THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH it BY HIS DAUGHTER LEONOKA CRANCH SCOTT With Illustrations BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (Cfce ttitoerjiibe pre?? Cambribge 1917 t6 ' ■ < COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY LEONORA CRANCH SCOTT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published March iqiy 3. So MAR 20 191? ©CLA455955 PREFACE When my father knew that he could not live, he directed me to send, after his death, his published and unpublished works to Mr. George William Curtis. I did this, and Mr. Curtis, although a very- busy man, looked carefully into the manuscripts sent to him, having also the assistance and judgment of a collaborates. He decided that further publica- tion would add nothing to the fame of his friend. It was not until some time after that the plan of a volume of letters, connected by his own words from an autobiography, was decided upon, having its in- ception in his own wish, perhaps, to be better known to that public who already knew something of him through his published volumes and poems in the current literature of the day. In this Life and Letters I have tried to give an im- pression of the man and his charm to his friends, and to show the many sides of his artistic, literary genius. As an seolian harp vibrates to the winds of heaven in melodies, joyful, tender, or sad, so Cranch's music varied with his mood. Blows it east? It brings forth martial strains. Or south? It sings of the sea, the woods, and the birds. West? Cadenzas of sweet fancy and rollicking mirth play upon its strings. While the north wind brings out clear, philosophic thought, deep and incisive. At the instigation of his son-in-law, Colonel H. B. Scott, Mr. Cranch wrote his Autobiography for his "children and grandchildren, — or for any relatives vi PREFACE or intimate friends of the family who may wish to know something of the continuous thread of my life." It was thought best not to publish this as a whole, but to make extracts from it. A man does not see himself at his best; cannot therefore do full jus- tice to himself in an autobiography. His diaries, letters, fleeting poems, tell the tale with a spon- taneity free from self -consciousness. These extracts from Mr. Cranch's diaries tell of the days in the ministry; the change from the ministry to the artist life; his marriage, and going to Europe with George William Curtis; then life abroad as an artist; the meeting with men of letters and brother artists; the return home and life in New York and Cambridge; a second trip to Europe, with wife and three children; the Cambridge home and surroundings, philosophical talks in a schoolhouse and Sunday religious meetings; the migrations to New York, and the peaceful end of a most happy life in his own home in Ellery Street, Cambridge. There is wound in and out of these annals the continuous thread of the development of his poetical faculty, the strongest voice of many voices that called to him. My father's letters and those to him from Emerson, Lowell, Curtis, the Brownings, and others speak for themselves. I also quote from a Memoir of Judge Cranch, his father, which he was asked to write, — with the permission of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society. Some one has said, "No man is a hero to his valet." Mr. Cranch was a hero in his own house- hold. To his cook, his grocer, his plumber, — to his children. I remember when we were leaving Paris in 1863, how good old French Elisa, the housemaid PREFACE vii or bonne, embraced my father with tears streaming down her cheeks. He was to her, and to us, the em- bodiment of unselfishness, of patience, of loving- kindness, ever living up to his ideals, which were high. I have endeavored, even with all my love for my father, to see him as a man, a poet, an artist, as he appeared to the outside world of men and women of his day. If I have done this only partially, I shall be well repaid for my labor. L. C. S. CONTENTS I. Ancestry and Early Recollections .... 3 II. Student and Preacher 18 III. Western Experiences 31 IV. Transcendentalism — Emerson Correspond- ence 49 V. Painting — Marriage 66 VI. First Visit to Europe — The Voyage — Rome . 93 VII. Palestrina — Olevano — Second Roman Winter 119 VIII. Naples — Sorrento 136 IX. Florence and the Brownings 150 X. New York 172 XI. Ten Years in Europe 200 XII. New York 254 XIII. Cambridge 278 XIV. Third Visit to Europe 306 XV. Cambridge Study — Last Years 338 Index 387 ILLUSTRATIONS Christopher Pearse Cranch . . Photogravure frontispiece v From a portrait by his daughter Caroline Amelia Cranch Nancy Greenleap 6 ' William Cranch as a Young Man 6 Nancy Greenleaf Cranch (Mrs. Christopher P. Cranch) 16 From a pencil sketch by John Cranch An Emersonian Caricature 40 Caricature of "The Dial" 60 ' Mrs. Christopher Pearse Cranch ....... 72 Pencil sketch by F. O. C. Darley Christopher Pearse Cranch, 1843 80 Pencil sketch by William Wetmore Story Sketch from the Stern Windows of the Nebraska, 1846 94 Christopher Pearse Cranch 96 Pencil sketch by William Wetmore Story The Curtis Brothers (George William and Burrill) 112 From a painting by Thomas Hicks / Bayard Taylor, 1864 188 Judge William Cranch 216 Madame V.'s Looking-Glass 226 Christopher Pearse Cranch, 1859 238 From a photograph taken in Rome Christopher Pearse Cranch, 1878 292 John Weiss 300 v xii ILLUSTRATIONS Geoege William Curtis 308 From an oil sketch by Caroline Amelia Cranch "Miles of Stumpy Trees" 323 Francis Boott 326 Drawing for a Book of Rhymes 346 Sketch of Devils 346 George William Curtis , 370 From a photograph "The Grasshopper is a Burden" 380 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OP CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH CHAPTER I ANCESTRY AND EARLY RECOLLECTIONS Christopher Pearse Cranch was born in Alexan- dria, District of Columbia (now in Virginia), March 8, 1813, the youngest son in a family of thirteen children. In his Autobiography he says: — My first recollections date from the house in Washing- ton Street, when I was about four or five years old. I was taught to read by my sister Nancy. When she was eight or nine years of age, she died. Every one loved her. About this time my sister Mary also died. She had been married to her cousin Richard Norton about a year, and died soon after confinement, with a daughter, who also died. About a year later Mr. Norton died, from some virulent fever badly treated by an ignorant physician. The deaths of these two elder sisters were my first great griefs, and made a deep impression on me. . . . At this time I was sent to a large day school kept by a man named Bonner. He was a great tyrant, and was noted for devising all sorts of strange, and sometimes cruel, punishments for the boys. While occupying our house in Washington Street, our family used to pass the summer on a farm in Virginia, about four miles to the southwest, which went by the name of " Suffield." The house was a small, plain, wooden farmhouse. The farm, if I remember, consisted of very poor, clayey land. My brother Richard was the farmer. 4 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH We raised vegetables, rye, wheat, oats, etc. I remember no cultivated fruit on the place but small apples. There were plenty of fine wild blackberries, and I think some huckleberries. We had two or three farm-horses, and among my early recollections were the excursions I used to make, with my brothers John and Edward, — one six, the other four years older than myself, — to the apple trees, where we gathered the apples in bags, and brought them home on horseback. We boys used to go about, barefooted, a great part of the summer. Our faithful companion everywhere was our dog Watch. He was a beautiful, white dog, with a fine head, and handsome brown eyes, soft and curly hair, and a splendid, bushy tail. He seemed to be a mixture of the setter and the Newfoundland. He was the most honest, the most affectionate, the most playful, the most brave, the most faithful creature that ever honored the canine race. He was just the age of my sister Abby, and lived with us seventeen years, dying at last of old age, long after we removed to Washington. Our family at this time consisted of my father and mother, my brothers William, Richard, John, and Ed- ward, our sister Elizabeth, about eight years older than I, — myself, and two younger sisters, Abby and Mar- garet. In 1823 we moved to another part of Alexandria, which went by the name of the "Village." The house was a large and pretty frame dwelling, in the southern suburbs of the town, not far from Hunting Creek, a branch of the Potomac River. On the southern side of the house was a veranda of two stories, overlooking a yard with a semi- circle of tall Lombardy poplars, a well of water, and a large garden with an abundance of fruit and flowers. The roses were particularly plentiful and fine. In the ANCESTRY 5 centre of this garden was a large summer arbor, with seats, and covered with multiflora roses. We had straw- berries, gooseberries, cherries, damsons, peaches, and fine winter pippins. At the bottom of the garden was a small building used by my father as a library and law- office. It was here that my brother Edward and I used to copy the pictures in India ink out of Rees's Cyclopaedia. On the left of the garden was a barnyard and stable. From the upper story of the veranda there was a fine view of the majestic Potomac, and the sails constantly gliding up and down the river. It was a beautiful place, and to this day it mingles with my dreams. But the situ- ation was not healthy, all that region near the Creek being subject to fever and ague, at which I took my turn along with the others. A third severe family bereavement was the death of his brother Richard, who was drowned while making a topographical survey on Lake Erie, near Meadville. Of it the Autobiography says : — The party were on the Lake when there came up a sudden squall. The boat was capsized and my brother, though a good swimmer, was drowned before he could reach the shore. ... I was then twelve years old. Our brother was about twenty-five. ... I never shall forget what a dark day that was, when the tidings of this event reached us. I can well remember how all the family were plunged into grief and tears. I can see even now, my uncle James Greenleaf (then making us a visit) sitting in silence, with one arm around each of my younger sisters. We all loved our brother Richard dearly. Our father and mother looked upon him with just pride in his noble and manly qualities. He was the strongest and most active of the family. I remember seeing him lift three fifty- 6 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH six-pound weights with his little finger. He was a good swimmer and skater. He was fond of agriculture; he had a great deal of mechanical talent and used to con- struct little machines of various sorts. I remember his making some sky-rockets and shooting them off. He was affectionate and upright and a great favorite wherever he was known. . . . He would take us with him to Washing- ton — six or seven miles off — to see the Inauguration of John Quincy Adams as President, in the Capitol. I shall always remember this pleasant house at the Village as the happy suburban home, where, in spite of these domestic sorrows, we children found such ample scope for play, such delight in our beautiful garden, such amusement with the dogs, the chickens, the ducks, the hayloft, and the rural surroundings. It was there I first began to amuse myself with draw- ing, and in learning to play on the flute. And it was there that I attempted my first versification, a paraphrase from Ossian. My father was tall and erect, with marked features, and was sometimes taken for General Andrew Jackson, but there was no real resemblance. He was serious and somewhat taciturn; of a quiet temperament; inclined to melancholy; but serene and self-contained, with a mild and sweet expression on his face, much aided by his steadfast, religious faith. He was devotedly fond of chil- dren, and was like the still water that runs deep, in his warm sympathy and affection. He was a conscientious and hard worker; was subject to headaches, but usually enjoyed good health, and died at the ripe old age of eighty-six, having been fifty years on the bench of the District Court. Between him and my mother there was always a devoted attachment. My mother's tempera- ment was more cheerful and hopeful than his. From my < g g ANCESTRY 7 father we children stood somewhat at a distance in our lighter talk and laughter. But our mother was full of fun, and we never stood in the least awe of her. We con- fided to her all our joys and sorrows. She must have been quite pretty when young, and I think my father might have been considered handsome. My mother was very industrious and regular, and a good housekeeper. Both our parents were early risers. My father, from my earliest recollection, held family prayers, reading from the Episcopal Prayer-Book, al- though he was a Unitarian, while we all kneeled. We were all expected to attend church regularly. A trace of Puritanic tradition may have been seen here and there. Sunday was strictly kept, and there never was any card- playing. W T hist was a game I learned some time after I began preaching, and played it on Saturday nights. The only games we knew in the house were chess, backgam- mon, and checkers. My father was fond of chess, but despised backgammon as a game of chance; while my uncle James Greenleaf , who spent almost all his evenings with us, was devoted to this rattling game. I don't think my mother ever played at any game. She was usually too busy sewing or darning stockings, or attending to the various duties of housekeeping. In Mr. Cranch's memoir of his father, written for the New England Historic-Genealogical Society, he says : — It is fitting that I should trace something of the honor- able genealogy of the subject of this memoir. The blood and the principles of Puritan ancestors were in him by pure descent. On the paternal side they were all English- men. His great-great-grandfather, Richard Cranch, the first of his name of whom anything is known, was said to 8 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH have been a rigid and uncompromising Puritan. His great-grandfather, Andrew Cranch, carried on the busi- ness of serge-making, largely, in the town of Kingsbridge, Devonshire, where were born his son John, and John's son Richard, the father of William [Christopher's father]. These ancestors were all men of worthy character. In religion they were dissenters. Of the Honorable Richard Cranch, my grandfather, a brief account must here be given. He was born in 1726, in Kingsbridge, Devonshire, came to America in 1746, at the age of twenty, and settled in the old towns of Brain- tree, Quincy, and Randolph. He was a watchmaker, and for some years pursued this business in Braintree. He was also postmaster of the town, held a seat for a number of years as representative in the General Court, and af- terwards as senator of the Commonwealth of Massachu- setts. He was also for some years one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas. Though self-educated, he was a scholar of wide attainments, and was especially learned in theology. He was the intimate friend of John Adams, and of the Reverend Doctor Mayhew, and the associate of several distinguished men of his time. He is frequently spoken of with affection and respect in John Adams's Diary. In one place, Mr. Adams says: "Was there ever a wit who had much humanity and compassion, much ten- derness of nature? . . . Mr. Cranch has wit and is tender and gentle." In another place he speaks of Mr. Cranch's "mathematical, metaphysical, mechanical, systematical head." And again he mentions him as "the friend of my youth, as well as of my riper years, whose tender heart sympathizes with his fellow creatures in every affliction and distress." '0 He was an ardent patriot during the Revolution. In 1780 he received the honorary degree of A.M. from ANCESTRY 9 Harvard College. He was tall, grave, and dignified; and in his features is said to have borne a remarkable resem- blance to the portraits of John Locke, the philosopher. In 1762 Richard Cranch was married to Mary Smith, elder daughter of the Reverend William Smith, of Wey- mouth, Massachusetts, whose other daughter, Abigail, afterwards married John Adams. To Richard and Mary Cranch were born three children, — Elizabeth, who married the Reverend Jacob Norton; Lucy, who married her cousin, Mr. John Greenleaf ; and William, their only son. Judge Richard Cranch and his wife lived chiefly in Quincy, and died there at advanced ages, within a day of each other, in October, 1811. This was in the old Cranch and Greenleaf homestead, a plain, large, frame house with an avenue of fine elms in front of it, kept up in the family for three genera- tions as the old Greenleaf home. William Cranch was born in Weymouth, in 1769. His education seems to have been entirely at home under his mother's tuition and superintendence, until he was put under the charge of his uncle, the Reverend John Shaw, of Haverhill, to be fitted by him for college. In 1784 he entered the Freshman class at Harvard. His friend and cousin, John Quincy Adams, was his classmate. A little letter from William at Harvard in his eighteenth year, to his father, bears witness to his studies: — Hond. Sir: — ^ I intended to have walked to Boston to-day, but hav- ing an invitation to dine at Mrs. Forbes', I determined to postpone it. If you could spare me a little money and 10 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH send it by my chum, who will bring you this, I should be exceedingly obliged. If it is not convenient, Sir, I beg you would not send it, for I am in no immediate want of it. I fear, Sir, you think my demands too frequent. If it were in my power to make them less so, I should certainly do it. There is an Exhibition appointed for some time in next month. There will be a Latin oration, by whom is not yet determined, a forensic, a conference upon Law, Physic, and Divinity, by J. Q. Adams, Moses Little, and Nathan- iel Freeman, and an English oration by Bosenger Foster. A Syllogistic Disputation, a Greek oration, a Hebrew oration, and a Dialogue. The Corporation have met, but have not yet determined about the Commencement. If they do not grant our request, we shall petition to the Board of Overseers. With every sentiment of duty and affection, believe me your Obedient son, W. Cranch. Thursday Morning, Richard Cranch, Esq. In the memoir of his father, just quoted Mr. Cranch, says : — The life of a judge, however eminent and however well appreciated and honored by the members of the legal pro- fession, is not one which usually makes a glittering show to the public eye. How little is known, outside the courts and law-offices, of the learning, the intellectual grasp, the patience, the industry, the conscience, the courage, the clear, calm power of detecting principles amid the tedious detail of facts and precedents, and of thoroughly winnow- ing truth from error, which are required in this profes- sion! Such acquirements and qualities make little noise ANCESTRY 11 in the world; but like the silent forces of nature, they are none the less effective and beneficent. The Honorable William Cranch, LL.D., Chief Judge of the United States Circuit Court of the District of Colum- bia, is a name well known among lawyers and jurists, through his Reports of the Supreme Court, and the cases in his own court for forty years; and especially dis- tinguished in the district, where, for over forty years of his life, he held his office, and resided, and where he died, full of years and honors. But apart from his legal and judiciary connections, he lived a comparatively retired life, uncheckered by any remarkable events. He was one of that noble fraternity of quiet thinkers and workers, of all times and professions, who are content to do their duty thoroughly and well, careless of the shining honors of fame; or else who fail to achieve those honors, because by temperament too unambitious to grasp them, or from love of their work, and conscientiousness in the discharge of it, too devoted to their daily tasks to weigh their la- bors against their deserts, to consecrate their days to some useful but unapplauded sphere of life. In 1787 William Cranch graduated with honors; and the same year commenced the study of law in Boston, with the Honorable Thomas Dawes, one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. ... In 1790 he was admitted to practice law in the Court of Common Pleas, at the age of twenty-one. He began practice in Braintree, but afterwards removed to Haverhill, where he boarded in Mr. Shaw's family, and attended the courts in Essex County, and at Exeter, Portsmouth, and other places in New Hampshire. In 1793 he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court. His prospects now encouraged him to make preparation for domestic life in Washington; and on April 6, 1795, he 12 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH was married in Boston to Miss Ann (Nancy) Greenleaf , the youngest daughter, in a large family, of William Greenleaf, Esq., merchant of Boston, who had been, during the Revolutionary War, high sheriff of Suffolk County, including Boston. She was the sister of Mr. James Greenleaf, also of Mrs. Judge Dawes and of Mrs. Noah Webster. Returning early in the summer to Wash- ington with my mother, he commenced housekeeping under happy auspices, and worked diligently. . . . Two years later he received a proposal from Mr. Noah Webster, that they should together undertake a daily paper in Boston, . . . and that my father should be the editor. In this proposal he held out inducements that seemed promising. The temptation to return