Children's Stories in American Literature, 1660-1860 Part 5

After Hawthorne's return to America he began two other novels, one founded upon the old legend of the elixir of life. This story was probably suggested to him by Th.o.r.eau, who spoke of a house in which Hawthorne once lived at Concord having been, a century or two before, the abode of a man who believed that he should never die. This subject was a charming one for Hawthorne's peculiar genius, but the story, with another, _The Dolliver Romance_, was interrupted by the death of Hawthorne in 1864.

In point of literary art the romances of Hawthorne are the finest work yet done in America, and their author was a man of high imagination, lofty morality, and pure ideals; an artist in the n.o.blest meaning of the word.

CHAPTER IX

GEORGE BANCROFT

1800-1891

Seventy years ago the Round Hill School at Northampton, Ma.s.s., was perhaps the most famous school in New England. The founder, George Bancroft, had modelled it upon a celebrated school in Switzerland, in the hope that it would prove a starting-point for a broader system of elementary training than had yet existed in America, and everything was done to develop the physical and moral, as well as the mental, traits of the pupils. The school was beautifully situated, commanding a superb view, and had, besides the school-rooms, a gymnasium and play-rooms that were kept warm in cold weather and furnished with tools for carpentering. Here the boys could make bows and arrows, squirrel-traps, kites, sleds, and whatever their fancy dictated. There were large play-grounds on the slopes of the hill, and here was the village of "Cronyville," every house, hut, or shanty in which had been built and was owned by the boys themselves. There were many varieties of architecture in "Cronyville," but each dwelling had at least a large chimney and a small store-room. After school hours each shanty was its owner's castle, where entertainments were held, and the guests feasted with roasted corn, nuts, or apples, which the entire company had helped to prepare on the hearth of the wide chimney. Sometimes the feast was enlivened by recitations, poems, and addresses by the pupils, among whom was at one time the future historian, John Lothrop Motley, and very often the festivities would end in one of those earnest talks that boys fall into sometimes when tired out with play.

Bancroft's a.s.sistant and partner in the school was Dr. Cogswell, who superintended the course of study, which was carried out by the best teachers procurable in America, England, and France. The boys were in the main good students, some of them brilliant ones, and they enjoyed so much freedom that their spirits gained them sometimes an unenviable reputation. The solemn keeper of a certain inn on the stage line between Northampton and Boston suffered so much from their pranks that he refused to allow them to stop over night, and only consented to give them dinner upon promise of good behavior.

The school became so popular that the best families in all parts of the country sent their boys there, but, financially, it was not a success, and after seven years' trial Bancroft was forced to abandon it, though his partner struggled on a few years longer. If the experiment had been entirely successful the cause of education might have been advanced fifty years ahead of the old method, for both founders were men devoted to the cause of education and longed to see newer and broader methods supersede the old ones.

As a boy Bancroft had studied at the Exeter Academy; finis.h.i.+ng his course there he entered Harvard at thirteen, was graduated in his seventeenth year, and a year later was sent abroad by Harvard to fit himself for a tutors.h.i.+p in the University. During his four years'

absence he studied modern languages and literatures, Greek philosophy and antiquities, and some natural history. But he made history the special object of study, and bent all his energies to acquiring as wide a knowledge as possible of the sources and materials that make up the records of modern history. During his vacations he visited the different countries of Europe, travelling in regular student fas.h.i.+on.

He would rise at dawn, breakfast by candlelight, and then fill the morning with visits to picture galleries, cathedrals, and all the wonders of foreign towns; after a light luncheon he would start again on his sight-seeing, or visit some person of note, meeting during his travels almost every distinguished man in Europe. At night, if not too tired, he would study still politics, languages, and history, and when he returned to America he had made such good use of his time that he was equipped for almost any position in its intellectual life.

His obligations to Harvard led him to accept a tutors.h.i.+p there, which, however, proved so distasteful to him that he only held it one year.

It was after this experience that he founded his school at Round Hill.

