Roosevelt
began to publish books as a young man of twenty-
five.
five.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v21 - Rab to Rus
## p. 12372 (#422) ##########################################
12372
ROMAN POETS OF THE LATER EMPIRE
THE HYMN OF PHILOSOPHY
From the Consolation of Philosophy'
NDYING Soul of this material ball,
Heaven-and-Earth-Maker!
Thou who first didst call
Time into being, and by thy behest
Movest all things, thyself alone at rest,
No outward power impelled thee thus to mold
In shape the fluid atoms manifold,
Only the immortal image, born within
Of perfect beauty! Wherefore thou hast been
Thine own fair model, and the things of sense
The image bear of thy magnificence!
Parts perfect in themselves, by Thy control,
Are newly wrought into a perfect whole;
The yoked elements obey thy hand:
Frost works with fire, water with barren sand,
So the dense continents are fast maintained,
And heaven's ethereal fire to earth restrained.
Thou dost the life of threefold nature tame,
To serve the parts of one harmonious frame,—
That soul of things constrained eternally
To trace thy image on the starry sky,
The greater and the lesser deeps to round,
And on thyself return. Thou too hast found
For us, thy lesser creatures of a day,
Wherewith thou sowest earth,- forms of a clay
So kindly-fragile naught can stay our flight
Backward, unto the source of all our light!
Grant, Father, yet, the undethroned mind!
A way unto the fount of truth to find,
And, sought so long, the Vision of thy Face!
Lighten our flesh! Terrestrial vapors chase,
And shine in all thy splendor! For thou art
The final Rest of every faithful heart,
The First, the Last! of the expatriate soul
Lord, Leader, Pathway, and Eternal Goal!
UN
-
Translation of H. W. P.
## p. 12373 (#423) ##########################################
12373
PIERRE RONSARD
(1524-1585)
BY KATHARINE HILLARD
HERE is no more picturesque moment in the whole history of
France than that at which Pierre Ronsard was born. The
Gre
first quarter of the sixteenth century had just struck, and
Europe was waking to the new day of the Renaissance. Luther
had burned the Pope's bull at Wittenberg, and had introduced the
reformed worship there. Henry VIII. and Francis I. had met on the
Field of the Cloth of Gold; Michael Angelo
had finished his masterpieces in the Sistine
Chapel; Raphael, having painted the great-
est of all Madonnas, had been dead five
years; Titian was still holding the world
breathless with the triumphs of his brush;
Rabelais had just emerged from his mo-
nastic prison to begin life at the age of
forty; Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Earl of Sur-
rey, and their co-mates, were preparing the
way in England for the full choir of the
next half-century; and France, stimulated
on all sides by the advance of her neigh-
bors in literature and art, had set herself
to rival them. Since the appearance of the 'Roman de la Rose' in
1310, there had been little of note in French literature. The feeble
singers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, whose voices could
scarcely be heard through the constant din of war, made that poem
their great example; and it is hard to say whether the poverty of
their invention, or the religious allegory concealed beneath its senti-
mental platitudes, had had the greater power in preserving it so
long. Charles d'Orléans, François Villon, and Clément Marot, had
already sung the first chansons worthy of note since the 'Roman de
la Rose' began to reign; and the "gentil maistre Clément " was even
now sharing the captivity of his royal master at Pavia.
PIERRE RONSARD
Besides the usual causes that impede the production of great
poems, we must take into account the transitions and imperfect con-
dition of the French language at this time; the patronage of zealous
## p. 12374 (#424) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12374
but ignorant princes; and more than all, the fact that in the recent
revival of learning, studious minds grasped at everything. They
made no distinction between natural genius and acquired talents;
and believed the development of poetry to be as much a matter of
perseverance as the development of physics,- a thing to be worked.
at like a sum in arithmetic.
While, then, in France the learned were poring over classical dic-
tionaries, and occasionally giving evidence of progress by a neat copy
of Greek or Latin verses, the French language was suffering neglect.
Noble words and phrases used by the Troubadours had dropped out
altogether; the writers of each half-century had to be translated by
their successors before they could be understood. For the new music
there must be new strings to the lyre; and two young poets, Pierre
Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay, undertook the audacious task of re-
constructing their native tongue.
Pierre Ronsard, to whose influence may be ascribed the 'Illustra-
tion de la Langue Française,' published by his friend Du Bellay, was
born on the 11th of September, 1524, at the Château de la Poissonière
(Vendômois). He was the fifth son of Louis Ronsard, maître d'hotel
to Francis I. His father, born of a noble Hungarian family, was
himself a scholar and a poet, who composed verses in both French
and Latin which received a tolerable amount of praise from his con-
temporaries. Till the age of nine, Pierre was brought up at home
under the direction of a tutor. When sent to the College of Navarre,
he was a bright and beautiful boy of ten; but the Regent there was
an uncommonly harsh master, under whose rule in six months the
child lost not only his color and his vivacity, but his taste for study.
His alarmed father gave up all thought of educating him for the law
or the church, and entered him in the service of the Duke of Orléans
as a page. Three years later, in 1537, when James V. of Scotland
returned to his own country with his first wife, Madeleine of France,
Ronsard went in their train to Edinburgh, where he spent two years;
and then, despite the King's efforts to detain him, returned to France
(spending six months in England on the way), and re-entered the
service of the Duke. His royal master sent his prodigy of a page
on all sorts of secret missions, -to Scotland, to Flanders, to Zealand,
to the Diet of Spires with Lazare de Baïf, to Piedmont with the
viceroy Du Bellay. He suffered many hardships, and even ship-
wreck; and finally a severe illness, which left him almost totally
deaf at the early age of sixteen. He lost his heart too about this
time (not so irremediable a loss, however, as his hearing), to a fair
bourgeoise of Blois, whom he chose to christen Cassandra.