to Boston and the vicinity of his family and friends was, for a little while, very strong; but on mature consideration, and with advice of competent persons, he concluded to abandon the idea, and determined to remain in Washington and pursue the practice of law. His father, with whom he corresponded on all matters of moment, concurred in his determination, though it would have been an inexpressi- ble pleasure and comfort to have his son, to whom he was so tenderly attached, near him again in his declining years. . . . Notwithstanding many temporary discouragements he steadily applied himself to his business, and soon had the satisfaction of gaining two cases in Annapolis. The same year he was appointed, by President Adams, one of the commissioners of public buildings, upon the recommenda- tion of the largest part of the proprietors of the city, with a salary of sixteen hundred dollars. "But how long the office will continue," he writes, "is uncertain." He adds: "The only subject of regret which the circumstance sug- gests is, that it will call forth the calumnies of malevo- ANCESTRY 13 lence upon the President. But it will be remembered that President Washington appointed Mrs. Washington's son-in-law, Dr. Stuart, to the same office, — so that a precedent is not wanting." In 1801 Mr. William Cranch was appointed by the President, John Adams, Assistant Judge of the newly constituted Circuit Court of the District of Columbia; William Kilty being Chief Judge, and James Marshall (brother of the celebrated Chief Justice Marshall of the Supreme Court) the other Assistant Judge. In 1805, very much to his surprise, — for he was a warm Federalist in his politics, — Judge Cranch was appointed by Mr. Jefferson to the office of Chief Judge of the Circuit Court, at a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars. His labors in the office were, through the whole of his long judicial life, exceedingly arduous. On August 15, 1806, he apologizes for not having written to his father, by stating that he had just finished a ses- sion of five weeks at Alexandria, and that since the fourth Monday of November last he had been twenty-nine weeks in court. In 1829 the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by Harvard College, — a long-deserved and too-long-deferred honor. He was admitted an honorary member of the New England Historic- Genealogical Society, March 15, 1847. In 1852 he published in six volumes his "Reports, Civil and Criminal, in the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia," covering forty years — from 1801 to 1841. His son says: — Nature seems to have intended William Cranch for a judge. .His patience and perseverance were only matched x 14 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH by his love of clearness and order. He would take pleas- ure in unraveling a snarl of string and untying hard knots. He had a mechanical turn, and liked to take his old fam- ily clock to pieces, to be oiled and cleaned, and put to- gether again. While in college he devoted a good deal of time to mathematical problems, and even went so far as to calculate an eclipse. These qualities, combined with his sensitive musical ear, would sometimes lead him to spend, on a day of leisure, a morning in tuning his piano or parlor organ, in a very thorough and methodical way. These characteristic traits, in union with the higher ones of thoroughness and exactness of knowledge, of con- scientious and discriminating judgment in difficult cases, of singular ability to see the main facts and authority, and to detect always the principle and spirit of the law, made him, by nature and by long training, a judge whose decisions have always held a deserved reputation for soundness. The best proof of this is, that during more than fifty years of service on the bench, it is well known that not one of his decisions was reversed by the Supreme Court. He was a hard and steady worker. He rose early, often being up before sunrise in the winter; and when not on the bench, he was usually engaged at work in his office, frequently until near midnight. . . . He liked to read the best English classics. Shakespeare and Milton were especial favorites with him. He seldom read a novel. But he had a keen relish for poetry, old and new. His enthusiastic love of the beautiful in nature and in art, was a marked trait. He delighted in pictures, in sculp- ture, in flowers, and fine sunsets. But his chief recrea- tion was music. He played on the organ and the flute. The latter instrument he abandoned in his old age, and devoted himself to his parlor organ, on which he played ANCESTRY 15 chiefly sacred music, and in which he took the deepest delight. His temperament was tranquil, grave, and serious. He would often smile, but seldom laughed aloud. He seldom joked, but he relished a good joke from others. His de- meanor was courteous and dignified. He was a gentleman of the old school. He never hesitated to carry home his own loaded basket from the market; and sometimes he would assist some poor old woman on the road in carrying hers. He liked to split his own wood and make his own fire; and in sight of all his neighbors would mend his own pump, or his gate, or his garden fence. His heart was as tender as a woman's. His domestic affections were deep. Nothing could exceed his love as an affectionate husband and father. The natural kindness of his disposition ex- tended itself to his friends, neighbors, relatives, and even strangers, and would often take the form of an utterly unprecedented hospitality, even when his domestic cir- cumstances obliged the greatest domestic economy. . . . This almost feminine sympathy never interfered with the just decisions to which his duties so often called him. His sense of justice was strong, and though tempered by clemency, never wavered from its upright attitude. His character was genuinely and deeply religious. He inherited this trait from his ancestors, and it was culti- vated and strengthened through his life. . . . He seldom taught by precept, but always by example, that: — "Our days should be Bound each to each by natural piety." My brother Edward writes : " I knew more than any other of the children, of father's official life and labors, because I studied law for three years in his chambers at the City Hall at Washington. I don't believe he ever 16 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH spent an idle hour in his life. His life was uniform. He never dropped out of line to go in search of events. His great idea was duty. His recreations were music, chess, study, contemplation. He prayed much when alone. He repeated old poems to himself in his walks. But for ten hours every day for sixty years he was in public and working for the public. He was working for the right, and antagonizing the wrong; and he kept the waters pure about him." His conscientious conception of the legitimate func- tions of a judge led him to reject all offers of fees for any extraneous or supererogatory work, where he would have been justified in accepting them. The consequence was that he was besieged at all hours, even out of his office, by people of all sorts who came to have deeds or other law documents acknowledged gratis by him, rather than by a lawyer, who would charge them a fee. And I believe he never, at any hour of the day, refused a single one of these people. Judge Cranch, though not an abolitionist, was no apologist for slavery. It was an institution abhorrent to his nature. But so long as it was sanctioned by constitu- tion and law, he was bound not to interfere with the ex- isting order of things. Whenever he could befriend a slave without violating the laws, he was ever ready to do so. He saw that a storm was approaching, but fortu- nately for his peace of mind, he was not fated to see how, a few years later, it burst upon the country in the horrors of civil war. In the old Congressional graveyard in Washing- ton are buried Judge Cranch and his wife. These are the inscriptions on the plain stones: — j NANCY GREENLEAF CRA'NCH Pencil sketch by John Cranch ANCESTRY 17 William Cranch Chief Judge of District of Columbia. Born July 17, 1769, died Sept. 1, 1855. An able, learned, diligent and upright magistrate: Mild, dignified and firm. A tender husband and Father. A faithful friend. A benefactor of the poor, and a sincere Christian. "Blessed are the pure in heart For they shall see God." Nancy Cranch daughter of William Greenleaf, Esq., late of Boston and wife of William Cranch, Chf. J., D. C. Born June 5, 1772, died full of the hope of glory, Sept. 16, 1849. "Valde Deflenda." CHAPTER II STUDENT AND PREACHER In 1829 Christopher Pearse Cranch entered Colum- bian College in the third Freshman term. There were no athletics in those days, consequently the walk of three miles in the outskirts of Washing- ton, was both agreeable and salutary. My father, in his Autobiography, says: — The president was a Baptist minister, Dr. Chapin, a most excellent man. There was but a small number of students, and the course of study was not particularly extensive or thorough. My brothers, John and Edward, had graduated there. My father wished me to have a college education, but his means did not permit the ex- pense of sending me to an institution away from home. There I remained till 1832, when at the age of nineteen I took my degree. As I lived near the Capitol, I went often to hear the great speakers in the Senate and House of Representa- tives. I remember hearing speeches from John Randolph, Clay, Webster, John Quincy Adams, Benton, Calhoun, and others. I had the good fortune to hear a great por- tion of Mr. Webster's famous reply to Mr. Hayne. I was very much impressed with Webster's eloquence. After leaving college the question was, what profession to adopt. My father seemed to think I ought to choose one of the three learned professions. For the law, I had no taste or ability. And my brother Edward was study- ing law at my father's desire; one lawyer was enough. For a while I thought of medicine, but not very seriously. STUDENT AND PREACHER 19 My cousin William G. Eliot, Jr., 1 who afterwards mar- ried my sister Abby, was a divinity student at Cam- bridge, and urged me to the study of theology. Of the three professions, this was most to my taste; and as it accorded with my father's inclination, I decided to go to Cambridge and the Theological School. I studied a little German with an old Swiss gentleman who taught me a very bad pronunciation. In the summer of 1832, 1 left home for Cambridge. . . . At this time my brother John was in Italy studying art. My brother Edward had gone to Cincinnati to practice law. I took a room in Divinity Hall, Cambridge, and be- gan my studies with a good deal of interest. [His class- mates were:] C. A. Bartol, Charles T. Brooks, Edgar Buckingham, A, M. Bridge, A. Frost, Samuel Osgood, John Parkman, H. G. O. Phipps, George Rice, and J. Thurston. . . . Sunday, June 16, 1833, my father got up at half- past four, and having made arrangements with a brother minister to take his Sunday-School class, went to the Charlestown bridge to meet his cousin Richard Greenleaf in a gig, and ride out to Quincy to meet his father, Judge Cranch, and his mother, who were making a visit to New England, where they had not been for thirty years. In his journal he says: "A fine view from the top of the hill. . . . Found them at breakfast at Quincy. Father was there and looks very well." After dinner at Uncle Daniel Greenleaf's and the afternoon ser- vice, the second Church service, to which he had gone". . . walked with father across the Quincy hills. He pointed out to me his father's grounds, where 1 Dr. William Greenleaf Eliot, of St. Louis, Missouri. 20 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH the house, garden, etc., were. It was extremely in- teresting to be on the very spot, the very scenes of his boyish days with him, after so long an absence from them. Met J. Q. Adams in our walk. It was a fine afternoon and we had a noble view of the harbor." Mr. Cranch's days were spent thus at this date. Up at half-past five, sometimes an hour earlier, studied Hebrew, attended prayers, walked to break- fast, pitched quoits, studied and read, attended Dr. Ware's exercise on the "Resurrection of Christ," recited Hebrew, had tea, and passed the evening in a friend's room singing, or in social converse. Once a week they had practising of elocution, which they called "explosions." Some of the students held a Sunday-School class in the State Prison, where they found some interesting men. The atmosphere was religious and prayerful, and my father earnestly strove to work conscientiously. His great diffidence kept him from doing justice to himself. He could always do better with his pen than in extempora- neous speech. But he nevertheless persisted. There were many fine preachers who came to them, and the studious life suited his temperament. Or- ville Dewey, Henry W. Bellows, William Henry Channing, Ezra Stiles Gannett, James Freeman Clarke, Theodore Parker, and others spoke to them. And these were memorable occasions. My father's good friend, John S. Dwight, was in his class for a year; going to Meadville, Pennsyl- vania, returning again later to Harvard. He was therefore in the class after Mr. Cranch, where also was Theodore Parker. The instructors were Dr. Henry Ware, Sr., Dr. Henry Ware, Jr., and Dr. John G. Palfrey. STUDENT AND PREACHER 21 Mr. Cranch went home to Washington in sum- mer vacations, but spent some time in Boston where he had relatives, and a good deal of time in the home of his grandfather, Richard Cranch, and of his uncle and aunt, Mr. and Mrs. John Greenleaf, in Quincy. Their daughter Mary, Mrs. George Minot Dawes, was like a sister, and nursed him one sum- mer in the old Greenleaf and Cranch homestead, very devotedly. This cousinly friendship was kept up all through their lives, and was a source of great pleasure to both. In the summer of 1835, Mr. Cranch graduated from the Divinity School, and entered at once upon the duties of preaching, at the age of twenty-two. Among the first churches in which he preached was Reverend Doctor Farley's, in Providence, Rhode Island, a large church "which frightened me not a little," he said. In the winter of 1836 — an unusually cold one — Mr. Cranch was persuaded to go down to Andover, Maine. This was a hard place, but missionary work was much needed. He spent some weeks there, preaching in a small schoolhouse or in a half -fin- ished meeting-house. A tremendous snowstorm set in, keeping people in their houses. A letter to his friend John S. Dwight describes his feelings: — Andover, Maine, February 9, 1836. If you have a spark of sympathy and kindness in you, you will commiserate me. Will you have the kindness to put up the following note for me at some Christian church in the civilized country I have left: "A man abid- ing in the wilderness desires the prayers of his friends for his liberation and return." Here am I, a tropical animal, 22 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH as it were, thrown by some convulsion of the earth into the middle of an iceberg. Some ages hence I shall, perad- venture, be discovered and be looked upon by the learned doctors as a rare specimen of a departed race of animals. What! is there nothing but snowstorms and snowbanks extant? Has the earth taken wings and left behind noth- ing but rugged mountains, endless pine forests and stumps! It would doubtless seem so to you were you in my situation, for I need take but a very few steps out of doors, to be a companion unto bears, wolves, and moose. In short I am mewed up in this ultima thule of civilization against my will, by reason of these vile and rough roads. It seems as if the elements had com- bined to keep me here. All passing almost is impracti- cable. I can't even stir out of doors. There is a regular siege and blockade carried on by wind and snow against the town. I am like Hildebrand shut in by Kuhlborn and the water spirits, and the white old man nods and whis- tles in every snowbank; but alas, there are no Undines in this land of desolation to help me to beguile the lin- gering hours. But if I am a prisoner bodily, I am deter- mined (and this is my resolution) that my thoughts and feelings shall have liberty, nay, even that they shall take the form of an epistle. O, the cacoethes scribendi, is a pleasant passion! ... I have scarcely ever felt the mournful gusts of homesickness (why have we no better word?) sweep over my soul, as they have during my stay here. Were you ever six hundred and sixty miles from home? I think you have been. Then you may know how distance increases this aching and longing of the heart. Even from Boston and Cambridge — my adopted home — I am distant one hundred and eighty miles. Well, may you never light upon this wilderness in the depth of winter, for a very wilderness it is in all STUDENT AND PREACHER 23 respects. I dream day and night of absent friends and of home. But there are redeeming circumstances about this same polar region. As to soil and climate, I say with Justice Shallow, "Barren! barren! marry good air!" As to prod- ucts I can answer, for one, that they have most bounti- ful crops of snow, together with forests and stumps in any quantity. Inhabitants and parishioners few and far between, to my sorrow. Ignorant, rough and farmer- like, but withal good, ordinary, well-disposed folks as one could desire, and many good Christians among them; but as ignorant of Unitarianism and rational Chris- tianity as " 'Ebrew Jews." The good things that I have to mention are : the good, in the first place which I think my visit here does to myself; next the good — I hope I may have done a little — which the people may receive from my services; besides the pleasure which I have re- ceived in preaching and in talking with the good folks. I intended to have visited much among these Andover- ites, but the bad driving has prevented. We have had a miserable place to preach in — a little box of a meeting- house not half finished, and afterwards a miserable little schoolhouse, hardly big enough to turn around in, with- out any pulpit or desk. I had as lief almost talk in a tin cup. Last Sunday was an extra Sabbath beyond my engagement, and I preached half a day. Besides regular preaching for four Sundays, I have preached and pre- pared two-evening-a-week lectures, one of them extem- pore, and a temperance address. I have small audiences, but very unusually attentive, which is pleasant. I found them all entirely ignorant of Unitarianism, but more or less disgusted with the orthodox preaching which they have had here, and willing and glad to hear something more liberal and rational from the pulpit. By far the U CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH larger part of the town are anti-orthodox in their feeling. As to their theologic notions they are very crude and unsettled. I have preached "plain practical" sermons, as Br'er Frost would say, and such they like.. Besides, controversial discourses can do little good and much harm. ... I have not attacked Calvinistic doctrines by name, but indirectly; and this I could not avoid, if I wished to preach what I believe to be truth. It was curious to observe how my sermons were received. Many good orthodox people thought I preached sound doctrine, and even a good old ultra-Universalist lady was pleased, though I urged the doctrine of Retribution frequently To John S. Dwight Richmond, Va., June 15, 1836. I have just returned from the post-office with the glori- ous and unexpected haul of three letters, by no means a common occurrence in these later times, one from William G. Eliot, Jr., one from my brother Edward, and last, not least, the delightfully refreshing one from your- self. Glorious ! Such a treat as this I have not had for a long, long time! Permit me to thank you for yours as it deserves. I own I should have written you before, but "matters and things" you know. But your kind epistle has done me infinite good. I can feel with you, as you describe your feelings in the pulpit. It is a throne, and you can hardly conceive the uplifting sensations that sometimes rush through one, when one mounts it as a spiritual leader, and stretches forth over his audi- ence his invisible sceptre of thought and feeling. I realize every time I preach, more and more, the impor- tance and the glory of the preacher's office. O for one of those voices to sing for me the hymns I give out! I miss the old music of New England exceedingly. STUDENT AND PREACHER 25 But now methinks you are anxiously looking down this scrawl, to learn when, why, and how, I got me into this out-of-the-way place. For by your direction I per- ceive you are not acquainted with my localities. I will answer you briefly.' I have been here nearly four weeks; came not exactly as a candidate, though they seem dis- posed to hold me. They do want a settled minister here most confoundedly — to use a lay-phrase. They want doctrinal and controversial preaching here, as they do in almost all "new places." The Virginians will not read and inquire for themselves. A tract or treatise on theology or religion is an abomination unto them. They depend very much on what they hear from the pulpit, but more persons depend entirely upon hear- say. I gave them a pretty direct talk about this matter, from the text, "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind," in the conclusion of which I told them they must not depend upon what they hear of our views, from the mouths of ignorant, prejudiced opponents, or what they hear from the pulpit, for the pulpit, though the altar of truth, is not the arena of controversy, but that they must read, think, and inquire. I felt gloriously while delivering this sermon. It was glorious to arrest the attention of a passer-by, or a door lingerer (such hearers