During the years that he was trying to make the Round Hill school a model for boys' schools, the idea of his work as the historian of the United States came to him. Undismayed by the scope of the work, which he meant should include the history of the United States from the time of the landing of Columbus to the adoption of the Const.i.tution in 1789, Bancroft, month after month, settled the plan more definitely in his mind; and when the time came for him to begin the work he only looked forward eagerly to the task of writing the records of three hundred years of the world's progress during the most absorbing period known to history. It is doubtful if at this time there was any other man living better qualified for this task than Bancroft. He had been a student of history and politics since boyhood. He had traced the stream of history from its sources in the East through the rise of the great modern nations. He had mastered the politics of the ancient world, whose language, literature, and art were also familiar to him, and civilized Europe had been his field of study during the years which leave the most profound impressions upon the mind.

To him the rise and establishment of the United States as a great nation presented itself as one of the most brilliant pa.s.sages of the world's history, and no labor seemed tiresome which should fittingly chronicle that event.

Besides his literary requirements Bancroft possessed eminent qualities for practical life. He was successively Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, Secretary of the Navy, and for a time Acting-Secretary of war; he served his country as Minister to Great Britain. He was made Minister to Prussia and afterward Minister to Germany when that country took its place as a united nation. Some of the most important treaties between the United States and foreign powers were made during Bancroft's diplomatic career, and in every act of his political life showed a talent for practical affairs. While he was Secretary of the Navy he founded the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Previous to this there was no good system by which the boys who desired to enter the navy could receive instruction in any other branch than that of practical seamans.h.i.+p. In the old navy the middies were taught, while afloat, by the chaplains, who gave them lessons in odd hours in writing, arithmetic, and navigation; if the pupils were idle they were reported to the captain, whose discipline was far from gentle. A boy eager to learn could pick up a great deal by asking questions and noticing what was going on about him, and sometimes the officers would volunteer their help in a difficult subject. Later each s.h.i.+p had one regular school-master, who made the voyage with the s.h.i.+p, twenty middies being appointed to each man-of-war. This system was superseded by schools, which were established at the different navy-yards, and which the boys attended in the intervals of sea duty; but, as in the case of the other methods, the instruction was desultory, and the pupils had not the advantage of education enjoyed by the cadets of the West Point Military Academy, though it was evident the necessity for it was the same.

Bancroft brought to the office of Secretary of the Navy his old love for broad principles of education, and eight months after he took office the United States Naval Academy was in full operation, with a corps of instructors of the first merit, and with a complement of pupils that spoke well for the national interest in the cause. At first the course was for five years, the first and last of which only were spent at the Academy and the rest at sea, but this was later modified to its present form. Bancroft's generous policy placed the new inst.i.tution upon a firm basis, and it became at once a vital force in the life of the United States Navy.

Bancroft began his history while still at Round Hill, and published the first volume in 1834. Previous to beginning his history he had published a small volume of verse, a Latin Reader, and a book on Greek politics for the use of the Round Hill School, and various translations and miscellaneous writings in the different periodicals of the day. But none of these had seemed serious work to him, and he brought to his history a mind fresh to literary labor, and a fund of general information that was invaluable.

While he was minister to Great Britain he visited the state archives of England, France, and Germany for additional historical material.

From this time he devoted himself as exclusively to his work as the diplomatic positions he held would allow.

His official administration in his own country was also far-reaching.

Besides the establishment of the Naval Academy, it was he who, while acting as Secretary of War _pro tem._, gave the famous order for General Taylor to move forward to the western boundary of Texas, which had been annexed to the United States after seceding from Mexico and setting up as a republic. General Taylor's appearance on the borders was the signal to Mexico that the United States intended to defend the new territory, and eventually led to the war with Mexico, by which the United States received the territory of New Mexico and California.

