The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866

An hour afterward I approach the place, find all still, and the mother bird upon the nest. As I draw near she seems to sit closer, her eyes growing large with an inexpressibly wild, beautiful look. She keeps her place till I am within two paces of her, when she flutters away as at first. In the brief interval the remaining egg has hatched, and the two little nestlings lift their heads without being jostled or overreached by any strange bedfellow. A week afterward and they are flown away,—so brief is the infancy of birds. And the wonder is that they escape, even for this short time, the skunks and minks and muskrats that abound here, and that have a decided partiality for such tidbits.

I pass on through the old Barkpeeling, now threading an old cow-path or an overgrown wood-road; now clambering over soft and decayed logs, or forcing my way through a network of briers and hazel; now entering a perfect bower of wild-cherry, beech, and soft-maple; now emerging into a little grassy lane, golden with buttercups or white with daisies, or wading waist-deep in the red raspberry-bushes.

Whir! whir! whir! and a brood of half-grown Partridges start up like an explosion, a few paces from me, and, scattering, disappear in the bushes on all sides. Let me sit down here behind this screen of ferns and briers, and hear this wild-hen of the woods call together her brood. Have you observed at what an early age the Partridge flies? Nature seems to concentrate her energies on the wing, making the safety of the bird a point to be looked after first; and while the body is covered with down, and no signs of feathers are visible, the wing-quills sprout and unfold, and in an incredibly short time the young make fair headway in flying.

The same rapid development of wing may be observed in chickens and turkeys, but not in water-fowls, nor in birds that are safely housed in the nest till full-fledged. The other day, by a brook, I came suddenly upon a young Sandpiper, a most beautiful creature, enveloped in a soft gray down, swift and nimble, and apparently a week or two old, but with no signs of plumage either of body or wing. And it needed none, for it escaped me by taking to the water as readily as if it had flown with wings.

Hark! There arises over there in the brush a soft, persuasive cooing, a sound so subtile and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and watchful ear to hear it. How gentle and solicitous and full of yearning love! It is the voice of the mother hen. Presently a faint, timid "Yeap!" which almost eludes the ear, is heard in various directions,—the young responding. As no danger seems near, the cooing of the parent bird is soon a very audible clucking call, and the young move cautiously in the direction. Let me step never so carefully from my hiding-place, and all sounds instantly cease, and I search in vain for either parent or young.

The Partridge (Bonasa umbellus) is one of our most native and characteristic birds. The woods seem good to be in where I find him. He gives a habitable air to the forest, and one feels as if the rightful occupant was really at home. The woods where I do not find him seem to want something, as if suffering from some neglect of Nature. And then he is such a splendid success, so hardy and vigorous. I think he enjoys the cold and the snow. His wings seem to rustle with more fervency in midwinter. If the snow falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm, he will complacently sit down and allow himself to be snowed under. Approaching him at such times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like a bomb-shell,—a picture of native spirit and success.

His drum is one of the most welcome and beautiful sounds of spring. Scarcely have the trees showed their buds, when, in the still April mornings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted wings. He selects not, as you would predict, a dry and resinous log, but a decayed and crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to old oak-logs that are partially blended with the soil. If a log to his taste cannot be found, he sets up his altar on a rock, which becomes resonant beneath his fervent blows. Have you seen the Partridge drum? It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much caution and tact it may be done. He does not hug the log, but stands very erect, expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauses half a second, and then resumes, striking faster and faster till the sound becomes a continuous, unbroken whir, the whole lasting less than half a minute. The tips of his wings barely brush the log, so that the sound is produced rather by the force of the blows upon the air and upon his own body as in flying. One log will be used for many years, though not by the same drummer. It seems to be a sort of temple, and held in great respect. The bird always approaches it on foot, and leaves it in the same quiet manner, unless rudely disturbed. He is very cunning, though his wit is not profound. It is very difficult to approach him by stealth; you will try many times before succeeding; but seem to pass by him in a great hurry, making all the noise possible, and with plumage furled he stands as immovable as a knot, allowing you a good view and a good shot, if you are a sportsman.