of the word are by far too common here) , to catch his eye and a new inspiration the same moment, to blaze away right at him and to hold him like the Ancient Mariner to his seat, and address to him an appeal, which it almost seemed as if Providence had brought him expressly to hear. I have preached better here than anywhere else. I think I have improved; but there is something of the feeling of desertion and of standing alone which one experiences in the Unitarian pulpit here, which makes me feel how very important is my station, 26 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH and what a call there is for larger earnestness, directness, voice, gesture, and unction. I have had some most glori- ous moments in the pulpit, moments which have carried with them an excitement I do not remember ever to have experienced elsewhere, or ever so deeply. The audiences have been unusually small, but this we must expect. The habits of the people here of all denominations are, in this respect of regularity at church, diametrically opposite to our good old New England customs. Can't some of your class come out here as a candidate? If I was not possessed with the Western mania in some de- gree, I should prefer settling here to almost any other place. The city itself of Richmond is, for situation, scenery, walks, etc., enchanting. There is nothing in all New England like it. The society is good. All that is dis- agreeable is the wall of prejudice and ignorance we must break through. I have not been much into the society here. I have become quite domesticated in one of the finest families I ever saw. They are Jewish ladies — not young or handsome, but everything else — refined, edu- cated, Christian; in point of fact, poetical, and above all musical. I go there every day, sing, play the flute, chat, send poetry, etc., etc. I don't know what I should have done with myself in my loneliness here, had it not been for these kind, excellent ladies. They know all the Uni- tarian ministers almost — are intimate with Dr. Chan- ning, William Channing, Mr. S. G. May, and others. Their names are Hay and Myers. There are a great many Jews here and they have a synagogue. I cannot write you more of them now — I have a great many things to say, but my paper is out. I wanted to tell you about a musical German minister I met with in Washington. A real German and enthusiast STUDENT AND PREACHER 27 in everything. A student, a man of learning, but his voice and guitar were glorious. And he did sing with so much feeling, it was a luxury to listen. I heard from him the genuine air of the old ballad of the Erl King. It was un- utterable. I was exceedingly sorry to leave him, with Washington, — my dear home. that you were here, my dear friend, to enjoy my delightful walks with me! There are beautiful rambles in every direction, in and out of the city. Flowers are quite abundant. I have now on my mantelpiece a mag- nificent magnolia grandiflora. It is larger than my fist — when blown full, larger than both fists, a beautiful pure white, imperial-looking, forest flower. It grows here only in gardens. It would inspire you to write a sonnet upon it, to see it. It has almost inspired me. There is something so grand, queenlike, and chiselled in its large, oval, close-folded petals, and its dark, shining leaves, rising above it like guardian maidens of honor around their queen. Something in the powerful and de- lightful fragrance that carries the imagination so into the dark and deep forests of Florida, and the banks of the Mississippi, that I wish I could show my present — for it is a present, and from a lady too — to all my friends. Preaching in Bangor, Portland, Boston, Rich- mond, and back to Washington in the summer, Mr. Cranch made many friends; some that lasted all his life. One of these was Miss Mary Preston, of Bangor, Maine, afterwards Mrs. George L. Stearns, of Medford, Massachusetts. Her husband, Major Stearns, was the lifelong friend of the slave. He frequently hid runaway slaves in his own house, and provided them with clothes, money, railroad fare, and drove them to the station, which would take 28 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH them to freedom, in his own carriage. It was he who advised the use of colored soldiers in the war, offi- cered by young men of the best New England fami- lies. Before John Brown's execution, Major Stearns went to visit him in prison. The only bust in the country of John Brown is the one by Brackett in the Stearns' home. Giving his fortune, his life, to the great cause of freedom, Major Stearns was one of those quiet heroes, whose death was none the less a sacrifice, although not offered in the ranks of the soldier or on the field of battle. Mrs. Stearns lived among her relics, and in the past. She was the intimate friend of Whittier, of Samuel Longfellow, of James P. Bradford, and of Dr. Hedge. The portraits of these and of many others adorned her parlors, and before each was a little bunch of flowers and a wreath of pressed fern, forming a fragrant and tender offering at each shrine. The portrait of Major Stearns is over all, — as he was uppermost in the mind of her who lived ever in the light of his spirit and memory. Although in her seventies, when I knew Mrs. Stearns, she never seemed old; she was full of mental vigor and enthusiasm. There was an atmosphere of hospital- ity and serenity about her, rare nowadays in this over-strained, nerve-racking world. A combination of beautiful surroundings — exquisite flowers, rare and luscious fruits, which a dear old Scotch gar- dener, by his faithfulness and devotion of many years, helped to create — made a unique setting for this beautiful and strong personality. No wonder that Mr. Cranch enjoyed a long talk, after a walk to Medford and a Sunday evening tea, at his friend's STUDENT AND PREACHER 29 hospitable board! Her sympathy was always at his need, and during their long lives the friendship never wavered and was a beautiful tribute to the character of each. The Reverend Frederick H. Hedge was pastor of the Unitarian Church in Bangor, Maine, about 1836- 37, and had met Mr. Cranch as a young minister and Transcendentalist. Mrs. Stearns was a member of Dr. Hedge's church. One day she read in the " Dial " the lines called " Enosis," and signed " C. P. C." Although better known than any of my father's poems, I quote the whole poem here, because not included in his later volume of poems: — Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught. We are spirits clad in veils; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen. Heart to heart was never known; Mind with mind did never meet; We are columns left alone Of a temple once complete. Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie; All is thus but starlight here. What is social company But a babbling summer stream? What our wise philosophy But the glancing of a dream? Only when the sun of love Melts the scattered stars of thought, 30 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Only when we live above What the dim-eyed world hath taught, Only when our souls are fed By the fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led, Which they never drew from earth, We, like parted drops of rain, Swelling till they melt and run, Shall be all absorbed again, Melting, flowing into one. Miss Preston thought the lines very beautiful and asked Dr. Hedge who "C. P. C." was. Dr. Hedge replied that he was a young minister, an admirer of Emerson, who contributed to the "Dial," and other papers, and that he was coming soon to exchange pulpits with him, and she would have a chance to make his acquaintance. The visiting minister was entertained at Mr. Preston's, and it was thus in her father's house that Miss Mary Preston first met Mr. Cranch. I asked what kind of sermons Mr. Cranch preached. Mrs. Stearns said, "spiritual sermons," that were much liked by the liberal members of the congregation. CHAPTER III WESTERN EXPERIENCES In September, 1836, Mr. Cranch returned to Wash- ington for a visit to the old home. He was urged to come to the West by his cousin, William Greenleaf Eliot, who was preaching in St. Louis, Missouri. The invitation was accepted and Mr. Cranch preached several sermons in St. Louis, staying with kind Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Rhodes, while Mr. Eliot preached in New Orleans and Mobile. In St. Louis Mr. Cranch wrote poems and did other literary work for the papers. His flute was his constant compan- ion, and Mrs. Rhodes being musical, they sang and played together. In those days travelling was slow and tedious. It took nearly two weeks, by steamboat on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, with stage across the moun- tains, to go from Washington to St. Louis. Mr. Eliot afterwards settled in St. Louis, where he not only built up a strong society, but founded the Washington University and the Training School for Nurses, among other good works. His zeal and public spirit were unbounded, and he became one of the leading men of the West in educational and phil- anthropic work. His life was a consecration to the highest ideals of duty, and it did not fail of great results. In June, 1837, he married my father's sis- ter, Abigail Adams Cranch, who, by her devotion and unselfishness, was of great service to him in building up his church. 32 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Mr. Cranch went to Cincinnati tentatively as regards the ministry at large, to be appointed to work among the poor; but he thought himself un- fitted for the position. He was trying all the time to prepare himself for his duties. His early diaries are quite pathetic from his struggles. It was en- deavoring to fit a square peg into a round hole; his poetic effusions, his love of painting and of music all calling him away from sermonizing, which he was strongly urged to follow and to crush the rest. When James Handasyde Perkins appeared in Cin- cinnati, my father knelt to him, metaphorically, in homage and in gratitude. Mr. Perkins had the consecration necessary for a minister's life. In March, 1837, Mr. Cranch left St. Louis and went to preach in Peoria, Illinois. There he stayed with Judge Bigelow and made some very warm friends. To Miss Catherine Myers Peoria, March 29, 1837. How sweet to be remembered so, and to be written to by such kind friends, when so far away as "the Childe" now is from the land of his home! ... If my poor letters to you are well-springs in a desert, what must yours be to me. For truly, I am in a desert in more respects than one. But you must not imagine that I am complaining of the West, or of this place where I at present am. You see that I am at last actually in Peoria; yes, actually in that much-talked-of place, when I was with you in Rich- mond. Harriet's map has at length guided me safely hither, to this prairie land. But before proceeding far- ther, I suppose I must give you some idea of the place itself. Latralie, let me say, was here before the town as it WESTERN EXPERIENCES 33 how is had started from the old chrysalis it then was, the ruins of an old French settlement. Now, though small, the growth of not three years, it is a thriving and growing place settled by many New Englanders, good, intelligent Unitarian families. Of course the houses are small and scattered at present, but what more could be expected in so young a place? The location of the town is indeed beautiful as has been represented. It is a prairie country. The land rises gradually from the Illinois River, where there is an excellent landing for steamboats, which are constantly coming and going, — then continues perfectly level and broad for a good way till it rises back of the vil- lage into a long bluff, on which there are trees and beau- tiful locations for country-seats. The bluff extends back into a prairie, which in summer is covered with the most beautiful flowers of all kinds. Below the bluff, where the town is, there are no trees, and the ground is as level almost as a floor for miles up and down the river. In winter, and at present, it is rather a bleak prospect, and so unsheltered are we that the winds of the four heavens sweep to and fro at all times. But in summer every one describes the place to be quite another thing. Nature seems to have intended that a town should be built di- rectly here. I miss hills and trees very much, but other- wise am much pleased with Peoria. It will be a thriving large town before a great while, I feel confident. The Society also will go on improving, as it has done the last year. . . . We have preaching in the court-room. A class- mate of mine, Thurston, is stationed at present over two other small towns from ten to fifteen miles off, at Tre- mont and Perkin. ... But hark — it rains, and seems as if it set in for a storm. It will quench the prairie fires which have been lighting up to-night. These fires are seen almost every 34 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH night in various directions. I have not yet seen a real prairie, much less one on fire, — I mean except at a dis- tance. How the rain and the darkness and the silence and the solitude turn one's thoughts from outward things to the objects of the heart's affections. I believe it was in- tended that the eye within should see clearest when it is most dark to the eye without — that the soul's ear should listen and hear best when the storm speaks to the out- ward ear. . . . To the Reverend James Freeman Clarice Washington City, July 18, 1837. As Eliot and I were wending our way homeward, the idea came into my head, that at our gathering to dedicate the St. Louis church in the fall, we might also get up an ordination as well as not. Do not all things agree there- unto? Here am I only a half -made minister, going out to the West, unconsecrated by my older brethren by the laying on of hands to the labors I am to engage in. Then, too, we hope to have lots of divines together at the occa- sion aforesaid, and an ordination at such a time and on such an occasion would be a new and impressive thing. Why should not we of the West have our "sprees" eccle- siastic as well as our Eastern brethren? I think it is time we should begin. I mentioned the idea to Eliot, who likes it very much. And I hope it may be carried into effect, should we have clerical brethren enough to form a coun- cil. I therefore write to you, to ask if you could at that time preach the ordination sermon. ... If you think well of this plan, and can conveniently preach me into the goodly fellowship of the ordained prophets, you shall receive all a brother's thanks for your services. I intended to have sent you something for the "Mes- senger" rather more solid than those scraps I gave you, WESTERN EXPERIENCES 35 but my time has been so taken up here that I have had too little to dispose of in this way. Poetry, such as it is, I can almost always spare. I have been thinking of send- ing you an article on Wordsworth, from a lecture I wrote on the same, and will, if you like, and time admits. Hav- ing preached all my old sermons in Washington, I am put to it to write new ones, though Eliot preaches about half the time. This writing and the pleasurin' I have had to do of late have taken up many hours which I should much like to have given to other things. . . . To Miss Julia Myers Washington, D.C., August 10, 1837. ... I have so many things to say, as I told you when I was with you, that I never know where to begin or end. Indeed, during the whole of the time I spent in Richmond I felt the same oppressive, unsettled feeling, and could not do or say what I wanted to. Many, many things were at my heart, but I could not trust to common spoken language to utter them, and indeed I know not if it is much easier to do it on paper. I have never been accus- tomed to give full vent in words to my feelings and thoughts: I cannot do it; I have at times, under the influ- ence of a temporary excitement of the organ of language, joined with other causes, been thrown, as it were, for a brief period, out of myself, my diffidence driven out by self-possession, and my inertness by a short-lived vigour, and words came with an ease and aptitude which sur- prised myself. But this is only at times. In general I am reserved, secretive, proud, indolent, but above all diffident. This besetting diffidence lies at the root of all my reserve, and keeps me again and again silent and seemingly cold, when no one could tell how deep and strong the stream which ran hidden within. . . . The reason why this diffi- 36 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH dence is not more seen is that I am too proud and sensi- tive to opinion to let my diffidence be seen. This, com- bined with my indifference to most objects around me, make me often seem what I am not. ... I shall write my cousin again soon, and tell her all about my Richmond visit. And is this long-thought-of visit indeed over, and am I in Washington again? Am I no longer within walk of your hospitable bower, and the magic ring that held me there in bonds of enchantment? Enchantment, Verbena, Richmond, — these three words shall ever be associated. And am I, indeed, — how long I know not, — beyond the sound of your sweet voice, and the beautiful Beethovenish "four flats," and its cousin, the gentle guitar that inhabiteth that box in the corner? No, I am not beyond them. I hear them still. My mem- ories of all these joys, and many, many more are vivid, indeed, and shall not soon fade. My heart is garlanded around with the flowers of Memory. I have been dipping these flowers in the fountain of present enjoyment, and "the picture of the mind revives again" — the flowers lift up their bright, many -tinted leaves and petals, and I shall long live in the odour of the past. ... His next stay of any considerable extent was in Louisville, Kentucky, where he took James Free- man Clarke's place, preaching and editing the "Western Messenger," a monthly paper "con- ducted in the interests of the liberal faith and of literature." A letter to his sister Margaret, afterwards Mrs. Erastus Brooks, gives an account of the society in Louisville, and of what he did for the "Messenger." It shows how his genial nature made him a favorite, and his various talents were brought into use. Of WESTERN EXPERIENCES 37 the spiritual qualities of his sermons we must judge later. The following letter is dated October 14, 1837. Well, here I stick in Louisville still, where I am Preacher, Pastor, Editor pro tern.; until that reverend dignitary, whose place I am trying to fill, shall return from his Eastern wanderings ! His congregation are get- ting impatient to have him back again, and I should be impatient to get away, were it not that I find it so pleas- ant, and that the poor deserted " Messenger" seems to beg so hard for an editor. I have contributed several articles, but still there is a large vacancy, — this is the November number. I would stuff it with more poetry, but I am ashamed that so many pieces should go forth with "C. P. C." dangling at the end. The numbers should be made up by the fifteenth, and as much as one half, I think, is yet unfinished. William Eliot has sent no- thing yet but an article on Unitarianism. I am preparing an extract from one of Edward's letters to give in, and am rummaging my "Omnibus Book" for scraps and ends to publish anonymously. . . . I have found several good pleasant folk here, and a few musical ones. Last night I was at a meeting of the Ladies' Sewing Society, at Mrs. C.'s.' On entering there, I encountered a whole table full of bright faces, ranged around a large astral lamp and busily engaged in chatting over their work. Some gentlemen were there, and some more came shortly after. At half -past nine the ladies put up their sewing and dispersed about the room. Soon I was called upon to sing with Mrs. E. C. So we sang — "Home, Fare Thee Well," "I Know a Bank," and "As It Fell Upon a Day"; also, "I've Wandered in Dreams," though I never tried it before. I went the other night to see Mr. Keats, an English 38 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH gentleman residing here, and brother to Keats, the poet. He seemed to be a very intelligent and gentlemanly man, and has some daughters, only one of whom I saw, a young lady about fourteen apparently, with face and features strongly resembling Keats, the poet, or that little portrait of him which you see in the volume con- taining his poems in conjunction with Coleridge and Shelley. I could scarcely keep my eyes from her coun- tenance, so striking was the likeness. They say she plays beautifully on the piano. . . . I have been preparing, this forenoon, a review of Mr. Emerson's Phi Beta Kappa Oration, which is now in the printer's hands for the "Messenger." This child, being left by its father, the Reverend James Freeman Clarke, crieth continually for food. Not more than half the requi- site matter is furnished, — and most of that is spun from the brains of your humble servant, C. P. C. Clarke just lets his offspring go to the dickens. If it had not been that C. P. C. happened to adhere to the south bank of the Ohio on his way downstream, and take roost awhile in these diggings, where had been the flowers and fruits that must spring therefrom to fill the "Messenger's" demands? I look about now like a hungry lion seeking for prey, yea, like some voracious, responsible spider, that sitteth solitary in a corner of a deserted house, spreading its web and looking on emptiness after strag- gling flies of contributors, which come not — of which the fewest are to be found. Nevertheless, I give myself no uneasiness. The young ravens are fed, and so will the "Messenger" be, in time. ' An old gentleman named Judge S. called on me the other day, and wants to take me into the country to his house, about five miles from Louisville, to stay some days. I