When the lookout on the Pinta called out "Land ho!" he really uttered the first word of American history, and Bancroft's narrative begins almost at this point. The first volume embraces the early French and Spanish voyages; the settlement of the Colonies; descriptions of colonial life in New England and Virginia; the fall and restoration of the house of Stuart in England, which led to such important results in American history, and Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, which was the first note of warning to England that the American Colonies would not tolerate English injustice without a protest. To the reader who loves to find in history facts more marvellous than any imaginations of fairy lore, the first volume of Bancroft's history must ever be a region of delight. The picturesque figure of Columbus fronting undismayed the terrors of that unknown sea, which the geographers of the period peopled with demons and monsters; the adventures of the French and Spanish courtiers in search of fabled rivers and life-giving fountains; the trials of the gold-seekers, De Soto, Navarez, Cabeca de Vaca, and others, who sought for the riches of the romantic East; and the heroic suffering of those innumerable bands who first looked upon the wonders of the New World, and opened the way to its great career, are such stories as are found in the sober history of no other country. To the Old World, whose beginnings of history were lost in the mists of the past, this vision of the New World, with its beauty of mountains, river, and forest, with its inexhaustible wealth and its races yet living in the primitive conditions of remote antiquity, was indeed a wonder hardly to be believed. It is something to be present at the birth of a new world, and Bancroft has followed the voyagers and settlers in their own spirit, made their adventures his own, and given to the reader a brilliant as well as faithful picture of the historic beginning of the American continent.

In his second volume Bancroft takes up the history of the Dutch in America; of the occupations of the Valley of the Mississippi by the French; of the expulsion of the French from Canada by the English, and the minor events which went toward the accomplishment of these objects. Here are introduced the romantic story of Acadia and the picturesque side of Indian life. "The Indian mother places her child, as spring does its blossoms, upon the boughs of the trees while she works," says Bancroft in describing the sleeping-places of the Indian babies, and we see the same sympathetic touch throughout his descriptions of these dark children of the forest, to whom the white man came as a usurper of their rights and destroyer of their woodland homes.

The remaining volumes of the history consist almost entirely of the causes which led up to the American Revolution, the Revolution itself, and its effect upon Europe. One-half of the whole work is devoted to this theme, which is treated with a philosophical breadth that makes it comparable to the work of the greatest historians. Here we are led to see that, besides its influence upon the history of the New World, the American Revolution was one of the greatest events in the world's history; that it followed naturally from the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain and the Revolution of the English people against the tyranny of Charles I., and that, like them, its highest mission was to vindicate the cause of liberty.

In two other volumes, ent.i.tled _History of the Formation of the Const.i.tution of the United States_, Bancroft gave a minute and careful description of the consolidation of the States into an individual nation after the Revolution, and the draughting and adopting of the Const.i.tution by which they have since been governed. This, with some miscellaneous papers, among which may be mentioned the dramatic description of the Battle of Lake Erie, comprise the remainder of Bancroft's contribution to American literature.

Bancroft said that there were three qualities necessary to the historian: A knowledge of the evil in human nature; that events are subordinate to law, and that there is in man something greater than himself. To these qualifications, which he himself eminently possessed, may be added that of untiring industry, which distinguished his work. A pa.s.sage was written over and over again, sometimes as many as eight times, until it suited him. And he was known to write an entire volume over. He carried his labor into his old age, being eighty-four years of age when he made the last revision of the history which had occupied fifty years of his life.

His diplomatic career also extended over many years, he being seventy-four when at his own request the Government recalled him from the Court of Berlin where he was serving as Minister.

Bancroft died in 1891, in his ninety-second year. The most famous of his own countrymen united in tributes to his memory, and the sovereigns of Europe sent wreaths to place upon his coffin. As historian, diplomatist, and private citizen, he had honored his country as is the privilege of few.

CHAPTER X

EDGAR ALLAN POE

1809-1849

In the play-ground of an old-fas.h.i.+oned English school the boy Edgar Allan Poe, then in his ninth year, first entered that world of day-dreams, whose wonders he afterward transcribed so beautifully in his prose and poetry. The school was situated in the old town of Stoke Newington, and the quaint, sleepy village, with its avenues shaded by ancient trees and bordered by fragrant shrubberies, and with its country stillness broken only by the chime of the church-bell tolling the hour, seemed to the boy hardly a part of the real world. In describing it in after years he speaks of the dream-like and soothing influence it had upon his early life. The school building, also the village parsonage, as the master of the school was a clergyman, had a similar effect; it was a large, rambling house, whose pa.s.sages and rooms had a labyrinthine irregularity which charmed the young student and made him regard it almost as a place of enchantment. It had many nooks and corners in which one might lose one's self and dream day-dreams out of the books, poetry and history, with which it was pretty well stocked. The school-room itself was low-walled and ceiled with oak, and filled with desks and benches that had been hacked and hewed by generations of boys. It was of great size, and seemed to Poe the largest in the world. In this room he studied mathematics and the cla.s.sics, while in the play-ground outside, which was surrounded by brick walls topped with mortar and broken gla.s.s, he spent many of his leisure hours, taking part in those sports so loved by the English school-boy. The boys were allowed beyond the grounds only three times in a week; twice on Sunday, when they went to church, and once during the week, when, guarded by two ushers, they were taken a solemn walk through the neighboring fields. All the rest of life lay within the walls that separated the school from the village streets. In this quiet spot Poe spent five years of his life, speaking of them afterward as most happy years and rich in those poetic influences which formed his character.

