{"1": {"fulltext": "Bryant Among His Countrymen\\nTHE POET, THE PATRIOT, THE MAN\\nAN ORATION\\nBEFORE THE GOETHE CLUB\\nSAMUEL OSGOOD, D.D. LL.D", "height": "3536", "width": "2199", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0001.jp2"}, "2": {"fulltext": "Class,,? Uftl.\\nBook ,OX", "height": "3359", "width": "2213", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0002.jp2"}, "3": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3359", "width": "2213", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0003.jp2"}, "4": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0004.jp2"}, "5": {"fulltext": "/r\\nBRYANT AMONG HIS COUNTRYMEN\\nTHE POET, THE PATRIOT, THE MAN\\nAN ORATION\\nBEFORE THE GOETHE CLUB\\nWednesday Evening, October 30T11, 1878\\nBY\\nSAMUEL OSGOOD, D.D., LL.D.\\nV\\nNEW YORK\\nG. P. PUTNAM S SONS\\nlS2 FIFTH AVENUE\\n1S79\\n3", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0005.jp2"}, "6": {"fulltext": "c,\\\\\\n.on\\nDTYL\\nPress* o f\\nG. P. Putnam s Sons\\nNew York.", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0006.jp2"}, "7": {"fulltext": "BRYANT AMONG HIS COUNTRYMEN\\nTHE POET, THE PATRIOT, THE MAN.\\nAN ORATION\\nBEFORE THE GOETHE CLUB,\\nWEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 30, 1878,\\nBy SAMUEL OSGOOD, D.D., LL.D.\\nOUR loved and venerated friend, the illustrious poet,\\nthe patriarch of our American literature, went from\\nus in June, the month in which he had wished to die in\\nGod s own time. Our whole people mourned. All who\\ncould enter crowded the church and joined tenderly and\\nreverently in the fitting solemnities there. A few friends\\nwith the family followed the body to Roslyn and commit-\\nted it to the ground among the trees and flowers, that had\\nlearned hymns from him. The leaves are falling there, the\\nflowers are fading and dying in that forest cemetery. That\\nis their nature and they have kept their sacred watch at the\\ngrave as long as they could. We are not to try to change\\nthat nature or to force the bloom of earth to put on the\\nimmortality of Paradise. We are concerned now with\\nother growths of art and letters that do not die, and we do\\nnot meet now at the grave. Death is not here, but life.\\nThis is not a funereal, but rather a festal hour, not a mor-\\ntuary, but a natal occasion, so near to the poet s birthday\\nand so fittingly celebrated as the new birth of his fame,\\nnow that his country accepts him anew among her immortal\\nsons, who have said their good word and done their great", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0007.jp2"}, "8": {"fulltext": "4 DR. OSGOOD S OR A TION.\\nwork and gone to their rest. His spirit is with God, with\\nwhom are the souls of the faithful, and so in a serious and\\na sacred sense it is with us, in our fellowship with that\\ncommunion of letters and humanity which belongs to the\\nkingdom of God.\\nThis Goethe Club, which is given to the higher literature\\nunder the greatest name in German poetry and which has\\nreceived our venerable poet with its highest honors, justly\\ncalls you now to unite with them in this welcome of Bryant\\nto his lasting place in his country and mankind.\\nIn treating, as I am to try to do, of his hold upon his coun-\\ntrymen, I would do it in the most generous and comprehen-\\nsive sense and look upon all who live with us as our people,\\nand all of every land who love good letters and fine art as of\\nour kindred. This was his feeling always, student, traveller,\\ncitizen of the world as he was, and we seem almost to see\\nhim among us with his white head and benign face and\\npersuasive lips as when you so cordially received him and\\nhe seems now to approve every hearty word for fraternity\\namong men and peace between nations. American he was\\nand yet none the less cosmopolitan. In fact, because truly\\nAmerican, he can more fully take and give our fellowship\\nwith all races. Here to-night Bryant receives honors from\\nthe countrymen of Goethe and the countrymen of Bryant\\nrejoice in the homage and return it.\\nI. Bryant was first to take hold of his countrymen by tak-\\ning hold of the country itself and by presenting our land, its\\nscenery and growths in the charmed light of poetry. He\\nfirst entered this America by the Gate Beautiful, and left it\\nopen to all who came after him. It is of course unwise to\\nsay that there was no poetic sentiment here before him,\\nno earnest love of nature, for these belong to the civilized", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0008.jp2"}, "9": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 5\\nhuman mind, and especially to the English or Anglo-Ger-\\nman race which has lived here for two centuries and a half.\\nThere were lovers of scenery and makers of verse here\\nfrom the beginning of our colonies, but it is quite remarka-\\nble that no classic poet appeared until he came, and that\\na Green Mountain Boy at eighteen years began American\\npoetry with immortal verse.\\nThe Pilgrims of the May Flower in 1620 might have\\nbrought with them hither the master-pieces of Spenser and\\nShakspeare from the mother country, and the Puritans of\\nthe Arabella in 1630 were under the lead of graduates of\\nOld Cambridge, and some of them fellow-students there\\nwith Milton himself. When the Bryants came in an after-\\nvoyage of the May Flower, to the Old Colony about the\\nyear 1640, a year which Germans may well remember as\\nthe date of the accession of that Great Elector, Frederick\\nWilliam of Prussia, who started what we call Modern Ger-\\nmany, they left Milton in England at the age of thirty-\\ntwo, author of Comus, Lycidas, II Penseroso and\\nL Allegro, just returning to London from the country to\\nbegin his political career, as our Bryant began his in New\\nYork, at about the same age, nearly two centuries afterward.\\nDoes it not seem as if the Bryant forefather, Stephen, must\\nhave brought with him some spark of that Milton s fire, and\\nthat it was kept smouldering on the family hearth, until it\\nkindled into flame, when Thanatopsis sprang to life.\\nIf we ask why so gifted a people as the New England\\nrace could live nearly two hundred years in this new\\nand beautiful country without originating any enduring\\npoetry, we may specify some reasons that lighten if they\\ndo not quite explain the difficulty. In the first place,\\nit must be remembered that for a long time these people", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0009.jp2"}, "10": {"fulltext": "b DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\nhad to struggle for very life, and that moreover when they\\nconquered peace, and won comfort, they were bent on\\nbuilding up and extending civil order, reclaiming the wil-\\nderness, or planting their great domain with farms and\\nhomesteads and giving what in their eyes was beauty to\\nthe stern reality of life, instead of revelling in visions of\\nthe ideal. Again if they wanted poetry, they could import\\nit from England in plenty and a much better article than\\nany that their pedantic versifiers were likely to produce,\\nand they could import it also in better shape and at lower\\nprices than those of the domestic product.\\nBut perhaps the dearth of native poetry in America may\\nbe quite as much explained by the fact that the dominant\\nPuritan belief was unfriendly to such literature by its pecu-\\nliar interpretation of the Bible as the only revelation from\\nGod and its contempt for nature and mankind as both\\nfallen from God and incapable of giving light to the soul\\nwhilst the dominant liberals who rejected this stern creed\\nwent for a time far wrong the other way and under the\\nteachings of Locke and his school and of the French Ma-\\nterialists who came after him, they denied or ignored the\\nintuitive and ideal faculties of man and were blind to the\\nSpirit of God in nature and the world.