Passing along one of the old barkpeelers' roads which wander aimlessly about, I am attracted by a singularly brilliant and emphatic warble, proceeding from the low bushes, and quickly suggesting the voice of the Maryland Yellow-Throat. Presently the singer hops up on a dry twig, and gives me a good view. Lead-colored head and neck, becoming nearly black on the breast; clear olive-green back, and yellow belly. From his habit of keeping near the ground, even hopping upon it occasionally, I know him to be a Ground-Warbler; from his dark breast the ornithologist has added the expletive Mourning, hence the Mourning Ground-Warbler.

Of this bird both Wilson and Audubon confessed their comparative ignorance, neither ever having seen its nest or become acquainted with its haunts and general habits. Its song is quite striking and novel, though its voice at once suggests the class of Warblers, to which it belongs. It is very shy and wary, flying but a few feet at a time, and studiously concealing itself from your view. I discover but one pair here. The female has food in her beak, but carefully avoids betraying the locality of her nest. The Ground-Warblers all have one notable feature,—very beautiful legs, as white and delicate as if they had always worn silk stockings and satin slippers. High tree Warblers have dark brown or black legs and more brilliant plumage, but less musical ability.

The Chestnut-Sided belongs to the latter class. He is quite common in these woods, as in all the woods about. He is one of the rarest and handsomest of the Warblers; his white breast and throat, chestnut sides, and yellow crown show conspicuously. Audubon did not know his haunts, and had never seen his nest or known any naturalist who had. Last year I found the nest of one in an uplying beech-wood, in a low bush near the roadside, where cows passed and browsed daily. Things went on smoothly till the Cow-Bunting stole her egg into it, when other mishaps followed, and the nest was soon empty. A characteristic attitude of the male during this season is a slight drooping of the wings, and tail a little elevated, which gives him a very smart, bantam-like appearance. His song is fine and hurried, and not much of itself, but has its place in the general chorus.

A far sweeter strain, falling on the ear with the true sylvan cadence, is that of the Black-throated Green-backed Warbler, whom I meet at various points. He has no superiors among the true Sylvia. His song is very plain and simple, but remarkably pure and tender, and might be indicated by straight lines, thus, – –\/–; the first two marks representing two sweet, silvery notes, in the same pitch of voice, and quite unaccented; the latter marks, the concluding notes, wherein the tone and inflection are changed. The throat and breast of the male are a rich black, like velvet, his face yellow, and his back a yellowish green.

Beyond the Barkpeeling, where the woods are mingled hemlock, beech, and birch, the languid midsummer note of the Black-throated Blue-Back falls on my ear. "Twea, twea, twea-e-e!" in the upward slide, and with the peculiar z-ing of certain insects, but not destitute of a certain plaintive cadence. It is one of the most languid, unhurried sounds in all the woods. I feel like reclining upon the dry leaves at once. Audubon says he has never heard his love-song; but this is all the love-song he has, and he is evidently a very plain hero with his little brown mistress. He is not the bird you would send to the princess to "cheep and twitter twenty million loves"; she would go to sleep while he was piping. He assumes few attitudes, and is not a bold and striking gymnast, like many of his kindred. He has a preference for dense woods of beech and maple, moves slowly amid the lower branches and smaller growths, keeping from eight to ten feet from the ground, and repeating now and then his listless, indolent strain. His back and crown are dark blue; his throat and breast, black; his belly, pure white; and he has a white spot on each wing.

Here and there I meet the Black and White Creeping-Warbler, whose fine strain reminds me of hair-wire. It is unquestionably the finest bird-song to be heard. Few insect strains will compare with it in this respect; while it has none of the harsh, brassy character of the latter, being very delicate and tender.

That sharp, interrupted, but still continued warble, which, before one has learned to discriminate closely, he is apt to confound with the Red-eyed Vireo's, is that of the Solitary Warbling Vireo,—a bird slightly larger, much rarer, and with a louder, less cheerful and happy strain. I see him hopping along lengthwise of the limbs, and note the orange tinge of his breast and sides and the white circle around his eye.