In his thirteenth year he left England and returned to America with his adopted parents, Mr. and Mrs. Allan, of Baltimore, spending the next four or five years of his life partly in their beautiful home and partly at school in Richmond.

The parents of Poe had died in his infancy. They had both possessed talent, his mother having been an actress of considerable repute, and from them he inherited gentle and winning manners and a talent for declamation, which, combined with his remarkable personal beauty, made him a favorite in the Allan home, where he was much petted and caressed. The child returned the interest of his adopted parents, and though he was sometimes wilful and obstinate he never failed in affection. To Mrs. Allan especially he always showed a devotion and grat.i.tude that well repaid her for the love and care she had bestowed upon the orphan child.

Though fond of books, especially books of poetry, and loving to be alone in some quiet place where he could indulge in the day-dreams that formed so large a part of his life, Poe yet had the fondness of a healthy boy for athletic sports, and some of his feats of strength are still found recorded in the old newspapers of Baltimore. Once on a hot day he swam a distance of seven miles on the James River against a swift tide; in a contest he leaped twenty-one feet on a level, and in other feats of strength he also excelled.

He was very fond of animals, and was always surrounded by pets which returned his affection with interest, and which, with the flowers he loved to tend and care for, took up many of his leisure hours.

When he was seventeen Poe entered the University of Virginia, where he remained not quite a year, distinguis.h.i.+ng himself as a student of the cla.s.sics and modern languages. Upon his return to Baltimore he had a disagreement with his foster-father because of some college debts, and though Poe was very much in the wrong he refused to admit it, and, leaving the house in a fit of anger, went to live with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm. He had already published a volume of poems, and now being forced to depend upon himself he issued a second edition. But this brought him neither fame nor money, and after a two years' struggle with poverty he was glad to accept a cadets.h.i.+p at West Point, obtained for him through the influence of Mr. Allan. Mrs. Allan had in the meantime died, and in her death Poe lost his best friend, one who had been ever ready to forgive his faults, to believe in his repentance, and to have faith in his promises of amendment.

Poe was charmed with the life at West Point, and in his first enthusiasm decided that a soldier's career was the most glorious in the world. The hard study, the strict discipline, the rigid law and order of cadet life seemed only admirable, and he soon stood at the head of his cla.s.s. But it was impossible that this enthusiasm should last long. Poe was endowed by nature with the dreamy and artistic temperament of the poet, and discipline and routine could not fail to become in a short time unbearable. When this period arrived the prospective life of the soldier lost its charm, and he was seized with a desire to leave the Academy and bid a final farewell to military life. It was impossible to do this without the consent of his guardian, and as Mr. Allan refused this, Poe was forced to carry his point in his own way. This he did by lagging in his studies, writing poetry when he should have been solving problems, and refusing point blank to obey orders. Military discipline could not long brook this.

Poe was court-martialed, and, pleading guilty, was discharged from the Academy, disgraced but happy. During his stay there he had published a third edition of his poems, containing a number of pieces not included in the other editions. It was dedicated to his fellow-cadets, and was subscribed for by many of the students.

Almost immediately after his departure from West Point, Poe went to live with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, and her daughter Virginia, who afterward became his wife; and from this time forward he never seems to have had any serious idea of a career otherwise than literary. In 1832, when he was in his twenty-fourth year, prizes were offered by a Baltimore paper for the best short story and best poem that should be presented. Among the material offered in compet.i.tion the judges found a small collection of tales bound together, and written in neat Roman characters. These stories were the last ones read by the committee which had about decided that there had been nothing offered worthy the prize; their unmistakable signs of genius were instantly recognized.