\\nYet the soul of poetry was in the race, and it was only a\\nquestion of time, when it should speak out. There was\\nevidently a kind of uniformity, a sameness in the thought\\nand life of New England, that was not favorable to poetry\\nand the new spirit could come only with some protest or\\nantagonism. Sameness is death, and a certain difference\\nalways goes with vitality, whether in the bursting of a bud\\ninto flower, or the opening of an age into its ideas and arts.\\nWhen poetry came, a new culture challenged the old the-", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0010.jp2"}, "11": {"fulltext": "BRYANT AMONG HIS COUNTRYMEN. J\\nocracy, and as Greece broke away from the Oriental rule of\\npriest and king, so the rising literature here came out from\\nthe old Puritan theocracy, and claimed to hear God s Spirit\\nin the woods and the waters as well as in the Bible and the\\npulpit. We cannot but note this tendency in Bryant s\\nearliest poems. He was never a radical in the distinctive y\\nsense of this word either in religion or politics, yet he\\nbegan with a virtual protest against the old absolutism of\\nthe dogma and priesthood and he appeals to nature and to\\nmankind as witnesses to God. His first characteristic poem,\\nThanatopsis, is reverent, religious, not unchristian, yet it\\nmakes no reference to church, preacher or Scripture, and in\\nits affirmation of the universality of death, it rebukes the\\nreigning assumption that death, in its material sense, was an\\nafterthought of the Creator, and came with an act of trans-\\ngression in Eden a few thousand years ago. He meditates\\nupon death as a fact of nature to be met tranquilly by man,\\nnot as an accident that might have been shunned, or as a\\ncurse that should not have been. He keeps in this poem,\\nas always, his piety. He is the Puritan still, who begins\\nand ends all things with God, although he does not name\\nHim. Yet he is a Puritan Greek as he always was, and\\nwith his sense of God over all he united a steadfast convic-\\ntion of God s presence in nature and man and of the worth\\nof this visible world.\\nIn some respects Bryant s love of nature was peculiar,\\nand it differed much from that of other poets who are often\\nnamed with him, especially Cowper and Wordsworth, who\\nwere in some points his masters. Nature was Bryant s first\\nlove, and he wooed her before he saw the world, whilst\\nCowper and Wordsworth had tried the world and had their\\nfill of it before they took to the woods and waters Cowper", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0011.jp2"}, "12": {"fulltext": "8 DR. OSGOOD S ORA TION.\\nhaving for a while lost his wits under its coaxing agitations,\\nand Wordsworth having escaped with his head from the\\nrevolutionary mob of Paris and the threat of the guillotine.\\nIf it is said, as it surely may be, that Bryant had none of\\nthe excitements and temptations that met those gifted\\nmen, and that with him the choice was between nature as a\\nschool of poetry and no school at all, we must allow a cer-\\ntain truth to the statement. Yet how honorable is this\\nserious truth With no masterpieces of art around him,\\nno old halls and temples, no pictures and sculpture, with\\nlittle color in costume or in house decoration, with few\\nbooks, little if any good music, little artistic society, instead\\nof Oxford or Cambridge and their favored fellowships for\\nlife, with only two years of study in William s College,\\nwhich was only one year older than he was, when he entered\\nit at the age of sixteen, in 1810 with all these limitations,\\nBryant, when about eighteen years of age, wrote a poem of\\nnature which the English language cannot spare, any more\\nthan it can spare the masterpieces of Cowper and Words-\\nworth.\\nHe loved nature none the less because he loved her first,\\nand he had her love in return, and a certain elemental\\npower came to him from her and went into his verse. Of\\ncourse he carried his own life, his own thought and feeling\\nto nature, but he did not carry the passions of the world\\nand the agitations of a stormy career to her, that she might\\ncomfort him for the loss of other loves or help him fight\\nthe old battles, and tell the old stories, and paint the old\\npictures over again. Herein he differs widely from Byron\\nwho came out as a poet at about the same time, and whose\\nChilde Harold runs parallel in date with Bryant s early\\npoems. Childe Harold, if not the most remarkable, is cer-", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0012.jp2"}, "13": {"fulltext": "BRYANT AMONG HIS COUNTRYMEN. 9\\ntainly the most celebrated English poem of the Nineteenth\\nCentury, and it has made the most mark upon men yet we\\nAmericans do not shrink from naming our poet s early\\npieces in their calm wisdom and reverent beauty in the\\nsame breath with that impassioned and marvellous Ro-\\nmaunt. Bryant had not Spain, Switzerland, Greece and\\nItaly to roam over and to put into song but the mountain\\nboy looked as deeply into nature as the petted English\\nLord, and he did not make the mistake of transferring to\\nher face the blood-shot gleam of his own eyes and of con-\\nfounding his passions with her moods.\\nBryant had not seen Santa Croce or written like Byron\\nIn Santa Croce s holy precincts lie\\nAshes which make it holier, dust which is\\nEven in itself an immortality.\\nThere were no stately tombs or temples around his village\\nhome or within his range of village burying grounds, but\\nhe saw death in its majesty, and what a sepulchre he dis-\\ncovered\\nThe hills\\nRock ribbed and ancient as the sun, the vales\\nStretching in pensive quietness between\\nThe venerable woods rivers that move\\nIn majesty and the complaining brooks\\nThat make the meadow green and poured round all\\nOld ocean s gray and melancholy waste\\nAre but the solemn decorations all\\nOf the great tomb of man.\\nHe had not St. Peter s Church before him\\nChrist s mighty shrine before his martyr s tomb.\\nNor could he say of it with Byron\\nBut thou of temples old and altars new,\\nStandest alone with nothing like to thee\\nWorthiest of God, the holy and the true.\\nMajesty,\\nPower, Glory, Strength and Beauty all are aisled\\nIn this eternal ark of worship undefiled.", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0013.jp2"}, "14": {"fulltext": "10 DR. OSGOOD S OR A TION.\\nSo wrote Childe Harold, but we Americans can say our\\nprayers as well at the call of our Childe William in his\\nForest Hymn, and he found a place of worship grander\\nfar:\u00e2\u0080\u0094\\nThe groves were God s first temples. Ere man learned\\nTo hew the shaft and lay the architrave\\nAnd spread the roof above them ere he framed\\nThe lofty vault, to gather and roll back\\nThe sounds of anthems in the darkling wood\\nAmid the cool and silence, he knelt down\\nAnd offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks\\nAnd supplication.\\nBe it ours to meditate\\nIn these calm shades thy milder majesty\\nAnd to the beautiful order of thy works\\nLearn to conform the order of our lives.\\nSo the comparison might run on not wholly to the disad-\\nvantage of our bard whose faith like his own Waterfowl is\\ndivinely guided, whilst poor Harold strays tempest-tossed.\\nTruly, Bryant wrote in that early time, and it was always\\ntrue of him\\nHe who from zone to zone\\nGuides through the boundless sky thy certain flight\\nIn the long way that I must tread alone\\nWill lead my steps aright.\\nThe forty poems which expressed Bryant s genius and\\nexperience before he came to New York in 1825 show what\\nrich lessons he learned in his studies and rambles in that\\nhill country of Western Massachusetts, and these speci-\\nmens prove their dominant tone. He was certainly a poet\\nbecause God made him so, and he did his best probably\\nbefore he knew what he was doing. Perhaps it is wisest to\\nleave there the definition of poetry, and to say simply that\\nit comes from poets as apples come from apple-trees. We\\nmay define the two things, the poetry and the apples, but\\nwe must have them before we define them and the things are\\nbetter than the definitions. All the familiar definitions of", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0014.jp2"}, "15": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 1 1\\npoetry have a certain truth, but none has the whole truth.