She was
little more than a child; and he, though not seventeen, was already
an accomplished courtier, skilled in all manly exercises, and already
## p. 12375 (#425) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12375
a verse-maker. His deafness interfering with his chances at court,
he wished to devote himself to study. But his father, ambitious for
the future of his brilliant son, peremptorily forbade his apprentice-
ship to "le mestier des Muses. " During his travels, however, he had
learned to speak English, Italian, and German, while one of his com-
rades had taught him Latin.
When the elder Ronsard died, Pierre was left free to follow his
own inclinations. At eighteen, having already seen more of life than
most men, he retired with his friend Antoine de Baïf, then only six-
teen, to the College of Coqueret. Seven long years they passed in
this retreat, studying with the greatest ardor, and helping each other
along the thorny ways of learning.
At the college they were joined by Remi Belleau, afterwards an
enthusiastic disciple of Ronsard, and by Antoine Muret, his future
commentator. Here too came Joachim du Bellay, who eagerly em-
braced the literary theories of Ronsard, and published in 1549 the
result of their joint studies and speculations under the title of
'L'Illustration de la Langue Française. ' "Coloring their prejudices
as erudite scholars with all the illusions of youth and patriotism,"
says Sainte-Beuve in his admirable work on 'French Poetry in the
Sixteenth Century,' "they asserted that there was no such thing as
poetry in France, and promised themselves to create it all. " The
ideas of these youthful enthusiasts were set forth (in part) as follows:
"Languages are not like plants, strong or weak by chance: they depend
upon human volition. Consequently, if our language be more feeble than the
Greek or the Latin, it is the fault of our ancestors, who neglected to strengthen
and adorn it. Translations alone will never enrich a language. We need
to follow the example of the Romans, who imitated rather than translated the
best Greek authors, transforming them into their own likeness, devouring
their substance, and after digesting it thoroughly, converting it into nourish-
ment and blood. »
To this careful transportation of the classics, of Spanish and Ital-
ian, Ronsard added an audacious use of the words of his own tongue.
Where French failed him, he dressed up a Latin, Greek, or Italian
substitute. He advised what he called the provignement (literally
the layering of words, the term being taken from the gardener's
method of laying a shoot under ground to take root, without detach-
ing it from the parent stem); and from a recognized substantive, for
instance, would form a verb or an adjective to suit his need. More-
over, he borrowed right and left from every French patois he could
lay his hands upon; and in all the workshops of Paris he sought
among the artisans for words and phrases to give amplitude and
vigor to his verse. His genius melted down this heterogeneous mass
into a wonderfully mellifluous stream; and to us, in this polyglot age,
-
## p. 12376 (#426) ##########################################
12376
PIERRE RONSARD
his verse presents fewer difficulties than it did, perhaps, to his con-
temporaries.
-
In 1549, after seven years' study of "le mestier des Muses," Ron-
sard was persuaded to appear in print for the first time; and to
publish his Epithalamium on the marriage of Antoine de Bourbon
with Jeanne de Navarre. His first book of 'Odes' came out in 1550;
and two years later, 'Amours,' - a collection of sonnets addressed to
the fair Cassandra. Meantime he was publishing more odes, of which
a fifth book appeared in 1553, accompanied with music fitted to the
songs and sonnets, and a commentary by Muret. Then came a book
of 'Hymnes,' followed in two years by a second, and by the last of
the 'Amours. ' Finally, in 1560, he brought out the first edition of
his collected works.
Never were poems received with such tempests of applause. In
vain the jovial curé of Meudon made fun of his neighbor; not even
the mighty laughter of Rabelais could drown the praise of princes.
The Toulouse Academy of Floral Games christened Ronsard "the
prince of poets"; and although he had not entered their lists as a
competitor, they not only crowned him with their usual golden wreath
of eglantine, but sent him also a massive silver statue of Minerva.
Queen Elizabeth presented a diamond of great price; and Marie
Stuart sent him from her English prison a buffet surmounted by a
silver Pegasus, standing on the summit of Parnassus, bearing this
inscription: "To Ronsard, the Apollo of the fountain of the Muses. "
Montaigne immortalized him in a single line; Tasso was proud
to read to him the first cantos of his Gerusalemme; and his works
were publicly read and expounded in the French schools of Flanders,
Poland, England, and other countries. Saddest and sweetest tribute
of all, the poet Chastelard would have no other consolation upon the
scaffold than Ronsard's 'Hymn to Death. '
The people shared the admiration of princes, and women burned
incense before the popular idol. Many damsels besides Cassandra
are celebrated in his charming verses; either by their real names, or
by the finer Callirrhoës and Astræas of the fashion of the day. The
nebulous clouds of adoration that surrounded him finally encompassed
that famous constellation, the "Pléiade," wherein he was still the
central star. Around him at a respectful distance revolved Dorat,
his old master; Jamyn, his pupil; Du Bellay and De Baïf, his fellow-
students; Jodelle and De Thiard: but it was only Ronsard whom the
whole world delighted to honor.
At the command of Charles IX. he undertook an epic poem; and
about a fortnight after the massacre of St. Bartholomew (August
24th, 1572) appeared all that was ever written of the 'Franciade,’-
four cantos of the destined twenty-four. The delighted King loaded
## p. 12377 (#427) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12377
him with new honors; bestowing upon him, besides two priories, the
abbeys of Bellozane and Croix-Val.