should like to go, but doubt whether the "cares WESTERN EXPERIENCES 39 of editorial life" will permit. I find everybody here hospitable. I can't make visits fast enough. By the time I get acquainted here, as it has always been else- where, I am obliged to go. But I shall not have been long enough in Louisville, quite, to become strongly attached to the society. To Miss Margaret Cranch October 15, 1837. . . . Found that Mr. Clarke had returned. Went to see him, and spent most of the evening with him, talking and looking over Retzsch's illustrations of the Second Part of "Faust." By the way, Clarke brought on also the fourth part of the long-expected "Pickwick," which I am at present enjoying. I have just been laughing over it all alone, "till the tears came." I preached twice yesterday, as Mr. Clarke was not very well. Had a fine congregation in the morning. Preached on the text — "The way of the transgressor is hard." And in the after- noon, on "The duty of thanksgiving." Mr. Clarke praised my afternoon sermon much. He is full of genius and magnetism. I shall set off in a day or two for St. Louis. ... I begin to grow a little impatient to be back among my little scattered flock at Peoria. Perhaps I may be able to unite Fremont with Peoria in one parish. ... I have enjoyed my stay here very much. My impressions of Louisville are very different from what they were. Mr. Clarke has a noble society and a desirable station, both for comfort and usefulness. He has a most enviable in- dependence of character, which peculiarly fits him for such a place as this. It does me good to be with him. He possesses in a marked degree that which I am per- petually conscious that I am most deficient in — that is, 40 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH boldness — an habitual independence and disregard for the opinion of men. I think I am acquiring of it slowly. The West is a grand school for me in this respect. Still, the lack of it palsies me continually. I cannot forget my- self. My eyes are turned so habitually on myself, that almost every action of my life is divested of freedom. Nothing goes from me that has not passed under the eyes of self, and is not referred to the opinion of those around me. I am not free enough; I am not bold enough for a minister of the Word of Life. Over and over again do I chide my timidity, my reserve, my sensitiveness. I want what might be called spontaneousness. And I think the West is the school where this want is to be supplied. I must mingle among men and women more. I must converse freely and about everything. I must interest myself in their conditions and wants. I must think more of my fellow men and less of myself. I must not feel myself detached from society, but as forming a stone in the arch, helping to support the building. In the West it is especially necessary that no member of society should forget his relations and isolate himself. He must step out from the charmed circle of his own peculiar tastes, habits, feelings, and sympathize with, and help, all around him. This is the minister's office by preeminence. The minister should not be a stand- ing, placid, lake, embosomed by mountains and gazing on the stars; but a quick, deep, active, strong-moving stream, winding about among men, purifying and glad- dening and fertilizing the world. The Autobiography here says of James Freeman Clarke : — On his return I had some very pleasant days with him. He was full of the new poet, Tennyson. He had bor- 'Mm V 'p?t L 6-ii^L. <2~C*^ , <** l 6 The day, so long remembered, comes again. The years have vanished. On the vessel's deck We stand and wave adieux, until a speck Our ship appears to friends whose eyes would fain Follow our voyage o'er the unknown main. Shadows of sails and masts and rigging fleck The sunlit ship. The captain's call and beck Hurry the cheery sailors as they strain The windy sheets; while we in careless mood Gaze on the silver clouds and azure sea, Filled with old ocean's novel solitude, And dreams of that new life of Italy, The golden fleece for which we sailed away, Whose splendor freshens this memorial day. Paris, August 1, 1881. THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE 333 December. Dupont came and took dinner with us, and passed the evening, interesting us a good deal with his conversation and his songs. Though talking nothing but French, he seems totally unlike any Frenchman I ever knew. He is large and sound and liberal in his ideas — full of bright ideas — artistic, imaginative, refined, and withal extremely sympathetic. I always regret that I can't express myself in French as I wish I could, in talking with him. He sung us some of the old songs he used to sing nearly twenty years ago when we were here. Such a man as he ought to learn English and talk with us in English, but though he knows a little, he never will talk it. He is fond of talking about himself, and the things he has done in painting, and poetry, and politics — but in such a way that he does not impress me as a man un- usually vain — only as of one conscious of talent and expressing his feeling frankly and without reserve. . . . Mr. Cranch to his brother Edward Paris, January 11, 1882. ... I have been re-reading your letter, and pondering over your vision. I don 't suppose you take it any more au serieux than I do; I don't think you have any more superstition than I have; it was singular certainly. But how curious all dreaming is! The only thing about dreams that seems tangible and sure, is, to me, that they all spring out of our reminiscences, and so belong to the past, and not the future. They are broken and distorted reflections of images that have had a place in the mind. The oddness is the way they surprise us sometimes, and the queer complications and exaggerations; and queerer and more wonderful than all, the characteristic things that are said by the people we know. Another curious thing in dreams, is the mixing up of people; one even be- 334 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH ing quite intimate with some one, whom, when we wake, we find we never knew at all. Not long since I tried to put into verse this latter phase of dream-life, and will give it to you. I have met one in the land of sleep Who seemed a friend long known and true, But when awake from visions deep, None such I ever knew. Yet one there was in life's young morn, Loved me, I thought, as I loved him. Slow from that trance I woke forlorn, To find his love grown dim. He by whose side in dreams I ranged, Unknown by name, my friend still seems. While he I knew so well, has changed. So both were only dreams. But this is digressing. I meant to offer myself as a Joseph to interpret your vision. For instance, the tomb and date may mean that by that time you will have buried your last law documents, and entered upon your new profession fully and entirely, without any let and hindrance; the sunny hills and the sheep beyond are symbols of a good time coming for you in your declining years. The river to be crossed, you yourself allow to have been an after thought. That is beyond the hills. We all went to the Theatre Frangais the other night, with two young artist friends. We saw "Le Monde ou Ton s'ennuie," and a short piece preceding it, called "La Cigale chez les fourmis." The acting was admirable, as it always is at the Frangais, but the rapidity of the talk was too much for me. Things were constantly said which made the audience laugh ; to me they were serious things because I could n't understand them. The plot contin- ually mystified me. But the others enjoyed it. To me this theatre was the world where one is bored! I had better THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE 335 have stayed at home and saved eight francs. I can read French easily enough and understand it when dis- tinctly spoken, if I am near enough to the speaker; that is, I don't lose much of it. But I have so little prac- tice in hearing it, that I grow rusty, and doubt if I can follow the lingo any better than I could twenty years ago. The Journal goes on: — January H. . . . Unseen, unknown, and sundered long, Till Age hath touched us with his rust, Deep in our hearts, alive and strong, Youth springs immortal from the dust. Our thoughts like bees in secret hives Hoard up their wealth, unshared, untold, Yet love, in our divided lives, Keeps full his measure as of old. Ah, could some voice from heavenly spheres Tell us it has not been in vain, This absence long, these changing years, But, somewhere, we may meet again! June J/,. Went to the Salon and studied Puvis de Chavannes' immense picture "Ludus pro Patria," and find it improves on acquaintance. It is well composed, quite original, full of daylight — but it is daylight of an alien and almost spectral world. The figures, too, all seem as if they belonged to some world of the classic Elysian fields. They are all too sad and serious — there is nothing of the joyousness of youth and sport. Hardly a smile upon a single face. Perhaps the artist intended some such shadowy and spectral life, in the dim and sub- dued coloring he has given to his picture. M. Puvis de Chavannes has received the mSdaille d'honneur. Perhaps the jury may be right in decreeing it. But if the picture is poetic, it is French poetry. 336 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH June 16. Went to the Opera to hear "Robert le Diable." First time I had been in the Opera House. Had a seat on the top row and found it very hot and close. There is much that is fine in the music, but Meyerbeer never in- terested me much. This opera is too long — too noisy — and on the whole I found it tedious. I was too high up to see Baudry's pictures on the ceiling — I got a glimpse of them from below, but only vaguely. The vestibule and stairway are magnificent. The effect of the brilliant crowd coming downstairs, surrounded by this superb architec- ture, was very splendid and picturesque. Mr. Cranch to George William Curtis Magnolia, Massachusetts, July 24, 1882. We found your note here, and were very glad to get your friendly salutation. We arrived in Boston the 17th and were at Cambridge for a few days. . . . We had eight days of rough, rainy, cold weather aboard. The Captain says he never saw such weather in July. It might have been November. Head winds all the way over. But the last three or four days were fair and calm. . . . For several days I have felt incapable of rising out of a purely passive state of mind and body. I fear we shall hardly accomplish our proposed visit to Ashfield. At least so it seems to us at present. P.S. We passed a pleasant week in London, though we were too hurried to see much. I accomplished, how- ever, on a perfect day, a visit to Windsor, and was de- lighted with the place. I made a water-color sketch of the magnificent Castle, into which I went to see the show- able places. THIRD VISIT TO EUROPE 337 In his Journal at this date he says: "This place is the perfection of rest. I have done almost nothing, a little sketching, a little reading, a great deal of loafing." George William Curtis to Mr. Cranck Ashfield, Massachusetts, July 31, 1882. I shall be in the cars all day to-morrow so that I cannot slap you on the back with my pen and congratulate you and Lizzie upon our anniversary. It is thirty-six years ago, my young friend, that we sailed o'er the waters blue, and if our heads are greyer, our hearts are not, and if memory is infinitely richer, hope is no poorer. No man who has seen what we have seen has a right to grumble, much less despair. When you said that you were coming home I hoped that we might have drained a beaker of the warm South together upon our day. No matter, I shall pass through Boston and look toward Magnolia, and waft you and yours a blessing. CHAPTER XV CAMBRIDGE STUDY — LAST YEARS My father was much affected by what we call atmos- phere. He had the sensitive, poetic temperament in an unusual degree. He was seen to best advantage in his Cambridge study, which also did duty as a studio. Here, with soft-tinted walls, an open Franklin grate for cheer, his armchair at a convenient angle, his favorite books near, and most suggestive studies from Nature, a portrait of his friend, William Wetmore Story, by May, and his own copy of one of Ziem's Venices, on the walls, studies from the Forest of Fontainebleau, the little Mont Blanc sunrise that was poetical, and photographs of his dear ones on the mantel — he was in his best element. Quoting from a short poem called "My Studio" he expresses his pleasure in its quiet and seclusion: — "I love it, yet I hardly can tell why — My studio with its window to the sky, Far above the noises of the street, The rumbling carts, the ceaseless tramp of feet; A privacy secure from idle crowds, And public only to the flying clouds." The study in Ellery Street was a square room, with one large window to the north, the floor covered by a carpet of brown tint and simple pattern; an old- fashioned sofa and deep armchair, with square centre table, for his papers, pen and ink. An old mahogany bookcase with diamond-shaped glass panes, and deep cupboards below, held his books and manuscripts; LAST YEARS 339 an easel or two, with two palettes of his younger days, a guitar and a flute, some pipes and a tobacco- jar, completed the outfit. There was an air of serenity and repose about the room. Here he was most at home, and read, in a rapt, musical voice, to his wife, daughter, or friend, his last poem, essay, or comic rhyme. My father was always to me a friend. There was between us such close and entire sympathy that it was hardly necessary to speak; by some subtle harmony of thought and feeling, each divined what cold words might only half reveal. He was singularly unworldly and childlike in dis- position. His generous impulses would carry him away, and make him give to those who called forth his compassion what he could ill spare himself. My mother and I would sometimes reprove him for those unsophisticated ways. He always accepted the re- buke very mildly, showing how truly sweet and gen- tle his nature was. As I revered my father, it has seemed to me strange, in after life, that I could criticise his lines or make suggestions upon themes that were so much deeper than I could fathom. He invited criti- cism, noting and taking in good part an opinion, though opposed to his own. He had his moods. These were happy moods and dull moods. We speak of being in a "brown study." Is there not such a thing as a sky-blue study, a golden mood, a russet thought? With the high- strung nature of the poet, there are moods that are both ambrosia and nectar to him. These states of feeling and thought are his greatest inspirations. His best poems are written under such conditions, in 340 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH his half-waking dreams, perhaps. My father's best work was done in these bright moods. While the fit was on, he used his brush rapidly. The glow would sometimes last several days. To such natures there come also the corresponding depression and sinking of spirits. It seems as if the soul must sometimes put on sackcloth and ashes. He had many causes for this depression in later life, yet he averred his "blues" were constitutional; two thirds physical, one part mental. At such times music was his comforter. If one were to turn to the piano and play the opening chords of Mozart's Sonata in C major, or the "Adelaide" of Beethoven, or other of his favorites, he would take up his flute, play part of the air through, and end by letting out his voice to its full compass. Then, the dull clouds would break, the dark mists and vapors enveloping brain and heart would disperse, leaving only pure sunshine and clear skies. To many persons, my father seemed cold and unsympathetic, because they only saw him in his dull moods. He was undoubtedly reserved. It is the protection which shy natures sheathe themselves with, of which Emerson says: "Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk in which a delicate or- ganization is protected." Shrinking and modest as a woman, he had undoubtedly a most virile mind. With congenial spirits he was unreserved, genial, sympathetic, to a great degree. Into his study came, from time to time, his friends: John Dwight, of musical renown; Dr. Frederick Hedge, Mr. John Holmes, Mr. Frank Boott, Dr. William James, Mr. Samuel Longfellow, Mr. Beckwith, a professor of LAST YEARS 341 literature; Mr. Allen, a minister, and Mr. Stevens, his friend and neighbor; John Knowles Paine, com- poser and musician; and women — a few. He wrote on a scrap of paper, on his knee, seated in an old easy-chair, with a pipe in his mouth, looking like a prophet of the olden time, with his white hair and beard — his gaze far away. He had no well-sorted library. He was too much on the wing and too unselfish to collect what he really wanted. Late in life he expressed a wish for all the poets, and his family were supplying this want. A pocket edition of Shakespeare of good print, I remember, he often carried with him. "A Collec- tion of English Songs" of early date was prized by all the family. Volumes of some of his friends, with autograph signatures, are carefully preserved by his family. Numerous French books, an old Beaumont and Fletcher, and books running over a wide range of subjects, were gathered from his travels. Many of Carlyle's, and the "Emerson- Carlyle Correspondence," Henry James Senior's books, Dr. James's "Psychology," were on his shelves. Books scientific, theological, he read and enjoyed. His mind, early trained to philosophical discussion, kept pace with the thought and higher criticism of the day. But it was very far from a com- plete library. My father's memory was good. He quoted whole pages of Shakespeare, Emerson, the "Biglow Papers," and read aloud very well. He often read to us after dinner in the parlor, while we sewed by the lamp. But he would retire to his study with a pipe, to pursue some line of thought, or finish his special reading. At such times we did not disturb him. 342 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH His nature was generally serene, except deep moods of melancholy that grew as he grew older. He had a great sense of humor, which gave his friends, as well as himself, much pleasure. His study was certainly a most individual room, where he was most at home, in his own domain, among books, pictures, and his beloved pipes. William James to Mr. Cranch Cambridge, May 7, 1883. I naturally find myself pleased and flattered enough by such appreciation as your note expresses. The contents of the address was after all nothing but rather a com- plicated way of stating the attitude of common sense, that by philosophers much-despised entity. It may be that much of my intellectual nisus is toward the rein- statement of common sense to its rights; at any rate, I find myself constantly taking sides with it, against more pretentious ways of formulating things. I should much like to talk over these matters some- times with you, and meanwhile I feel singularly encour- aged by your generous words. . . . George William Curtis to Mr. Cranch West New Brighton, Staten Island, May 27, 1883. Your beautiful little verses are full of music and picture — and youth. How far away it seems but how fresh, how fair! When you speak of threescore and ten, and I remember how steadily and with equal pace I follow you, I cannot comprehend it, so much do I feel myself to be the same old boy. Have you seen the sad, wasted, dying face of Keats in the current "Century "? It is much the same as that pub- LAST YEARS 343 lished in the "Correspondence with Fanny Brawne" — a cruel book which, like the letters of Mrs. Carlyle, make a man ask if nothing is to be sacred in privacy or human relations. How little the pathetic head has in common with his rich and abounding strain! What a life! What a death! Yet I recall perfectly the peace of that bright Roman morning when we stood by his grave, the morn- ing which dawns again in your pensive lines, and which will always shine over his grave. AT THE GRAVE OF KEATS To G. W. C. Long, long ago, in the sweet Roman spring, Through the bright morning air we slowly strolled, And in the blue heaven heard the skylarks sing Above the ruins old. Beyond the Forum's crumbling grass-grown piles, Through high- walled lanes o'erhung with blossoms white That opened on the far Campagna's miles Of verdure and of light: — Till by the grave of Keats we stood, and found A rose — a single rose left blooming there, Making more sacred still that hallowed ground, And that enchanted air. A single rose, whose fading petals drooped, And seemed to wait for us to gather them. So, kneeling on the humble mound, we stooped And plucked it from its stem. One rose, and nothing more. We shared its leaves Between us, as we shared the thoughts of one Called from the field before his unripe sheaves Could feel the harvest sun. That rose's fragrance is forever fled For us, dear friend — but not the Poet's lay. He is the rose — deathless among the dead, Whose perfume lives to-day. May 7, 1883. 