\\nIt is, as is often said, the ideal in literature, but not the\\nideal only or always for much strong and kindling poetry\\ndeals with the most positive and sensuous reality, and this\\nis the present turn of the muse. Nor does poetry always\\nput beautiful thought into beautiful words, for much thrill-\\ning verse presents frightful images in terrible words, and\\ntragedy goes as far as it can with terror without parting\\ncompany with pity, which subdues fear and so purifies emo-\\ntion. Aristotle, with his marvellous good sense, comes very\\nnear the mark when he distinguishes poetry from history by\\nits dealing with things as they may be, instead of as they\\nare, and by its treating of the whole instead of the parts.\\nFor certainly the poet is looking to what may be, and he\\nis always trying to make the least word or sentence tell the\\nwhole of the matter. But without spending time in com-\\nbining and condensing definitions, we may safely say, that\\npoetry comes from a certain fulness of spirit that over-\\nflows in new forms, and that the poet is he who is moved\\nto make things new from what is in him and the world.\\nThe poet is he who sees and seizes the life of things and\\nputs it into pictured and musical words. This life like all\\nfulness of life tends to rhythm, and the muse dances more\\nor less gaily or solemnly as all overflowing life dances.\\nThere was this overflow in young Bryant, and if there was\\nnot as much voluptuous sweetness or high-wrought music\\nin his strain as in other gifted bards, and if he tended more\\nto solemn rhythm, than to luxurious melody, it was because\\nhis temper was serious and moreover because his teacher\\nin verse was nature, more than schools, and nature tends\\nto rhythm more than to melody, and her rivers and forests\\nand winds and oceans sing a very plain chant, and the", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0015.jp2"}, "16": {"fulltext": "12 DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\nbirds themselves do not go far into the airs of Mozart\\nand Mendelsohn.\\nAs to the material of Bryant s early and characteristic\\npoetry, it evidently deals more with nature than with\\nhuman life. It is landscape-painting with few figures\\nintroduced, yet always with tender feeling for men, per-\\nhaps more feeling for them than with them. The speech-\\nless babe and the gray headed man, the matron and the\\nmaid appear to him as he meditates upon the dying ages\\nand in his Winter Piece the herbless field and the spoiled\\nshades were still sought and precious\\nI loved them still for they seemed\\nLike old companions in adversity.\\nHe was more at home with landscape and nature than with\\npersons, and it is quite memorable that even in his thought-\\nful and elaborate poem of The Ages, delivered at Cam-\\nbridge in 1 82 1, in which History is his theme, he gives\\nabout as many lines to his description of Boston Harbor,\\nwith its islands, as to the sketch of Greece and Rome, with\\ntheir heroes and sages. Yet persons gain more and more\\nground upon his canvas, and he cannot look upon the cold\\nand solemn North Star without feeling for the sailor, half-\\nwrecked, his compass lost, and for the lost travellers in\\nperilous wastes, who find safety in that light.\\nAs to the ideas that run through these early poems, we\\nmay say what we have already hinted, that they are of the\\nHebrew-Greek type that is they start from the existence\\nof God over all nature and life, and they recognize the\\npresence of His spirit in all creation, thus combining in a\\ncertain way faith in the Transcendent and in the Immanent\\nGod. Yet he is rather with Cowper than with Wordsworth\\nin his limited sense of the full immanence of the divine life", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0016.jp2"}, "17": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 1 3\\nin nature and he looks more with the eye of the Hebrew\\nthan that of the Greek, or may we not say more with the\\neye of Isaiah than that of a modern German like Goethe\\non the universe. He philosophizes upon the universe more\\nwith Newton than Spinoza, and to him God is more First\\nCause than Eternal Substance. Herein he is all the more\\nAmerican, for we start in our thinking from the God of\\nour fathers, and we shrink from whatever looks like the\\npantheist vision of nature as the Supreme. Yet the poet\\nkeeps his faith firm in God in all as well as over all, and he\\nis Greek as well as Hebrew in this. In his Ages he\\nspeaks of the Greek illumination thus:\\nAnd the pure ray, that from thy bosom came,\\nFar over many a land and age has shone\\nAnd mingles with the light that beams from God s own throne.\\nTo him too nature unmistakably reveals the mind of\\nGod, and he accepts the ancient faith that the Polar Star\\ninstead of relentless force presents in its beams\\nA beauteous type of that unchanging good,\\nThat bright eternal beacon by whose ray\\nThe voyager of time should shape his heedful way.\\nSuch in their leading traits were Bryant s early poems,\\nand by them he took hold of his countrymen by taking first\\nhold of the country, winning the people with the land\\nwhich his muse conquered. I can only add briefly under\\nthis head, that in thus taking the landscape, he took hold\\nof the people also by two leading ideas, which are essen-\\ntially American first the idea of firm citizenship under\\ncivil justice, and secondly the idea of fair play to the\\nhuman mind by full freedom to bring out its powers. The\\nyoung poet from boyhood was a sturdy patriot, and flamed\\nup in verse on Independence days and in vindicating his\\nown right to be a poet, he vindicated the right of all true", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0017.jp2"}, "18": {"fulltext": "14 DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\nculture in a day when narrowness pinched the schools as\\nwell as the churches. Those who can look back as far as\\n1825, the year when Bryant came to New York, can re-\\nmember those early poems in our school books, and what\\nan impression we who were at school then had of the poet\\nand of the man. In the name of the school boys of that\\nday, of whom I was one, and of the school girls who will\\nallow me to speak for them, I express our filial reverence\\nfor the poet of our childhood and our youth, whose verses\\nbecame a part of our very being, and beat with our hearts,\\nand moved in our step in their grace and power. This is\\nnot the trick of rhetoric, but the offering of earnest grati-\\ntude. How many thoughtful men and women, who read\\nhis verses when they were at school, can rise up and call\\nWilliam Cullen Bryant blessed for what he has been and\\ndone for them and their children. His name is blessed\\nhere to-night.\\nII. But now a great change came to him, and with it no\\nsmall trial of his spirit and purpose. Why he left his\\ncountry home and law office in Great Barrington for the\\nmore stirring life and opportunity of a great city, we can\\nreadily see; but we do not so readily understand why he\\ncame here to New York instead of going to Boston where\\nhe had been so honored, and where his Puritan temper was\\nmore at home. Nearness and the easy drift of rivers be-\\ntween New York and Western Massachusetts, and the\\nwishes of cordial friends who lived there and here, had\\nmuch to do with his choice undoubtedly yet there was a\\ndestiny in it that drew him to the great center of com-\\nmerce, enterprise, and ultimately of arts and letters. When\\nhe came here, however, this city had little of its present\\nstanding, and Boston and Philadelphia disputed its pros-", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0018.jp2"}, "19": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 1 5\\npective superiority even in population and trade. It was\\nthen comparatively a provincial city, great indeed, hoping\\nsoon to complete its second hundred thousand of inhabi-\\ntants under the spur of the Erie Canal, which then opened\\ninto this harbor for the first time the waters and the wealth\\nof the great lakes. Great and tingling was the promise of\\ngrowth and power, but not greater than was accomplished\\nin twenty-five years. If the Erie Canal made this city\\nmetropolitan in 1825, the ocean steamers, California gold,\\nthe railroads and the electric telegraph made her cosmo-\\npolitan about a quarter of a century afterwards and our\\nrural poet came to live and work and be author, editor and\\ncitizen in all this turmoil and chase. What will become\\nof him, the ready question is? What did become of him,\\nwe who have known him here in his career for fifty years,\\nmore or less, can say with considerable unanimity.