But the declining sun and the deepening shadows admonish me that this ramble must be brought to a close, even though only the leading characters in this chorus of forty songsters have been described, and only a small portion of the venerable old woods explored. In a secluded swampy corner of the old Barkpeeling, where I find the great purple orchis in bloom, and where the foot of man or beast seems never to have trod, I linger long, contemplating the wonderful display of lichens and mosses that overrun both the smaller and the larger growths. Every bush and branch and sprig is dressed up in the most rich and fantastic of liveries; and, crowning all, the long bearded moss festoons the branches or sways gracefully from the limbs. Every twig looks a century old, though green leaves tip the end of it. A young yellow birch has a venerable, patriarchal look, and seems ill at ease under such premature honors. A decayed hemlock is draped as if by hands for some solemn festival.

Mounting toward the upland again, I pause reverently as the hush and stillness of twilight come upon the woods. It is the sweetest, ripest hour of the day. And as the Hermit's evening hymn goes up from the deep solitude below me, I experience that serene exaltation of sentiment of which music, literature, and religion are but the faint types and symbols.

LAST DAYS OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

PART III

CONCLUSION

Landor has frequently been ridiculed for insisting upon an orthography peculiar at present to himself, and this ridicule has been bestowed most mercilessly, because of the supposition that he was bent upon revolutionizing the English language merely for the sake of singularity. But Landor has logic on his side, and it would be wise to heed authoritative protests against senseless innovations that bid fair to destroy the symmetry of words, and which, fifty years hence, will render the tracing of their derivation an Herculean task, unless Trenches multiply in proportion to the necessities of the times. If I ever wished the old lion to put forth all the majesty of his indignation, I had only to whisper the cabalistic words, "Phonetic spelling!" Yet Landor was not very exacting. In the "Last Fruit off an Old Tree," he says, through his medium, Pericles, who is giving advice to Alcibiades: "Every time we pronounce a word different from another, we show our disapprobation of his manner, and accuse him of rusticity. In all common things we must do as others do. It is more barbarous to undermine the stability of a language than of an edifice that hath stood as long. This is done by the introduction of changes. Write as others do, but only as the best of others; and, if one eloquent man forty or fifty years ago spoke and wrote differently from the generality of the present, follow him, though alone, rather than the many. But in pronunciation we are not indulged in this latitude of choice; we must pronounce as those do who favor us with their audience." Landor only claimed to write as the best of others do, and in his own name protests to Southey against misconstruction. "One would represent me as attempting to undermine our native tongue; another, as modernizing; a third, as antiquating it. Wheras" (Landor's spelling) "I am trying to underprop, not to undermine; I am trying to stop the man-milliner at his ungainly work of trimming and flouncing; I am trying to show how graceful is our English, not in its stiff decrepitude, not in its riotous luxuriance, but in its hale mid-life. I would make bad writers follow good ones, and good ones accord with themselves. If all cannot be reduced into order, is that any reason why nothing should be done toward it? If languages and men too are imperfect, must we never make an effort to bring them a few steps nearer to what is preferable?"

It is my great good fortune to possess a copy of Landor's works made curious and peculiarly valuable by the author's own revisions and corrections, and it is most interesting to wander through these volumes, wherein almost every page is a battle-field between the writer and his arch-enemy, the printer. The final l in still and till is ignominiously blotted out; exclaim is written exclame; a d is put over the obliterated a in steady; t is substituted t is substituted for the second s in confessed and kindred words; straightway is shorn of gh; pontiff is allowed but one f. Landor spells honor in what we call the modern way, without the u; and the r and e in sceptre change places. A dash of the pen cancels the s in isle and the final e in wherefore, therefore, &c. Simile is terminated with a y; the imperfect of the verbs to milk, to ask, etc., is spelled with a t; whereat loses its second e, and although is deprived of its last three letters. To his poem of "Guidone and Lucia" has been added this final verse:—

"The sire had earned with gold his son's release
And led him home; at home he died in peace.
His soul was with Lucia, and he praid
To meet again soon, soon, that happier maid.
This wish was granted, for the Powers above
Abound in mercy and delight in love."

And to this verse is appended the following note: "If the pret. and partic. of lay is laid, of say, said, that of pray must be praid. We want a lexiconomist."

In his lines entitled "New Style," which are a burlesque on Wordsworth, Landor introduces a new verse:—

"Some one (I might have asked her who)
Has given her a locket;
I, more considerate, brought her two
Potatoes in each pocket."

