of the Kah-Kwah lodges rose. 
 
 No hoary legend of their past declares 
 
 Through what uncounted years our home was theirs,— 
 How oft they hailed, new-glittering in the west, 
 ‘The moon, a phantom-white canoe, at rest 
 
 In deeps of purple twilight. This, alone, 
 
 Of all their vanished story, has not flown: 
 
 That, through unnumbered summer’s long increase, 
 ‘The Neutral Nation was the home of peace. 
 
 Far to the north the Huron war-whoop rang, 
 
 And, eastward, on the stealthy war-path, sprang 
 ‘The wary Iroquois; but, like the isle 
 
POEMS. 285 
 
 That, locked in wild Niagara’s fierce embrace, 
 Still wears the smile of summer on its face 
 
 ( Love in the clasp of Madness), so, the while, 
 With peace the Kah-Kwah villages were filled. 
 And, as the lake’s dark heart of storm is stilled— 
 The fury of its surge constrained to caln— 
 Beneath the touch of winter’s marble palm, 
 
 So, when the braves of warring nations met, 
 They changed the hatchet for the calumet, 
 
 And hid, with stolid face, their mounting ire 
 From the bright glimmer of the Kah-Kwah fire. 
 
 Year followed year, and peaceful Time had cast 
 
 A misty autumn-sunshine o’er the past, 
 
 And, to the hearts that calmly summered there, 
 
 The forehead of the future shone as fair; 
 
 Save that, perchance, some wise and wakeful ear 
 
 In the great river’s ceaseless song could hear, 
 Through the mirk midnight, when the wind was still, 
 The murmured presage of approaching ill. 
 
 It came, at last—the nation’s evil day, 
 Whose rayless night should never pass away, 
 A calm foreran the tempest, and, a space, 
 Fate wore the mask of joy upon his face. 
 
 It was a day of revel, feast, and game, 
 When, from the far-off Iroquois, there came 
 A hundred plumed and painted warriors, sent 
 To meet the Kah-Kwah youth in tournament. 
 And legend tells how sped the mimic fight ; 
 And how the festal fire blazed high at night, 
 And laugh and shout through all the greenwood rang ; 
 Till, at the last, a deadly quarrel sprang, 
 
286 POEMS. 
 
 Whose shadow, as the frowning guests withdrew, 
 Deepened, and to a boding war-cloud grew. 
 
 And not for long the sudden storm was stayed ; 
 
 It burst in battle, and in many a glade 
 
 ‘Were leaves of green with fearful crimson crossed, 
 
 As if by finger of untimely frost. 
 
 Fighting, they held the stubborn pathway back, 
 
 The foe relentless on their homeward track, 
 
 Till the thinned remnant of the Kah-Kwah braves 
 
 ‘Chose, where their homes had been, to make their 
 oTaves ; 
 
 And rallied for the last and hopeless fight, 
 
 With the blue ripples of the lake in sight. 
 
 Could wand of magic bring that scene, again, 
 Back, with its terrors, to the battle-plain, 
 
 Into these silent streets the wind would bear 
 Its mingled ery of triumph and despair ; 
 
 And all the nameless horror of the strife, 
 That only ended with a nation’s life, 
 
 Would pass before our startled eyes, and seem 
 The feverish fancy of an evil dream. 
 
 For, in the tumult of that fearful rout, 
 
 The watch-light of the Kah-Kwah camp went out; 
 And, thenceforth, in the pleasant linden shade, 
 Seneca children, only, laughed and played. 
 And still the river rolled, in changeless state, 
 Eternal, solemn, deep and strong as fate. 
 
 A few strange words of a forgotten tongue, 
 That still by lake and river’s marge have clung, 
 
‘POEMS. 287 
 
 Are all that linger, of the past, to tell, 
 
 With their weird-sounding music, how it fell 
 
 That here the people of that elder day 
 
 Sinned, suffered, loved, hoped, hated, passed away. 
 
 So, History’s dream is told; and, fading, fleet 
 
 The shadows of the forest from the street. 
 
 But is it much to ask, if it were sought, 
 
 _ That it return, at times, to tinge our thought ?— 
 
 To tell us, when the winter-fires are lit, 
 
 And in the happy heart of home we sit, 
 
 That other fires were here, ere ours had shone, 
 
 And sank to ashes, years and years agone ?— 
 
 That where we stand, and, watching, see the West 
 Ebb, till the stars lie stranded on its breast, 
 
 Or homeward ships, more blest than they of Greece, 
 Returning with the prairie’s Golden Fleece, 
 
 To other eyes, long since, perchance was given, 
 Through the same sapphire arch, a glimpse of heaven? 
 And, haply, not in vain the thought shall rise, 
 
 To sadden, it may be, our reveries, 
 
 That here have throbbed, with all the bliss of ours, 
 Hearts that have mouldered upward into flowers! 
 
 
 
 THe MInistry oF ART. 
 
 Read at the opening of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, 
 February 15, 1864. 
 
 The winter night is dark; the wild wind falls 
 Asleep in snow, and, sleeping, moans the while ; 
 But Art is mistress here, and, lo, her halls 
 Ave lit with summer’s smile! 
 
288 POEMS. 
 
 And darker night has draped the land in gloom, 
 And wilder wind, that will not sleep nor cease, 
 Beats over broken homes; but here, in bloom, 
 Droop only wreaths of peace. 
 
 No shadows enter here; and, Art, divine, 
 We greet thee, though the iron hand of war 
 Knocks at our gates; to-night is ours and thine, 
 Bright pilgrim from afar ! 
 
 The bark was blest that bore thee o’er the sea, 
 From sunny Italy, from golden Spain,— 
 From many a temple builded brave to thee 
 By Arno, Thames, or Seine. 
 
 The time had come, and thou didst take thy way 
 Through portals that the sunset left ajar, 
 And all thy new-found empire, waiting, lay 
 Beneath the Western Star. 
 
 So, here, thy broadest canvas be unfurled,— 
 Thy fairest dreams, O magic Art, be born,— 
 To limn the features of the younger world, 
 Ruddy with hope and morn! 
 
 We greet thee, here, we crave thy kindly powers; 
 For, as the olden forest’s green retreats 
 Have sunk, with all their freshness and their flowers, 
 Beneath the city’s streets,— 
 
 So is the freshness of our life down-trod ; 
 So its sweet nooks a dusty highway made ; 
 And, reckless, over Memory’s greenest sod, 
 Hurry the feet of Trade. 
 
POEMS. 289 
 
 Gone is the hush wherein our spirits gave 
 
 Memnonian music to the stars and sun ; 
 
 Over our thought’s serenest, clearest wave 
 The wheels of traffic run. 
 
 ’T is thine, O Priestess of the Beautiful, 
 To bring again the joys our hearts have lost, 
 And even the windows of life’s winter paint 
 With pictures of the frost! 
 
 Thy spells are potent; these are magic halls ; 
 Enchantress, thou, whose pencil is thy wand! 
 Radiant, and far from all these pictured walls, 
 Opens a faery land. 
 
 _ As through the gate of some enchanted palace, 
 We wander forth, beneath divinest skies ; 
 
 And there are windless woods and silent valleys, 
 Where summer never dies. 
 
 Away, away, where soundless streams are falling, 
 Where Fancy’s sweet will, only, points the track, 
 Until, at last, her vagrant steps recalling, 
 The soul comes singing back! 
 
 Or, haply, to some Alpine summit scaling, 
 We see the vale beneath us, blue and blest, 
 As he who spies, o’er heights of pain prevailing, 
 His Italy of rest. 
 
 ~ 
 
 Or, in a barque of dreams the soul is drifted 
 Athwart a sea where summer sleeps and smiles; 
 Above whose verge the purple mists are lifted 
 That fringe the Golden Isles. 
 19 
 
290 POEMS. 
 
 There may we meet our vanished Youth’s romances ; 
 There pluck the lotos, in its fruit or bloom, 
 By Lethean streams, where never face but Fancy’s 
 Has bent above their gloom. 
 
 Or, haply yet, we walk with hushed October, 
 Where the year fades, and, queenly, as she lies, 
 Stills the mute winds that tarry to disrobe her, 
 And smiles before she dies. 
 
 Anon, it is a scene in human story, 
 Where Freedom’s sons uphold her ancient faith ; 
 Or some immortal face is lit with glory, 
 Even as it looks on death; 
 
 Or the calm eyes of some fair saint are looking 
 Down, through the gloom of centuries, into ours, 
 With the white patience of her brow rebuking 
 Our puny griefs and powers. 
 
 These are thy spells; and thus, O subtle Art, 
 Thy magie colors, like the mystic seven, 
 Melt into one pure ray, that points the heart 
 
 To beauty,—thence to heaven ! 
 
 So, still, to men reveal the Beautiful,— 
 The Beautiful, sole angel whom our eyes 
 Have held the gift to see, since, dimmed and dull, 
 They turned from Paradise. 
 
 - 
 
 For, when the gates of Eden closed in wrath, 
 She, only, of the angel host, had leave 
 To pity man, and on his barren path 
 Glide forth, a fairer Eve! 
 
POEMS. 291 
 
 So, ever, in the loveliest spots of earth, 
 He caught the glitter of her silver wing ; 
 And when his sweetest music chanced to birth, 
 Her finger touched the string. 
 
 And, still, with glimpses of her heavenly face, 
 With dreams, whereof the waking is sweet tears, 
 ~ With thoughts that never on the lips have place, 
 Nor come, save once, in years,— 
 
 With these—with all that makes us thrill or burn,— 
 Still does she haunt the heart and light the eyes, 
 Till, with a longing, wild desire, we yearn 
 For the lost Paradise. 
 
 So, still, O Art, we follow where thy wand 
 Points to the path the Beautiful hath trod ; 
 For Art joins hands with Beauty,—Beauty’s hand 
 Touches the throne of God! 
 
 HvusHED I8 THE LoncG Rowu’s AnGcrRy THREAT. 
 
 Read at the opening of the Central Fair, held for the benefit of the 
 United States Sanitary Commission, February 22, 1864. 
 
 Hushed is the long-roll’s angry threat, 
 The squadron’s echoing tramp ; 
 
 And Night, her starry pickets set, 
 Is guardian of the camp. 
 
 The soldier sleeps ; and sleep has spread 
 Her tent of dreams above him,— 
 
 One white wall slanting o’er his head, 
 And one o’er those that love him! 
 
292 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 He sleeps; a thousand wintry miles 
 Keep parted, with their gloom, 
 
 His bed in battle’s slumbering files,— 
 This bower of light and bloom. 
 
 Oh, would these fairy halls for him 
 Might ope, to-night, Elysian ; 
 
 Or, wafted southward, far and dim, 
 Flash o’er him in a vision! 
 
 Hush! for methinks the winter wind 
 Has swept the camp-fire’s place, 
 And yet, a radiance soft and kind 
 Steals o’er the veteran’s face. 
 Oh, surely, gleaming from afar, 
 It lights those stains of powder ; 
 And, surely, in his dream of war 
 These flowers are shedding odor ! 
 
 He sleeps; but o’er him, in the skies, 
 The milder stars have met; 
 
 The heaven of home is o’er his eyes, 
 The ruddy Mars has set ; 
 
 And from his bearded lips, the while, 
 A smile has passed, elated. 
 
 O Woman, by that soldier’s smile 
 Your work is consecrated ! 
 
 Ay! sacred are the magic charms 
 That set the night a-glow, 
 
 Till Summer into Winter’s arms 
 Sprang, laughing, from the snow! 
 
POEMS. 
 
 The blended skill of hand and heart 
 Wrought in these halls of faery— 
 
 With Martha’s careful, tireless art, 
 The love and faith of Mary! 
 
 Not mirth nor thoughtless revel glides, 
 With Flora, in these bowers ; 
 
 °T is Mercy’s tearful face that hides 
 Behind this mask of flowers. 
 