To Croix-Val Ronsard retired upon the death of his royal patron
in 1574. Gouty and prematurely old, he led a studious and pious life;
amusing himself by editing another edition of his complete works,
which appeared in 1584. So captious had grown his fastidious taste,
that he altered the sonnets and lyrics of his youth with a most un-
sparing hand, often much to the loss of their spontaneity and vigor;
"not considering," says Colletet, in his quaint old French, "that
although he was the father of his works, yet doth it not appertain
to sad and captious age to sit in judgment upon the strokes of gal-
lant youth. "
A singer to the last, he died at his priory of St. Cosme, Tours, on
December 27th, 1585, at the age of 61; and was quietly buried in the
choir of the priory church. Two months after his death, however,
his dear friend Galland, who had closed the poet's eyes, celebrated
his obsequies at the chapel of the College of Boncour. Henri III. ,
then King, sent his own musicians to sing the mass; Duperron, after-
wards bishop of Evreux and cardinal, pronounced the funeral oration,
and drew tears from the eyes of all present. The chapel was crowded
with the princes of the blood, the cardinals, the Parliament, and the
University of Paris. The next day memorial orations and verses
were recited in all the colleges of Paris, and volumes might be made
of the commemorative elegies and epitaphs.
But only fifteen years after these panegyrics filled the air, arose
the star of Malherbe, severest of his critics because so close a rival.
It is related that Racan, coming in one day,-when Malherbe was ill,
let us hope,- took up a volume of Ronsard with many verses erased.
"Posterity will quote the others as admired by Malherbe," said
Racan; whereupon the irritated censor seized a pen and scratched
out all the rest.
The wheel of Fortune turned again. Malherbe was as completely
forgotten as Ronsard. Corneille, Racine, and classic drama ruled the
day. Again the wheel went round; and in 1828 the reign of the
Romantic School began. Guizot, Ampère, Prosper Mérimée, Phila-
rète Chasles, Théophile Gautier, Sainte-Beuve, Victor Hugo, led the
acclaim for Ronsard; and once more all France rang with his praises.
Sainte-Beuve wrote his Tableau Historique et Critique de la Poésie
Française au 16e. Siècle' (Critical and Historical View of French
Poetry in the Sixteenth Century), followed by a volume of selections
which set the new school wild. Early editions commanded fabulous
prices; and a copy of 1609 was presented to Victor Hugo as the fittest
tribute to "the successor of the greatest lyric poet of France. "
It is easier to account for the fame of Ronsard than for its sudden
waning. His service to French speech is enormous. As a poet, he
## p. 12378 (#428) ##########################################
12378
PIERRE RONSARD
worked much upon the same lines as did Rabelais in prose, allowing
for the humorous extravagance of the latter. Both borrowed from
all sources, and both developed the French vocabulary in every direc-
tion.
Nor were Ronsard's services to the art of versification less nota-
ble. To him belongs the honor of introducing the ode into French
poetry; that he also revived the epic is a doubtful matter for con-
gratulation. Sainte-Beuve claims as his invention a great variety
of new rhythms, and at least eight or ten new forms of strophes.
Indeed, France had to wait three hundred years for a worthy succes-
sor to him in the realm of lyric verse. Not until Victor Hugo took
up the fallen lyre do we find in French poetry any songs that for
exquisite melody, simplicity, and grace can rival his. He transplanted
some of the finest odes and sonnets of Anacreon, Theocritus, Horace,
Petrarch, and Bembo into his native tongue; but added to them such
fine and delicate touches of his own fancy that they seemed to bloom
anew as with engrafted flowers.
And he kept a kind and fatherly eye upon the younger poets
springing up around him. He taught them the value of careful work;
inspired them to write less and write better; and bade them remem-
ber that verses should be weighed, not counted, and that like dia-
monds, one fine gem was far more precious than a hundred mediocre
specimens.
Of all English poets Herrick most resembles Ronsard. But Her-
rick set out with the great advantage of finding his material ready to
his hand; for the noble English language was at the very acme of its
splendor. His mastery of rhythm is as great as Ronsard's, but his
poetic genius is of a lower order. Ronsard's imagination has a loftier
flight than Herrick's fancy; there is more dignity and depth in his
sweetness, a subtler pathos in his tenderness.
Both poets profess a like Epicurean philosophy: "Gather ye rose-
buds while ye may, old Time is still a-flying," sings Herrick; and Ron-
sard utters the same wisdom to Cassandra. This is the moral of many
a verse in both poets, it is true; but Ronsard's treatment of love is
more noble and dignified than that of the English singer. Although
touched occasionally by the worst taste of his time, Ronsard pre-
serves in nearly all his love poems a manliness and a delicacy that
enhance their richness. Perhaps the most celebrated of his verses
is the sonnet to Hélène de Surgères, maid of honor to Catherine de
Medici, a sonnet which Béranger has imitated and Thackeray para-
phrased:-
"When by the fire, grown old, with silvery hair,
You spin by candle-light with weary eyes,
Humming my songs you'll say, with still surprise,
'Ronsard once sang of me, when I was young and fair. '
## p. 12379 (#429) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12379
Then as your maidens hear the well-known sound,-
Though half asleep after the toils of day,-
Not one but wakes, and as she goes her way
Blesses your name, with praise immortal crowned.
I shall be dead and gone, a fleshless shade
Under Elysian bowers my head be laid;
While you, crouched o'er your fire, grown old and gray,
Sigh for my love, regret your past disdain.
Live now, nor wait for love to come again;
Gather the roses of your life to-day! "
Ronsard, like Chaucer, in spite of a courtier's training, had an
intense love of nature. The poet laureate of his age and country,
he was none the less an excellent gardener, well versed in all the
secrets of horticulture; and side by side with marriage odes to princes
and epistles to kings and queens, we find charming songs addressed
to the birds and insects and fountains of the country that he loved
even better than the court. And like Chaucer, again, he was capa-
ble of higher flights; and could comfort a dying poet with his 'Hymn
to Death,' or write verses full of a lofty stoicism,-like the stanzas
taken from one of the odes, which irresistibly suggest the "good
counsel" of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Katharine Hillard
SONNET
TO ANGELETTE
Η
ERE through this wood my saintly Angelette
Goes, making springtime blither with her song;
Here lost in smiling thought she strays along,
While on these flowers her little feet are set.