\\nIt is well to consider how he was received here as a man\\nof letters, this Puritan bard upon this Knickerbocker ground,\\nand among a people whose choice society was little Puri-\\ntanic, and to a considerable extent quite churchly and\\nAnglican. He might have found apparently more con-\\ngenial society in Boston, and it is not easy to say how his\\ngenius would have shaped itself with those cultivated and\\ngifted men, Ticknor and Longfellow and Lowell, under the\\nelms of Harvard, and whether this village Milton might not\\nhave added his mature epic poem, his Paradise Lost, to his\\nearly miscellaneous pieces. But he did not go to Boston\\nor Cambridge, and he did come here and he found work\\nand home and friends and fame in some respects new.\\nThe time was in certain respects favorable here for author-\\nship, and here, as also in Boston, there was a memorable\\nawakening in literature, although this city had the start in", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0019.jp2"}, "20": {"fulltext": "1 6 DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\nclassic letters of the English school, and even in history,\\nIrving was in advance of Prescott and Bancroft, and the\\nnoble Boston historical school. Bryant dates the new\\nliterary movement from 1821, when Cooper first won fame\\nby his Spy, when Irving s Sketch Book was completed,\\nwhen Miss Sedgwick began her charming series of domestic\\nnovels, and Percival and Halleck published their poems.\\nBoston was not far behind, and perhaps in certain scholastic\\nstudies in advance of New York and Dana s Idle Man\\nwas completed, and Bryant s Ages, and a few other\\npoems came out that same year in the Pilgrim City.\\nYet it must be remembered that the literary atmosphere\\nof Boston was then in some respects more heavy and schol-\\nastic than that of New York, and less favorable to the\\ngenial English taste that prevailed in the best circle here.\\nDana s love for Shakespeare and Coleridge and Words-\\nworth was not much liked among the old school liberals\\nof Boston, who had been brought up upon Locke and\\nPope and a very superficial philosophy and criticism shut\\nout the leading thinkers and authors of New England then\\nfrom communion with the best mind of England whilst a\\ncertain theological prejudice estranged theologians from the\\ngreat lights of the English and Latin Church until Chan-\\nning broke the spell by his Essays on Milton and Fenelon\\n(1 826-1 829), and claimed for the best literature of Christen-\\ndom a place among the inspirations of God. Had Bryant\\ngone to Boston, he might have joined in the renaissance\\nthere, and he might not only have accepted, as he did the\\nChanning movement for humanity, but he might have\\nfavored the more radical transcendental movement headed\\nby Emerson in 1832, which was perhaps more Germanic\\nthan English or American in its idea and tendency al-", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0020.jp2"}, "21": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 1 7\\nthough he disliked this movement to a certain extent, and\\noften he has said to me that the Boston and Cambridge\\nmen Germanized too much. But he stayed here, and he\\nbrought his Puritan severity and his Greek culture to bear\\nupon the revived old-school literature here and he was\\ncordially received by its leaders, especially by Cooper and\\nthe circle of scholars and gentlemen who composed the\\nweekly club which Cooper had founded, many of whose\\nfaces we can recall, such as Chancellor Kent, Wiley the\\nbookseller, Henry D. Sedgwick, Morse, Durand, Professor\\nH. J. Anderson, Halleck, Verplanck and Charles King. The\\nplace of the meeting, the old Washington Hotel, near our\\nCity Park, and on the site of Stewart s great marble store,\\nshows how close his quarters were, and how New York has\\ngrown since those days. The influence of those associates\\nmust in some respects have been wholesome for a man re-\\nserved and introspective as Bryant was and it did much to\\nmake him in the best sense a New York man, and some-\\nwhat different from the noted and excellent Boston and\\nCambridge type of character, which was so subjective,\\nscholastic, sedentary, and until of late so little muscular\\nand artistic, far more fond of books than of nature, and of\\nprint than pictures and sculpture. He had had enough of\\nthe East wind, and, grateful for the bracing air, he was\\nevidently not sorry now to be nearer the Western breezes\\nand he was not afraid of a Southern exposure, for he knew\\nhow to take it without harm.\\nProbably his life here did much to give him hold upon\\nreality, to warm his poetry with sunshine, to animate it\\nwith personality and action, and to give it more body than\\nbefore. If Bryant and Emerson are the two great American\\ninterpreters of nature, and we honor them both as they", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0021.jp2"}, "22": {"fulltext": "lb DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\nhonored each other, may we not say that nature is more\\ncompletely interpreted by their difference as well as by\\ntheir likeness, and that Emerson s subjective and intro-\\nversial sense is helped out by Bryant s open vision and\\nobjective reality. They stand together now two sons of\\nMassachusetts, two good New Englanders, who in different\\nschools have interpreted nature to our time and to the\\nages. The most telling tribute ever paid to the dead poet\\nwas paid by the survivor fourteen years ago, when both\\nmet at Bryant s seventieth anniversary and Emerson was\\nthe guest of honor there.\\nAs a poet he kept his hold of his countrymen, and he\\nstrengthened it not by any new and startling bursts of\\ngenius, but by keeping the old ground and growing from\\nthe old root. His poetry widened its range, ripened its\\nbeauty and sweetened its humanity and exalted its faith\\nbut it did not change its essential type of calm medita-\\ntion and descriptive art. New subjects came into his field\\nof vision in his new home, whilst he kept open his old base\\nof supplies of rural images from the fields and woods and\\nrivers and hills of his early days. His verse feels the power\\nof the near ocean and speaks as neighbor to the Western\\nprairie it stirs with the rush of the waters of the noble\\nHudson, and is not unmindful of the rush of human life in\\nthe currents of noble Broadway. He catches the pulse-\\nbeat of the great nations here, and answers to it in trans-\\nlations of choice gems of the French, Spanish, German and\\nPortuguese muse and in original odes to the genius of Dante\\nand Schiller. He does not forget Nature, and his exqui-\\nsite studies of the flowers and the seasons, the clouds and\\nstars and winds and woods, the seas and mountains, grow\\ninto such completeness that a Bryant Year of Nature might", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0022.jp2"}, "23": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 1 9\\nrival in beauty and favor Keble s Christian Year. Yet life,\\nin its struggle and pressure, came in for its share of his\\nthought, and his later poems deepen in pathos for human\\ngrief and sometimes ring with enthusiasm for patriotism\\nand humanity. Religion becomes a more positive convic-\\ntion and emotion, and what is sometimes said of Marcus\\nAurelius Antoninus, the last of the great Stoics, may be\\nsaid with added meaning of him. It was said of Marcus\\nAurelius that he brought Stoicism so near to Christianity\\nthat after him it died out and Christianity took its place.