Stories of Authors, British and American

Part 1

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+-----------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | | been preserved. | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | | | +-----------------------------------------------------------+

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Stories of Authors

British and American

BY EDWIN WATTS CHUBB Professor of English Literature in the Ohio University.

ILLUSTRATED

New York STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY 1910

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1910 BY STURGIS & WALTON COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1910

Reprinted May, 1910

PREFACE

The purpose of this book is to help in making literature and the makers of literature alive and interesting. Few schools have libraries including the bound volumes of the magazines of the past quarter of a century. But what an aid such a collection is to the appreciation of literature! The dignified and abbreviated history of literature cannot indulge in such delightful gossip as is found in the freer essay and fuller biography. To show the excellences of the art and the lovableness of the artist rather than to hunt for defects is the duty and the delight of the teacher of literature. This does not mean, however, that one dare never see the weaker side, the foibles and eccentricities of the man of genius.

I like Macaulay none the less because his cock-sureness and loquacity came dangerously near to making him a bore; Dr. Johnson grows in interest when I learn that he found it a continual and almost hopeless struggle to become an early riser, that he feared death, and could drink tea as long as the housekeeper could brew it; that Tennyson was a slave to tobacco and acted like a yokel when the newly-wedded Müllers entertained him at breakfast does not detract from my enjoyment of the exquisite pathos of Tears, Idle Tears; that the marriage of the Brownings was a runaway romance is a whole commentary of explanation when I read their poems of romantic love; that Longfellow is said to have declined an invitation to the Adirondacks because he was told that Emerson was to carry a gun is really far more delightful, and I may add valuable, information than to know the exact date of the birth of either. Of knowledge such as this is the kingdom of literary interest. It is not well to place our literary lights upon a pedestal so lofty that the radiating warmth and light never reach our hearts.

While many of the articles may be somewhat gossipy in tone, the serious phase has not been overlooked. The sketches have been gathered from many sources. Some have been written by myself, others have been gathered from magazines and books. I wish to acknowledge the kindness of Scribners' Magazine, of the Bookman, and of the New England Magazine in permitting me to use articles originally appearing in these respective magazines. To all who have wittingly or unwittingly made it possible for me to gather my material I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness. Every article has been written, selected, or adapted because of some special value. In these pages the reader may find what Lamb earned during the years of his famous clerkship, or the exciting details of Shelley's death. How many times have we heard of Sir Philip Sidney's immortal act of chivalry as he lay on the field at Zutphen! But definite information has it otherwise. To learn of the prodigious industry of the youthful Mill, the perseverance of Darwin, the heroic struggle of Scott, the gentleness of Stevenson, the modesty of Browning, the lifelong consecration of Motley,--is not the leaven of inspiration made of knowledge such as this?

I have an unshaken conviction that the highest art of the teacher is manifested in the awakening of such an interest that the pupil shall forever after be an eager learner. Am I wrong in hoping that no one, though with but a meager knowledge of literature, can read these sketches without a desire to know more of the men and women who are the glory of England and America? Here is but a taste of a more sumptuous feast.

Dreams, books are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

EDWIN WATTS CHUBB.

CONTENTS

ENGLISH WRITERS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Ancient Tabard Inn 1