Here is the meadow and the gentle stream
That laughs in ripples by her hand caressed,
As loitering still, she gathers to her breast
The enameled flowers that o'er its wavelets dream.
Here, singing I behold her, there, in tears;
And here she smiles, and there my fancy hears
Her sweet discourse, with boundless blessings rife.
Here sits she down, and there I see her dance;
So with the shuttle of a vague romance,
Love weaves the warp and woof of all my life.
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
## p. 12380 (#430) ##########################################
12380
PIERRE RONSARD
HIS LADY'S TOMB
AⓇ
S IN the gardens, all through May, the rose,
Lovely and young and rich apparellèd,
Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red,
When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows;
Graces and Loves within her breast repose,
The woods are faint with the sweet odor shed,
Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead
The languid flower, and the loose leaves unclose:
So this, the perfect beauty of our days,
When heaven and earth were vocal of her praise,
The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes:
And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb
Pour milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom,
That, dead as living, Rose may be with roses.
Translation of Andrew Lang.
ROSES
SEND you here a wreath of blossoms blown,
And woven flowers at sunset gathered.
Another dawn had seen them ruined, and shed
Loose leaves upon the grass at random strown.
By this, their sure example, be it known
That all your beauties, now in perfect flower,
Shall fade as these, and wither in an hour,
Flower-like, and brief of days, as the flower sown.
Ah, time is flying, lady-time is flying;
Nay, 'tis not time that flies but we that go,
Who in short space shall be in churchyard lying,
And of our loving parley none shall know,
Nor any man consider what we were:
Be therefore kind, my love, whiles thou art fair.
Translation of Andrew Lang.
TO CASSANDRA
"D
ARLING! look if that blushing rose,
That but this morning did unclose
Her crimson vestments to the sun,
Hath not quite lost in evening's air
## p. 12381 (#431) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12381
The fine folds of that vestment rare,
And that bright tinting like your own.
"Alas! even in this little space,
Dearest, we see o'er all the place
Her scattered beauties strown!
O stepdame Nature! stern and hard,
That could not such a flower have spared
From morn till eve along!
"Then, darling, hear me while I sing!
Enjoy the verdure of your spring,
The sweets of youth's short hour;
Gather the blossoms while ye may,
For youth is gone like yesterday,
And beauty like that flower! "
SONG
TO MARIE
TH
HE spring hath not so many flowers;
The autumn, grapes within its bowers;
The summer, heats that make men pale;
The winter, stores of icy hail;
Nor fishes hath the boundless sea,
Nor harvests in fair Beau there be;
Nor Brittany, unnumbered sands,
Nor fountains have Auvergne's broad lands;
Nor hath so many stars the night,
Nor the wide woodland branches light,-
As hath my heart of heavy pains,
Born of my mistress's disdains.
WHY
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
―
A MADRIGAL
TO ASTREA
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
those engraven agates dost thou wear,
Rich rubies, and the flash of diamonds bright?
Thy beauty is enough to make thee fair,-
Beauty that love endows with its own light.
## p. 12382 (#432) ##########################################
12382
PIERRE RONSARD
Then hide that pearl, born of the Orient sea:
Thy grace alone should ornament thy hand;
Thy gems but serve to make us understand
They take their splendor and their worth from thee.
'Tis thy bright eyes that make thy diamonds shine,
And not the gems that make thee more divine.
Thou work'st thy miracles, my lady fair,
With or without thy jewels; all the same,
I own thy sovranty: now ice, now flame,—
As love and hatred drive me to despair,—
I die with rapture, or I writhe in shame,
Faint with my grief, or seem to tread on air.
NOT
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
GOOD COUNSEL
OT to rejoice too much at Fortune's smile
Nor at her frown despair,—
This makes man happy, and he lives meanwhile
Without or fear or care.
Like Time himself, borne by his sweeping wings,
All things else pass away;
And fifty sudden summers and sweet springs
Flit by us like a day.
Cities and forts and kingdoms perish all
Before Time's mighty breath;
And new ones spring to life, like them to fall,
And crumble into death.
Therefore let no man cherish the vain thought
Of an immortal name,
Seeing how Time itself doth come to naught,
And he shall fare the same.
Arm thyself then with proud philosophy
Against the blows of fate;
And with a soul courageous, firm, and free
The storms of life await.
Translation of Katharine Hillard.
## p. 12383 (#433) ##########################################
PIERRE RONSARD
12383
RONSARD TO HIS MISTRESS
SON
OME winter night, shut snugly in
Beside the fagot in the hall,
I think I see you sit and spin,
Surrounded by your maidens all.
Old tales are told, old songs are sung,
Old days come back to memory:
You say,
"When I was fair and young,
A poet sang of me! »
There's not a maiden in your hall,
Though tired and sleepy ever so,
But wakes as you my name recall,
And longs the history to know.
And as the piteous tale is said
Of lady cold and lover true,
Each, musing, carries it to bed,
And sighs and envies you!
"Our lady's old and feeble now,"
They'll say; "she once was fresh and fair,
And yet she spurned her lover's vow,
And heartless left him to despair:
The lover lies in silent earth,
No kindly mate the lady cheers;
She sits beside a lonely hearth,
With threescore and ten years! "
Ah! dreary thoughts and dreams are those,-
But wherefore yield me to despair,
While yet the poet's bosom glows,
While yet the dame is peerless fair!
Sweet lady mine! while yet 'tis time,
Requite my passion and my truth;
And gather in their blushing prime
The roses of your youth!