344 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Mr. Cranch to John S. Dwight Cambridge, May 13, 1883. I greet you on your arrival with me at the Scriptural age of threescore and ten — you my junior by two months. Can you believe it — we have known each other fifty years! The whirligig of time with its ceaseless revolution and changes, absences from each other, differences of occupation, and so on — has not, I think, worn away in the least our old friendship. We were drawn together from the first by intellectual sympathies, by our studies in the Divinity School; by our tendencies toward freer, fresher, more ideal views of literature and life; in aspirations of the true, the good and the beautiful; and not least, by our common love of music. We were youths then — are we older now? Wiser, let us hope — but both young at the core of our hearts. Cambridge, May 15, 1883. Do you remember how mortified poor Mark Twain was about that unfortunate speech of his at the "Atlantic Monthly" dinner? Well — lam just as mortified about the speech I did n't make, but should have made, last night in response to your friendly notice of me. Ah, woe is me! I could not heave my heart into my tongue. There were so many strange faces, and I was unprepared, not thinking there was to be any speech-making. To you they were all well known — and your felicitous speech showed what an advantage that gave you over me. Still, as your guest, and old friend, I might have responded, even if I did so in a bungling way, which would probably have been the case. Ah — there is no gift I so envy at such times as the gift of speech. After the occasion goes by, how often I think of things I should like to have said. LAST YEARS 345 I have nothing but the esprit d'escalier. Therefore my mortification is twofold. First, that I did not appear in a better light to the com- pany — and Second — that I could not transform the public gathering into an informal meeting of sympathetic friends, and say to you — in their presence what I should like to have said. So you have it — vanity, diffidence — sensitiveness before strangers, and the misery of not having presence of mind enough and natural gift enough, for the right sort of speech — all these so reacted upon me, that it was long before I could sleep. A strange thought came into my head that in some future state of existence Time may be abolished; and the now and then not be so disjoined that they can't be woven — as warp and woof into one act representative of our best moments — as I can take up my picture and work on it, correcting it and changing it as I like. The complex state of mind I here make confession of, was only internal discord — after hearing such good music, and having such a good social time. Edward P. Cranch to his brother Cincinnati, September, 2, 1883. ... I have on hand at the Pottery a quart jug, on which I have traced some of your juvenile depravities in art, which you have probably forgotten, just to make you laugh. I wish I could fill it with some of Father's old Madeira, in which Dr. Dick used to make us take Peru- vian Bark, in the merry days when we were young on the banks of the blue Potomac. But I have laughed all my life over these foolish devils. I have quite a collection of them. No wine could make them better. . . . 346 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Mr. Cranch to his brother Edward Cambridge, September 9, 1883. And yesterday came the box, safely containing your two beautiful pieces of pottery. Mine very quaint and pretty, and of a good color, with those foolish, half -for- gotten scraps on it, "juvenile depravities in art," you may well call them; and your hornet, and the dog trying to scratch himself. And Carrie's cologne jug which is rich and beautiful. Well ! as I can't see you with the bodily eyes, and don't know when I shall, I rejoice all the more to have these few lines from you, your brotherly affection, and these gifts, the work of your own brain and hand. . . . We had a pleasant five weeks sojourn at Newport; saw a good many old friends and made some new acquaintances. . . . We found ourselves involved in a web of social re- sponsibilities, with much expenditure of visiting cards and general attention to our toilets, the longer we stayed there. Everybody there appears rich. The wealth and display seem enormous. Fashion, of course, reigns tri- umphant, but we kept clear of that. Sam. Coleman, the c*c, sgIIB!ESSSaii t ^l'"Mu3: DRAWING FOR A BOOK OF RHYMES LAST YEARS 347 artist, has established himself there and has built ... a gem of a house, the most beautiful and artistic in its in- terior decoration of anything I ever saw. He has a royal studio in it, of course. But I can't begin to describe his house; it is a touch beyond anything in the country, and the decorative designs are all his own. . . . What you say of my Emerson article tickles my vanity. But your love adds a precious seeing to your eye. I wish I could think it as good as it seems to you. . . . George William Curtis to Mrs. Cranch West New Brighton, Staten Island, October 29, 1883. Your note and its enclosure are most welcome and I thank you with all my heart. The photograph * shows — bating color, of which, of course, there is no hint — one of the finest portraits that I ever saw. It is permeated through and through with the subject, his aspect, his air, his movement, his individuality — so that Anna and Lizzie cannot believe that it is not directly from life. It is the most satisfactory and charming work, and Carrie ought to have all the highest honors of the Academy. Give her my love and thanks, which are not academic honors ! Ah, yes! dear Posthumus, which is Latin for Pearse, we are all going down the hill, but on its warm and I hope, long, western slope. Next summer we must somehow get together while some of our faculties yet remain and mumble ancient memories together. Mr. Cranch to Mrs. Brooks Cambridge, January 31, 1884. I have been remarkably well this winter — only a slight touch of lumbago some weeks ago. I walk a good 1 A photograph of Miss Cranch's portrait of her father. 348 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH deal, do the marketing, cut wood, bring up my coal and make my own fire every day, and on the whole I am about as lively as an old gentleman of my age can expect to be. Last Saturday I lectured in Boston to the young ladies' Saturday Morning Club, on the "Sonnets of Shake- speare." ... I have also dined with the Harvard Musical Association at their annual dinner, John D wight presiding. Dwight's portrait, which has been purchased for the Association by subscription, was unveiled on this occa- sion. I was called on for a speech and forgot to allude to the portrait; but made up for it by reading a couple of sonnets on "Music" and "Poetry." Carrie's health was proposed and drunk, all the guests standing. She has been greatly complimented about this portrait; I think it as good as mine. . . . Mr. Cranch says in a letter to Mrs. Scott, Decem- ber 16, 1884 : "To-night I am to read the part of Bot- tom at the Shakespeare Club. The meeting is at Dr. Asa Gray's. I shall take great pleasure in doing it, and shall make a hit and show them how the part should be done. ... I have just discovered a young poet here, who addressed an excellent sonnet to me, and is one of my admirers. He seems a very in- telligent and gentlemanly young man and is taking a course of literature under Professor Child." Beholding thee, O poet; one mild night Beside thy casement, where the autumn rain In sadness whispered to thee through the pane, Mourning the death of days of calm delight, I marvelled what sweet song thou didst indite To art or nature, in what lofty strain Thou didst invoke old myths, what fine refrain Trembled upon thy lips as poised for flight. LAST YEARS 349 Whate'er the poems, — joyous as the Morn That treads, bright-sandalled, on the hills of earth, Grave as the nunlike Eve with brow forlorn, And lips unblessed by any smile of mirth, Within my heart that hour this wish was born, That mine had been the brain that gave it birth! Clinton Scollard. Mr. Cranch to Rev. Charles T. Brooks October 29, 1882. Great is the power of circumstance. Time and space stand between old friends, strong almost as death itself. You and I have been divided for a lifetime, and yet there are memories that often bring you to my thoughts, — not to speak of our old Divinity School companionship. What brings you very near to me is, that you were the most appreciative admirer of my " Satan," a little book that, though well spoken of by the press at the time of publication, literally fell dead in the public estimation, and was absolutely without a sale. But I can't help think- ing it was in some respects, as you intimated in your kind and flattering notice in the "Boston Advertiser," my best poem. Now, as I have in petto a project of putting out ere long another volume of poems, I wish to give this one another chance. And I have been re- writing or rather correcting and filling it out, having interwoven in places where it was needed, several lyrics and choruses, which give it more completeness; and I can't help flattering my- self that I have greatly improved it. But the name has been objected to. The critics said it is a "calamitous title." I as yet have not been able to hit upon a better. I wish I could, and I wish you could help me. How hard it is sometimes to baptize the progeny of our brains! You with your fine scholarship may be able to hit upon a name for me. Do think it over, and give me some sug- gestions. What do you think of "Ormuzd and Ahri- 350 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH man"? It must be some name suggestive of the conflict between good and evil. . . . To Oliver Wendell Holmes Cambridge, February % 1885. I meant ere this to have either written to you or called upon you, to say how much I have enjoyed your " Life of Emerson." I am delighted at your just and cordial appreciation of him. For one, as you know, I have been from the first among his enthusiastic admirers, and can well remember how, for years I felt a call to defend him against the Philistines. The "Divinity School Address" was of course the greatest rock thrown into the theo- logical current, dividing the conservatives from the so- called transcendentalist movement. And we all know how long the two streams ran and tumbled and frothed divergently. And some of us are old enough to note how different their later blending and confluence is, from those days of turbulent division. When I remember the impression this great prose lyric of the "New Views" made on some of the leading theo- logians of the liberal faith . . . and then call to mind the quiet evening, a few years since, when I heard Emerson read an essay at Dr. C. C. Everett's house, being es- pecially invited by the Dean to meet the Divinity stu- dents, — I feel that I have lived from the beginning to the end of a wonderful revolution in thought. You have treated your subject with great skill, bril- liancy and justice. Others have doubtless said this be- fore, but it is a satisfaction to me to add my humble testimony to the distinguished merits of your book, for which, and for the exceeding pleasure I have had in read- ing it, I must again thank you. LAST YEARS 351 To his brother Edward Cambridge, March 3, 1885. . . . How do you feel about Inauguration Day to- morrow? I have never said a word to you on politics since Cleveland's election — I heard that you went for Blaine much to my regret. The country was saved from a great danger when he was set aside, but it was a close contest. Blaine would have perpetuated, nobody knows how long, the old wretched spoils system — the curse of our coun- try — and put back Civil Service Reform, and would have given a sanction to all the rottenness and corruption which the foes of this reform are answerable for. I am sure that now the country has a safe leader. I don't care if he has the name Democrat. . . . Cleveland will at least give us a clean government. One of the best signs of it is that all the tag-rag of the Democratic Party join the de- posed spoils-system men in howling at his heels. There will be a tremendous pressure upon him as of upper and nether millstones, and they will try to grind him to powder, and in more ways than one he will be in imminent danger from the Bourbons. But I think he will be a match for them all. He will be besieged and squeezed worse than any President ever was . . . but enough of politics. A friend, by the way, gave us season tickets for the Boston concerts which we consider a great boon. At the last concert they gave the Seventh Symphony of Beethoven. I never heard it so splendidly rendered. Gericke is the best conductor we have ever had. I think I never enjoyed Beethoven more intensely than last Saturday night. I had forgotten this symphony was so wonderfully great. It suggested such forms of beauty and of life — of deep, grand sadness and exuberant joy — all the vicissitudes and abrupt transitions of life — all its 352 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH melancholy, its effort, its triumph. The wonderful and original and masterly working up of its simple themes is heart-stirring. It is as if Shakespeare and Milton and Dante were melted into one. There is deep under deep of mysterious beauty, of feeling beyond the power of words — "Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear." Have you seen any of the newspaper controversy about Margaret Fuller? All occasioned by the publication of Hawthorne's Life by his son, who was rash and foolish enough to publish parts of his father's diary in which this noble woman is vilified. Mr. Julian Hawthorne under- took the defense of his father's judgment of her in the papers, and followed it up with unnecessary animosity. Among other respondents I wrote for the "Boston Transcript" twice in Margaret's defence, and Lizzie added a short cracker o f her own. Emelyn Story has written a letter full of amazed indignation. I think by this time young Hawthorne has his quietus, for he sees that public opinion is against him. Last night I was at a meeting of a Cambridge Club where Colonel T. W. Hig- ginson gave an admirable lecture on her life, and Rev. Dr. Hedge added some reminiscences of his own. ... Cambridge, March 29, 1885. Going to the post-office this Sunday morning through the snowdrifts, I was charmed by getting your good long letter. Your transition from the weather to politics amused me. I think this is the first time we ever dis- agreed about anything, and if it were now before the presidential election instead of long after, I might be tempted to write a voluminous epistle on this subject. I think you must have read only on one side during the campaign. I could have sent you no end of testimony against the demoralized Republican Party, but especially LAST YEARS 353 against their corrupt candidate. We may be trying an experiment in putting in a Democrat, but it was high time there should be a change. On one question, at any rate, that of Civil Service Reform, we have taken it out of the hands of leaders who were wedded to the old spoils system. Much as I disliked the Democratic Party, I could see that the Republican Party had forgotten its own splendid past record, and had declined upon a lower range of principle It was something quite other than party predominance that the country needed. Could a new party have been formed, it would have been what we wanted; but the time was not ripe for it. . . . But I won't write any more on politics. Cleveland is in, and starts with a fair record If Cleveland lives he will do a noble work for the purity of the Civil Service. And I don't see why in most other matters of political im- portance, he will not come up to the mark along with the best of our Presidents. The old Democratic issues are dead. We could not revive them if we would, and it is idle to let ourselves be haunted by their ghosts. Washington, March 4, 1886. . . . This great city of Washington. I was not pre- pared for such an immense evolution. I had heard of its transformation into a beautiful city, but it is much be- yond anything I imagined; and the extent of it, — the immense area which I remember as field and common and slashes, — all built up with fine houses and superb asphalt pavements, and churches and public buildings, reaching in every direction as far as one can see, with monuments and statues and parks! I wander about in a state of amazement which only increases every day. I think I am the original Rip Van Winkle. One afternoon I made a pilgrimage to find the old house on Capitol 354 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Hill. The buildings were so thick about it, and the ground had been so graded away, that I was uncertain at first whether it was the identical old place. But finally felt sure. I rang at the door, and asked if Judge Cranch did not live there once. They did n't know, but said the house was very old and used to be called the Whitney House. But as soon as I peeped in and saw the entry and rooms, I knew I was not mistaken. It was occupied as a boarding-house, and the old garden is turned into a marble yard. The neighboring houses, where the Diggs, the Watkins, and the Brents lived, still stood, but looking very forlorn. I wrote to Margie to know where the house was in which Father died, and she tells me it does not exist; it was near the old Carroll place, but a Catholic institution has been built on the site of it. I never saw that house, for we were then in Europe, but it was there that Rufus and Sister Lizzie also died. Just below the Capitol Pennsylvania Avenue looks unchanged. There are the same little houses and tobacco- shops and drinking-houses, and general rowdy aspect; but everywhere else, Washington, compared to what it was when we were boys, is the evolution of the ape into the man. . . . I have not been in Washington before since 1863. To Mrs. Scott Cambridge, November 13, 1886. ... I have had very pleasant occupation this summer and fall in correcting and revising the proofs of my new volume of poems, which will be published this month. . . . I look upon my new poems as the best and maturest work I have done in verse. And I live in hope to see some justice done to that work by the critics, and a more popular reception by the public. My " Satan" goes into my new LAST YEARS 355 volume much enlarged and improved, and under the new title "Ormuzd and Ahriman." I have hopes it will command more attention than it has under the old name. We had a great day in Cambridge last Monday 1 — you will have seen the accounts in the papers — at Sanders Theatre, where Mr. Lowell delivered his fine address, and Dr. Holmes his poem. The seats reserved for ladies had all been long taken, so Mamma and Carrie had no chance. But I went in, with my Divinty School badge, walking in the procession and finding an excellent seat. Lowell's address was very fine; Holmes's poem was a failure. Both are to appear, I hear, in the next " Atlantic Monthly." The President was received with immense enthusiasm. I had a good view of him, though not very near. . . . George William Curtis to Mr. Cranch West New Brighton, Staten Island, December 2, 1886. I was in town last night, and this morning I came home and found your new book upon my table. It is the first day of winter, clear, cold, — an icy gale blowing without, and I sit by the bright fire within turning the page and reading and musing, your songs leading me on — "Their echo will not pass away I hear you singing, singing." That poem holds me with the spell of the Lorelei. One such song proves the singer. Then how beautiful and tender are the sonnets. In your first slight volume which I have, I remember also the sonnets and how they enchanted me. But this last sheaf has your golden grain, and I shall say so aloud. It 1 Celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of Harvard University. 356 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH is curious that the same mail brought me a copy of the autobiographic sketches to 1850 of Georgiana Bruce, whom you must remember at Brook Farm, and in the Brook Farm chapters there is mention of you as I re- member you when I first saw you with your guitar at the Eyrie, singing old songs. . . . Francis Boott to Mr. Cranch Bellosguardo, Florence, February 19, 1887. I received your letter not long since of 13th January, and also your Xmas present: your new volume of poems, which I have read with a great deal of pleasure, and have shared this too with others. Among these is Miss Wool- son, who was attracted by your song of the "Brown Eyes," * having known but little of your writings. She has lately returned your volume I lent her, and I take pleasure in enclosing her note. si sic omnesl you'll say. Certainly, as you say, Stedman owes you amends, and he seems tardy in making it (or them). A critic ought never to be blamed if he follows his own judgment; but if, as it appears, the omission comes from carelessness or forgetfulness, he can't make too much haste in trying his remedies. I fancy it is with him as you say — he echoes the voice of the world, and ignores the public duty of the critic and what should be his supreme pleasure, viz., dis- covering the unseen gems and hidden flowers, and telling the stupid world what it ought to admire. Thanks from both of us for your congratulations. Lizzie has really got a splendid baby, and you may take my word for it, for I am not specially a baby-fancier. . . . 