 *T is Woman’s constant, fadeless faith 
 This evergreen discloses,— 
 
 Her heart of love, outlasting death, 
 That throbs beneath these roses. 
 
 O Soldier, fearless be your mien, 
 While the grim work endures ! 
 
 For her white hand is stretched, unseen, 
 
 And grasps the Flag with yours. 
 And God fail us if we fail you, 
 Our debt of love forgetting, 
 Or cease to keep your glory new 
 In memory’s golden setting ! 
 
 O Woman, angels aid your toil! 
 So weary not, nor cease. 
 
 Where battle sternly breaks the soil, 
 You plant the seeds of peace. 
 
 And, lo, beyond the war-cloud’s frown, 
 Comes clearer sky, and starrier ; 
 
 And History holds an equal crown 
 For you and for the Warrior! 
 
 298 
 
294 POEMS. 
 
 Tue Trento Muse. 
 Read before the New York State Press Association, June, 1874. 
 i 
 
 How shall the poet sing, or bard be heard, 
 To-day, beside the Babel-stream of time ? 
 Tides of the world’s wide tumult drown his rhyme ; 
 The clanging air is stirred 
 With wings of rumor; in his ear 
 The lightning’s myriad clicking voices pour 
 The ceaseless babble of the articulate sphere ; 
 While, ’round him, o’er and o’er, 
 With wash of wave, from farthest clime to clime, 
 The human ocean, audible, beats its shore. 
 
 II. 
 
 For, evermore, our earth is clamorous grown, 
 And full of tongues. Her ancient silences " 
 Are broken in their places and o’erthrown. 
 The Past sleeps, mute amid its mysteries ; 
 But, on its awful sepulcher of stone, 
 The iron hammer of the Present rings. 
 Gone is the stillness that, with brooding wings, 
 
POEMS. 295 
 
 Folded the midnight of the early world. 
 Flown, too,—forever flown— 
 The hush of history’s charméd dawn, 
 With the first flag of morning just unfurled, 
 When, clear and strong, 
 Some single bird of song, 
 High in the heaven of his own thought withdrawn, 
 Poured all his soul in melody, 
 And woke the tongueless earth to vocal ecstacy ! 
 
 Ill. 
 
 It is a tropic blossoming-time of Speech,— 
 A summer, when the bloom of words is rife 
 On every growth of life; 
 And, to its farthest branches’ reach, 
 Foliage of print is wov’n and wrought 
 About the tree of thought. 
 The rapid foot of action presses 
 Through tangled literary wildernesses. 
 So thick, in sooth, the lush papyrus grows, 
 Our later Nilus hardly flows. 
 No subtle chance nor darkling hint 
 But leaps to leaf and flower of print. 
 
 The very secret soul of things, 
 That, erst, in brooding dusk, lay hid 
 Within its waiting chrysalid, 
 Now hatches instant paper wings 
 And flutters forth to consciousness, 
 The blithe and swift ephemeron of the Press ! 
 
296 POEMS. 
 
 Iv. 
 Well may the bard forego his song,— 
 The seer from mountain-top descend ! 
 The Man of News—to him the times belong, 
 And to his mastery bend! 
 The modern epic, to its unguessed end, 
 Grows under his prosaic pen. 
 What shall escape his sweeping ken? 
 The hamlet’s gossip, the great town’s uproar, 
 And all the loud report of men, 
 The light tick of his dropping type re-sounds, again! 
 His to explore 
 And flash the torch in darkest nooks of earth. 
 Through the great groaning lazar-house of life, 
 Or dens of sweltering death, he goes, 
 And their black secret shows. 
 The ceaseless, arméd tramp of human woes, 
 Fantastic masques of crime, the strife 
 Of vulture passion, honor’s dearth 
 And virtue’s sad decay, 
 Council of friends and plot of foes, 
 With all that courts or shuns the day,— 
 These must his merciless lens expose, 
 His portrait of the time display. 
 His, open-spread and bare, 
 Full in the public light and air, 
 The good and ill alike to lay ; 
 That, haply, in the day’s broad eye, 
 The social rose may flourish fair, 
 The deadly nightshade die. 
 A wizard, he; his sheet a magic glass 
 Wherein the mirrored world doth shine, 
 
POEMS. 297 
 
 And all its diverse energies 
 In hurrying throngs approach and pass, 
 Appear and disappear, 
 Weaving a web of texture fine 
 From verge to verge of farthest alien skies ; 
 Till far and foreign are brought near, 
 And myriad threads of destiny intertwine. 
 And ever to the ear, 
 From the same wizard concave, rise, 
 In gusts up-blown from every shore and clime, 
 The multitudinous voices, blent, yet clear, 
 Of the vast surging earth, the din 
 ‘Of traffic, the low sough of sighs, 
 The laughter and the cries 
 Of many peoples, and the roar of time. 
 And, lo, Humanity, dismembered, marred 
 Of visage, comes, looks wondering’ in, 
 And sees, despite the stain of sin, 
 And features battle-scarred, 
 And eruel woes endured beneath the sun, 
 Her face still bears the mould of the divine,— 
 Her mighty many-nationed heart is ONE! 
 
 v. 
 The plastic time takes ever-changing forms. 
 The age is past when one compelling mind 
 Could sway the armies of mankind, 
 And lead their dumb, obedient swarms 
 To conquest of ideal lands. 
 The mighty captains of the race 
 Sleep in their storied tombs, nor rule again— 
 Heroes of sword, or word, or pen— 
 With power to loose and bind. 
 
298 POEMS. 
 
 But, in a broader, freer space 
 The circle of the world expands ; 
 And, breaking immemorial bands, 
 The conscious peoples rush apace 
 To blend in one vast commonweal of men! 
 In the new order thus to be, 
 No priestly power, supreme to blight or bless, 
 No despot leader, she— 
 The Tenth, our modern, Muse—the Press ! 
 Hers, not, in her own thinking, to be great, 
 But rather to keep free 
 The channels of the people’s thought, 
 And be the voice and conscience of the State ; 
 Setting a gauge whereby the State may see 
 How, in their seething caverns, palpitate 
 The pent volcanic forces of its fate. 
 But not the less her service shall be fraught 
 With active use and blessing, and confer 
 A sacred office on her minister. 
 His, where the springs of public virtue run, 
 To watch, and keep their current pure and strong; 
 With hand alert, to scourge the wrong 
 And give the good deed to the sun; 
 The saving word, the larger creed, 
 To speak, and, in the speaking, speed ; 
 To preach, with pen of fire, 
 Men’s ‘politics’ and God’s justice shall be one; 
 And so this fallen word redeem, 
 To heights of its old meaning, from the mire. 
 Not his the prophet’s dream, 
 Or spell of power, the nations to inspire ; 
 But, watcher of the seasons, to proclaim 
 
POEMS. 299 
 
 What signs, portentous of the future, flame, 
 And, in the orient of the world’s desire, 
 What new-born stars arise. 
 Or, like some workman, he, who plies 
 The chisel with swift patient hands, 
 And shapes the plan a greater hath designed. 
 The rugged marble fronts him, and, behind. 
 The invisible Master stands, 
 To whom alone 
 The secret of the block is known. 
 The time is long, the watcher’s eyes wax blind,, 
 _And weary is the worker, toiling, dumb ; 
 But, at the last, before him there is grown 
 A figure of the fairer Age to come! 
 The image of the Master’s mind, 
 Girt with Beauty’s perfect zone, 
 Looms, living, from the stone ! 
 
 Mary LeEnox. 
 A NEW YEAR’S ITEM IN VERSE. 
 
 Soften to airs of balm, O winter wind! 
 
 Melt soft to summer dew, O snow! and let 
 
 A vision of sweet June be in our eyes; 
 
 For, like some vernal brook, my story springs. 
 All among happy things, and takes its course 
 "Mid flowers and sunshine and the birth of love. 
 
 You know the place I write of, and, perhaps, 
 Three hours out from the city, when the train 
 Has torn in thunder past, you may have marked 
 The very farm, far on an edge of woods, 
 
300 POEMS. 
 
 And facing an Arcadia of calm fields, © 
 
 Where Mary Lenox lived. Her father’s house 
 ‘Was motherless, and so she grew to wield, 
 
 In love, and in an eldest daughter’s right, 
 
 The scepter of the little realm, and blend 
 
 The matron and the maiden. Grace of each 
 Was in her mien, and steadfast in her eyes 
 Shone forethought, and a care for others’ weal, 
 And duty, like a star. Lowly her life, 
 
 Bowed with its useful fruit, as autumn bent 
 Her father’s orchard trees; nor less, like these, 
 It had its due of blossoms, and a crown 
 
 Of beauty. 
 
 So she lived, and might have lived ; 
 But rumor of her graces, widely sown, 
 ‘Came up a crop of wooers. First, they say, 
 It was a farmer-lad who touched her heart ; 
 But Edward Maxwell, lawyer, city-bred, 
 Stormed at the half-made breach, and took the prize, 
 And one sweet day of summer they were wed. 
 Then, from the old stone door-step, forth they went, 
 And down the garden-walk, while all the flowers, 
 ‘That knew her feet, turned wistful on their stems 
 And breathed farewells of odor. And away 
 On the high road they drove, bridegroom and bride, 
 And many eyes looked after them through tears,— 
 Until the great world’s gates of distance oped 
 And took them in. 
 
 The city was their home; 
 To Mary an enchanted land, where Love 
 Was chief magician, weaving in her life 
 
POEMS. 301 
 
 Such radiant colors as she had not dreamed. 
 She seemed to breathe a charméd air of light 
 And music. On her pure and plastic mind 
 Culture began to set its noble seal, 
 
 And mould her beauty into shining form. 
 And she was happy in her husband’s love,— 
 Happy in each day’s birth of joyous power 
 And aspiration,—happy in her home, 
 
 Where many a pleasant guest of the heart made stay, 
 And on whose windows ever seemed to glow 
 The orient of a future calm and fair. 
 
 But trouble came. Whether by slow approach, 
 Or suddenly and fierce, to Mary’s heart 
 
 It came, I cannot tell. The adverse fates 
 
 Give warning, sometimes, and the straggling gun 
 Tells of the far attack, that, gathering on, 
 
 Rolls near and louder o’er the distant hills ; 
 Anon, on Sabbath mornings of the soul, 
 
 The battle bursts in fire. It may have been 
 That, often, while she sat in light and warmth, 
 She heard her sorrow, like the outcast wind, 
 Utter its boding cry, or guessed its face 
 
 At the dark pane—God only knows the whole : 
 But this is certain, that there came a night 
 
 (Her babe lay smiling in its sleep the while) 
 When she had waked from her long dream of bliss, 
 And, face to face, stood with her mortal woe. 
 
 In that dread hour she read her husband’s heart 
 As if by light of hell;—saw the pure love 
 
 That filled it once corroded by disease ;— 
 
 Saw that already he lay bound—heart, mind, 
 
~ 
 
 302 POEMS. 
 
 Soul, honor, all—as on a funeral pyre, 
 
 Lit by a drunkard’s passion, and must burn,— 
 Unless God’s love and hers might quench the fire,— 
 Burn evermore, down, down to death and doom! 
 
 She quailed awhile before her evil fate, 
 Then, brave and calm, confronted it, and scanned 
 Its cruel features till she knew them, each. 
 
 Then, on her knees, she asked for strength of love 
 
 And woman’s faith to last in her till death. 
 Lightly had love upborne her life, thereto, 
 And, now, love’s burden lay on her. The road 
 ‘Was weary, but she would be true to love. 
 For love’s sake she would walk it to the end. 
 And so she rose and took her cross. 
 