Paraphrased by Thackeray.
## p. 12384 (#434) ##########################################
12384
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
(1858-)
HEODORE ROOSEVELT is an example of a type of American
justifying the experiment of democratic government on a
large scale. He is a man of good family and private for-
tune, well educated and of high character, who has devoted his
abilities and energies to practical politics, and has risen steadily as a
public servant by reason of his probity, intelligence, and force. His
keen interest in his own country has led him to make frequent hunt-
ing trips in the West, where he owns a ranch and has made himself
an authority on hunting; and he has studied
the conditions of that civilization, and then
written books concerning it. This interest
in the West has extended to its history, and
has produced a capital historical survey of
the stirring dramatic development of the
Western States: much of the material upon
which the account is based being drawn
fresh from government archives, and in-
volving painstaking independent labor. Mr.
Roosevelt's other writings-historical, bio-
graphical, or of the lighter essay sort-are
robustly American in spirit, and enjoyable
in point of style. He is a vigorous person-
ality, whether in life or literature.
Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York city, on October 27th,
1858; and is the son of a successful business man and philanthropist
of the same name, well known and honored in that city. The son's
uncle was R. B. Roosevelt, also distinguished as politician and author.
Theodore the younger was educated at Harvard, being graduated in
1880. He at once interested himself in local politics; and became
a New York State Assemblyman 1882-4. The latter year he was a
member of the National Republican Convention; in 1886 a Republican
candidate for mayor of New York; in 1889 he was made a United
States Civil Service Commissioner, serving until 1895, when he be-
came president of the New York Board of Police Commissioners,—
holding this position until 1897, when he accepted the post of Assist-
ant Secretary of the Navy.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
## p. 12385 (#435) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12385
Mr.
Roosevelt began to publish books as a young man of twenty-
five. His Hunting Trips of a Ranchman' appeared in 1883; other
books in the order of their publication are History of the Naval
War of 1812 (1885), the lives of Thomas Hart Benton (1887) and
of Gouverneur Morris (1888) in the American Statesmen Series,'
'Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail' (1888), Essays on Practical Pol-
itics (1888), The Winning of the West' (fourth volume 1895), His-
tory of New York City' (1891), and The Wilderness Hunter' (1893).
This is a considerable literary baggage for so young a writer. His
papers descriptive of his hunting and camp life are very readable;
but Mr. Roosevelt's most important work has been the presentation
of different phases of the American historical development. His
studies on the naval war and the New York municipality are done
in the true spirit of scholarly investigation. Most comprehensive and
valuable of all is his The Winning of the West'; in which he tells
the story with admirable freshness, grasp, and a sense of the drama
underlying the evolution of the Western States. His taste for and
experience in the adventurous overcoming of material difficulties,
and the rough-and-ready life of the open, have led him to select sym-
pathetically a fine subject, which he has treated in a way to re-create
the past, and make this series very acceptable for its clear, vivid
sketches of pioneer conditions out of which the West has sprung.
What interests Mr. Roosevelt, here and in his biographies, is the
development of American personalities and of the American idea
from all manner of untoward environment.
―
XXI-775
(
Mr. Roosevelt, because of his stalwart independence and aggressive
honesty in political life, has become a hero with those who are striv-
ing for the purification of American politics. He has been a strong
force for good; and his books reflect these same qualities of vigorous
thought and worthy ideals. His sturdy Americanism is to be felt
alike in his acts and words.
THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST
From The Winning of the West. ' Copyright 1889, by G. P. Putman's Sons
THE
HE Wyandots, and the Algonquins who surrounded them, dwelt
in a region of sunless, tangled forests; and all the wars we
waged for the possession of the country between the Alle-
ghanies and the Mississippi were carried on in the never-ending
stretches of gloomy woodland. It was not an open forest. The
underbrush grew, dense and rank, between the boles of the tall
## p. 12386 (#436) ##########################################
12386
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
trees, making a cover so thick that it was in many places impen-
etrable, so thick that it nowhere gave a chance for human eye
to see even as far as a bow could carry. No horse could penetrate
it save by following the game trails or paths chopped with the
axe; and a stranger venturing a hundred yards from a beaten.
road would be so helplessly lost that he could not, except by the
merest chance, even find his way back to the spot he had just
left. Here and there it was broken by a rare hillside glade, or
by a meadow in a stream valley; but elsewhere a man might
travel for weeks as if in a perpetual twilight, never once able
to see the sun through the interlacing twigs that formed a darl
canopy above his head.
This dense forest was to the Indians a home in which they
had lived from childhood, and where they were as much at ease
as a farmer on his own acres. To their keen eyes, trained for
generations to more than a wild beast's watchfulness, the wilder-
ness was an open book: nothing at rest or in motion escaped
them. They had begun to track game as soon as they could
walk; a scrape on a tree trunk, a bruised leaf, a faint indenta-
tion of the soil, which the eye of no white man could see,- all
told them a tale as plainly as if it had been shouted in their
ears. With moccasined feet they trod among brittle twigs, dried.
leaves, and dead branches, as silently as the cougar; and they
equaled this great wood-cat in stealth, and far surpassed it in
cunning and ferocity. They could no more get lost in the
trackless wilderness than a civilized man could get lost on a
highway. Moreover, no knight of the Middle Ages was so surely
protected by his armor as they were by their skill in hiding: the
whole forest was to the whites one vast ambush, and to them a
sure and ever-present shield. Every tree trunk was a breastwork
ready prepared for battle; every bush, every moss-covered bowl-
der, was a defense against assault, from behind which, themselves
unseen, they watched with fierce derision the movements of their
clumsy white enemy. Lurking, skulking, traveling with noiseless
rapidity, they left a trail that only a master in woodcraft could
follow; while on the other hand they could dog a white man's
footsteps as a hound runs a fox. Their silence, their cunning
and stealth, their terrible prowess and merciless cruelty, makes it
no figure of speech to call them the tigers of the human race.