II. Sir Philip Sidney at Zutphen 4

III. About Shakspere 9

IV. John Milton 17

V. Charles Lamb, the Clerk of the India House 24

Part 2

VI. Dr. Johnson and Charles Lamb 28

VII. The Death of Dr. Johnson 33

VIII. Gray Writes the Elegy 37

IX. Cowper as a Letter Writer 42

X. Gibbon and His Visit to Rome 46

XI. Burns Falls in Love 50

XII. Burns' First Book of Poems 54

XIII. Samuel Taylor Coleridge in School and College 59

XIV. Byron as Swimmer and Feaster 64

XV. Shelley as a Freshman 71

XVI. The Death of Shelley 76

XVII. The School-days of John Keats 82

XVIII. The Heroism of Sir Walter Scott 88

XIX. Walter Savage Landor 93

XX. Leigh Hunt's Business Ability 100

XXI. De Quincey Runs Away 102

XXII. Macaulay's Childhood 108

XXIII. Macaulay Becomes Famous 114

XXIV. Dickens Writes the Pickwick Papers 119

XXV. Charles Dickens as Reader 123

XXVI. On the Death of Dickens 126

XXVII. Ruskin's Childhood 130

XXVIII. The Marriage of the Brownings 135

XXIX. Robert Browning 140

XXX. Knight's Reminiscences of Tennyson 145

XXXI. Emerson on Carlyle and Tennyson 150

XXXII. Literary Recollections of Max Müller 156

XXXIII. The Early Education of John Stuart Mill 162

Part 3

XXXIV. Carlyle Goes to the University 167

XXXV. Carlyle and His Wife 170

XXXVI. Carlyle as Lecturer 175

XXXVII. Carlyle on Wordsworth and Browning 180

XXXVIII. The Author of "Jane Eyre" 184

XXXIX. Thackery in America 189

XL. George Eliot Becomes a Writer of Fiction 194

XLI. The Author of "Alice in WonderLand" 200

XLII. About Darwin 203

XLIII. Anecdotes of Huxley 209

XLIV. Stevenson at Vailima 214

XLV. Kipling in India 221

AMERICAN WRITERS

XLVI. Benjamin Franklin Runs Away 226

XLVII. Washington Irving 234

XLVIII. Cooper and "The Spy" 242

XLIX. John Lothrop Motley and Bismarck 249

L. The Youth of George Ticknor 254

LI. Fitz-Greene Halleck 259

LII. The Author of Thanatopsis 262

LIII. Curtis and Hawthorne at the Brook Farm 266

LIV. Hawthorne and the Scarlet Letter 270

LV. Max Müller's Recollections of Emerson, Lowell and Holmes 279

LVI. Howells Calls on Emerson, and Describes Longfellow 284

LVII. Longfellow, the Universal Poet 290

LVIII. Henry David Thoreau 297

LIX. The Last Days of Edgar Allan Poe 303

LX. Artemus Ward 313

Part 4

LXI. Edmund Gosse Visits Whittier 317

LXII. Personal Recollections of Whittier 320

LXIII. Henry Ward Beecher 329

LXIV. The London "Times" on Lowell 333

LXV. The Writing of "America" 338

LXVI. Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and her First Story 340

LXVII. Sidney Lanier 344

LXVIII. The Story of Mark Twain's Debts 349

LXIX. Hamlin Garland's Literary Beginning 358

LXX. Stephen Crane: A "Wonderful Boy" 361

LXXI. Eugene Field 364

ILLUSTRATIONS

Geoffrey Chaucer Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The Old Tabard Inn 2

William Shakspere 8

John Milton 16

Robert Burns 50

Lord Byron 64

Percy Bysshe Shelley 70

Charles Dickens 122

Robert Browning 134

Alfred Tennyson 144

Ralph Waldo Emerson 150

Thomas Carlyle 175

Benjamin Franklin 226

William Cullen Bryant 262

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 290

Part 5

John Greenleaf Whittier 320

STORIES OF AUTHORS

THE ANCIENT TABARD INN

The picture we see here is that of an inn whose fame is as widespread as the love of English poetry, for it is at the Tabard Inn that Chaucer more than five hundred years ago assembled his nine and twenty pilgrims who were preparing to visit the tomb of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. The witchery of the springtime had stirred the blood of these Londoners who, perhaps, were enticed from home more by the soft April showers and the melody of the birds than by their need of spiritual consolation. This, at least, is the impression we receive as in imagination we join these immortal pilgrims at the Tabard. Our guide is

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still,--

and as he moves among his motley group, let us take a glance at the Tabard.

The picture we have is that of the typical old English inn. "As late as 1870 the ruins of the famous Tabard could be found. It was near St. Saviour in the Borough High Street. Turning from the street into one of those courtyards which abound in the east of London, the visitor comes upon the ruins of the once famous inn the very name of which has been transformed by time. It is now known as the 'Talbot,' but the inscription above the doorway contradicts the modern signboard and proclaims the house to be 'The Ancient Tabard Inn.' The whole yard is redolent of dilapidation. Facing the visitor on entering is an interesting block of old buildings, forming part of the left side, and the bottom of what once was an ample courtyard. This part of the building contains not improbably the shell of the corresponding portion of the original inn. The doors of the first floor all open into one of the wide balustraded galleries or verandas so common in the genuine old English hostelry. Until recently the landlord of the Talbot, then a small public-house, and still forming part of the modern mass of brick building that blocks up the right side and part of the center of the courtyard, rented the rooms by which this balustraded gallery was, and still is, surrounded. They were then let as bedrooms, and kept in good repair; and are supposed to occupy the site of the very rooms once tenanted by the Canterbury pilgrims; the gallery probably differing but little in appearance from what it was when Chaucer frequented it in search of good wine. The landlord eventually became insolvent; the paltry tavern was shut up, and the bedrooms were dismantled. In that plight they might be seen some years ago, may still possibly be seen--empty, dusty, dreary--ranged above ground-floor premises which do duty as a parcels' conveyance office, and abutting on a mean, ill-kept yard. Until within the last few years the coigne of the old balustraded gallery was connected on the right with the modern brick mass by an ancient wood-work bridge, coeval at least with the oldest portion of the building as it stands. But the bridge is gone, and the lust of gold and the pride of life have so destroyed that spirit of reverence and refined superstitious love for the venerable which should characterize an advanced civilization, that it is greatly to be feared the rest of the structure will soon follow. Yet it was in this courtyard, and before this very inn, that Chaucer and his nine-and-twenty pilgrims stood in picturesque confusion in the early dawn of that spring morning, long, long ago; and agreed for their common amusement on the road each one of them should tell at least one tale in going to, and another in returning from Canterbury; the best story teller to be treated to a supper by his fellow travelers on their return to the Tabard Inn. The company comprises representatives from all classes of society except the two extremes; there is neither a prince nor a beggar. The characters are taken from middle-class life, of which they may be accepted as fair and truthful types; being described with a vigorous fidelity which has never been surpassed in the whole range of art. Every figure stands out from the canvas sharp and clear like pictures seen through a stereoscope. Not a touch, not a line is wanting; each trick of speech and peculiarity of feature or of dress, is photographed with Preraphaelite fidelity."

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