 From this, 
 It was not long before the social ground 
 Began to give to Edward’s heavy tread. 
 The grades are steep on that familiar path 
 By which he sank. Yet, sometimes, he would seem 
 To fix a foot in some precarious ledge, 
 And nerve himself once more to climb, her hand 
 Clutching at his with desperate strength, the twain 
 For dear life straining up the dread ascent, 
 Then clinging, pone a moment, till the gulf 
 Drew them again to deeper deeps. And yet, 
 Not wholly died his love ; for there were days 
 
 That seemed to bring his gentle manhood back; 
 
 And Mary half forgot her wasted life, 
 Forgiving all, and trimmed the lamp of love 
 Anew, to light her through the dark, to come, 
 
 Of heart-break, and neglect, and brutal wrong. 
 
POEMS. 303 
 
 At poverty’s grim gates they stood at last, 
 
 And took the host’s chill welcome, and passed in. 
 And bravely Mary toiled, with hand and brain, 
 Throwing her young life, piecemeal, to the wolf 
 That waited, hungry, for her babe and her; 
 
 Nor made complaint, but ever nursed a spark 
 Of woman’s faith in him who madly tried 
 
 To tread it in the mire. 
 
 It chanced, I think, 
 Before her trouble, that her father sold 
 The pleasant farm, and moved with all his house 
 Far to the west, whence news infrequent came, | 
 Not cheerful, of hard struggle and hard luck. 
 So Mary hid her sorrow from her kin, 
 Sending brave words, though blotted oft with tears ; 
 Striving to think that all was for the best ; 
 That, haply, had her father’s door stood near 
 And open still, pleading for her return, 
 Weak, and too sorely tried, she might have fled 
 Her duty, and thrown down her grievous cross. 
 Poor Mary! trial such as this, I ween, 
 Might e’en have overborne her, and her guilt 
 Had not been quite beyond the range of grace. 
 But there were other trials stored for her, 
 More grim of shape. One night of woe she sat, 
 Holding her babe upon her knee, and watched 
 Her light of life die out on its white face ; 
 And held it, motionless, till morning came,— 
 Morning, that only seemed another night, 
 And she the sole sad thing that could not die, 
 In a great world of death and weltering dark. 
 
304 POEMS. 
 
 Henceforth she was alone, but still held on 
 
 In her rough road, and did what woman could. 
 Within their poor abode she plied the arts 
 That even give a gentler face to Want. 
 
 The squalor of its walls her cunning veiled, 
 As if with viewless arras, woven of love, 
 
 And rarer than the weft of Gobelin, hung 
 
 In rooms of kings, and rich with pictured lives: 
 Of saint and martyr. For, although her love 
 Promised no harvest of an earthly hope, 
 Methinks it was a secret faith of hers 
 
 That, one day, he, recalling all, would note 
 The prints of blood her duteous feet had left, 
 And would retrace them, back to better life. 
 
 Her bright face faded, but her soul was strong. 
 Sometimes she listened, as if in a dream, 
 
 To those who blamed her that she flung her life: 
 Into a bottomless slough, and showed her doors, 
 Open, wherethrough she yet might pass and find’ 
 Freedom, and bread, and honorable place. 
 
 Then, if she answered, it was still in dream ; 
 For, on the old stone step, she sat again 
 
 With Edward, and looked forth on evening fields,, 
 And heard with him the low of kine, and bells 
 That tinkled on the hill-side; and she said, 
 Musing, ‘I shall not leave him till I die!’ 
 
 It fell, at last, that Mary’s toil should end. 
 
 A dull, cold winter-night possessed the earth ; 
 Wind shuddered in the streets. Weary and faint, 
 She had lain down, and fallen in feverish sleep, 
 
POEMS. 305 
 
 But woke, betimes (or thought she woke), and looked, 
 Wondering that, in her fireless room, she felt 
 
 No cold, nor pain, nor deadly languor more. 
 
 Glad, therefore, she rose up, and, lo, the place 
 Was filled with summer warmth and light of day, 
 And at her feet bloomed flowers! Then she saw 
 It was that garden-ground of long ago! 
 
 All things were as of old, and naught seemed strange ; 
 Not even strange that, coming to a bower, 
 
 She found her babe, and hid it in her breast. 
 There, evermore, she had been fain to rest, 
 
 But that a hungering impulse led her forth 
 
 To seek for something precious she had lost,— 
 Something, she knew not what, that in her soul 
 Begat vague yearning and a sense of loss. 
 
 By many a path familiar, many a spot 
 
 Sacred in lore of her lost youth, she sought,— 
 But always vainly, till, with anguish pressed, 
 
 And woe of that vain quest upon her soul, 
 
 She sat her down beside the door, and cried 
 
 That she might die. Sudden, her cry was hushed ; 
 For, in an instant, all that garden place 
 
 Blossomed to awful radiance, and was stirred 
 
 As with a throng, shining, innumerable, 
 
 That moved about her, or did seem to move, 
 
 And be the border of a mighty host 
 
 Whose legions flooded the near fields, the while 
 The far surge of its camps crested the hills. 
 
 She sank with fear; but One came near, and stooped, 
 And raised her with a hand of human love, 
 
 And took her tender babe, that smiled content. 
 
 So, she stood still and worshiped, full of peace. 
 20 
 
306 POEMS. 
 
 Then He (she knew Him, though none told His name), 
 He who had raised her, turned and cried aloud: 
 ‘Restore to her what she hath lost; restore 
 
 An hundred-fold of all her wasted love. 
 
 Lo, I am Love, and she hath borne my cross! 
 
 Her broken heart hath spilled its wealth for me! ’ 
 
 Then they who heard caught up the words, and sent 
 Their sound far outward, in a wave of song, 
 
 That swelled and broadened to a choral sea. 
 
 And, ‘ Give her back whate’er she lost!’ they sang ; 
 ‘Give back an hundred-fold!’ the anthem pealed ; 
 ‘An hundred-fold!’ until the heaven was rent, 
 
 And took the song from earth, its myriad waves 
 Gathered and drawn to one melodious tide, 
 
 That ebbed, far upward, through the heavenly gates, 
 And filled the courts unseen. But earth was still. 
 
 The noon of night had struck, the clangor ceased 
 Of bells that told the New Year born; but she 
 Had passed where years are never born, nor die. 
 Tt was that song of Time whose chorus broke 
 Upon her vision of eternity ; 
 But none the less the beauteous dream came true, 
 And what she saw but mirrored that which was. 
 For, surely, angels came to her, and feet 
 Moved round her, in the hush of that low room, 
 Of them that waited with the martyr’s crown 
 To place upon her brow. Oh, chiefest prize! 
 The martyr’s crown—whose radiant gold is set 
 With garnered diamonds of the martyr’s tears, 
 And, in the midst (redeemed from mire of earth 
 
POEMS. 307 
 
 And men’s despite), star-like, the jewel Love ! 
 Not many they who choose the proffered cross, 
 Or, choosing, can endure to such a crown. 
 But, in the rank of those nearest the throne, 
 By fagot come, or scaffold, it must be 
 
 The silent martyrs of the household sit, 
 
 And wear an equal glory,—in whose light 
 
 The diadems of angels are made dim. 
 
 THANKSGIVING IN War TIME. 
 
 But the Nation’s sky is darkened; can we keep the 
 holy day, 
 
 While the pillared State is shaken with the storm’s 
 uprising fray ? 
 
 Not the less, O people, gather to your fireside altars 
 in,— 
 
 Ring the louder, turret wardens, o’er the thunder’s 
 nearing din! 
 
 And, as once upon the waters of the wind-tossed 
 Galilee, 
 
 To a crew whose prayer was mingled with the clamor 
 of the sea, 
 
 Came the form of One whose presence drove the shud- 
 
 dering tempest back,— 
 
 So, perchance, amid the tumult, in the storm’s destroy- 
 ing track, 
 
 While the rage of human hatred rises wilder than 
 the seas, 
 
 In this holy time of worship, to the nation on its 
 knees, 
 
308 POEMS. 
 
 Shall the Power divine, that trod the heaving surges, 
 come again, 
 
 Walking grandly o’er the passions and the angry 
 hearts of men ; 
 
 And the sea shall own his presence—all its billows 
 sink and cease, 
 
 And the Ship of State lie cradled in the happy Port 
 of Peace! 
 
 THANKSGIVING Day. 
 
 Still thy winds, O wild November, let their angry 
 music¢ sleep ! 
 
 Give us Sabbath o’er the city; hush thy tempest on the 
 deep ! 
 
 With the golden sheaf of Autumn lifted in its stalwart 
 hands, 
 
 At the threshold of the Winter, lo, a grateful nation 
 stands ! 
 
 Up the year’s long path of blessing, heedless, thankless, 
 we have trod; 
 
 But, to-day, the people’s altar sends its incense up to 
 God. 
 
 Ring aloud, in spire and turret—in your windy prison 
 cells— 
 
 Ring the morning in with anthems of Thanksgiving, 
 O ye bells! 
 
 Gather, O ye people, gather, where the ruddy hearths 
 are bright, 
 
 And the shades of care and sorrow vanish, backward, 
 from the light ! 
 
POEMS. 309 
 
 Link anew the charméd circle of the household’s broken 
 chain, 
 
 Let the land be full of worship, and the heart, of love, 
 again ; | 
 
 Homeward to the festal service call the wandering 
 child that roams ; 
 
 For, to-day, the nation’s altars are its firesides and its 
 homes. 
 
 Moon by moon the year has circled, and before us is 
 unrolled 
 
 All the seasons’ perfect drama, as in countless years of 
 old: 
 
 In the valley sank the snow-drift, and the snow-drop 
 sprang anew, | 
 
 And, anon, Earth woke in flowers from a summer-dream 
 of dew. 
 
 Winter, Spring and Summer failed not, and she drank 
 the light and rain, 
 
 Till the sun-lit heaven lay mirrored in her waving fields 
 of grain. 
 
 O’er the wave, the white-winged vessels came, as went 
 the ships of Greece— | 
 
 Happy Argonauts, returning with the prairies’ golden 
 fleece. ; 
 
 O’er the land, the song of Labor, in the workshop and 
 the field, 
 
 Forth, from ocean unto ocean, in a choral wave has 
 pealed. 
 
 Therefore, wake, in all your turrets—in your windy 
 prison-cells— 
 
 Ring the morning in with anthems of Thanksgiving, 
 
 O ye bells! 
 
310 POEMS. 
 
 REstT. 
 
 Once more, blessed valley, I seek and have found thee; 
 Tired, hunted, I ran, with the mad world hallooing ; 
 I slipped to thy shade—I am safe from pursuing— 
 
 No care climbeth over the green walls that bound thee. 
 
 In the hush of thy woodlands that draw me and woo me, 
 
 By the rush of thy waters whose thunders thrill thro’ me, 
 In deep hemlock cover, in vine-trellised arbor, 
 
 My heart finds once more a blest haven and harbor. 
 But the summers are many, the years have flown fleetly, 
 Since first we came hither, with revel and laughter. 
 
 Ah! how easy the jest, then, the mirth following after, 
 The poem to praise thee, the song that ran sweetly. 
 It was joy, then, that met us, by greenwood and meadow ; 
 It is rest, now, rest only, we crave in thy shadow. 
 
 GLEN Iris, 1887. 
 
LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 RosBertT Burns anp His POETRY. 
 
 From an address delivered on the One Hundred and Sixth Anniver- 
 sary of the Poet’s birth—January 25, 1865. 
 
