148 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS also of mighty will for their control ; loyal to what he would esteem right princi- ple ; patriotic though the severest critic of his country ; a Puritan in character though condemning the Puritan character of New England ; frank, fearless, truth- ful. He lacked tact, and for the lack he paid the penalty of obloquy ; there was little of the compromising or conciliatory in his nature. But he had what men of tact are in peril of lacking the heroic qualities of mind and heart and will and conscience. He was a faithful husband, a loving father. So scrupu- lously careful was he of the interests of his children that his own daughter says she was not permitted to read her father's books before she was eighteen. His influence is ever in favor of simple truth and simple righteousness. As Mr. James Russell Lowell says : " I can conceive of no healthier reading for a boy, or girl either, than Scott's novels, or Cooper's, to speak only of the dead. I have found them very good reading, at least, for one young man, for one middle-aged man, and for one who is growing old. No, no banish the Antiquary, banish Leather-Stocking, and banish all the world 1 Let us not go about to make life duller than it is." WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT* , By Richard Henry Stoddard (l 794-1878) [he life of William Cull en Bryant covers what to me is the most in- teresting period in the history of American letters. We cannot be said to have had a literature when he was born (certainly nothing worthy of the name), and if we have one now, we owe whatever is of value therein to three or four writers, among whom he will always stand first We were waiting for it, as the English were waiting for a new-growth in their literature, and it came at last, though later to us than to them. The same seed blossomed in both countries, only it was native there, being first sown in " Percy's Reliques," while here it was transplanted at second-hand from the pages of a new race of English poets, particularly Wordsworth. They returned to nat- ure in literature ; we, who had no literature, discovered it in nature. That both the English and ourselves have gone astray after other gods is certain, but all is not lost yet ; Greek atheism will no more satisfy them forever, than the " barbaric yawp " of the rough will satisfy us.
- Reprinted by permission, from Appletons' Journal.
