fessors in female seminaries, and to make it clear that I can speak of him only as a loving brother may speak of a brother beloved, as a humble younger brother may speak of a great elder brother who is dead.
How glad I would be if I might convey to others something of my deep affection, if I might present to my readers a living, faithful image of the soul of the poet whom I love—a soul childlike and great, inebriate with joy and heavy with sadness.
I do not care to discuss the facts of his life. What matters it just when he was a printer, a reporter, a carpenter, a nurse, a government employee, a patriarch of democracy? I know that he was born in America in 1819, that he never left his country, and that he died in 1892. I know that in life he was just what he is in his songs: a complete, simple, loyal man, a lover of nature and of men, full of hope, a giver of joy. Howells, who saw him, writes: “His eyes and his voice revealed a frank, irresistible offer of friendship; he gave his hand in such a way that it was ours to hold forever.” And another, who saw his body the day after his death, writes: “His face is that of an affectionate and aged child.” Whenever I learn of such an honorable accordance between life and poetry I take delight in it; and I prefer those poets who have sung the grief of their own hearts to those whose