 . . . The poet was as fully identified with his class 
 as the man. His singing robes were no holiday gar- 
 ments, but an every-day suit, familiar with the wind 
 and weather, with the rain and the sun of heaven. . He 
 sought no high-sounding titles or pompous themes for 
 his verse. A very coarse and unsuggestive condition 
 of things surrounded him; he lived in a world of com- 
 monplace; but he made no frantic effort to get out of 
 it when he wrote. He stayed in it, and sang of it, and 
 men wondered to see springs of music gush where there 
 had been only barren desert, before. The ground he 
 stood upon was good enough and high enough for him ; 
 he wanted no artificial Parnassus from which to descry 
 objects worthy of his muse. His was the true touch of 
 Midas, transmuting whatever-came to his hand to poetic 
 gold. When his dramatic mind ranged outward, seek- 
 ing exercise of its strength, it was content to endow the 
 ‘Twa Brigs’ of Ayr with intelligence, or to draw from 
 the mouths of the faithful dogs that trotted at his 
 heels wisdom, pathos and exquisite humor. The daisy, 
 ‘wee, modest, crimson-tippéd flower,’ to which his plow 
 
312 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 gave burial, was not too insignificant a subject for his 
 pen. It fell, indeed, into its shallow sepulcher; but 
 
 Burns was there, to sing it up, again, into deathless — 
 
 bloom. Its fragrance is eternal, and the tear that 
 Burns shed upon its fringed eye-lid sparkles, still, in 
 our sight, ‘an immortal drop of dew.’ <A poet less 
 great than Burns would scarcely dare, like him, to 
 choose a pet sheep and an ‘Auld mare, Maggie,’ as 
 subjects for plaintive elegy and manly apostrophe. 
 The lesser bard, too, would start, aghast, were his 
 poetic vision directed to the spectacle of a certain 
 familiar but detested insect climbing to ‘the vera 
 topmost towering height’ of a lady’s bonnet in church. 
 But it was in his address to a creature no more poetic 
 than a louse, that Burns gave voice to his unsurpass- 
 able exclamation : 
 
 O wad some Power the giftie gie us 
 
 To see oursels as others see us ! 
 
 It wad frae mony a blunder free us 
 And foolish notion : 
 
 What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us 
 And even Devotion ! 
 
 The trunk of the elephant is so fashioned that it 
 may rend great boughs from the forest trees, or, with 
 a subtle movement, pick from the ground the smallest 
 needle. So is it with the mind of the great poet. 
 
 With equal faithfulness and straightforward, single- 
 hearted simplicity, Burns treated the human material 
 that came to his hand. He sang what was in his own 
 heart—the good and the bad of it—with such truth- 
 fulness that his song goes straight to all other hearts. 
 His is a heart-language, which does not need to be 
 
 pe ba 
 
 tent ee ee ie A ole 
 
ROBERT BURNS AND HIS POETRY. 313 
 
 interpreted to be understood. His very frankness gave 
 him enemies; for Burns made an open breast of his 
 sins and failings,—while some wore Pharisaical waist- 
 coats over theirs. The confessions of the poet to these 
 _ people sounded like accusation of themselves. They 
 pronounced over him bans of bitter excommunication ; 
 he retorted in wicked and savage satire. 
 
 And here, in parenthesis, let me say all that I deem 
 it necessary for me to say of the dark side of Burns’ 
 _character. Almost before the world was told that he 
 had genius, it was published that he had vices. It is 
 true. But his sins lay on the surface of his nature. 
 They were born, not from that great, deep, true heart 
 of his, but out of the storm and fury of the passions 
 that swept over it. Great, too, may have been his 
 fault, but greater still was his repentance. Let him 
 that is without sin cast the first stone. . . . Let the 
 bard speak for himself,—while at the same time he 
 weaves for all his kind a shining vail of charity, 
 beneath which the whitest of us may not scorn to 
 shelter : 
 
 Then gently scan your brother Man, 
 Still gentler sister Woman ; 
 
 Tho’ they may gang a kennin’ wrang, 
 To step aside is human : 
 
 One point must still be greatly dark 
 The moving why they do it, 
 
 And just as lamely can ye mark 
 How far perhaps they rue it. 
 
 Who made the heart, ’t is He alone 
 Decidedly can try us, 
 
 He knows each chord—its various tone, 
 Each spring—its various bias: 
 
314 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 Then at the balance let’s be mute, 
 We never can adjust it ; 
 
 What ’s done we partly may compute, 
 But know not what’s resisted / 
 
 Poetry is a vague word. Philosophers and critics 
 have not been very successful in defining it; and, in © 
 most minds where the school-girl’s definition—that 
 poetry means just long lines and short ones—is rejected 
 as unsatisfactory, there exists but a dim and shifting 
 idea of what poetry is and is not. There is a great 
 distance, for instance, between the sublime periods of 
 Milton, which appeal to the imagination, and some of 
 the formal couplets of Pope, which do little more than 
 tickle the ear. J think an approach may be made 
 towards establishing for the subject manageable condi- 
 tions, if we gather up the great mass of poetry into 
 the form of a pyramid. At the base of the figure, I 
 should place the works of those poets who have sounded 
 the widest scale of song—whose poetry is built most 
 broadly upon the hearts and minds of mankind. Rang- 
 ing upward towards the apex should come the minstrelsy 
 of narrower scope, and the pyramid would be crowned 
 with that which is, perhaps, the highest order of poetry, 
 while it certainly has the narrowest basis in human 
 nature,—I mean that which is the offspring of pure 
 imagination. If Shakespeare were not a pyramid in 
 himself, broader than the broadest and as high as the 
 highest, he should be the far-stretching foundation of 
 the poetic pile. Just second to him, among all the 
 poets of Anglo-Saxon speech, I would place Robert 
 Burns. I have shown that he stood with his feet down 
 upon the lower stratum of society, and that he sought 
 
ROBERT BURNS AND HIS POETRY. 315 
 
 and found his poetic work right where he stood, and did 
 it without airs or affectation. Thus, speaking truly 
 what was in his own heart, he gave speech to the heart 
 of humanity. Painting with conscientious fidelity the 
 human nature around him, his pictures are true of 
 men everywhere. Because he loved deeply and sang 
 truly, it was given to him to sing the love-songs of the 
 world. The fiery words he spoke in denunciation of 
 the false, the mean, and the tyrannical, burn into the 
 carcasses of tyranny, falsehood and meanness forever. 
 His brave words of cheer to the down-hearted, of 
 counsel to the doubting, of brotherly love to all, are 
 like branches from the sacred tree cast into the Marah 
 of human life. They sink into its bitter waters, and, 
 beneath the spell of their virtue, the stream runs, 
 sweetening in the sun, away to the ocean of eternity. 
 Nor less potent was he, when he lifted his voice for 
 trampled freedom,—for human equality and human 
 rights,—for the precious doctrine of honest independ- 
 ence. His words are the texts of a gospel that is to 
 be preached to all the world; which echo from genera- 
 tion to generation—from clime to clime. 
 
 I wish to speak of but one other characteristic of 
 Burns, namely, the intense love of and sympathy with 
 all nature, animate and inanimate, which burned in his. 
 soul and pervades his poetry. Better than any man I 
 know of, he answers to Tennyson’s description of the 
 poet, dowered as he was 
 
 With the hate of hate, 
 The scorn of scorn, the love of love. | 
 But love was the ruling passion. It went out in a 
 warm tide from his heart,—towards the poor among 
 
316 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 whom his lot was cast, first,—towards his country, next, 
 —towards his race and nature, last. He did his best 
 to help the misery that came within his reach; he wept 
 over the sorrow he could not heal. The spirit of his 
 song has entrance, alike, into palace and hovel; but its 
 peculiar home is at the poor man’s hearth. There it 
 sits, now, and will sit, while Love is mistress of the 
 human heart. In its presence, Care will sometimes 
 spread her dingy wings and take flight; Grief, herself, 
 will melt to music and tears; Penury will stand trans- 
 figured in her rags. Look, how the poet-magician en- 
 tered, once, and made a temple of the peasant’s home, 
 —a very Sabbath of sacredness and light and heavenly 
 peace of ‘the cotter’s Saturday night’! Look, how 
 he even took the coarse and homely fare of his peasant 
 countrymen and seasoned it with his cheerful, kindly 
 genius, so that the poor man thereafter might sit down 
 contented—yea, proud—to his table, knowing that his 
 ‘haggis’ had been ennobled, his oat-meal porridge 
 blessed, by the muse,—his kail spiced with Burns’ 
 benediction ;—that kings do not sit to a banquet so 
 enlivened by poetic wine! 
 
 Speaking of the love with which Burns regarded 
 mankind, I scarcely need say that womankind was not 
 excluded from his heart, as they are from Mahomet’s 
 paradise. ‘The lasses,’ he was accustomed to say, ‘I 
 love them a’.’ For it was a part of his poetic creed 
 that Nature— 
 
 Her ’prentice hand she tried on man, 
 And then she made the lasses, O. 
 
 He might, on just occasion, be rough and rude to men; ~ 
 
 but his whole being softened in the presence of the 
 
 bs a 4 
 eee 
 
ROBERT BURNS AND HIS POETRY. 317 
 
 gentler sex. Poesy knows no sweeter, tenderer voice 
 than that in which he addressed his ‘ Mary in heaven.’ 
 Woman never inspired more melting melody than that 
 in which he bade eternal farewell to his sweet ‘ High- 
 land Mary.’ 
 
 Love of country was interwoven with every fiber of 
 Burns’ frame. Scotland may well be proud of her son, 
 for her fair fame was dearer to him than life. No 
 painter, limning the face of his beloved, could dwell 
 more devotedly upon his task than did Burns, when he 
 turned his pen to speak of ‘Scotland, his auld respectit. 
 mither.’ Upon the canvas of his verse she lives, with 
 all her features of mountain, river, field, wood, burn 
 and brae, forever glorious and beautiful. But his 
 patriotism was no blind, undiscriminating passion. 
 While he loved Scotland—because he loved her—he 
 was no slavish partisan of the corrupt and capricious 
 power that ruled her. He gloried in her constitution 
 and her charter of rights; but his muse administered 
 most unpalatable advice to the king, and took still 
 more improper liberties with the king’s ministers. His 
 love of freedom led him to sympathize keenly with the 
 French in their revolutionary struggle, and to oppose 
 most warmly the war that Britain waged to maintain 
 the stability of the rotten old thrones of LKurope. 
 How he regarded the infant republic that sprang into 
 existence on our own soil, during his young manhood, 
 ' may be guessed from an incident of his career as an 
 exciseman. It occurred at a dinner in Dumfries, 
 attended, for the most part, by government officials, 
 like himself. After the Scottish drink had circulated 
 freely, some one proposed the health of William Pitt, 
 
318 - LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 the prime minister at that time. ‘I give you the health 
 of George Washington,—a greater and better man,’ 
 cried Burns. The company demurred, and the poet 
 left the room in disgust. 
 
 How the heart of Burns went out in tenderness to 
 all created things is better illustrated in his own 
 Address to a Mouse than another writer could do it 
 in volumes. Like the mountain daisy of which I have 
 spoken, the nest of the little animal had been turned 
 under by Burns’ plough. . .. Could anything more 
 be said to prove the all-embracing sympathy of Burns’ 
 nature? Yes; and Burns has said it. It is in his 
 Address to the Deil, wherein, after recounting the 
 mischiefs for which his Satanic Majesty is held respon- 
 sible, the poet first anathematizes, then scolds, and at 
 last fairly pities, in this fashion: . 
 
 But, fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben ! 
 O wad ye tak a thought and men’ ! 
 Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken— 
 Still hae a stake— 
 T’m wae to think upo’ yon den, 
 Even for your sake ! 
 
 Milton paints Satan a desperate yet valiant and almost 
 chivalric warrior; Goethe makes his Mephistopheles a 
 cunning, malicious, yet gentlemanly fiend; Burns, too, 
 calls up the Devil to sit for his portrait, but dismisses 
 him with a pitying wish for his reformation ! 
 