1 Mr. Cranch's poem, "Soft Brown Smiling Eyes," the music of which Mr. Boott wrote. LAST YEARS 357 Constance Fenimore Woolson to Mr. Boott . . . Cranch's poems I have greatly enjoyed. I admire all; but I have a particular admiration for Ariel's song — "I have built me a magical ship" — in "Ariel and Caliban." And for the first and second sonnets — "The Summer goes" — and "Parted by time and space." I had already seen "Old and Young" — which was sent to me from the United States, marked, some time ago. "In Venice" is an exquisite picture of the most exquisite city in the world, and would give me a heart-ache if I were reading it in America instead of here. But very American, and very beautiful, are the two sonnets, "August" and "Idle Hours," and they, in their turn, made me a little homesick for the home-scenes described so truthfully and sweetly. Last of all comes "A Poet's Soliloquy," which is touching and beautiful in a supreme degree. Mr. Cranch to Miss Dixwell April 10, 1888. Your letter just received telling me the sad news of Mrs. Duveneck's death, has been a great shock to me. It will take me long to realize it, so totally unexpected is it, and so ignorant am I of any of the attending circumstances; and to her husband, and to her father, what a blow! Mrs. Cranch feels it just as I do, and we hardly dare communi- cate the sad intelligence to our daughter, who knew and loved her so well. I knew Lizzie when she was almost an infant, in Florence and in Paris, and I have known for many years how completely bound up in the life of her father she was. He is one of my oldest and truest friends — and under this strange and sudden visitation of calamity no words I can utter can give any idea of what I feel for him. 358 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Life can never be to him what it has been, for his future pathway in this world will be darkened by a shadow that will never be lifted from his heart. How useless are words in speaking of such a bereave- ment! She, as we all know, was so good and so gracious — so accomplished and so full of talent, and so true an artist. How hard that her brilliant career should be so brief. How hard that so few years should have been allotted for her married and maternal life, — and how her many friends will miss her! If there be recognition of friends in the after-life — as there must be — else the whole order of creation is a mockery — then are she and your dear sister Anna, whose death I deeply felt — forever united — as they were on earth. ... To his brother Edward New York, October 28, 1888. I send you the flute duet, a little trifle, done many years ago; and also a variation made a long, long time ago, when my flute was in a livelier condition. I have a port- folio full of little things I have tried to compose at times; some merely airs; and some, songs with words, and at- tempts at harmonization of the same. If ever I get out West, I will bring some of them, and let Emma pro- nounce whether they are worth anything or not. But one thing I am sure of, that if I had been taught the piano, and had studied harmony, I should have been a composer. . . . To Mrs. Scott New York, January 23, 1889. . . . We all dined the other day at Professor W. C. Russell's, who is living in a flat in our street, not far off. LAST YEARS 359 After dinner I amused them and the little boy with my usual repertoire of imitations of noises and ventriloquism; and they tried to interest us in the game of poker, which, I am sorry to say, we failed to appreciate. I told them the story of the man in the West, who, on being urged to play poker, excused himself because he had n't his re- volver with him. Our only evening game at home is the old-fashioned backgammon, which Mamma and I take up generally for an hour or two in the evening. . . . You can't tell how I pine for our books and my pictures and studies left behind, and boxed up in Cambridge. But we have no room for them here. If we could get a studio within reasonable distance, we might send for them. I work away at something or other in my little room at home. I shall have three large water-color pictures in the exhibition which will soon open at the Academy, and now and then I exhibit a painting at the Century Club's monthly meetings. I have just had ac- cepted by "Scribner's Magazine" two stanzas with an illustration I made, which I will copy for you, — that is, the poem. The editor of "Scribner's" is Mr. E. L. Bur- lingame, the son of our old friend, the Minister to China, whom we used to know in Paris, — a very pleasant gentleman. . . . THE BIRDS AND THE WIRES Perched on the breeze-blown wires the careless birds Whose chattering notes tell all the wit they own, Know not the passage of the electric words Throbbing beneath their feet from zone to zone. So, while mysterious spheres enfold us round, Though to life's tingling chords we press so near, Our souls sit deaf to truth's diviner sound. Ourselves — no Nature's wondrous voice we hear. 360 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Francis Boott to Mr. Cranch Cambridge, December 13, [1888.] I am glad you are comfortably situated at New York and doubt not you will find it better for you than Boston, and a fortiori Cambridge. I find Duveneck and all his artist friends are of that opinion. Indeed those of his former pupils settled there think it offers better oppor- tunities for an American than Europe. Duveneck went on there not long ago with some idea of staying. But he has a studio in Boston, and a baby too. I wish you could see the little gentleman. ... I suppose you take great interest in your grandchildren. But I can't help feeling the interest in them becomes very different as they get older. Two years is a model age, every day develops new traits, new acquisitions. It is sad to fancy him a big fellow of six feet or more, which he will be if he lives. Of course there is interest even for such, but how different. . . . Let me see your song, and try my hand at it, provided you don't get any satisfactory arrangement. Perhaps you will become a composer in the next world. Mr. Cranch to Francis Boott January 24, 1889. "Ne sutor ultra crepidam" is a wise old saw, no doubt, and not inapplicable to some things I attempt to do. If I have the impulse sometimes to weave aesthetic, airy robes for kings and queens, when I should be working at my cobbler's stool, I have no other excuse than an occa- sional, natural inclination, which should never, however, be indulged, when I have n't even entered the apprentice- ship of the craft. My poor little attempt at melody submits humbly to the judgment of experts. And I am taught not to assume airs unless I can show good reason for them. I have given you a good deal of trouble about LAST YEARS 361 this deformed child of mine for whom no clothing can be found to make him a gentleman. Ca ne vaut pas la peine ! Indeed I had almost forgotten its existence. Let it go among the shades, and we will try to stick to our last in future. But I must thank you for the trouble you have taken about this unnecessary bantling. George William Curtis to Mr. Cranch West New Brighton, Staten Island, June 23, 1889. I am very glad that you enjoy the Motley letters which have really introduced Motley to his countrymen and shown them how easy it is to misconceive a personality. He was always considered a doubtful American, but he was in fact one of the best types of true Americanism. In the March "Harper" I had an article upon him to an- nounce the Letters, in which I alluded to this quality. The other day I received a large and beautiful sil- ver bowl from Lady Harcourt and her sisters, suitably inscribed, which is a very pleasant memorial of the work. Holmes was the natural editor, but he said that he was too old and he proposed that I should under- take it. . . . The knee relaxes gradually but surely. I do not walk normally, but I walk, and that makes me gay. I am sorry to hear of your blue streaks, but they, I am sure, are only summer vapors. If you have not decided where to go for the summer, I should think this heat would make the vision of the ocean irresistible. I long for that even among the pleasant hills. 362 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Mr. Cranch to Mrs. Scott Asbury Park, New Jersey, July 20, 1889. Chronicles of the Land of Nod Chap, xiii 1. And it was the season of summer in the Land of Manhattan. And it waxed exceeding hot. 2. And they that had nothing to do sat in their rock- ing chairs and read the papers, or consulted the ther- mometer. 3. And many longed to get out of the city and seek the sea, but they could not. 4. And there was a man of Manhattan who was a painter, and he left the city with his family by steamboat and railroad to the Jersey shore. 5. And they came to a place called Asbury Park. 6. How be it, it was not a park, but a flat and sandy tract of land with small spindling trees. And there was nothing to paint. 7. And they came to a house called the "Magnolia." And there they fell among the Baptists. 8. Yet were they exceeding kind folk, and were not of the class called "Hard-Shell." 9. And they were people who drank no wine. 10. And their dinner hour was about the sixth hour, when European people sit down to their first meal. 11. And they ate fast, and went and sat on the front porch. And there they talked of the weather and of the Baptist Church. 12. But sometimes the youths and young maidens played a game called "croquet," with loud talking and laughing. 13. And lo, there was among them a Baptist doctor of divinity, who wore unclerical garments, and rode upon a LAST YEARS 363 bicycle. And there was no one who gain-sayed him, or thought that he did that which was unseemly. 14. And this man from Manhattan, whose name was Christopher, talked on the porch with some of the Baptists. But they did not try to convert him. 15. And on week days some of the younger folks went down to the seaside, where there was a great crowd, and dipped themselves in the roaring waves. 16. And on the Lord's day they went to the churches. 17. And the heat was exceedingly fierce. And there was laziness and languor in the air. It was a land, where, as certain of our poets have said, it seemed always after- noon. 18. And some of them spent much time in sleep. And those who did not sleep sat continually on the front porch, and talked of the weather. 19. And they who took afternoon naps said perpet- ually, "Blessed be the man who invented sleep." 20. And when they awoke from their slumbers they said, "Lo, this is the Land of Nod, of which the Prophets of old did speak." Selah. . . . We have been here about a week. As you see by foregoing chronicle, it is exceedingly hot weather. But we are in a very comfortable house. . . . But it is n't like the New England seacoast air. It is a sleepy place, and it is an effort to do anything. It is also a curious place, — a large town, spread out with pretty houses and wide streets, plenty of shops, and electric lights, and electric cars. . . . There is fine surf -bathing, though too much of a crowd. . . . 364 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH To his brother Edward Cambridge, October 28, 1889. I am glad you like the Quincy poem. 1 I took a great deal of pleasure in writing it, and in delivering it. It was listened to attentively, and is spoken of well by my friends. But I think you exaggerate some things a little. The ground I had to work on was hardly "rough and rocky," but rather an oft-travelled highway; the difficulty was in making such a trite theme as the Puritan Fathers fresh and poetical. Perhaps that is what you meant. Neither was the audience, I think "severe," at least my Quincy meeting-house audience, — I can't answer for that outside reached by the Press. Nor was the fact of its be- ing published entire anything specially emphasizing the poem. The occasion was an interesting one, and the "Herald" laid itself out to appropriate what would make the best show. In fact it was put into type before it was delivered. The poem will be published in the church exercises in pamphlet form. And then Mead, one of the editors of a new magazine, "The New England Magazine," wrote to me asking if he might print it in his publication. I assented, of course, it having already become public property by being printed in the "Herald." The whole thing was of course "a labor of love," as the ministers say; all the gold I get being whatever golden opinions may happen — along with yours. October 30. Interruptions will occur. We are settled very comfortably in our old Cambridge home, and I should like to stay here. I have my cosey study, my little adjoining bedroom, my books and manuscripts about me, my pleasant outlook from the windows, with the sun- 1 A poem read by Mr. Cranch at the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the First Church of Quincy, Massachusetts. LAST YEARS 365 shine and the falling October leaves, and the quiet — so different from Newport. I revel in the space and elbow room of a house; we were absurdly cramped for room in our New York flat. There are some great conveniences in a flat, but great limitations too. I should like to stay here, and end my days here, since we can't afford to take a house in Newport. But wife and daughter, especially the latter, like the idea of trying a New York boarding- house again for a while. . . . But we shall be here at any rate till January. . . . How I should like to talk with you about your Euro- pean experiences. How wonderfully you and Emma got through with your tour. 1 Cambridge, January 1, 1890. ... I thank God to-day for you, my dear brother, and that I have heard from you at last. But I don't blame you for not writing oftener, with your lame hand, and your work to do. You have a hard life compared with mine, and are a little, not much, farther down the slippery slope of life, where we can't stand quite so erect and spry and acrobatic as once. It is a matter of great curiosity to me to think what we two old gentlemen, and all the rest of the old gentlemen and ladies we know, are coming to, at the end of our slide downhill. I must confess to terribly agnostic views about it all. I try not to think of it; I try to believe there may be a waking into another state. But whether there be or not, what can we do about it ? I pre- sume whatever will be, will be for the best. Our good old brother John would be shocked if I ever should say this to him. To his facile faith the going out of life is only like stepping from a train to a platform — and an eternal home. 1 Mr. Edward Cranch, who was in his eighty-first year, had lately returned from his first visit to Europe. 366 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Are you buckling to the Buckle? No, I can't say I have read him, but a long while ago, in Paris, I borrowed him of a friend, and dipped into him, and was much interested. But he is a theorist, and believes the world has advanced through Intellect alone. But Intellect is only one of several factors in the world's growth. You ask what is the greatest book now. I really don't know. I only see here and there smaller lines of light in what seems to me the right direction. We have some clever philosophic minds in New England, perhaps as good as anywhere. And while I think of it, let me strongly recommend you (if I have n't already) to a remarkable article by Dr. William James, son of Henry James, and Professor of Philosophy here in Harvard — on Spencer's "Definition of Mind." But I 'm not much of an explorer in philosophical books. I have been dipping into a French translation of Von Hartmann's " Philosophy of the Unconscious." I did so, because I had written an essay on the unconscious life, which I have read once or twice before small audiences. I did n't see Hartmann's till I had written my essay. He goes too much into philosophy and endless details of the relations of the unconscious to organic life, for me. I found that I agreed with him in many things, but I failed to get any particular light from him on the Mind, on Faith, or on any deep things of the Spheres. We have a Sunday Afternoon Club in Cambridge, where we meet at one another's houses, and have an essay and conversa- tion. We have run it a year and a half. We have had some strong men read for us — Dr. Hedge, Dr. C. C. Everett, J. W. Allen, and a good many others. Now and then I have taken my turn. We find these meetings very edifying. . . . LAST YEARS 367 Cambridge, January 14, 1890. Your appreciation of my verses "warms the cockles of my heart" (what are the heart's cockles, by the way!). But you know you are not in the position of an unbiased critic — "Love adds a precious seeing to the eye." I wish all my small and select circle of readers could put on your spectacles and see the beauties that you do. . . . That is excellent and striking which you say about the conflict of forces constituting all life. Is this thought original with you, or partly so? It is good and memorable, and accords with my views — "By this conflict Evil be- comes not good, but the necessary condition of it." In my "Ormuzd and Ahriman" I tried to express something like it — but vaguely. Your formula is more exact and scientific. "Without resistance Force itself ceases — force with nothing to act on being unthinkable and non-existent." "Life a play of action and reaction and kept up by oppos- ing forces." This is good — and all that follows. I clap my hands and throw you an invisible bouquet. By the way, I have just given in the proof of my essay on the "Unconscious Life," which I think you have seen, to Rev. Joseph H. Allen, the Editor of the "Unitarian Review." It will probably appear in the next number — and I will send it to you. Mr. Allen writes me very complimentarily about it: "I have just left your paper with the printer — with gratitude and delight that you give me the privilege of printing it. It is like a fresh breeze out of the golden days when the world was young — to us I mean — and reads like one of the clearest and pleasantest of the voices that belonged to that time, be- fore Carlyle became surly, or Emerson had gone upon the shelf. How is it that we have known so little of you in your prose?" 368 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH This — from a scholar and thinker like Allen — ought to cheer up an old man who sees his audiences fading away around him. I told him I valued his praise as an incentive to better work. . . . Mr. Cranch was asked to speak at the Browning Memorial Service held in King's Chapel, Boston, on January 28. He was very glad to respond, and his address is pleasantly remembered by his hearers, both the reminiscences of the man and his well- considered appreciation of the poet. 1 In contradistinction, a letter from Mr. Edward Cranch to his brother, written about this time, vig- orously expresses what a good many feel in reading Browning. Like Alcmene, in giving birth to Hercules, he was racked by immortal throes, and could but yell. People a thousand miles off could tell something was the matter with him — but, like the Delphic Oracle, he lacked the power of expressing what it was. And when he was most in earnest he was least communicative. Whether this lack of perspicuity resulted from indifference or his na- tural buoyancy of spirit, bouncing over ditches and fences like a kangaroo, — calling dogs to come along, and raising a cloud of dust behind him. — One says lo! here, and one says lo! there, but where Browning is, or what he is after, is beyond any human comprehension to say — like a flea, etc. If there is anything that baffles and angers me, and bungs my eye, it is a want of downright, honest, stark 1 In conversation at this time Mr. Cranch told this little anecdote: "One day, it was in Paris, I asked Browning what was the Good News they brought from Ghent to Aix. 'Well,' he answered, 'you know about it as much as I do.' " , LAST YEARS 369 naked perspicuity of style, and this has excluded me for- ever from the charmed circle of Browning worshippers, and left me with the mark of Cain on my forehead. But Browning is no charlatan. He is a good honest man — or thinker — who has been sent for some useful purpose. He may have been sent to Vassar to punish young ladies for blubbering over their Miltons and Vir- gils, — or to Yale and Harvard to make the established classics seem easier, — or to Boston to fill vacant places left by the clergy, — or to the Chatauqua circle as an endless comfort, or subject of debate. But joking apart, — I can see that this tough Browning has fought his way to the front, and struck a magnifi- cent path in the direction of reflective poetry of the future, and I don't want to see that glorious current set back. I never understood Wagner till I went to Baireuth and I don't expect to ever understand all of Browning. Mr. Cranch to George William Curtis Cambridge, May 9, 1890. We all thank you for sending us the tissue paper por- trait of yours from the drawing of Mr. Cummin, and here don't let me forget to acknowledge the photograph you sent some time ago, done, I think in Philadelphia. It is difficult to say just where Mr. Cummin's drawing fails in being altogether satisfactory. It is like and yet not like. We all think he has missed giving the character and vital- ity of the face. It has a more worried look than I often see in you. But I am a difficult critic as regards your face, which I have known so well and so long, and I dare say the drawing will seem much better to some who don't know you so well. But as the mobility of your features has so often defied the photographer, I don't much wonder that it baffles the artist too. 370 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH . This unlikeness of one photograph of you to another, and the unlikeness of all of them to the original, is always an inexplicable thing to me. I wish you would keep your collection of these essays and show them to the portrait painters. Did Mr. Cummin see them? They would make a most unique collection. 