\\nIn Bryant the change was made before death, and his poems\\nare the record that in his life he passed from the Stoic into\\nthe Christian, and so embodied the lessons of ages in his\\nexperience.\\nYet his poetry kept its essential intellectual type and did\\nnot glow with passion or burn with martial fire. He had\\nneither epic fulness nor dramatic compass and force. This\\nis but saying that he belonged to his own time and people\\nand school and temperament for the New England that\\nschooled him was essentially intellectual and meditative in\\nits literature, and even in theology it reasoned out Heaven\\nand Hell by calm logic, and left passion and force to other\\nand more worldly fields. He was in his way scholastic in\\nhis poetry, a disciple of his own set school and with his\\nwonderful sense of beauty, he never ventures to lose his\\ncalmness or in any way to be unwise. He never said a\\nfoolish thing and rarely, if ever did an unwise one. Even\\nlove, which makes so many men fools, made him thoughtful\\nand his one sacred love went forth in calm idyls and rose\\ninto godly hymns, and never burned with wasting fires.\\nYet this we may and must say in truth of the calmness of\\nhis verse and of a certain want of the will element in his", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0023.jp2"}, "24": {"fulltext": "20 DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\nmuse, that his active life made up for that want. His life\\nwas epic and drama too, true to the supreme justice that\\nfollows the Epos of Providence, and brave for the sovereign\\nright that works out and fights out the Ethos of mankind.\\nWe must look to him as to the patriot and the man in\\norder to appreciate the worth of the ideal expression and\\nforce that he gave, and to show that poetry is not word\\nonly but action also.\\nHis poetry was little personal, and shy of men and women\\nhe was more at home, especially in early life, with nature.\\nHerein he differs signally from Goethe who always delighted\\nin persons, and who put his whole poetic and ideal experi-\\nence into such personal forms as Werther, Faust and Wil-\\nhelm Meister. Faust, Goethe s masterpiece, and the great\\npoem of modern times since Hamlet, is not only Goethe\\nhimself, but the modern man as Thinker under trial from\\nPassion, Doubt and Care and as Conqueror by the Spirit of\\nBeauty and the power of Action. Bryant did not put him-\\nself and his age into any such ideal embodiment. He saw\\nmuch of the modern man, and lived the modern life, but\\nnot as Goethe did. He was the new Puritan, the modern\\nIndependent in face of Death, Tyranny and Superstition.\\nConqueror by the charm of Nature, and by the power of\\nFaith and Duty. This Puritan Greek lived out his idea\\ngrandly, and he did not dramatize it, as Goethe dramatized\\nhis. Bryant apparently did not have a hard struggle with\\npassion as Goethe did, but he knew Doubt and Care and\\nconquered them. If he was not compelled to fight hard\\nwith the flesh, he saw something of the world and the devil.\\nHow could he help it, all those fifty years here in this\\ntumult and his victory was constant, noble and inspiring.\\nIf he did not put the poem of his life into verse, he left the", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0024.jp2"}, "25": {"fulltext": "BR YA NT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 2 1\\nmaterials as a legacy to us, and Time is already beginning\\nto shape these materials into form and to breathe into them\\na soul. The Puritan Greek is the name of that life-poem.\\nDwell a little now upon Bryant s career among us as a\\npatriot, which is very much the same with his course as an\\neditor. Editors are not always saints, even in New York,\\nwhere we have the best of them. He was not quite saintly\\nin his temper always, yet the wonder was that when there\\nwas so much to tempt an editor to play the Satan in re-\\nvenge, he grew in courtesy and lost the gall from his pen\\nwithout losing its point. I do not propose and I am not\\nqualified to go into the record of his political career. Not\\na partisan myself, and believing him to have been a sincere\\npatriot, I will content myself, and I hope to make you con-\\ntent with the simplest statement of his public career, and\\nof the work which he did for his country by his pen and\\nvoice. If my remarks are too general and sweeping to suit\\npractical politicians, set it down to my professional habit or\\nphilosophical infirmity.\\nBryant, as a patriot, belongs to what may be called in the\\nlargest sense, the second cycle of our national history and\\nin this cycle he was the foremost citizen, who served and\\nruled the country without official power. From 1775, when\\nWashington took command of our army at Cambridge, to\\n1825, when John Quincy Adams became President of the\\nUnited States, Virginia had been, in a sense, the dominant\\nstate in the Union, and her men tended to the chief place.\\nAll the Presidents with the exception of the single term of\\nJohn Adams, of Massachusetts, who was elected by the\\nvote of Maryland, (1797-1801) were Virginians, and in 1825,\\nwhen Bryant came to New York, the power of the Old\\nDominion was broken, the old parties were virtually dead;", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0025.jp2"}, "26": {"fulltext": "22 DR. OSGOOD S OR A T/OJV.\\nnew issues arose under the spur of new local and industrial\\ninterests, and the new cycle of American politics had be-\\ngun. The two states that had always followed close upon\\nVirginia and tried to take from her the Presidency, were\\nMassachusetts and New York, with South Carolina close\\nupon their heels. Massachusetts with the help of New\\nYork and the West, carried the day in 1825 for Adams, but\\nafter that New York changed the whole course of things by\\nreaching down, not to South Carolina for a Calhoun, or\\nMississippi for a Jefferson Davis, but to the South-west for\\na new man, and the election of Jackson, of Tennessee, in\\n1829, with Van Buren as the Vice-President afterwards, was\\nstarted in her counsels. Here Bryant s political career be-\\ngan with the new democracy, which has been so much\\ndominated by New York and his interest in the movement\\nwas not for the partisanship and greed for spoils which so\\ndamaged it, but from his interest in the opposition to false\\ncentralization and his wish to guard against the prostitution\\nof the national power to local schemes or class aggrandise-\\nment. The popular party in the first cycle of fifty years,\\nchanged its name from Republican to Democrat, and in the\\nsecond cycle it changed its name back again from Democrat\\nto Republican with his sympathy. He had a great sense of\\nindividual right, and of the necessity of guarding against\\nevery infringement of liberty. He, who had so assailed the\\nJefferson democracy in his boyish rhymes, had become\\nquite Jeffersonian in his ideas, and looked upon govern-\\nment as chiefly valuable, as it lets people and states alone,\\nand as it secures them the freedom to be let alone, and to\\ndo their best to help themselves. Protective tariffs for\\nspecial branches of business, and financial corporations with\\nexclusive privileges he disliked. He went for free states,", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0026.jp2"}, "27": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 2 3\\nand free trade under the National Union and when in\\n1832, South Carolina undertook to show her teeth and\\nthreaten nullification, Bryant approved President Jackson\\nalike for showing the guns of the frigate Constitution near\\nFort Sumter, and for abating the high tariff that had given\\nCarolina much of her provocation. His aim was the free-\\ndom of the States, and also the right of the Union; and\\nthe key to his whole career is in his estimate of the just\\nrelation between the central and the sectional, the centri-\\npetal and centrifugal forces of the nation. The States and\\nthe Nation, God hath joined them together, let not man\\nput them assunder this was his political creed.