 I wish to glance, now, for a few moments, at the 
 influence exerted by Burns and his works upon the 
 literature and the life of the age. It is almost super- 
 fluous to say that he is, to Scotland, even more than a 
 Shakespeare. The tongue in which he wrote is a 
 
 a eee eS a 
 
ROBERT BURNS AND HIS POETRY. 319 
 
 language, not a mere dialect. The direct outgrowth 
 of the Saxon invasion, it, or something like it, per- 
 vaded England and Scotland, alike, as late as the 
 thirteenth century. The English under Edward and 
 the Scotch under Bruce, when they clashed on the field 
 of Bannockburn, spoke a common tongue. Scotland, 
 isolated and unvisited by. further invasion, kept it with 
 little change, until Burns made it classic. In England, 
 on the other hand, the mingling of the Norman ele- 
 ment cut down its grotesque syllables, added new 
 words and softened. the terminations of old ones, until 
 it came, through the filter of Chaucer, Spenser and 
 Shakespeare, to be the English of the present day. 
 But, though thus noble and ancient in its origin, 
 around the Scottish language no rich or copious litera- 
 ture has crystallized. A stream of purest song has, 
 indeed, trickled down from the mountains and out of 
 unexplorable recesses of the past,—now murmuring 
 madrigals of the softest beauty,—now dashing over 
 rocks in cataracts of wildest passion,—anon, spreading 
 in pellucid deeps of rarest melody; but deduct this, 
 with the writings of half-a-dozen minor poets, and 
 Scottish literature, until Burns, is almost a nullity. 
 He it is who has deepened and widened and filled full 
 the rivulet of Scottish minstrelsy. He has made the 
 rugged Dorie of his fathers to be read in all lands, 
 from the backwoods of this continent to the sultry 
 plains of the Orient. And, should his mother tongue, 
 at last, be lost in the broader, stronger current of 
 English speech, he will have built the beautiful monu- 
 ment of the departed language. Long may its death 
 be delayed; for in its rough but expressive syllables 
 
320 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 are embalmed ideas of beauty which will die with it! 
 Its grave would cover the last fragments of a nation- 
 ality which has been the brave nurse of heroes and 
 which is still glorious with the deeds of Wallace and 
 Bruce. The flow of its music, now tender, now wild, 
 is caught from the winds and the woods, from the 
 burns and the birds of auld Scotland; and, if it should 
 die, the memory of its sweetness would haunt the 
 Scottish heart, like the voice of a mother who has been 
 years and years in heaven. 
 
 I think it may be shown that, to no insignificant 
 extent, H’nglish literature has been vitalized and en- 
 riched by the writings of Robert Burns. He was born 
 in the barrenest, forlornest period of that literature. 
 The golden sun of the Elizabethan era had set in a 
 murky vapor of conventionality. The star of Milton, 
 too, had gone down; and such will-o’-the-wisps as Prior, 
 Pope, Gay and Parnell had flashed abroad, only to 
 make darkness visible. Not even Thomson and Gold- 
 smith and Gray, with their contemporaries, who fol- 
 lowed, had been able to break the dense shell of arti- 
 ficiality which encrusted poetry. With the restoration 
 of the monarchy, the art of verse-making had fallen 
 into the hands of court-fools and laureates equally 
 foolish. To write poetry was to string stilted couplets 
 into fulsome eulogy of some influential person, or in 
 malignant satire of some harmless one. The heart of 
 the land seemed to be in the process of ossification. 
 Form took the place of soul; licentiousness served for 
 imagination; falsehood wore the mask and did the 
 duty of feeling. Ina word, at the beginning of the 
 latter half of the eighteenth century the body of 
 
ROBERT BURNS AND HIS POETRY. Sab 
 
 English poetry had shrunk to a mere skeleton; breath 
 it seemed to have none. Whence came that marvelous 
 infusion of new life with which, in the half century 
 following, it was suddenly thrilled? . . . I do not 
 seek to point the paternity of the last great period in 
 English literature ; but this I assert, without fear: that 
 the first star which rose in that splendid heaven of 
 genius,—which led up the shining constellations,—was 
 Robert Burns. The sky of poesy was lonely when he 
 moved to his post in the van of the starry march. But, 
 quick, came ‘Wordsworth, and beamed with a calm 
 planetary light. Coleridge arose and set the east 
 ablaze with splendor. Byron flashed, a glorious 
 meteor, among the celestial train. Scott, another 
 Mars of song, stood suddenly in the northern heaven. 
 The ray of Shelley’s star shot, trembling and delicate, 
 from the highest regions of the blue; while the wan, 
 yet beautiful, orb of Keats made its brief circuit near 
 the horizon,—and, heaven upon heaven, rose the hosts 
 of other and scarcely lesser lights. But all these found 
 their pathway made bright and easy; for Burns had 
 traversed it before them. Even into the hands of 
 Cowper, who is the first poet of the revival, had fallen. 
 the shabby little Kilmarnock book of the Scottish 
 ploughman’s songs. Not one of the others but revered 
 him as a master. Byron declared him the greatest 
 poet, next to Shakespeare, of the language ; Keats made 
 a pilgrimage of love to his grave. Fresh and brim- 
 ming from the fountain of Nature was the cup of 
 poesy which he had brought, and men, thirsty with an 
 age of drought, quaffed eagerly and drank deeply of 
 
 its crystal contents. .. . 
 21 
 
oe ’ LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 All this might have happened, even if the voice of 
 Burns had never been heard beyond his native mead- 
 ows; but none the less truly did all this follow, in 
 logical sequence, the event of his poet-birth. The new 
 dawn of British poesy reddened upon the shores of 
 morning when he stood beside the Scottish lassie, in 
 the field of the reapers, and the dream of love, born 
 of her blue eyes, rose upon him in the light of beauty 
 and melted into rhyme. 
 
 en 
 
 ae Saree lhe CUT 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. _ ae 
 
 SCIENCE AND POETRY. 
 
 From a lecture delivered before the Buffalo Society of Natural 
 Sciences, 1876. 
 
 How is it to fare with Poetry in a world transformed 
 by Science? Coleridge defined poetry as the antithesis 
 of science. It is certain that the clear, dry sky of 
 scientific knowledge is utterly unlike that vague atmos- 
 phere of dream and phantasy in which the Muse has 
 been wont to move and have her being. Her ancient 
 haunts of tradition and sweet illusion are fast breaking 
 up. Is there danger that Poetry will be driven to emi- 
 grate, like wild game when settlers come and clear 
 away the forests? It is certain that the poets have 
 not been free from apprehension on this score. Edgar 
 Allan Poe, from whose Sonnet to Science, I have 
 already quoted a couplet, puts the case thus passion- 
 ately to the innovator: ‘ Hast thou not,’ he says— 
 
 Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? 
 And driven the Hamadryad from the wood 
 To seek a shelter in some happier star? 
 Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, 
 The Elfin from the green grass, and from me 
 The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree ? 
 
324 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 And the same complaint and protest Schiller utters 
 in the person of his Max Piccolomini, in Wallenstein : 
 
 The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
 
 The fair humanities of old religion, 
 
 The power, the beauty, and the majesty, 
 
 That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, 
 
 Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, 
 
 Or chasms and watery depths ; all these have vanish’d. 
 They live no longer in the faith of reason! 
 
 And to yon starry world they now are gone, 
 Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth 
 With man as with their friend. 
 
 Leaving the poets, if we should question that re- 
 spectable oracle, the ‘ reading public,’ I think we should 
 find further ground for alarm as to the prosperity of 
 the Muse. For is it not true that, within a few years, 
 the men of science have furnished most of the reading 
 matter of the people? Moreover, does not the mind, 
 fed with the solid acquisitions of science, or stimulated 
 by its splendid discoveries, grow less and less tolerant 
 of imaginings which add nothing to stock of knowledge, 
 and melodies which convey no information? Our poets 
 ransack the universe for fresh themes, and vie with the 
 india-rubber man of the circus in the agilities of their 
 art; but, at best, the interest they arouse is languid and 
 brief. ‘The truth is,’ says the admirable author of 
 The Victorian Poets, ‘our school-girls and spinsters 
 wander down the lanes with Darwin, Huxley and 
 Spencer under their arms; or, if they carry Tennyson, 
 Longfellow and Morris, read them in the light of spec- 
 trum analysis, or test them by the economics of Mill 
 and Bain.’ 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. O20 
 
 These things we might regard as the flying scud and 
 spray of tendency which announce a coming wave. 
 And, indeed, there is an impending breaker, dark and 
 threatening enough of aspect, which men already dis- 
 cern and have named. 
 
 The scientific hypothesis which finds in matter ‘the 
 promise and potency of every form and quality of 
 life’; which announces mind as but an effluence of 
 matter, and man as differing in degree but not in kind 
 from Nature’s lowest form; which discovers the genesis 
 of man’s loftiest and sacredest ideas in blind move- 
 ments of the brute, and which, in thus bounding our 
 past, denies our future ;—this hypothesis, I say, has 
 already, with various modifications, become a creed. 
 The ablest expounders of the Evolution theory, I 
 believe, are careful to explain that, even if it shall 
 some time pass into the domain of demonstrated knowl- 
 edge, it will not say all that is to be said of man, his 
 nature and his destiny. But the disciple is generally 
 less cautious than the master, and, accordingly, there is 
 a large and growing class of intellectual men for whom 
 the high-water mark of modern knowledge is a scien- 
 tific materialism that tolerates no qualification or sup- 
 plement. J am not here to discuss the merits of the 
 philosophy of Spencer and Darwin; I do not know 
 enough, and, were I a thousand times equipped for the 
 task, I should say, Let it pass to the test of time, which 
 tries all! But, gentlemen, my whole being rises in me 
 when I assert that, if the tremendous assumption of 
 these men shall ever in its entirety become accepted, 
 evident truth, with that time there will come, also, a 
 counter-statement of science which will conserve the 
 
326 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 spiritual oxygen of our world, and save the souls of 
 men from death by asphyxiation. 
 
 It seems to me that a natural history of the poetic 
 faculty and emotion, such as has yet to be compiled, 
 will contribute largely to the affirmation of that other 
 side of truth from which the face of the absorbed 
 observer of material phenomena is necessarily turned. 
 Poetry has its basis in that portion of our nature 
 which is capable of transcending, in its cognitions, the 
 objects of observation and reason. Call this the emo- 
 tional part of us, or the spiritual, or what you will, or 
 insist that it is but a function, or form of activity, of 
 the invisible mind, and the fact still remains that 
 thereby every man that lives, or with whom history 
 acquaints us, has sustained some sort of relations to 
 that transmaterial sphere which scientists agree to 
 name the Unknowable. This fact, alone, should offer, 
 I think, at least, strong presumptive evidence that man 
 is something more than the merely material animal of 
 whom the naturalist gives his account. But let us see 
 in what manner poetry attests the spiritual nature of 
 man and bears witness of truths beyond the reach of 
 science. And here I am fortunate in being able to 
 quote the words of a writer who represents, perhaps, 
 better than any other American, the scientific school of 
 which Herbert Spencer is the greatest teacher. I refer 
 to John Fiske, author of Outlines of Cosmic Philoso- 
 phy, who, in a recently published essay, sums up the 
 latest dicta of Science as to the universe and its des- 
 tiny. ‘A senseless bubble-play of Titan forces, with 
 life, love and aspiration brought forth only to be ex- 
 tinguished,’ is ‘the awful picture,’ he says, ‘which 
 
 ee 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. yal 
 
 science shows us, and before this picture he thus 
 meditates: ‘The human mind, however “scientific” in 
 its training, must often recoil from the conclusion that 
 this is all; and there are moments when one passion- 
 ately feels that this cannot be all. On warm June 
 mornings, in green country lanes, with sweet pine-odors 
 waited in the breeze which sighs through the branches, 
 and cloud-shadows flitting over far-off blue mountains, 
 while little birds sing their love songs, and golden- 
 haired children weave garlands of wild roses; or when, 
 in the solemn twilight, we listen to wondrous harmonies 
 of Beethoven and Chopin, that stir the heart like 
 voices from an unknown world; at such times one 
 feels that the profoundest answer which science can 
 give to our questionings is but a superficial answer 
 after all. At these moments, when the world seems 
 fullest of beauty, one feels most strongly that it is but 
 the harbinger of something else,—that the ceaseless 
 play of phenomena is no mere sport of Titans, but an 
 orderly scene, with its reason for existing, its 
 
 One divine far-off event 
 To which the whole creation moves. ’ 
 
 No better illustration could be desired of the mode 
 in which the poetic sentiment or emotion hints to our 
 minds the transcendent verities of existence. Gazing 
 at a lovely landscape, or at some weird after-sunset 
 play of clouds in the western sky, we are cognizant, 
 through this emotion, of elements in the scene which 
 have no record in the books of the scientist. He can 
 tell us the geology of the distant hills over which our 
 eyes strain and our hearts yearn; he will easily explain 
 
328 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 the laws of light and of atmospheric action in accord- 
 ance with which the cloud-curtain is hung for a moment 
 between our eyes and immeasurable space; but the 
 vision which has meanwhile been ours remains a secret 
 between the seeing soul and the infinite beyond of 
 which it has had tidings. 
 