Landor has been accused of an unwarrantable dislike to the manufacture of words; but so far from true is this, that I have known him to indulge with great felicity in words of his own coining, when conversation chanced to take a humorous turn. He makes Sam. Johnson say that "all words are good which come when they are wanted; all which come when they are not wanted should be dismissed." Tooke, in the same conversation, cites Cicero as one who, not contented with new spellings, created new words; but Tooke further declares, that "only one valuable word has been received into our language since my birth, or perhaps since yours. I have lately heard appreciate for estimate." To which Johnson replies: "Words taken from the French should be amenable, in their spelling, to English laws and regulations. Appreciate is a good and useful one; it signifies more than estimate or value; it implies 'to value justly.'"

Taking up one day Dean Trench's excellent little book on "The Study of Words," which lay on my table, Landor expressed a desire to read it. He brought it back not long afterward, enriched with notes, and declared himself to have been much pleased with the manner in which the Dean had treated a subject so deeply interesting to himself. I have singled out a few of these notes, that student of etymology may read the criticisms of so able a man. Dean Trench is taken to task for a misuse of every where in making two words of it. Landor puts the question, "Is the Dean ignorant that everywhere is one word, and where is no substantive?" Trench asserts that caprice is from capra, "a goat," whereupon his critic says, "No,—then it would be capracious. It is from caper—capere." To retract, writes Trench, means properly, as its derivation declares, no more than to handle over again, to reconsider; Landor declares that "it means more. Retrahere is to draw back." But he very vehemently approves of the Dean's remarks on the use of the word talents. We should say "a man of talents," not "of talent," for that is nonsense, though "of a talent" would be allowable.

"Κοσμος is both 'world' and 'ornament,' hence 'cosmetic,'" writes Landor in answer to a doubt expressed by Trench whether the well-known quotation from St. James, "The tongue is a world of iniquity," could not also be translated, as some maintain, "the ornament of iniquity." Making use of the expression "redolent of scorn" in connection with words that formerly expressed sacred functions and offices, Landor adds: "Gray is highly poetical in his 'redolent of joy and youth.' The word is now vilely misused daily." "By and bye," writes the Dean. "Why write bye?" asks his commentator. Once or twice Landor credits Horne Tooke with what the Dean gives as his own, and occasionally scores an observation as old. "Why won't people say messager?" he demands. "By what right is messenger made out of message?"

"Have you nothing else for the old man to read? have you nothing American?" Landor inquired upon returning Trench. Desiring to obtain the verdict of one so high in authority, I gave him Drake's "Culprit Fay," and some fugitive verses by M. C. Field, whose poems have never been collected in book form. Of the latter's "Indian Hunting the Buffaloes," "Night on the Prairie," "Les Très Marias," and others, known to but few readers now, Landor spoke in high commendation, and this praise will be welcome to those friends of "Phazma" still living, and still loving the memory of him who died early, and found, as he wished, an ocean grave. With "The Culprit Fay" came a scrap of paper on which was written: "The Culprit Fay is rich in imagination,—few poems more so. Drake is among the noblest of names, and this poem throws a fresh lustre on it." Observing in this poem a misuse of the exclamation "Oh!" Landor remarked, "'Oh!' properly is an expression of grief or pain. 'O!' without the aspirate may express pleasure or hope." Current literature rarely makes any distinction between the two, and even good writers stumble through carelessness.

Style in writing was one of Landor's favorite topics, and his ire was rarely more quickly excited than by placing before him a specimen of high-flown sentimentality. He would put on his spectacles, exclaim, "What is this?" and, having read a few lines, would throw the book down, saying, "I have not the patience to read such stuff. It may be very fine, but I cannot understand it. It is beyond me." He had little mercy to bestow upon transcendentalists, though he praised Emerson one day,—a marvellous proof of high regard when it is considered how he detested the school to which Emerson belongs. "Emerson called on me when he was in Florence many years ago, and a very agreeable visit I had from him. He is a very clever man, and might be cleverer if he were less sublimated. But then you Americans, practical as you are, are fond of soaring in high latitudes." Carlyle in his last manner had the same effect upon Landor's nerves as a discord in music produces upon a sensitive ear. "Ah," said he with a quizzical smile, "'Frederick the Great' convinces me that I write two dead languages,—Latin and English!"