\\nHe has been essentially right, and he has triumphed. He\\ntriumphed when the rightful flag of our fathers was put\\nback upon repentant Fort Sumter, and he triumphed when\\nthe army was withdrawn from the insurgent states, and\\nlocal law was left to its own jurisdiction. He will tri-\\numph if ever that madness is renewed and insurgents again\\nanywhere assail the fortresses and the flag of our country.\\nHe triumphs now, that under the scourge of pestilence,\\ngood will binds North and South together and we hope for\\npeace and prosperity in the restored republic, with the law\\nof the nation unbroken, and its credit untarnished, with the\\nhonest dollar the money of the honest man. That he made\\nno mistakes I will not say, for he was human, and the field\\nof politics is not all patriotism or humanity. But he kept\\njustice uppermost he took no bribes and sought no station\\nand I call him calmly the first citizen of our country in our\\ntime. I am certain that his patriotism exalts his poetry,\\nand joins him more closely to the great bards, who have\\nfelt their country in their inspiration, with Dante, father of\\nmodern letters at their head, who in Bryant s own words", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0027.jp2"}, "28": {"fulltext": "24 DR. OSGOOD S OR A TION.\\nScattered far as sight can reach\\nThe seeds of free and living thought\\nOn the broad field of modern speech.\\nAllow me to recall the fact that after he wrote this ode to\\nDante on the sixth centennial of his birth, in 1865, he\\nbrought me with his own hand, at my request, the root of a\\nchoice clematis, to be planted as a Dante memorial in some\\ncountry grounds and that last June, when he was taken ill,\\nit bloomed, and when he died, the flower faded and fell.\\nBryant s patriotism was more memorable, because he was\\nnot an enthusiast for institutions and organizations, but a.\\nlover of independence and self-control or to use an em-\\nphatic distinction, which is said to divide men into separate\\nclasses, he was an individualist, not a multitudinist, more\\nearnest for the one in his freedom, than for the many in the\\nmass. But his individualism made him patriotic by con-\\nnecting the liberty of persons with the union of states and\\nthe law of the nation. How he differed from Webster\\nin temperament and schooling, and who of us who were\\nthere can forget their meeting at the Cooper Commemora-\\ntion, in 1852, when Webster presided and Bryant was\\norator, those two men, the burly iron bound Constitution-\\nalist and the lithe, slight, wiry Free Soiler and Free\\nTrader. Yet God had a use for them both, and he has\\nbeen bringing them and their ideas together. The nation\\nis stronger because of that statesman and that poet and\\nBryant and Webster live with us to-day in the freedom of\\nthe States and the union of the nation. Webster s oration\\nat Plymouth, in 1820, against the slave trade chimes well\\nwith Bryant s ode in 1866, on the Death of Slavery\\nA glory clothes the land from sea to sea,\\nFor the great land and all its coasts are free.", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0028.jp2"}, "29": {"fulltext": "BR YANT A MONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 2 5\\nBut the man was the inmost fact and the man is upper-\\nmost in our thought to-day. We knew him well, and he\\ndid not keep himself aloof from us, and he was willing that\\nwe should know him. The man was the soul of the poet\\nand the patriot, and his life was marvellously consistent, all\\nof a piece, his character and his works, integer vitae sceler-\\nisque purus, whole and without stain indeed. His quick\\nand gentle eye, his delicate and vigorous senses, and his apt\\nand agile hand and foot showed the sensibility and strength\\nthat marked his career, and enabled his pen to paint his\\npage with beauty, and to point it with truth and courage.\\nHis intellect looked out of his refined and manly face, and\\npromised wise insight rather than elaborate analysis. He\\nwas more of a practical sage than a speculative philosopher\\nmore fond of seeing and showing the form and movement\\nof life than of anatomising its vitals. In his affections he\\nwas kindly and constant and if somewhat reserved in so-\\nciety, and not always open like the rose when it has\\nbloomed, he was like the water lily that opened always\\nanew at the touch of sunshine. He had many friends, and\\nkept and served them, and made sacrifices for them. He\\nnever set himself above the lowliest of his associates, and\\nhe was as free from arrogance as from servility. In his\\nway, indeed, he was a very proud man, the proudest that I\\never knew. He never sought out the great after the stan-\\ndard of this world s gold and rank, and he never turned\\naway from the poor and humble. He was never frightened\\nby numbers, position and wealth, whilst very sensitive to-\\nwards favor. I never knew him to be agitated but once,\\nand that was two years ago in this hall, when as he came to\\nreceive a national tribute, that beautiful vase which was\\ngiven not by any clique or club, but by people of every", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0029.jp2"}, "30": {"fulltext": "26 DR. OSGOOD S ORA TION.\\nname and station from Boston to San Francisco, the whole\\nof the great assembly without a hint or a suggestion rose\\nup in reverence, and then the old poet trembled for a\\nmoment like a child.\\nHe was a good example of what we call dignity in\\nAmerica, the dignity which comes not from flattening every\\nbody up or down to the same dead level, but from modestly\\nbeing free to be yourself in your own gifts, tastes and sphere,\\nand leaving others to be free. Remember him as he went\\nup and down Broadway, to and from his daily work in plain\\ndress, a man among men, what dignity unasked and undis-\\nputed attended him. Germans, your Emperor William has\\ndignity in Berlin as he rides through the Unter den Linden\\nin his helmet and military cloak. Honor to him in his\\nrightful place and brave and truthful manhood, and con-\\nfound eveiy assassin s hand that strikes at him, the lawful\\nchief. But equal majesty went with our citizen William as\\nhe went down Broadway to his printing office to hold the\\npen of Franklin, and to reach the nation and the world with\\nhis thought. He too, in his way was a soldier and knew\\nhow to use his weapon, and could hit the mark in his edi-\\ntorials and if he did not please those dainty critics who\\nlike to see the target sprinkled with clattering shot, he won\\nfavor from the adepts who knew when the bulls -eye is\\npierced by the rifle ball.\\nIf not naturally a very social man, he came to be more\\nthan almost any other man in sympathy with his neighbors\\nand the community by his hold upon great principles and\\ninterests. He was in his way as well as poet and editor,\\nfarmer, forester, herdsman, chemist, physiologist, political\\neconomist, moralist, artist, historian, and somewhat of a\\ntheologian, and ready to say his word wherever he was duly", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0030.jp2"}, "31": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 2J\\ncalled and able to comply. His social life deepened with\\nadvancing years and in his enthusiasm for public interests\\nand associations during the last twenty years he seemed to\\nhave a second youth, more susceptible and sometimes more\\nimpulsive than his first youth. In fact a new bloom appeared\\nto be budding within him, and to make us sometimes think\\nthat this century plant was waiting for the hundred years\\nto bring out its final and full flowering. The last time that\\nI met him in society, it was on last May Day at a festive\\nreunion of clergymen, where he was the honored guest, and\\nhe spoke with his accustomed grace and point. Of the\\nnearly fifty who were present, most were young men who\\ngreeted him for the first time, and were cordially received\\nby him. The fellowship was generous and not bound by\\nsect, and I never saw him so happy as whilst the noblest utter-\\nances of comprehensive religion such as that of the Rev Dr.