1 I don't think I ever told you of my birthday celebra- tion in March. My friend Mrs. Stearns had given me a bottle of Spanish wine — Xeres — which she declared was over a hundred years old. I immediately wrote a sonnet to the donor, and told her I should keep the flask, unopened until some rare occasion. So, as my birthday was coming, I invited three old cronies, two of them born the same year with myself and one a year older, viz.: John S. Dwight, Frank Boott, and John Holmes, to come around in the evening, to the opening of the wonderful old wine. They all came, and Lizzie trotted out some of the old family silver, and presided at the table. In the centre appeared the wonderful wine, still in its old straw sheath. Then, by way of grace, I read them my sonnet, and with all due reverence uncorked the reverend flask, not knowing but it might have lost all its original virtue. But we all looked at each other, and I suppose smacked our lips. The old sherry was just per- fect; a trifle dry, but such a bouquet! As a fit accompani- ment to this melody, we had some delicious crackers and cheese, and we all thought nothing could be sweeter. After this we adjourned — we four old fellows — to my study, where we finished off the evening with punch, cigars, and quips and cranks, and wreathed smiles, and all went off with decent sobriety, not one mistaking another's umbrella or overshoes for his own. Boott 1 Mr. Curtis kept a collection of these photographs of himself. One, I remember, was marked underneath, "A Idiot." GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS LAST YEARS 371 actually soared into verse, and wrote some lines ad- dressed to me on this memorable night! (j have been sitting to Duveneck for my portrait, a success, I think. ) • • I am quite busy preparing my Autobiography, not for publication, but for my children and grandchildren, as a family record. Mr. Cranch wrote this to the hermit thrush, which is heard morning and evening on Gerrish Island. He was staying at the Hotel Pocahontas before he made his visit to the new house. Quoting from the "Log at Brawboat," he says: — "Nothing can exceed the beauty and variety of the views in every direction. At the Pocahontas ... the view of the open sea and lonely rocks is impressive but monotonous. . . . Here, the various indentations of the coast with the rising and falling of the tide — the ship- ping — the houses in the distance — the pond — the dark fir woods — the rocks, give a most agreeable com- bination of solitude and human life." "Oh, will you, will you?" sings the thrush Deep in his shady cover. "Oh, will you, will you, live with me, And be my friend and lover? ""With woodland scents and sounds all day, And music we will fill you; For concerts we will charge no fee. Oh, will you, will you, will you?" Dear hidden bird, full oft I've heard Your pleasant invitation, And searched for you amid your boughs With fruitless observation. Too near and yet too far you seem For mortals to discover. You call me, yet I cannot come, And am your hopeless lover. 372 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH Like all that is too sweet and fair, I never can come near you. Your songs fill all the summer air — I only sit and hear you. Gerrish Island, July 11, 1890. 0. B. Frothingham to Mr. Cranch Boston, November 16, 1890. Your Sonnets to O. B. F. in your last volume touched me deeply. Would the subject were worthy of them! Such recognition is more than reward enough. There is real satisfaction to one who has flung abroad so many seeds that have perished because they had no right to live, that some have lodged in a poetic soul and brought forth such fruit. Your lines on "Old Age" in "Scribner's" for October too were most pathetic. They brought tears to my eyes, I accept the greeting, I entertain the trust. The hope grows sweeter and dearer as the shadows gather. I should have been to see you long ago if I had been able; but mine has been a miserable Autumn. Pain and weakness have kept me in town and have greatly circum- scribed my walking in the city. . . . Mr. Cranch to his brother Edward Cambridge, December 28, 1890. I usually go to church, but this morning wife and daughter take my place, and I perform the secular duty of going to the P. O., and behold I am rewarded with your letter written Xmas Day. . . . Your letter makes brighter to me even this bright sunshiny day. But I don't like that picture of you I see sitting on Christmas Day over your fire, with your little black-and-tan for company, and all the family away, and the snow coming down and the wind howling, and you covering up your fire and turning LAST YEARS 373 in — all alone in your house. I wait with some anxiety to hear they have returned. Your account of your street- car experiences is all in your best vein. But the idea of an old gentleman past eighty being suffered by his wife and daughter to perambulate the winter streets and vex his soul out buying Xmas presents, is not to be tolerated. I leave most of this business to my wife, who in spite of her bodily infirmities manages somehow, with her im- mense nervous energy, and her maternal and grand- maternal yearnings, to get to Boston and buy a great box of presents. ... I have, however, done a little shop- ping for this Xmas. But it is a dreadful business, unless you begin early in the season, taking Time by the fore- lock — or as the Portuguese phrasebook has it, " Taking the occasion for the hairs." I made several attempts to get to the counters in several shops where there were Christ- mas cards; but it is n't very easy to carry on negotiations in stationery and pictures over the heads of men and women, especially women, who, when they get to the counter, somehow seem stuck there by invisible glue. The fact is we are overdoing Christmas more and more every year. It used to be a children's festival. Now we must give to old as well as young. Happy are we that it comes but once a year. Your letter makes me long to have a good long talk with you. Yes, let me have that submerged essay you are half tempted to write. Do write all your fingers are capa- ble of doing, the more the better; serious or gay. What lots of things there are we could talk about! The fact is there is no knowing where to begin or where to end, things crowd so into my head I want to talk over v/ith you. And this stiff pen and cold white paper are not exactly the most favorable mediums for communication. There are fifty openings into fifty topics, all leading into 374 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH some chambers of thought and feeling common to us both ! But where to begin? By the way, what a clever and wise sentence is that of yours, " Doctrinism is like a bad champagne cork; it keeps the liquor, but lets the aroma escape." It is just so. Men may make celestial maps of the heavens, but the heavens can never be prisoned in diagrams and definitions. That which exists at the centre of things touches us at the circumference, in every core and avenue of feeling, if we are only alive. But it is not to be adequately described; not to be packed into a system or a creed. How can we measure this boundless element in which we are drifting (yet not drifting I hope, except to some great terminus, some haven) ? And yet we have intima- tions that come to us, we don't know always how, of great realities that are dateless, measureless. We have glimpses — too few, alas, and too crowded — of a great Light. We have perfumes from hidden gardens; snatches of music from unseen orchestras; electric thrillings from abiding centres, somewhere; inspirations from something far above us, yet in some sense in us. But this is rather of the essay style, and to confess, is borrowed from an essay which I should like to read to you, on the " Evolution of the Moral Ideal." In it I have been tempted to have a little fling here and there, at the doc- trines of F. E. Abbot. Have you read his book, "Scientific Theism," and his other book, "The Way out of Agnosticism"? Abbott thinks he has introduced revo- lutionary methods into philosophy. He applies the scientific method to everything; even to proving the exist- ence of God. He has a patented private scaling-ladder, and gets in where angels fear to tread, and makes God as palpable and plain to our intellectual grasp and compre- hension as the material atmosphere. But I can't help LAST YEARS 375 saying here, if we can prove and comprehend thus the Infinite Soul of the Universe, why, we may as well carry him in our pockets, as a South-Sea Islander might do his idol! . . . A deeply interesting book I have partly read — it was borrowed, and had to be returned — is Dr. Martineau's new volume, the " Basis of Authority in Religion." I had never read anything of Martineau's before; was greatly impressed with this. He is profound and radical, and yet, in the true sense, conservative, and is a wonderful master of style. I think I shall have to buy the book. And now I wish you would (when you feel able) sit down and tell me about your " important discoveries/' I have no doubt they may be new to me, for I am the greatest ignoramus in much that a Harvard professor might insist upon, in the line of philosophic thought. And then, sometimes, I feel like dodging this whole matter of questions and cross-questions, and falling back on a plain level of common sense, taking refuge from the flying mis- siles, in the holes and crevices of unquestioning faith, in a few undiscovered places. Well, here I am essay- writing, or pretty near it; and there are Lizzie and Carrie — I hear them — just got home from church — much pleased with the preaching and the music. But I think I have been to church too, with my dear brother. . . . Uncle Edward's Golden Wedding, when the house at Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, was in holiday array, was a very great event for my father, his dearly loved brother. My father came from his quiet study in Cambridge, to meet here, in his own home, that intimate brother, surrounded by his family, his wife, children, and grandchildren, by 376 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH nieces and nephews and old friends. It was a beau- tiful day, — April 15, — already warm in Ohio. The house was festive with yellow roses in profusion. The guests came with their love and friendship to congratulate this young-old pair of lovers. Dear Uncle Edward was like a young bridegroom. His partner had a light in her face as she greeted her friends and presided over this remarkable occasion. Youthful she was in spite of her white hair. The presents ranged from golden champagne, golden ducats, to a pretty little gold brooch of two hearts together. I noticed a pair of dainty gold slip- pers for this dear old Cinderella. There was a painted plate with a poem of my father's upon it. The two brothers met the day before the great occasion, and afterwards my father stayed on for a little visit at the Walnut Hills home. There they renewed their youth by long talks, walks, and duets on their flutes. George William Curtis to Mr, Cranch Ashfield, August 1, 1891. Our day pf memory dawns again. Here on my book shelf is the little bark canoe on which is the name of the ship and the immortal date, which Carrie carved, and five years ago filled the canoe with flowers. I came over from Albany three weeks ago, tired out and with a headache a month old. I have done as little as I could since I have been here, but a little, as you may be aware, is not much! Sometime ago I promised the Harpers to make a little book of pieces from the Easy Chair. The task has been very great for so very small a result. Forty-five years ago on the glad waters of the dark LAST YEARS 377 blue sea we had other thoughts than book-making and it is curious how all to-day the thought of that day of em- barkation has filled my mind. My only trouble has been that I cannot recall the name of our darky steward who brought the gruel and the glass of sherry. My recollection is blended of sherry, darky, gruel, and "Home fare thee well." My lady of the gold ear hoops and her buxom children with their expansive sable nurse, are very visi- ble in my memory. And where are you all and how are you? When we parted at the South Ferry I hoped that I should see you while you were still at Yonkers but this has been really the busiest year of my life and many of my most blooming grapes turned out to be sour. . . . Tell Lizzie that I hope her native Hudson air has restored to her the health she used to have, and that this day reminds her of that old love of mine which is always in the most vigorous health. Mr. Cranch to Mrs. Scott Cambridge, August 23, 1891. We left Lexington yesterday, a little sooner than we expected. There were a good many discomforts there, and we are glad to get back to our home. The weather has been very hot, and I don't know when I have been so used up as I was yesterday, with fatigue, heat and illness. One of our greatest annoyances at the Hotel in Lex- ington was the locomotives, for we were close to the rail- road station. I never should have taken rooms there, had I thought of that beforehand. Two or three times a day, besides the hourly passage of the trains, there would be a freight train that kept coming and pretending to go, and then coming back again, with tremendous explosions of steam; often in the middle of the night we had it, within a stone's throw of our windows, which we were obliged to 378 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH leave open on account of the heat. I used to lie awake and swear internally. I christened the place "The Devil's Kitchen." Sometimes the "Old Boy" seemed to be frying fish half the night. On the cool nights it was n't so bad. Then we had musical classes who kept up a con- stant thrumming and singing in the great hall, and the service was very ineffective in various ways. But we found some pleasant people, and a gem of an old doctor, Dr. S., a friendly and sympathetic gentleman, who re- membered hearing me preach about fifty years ago in Dr. Furness's pulpit! And I was much pleased that he should have remembered one sermon, in which he says I foreshadowed Darwin's doctrine of Evolution. I have a rather vague remembrance of it, but I lost the Manu- script. I suppose it was among the papers and books burnt up in the Old Homestead fire in 1857, while we were in Paris. Besides my books I must have lost many valu- able letters and some manuscripts that were worth pre- serving. To his brother Edward Cambridge, September 5, 1891. I am very glad to hear from Margie that you are with her and enjoying the change of scene and the sea-air. Before you go back to the West, Lizzie and I want you to make us a little visit in Cambridge, say, in ten days or a fortnight from now, when the household wheels run a little more smoothly. I have not been at all well, more or less, for some time, and this week the horrid dyspepsia is complicated with other symptoms. I have no appetite and no strength and no energy and no ambition. For the last few days I have lived chiefly on tea and toast and milk, and keep to my armchair and Dickens, for want of a better story-teller. LAST YEARS 379 If I am well enough, I shall try to run down to "B raw- boat" (the name of N.'s house at Gerrish Island) for a few days. ... I hope you will come to us. Boston, December 9, 1891. Your letter is just received. I am sitting up in my easy- chair, and had a quiet day yesterday and a quiet night. I have suffered less pain lately, owing to the caution in my food. ... I have lost all my strength and it is only with an extreme and sudden effort that I can move from place to place. Dressing and undressing is an absurd labor for me. But I generally have quiet nights, contriving to patch out the long hours with successive light naps and usually pleasant dreams. My wife and daughter are in- valuable nurses. We are going back to Cambridge to- morrow, with new servants who promise well. . . .We have been very comfortable here, but shall be glad to be again at home. I think I ' ve not been out of my room for a fortnight. Edward P. Cranch to his brother Cincinnati, January 9, 1892. It is with deep concern that I hear, through sister Margie, of your prolonged illness and pain and weakness. I am grieved to be so far away from you, and so little in a condition to be of aid and comfort. But I am thankful that you have good nursing and attendance, and I hope the doctor will at last bring you through and restore you to health. I must not fatigue you with letters, but I want you to know that we are thinking continually of you with deep sympathy and praying for your recovery. May God bless you and sustain you and bring you to health again, is the sincere prayer of your brother. 380 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH George William Curtis to Mrs. Scott West New Brighton, Staten Island, January 15, 1892. I had heard from Mrs. Brooks, so that your letter did not surprise me, although it is long since I have felt so deep a pain. All that you say is in harmony with his pure and gentle and noble life, and I can only hope with you that when the end shall come, it may be as peaceful as you describe his days. It is fifty years since I first knew your father, and in all that time there has been no kind of break in our regard. How many of my happiest recollections are associated with him and your mother! and how long now seems the vista through which I look back to the earlier days ! . . . My daughter and I are fighting the grippe. My move- ments are therefore very uncertain, but you will give my old and constant love to your dear father — a love blended with pride to have been the friend of a man who has never broken faith with himself, and has walked always with sublime faith the upward way. Your mother knows my feeling for her, and indeed, for all of you, and with the warmest sympathy and affection, I am Your friend always. Mr. Cranch's health began to fail in the last part of the year 1889. He had then what he thought was dyspepsia. It was the beginning of a deep- seated trouble. He could not eat what he was accustomed to. He wrote funny letters to his brother Edward and to his friend Mrs. Stearns. He made pictures of the "grasshopper burden" at which his friends laughed. His muscular strength held out to the last day of his life. His elder daugh- i t oo LAST YEARS 381 ter was summoned from the West, to take care of him. Mr. Samuel Longfellow found him bright and hopeful about the outlook. 1 A piano was brought into the house and Mr. Paine played the beautiful classical music he loved. His face was then trans- figured, and he listened with an exalted look that was long after remembered. His friend Mr. Boott came and talked with him. The elder two grandsons came to see him from their school, remaining quietly in his room, caring for his fire or his medicine. He gazed intently into their faces, seeming to see their future life and getting encouragement therefrom. The end came peacefully, like a child going to sleep, the morning of January 20, 1892. George William Curtis to Mrs. Cranch West New Brighton, Staten Island, January 20, 1892. N.'s telegram has come, and I am very sorry that I am not in a condition to leave home, and I must say else- where what I have to say of the pure and noble and gentle soul that is gone. As I told N., it is just fifty years since I knew him first, and I always treasure the recollec- tion of the charm of aspect and manner, and of the ex- quisite temperament. Fresh and unwasted to the end was the bloom of youth that lay upon his soul, and I shall always hear that mellow voice and feel my pulse beating with that faithful heart. 1 Mrs. Stearns, in a letter to Mrs. Scott, said: "My old friend, Mr. Longfellow, wrote to me the 21st — 'Yes, Cranch is gone. On Sunday he told me, in a few words, of his outlook of faith into the life beyond. It was the sunset that he had painted.' This sunset reveals your father's life and faith.'* 382 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH My dear Lizzie, there are no words for consolation, and I can but vaguely conceive what the pang must be. The loss of a dear child I have known, but not this more in- timate and desolating sorrow. Once, long ago, he spoke to me of the end, but with perfect trust in the divine benignity of the eternal laws. Upon no human soul were they ever more legibly written than upon his, and for all who loved him, his memory will be joy and peace. Edward P. Cranch to Mrs. Scott Cincinnati, February 8, 1892. I thank you most kindly for the tender care you have taken to inform me of the particulars of your dear father's last moments on this earth. It was a grief to me that my own disabilities, my extreme old age, and the inclemencies of the winter, prevented me from being once more with him in December. He was very dear to me from childhood, and his memory will be precious to me while I live. During our almost lifelong absence we kept up a most affectionate personal correspondence, and his letters helped to instruct and soothe me through all the vicissitudes of life. It is not without tears of the tenderest love that I can even think of him or speak of him to you, his loving and thoughtful child, his kind nurse in sickness. My heart is full, and yet I can say no more at present, except to share my sym- pathies and sorrows with his family, his wife and daugh- ters, his two good sisters, and others who knew and loved him. My own best thought now is thankfulness to God, who granted me for three quarters of a century, the life and brotherly love of so noble a man! And oh, it is my comfort to think that if there is in nature a warrant for the aspirations of the human soul, he is now among the blest in that brighter world of his poetic dreams! And LAST YEARS 383 oh, that I were worthy to hope that in some capacity I could again be within hail of that dear brother, that good and patient spirit! Your dear father was four years younger than myself, and I have no right to expect to survive him long. The decrepitude of age is stealing my strength and brain, but if there is anything I could do to perpetuate his ex- ample and his memory on the earth I would gladly do it. Soon after Mr. Cranch's death, Mr. Curtis in his "Easy Chair" 1 paid his last tribute to his old friend: — The Easy Chair first saw Christopher Cranch one evening at Brook Farm, when the Arcadian company was gathered in the little parlor of the Eyry, the brown cottage which was the scene of its social pleasures. He was then nearly thirty years old, a man of pictur- esquely handsome aspect, the curling brown hair cluster- ing around the fine brow, and the refined and delicate features lighted with sympathetic pleasure. He seated himself presently at the piano, upon which he opened a manuscript book of music, and imperfectly struck the chords of an accompaniment to a song which was wholly new and striking, which he sang in a rich, reedy, barytone voice, and with deep musical feeling. There was an ex- clamation of pleasure and inquiry as he ended, and he said that it was called the "Serenade," and was composed by a German named Schubert. He had transcribed it into his book from the copy of a friend. Thus at the same time the Easy Chair made the ac- quaintance of Cranch and Schubert. The singer was still a preacher, but was about leaving the pulpit. He was 1 Harper's Magazine, April, 1892. 