English hexameter was still another pet detestation which Landor nursed with great volubility. In 1860 all Anglo-Saxon Florence was reading with no little interest a poem in this metre, which had recently appeared, and which of course passed under the critical eye of the old Grecian. "Well, Mr. Landor, what do you think of the new poem?" I asked during its nine days' reign. "Think of it? I don't think of it. I don't want to be bothered with it. The book has driven all the breath out of my body. I am lame with galloping. I've been on a gallop from the beginning to the end. Never did I have so hard and long a ride. But what else to expect when mounted on a nightmare! It may be very fine. I dare say it is, but Giallo and I prefer our ease to being battered. I am too old to hop, skip, and jump, and he is too sensible. It may be very bad taste, but we prefer verse that stands on two feet to verse that limps about on none. Now-a-days it is better to stumble than to walk erect. Giallo and I, however, have registered an oath not to encourage so base a fashion. We have consulted old Homer, and he quite approves our indignation."

Speaking of certain Americanisms and of our ridiculous squeamishness in the use of certain honest words, Landor remarked: "You Americans are very proper people; you have difficulties, but not diseases. Legs are unknown,—you have limbs; and under no consideration do you go to bed,—you retire." Much of this I could not gainsay, for only a few days previously I had been severely frowned upon for making inquiries about a broken leg. "My dear," said Landor to a young American girl who had been speaking of the city of New Orleens,—such being the ordinary Southern pronunciation,—"that pretty mouth of yours should not be distorted by vulgar dialect. You should say Or'leans." But he was never pedantic in his language. He used the simplest and most emphatic words.

There are those who accuse Landor of having sacrificed all things to style: it were as wise to assert that Beethoven sacrificed harmony to time. If his accusers would but read Landor before criticising, a proper regard for their own reputations would prevent them from hazarding such an opinion. "Style," writes Landor, "I consider as nothing, if what it covers be unsound: wisdom in union with harmony is oracular. On this idea, the wiser of ancient days venerated in the same person the deity of oracles and of music; and it must have been the most malicious and the most ingenious of satirists who transferred the gift of eloquence to the god of thieves." Those who by the actual sweat of their brows have got at the deep, hidden meaning of the most recent geniuses, will honor and thank Landor for having practically enforced his own refreshing theory. There are certain modern books of positive value which the reader closes with a sense of utter exhaustion. The meaning is discovered, but at too great an outlay of vitality. To render simple things complex, is to fly in the face of Nature; and after such mental "gymnastics," we turn with relief to Landor. "The greater part of those who are most ambitious of style are unaware of all its value. Thought does not separate man from the brutes; for the brutes think: but man alone thinks beyond the moment and beyond himself. Speech does not separate them; for speech is common to all, perhaps more or less articulate, and conveyed and received through different organs in the lower and more inert. Man's thought, which seems imperishable, loses its form, and runs along from proprietor to impropriator, like any other transitory thing, unless it is invested so becomingly and nobly that no successor can improve upon it by any new fashion or combination. For want of dignity or beauty, many good things are passed and forgotten; and much ancient wisdom is overrun and hidden by a rampant verdure, succulent, but unsubstantial.... Let those who look upon style as unworthy of much attention ask themselves how many, in proportion to men of genius, have excelled in it. In all languages, ancient and modern, are there ten prose-writers at once harmonious, correct, and energetic?"

Popular as is the belief that Landor's gifts were the offspring of profound study, he himself says: "Only four years of my life were given up much to study; and I regret that I spent so many so ill. Even these debarred me from no pleasure; for I seldom read or wrote within doors, excepting a few hours at night. The learning of those who are called the learned is learning at second hand; the primary and most important must be acquired by reading in our own bosoms; the rest by a deep insight into other men's. What is written is mostly an imperfect and unfaithful copy." This confession emanates from one who is claimed as a university rather than a universal man. Landor remained but two years at Oxford, and, though deeply interested in the classics, never contended for a Latin prize. Speaking of this one day, he said: "I once wrote some Latin verses for a fellow of my college who, being in great trouble, came to me for aid. What was hard work to him was pastime to me, and it ended in my composing the entire poem. At the time the fellow was very grateful, but it happened that these verses excited attention and were much eulogized. The supposed author accepted the praise as due to himself. This of course I expected, as he knew full well I would never betray him; but the amusing part of the matter was that the fellow never afterwards spoke to me, never came near me,—in fact, treated me as though I had done him a grievous wrong. It was of no consequence to me that he strutted about in my feathers. If they became him, he was welcome to them,—but of such is the kingdom of cowards."