\\nPrentiss on The Divine Fatherhood and Sonship were\\nmade, and his face was rapturous in its delight. The last\\nevening that I spent with him, he dwelt much upon that\\ncharming occasion, and he was full of the beauty and joy of\\nthe country where he had been. His conversation was then\\nunusually various and significant, ranging from physiology\\nto literature and religion in his love of nature showing the\\npoet, and in his request for an article for his paper on an\\nimportant subject keeping his place in the editor s chair.\\nThe remark that left most impression upon me was this,\\nwhy should not a man however old be happy, so long as\\nhe can enjoy nature and be free from pain. So the facts\\nand faculties of his being held together to the last, and\\nwhen he fell under the blazing sun with a plea for liberty\\nand national union on his lips in that lovely park which he\\nhad helped to construct, it seemed as if that landscape all", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0031.jp2"}, "32": {"fulltext": "28 DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\naround was presenting and interpreting his poems of nature,\\nand giving the scenery for the closing act of that life which\\nhad been a drama of justice and humanity.\\nThere was something more and better than coolness and\\nslowness in the economy of his life. He lived long and\\nwell, not because he lived slowly and scantly, but because\\nhe lived fully and harmoniously. He was careful to receive\\nas much aliment as he needed to give out in action and\\nthought, and he found the aliment in nature, society and\\nreligion, in a wise order of variety and constancy in the city,\\nby the seaside and among the hills. So in a measure he\\ninterpreted the celestial Present of his Flood of\\nYears.\\nIn whose reign the change\\nThat waits on growth and action shall proceed\\nWith everlasting Concord hand in hand.\\nIII. Thus Bryant deepens the hold upon his countrymen,\\nwhich he first took by his mastering the country itself in\\nthe spirit of poetry and patriotism. Is this hold to con-\\ntinue, or is it to stop in course of time, and be forgotten\\nas most men are forgotten Our feeling and conviction\\nsay no.\\nHis works are to live, and his work is not to die. There\\nare undoubtedly to be great changes in literature and taste\\nand art as in all things. Poets are seeing more tragedy in\\nnature than he saw, and they are telling of more sadness\\nand passion in life than he noted. But he looked with\\nkeen and honest eyes, and said what he saw, and his word\\nanswered to the fact before him. So the very changes that\\ncome will add value to his works, because they are true to\\nhim and to his time and they are moreover foundation\\nstones upon which the new culture must rest, and which", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0032.jp2"}, "33": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 29\\nits loftiest spires cannot disown any more than those min-\\nster towers can ignore the walls upon which they stand, y*\\nRemember too that though modes may change, man and\\nnature remain, and God and Justice never die. His work\\nlives after him in the union of beauty and justice, as well\\nas liberty and truth, powers sometimes fearfully separated,\\nand which God has joined in this his servant s career.\\nSacred Duty in him was wedded to ideal Grace, as when\\nof old grave Numa, who ruled the state with steadfast care,\\nsought solace in the groves from Egeria, the nymph of\\nheaven.\\nThe man himself is in his works, and he works ever with\\nthem. His gentleness was mated with strength that marked\\nhis character, and looked out from his face. He was a very\\nmild, unpretending man, and not commanding in stature,\\nyet it was hard to resist the impression of his having a\\ncertain grandeur of form as of spirit, and artists generally\\noverdrew his figure and his face. It was not accident, but\\na certain inherent dignity that made them do this. His\\nintimate friends revered him, and they who knew him\\nwell, and saw him often and freely as I, for years some\\nfifteen years his pastor and always his friend did for some\\nthirty years, never presumed to any light familiarity with\\nhim, and they would not put their hand on his shoulder\\nfondly, although any playful and confiding child might do\\nso, and not be rebuked. This impression followed him to\\nthe last. On his death bed, the day before he died, when\\nI offered at his bedside the prayer for the dying, which I\\nknew that he loved, his head had the look of a Titan and\\nwhen it sank in the repose of death, and a few favored\\nfriends were admitted to the sacred presence, his face in its\\nexquisite lines and noble features and silvery radiance was", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0033.jp2"}, "34": {"fulltext": "30 DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\nas one of God s own shining ones, and angelic in sweetness\\nand spirituality. That face is ours, and it belongs to our\\ncountry. It is everywhere with the faces of Washington\\nand Franklin, and no effort or neglect of man can tear it\\nout of the treasures of art and the custody of affection.\\nIs there not moreover a kind of environment, a sphere of\\ninfluence, a fellowship of powers and persons that goes with\\nand keeps him living with us How much there is in this\\ncity to hold him to us, and us to him. The German Goethe\\ndid much to build up Weimar in his fifty years residence\\nthere, and to train Duke Charles Augustus in taste and\\nwisdom. Bryant, in a different way, has done no less for\\nNew York and for the promising and sometimes preverse,\\nbut not incorrigible, Prince Gotham, who rules the city by\\nsovereign ballot, and who, we hope, although sometimes a\\nlittle wild, is not a bad fellow at heart, and has pretty much\\nsown his wild oats. Bryant meets us every where Our\\nrural cemeteries in their sacred beauty began public art,\\nand they repeat Thanatopsis in their lawns and sculp-\\ntures. Our lovely parks interpret the Forest Hymn in\\nit s reverence and joy.\\nOur mighty press in its new and growing relations with\\nour social and religious life, is maturing the connection\\nwhich he formed between the secular and the sacred rela-\\ntions of this community, and mediating, without confound-\\ning them, between the Church and the world. The beau-\\ntiful, and also the useful arts, are coming together under\\nthe lead which he held more by the purity of his taste and\\nthe largeness of his sympathy than by any new or profound\\ntheory of art. Our artists are nearer to our best life and\\nfavor here to-day, because he liked them and went with\\nthem. Religion felt his influence, and unassuming and", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0034.jp2"}, "35": {"fulltext": "BR YANT AMONG HIS CO UNTR YMEN. 3 I\\nlittle dogmatic as he was, he rebuked the spirit of sect\\nand the pride of caste, so that our church fellowship is\\nsweeter, more humane and godly because of his presence,\\nhis hymns and his example. More and more he loved the\\nliving Gospel and the living Christ, and the less he cared\\nfor any of the sects that set themselves up in place of God\\nand his Christ.