It was decided that the prize of one hundred dollars belonged to this author, and out of the series the story ent.i.tled _A Ma.n.u.script Found in a Bottle_ was selected as the prize tale, though all were so excellent that it was difficult to determine which was best. This little volume had been submitted by Poe, and when the poetry came to be examined it was found also that the best poem in the collection was his. He was not, however, awarded the prize for poetry, that being given to another compet.i.tor, whose work the committee thought worthy the second prize, in view of the fact that Poe had obtained the first.

It was in this manner that Poe was introduced to the world of literature, his previous productions having excited no attention other than that generally given to the work of a clever or erratic boy. The workmans.h.i.+p of these stories was so fine and the genius so apparent as to give them a distinct place in American fiction, a place to which at that time the promise of Hawthorne pointed. Besides the reputation and money thus earned, the story brought him a stanch friend in the person of Mr. Kennedy, one of the members of the committee, who, from that time, was devoted to the interests of the young author.

Poe now became busy with the composition of those beautiful tales which appeared from time to time in the periodicals of the day, and which speedily won him a reputation both in America and Europe. He was also employed in editorial work for different magazines, and became known as the first American critic who had made criticism an art. It was his dream at this time to establish a magazine of his own, and for many years one project after another with this object in view was tried and abandoned. He was never able to start the magazine and felt the disappointment keenly always. Through all his disappointments he still lived much in that dream-world which had always been so real to him, and much of his best work found there its inspiration. His exquisite story of _Ligeia_ came to him first in a dream. This world, so unreal to many, was to Poe as real as his actual life. Like Coleridge in English literature, he had the power of presenting the visions which came to him in sleep or in his waking dreams, surrounded by their own atmosphere of mystery and unreality, thus producing an effect which awed as well as fascinated. No other American writer has ever brought from the dream-world such beautiful creations, which charm and mystify at the same time, and force the most unimaginative reader to believe for the time in the existence of this elusive realm of faery.

Poe's poems have this same character, and found their inspiration in the same source.

While engaged in editorial work in New York Poe wrote his first great poem, _The Raven_, which was first published under an a.s.sumed name.

It was not until he recited the poem by request at a gathering of the literary workers of New York that his authors.h.i.+p was suspected.

Immediately afterward the poem was published under his name. It was regarded by critics in England and America as ill.u.s.trating the highest poetic genius. From this time Poe, who had hitherto been ranked among the best prose writers of his native land, now took precedence among the poets. It is, indeed, as a poet that he is always thought of first. It was during the next five years after the publication of _The Raven_ that he produced the series of remarkable poems that has given him immortality. _The Bells_, the original draft of which consisted of only eighteen lines, is, perhaps, next to _The Raven_, the poem that has brought him the most fame. But the number of exquisite shorter poems which he produced would in themselves give him the highest rank as a poet. Chief among these is the little idyll, _Annabel Lee_, a transcription of the ideal love which existed between Poe and his young wife.

While engaged in literary work in New York Poe lived for the greater part of the time in the suburb of Fordham, in an unpretentious but charming cottage, bowered in trees and surrounded by the flower garden, which was the especial pride of the poet and his wife. Perhaps the happiest days of his life were spent in this quiet place, to which he would retire after the business of the day was over, and occupy himself with the care of the flowers and of the numerous pet birds and animals, which were regarded as a part of the family.

Over this otherwise happy existence hung always the clouds of poverty and sickness, his wife having been an invalid for many years. It was in this little cottage, at a time when Poe's fortunes were at their lowest ebb, that his wife died amid poverty so extreme that the family could not even afford a fire to heat the room in which she lay dying.

Poe remained at Fordham a little over two years after his wife's death, leaving it only a few months before his own death, in October, 1849.

Poe is undoubtedly to be ranked among the greatest writers of American literature. His prose works would grace any literary period; his poetry is alive with the fire and beauty of genius, and his criticisms marked a new era in critical writing in America.