"Poetry," writes Landor, "was always my amusement, prose my study and business." In his thirtieth year he lived in the woods, "did not exchange twelve sentences with men," and wrote "Gebir," his most elaborate and ambitious poem, which Southey took as a model in blank verse, and which a Boston critic wonders whether anyone ever read through. "Pericles and Aspasia," and the finest of his "Imaginary Conversations," were the flowering of half a century of thought. There are few readers who do not prefer Landor's prose to his verse, for in the former he does not aim at the dramatic: the passion peculiar to verse is not congenial to his genius. He sympathizes most fully with men and women in repose, when intellect, not the heart, rules. His prose has all the purity of outline and harmony of Greek plastic art. He could not wield the painter's brush, but the great sculptor had yet power to depict the grief of a "Niobe," the agony of the "Laocoön," or the majesty of a "Moses." Like a sculptor, he rarely groups more than two figures.

It is satisfactory then to know that in the zenith of physical strength Landor was at his noblest and best, for his example is a forcible protest against the feverish enthusiasm of young American authors, who wear out their lives in the struggle to be famous at the age of Keats, never remembering that "there must be a good deal of movement and shuffling before there is any rising from the ground; and those who have the longest wings have the most difficulty in the first mounting. In literature, as at football, strength and agility are insufficient of themselves; you must have your side, or you may run till you are out of breath, and kick till you are out of shoes, and never win the game. There must be some to keep others off you, and some to prolong for you the ball's rebound.... Do not, however, be ambitious of an early fame: such is apt to shrivel and to drop under the tree." The poetical dictum, "Whom the gods love, die young," has worked untold mischief, having created a morbid dislike to a fine physique, on the theory that great minds are antagonistic to noble bodies. There never was error so fatal: the larger the brain, the larger should be the reservoir from which to draw vitality. Were Seneca alive now, he would write no such letter as he once wrote to Lucilius, protesting against the ridiculous devotion of his countrymen to physical gymnastics. "To be wise is to be well," was the gospel he went about preaching. "To be well is to be wise," would answer much better as the modern article of faith. The utmost that a persistent brain-worker of this century can do is to keep himself bodily up to mental requirements. Landor, however, was an extraordinary exception. He could boast of never having worn an overcoat since boyhood, and of not having been ill more than three times in his life. Even at eighty-six his hand had none of the wavering of age; and it was with no little satisfaction that, grasping an imaginary pistol, he showed me how steady an aim he could still take, and told of how famous a shot he used to be. "But my sister was more skilful than I," he added.

One day conversation chanced upon Aubrey De Vere, the beautiful Catholic poet of Ireland, whose name is scarcely known on this side of the Atlantic. This is our loss, though De Vere can never be a popular poet, for his muse lives in the past and breathes ether rather than air. "De Vere is charming both as man and as poet," said Landor enthusiastically, rising as he spoke and leaving the room to return immediately with a small volume of De Vere's poems published at Oxford in 1843. "Here are his poems given to me by himself. Such a modest, unassuming man as he is! Now listen to this from the 'Ode on the Ascent of the Alps.' Is it not magnificent?

'I spake.—Behold her o'er the broad lake flying,
Like a great Angel missioned to bestow
Some boon on men beneath in sadness lying:
The waves are murmuring silver murmurs low:
Over the waves are borne
Those feeble lights which, ere the eyes of Morn
Are lifted, through her lids and lashes flow.
Beneath the curdling wind
Green through the shades the waters rush and roll,
(Or whitened only by the unfrequent shoal,)
Till two dark hills, with darker yet behind,
Confront them,—purple mountains almost black,
Each behind each self-folded and withdrawn,
Beneath the umbrage of yon cloudy rack.—
That orange-gleam! 't is dawn!
Onward! the swan's flight with the eagle's blending,
On, wingèd Muse! still forward and ascending!'