384 CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH already a disciple of Transcendentalism, the far-reaching spiritual revival and impulses of that time. Cranch followed the leading of his temperament and talent in becoming an artist. He was, indeed, an artist in various kinds. The diamond which the good genius brought to his cradle, it broke into many parts. He was poet, painter, musician, student, with a supplement of amusing social gifts, and chief of all was the freshness of spirit which kept him always young. The artistic tempera- ment is one of moods, and Cranch was often silent and depressed. But it is a temperament which is also resili- ent, and recovers its cheerfulness as a sky of April shines through the scattering clouds. Sometimes in later years, when the future which, seen from a studio, is often far from smiling, he came to the room of a friend, and there, before a kindly fire, with a pipe of the "good creature," and with talk that ranged like a humming-bird through the garden, the vapors vanished, and the future, seen from another point of view, smiled and beckoned. For fifty years his life was nomadic. He was much in Europe, living chiefly in Rome and Paris, with excursions; and in America his centre was New York, even although toward the close of his life his home, where he died, was in Cambridge. His heart was disputed by painting and poetry. He painted and sang. The early bent of his mind, which carried him into the pulpit, held him to religious interests and reading, and while he published poetry and translated the iEneid, he wrote grave papers, and in his "Satan," and other poems, dealt with ethical principles and religious speculation. His nature was singularly childlike and sensitive, and he was wholly in accord with what was really the earnest and advancing spirit of his time. Doubtless he desired a larger public recognition LAST YEARS 385 than he found, and he saw, but without repining, that others appeared to pass him in that uncertain competi- tion where the prizes seem often to be awarded by a fickle goddess. But no such perception chilled his work or daunted his hope. When he was threescore and ten, his form was still lithe and erect, his step elastic, and, in a friendly circle, his manner was as buoyant as ever. The diffidence of youth still remained, and made his age more winning. Nature in all its aspects did not lose its charm for him, and although in later years he painted little, his interest in books, in society, and good-fellowship never flagged. He was of that choice band who are always true to the ideals of youth, and whose hearts are the citadels which conquering time assails in vain. It was a long and lovely life, and if great fame be denied, not less a beautiful memory remains. It was a life gentle and pure and good, and as living hearts recall its sun and shade, they uncon- sciously murmur the words of Mrs. Browning, "perplexed music." THE END INDEX INDEX Abbot, Francis Ellingwood, 374. Adams, Abigail, 73, 74. Adams, John, 8, 12, 13. Adams, John Quincy, 9, 10, 72. Alboni, Marietta, 163, 164, 166. Alden, Henry M., 294. Allen, Rev. Joseph H., 367. Alpine horn, 206, 207. Alps, the, 203-07. Amalfi, 145, 147, 148; a sink of filth, 146. American mind, the, 219. Andersen, Hans Christian, 221. Angelo, Michael, 115, 151, 152, 324. Ariel and Caliban, 294. Art, in America, 183. Asbury Park, 362, 363. Atlantic dinner, to Whittier, 298. Avalanches, 207. Babel, the confusion of, interpreted by Lowell, 216. Ball, Thomas, 326, 327. Ballet, disliked by Cranch, 151, 152. Barberini Palace, 234, 238. Barbizon, 223-28. Bartolini, Lorenzo, 152. Benzon, Edward, 189. Berlin, 132; music in, 249, 250. Bigelow, John, letter to Cranch, 295. Bird and the Bell, The, 156, 157, 159- 61, 291 n. Birds and the Wires, The, 359, 360. Blaine, James G., 351. Blue Grotto, the, in Capri, 143. "Bomba" (Ferdinand II of Naples), 141. Boott, Francis, 151, 188, 287, 294, 325, 330, 370, 381; letters from, 356, 360; letter to, 360. Boston, 47, 48, 77. Boston Radical Club, 291 n. Brook Farm, 52. Brooks, Rev. Charles T., letter to, 349. Brooks, Mrs. Erastus, letters to, 37, 39, 244, 282, 318, 347. See also Cranch, Margaret. Brownell, Frank T., 271. Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 156, 157; son born in Florence, 162; letter to, 157; letters from, 158, 159, 197. Browning, Robert, friendship of the Cranches with, 156, 157, 161-63, 164, 194, 214, 215; Memorial Serv- ice in King's Chapel, 368; Edward Cranch on, 368, 369; letter from, 195. Buckle, Henry Thomas, 366. Bull, Ole, 89-91. Burlingame, E. L., 359. "Burlybones," 203. Burne-Jones, Sir Edward, 310. Cambridge, 278-305; social life in, 278, 279; never such a place for bells, 284; Cranch's study in, 338, 339, 364. Capri, 143; trip to, 146, 147. Carlyle, Thomas, 63. Carnival, the Roman, 124, 153, 154, 231, 240. Cerrito, Francesca, 166, 167. Channing, William Henry, 44, 45, 75. . 86-88, 248. Chester, England, 306, 307. Child, Lydia Maria, 89, 90. Christmas shopping, 373. Church, Frederic E., 242. Cincinnati Harmonic Society, 282. Civil Service Reform, 351-53. Clarke, Gardiner Hubbard, 237, 240. Clarke, James Freeman, 39-41; letters to, 34, 44. Claude Lorrain, 71. Cleveland, Grover, 351, 353. Coan, Titus Munson, 271. Coleman, Samuel, 346, 347. Coliseum, the, at Rome, 105, 106. 390 INDEX Columbus, Christopher, 103, 104. Conway, Moncure D., 308. Copley, John Singleton, 202. Coquelin, B. C, 322. Coram, Sir Thomas, 312. Correggio, 176, 217, 318. Cousin, Victor, 50. Cranch, Abigail Adams (Mrs. W. G. Eliot), 4, 31; letter to, 229. Cranch, Caroline Amelia, born, 175; an artist, 295, 300, 301, 308, 319; portrait of C. P. C, 347; portrait of John S. Dwight, 348. Cranch, Christopher (English), 288, 289. Cranch, Christopher Pearse, birth, 3; boyhood, 3, 4; first steps in drawing arid versifying, 5, 6; ancestry, 6-17; enters Columbian College, 18; goes to Harvard Divinity School, 19; the day's work, 20; in Andover, Maine, 21-24; in Richmond, Virginia, 24- 27; Enosis, 29, 30; in St. Louis, 31 ; in Cincinnati and Peoria, 32; preaches in Louisville and edits Western Messenger, 36-39; judgment of him- self, 40, 42; in Boston, 47, 48; on Transcendentalism, 49-51 ; visits Brook Farm, 52, 53; a ventriloquist, 52, 359; a devotee of music, 52, 77, 78, 184, 222, 246, 273, 274, 294, 321, 340, 351, 358, 360; personal appear- ance, 53; writes poem for two hun- dredth anniversary of Quincy,Mass., 54, 55; sends poems to Emerson, 58, 59, 63; takes to landscape painting, 60, 66, 67, 70, 83, 89; suffers from trouble in head and brain, 66, 69, 70; tries modelling in clay, 67; preaches at Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, 72; becomes engaged to Elizabeth De Windt, 75, 76; thinks of leaving the ministry, 77, 79, 80, 82, 86; mar- riage, 83-85; interested in Social Reform, 88. First visit to Europe, 91-171; his journal at sea, 93-102; in Genoa, 102-04; in Rome, 104-18; 122-26; night studies from life, 105, 107; birth of a son, 117; at Palestrina, 119, 120; at Olevano, 121; at Naples, 136-41; ascends Vesuvius, 136-38; goes to Pompeii, 139-41; in Sor- rento, 142-49; in Florence, 150-70; begins The Bird and the Bell, 156; friendship with the Brownings, 156- 63. Back in New York, 172; drowning of Mrs. Cranch's mother, 173, 174 i birth of a daughter, 175; progress in art, 179, 183; translation from Heine, 184; correspondent of New York Express, 185; The Flower and the Bee, 185, 186; writes "Farewell to America" for Jenny Lind, 189; plans to revisit Europe, 198; settles down in Paris, 200; exhibits and sells pictures there, 201 ; correspond- ent of the New York Evening Post, 202; visits Switzerland, 203-07, 233, 234; back in Paris, 210; goes to London with Lowell, 212; son born in Paris, 214; The Last of the Hugger- muggers, 215, 218, 220; death of his father, 215; gets literary advice from W. W. Story, 220, 221; strange dream about his brother Edward, 222; at Barbizon, 223-28; in Rome again, 234-42; makes a capillary reform, 239; in Venice, 245-47. His feeling toward slavery, 253; returns to New York, 254; criticises the Pre-Raphaelites, 255; death of his son George, 258, 259; entertains Curtis at "Mon Bijou," 259-61; silver wedding, 262, 263; Gridiron- ville, 266-69, 377; translates the jEneid, 271, 272; in Cambridge, 276-305; sends a landscape to Em- erson, 280, 281; urges his brother Edward to publish, 283, 284; views as to the hereafter, 285, 286, 302, 358, 365, 381; obtains old letters of his father and grandfather, 287, 288; writes libretto for the Cantata of America, 290, 293; The Bird and the Bell, 291; lone, 294; death of his son Quincy, 295, 296; takes part in Sunday afternoon meetings for liberals, 299; translates Eclogues of Virgil and some of Horace's Odes, 300; keeps house in R. W. Gilder's INDEX 391 rooms, 301 ; at Magnolia, 303; poem to O. W. Holmes, 304. Third visit to Europe, 306; in London, 307-15; in Paris, 315-23, 330-36; in Rome, 324; in Florence, 325-27; in Venice, 327-29; in Milan, 329; writes about dreams, 333, 334; returns to America, 336. His Cambridge study, 338, 339, 364; his moods, 339, 340, 342; some characteristics, 339, 340, 341; his books, 341; some juvenile depravi- ties in art, 345, 346; portrait by Caroline Cranch, 347; meets Clinton Scollard, 348; his interest in Civil Service Reform and politics, 351-53; revisits Washington after twenty- three years, 353, 354; goes to As- bury Park, 362; reads poem at two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of First Church of Quincy, 364; essay on the Unconscious Life, 366, 367; delivers address at Browning Me- morial Service in King's Chapel, 368; celebrates seventy-seventh birthday, 370; on Christmas shopping and giving, 373; failing health, 378, 379, 380; death, 381; Curtis's tribute to, in the "Easy Chair," 383-85. Autobiography quoted, 3-7, 18, 19, 40, 66, 104, 117, 119, 124, 142- 53, 155, 157, 172, 175, 189, 200, 208, 254, 278; his work as a poet, 54, 58, 63, 156, 184, 185, 189, 191, 262, 270, 275, 291, 292, 293, 298, 302, 315, 334, 335, 338, 343, 349, 354, 356, 359, 364, 371, 372; as an artist, 60, 66, 67, 70, 83, 89, 105, 107, 179, 183, 201, 221, 230, 232, 236, 255, 280, 281, 317, 319, 345, 346, 359. Letters: to his father, 49; to his wife, 212, 232-42, 245; to Mrs. Brooks, 37, 39, 244, 318, 347; to Mrs. Eliot, 229; to Edward Cranch, 80, 83, 91, 178, 190, 210, 222, 274, 283-89, 293, 297, 300-03, 306, 333, 346, 351-54, 358, 364-68, 372, 378; to Mrs. Scott, 269, 273, 298, 354, 358, 362, 377; to Francis Boott, 360; to C. T. Brooks, 349; to Mrs. Browning, 157; to James Freeman Clarke, 34, 44; to G. W. Curtis, 252, 255, 275, 276, 292, 294, 296, 303, 315, 336, 369; to Anna Dixwell, 357; to J. S. D wight, 21, 24, 56, 57, 68, 70, 75, 79, 82, 84, 88-91, 251, 344; to R. W. Emerson, 58, 60, 63, 280; to O. B. Frothingham, 279; to O. W. Holmes, 350; to Catherine H. Myers, 32, 41, 74, 182; to Julia Myers, 35, 47, 55, 67, 77, 182; to Mrs. George L. Stearns, 184, 198, 214. Cranch, Mrs. C. P., her Journal quoted, 106-15, 121, 170; drowning of her mother, 173, 174; Curtis's opinion of, 257; letters from Mar- garet Fuller, 142, 168; from Mrs. Browning, 158; from Mr. Cranch, 212, 232-42, 245. See also De Windt, Elizabeth. Cranch, Edward P., brother of C. P. C, 4,5, 15, 18, 19; advised to publish, 283; visits Europe in his eighty-first year, 365; on Browning, 368, 369; golden wedding, 375, 376; letter to Mrs. Brooks, 282; letter to Mrs. Scott, 382; letters to C. P. C, 345, 368, 379; letters from C. P. C. to, 80, 83, 91, 178, 190, 210, 222, 274, 283-89, 293, 297, 300-03, 306, 333, 346, 351-54, 358, 364-68, 372, 378. Cranch, Elizabeth (Mrs. Rufus Dawes), 4, 244. Cranch, George William, born, 117; gets a lieutenant's commission, 258; death, 258, 259. Cranch, John, brother of C. P. C, 4, 18, 19, 66, 365. Cranch, Leonora (Mrs. Scott), born, 145; letters to, 269, 273, 298, 354, 358, 362, 377. Cranch, Margaret, 4, 39, 45. See also Brooks, Mrs. Erastus. Cranch, Mary (Mrs. Richard Nor- ton), 3. Cranch, Quincy Adams, 276, 277; born in Paris, 214; killed on shipboard, 295, 296. Cranch, Hon. Richard, grandfather of C. P. C., 8, 9. 21; letters of, 287, 288. 392 INDEX Cranch, Richard, brother of C. P. C, 3, 4; drowned, 5, 6. Cranch, Judge William, father of C. P. C., 6, 7, 9-17, 185; married to Ann Greenleaf, 12; letter to, 49; death, 215. Cranch, Mrs. William, 6, 7, 12, 17. Cranch, William, brother of C. P. C, 4. Cropsey, G. F., 145. Curtis, Burrill, 112, 113. Curtis, George William, goes to Eu- rope with Cranch, 91, 93, 110, 112, 170, 177; one of the editors of Put- nam's Magazine, 191, 229; marriage, 229; advice to literary aspirants, 243; visits Cranch, 259-61; poems to, 315, 332, 343; portrait by Cum- min, 369; kept collection of photo- graphs of himself, 370; tribute to Cranch in the "Easy Chair," 383- 85; letters to Mrs. Cranch, 163, 347, 381; to Mrs. Scott, 380; to Cranch, 127-35, 228, 242, 257, 258, 259, 261, 265, 266, 270, 276, 289, 292, 297, 305, 337, 342, 355, 361, 376; from Cranch, 252, 255, 275, 276, 292, 294, 296, 303, 315, 336, 369. Curtis, Lt.-Col. Joseph Bridgham, 252. Cushman, Charlotte, 238, 239, 241. Darley, F. O. C, 73. Dawes, Rufus, 244. Dawes, Hon. Thomas, 11. De Windt, Elizabeth, 72, 73, 74, 76; marriage, 84. See also Cranch, Mrs. C. P. De Windt, John P., 72; homestead burned, 202, 203. De Windt, Mrs. John P., a grand- daughter of John Adams, 73, 74; drowned, 173. De Windt, Peter, 315. Dickinson, Lowes, R. A., 313. Dixwell, Anna, 326, 331; letter to, 357. Doria, Andrea, 103, 104. Downing, A. J., 75, 84, 174; drowned, 173. Dreams, 43, 58, 222, 306, 333. Dupont, M., 333. Duran, Carolus, 319. Duveneck, Frank, 325, 357, 360, 371. Dwight, John S., 20, 21, 79, 82, 370; portrait painted by Caroline Cranch, 348; letter from, 247; let- ters to, 21, 24, 56, 57, 68, 70, 75, 79. 82, 84, 88-91, 251, 344. Eclipse, an, of the moon, 227, 228. Eliot, George, 320, 321. Eliot, William Greenleaf, 19, 31; letter from, 272. Ellsler, Fanny, 167. Emerson, N. B., 271. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 41, 47, 51, 58, 60, 61; Holmes's Life of, 350; letters from, 59, 61, 64, 281; letters to, 58, 60, 63, 280. Everett, Prof. C. C, 299, 350. "Farewell to America," 189. Ferdinand II of Naples ("Bomba"), 141. Fireworks at the Castle of San An- gelo, 117. Florence, 150-68; the Carnival, 153, 154. Flower and the Bee, The, 185, 186. Forbes, Mrs. J. M., 281. Foundling Hospital, London, 311, 312. Frothingham, Octavius Brooks, 301; his Life of Theodore Parker, 279, 280; letter from, 372; letter to, 279. Froude, J. A., 308. Fuller, Margaret, 61, 63, 280; death, 173, 196; newspaper controversy about, 352; letters to Mrs. Cranch, 142, 168. Furness, James, 46. Furness, William, 46. Garcia, Maria Felicita (Mme. Mali- bran), 133. Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 246, 247. Gay, Walter, 317, 320, 322. Gericke, Wilhelm, 351. German language, difficulties of, 216. Gesticulations of Italians, 155, 156. Gilder, Richard Watson, 301. Girandola, 117. Gluck, Christoph Wilibald von, 133, 134. INDEX 393 Goldschmidt, Otto, 189. Grahn, Lucile, 167. Greeley, Horace, 254. Green, Colonel, 237. Greenleaf, Ann (Mrs. William Cranch), 6, 7, 12, 17. Greenleaf, James, 5, 7. Greenleaf, John, 21. Greenleaf, Mary (Mrs. George Minot Dawes), 21. Greenleaf, Richard, 287. Greenough, Horatio, 152, 213. Greenough, John, 80. Gridironville, 266-69, 377, Grisi, Carlotta, 167. Griswold, C. C, 255. Grosvenor Gallery, London, 310. Grotto of San Francisco, near Amalfi, 148. Guido's Aurora, 111. Hartmann, K. R. E. von, 366. Harvard College, two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, 355. Hawthorne, Julian, 352. Hedge, Rev. Frederick H., 29, 299, 352. Heine, Heinrich, translation of his Fichtenbaum, 184. Hicks, Thomas, 73, 107, 124, 170, 171, 242. Higginson, Col. T. W., 352. Hoffman, Charles Fenno, 75, 84. Holmes, John, 322, 323, 370. Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 355, 361; letter from, 304; poem to, by C. P. C, 304; letter to, 350. Hosmer, Harriet, 232. Houghton, H. O., 298. Hunt, William M., 313. Huntington, William H., 200, 317, 320. lone, 294. James, Henry, Jr., 328. James, Wilkinson, 258. James, William, 303, 366; letter to Cranch, 342. Keats, George, brother of John Keats, 37, 38, 44. Keats, John, 164; his Endymion, 43; portrait of, 342; poem by C. P. C, 343. Kemble, Fanny, 47. Kensett, John F., 107, 242. Kensington Museum, 308, 309. Kirby, Georgiana Bruce, 356; quoted, 53. Knoop, Herr, a master of the violon- cello, 78. Kobboltozo, 231, 262. Lablache, Luigi, 163, 166. Lamartine, 163, 165, 166. Landor, Walter Savage, 164. Last of the Huggermuggers, The, 215, 218, 220. Laugel, M. and Mme., 322. Leonardo, the Last Supper, 329. Letters, old family, 287. Lexington, Mass., 266-69, 377. Lind, Jenny, 127, 128, 166; Cranch writes "Farewell to America" for her, 189. London, a wonderfully interesting city, 307; museums and galleries, 308, 309, 310; parks, 309; climate, 309; Foundling Hospital, 311, 312; the Tower, 313, 314. Longfellow, Samuel, 381. Lowell, James Russell, 201, 202, 355; takes Cranch to London, 212, 214; his opinion of the confusion of Babel, 216; fiftieth birthday, 264; letters from, 213, 215, 256, 257, 262, 264, 270. Lowell, Walter, 209. Lucca, 193. Malibran, Mme., 133. Mann, Horace, 47. Martineau, Harriet, 63. Martineau, James, 375. Masaccio, frescoes by, 153. May, Edward H , 316, 317, 320, 338. Mazzini, Joseph, 170. McEntee, Jervis, 173. Mead, Edwin D., 364. Mendelssohn, Felix, death of, 128-30. Meudon, 316. Miller, William, 48. 394 INDEX Moccoletti, 126. "Mon Bijou," 259. Morse, Sydney H., 299. Motley, John Lothrop, 361. Munich, 178. Munkacsy, Mihaly, 310, 319, 330, 331. Myers, Catherine H., letters to, 32, 41, 74, 182. Myers, Julia, letters to, 35, 41, 47, 55, 67, 77, 182. Naples, 136-41; civil war in, 144, 145. National Gallery, London, 310, 314. Newspaper, morning, how to read, 261. New York, 172, 183, 254 Norton, Andrews, 49. Norton, Richard, 3. Offenbach, Jacques, 322. Olevano, 120, 121. Ormuzd and Ahriman, 349, 350, 355, 367. Peestum, 147. Paine, John K., 294, 381. Palestrina, 119, 120. Paris, Cranch spends ten years in, 200-53; Universal Exhibition (1855), 201; the place for an artist, 210; Cranch visits again, 315-22. Parker, Theodore, 58, 291 n; Froth- ingham's Life of, 279, 280. Perkins, Charles C, 124, 239. Perkins, James Handasyde, 32, 44. Pickwick Papers, 39. Pius IX, Pope, 107, 108, 142, 187. Planchette, a liar, 261. Poker, 359. Pompeii, 139-41. Poor, John A., 69. Porter, Peter A., 175. Powers, Hiram, 67, 150, 152. Preston, Mary (Mrs. George L. Stearns), 27-30. Putnam's Magazine, 191. Puvis de Chavannes, Pierre Cecile, 335. Rachel, Elisa, 167, 168. Retzsch, Moritz, 217. Revolution, European (1848), 134, 135. Rhodes, Christopher, 31. Ripley, George, 311. Rome, 104-18, 122, 186-89, 324; the Carnival, 153, 154, 231, 240; theatri- cals by the Story s and friends, 188; the only place to live in, 232. Rubinstein, Anton, 273, 274. Russell, Prof. W. C, 358, 359. Saint-Leon, M., 166, 167. St. Peter's, Rome, 106, 107. Salvini, Tommaso, 231, 241. San Marco, Church of, Venice, 328, 329. Sargent, John T., 291. Satan, 281, 349, 354. Scherer, Edward, 320, 321. Schumann, Clara, 249. Scollard, Clinton, sonnet to Cranch, 348, 349. Scott, Mrs. Leonora Cranch. See Cranch, Leonora. Shaw, Rev. John, 9. Sheffield, Massachusetts, 173, 178, 179. Slavery, 252, 253. Sorrento, 142-49; a plantation of orange and lemon trees, 142. Stearns, Major George L., 27, 28. Stearns, Mrs. George L., 27-30, 370, 381; letters to, 184, 198, 214. Stearns, Rev. Mr., of Hingham, 57 Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 356. Stone, Rev. Thomas T., 69, 70. Story, William Wetmore, 169, 170, 214; makes generous offer to Cranch, 181; private theatricals in Rome, 188; death of his son Joseph, 208, 209; writes law books, 219; gives literary advice to Cranch, 220, 221 ; occupies Barberini Palace, 234, 238; Cranch's opinion of his statues, 235; reads one of his own poems, 239; letters from, 175, 180, 186, 192, 208, 211, 218, 220, 231. Street-cries in Italy, 154, 155. Sturgis, Russell, 201, 202; entertains Cranch in London, 213, 310. Sunday Afternoon Club, 299, 366. Sunsets, American, 172, 175. Swift, Lindsay, 49; quoted, 52. INDEX 395 Taylor, Bayard, 189. Taylor, Henry, 164, 165. Taylor, Jeremy, 209. Terry, Luther, 110, 111. Tessero-Guidone, Signora, 327. Thackeray, William Makepeace, 201, 202; lectures in America, 219. Thayer, Alexander W., 249, 250, 329. Thoreau, Henry D., 60. Titian, paintings by, at Dresden, 217; the Entombment, 318. Tivoli, 120. Transcendentalism, 49-51. Turner, J. M. W., 157, 314, 315. Twain, Mark, 344. Vannier, Madame, inn-keeper at Barbizon, 224-28. Vatican, the, 108, 109, 125. Vaughan, John C, 44, 45. Vesuvius, 136-38, 145. Vienna, 177, 178. Villa Borghese, 123. Villa di Angelis, Sorrento, 142, 143. Washington city, revisited, 353, 354. Watch, (Tranches' dog, 4. Webster, Noah, 12. Weiss, John, 299. Western Messenger, The, 36-38. Whitney, Rev. George, 56. Whittier, John G., Atlantic dinner to, 298. Women, in Italy, 146, 193. Woolson, Constance Fenimore, 356; letter to Mr. Boott, 357. Ziem, Felix, 208, 244, 247. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A 31+7?-? Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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