American Men of Mind. Burton Egbert Stevenson

near Tarrytown, New York, November 28, 1859.

      Cooper, James Fenimore. Born at Burlington, New Jersey, September 15, 1789; entered Yale, 1802, but left after three years; midshipman in United States navy, 1808–11, when he resigned his commission; published first novel, "Precaution," anonymously, 1820, and followed it with many others; died at Cooperstown, New York, September 14, 1851.

      Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Born at Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804; graduated at Bowdoin College, 1825; served in Custom House at Boston, 1838–41; at Brook Farm, 1841; settled at Concord, Massachusetts, 1843; surveyor of the port of Salem, 1846–49; United States consul at Liverpool, 1853–57; published "Twice-Told Tales," 1837; "Mosses from an Old Manse," 1846; "The Scarlet Letter," 1850; "The House of the Seven Gables," 1851; and a number of other novels and collections of tales; died at Plymouth, New Hampshire, May 19, 1864.

      Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Born at Litchfield, Connecticut, June 14, 1812; educated at Hartford, Connecticut; taught school there and at Cincinnati; published "Uncle Tom's Cabin," 1852; "Dred," 1856; and a number of other novels; died at Hartford, Connecticut, July 1, 1896.

      Clemens, Samuel Langhorne. Born at Florida, Missouri, November 30, 1835; apprenticed to printer, 1847; alternated between mining and newspaper work, until the publication of "Innocents Abroad," 1869, made him famous as a humorist; died at Redding, Connecticut, April 22, 1910; published many collections of short stories and several novels.

      Bancroft, George. Born at Worcester, Massachusetts, October 3, 1800; graduated at Harvard, 1817; collector of the port of Boston, 1838–41; Democratic candidate for governor of Massachusetts, 1844; secretary of the navy, 1845–46; minister to Great Britain, 1846–49; minister to Berlin, 1867–74; published first volume of his "History of the United States," 1834, last volume, 1874; died at Washington, Jan. 17, 1891.

      Prescott, William Hickling. Born at Salem, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796; published "History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella," 1838; "Conquest of Mexico," 1843; "Conquest of Peru," 1847; "History of the Reign of Philip II," 1858; died at Boston, January 28, 1859.

      Motley, John Lothrop. Born at Dorchester (now part of Boston), Massachusetts, April 15, 1814; graduated at Harvard, 1831; studied abroad, 1831–34; United States minister to Austria, 1861–67, and to Great Britain, 1869–70; published "Rise of the Dutch Republic," 1856; "History of the United Netherlands," 1868; "Life and Death of John of Barneveld," 1874; died in Dorset, England, May 29, 1877.

      Parkman, Francis. Born at Boston, September 16, 1823; graduated at Harvard, 1844; published "The Conspiracy of Pontiac," 1851, and continued series of histories dealing with the French in America to "A Half Century of Conflict," 1892; died at Jamaica Plain, near Boston, November 8, 1893.

      Alcott, Amos Bronson. Born at Wolcott, Connecticut, November 29, 1799; a book-peddler and school-teacher, conducting a school in Boston, 1834–37; removed to Concord, 1840; published "Orphic Sayings," 1840; "Tablets," 1868; "Concord Days," 1872; "Table-Talk," 1877; "Sonnets and Canzonets," 1882; died at Boston, March 4, 1888.

      Alcott, Louisa May. Born at Germantown, Pennsylvania, November 29, 1832; teacher in early life and army nurse during Civil War; published "Little Women," 1868; "Old-Fashioned Girl," 1869; "Little Men," 1871, and many other children's stories; died at Boston, March 6, 1888.

      Fuller, Sarah Margaret, Marchioness Ossoli. Born at Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, May 23, 1810; edited Boston Dial, 1840–42; literary critic New York Tribune, 1844–46; published "Summer on the Lakes," 1843; "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," 1845; "Papers on Art and Literature," 1846; went to Europe, 1846; married Marquis Ossoli, 1847; drowned off Fire Island, July 16, 1850.

      Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Born at Boston, Massachusetts, May 25, 1803; graduated at Harvard, 1821; Unitarian clergyman at Boston, 1829–32; commenced career as lecturer, 1833, and continued for nearly forty years; edited the Dial, 1842–44; published "Nature," 1836; "Essays," 1841; "Poems," 1846; "Representative Men," 1850; and other books of essays and poems; died at Concord, Massachusetts, April 27, 1882.

      Thoreau, Henry David. Born at Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817; graduated at Harvard, 1837; lived alone at Walden Pond, 1845–47; published "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers," 1849; "Walden, or Life in the Woods," 1854; died at Concord, May 6, 1862. Several collections of his essays and letters were published after his death.

      Curtis, George William. Born at Providence, Rhode Island, February 24, 1824; joined the Brook Farm Community, 1842, and afterwards spent some years in travel; published "Nile Notes of a Howadji," "The Howadji in Syria," "The Potiphar Papers," and other books; prominent as an anti-slavery orator and as the editor of "Harper's Weekly"; died at West New Brighton, Staten Island, August 31, 1892.

      Greeley, Horace. Born at Amherst, New Hampshire, February 3, 1811; founded New York Tribune, 1841; member of Congress from New York, 1848–49; candidate of Liberal-Republican and Democratic parties for President, 1872; died at Pleasantville, Westchester County, New York, November 29, 1872.

CHAPTER III

       Table of Contents

WRITERS OF VERSE

       Table of Contents

      "Poetry," says the Century dictionary, "is that one of the fine arts which addresses itself to the feelings and the imagination by the instrumentality of musical and moving words"; and that is probably as concise a definition of poetry as can be evolved. For poetry is difficult to define. Verse we can describe, because it is mechanical; but poetry is verse with a soul added.

      It is for this very reason that there is so wide a variance in the critical estimates of the work of individual poets. The feelings and imagination of no two persons are exactly the same, and what will appeal to one will fail to appeal to the other; so that it follows that what is poetry for one is merely verse for the other. Tastes vary in poetry, just as they do in food. Indeed, poetry is a good deal like food. We all of us like bread and butter, and we eat it every day and get good, solid nourishment from it; but only the educated palate can appreciate the refinements of caviar, or Gorgonzola cheese, or some rare and special vintage. So most of us derive a mild enjoyment from the works of such poets as Longfellow and Tennyson and Whittier; but it requires a trained taste to appreciate the subtle delights of Browning or Edgar Allan Poe.

      Now the taste for the simple and obvious is a natural taste—the child's taste, healthy, and, some will add, unspoiled; but poetry must be judged by the nicer and more exacting standard, just as all other of the fine arts must. I wonder if you have ever read what is probably the most perfect lyric ever written by an American? I am going to set it down here as an example of what poetry can be, and I want you to compare your favorite poems, whatever they may be, with it. It is by Edgar Allan Poe and is called

      TO HELEN

      Helen, thy beauty is to me

       Like those Nicæan barks of yore;

       That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,

       The weary, wayworn wanderer bore

       To his own native shore.

      On desperate seas long wont to roam;

       Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

       Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home

       To the glory that was Greece

       And the grandeur that was Rome.

      Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche

       How statue-like I see thee stand,

       The agate lamp within thy hand!

       Ah, Psyche, from the regions which

       Are Holy Land!

      In 1821—the same year which saw the publication of The Spy, the first significant American