 The poetic emotion, then, as I must call it, for lack 
 of a better phrase, is that endowment of our nature— 
 possessed in a greater or less degree by universal man- 
 kind—by which you and I are enabled to take cogni- 
 zance of a spiritual side of things,—by force of which 
 come our higher yearnings, ardors, aspirations. ‘The 
 poetic faculty, again, is that gift of the poet whereby, 
 entering into the ideal world, he is able to give us 
 report of its eternal facts. And, such is the inherent 
 quality of the poet’s high themes, that language must 
 take wings of music in order to meet it and bring it 
 from the heaven of his vision down to men. Measure 
 and melody are the conditions upon which poetic 
 thought consents to be wedded to words. 
 
 This emotion, therefore, to which the poet, with his 
 vision and faculty divine, gives voice or makes appeal, 
 is at once an evidence of our higher nature and an im- 
 pulse to its development. This it is which sometimes 
 causes a flower to bloom at the dusty way-side of life, 
 or fresh fountains to spring in the crossings of the 
 desert. It is the fire of the fly; the glow of the poor 
 earth-born worm. To it, in tones of his own, each of 
 a thousand poets has spoken. In the vision of Homer, 
 we behold human conflict haloed with a heroic light, 
 while gods and mortals meet in middle sky. The 
 world-embracing stage behind which he stands whose 
 
 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. 329 
 
 poet’s eye glanced ‘from heaven to earth, from earth 
 to heaven,’ and whose pen gave 
 
 To airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name, 
 
 shows us the common world of matter and men, indeed, 
 but transfigured and lifted into true spiritual relations. 
 The song of Tennyson equally repeats, above the din 
 of modern life, its part of the immortal harmonies of 
 the ‘ choir invisible.’ 
 
 ‘Beauty,’ says Ruskin, ‘is the signature of God 
 upon all His works.’ This beauty it is the office of 
 Poetry to discover and reproduce in art. The visible 
 heaven and earth are everywhere stamped with this 
 divine seal. But it is not merely, nor chiefly, the 
 earthly beautiful which Poetry sees and celebrates. 
 With the esthetic sentiment, which takes pleasure in 
 Beauty as she is perceived by the senses, is joined in 
 the human soul an unquenchable thirst for a supernal 
 loveliness. ‘This thirst,’ said Poe, in his definition of 
 what he named ‘the poetic principle,’ ‘ belongs to the 
 immortality of man. It is at once a consequence and 
 an indication of his perennial existence. It is the 
 desire of the moth for the star. It is no mere appre- 
 ciation of the Beauty before us, but a wild effort to 
 reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic pre- 
 science of the glories beyond the grave, we struggle, by 
 multiform combinations among the things and thoughts 
 of time, to attain a portion of that loveliness whose very 
 elements, perhaps, appertain to eternity alone.’ To 
 Poetry, accordingly, the whole material creation is 
 but a garment of the eternal and infinite Beautiful. 
 
330 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 Through the thin and perishable vail of matter she 
 catches glimpses of an inner glory. Stand with her 
 when the out-streaming radiance smites her on the face, 
 and your feet tread almost on holy ground. Not far 
 off passes Religion, and enters in within the vail. 
 
 It follows, I think, if poetry be thus rooted in an 
 essential part of our nature, that it is in no real danger 
 of becoming obsolete. Science and poetry will continue 
 to co-exist, and may even become good friends. The 
 dauntless and tireless scientist will not cease to ques- 
 tion nature and push outward the lines of physical 
 knowledge; but, on the other hand, he can scarcely make 
 any serious invasion of Poetry’s spiritual domain. The 
 tide of materialism, of which we spoke before, will 
 do no harm by driving her to higher ground. And, 
 here, let me forestall possible misapprehension by re- 
 cording, once for all, my sincere though humble and 
 unintelligent homage to the modern scientific worker, 
 whose arrival among us is a bright omen of our time. 
 Who, before him, has shown a more unselfish, unwearied 
 devotion to appointed duty; a more ready loyalty to 
 truth? If that truth be sometimes a fragment rather 
 than a rounded whole; if, in his rapt contemplation of 
 the material facts of the universe, he fails to do justice 
 to its spiritual realities, let us remember that his very 
 disability is a measure of his self-sacrifice, and that 
 rarely without the payment of such penalties can spe- 
 cial study be successfully pursued. ‘That he is willing 
 thus to immolate himself on the altar of his specialty ; 
 that his capital of tireless patience and varied intellect- 
 ual resource are freely spent, if thereby he may ransom 
 a new fact from the unknown, surely entitles him to 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. Sav 
 
 the world’s gratitude. There is no money in his busi- 
 ness, nor much of popular applause. He works for his 
 work’s sake, and only in the consciousness that it will 
 add something to the common stock of knowledge does. 
 he find or seek reward. We who, without sharing his 
 toil, are permitted to enjoy its results, should at least 
 be ready to own our debt. The air is vexed, just now, 
 ‘with talk of the conflict of science with this ‘and that; 
 but who needs to be told that, while the theories and 
 speculations of scientists may well be heretical, the 
 facts and demonstrations of science can be at war with 
 no truth? The book of Nature is God’s book, and 
 men cannot study it too diligently nor draw too copi- 
 ously from its stores of wisdom. Nor do I know how 
 a man can be honest with himself and towards his 
 Maker unless he stands ready to prove all things, 
 holding fast that which is good. The things that can 
 be shaken, let them fall—the quicker the better—that 
 ‘those things which cannot be shaken may remain.’ 
 What is true of truth is equally true of poetry. No 
 extension of scientific knowledge can ever make the 
 universe less full of wonder. That knowledge, when 
 it shall have drawn its widest circle, will still be but a 
 tiniest islet in the infinite ocean of the unknown. 
 Around its shores will brood a mystery denser than 
 that which shrouded the fabled Hesperides. Whatever, 
 therefore, has been wont to stir the human heart to 
 poetic emotion is likely still to remain in undiminishe 
 quantity. Nor will the need of poetry grow perma- 
 nently less. Intellectual concentration demands its 
 counterpoise in enlargement of the imagination. An 
 abundance of the bread of prose calls for liberal 
 
332 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 draughts of the poetic wine. The world will still need 
 its knowledge transmuted to wisdom—its facts divinely 
 set on fire of the muse. 
 
 Having succeeded in lodging our Lady of the Lyre 
 in a place of safety, we may proceed to inquire what 
 relations Science and Poetry have sustained to and are 
 likely to establish with each other, and what may be 
 the prospect of ultimate alliance between the pair. 
 And, first, we note that the history of scientific prog- 
 ress discloses the scientist frequently in debt, if not to 
 the poet, to that important element of the poetic faculty 
 named the imagination. This is, indeed, implied in 
 what has been already said of scientific speculation 
 and hypothesis, which result from the effort of the 
 mind to project its guess, or intuition of truth, in 
 advance of known facts. ‘Science does not know its 
 debt to imagination,’ says Emerson in his last volume. 
 ‘Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could 
 exist without this faculty. He was himself conscious 
 of its help, which made him a prophet among the doc- 
 tors. From this vision he gave brave hints to the 
 zoologist, the botanist, and the optician.’ ‘ Have I not 
 sufficient reason to feel proud,’ exclaims the great Ger- 
 man, himself, ‘when, for twenty years, I have been 
 forced to own to myself that the great Newton, and 
 all mathematicians and august calculators with him, 
 have fallen into a decided error respecting the theory 
 of colors; and that I, amongst millions, am the only 
 one who knows the truth on this important subject?’ 
 In like manner, as the astronomer Kepler exultingly 
 confessed, it was a divine guess which gave to the 
 world his famous laws of planetary movement. ‘I care 
 
 ee eS ey 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. oar 
 
 not whether my work be read now or by posterity,’ he 
 eried. ‘I can afford to wait a century for readers, 
 when God himself has waited six thousand years for 
 an observer. I triumph. I have stolen the golden 
 secret of the Egyptians. I will indulge my sacred 
 fury.’ Manifestly here again we have a poet as well 
 as discoverer ; who, indeed, discovered by virtue of his 
 poetic faculty. 
 
 But, I think, Emerson to the contrary notwithstand- 
 ing, the scientists are now ready enough to concede the 
 extent of their obligations to the imagination. ‘The 
 instrument of discovery in science,’ Sir Benjamin 
 Brodie has termed it, ‘without the aid of which New- 
 ton would never have invented fluxions, nor Davy have 
 decomposed the earths and alkalies, nor would Colum- 
 bus have found out another continent.’ And, ‘in fact,” 
 adds Tyndall, ‘without this power our knowledge of 
 nature would be a mere tabulation of coexistencies and 
 sequences. We should still believe in the succession 
 of day and night, of summer and winter, but the soul of 
 force would be dislodged from our universe; casual rela- 
 tions would disappear, and with them that science which 
 is now binding the parts of nature to an organic whole.’ 
 
 But, even more interesting than the achievements of 
 the imagination in science, are the anticipations of 
 scientific thought and discovery to be met with in 
 poetry. It is one of the remarkable facts in the his- 
 tory of the human mind that the theory of the consti- 
 tution of matter now accepted by scientific men is 
 found projected with wonderful detail in the rolling 
 hexameters of a Roman poet, who lived a century before 
 the Christian era. The ‘atom’ of modern chemistry, 
 
334 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 hunted long and found, at last, in these latter days, in 
 the dark of its own invisibility, is identical with the 
 ultimate, indivisible, indestructible ‘seed,’ or ‘ shape,’ 
 or ‘first-beginning’ of Lucretius. From its combina- 
 tions all forms of matter proceed. ‘The whole nature 
 of these “ first-beginnings,” ’ he says, ‘lies far beneath 
 the ken of sense. Strong in their solid singleness,’ 
 they cannot be worn away, ‘though stricken by count- 
 less blows through eternity.’ It is true, the atomic 
 theory is two centuries older than Lucretius, but it’ is 
 in his poem on ‘ Nature’ that we find its elaboration, 
 every leading feature of which science has either veri- 
 fied or found to be a foreshadowing of the fact. Even 
 the modern doctrines of the nature of force and the 
 conservation of energy are predicted in this poet’s mar- 
 velous apocalypse of the mysteries of the cosmic order. 
 
 It would be easy to glean from Shakespeare a sheaf of 
 scientific auguries. Puck’s ‘girdle round the earth in 
 forty minutes’ has become a familiar citation in these 
 days of electric telegraph cables; but here is a less 
 noticed passage, which is quite as striking as a forecast 
 of the development theory—natural selection, survival 
 of the fittest, origin of species, and all: 
 
 Nature is made better by no mean, 
 But nature makes that mean: so, over that art 
 Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
 That nature makes. ... 
 We marry 
 A gentler scion to the wildest stock, 
 And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
 By bud of nobler race: This is an art 
 Which does mend nature,—change it rather; but 
 The art itself is nature.— Winter's Tale. 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. OOD 
 
 In the works of a little known English poet, who 
 died some years before Darwin published, we find a 
 still bolder statement of the latter’s theory as it refers 
 to the origin of man. It is Thomas Lovell Beddoes, 
 a man of undoubted genius, though of posthumous 
 fame, who, through a character in one of his tragedies, 
 thus speaks : 
 
 I have a bit of Miat in my soul, 
 And can myself create my little world; 
 Had I been born a four-legged child, methinks 
 
 I might have found the steps from dog to man, 
 And crept into his nature. 
 