Unlike the southern Indians, the villages of the northwestern
tribes were usually far from the frontier. Tireless, and careless
## p. 12387 (#437) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12387
of all hardship, they came silently out of unknown forests, robbed
and murdered, and then disappeared again into the fathomless
depths of the woods. Half the terror they caused was due to
the extreme difficulty of following them, and the absolute impos-
sibility of forecasting their attacks. Without warning, and un-
seen until the moment they dealt the death stroke, they emerged
from their forest fastnesses, the horror they caused being height-
ened no less by the mystery that shrouded them than by the
dreadful nature of their ravages. Wrapped in the mantle of the
unknown, appalling by their craft, their ferocity, their fiendish
cruelty, they seemed to the white settlers devils and not men;
no one could say with certainty whence they came, nor of what
tribe they were; and when they had finished their dreadful work,
they retired into a wilderness that closed over their trail, as the
waves of the ocean close in the wake of a ship.
They were trained to the use of arms from their youth up;
and war and hunting were their two chief occupations, the busi-
ness as well as the pleasure of their lives. They were not as
skillful as the white hunters with the rifle,—though more so than
the average regular soldier,-nor could they equal the frontiers-
man in feats of physical prowess, such as boxing and wrestling;
but their superior endurance, and the ease with which they stood
fatigue and exposure, made amends for this. A white might out-
run them for eight or ten miles; but on a long journey they
could tire out any man, and any beast except a wolf. Like
most barbarians they were fickle and inconstant,-not to be
relied on for pushing through a long campaign; and after a
great victory apt to go off to their homes, because each man.
desired to secure his own plunder and tell his own tale of glory.
They are often spoken of as undisciplined; but in reality their
discipline in the battle itself was very high. They attacked,
retreated, rallied or repelled a charge, at the signal of com-
mand; and they were able to fight in open order in thick covers
without losing touch of each other-a feat that no European regi-
ment was then able to perform.
On their own ground they were far more formidable than
the best European troops. The British grenadiers throughout
the eighteenth century showed themselves superior, in the actual
shock of battle, to any infantry of continental Europe; if they
ever met an overmatch, it was when pitted against the Scotch
highlanders. Yet both grenadier and highlander, the heroes of
## p. 12388 (#438) ##########################################
12388
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Minden, the heirs to the glory of Marlborough's campaigns, as
well as the sinewy soldiers who shared in the charges of Preston-
pans and Culloden, proved helpless when led against the dark
tribesmen of the forest. On the march they could not be trusted
thirty yards from the column without getting lost in the woods,-
the mountain training of the highlanders apparently standing
them in no stead whatever,- and were only able to get around
at all when convoyed by backwoodsmen. In fight they fared
even worse. The British regulars at Braddock's battle, and the
highlanders at Grant's defeat a few years later, suffered the same
fate. Both battles were fair fights,- neither was a surprise; yet
the stubborn valor of the red-coated grenadier and the headlong
courage of the kilted Scot proved of less than no avail. Not
only were they utterly routed and destroyed in each case by an
inferior force of Indians (the French taking little part in the
conflict), but they were able to make no effective resistance
whatever; it is to this day doubtful whether these superb regu-
lars were able, in the battles where they were destroyed, to so
much as kill one Indian for every hundred of their own men who
fell. The provincials who were with the regulars were the only
troops who caused any loss to the foe; and this was true in but
a less degree of Bouquet's fight at Bushy Run. Here Bouquet,
by a clever stratagem, gained the victory over an enemy inferior
in numbers to himself; but only after a two-days' struggle in
which he suffered a fourfold greater loss than he inflicted.
When hemmed in so that they had no hope of escape, the
Indians fought to the death: but when a way of retreat was
open, they would not stand cutting like British, French, or Amer-
ican regulars; and so, though with a nearly equal force, would
retire if they were suffering heavily, even if they were causing
their foes to suffer still more. This was not due to lack of
courage, it was their system; for they were few in numbers, and
they did not believe in losing their men. The Wyandots were
exceptions to this rule, for with them it was a point of honor
not to yield; and so they were of all the tribes the most dan-
gerous in an actual pitched battle.
But making the attack, as they usually did, with the expecta-
tion of success, all were equally dangerous. If their foes were
clustered together in a huddle, they attacked them without hesi-
tation,- no matter what the difference in numbers,—and shot
them down as if they had been elk or buffalo; they themselves
__________
## p. 12389 (#439) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12389
being almost absolutely safe from harm, as they flitted from
cover to cover. It was this capacity for hiding, or taking advan-
tage of cover, that gave them their great superiority; and it is
because of this that the wood tribes were so much more formi-
dable foes in actual battle than the horse Indians of the plains
afterwards proved themselves. In dense woodland, a body of
regular soldiers are almost as useless against Indians as they
would be if at night they had to fight foes who could see in the
dark: it needs special and long-continued training to fit them
in any degree for wood-fighting against such foes. But on the
plains, the white hunter's skill with the rifle and his cool reso-
lution give him an immense advantage: a few determined men
can withstand a host of Indians in the open, although helpless
if they meet them in thick cover; and our defeats by the Sioux
and other plains tribes have generally taken the form of a small
force being overwhelmed by a large one.
Not only were the Indians very terrible in battle, but they
were cruel beyond all belief in victory; and the gloomy annals
of border warfare are stained with their darkest hues, because
it was a war in which helpless women and children suffered
the same hideous fate that so often befell their husbands and
fathers. It was a war waged by savages against armed settlers, .
whose families followed them into the wilderness. Such a war
is inevitably bloody and cruel; but the inhuman love of cruelty
for cruelty's sake, which marks the red Indian above all other
savages, rendered these wars more terrible than any others.