\\nHe seemed in a remarkable way to carry the years with\\nhim instead of being carried away by them, and the century\\nof years invested him with a certain majesty, and went with\\nhim as a body guard. The Flood of Years did not\\ndrown, but floated the man and his muse. The great prin-\\nciples and tendencies which the eighteenth century, in its\\nimpatient individualism, brought to the nineteenth century,\\nwith its passion for reconciliation and unity, spoke in his\\nword and lived in his thought. Franklin and Adam Smith\\nled the way in that company, and Goethe and Manzoni,\\nKeble and Wordsworth, Peel and Lincoln, Cavour and\\nThiers, Maurice and Channing followed in the great pro-\\ncession that ever seemed to attend him in his public ad-\\ndresses, and in fact to be around him in his quiet home,\\nand to help him in his unpretending conversation. To\\nthose of us who were his neighbors, it was a great privilege\\nto visit him, and when we saw him, we met the whole\\ncentury in his presence. Old Homer too was his com-\\npanion, and helped him to hold his Greek culture with his\\nNew Testament faith. So the ages joined to do him\\nhonor, and to keep him true.\\nIf I were asked to sketch a memorial or a monument\\nfor Bryant s memory, I would not presume to do it, or pre-\\ntend to interfere with the proper artist s task. I would,\\nhowever, venture upon a hint to the competent artist. I", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0035.jp2"}, "36": {"fulltext": "3 2 DR. OSGOOD S ORATION.\\nwould say, put something of Delphi and Jerusalem into\\nyour tribute to this Puritan Greek. Take from the Delphic\\nporch the head of Homer, and these two inscriptions,\\nMrjSev ayav, No excess rrcaOi aeavrov, Know thy-\\nself, and then put a fitting statue in front. What shall\\nthis be Not the Pythoness, with the tripod from the\\ncave beneath where intoxicating gases breathed the inebri-\\nation that was mistaken for inspiration. Not that figure\\nor that art, but put our poet himself there on a granite\\nrock from his native hills, with one hand outstretched to-\\nwards the fields mountains, and waters, and with the other\\nhand lifted up, and holding a scroll of the everlasting\\nGospel, and showing plainly the words of Christ, The\\ntruth shall make you free. So Delphi and Jerusalem,\\nGreece and Judea meet together in this man, and give him\\nhold on his country and the world.\\nPoet, Patriot, Man, Friend of us all, Father of our Let-\\nters, what shall we say as we part Farewell forever No.\\nWelcome forever Welcome to your lasting place in the\\nlove and honor of your countrymen Welcome to your\\nhome in the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven\\nTHE POET S LAST MAY-DAY.\\nMay, 1878, came in with great beauty, and a company of Christian scholars,\\nafter consecrating the occasion by the celebration of the Holy Communion, at\\nthe Church of the Atonement, met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel for a social\\nbreakfast. There were but few invited guests, and among this choice number\\nour poet held the place of honor, and sat at the right hand of the chairman.\\nHe came accompanied by two clergymen, his personal friends, Drs. Osgood and\\nPowers, and was cordially welcomed by the whole company, most of whom had\\nnever met him before. He was in full health and spirits, and entered into all\\nthe life of the proceedings. The following is the charming little speech which\\nhe made at the chairman s call", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0036.jp2"}, "37": {"fulltext": "THE POET S LAST MA Y-DA Y. 33\\nI obey the call which is made upon me, although in doing so I reverse the\\nordinary mode of proceeding. It is the province of the clergy to address the\\nlaity, and here am I, a layman, rising to address the clergy. Yet as the sermon\\nto the clergy the concio ad dentin is for one of their own cloth to deliver, I\\nshall take care, in what little I say, not to preach.\\nWhen my friend Dr. Osgood told me the other day that if I accepted the\\ninvitation to this breakfast I would be called upon to say something, he was\\ngood enough to suggest as a subject the Christian poets of our language. This\\nseemed a good suggestion but in going over the list of our poets who had\\ntreated largely of subjects connected with the Christian religion, I perceived\\nthat the two most eminent among them Milton and Cowper were laymen.\\nIf Wordsworth is to be included in the same class, and Coleridge besides, the\\nauthor of that glorious Sunrise Hymn in the Valley of Chamouni, they were\\nlaymen also. I was puzzled to know how to twist this circumstance into a\\ncompliment to the clergy whose guest I was to be, who had graciously offered\\nme a seat with this reverend company, and to whom I naturally desired to say\\nsomething pleasant. I went over the list of Christian poets who were clergy-\\nmen, from the two Fletchers, Giles and Phineas, down to the present day, an\\nillustrious brotherhood, but taking less lofty flights, and therefore belonging to the\\nclass of minor poets. It then occurred to me that in passages of their writings\\nsome of them had shown a genius which, if it had been guided principally in\\nthe direction of poetry, might have placed them in the class of their more\\neminent brethren. There is Young, a born poet if there ever was one, at whose\\ntorch Byron was wont to kindle his poetic fire. I cannot rank him with\\nCowper, for he had not the same delicate perception of beauty, the same just\\nsense of symmetry and proportion, and the same affectionate observation of\\nnature but what fine passages he has There is one which I have never seen\\nselected for commendation, in which he imagined the gloomy spectre of the\\nWorld before the Flood sorrowing for a whole generation of mankind engulfed\\nin the waters, and predicting another destruction, as general, by fire. Will\\nyou hear it\\nl But oh, Lorenzo, far above the rest,\\nOf ghastly feature and enormous size,\\nOne form assaults my sight, and chills my blood,\\nAnd shakes my frame. Of one departed world\\nI see the mighty shadow oozy wreath\\nAnd dismal sea-weed crown her. O er her urn\\nReclined she weeps her desolated realms\\nAnd her drowned sons, and, weeping, prophesies\\nAnother s dissolution, soon, in flames.\\nWhat a fine poem, short as it is, that of Croly on the Genius of Death as\\nrepresented on an ancient gem\\nSpirit of the drooping wing\\nAnd the ever weary eye\\nThou of all earth s kings art king\\nEmpires at Thy footstool lie\\nBefore thee strewed\\nTheir multitude\\nSink like waves upon the shore\\nStorms can never rouse them more.\\nThere is yet another stanza quite as fine, but I cannot repeat it.\\nLofC.", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0037.jp2"}, "38": {"fulltext": "34 THE POET S LAST MA Y-DA Y.\\nThese and other passages in the works of poets who were of the clergy led\\nme to the true solution of the problem that had perplexed me. I reflected that\\none important part of a clergyman s duty was the delivery of sermons, and that\\nwhen a striking thought, a grand idea, a conception capable of the highest\\npoetic expression, came into his mind, he had an immediate use for it. I\\nperceived that he needed it to enforce the message he had to deliver. Instead\\nof employing the time which should be given to parochial duties in the task of\\ngiving these high thoughts a poetic foi m, for their preservation, the faithful\\nclergyman takes them into the pulpit with him, and launches them at the\\naudience winged with the living voice. He disinterestedly sacrifices present\\nfame to future usefulness his reputation as a poet to his duty as a preacher.\\n10\\nrf", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0038.jp2"}, "39": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0039.jp2"}, "40": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0040.jp2"}, "41": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0041.jp2"}, "42": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0042.jp2"}, "43": {"fulltext": "", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0043.jp2"}, "44": {"fulltext": "LIBRARY OF CONGRESS\\n;i ii ill ii Mm i ii i hi i Hi\\n015 775 316 2", "height": "3518", "width": "2082", "jp2-path": "bryantamonghisco00osgo_0044.jp2"}}