 So much for the obligations of Science to the poets, 
 and to their peculiar weapon, the imagination. Has 
 Poetry been able to draw from Science her payment 
 of the debt? Thus far, I think, the question must be 
 given a negative answer. The poets do not yet seem 
 able to assimilate with ease the strong food cooked for 
 them in the crucible and retort of the physicist. True, 
 the spread of scientific knowledge has had its influence 
 on recent poetry. The votary of the muse, in dealing 
 with natural objects, is instinctively more truthful in 
 his descriptions than of yore. The flowers with which 
 he decks his verse betray a knowledge of botany that 
 was not always his, and he is careful to refer to the 
 naturalist before committing himself to any statement 
 of zoological fact. Numerous words, phrases, and 
 figures of speech have also found their way out of the 
 laboratory and museum to enrich the bard’s vocabulary. 
 Nay, we even see in the newspapers, now and then, a 
 violent attempt to smuggle science, wholesale, through 
 the lines of poetry, as when the enamored scientist 
 
336 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 calls on his adored ‘ highest of vertebrates’ to alleviate 
 the disturbed condition of his nerve-centers, and in 
 woful numbers tells the chemical analysis of the wasted 
 tissue her unkindness has cost him. But this sort of 
 thing, it will be admitted, does not promise much for 
 the ultimate harmony of Science and Poetry. The 
 truth is, the poets up to this time, as a friend of mine 
 recently remarked, ‘have gone to science with the aims 
 of milliners. They have borrowed from her a little 
 finery to ornament their stanzas. To point a com- 
 parison, to gild their style, to color their mysticism, 
 are the only tax they have laid upon her.’ 
 
 From this criticism, two living poets must be cor- 
 dially exempted, to wit, Emerson and Tennyson. The 
 poems of the former are distinctly imbued with the 
 modern scientific knowledge, albeit the whole mass of 
 it seems to have fallen and melted, as easily as a snow- 
 flake, in the all-embracing ocean of the poet’s idealism. 
 We need not look for any trace of materialism, at any 
 rate, in a writer who declares that ‘the higher use of 
 the material world is but to furnish types to express 
 the thoughts of the mind,’ and to whom ‘nature itself 
 is only a vast trope.’ Yet Emerson tells us how— 
 
 The gentler deities 
 Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds, 
 The innumerable tenements of beauty, 
 The miracle of generative force, 
 Far-reaching concords of astronomy 
 Felt in.the plants, and in the punctual birds; 
 Better, the linkéd purpose of the whole. 
 
 Here, too, is a strain which an English scientist has 
 taken as a fit motto for one of his profoundest dis- 
 courses on material nature: 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. 337 
 
 Hearken ! hearken ! 
 If thou wouldst know the mystic song 
 Chanted when the sphere was young. 
 Aloft, abroad, the pzan swells ; 
 
 To the open ear it sings 
 
 Sweet the genesis of things, 
 
 Of tendency through endless ages, 
 
 Of star-dust, and star-pilgrimages, 
 
 Of rounded worlds, of space and time, 
 Of the old flood’s subsiding slime, 
 
 Of chemic matter, force and form, 
 
 Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm ; 
 The rushing metamorphosis, 
 
 Dissolving all that fixture is, 
 
 Melts things that be to things that seem, 
 And solid nature to a dream. 
 
 If Emerson shows us modern materialism taken up 
 and held, so to speak, in complete solution in his larger 
 spiritualism, no less clearly does Tennyson reflect the 
 turmoil of the two still unharmonized elements. In his 
 early poem of Locksley Hall we find him exulting 
 in the scientific conquests of his age: 
 
 Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun : 
 Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh 
 the sun;— 
 
 and later, in the Jn Memoriam, acknowledging the 
 same strong inspiration, he asks himself: 
 
 Is this an hour— 
 
 A time to sicken and to swoon, 
 When Science reaches forth her arms 
 To feel from world to world, and charms 
 Her secret from the latest moon? 
 
338 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 But the grand debate of the Jn Memoriam is that 
 carried on between the suggestions of this Science on 
 the one hand and the poet’s own spiritual intuitions on 
 the other. Remember how he confronts the idea on 
 which Science would have us place such gloomy stress, 
 of the pitilessness of Nature: 
 
 Are God and Nature then at strife, 
 That Nature lends such evil dreams? 
 So careful of the type she seems, 
 
 So careless of the single life. 
 
 But this is not the worst. He has appealed to 
 Nature, and she makes answer: 
 
 ‘So careful of the type?’ But no. 
 From scarpéd cliff and quarried stone 
 She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone : 
 I care for nothing, al) shall go. 
 
 Thou makest thine appeal to me: 
 
 I bring to life, I bring to death : 
 ’ The spirit does but mean the breath : 
 I know no more.’ And he, shall he, 
 
 Man, her last work, who seemed so fair, 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies, 
 
 Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 
 
 Who trusted God was love indeed 
 
 And love Creation’s final law— 
 
 Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw 
 With ravine, shrieked against his creed— 
 
 Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills, 
 Who battled for the True, the Just, 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 
 Or seal’d within the iron hills? 
 
 ———_ —-—_ ~~ * *. = 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. 339 
 
 No more? A monster then, a dream, 
 A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
 That tear each other in their slime 
 
 Were mellow music match’d with him. 
 
 Thus far the negations of Science: the replication 
 is that of an older authority: 
 
 I trust I have not wasted breath ; 
 I think we are not wholly brain, 
 Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain 
 
 Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death; 
 
 Not only cunning casts in clay : 
 Let Science prove we are, and then 
 What matters Science unto men, 
 At least, tome? I would not stay. 
 
 Let him, the wiser man who springs 
 Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
 His action like the greater ape, 
 
 But I was born to other things. 
 
 That which we dare invoke to bless ; 
 Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt ; 
 He, They, One, All; within, without ; 
 The Power in darkness whom we guess ; 
 
 I found Him not in world or sun, 
 
 Or eagle’s wing, or insect’s eye ; 
 
 Nor thro’ the questions men may try, 
 The petty cobwebs we have spun ; 
 
 If e’er, when faith had fall’n asleep, 
 I heard a voice, ‘ Believe no more,’ 
 And heard an ever-breaking shore 
 
 That tumbled in the Godless deep; 
 
 A warmth within the breast would melt 
 The freezing reason’s colder part, 
 And like a man in wrath the heart 
 
 Stood up and answer’d, ‘I have felt.’ 
 
340 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 No, like a child in doubt and fear; 
 But that blind clamor made me wise ; 
 Then was I as a child that cries, 
 
 But, crying, knows his father near ; 
 
 And what I am beheld again 
 What is, and no man understands ; 
 And out of darkness came the hands 
 That reach thro’ Nature, moulding men. 
 
 I have read you so much of this, not alone to illus- 
 trate the impress of science on the song of the great 
 poet of our time, but also to exemplify what we have 
 already asserted as a perennial office of poetry, viz., 
 to affirm the spiritual nature of man and give expres- 
 sion to its Imextinguishable intuitions. It is plain, I 
 think, from the brief review we have given, that here, 
 as at other points of contact, the reciprocal attitude of 
 Science and Poetry is not yet all that could be desired. 
 Science, thus far, is aggressive. Poetry struggles to 
 assert herself among unfamiliar surroundings. For 
 her it is a period of transition. What prospect, if 
 any, is discernible of a better understanding between 
 the twain ? 
 
 As we have already allowed two of the poets to 
 utter their apprehensions of war, I am rejoiced to be 
 able at this point to introduce two authoritative voices 
 which prophesy peace. Luckily, too, one is that of a 
 great poet, and the other that of an eminent living 
 scientist. It is Wordsworth who has left on record 
 the words following: ‘The objects of the poet’s 
 thoughts are everywhere; though the eyes and senses 
 of men are, it is true, his favorite guides, yet he will 
 follow wherever he can find an atmosphere of sensation 
 
 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. 341 
 
 in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and 
 last of all knowledge,—it is immortal as the heart of 
 man. If the labors of the men of science should ever 
 create any material revolution, direct or indirect, in 
 our condition and in the impressions which we habitu- 
 ally receive, the poet will sleep then no more than at 
 present; he will be ready to follow the steps of the 
 man of science, not only in those general indirect 
 effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation 
 into the midst of the objects of science itself. The 
 remotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, or the 
 mineralogist will be as proper objects of the poet’s art 
 as any upon which it can be employed, if the time 
 should ever come when these things shall be familiar 
 to us, and the relations under which they are contem- 
 plated by the followers of the respective sciences shall 
 be manifestly and palpably material to us, as enjoying 
 and suffering beings. If the time should ever come 
 when what is now called science, thus familiarized to 
 men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of 
 flesh and blood, the poet will lend his divine spirit to 
 aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the being thus 
 produced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the house- 
 hold of man.’ 
 
 So far, the poet, who little dreamed, we imagine, that 
 the time for testing the truth of his remarkable pre- 
 monition would come, as it has, so soon. And now I 
 quote from Professor Tyndall, one of the broadest and 
 noblest in spirit, as he is intellectually one of the ablest 
 of contemporary men of science. He says: ‘The 
 position of science is already assured; but I think the 
 poet, also, will have a great part to play in the future 
 
342 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 of the world. To him it will be given for a long time 
 to come to fill those shores which the recession of the 
 theologic tide has left exposed; to him, when he rightly 
 understands his mission, and does not flinch from the 
 tonic discipline which it assuredly demands, we have a 
 right to look for that heightening and brightening of 
 life which so many of us need. He ought to be the 
 interpreter of that power which has hitherto filled and 
 strengthened the human heart.’ 
 
 It is certain that the conditions imagined by Words- 
 worth are soon to become actual. The vast field of 
 scientific knowledge, with its wealth of new and inspir- 
 ing facts, its marvelous discoveries, its sublime general- 
 izations, is rapidly becoming the familiar possession of 
 mankind. Into it, as Wordsworth foretold, poetry 
 must straightway enter. The poet formulates and even 
 anticipates his epoch, but cannot stay outside of it. 
 He must ever be the most modern among his contem- 
 poraries. The new material of science, therefore, will 
 be woven into the fabric of his loom. ‘The milk of 
 science will go to make the blood of the muse.’ What 
 novel forms or hues may thus be introduced into poetry, 
 we shall not know till the poet of the future tells us; 
 but some of the influences hereafter to be felt in his 
 art we may perhaps conjecture. That ‘tonic discipline,’ 
 for example, of which Prof. Tyndall speaks, and which 
 science is so apt to afford, may give us ground for 
 hope. The intellectual sanity which comes from a 
 broad study and clear views of nature must effectually 
 rid the poet of whatever morbid humors now taint his 
 verse. A corresponding enlightenment of his audi- 
 ence, moreover, will compel him to the rejection of 
 
 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. 343 
 
 whatever is spurious in feeling and thought. He will 
 not, indeed, cease to speak of. nature as she reflects 
 herself in his own soul, but he will realize for himself 
 and his race nobler, juster relations to all external 
 things. ‘The splendor of meaning that plays over the 
 visible world,’ and which it is his to interpret, must 
 increase withr the enlargement of his intellectual vision. 
 He will not slight the dire lesson of human littleness 
 which science teaches, as it never was taught before. 
 ‘Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him,’ 
 sang the bard of ancient Israel, and modern discovery 
 gives fresh and awful significance to the strain. But 
 now, even as then, there must await a larger truth to 
 be pealed forth in joyous, sublime antiphony. ‘Thou 
 hast. made him,’ breaks forth, again, the psalmist, ‘a 
 little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with 
 glory and honor.’ It will surely be for the coming 
 bard to lift, above the noise of the world’s intellectual 
 activity, a new song of spiritual cheer for humanity. 
 To him, as to none of his predecessors, will be given 
 glimpses of the divine wisdom that orders the universe 
 —readings of the eternal runes of nature. Think you 
 that science has exhausted, or can exhaust, the sense 
 of these sacred texts? For myself, I prefer to think 
 of knowledge—of- the acquisitions of the intellect— 
 rather as a means to high ends than as an end in them- 
 selves. Better than to comprehend the mathematies, 
 is to know the music, of the spheres. 
 