For the hideous, unnamable, unthinkable tortures practiced by
the red men on their captured foes, and on their foes' tender
women and helpless children, were such as we read of in no
other struggle; hardly even in the revolting pages that tell the
deeds of the Holy Inquisition. It was inevitable - indeed it was
in many instances proper-that such deeds should awake in the
breasts of the whites the grimmest, wildest spirit of revenge and
hatred.
The history of the border wars, both in the ways they were
begun and in the ways they were waged, makes a long tale of
injuries inflicted, suffered, and mercilessly revenged. It could
not be otherwise when brutal, reckless, lawless borderers, despis-
ing all men not of their own color, were thrown in contact with
savages who esteemed cruelty and treachery as the highest of
virtues, and rapine and murder as the worthiest of pursuits.
## p. 12390 (#440) ##########################################
12390
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Moreover, it was sadly inevitable that the law-abiding borderer
as well as the white ruffian, the peaceful Indian as well as the
painted marauder, should be plunged into the struggle to suffer
the punishment that should only have fallen on their evil-minded
fellows.
BACKWOODSMEN AND OTHER EARLY TYPES
From The Winning of the West. ' Copyright 1889, by G. P. Putnam's Sons
THE
HE first duty of the backwoodsmen who thus conquered the
West was to institute civil government. Their efforts to
overcome and beat back the Indians went hand in hand
with their efforts to introduce law and order in the primitive
communities they founded; and exactly as they relied purely on
themselves in withstanding outside foes, so they likewise built
up their social life and their first systems of government with
reference simply to their special needs, and without any outside
help or direction. The whole character of the westward move-
ment the methods of warfare, of settlement, and of government
were determined by the extreme and defiant individualism of
the backwoodsmen, their inborn independence and self-reliance,
and their intensely democratic spirit. The West was won and
settled by a number of groups of men, all acting independ-
ently of one another, but with a common object, and at about
the same time. There was no one controlling spirit: it was
essentially the movement of a whole free people, not of a single
master-mind. There were strong and able leaders, who showed
themselves fearless soldiers and just lawgivers, undaunted by
danger, resolute to persevere in the teeth of disaster; but even
these leaders are most deeply interesting because they stand
foremost among a host of others like them. There were hun-
dreds of hunters and Indian-fighters like Mansker, Wetzel, Ken-
ton, and Brady; there were scores of commonwealth-founders
like Logan, Todd, Floyd, and Harrod; there were many advent-
urous land speculators like Henderson; there were even plenty of
commanders like Shelby and Campbell. These were all men of
mark; some of them exercised a powerful and honorable influ-
ence on the course of events in the West. Above them rise four
greater figures, fit to be called not merely State or local, but
-
## p. 12391 (#441) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12391
national heroes. Clark, Sevier, Robertson, and Boon are emphat-
ically American worthies. They were men of might in their
day, born to sway the minds of others, helpful in shaping the
destiny of the continent. Yet of Clark alone can it be said that
he did a particular piece of work which without him would have.
remained undone. Sevier, Robertson, and Boon only hastened,
and did more perfectly, a work which would have been done
by others had they themselves fallen by the wayside. Important
though they are for their own sakes, they are still more import-
ant as types of the men who surrounded them.
The individualism of the backwoodsmen, however, was tem-
pered by a sound common-sense, and capacity for combination.
The first hunters might come alone or in couples; but the actual
colonization was done not by individuals, but by groups of indi-
viduals. The settlers brought their families and belongings either
on pack-horses along the forest trails, or in scows down the
streams; they settled in palisaded villages, and immediately took
steps to provide both a civil and military organization. They
were men of facts, not theories; and they showed their usual
hard common-sense in making a government. They did not try
to invent a new system; they simply took that under which they
had grown up, and applied it to their altered conditions.
They
were most familiar with the government of the county; and there-
fore they adopted this for the framework of their little independ-
ent, self-governing commonwealths of Watauga, Cumberland, and
Transylvania.
They were also familiar with the representative system; and
accordingly they introduced it into the new communities, the
little forted villages serving as natural units of representation.
They were already thoroughly democratic, in instinct and prin-
ciple; and as a matter of course they made the offices elective,
and gave full play to the majority. In organizing the militia
they kept the old system of county lieutenants, making them
elective, not appointive; and they organized the men on the basis
of a regiment,- the companies representing territorial divisions,
each commanded by its own officers, who were thus chosen by
the fighting men of the fort or forts in their respective districts.
Thus each of the backwoods commonwealths, during its short-
lived term of absolute freedom, reproduced as its governmental
system that of the old colonial county; increasing the powers of
## p. 12392 (#442) ##########################################
12392
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
the court, and changing the justices into the elective representa-
tives of an absolute democracy. The civil head, the chairman of
the court or committee, was also usually the military head,— the
colonel-commandant. In fact, the military side of the organization
rapidly became the most conspicuous, and, at least in certain crises,
the most important. There were also some years of desperate
warfare, during which the entire strength of the little common-
wealth was drawn on to resist outside aggression; and during
these years the chief function of the government was to provide
for the griping military needs of the community, and the one
pressing duty of its chief was to lead his followers with valor
and wisdom in the struggle with the stranger.