 In a word, it remains for Poetry to extend the am- 
 plest hospitality to the results of science; to feed her 
 insight with its revelations; to accept gratefully its 
 stimulus, its correction, its inspirations. Science, on 
 
344 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 the other hand, will recognize a higher knowledge, and 
 learn the reverence that beseems her august office. 
 The sacred vessels of the temple wherein she serves 
 she will handle as priestess, not scullion. Already the 
 signs abound of the advent of this better scientific 
 spirit. 
 Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail 
 Against her beauty? May she mix 
 
 With men and prosper! Who shall fix 
 Her pillars? Let her work prevail. 
 
 But let her know well her limitations: 
 
 Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain,— 
 She cannot fight the fear of death. 
 What is she, cut from love and faith, 
 
 But some wild Pallas from the brain 
 
 Of demons? fiery-hot to burst 
 
 All barriers in her onward race 
 
 For power. Let her know her place; 
 She is the second, not the first. 
 
 A higher hand must make her mild, 
 If all be not in vain ; and guide 
 Her footsteps, moving side by side 
 
 With Wisdom, like the younger child. 
 
 This should be the lesson and end of my discourse, 
 but, if you will allow me to reverse the usual order, 
 having drawn my moral, I will close with a story. It 
 shall be very short : 
 
 A few years ago I ascended the famous Mount Etna, 
 in Sicily. Twelve miles of rugged, up-hill driving 
 brought us from the sea-shore to the point on the 
 mountain-side where the serious work of the ascent 
 
 a 
 
 
 
SCIENCE AND POETRY. 345 
 
 begins. A little hamlet, named Nicolosi, built of lava, 
 stands here, marking the line where cultivation ends, 
 and above which the devastation of the voleano is per- 
 petual. We arrived late in the afternoon and were to 
 rest till midnight, when the start for the summit would 
 be made. I strolled from the single little inn and 
 sought the house of the venerable savant of the vil- 
 lage, Dr. Gemmelaro. He might well be called ‘the 
 old man of the mountain.’ An accomplished scientist, 
 for fifty years, I think he informed me, he had lived 
 up there, his hand always on Etna’s pulse, the watcher 
 of its uneasy slumbers, the historian of its eruptions. 
 He told me much of the volcano and his life-long vigil 
 on its side. At last, leaving the genial old gentleman, 
 I sauntered, full of scientific information, ap through 
 the village, and took a view of the region towards the 
 summit. I was visibly on the slope of the mountain, 
 the surface of which in my vicinity was composed of 
 soft ashes, utterly barren and black. Looking up- 
 wards, I could see half-a-dozen or more voleanic cones 
 which had been craters in their day, and which rose 
 like little warts on the vast side of Etna himself. The 
 
 - whole scene was one of unspeakable desolation. It 
 
 realized, somewhat, the dream of science of the ultimate 
 doom of things. Eight or nine thousand feet above, 
 towered Etna, and, while his form was wrapped in 
 clouds and mystery, his seemed a palpable and awful, 
 though invisible, presence. As I stood in the gathering 
 dusk a girl came tripping up from the village and 
 passed me, a lighted lantern in her hand. Curious to 
 learn her errand, I watched her pick her way among 
 the cinder, up the mountain. She stopped at a rude 
 
346 LECTURES: AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 shrine of lava, which I had not noticed before, and 
 which rose from a black hillock overlooking the village. 
 The shrine contained a lamp, which she carefully lit. 
 She hurried down again and homeward; but the seed 
 of light she had planted in the dark sprang up and 
 gleamed like a star. Soon the blackness of the night 
 came down on the blackness of the mountain; Nicolosi 
 and a score of villages far below went to sleep, and still 
 I watched the cheerful glimmer of the maiden’s light. 
 Set at the edge of the awful waste, a simple spark of 
 human faith and aspiration, it seemed to defy the 
 horror of the great darkness around it. I remembered 
 that, in the hidden cloud above, slept the fires of 
 Etna—that mighty smithy where Hephestus and 
 his Cyclopean helpers forged the forees of nature. 
 But a power higher than nature and stronger than its 
 merciless forces was that of which the light in the lava 
 shrine sent its glimmering message. Above the mys- 
 tery of material nature—yea, out of matter’s very 
 wreck and death—it surely hinted of infinite Life and 
 Love. 
 
 The incident came back to my mind as I sat down 
 to write of Science and Poetry. I wonder if you will 
 see in my Sicilian girl any similitude, however faint, of 
 the poetic Muse, or be willing to concede to Poetry 
 some spiritual use, such as I have tried to typify by 
 the lamp in the lava? 
 
NIAGARA FALLS BY WINTER MOONLIGHT. 347 
 
 NriaGAaRA Fatis By WINTER MOONLIGHT. 
 From the Buffalo Courier, March 6, 1861. 
 
 Nobody chooses the February moon to visit the 
 Falls by; not one in five hundred, we are persuaded, 
 knows anything about the apocalypse which is vouch- 
 safed to him who, in these glorious winter nights, seeks 
 the isle, not of Patmos, but of the Goat. 
 
 At least, not a solitary foot but ours creaked in the 
 crisp snow of the island, when we made the familiar 
 tour a few midnights ago. What gloomy grandeur 
 dwelt in that forest fastness, then! What savage 
 music the wind made, moaning through the forsaken 
 wood, and shaking the crystal castanets that dangled 
 from the icy fingers of the trees! How the full moon 
 seemed molten in its brightness, filling all heaven with 
 radiance, and doing with the snow what Shakespeare 
 said could never be done with the lily—that is, paint- 
 ing it with a whiter whiteness. No toll to pay at the 
 gateway; no importunate Jehu to cry, ‘Kerridge, sir?’ 
 none of the thousand and one devices and traps to 
 eatch your loose change; no peddlers and venders, 
 runners and loafers, to wage war upon you, till you cry 
 for quarter, and get it by paying quarters ;—nothing 
 of all these—which are the summer complaint of vis- 
 
2348 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 itors at the Falls—is to be endured, now. Winter, 
 with its whip of frost, has scourged the money-chang- 
 ers from the place, and, in the temple of Nature, built 
 around Nature’s grandest altar, there is loneliness and 
 Sabbath quiet. 
 
 You break the crust of the glittering, crisp snow, 
 passing through the wood that bars the moon with its 
 bare maple boughs, or hides it with masses of dark 
 hemlock foliage, and, at last, you stop and listen. The 
 everlasting song of Niagara rises in the night. It is 
 high in mid-air when you hear it first,—a column of 
 sound, as it were, stretching massive and unchangeable 
 into heaven. But, standing at the brink, it is the 
 depth of the din which strikes you. The thunder of 
 the cataract seems to boom up out of the earth’s very 
 center, as if from some tremendous, unfathomable foun- 
 tain of sound. : 
 
 The earth was quiet with snow, and the heaven was 
 serene and bright with stars; and wilder, by contrast, 
 in that dim, uncertain light, seemed to rage the battle 
 of the waters. That is the first impression of the 
 scene—a battle. Away in the dark are of the Horse- 
 shoe is the center of the conflict ; above, is a Balaklava, 
 across which there are wild charges and skirmishings 
 and retreats;—and in every direction there is tumult 
 and the mad zeal of battle. Up from this stormy 
 chaos, and out of the bewilderment of soul and sense, 
 rises at last the true conception of Niagara in its might 
 and unity. One might think that Nature had ordained 
 the cataract to be the perpetual embodiment of the 
 spirit which dwelt of old in the continent, while it was 
 yet undiscovered by civilization. The tide of progress 
 
NIAGARA FALLS BY WINTER MOONLIGHT. 349 
 
 and human empire gradually oversweeps the land, from 
 east to west, but Niagara still breasts the current and 
 is untamed by it. The solitude of the primeval woods, 
 the wilderness and the savage glory of nature, which 
 have passed away elsewhere, still find a fitting voice 
 and expression in Niagara. 
 
 But the moonlight showed us, also, that there is a 
 power which has the audacity to stand in warlike atti- 
 tude, even against Niagara. It has built its great 
 mounds of defense at the base of the cataract, and, 
 night by night, has stretched white ramparts around 
 the waters, and reared its gleaming towers, amid the 
 very fury of the assaulting wave. The moon shone on 
 the icy fortifications, and changed fantastic pinnacles 
 and ridges and cornices of marvelous device to glit- 
 tering silver, and the feats of oriental magic paled 
 in glory before the work of the enchantment of the 
 frost. 
 
 There was another wonder. It was long before we 
 discovered it,—the spectral child of Mist and Moon- 
 light; but when we had watched and waited and 
 almost despaired, suddenly the chasm beneath was 
 spanned by the faery arch of the Lunar Bow. It held 
 its perfect arc of lambent light between two rugged 
 bergs that rose, like piers of the magic bridge, out of 
 the darkness. So soft, so tender were its half-tinted 
 hues, with such a wan, phantom-like beauty it hung 
 above the war of waters, it was as if Love hovered 
 over the couch of Madness. They do not yet know all 
 about the cataract who have not seen this strange and 
 gentle offspring of Niagara, bending over the foam and. 
 radiant ‘ with moon-tints of purple and pearl.’ 
 
350 LECTURES AND MISCELLANY. 
 
 THE GREAT STORM. 
 
 From the Buffalo Courier, January, 1864. 
 
 Our exchanges for the past few days have come 
 to us crowded with freezing recitals relative to the 
 great storm which officiated at the birth of the New 
 Year. The cruelest convulsions of nature are more 
 merciful than those which owe their origin to human 
 sources, and thus the ravages of frost and tempest over 
 half a continent will soon be forgotten in the raging of 
 that more pitiless and protracted storm which sweeps 
 the national heaven. Yet the war of the elements 
 which has just ceased is certainly a phenomenon of 
 more than ordinary character. We have not heard, 
 as yet, from the terrific snow-hurricane while it was 
 still in its boisterous infancy, but, days before it strode, 
 colossal, into this longitude, we know that it was stalk- 
 ing over the prairies, and gathering giant strength in 
 its gymnastic exercises beyond the Mississippi. 
 
 Nursed, probably, among the snows and cliffs of the 
 Rocky Mountains, it started, about Wednesday of last 
 week, eastward on its mysterious errand. Its path was 
 at least five hundred miles—perhaps a thousand— 
 wide, and Green Bay and Memphis simultaneously 
 
 
 
THE GREAT STORM. 351 
 
 shivered under its icy breath. Eastward it came,—not 
 so fast as might have been expected, but rather with a 
 sort of stately deliberation, which beseemed its resist- 
 less and imperial might. In its stormy march upon 
 Buffalo, the telegraph was nearly two days its herald. 
 Nor was the worst over when all shuddering humanity 
 had recoiled before the furious assault of its vanguard. 
 One, two, three days, and as many nights, came up 
 the howling, shrieking, whirling, rushing and dashing 
 reinforcements of the hurricane. And when one line 
 of tempestuous battle had charged and broken itself 
 on opposing matter, and had passed, not to the rear, 
 but away, wildly again as ever, to the front, the next, 
 bristling with bayonets of frost, and white with ban- . 
 ners of snow, was already upon the swift heels of its 
 predecessor. Thus, for three days, as we have said, 
 passed the rushing, impetuous procession of the great 
 storm, and in like manner it seems to have hurled 
 itself still eastward, until its passion was cooled off, 
 most likely, in the Atlantic. 
 
 In sooth, the year has had a stormy birth. It came 
 to us out of the very lap of the tempest. But, inas- 
 much as soothsayers differ as to the interpretation of 
 auguries, we choose to take for a good omen the storm 
 which celebrated the entry upon the stage of time of 
 the young year 1864. 
 

 
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