These little communities were extremely independent in feel-
ing, not only of the Federal Government, but of their parent
States, and even of one another. They had won their positions
by their own courage and hardihood; very few State troops and
hardly a Continental soldier had appeared west of the Allegha-
nies. They had heartily sympathized with their several mother
colonies when they became the United States, and had manfully
played their part in the Revolutionary war. Moreover, they
were united among themselves by ties of good-will and of services
mutually rendered. Kentucky, for instance, had been succored
more than once by troops raised among the Watauga Carolinians
or the Holston Virginians, and in her turn she had sent needed
supplies to the Cumberland. But when the strain of the war
was over, the separatist spirit asserted itself very strongly. The
groups of Western settlements not only looked on the Union
itself very coldly, but they were also more or less actively hostile
to their parent States, and regarded even one another as foreign
communities; they considered the Confederation as being literally
only a lax league of friendship.
Up to the close of the Revolutionary contest, the settlers who
were building homes and States beyond the Alleghanies formed
a homogeneous backwoods population. The wood-choppers, game-
hunters, and Indian-fighters, who dressed and lived alike, were
the typical pioneers. They were a shifting people. In every
settlement the tide ebbed and flowed. Some of the new-comers
would be beaten in the hard struggle for existence, and would
drift back to whence they had come. Of those who succeeded,
some would take root in the land, and others would move still
## p. 12393 (#443) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12393
further into the wilderness. Thus each generation rolled west-
ward, leaving its children at a point where the wave stopped no
less than at that where it started. The descendants of the vic-
tors of King's Mountain are as likely to be found in the Rockies
as in the Alleghanies.
With the close of the war came an enormous increase in
the tide of immigration; and many of the new-comers were of a
very different stamp from their predecessors. The main current
flowed towards Kentucky, and gave an entirely different charac-
ter to its population. The two typical figures in Kentucky so
far had been Clark and Boon, but after the close of the Revolu-
tion both of them sank into unimportance; whereas the careers
of Sevier and Robertson had only begun. The disappearance of
the two former from active life was partly accidental, and partly
a resultant of the forces that assimilated Kentucky so much more
rapidly than Tennessee to the conditions prevailing in the old
States. Kentucky was the best known and most accessible of the
Western regions; within her own borders she was now compara-
tively safe from serious Indian invasion, and the tide of immi-
gration naturally followed thither. So strong was the current,
that within a dozen years it had completely swamped the original
settlers, and had changed Kentucky from a peculiar pioneer and
backwoods commonwealth into a State differing no more from
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, than these differed
from one another.
The men who gave the tone to this great flood of new-comers
were the gentry from the sea-coast country: the planters, the
young lawyers, the men of means who had been impoverished
by the long-continued and harassing civil war. Straitened in
circumstances, desirous of winning back wealth and position, they
cast longing eyes towards the beautiful and fertile country beyond
the mountains; deeming it a place that afforded unusual oppor-
tunities to the man with capital, no less than to him whose sole
trust was in his own adventurous energy.
Most of the gentlefolks in Virginia and the Carolinas, the
men who lived in great roomy houses on their well-stocked and
slave-tilled plantations, had been forced to struggle hard to keep
their heads above water during the Revolution. They loyally
supported the government with blood and money; and at the
same time they endeavored to save some of their property from
the general wreck, and to fittingly educate their girls, and those
## p. 12394 (#444) ##########################################
12394
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
The men
of their boys who were too young to be in the army.
of this stamp who now prepared to cast in their lot with the
new communities formed an exceptionally valuable class of immi-
grants: they contributed the very qualities of which the raw
settlements stood most in need. They had suffered for no fault
of their own: fate had gone hard with them. The fathers had
been in the Federal or Provincial Congresses; the older sons had
served in the Continental line or in the militia. The plantations
were occasionally overrun by the enemy; and the general dis-
order had completed their ruin. Nevertheless the heads of the
families had striven to send the younger sons to school or col-
lege. For their daughters they did even more; and throughout
the contest, even in it darkest hours, they sent them down to
receive the final touches of a lady-like education at some one of
the State capitals not at the moment in the hands of the enemy
- such as Charleston or Philadelphia. There the young ladies
were taught dancing and music; for which, as well as for their
frocks and «< pink calamanco shoes," their fathers paid enormous
sums in depreciated Continental currency.
Even the close of active hostilities, when the British were
driven from the Southern States, brought at first but a slight
betterment of condition to the struggling people. There was no
cash in the land, the paper currency was nearly worthless, every
one was heavily in debt, and no one was able to collect what
was owing to him. There was much mob violence, and a general
relaxation of the bonds of law and order. Even nature turned
hostile: a terrible drought shrunk up all the streams until they
could not turn the grist-mills, while from the same cause the
crops failed almost completely. A hard winter followed, and
many cattle and hogs died; so that the well-to-do were brought
to the verge of bankruptcy, and the poor suffered extreme priva-
tions,- being forced to go fifty or sixty miles to purchase small
quantities of meal and grain at exorbitant prices.
This distress at home inclined many people of means and
ambition to try their fortunes in the West; while another and
equally powerful motive was the desire to secure great tracts of
virgin lands for possession or speculation. Many distinguished
soldiers had been rewarded by successive warrants for unoccupied
land, which they entered wherever they chose, until they could
claim thousands upon thousands of acres. Sometimes they sold
these warrants to outsiders; but whether they remained in the
## p. 12395 (#445) ##########################################
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
12395
hands of the original holders or not, they served as a great stim-
ulus to the westward movement, and drew many of the repre-
sentatives of the wealthiest and most influential families in the
parent States to the lands on the farther side of the mountains.
At the close of the Revolution, however, the men from the
sea-coast region formed but an insignificant portion of the Western
pioneers. The country beyond the Alleghanies was first won and
settled by the backwoodsmen themselves, acting under their own
leaders, obeying their own desires, and following their own meth-
ods. They were marked and peculiar people. The good and
evil traits in their character were such as naturally belonged to
a strong, harsh, and homely race; which, with all its shortcom-
ings, was nevertheless bringing a tremendous work to a tri-
umphant conclusion. The backwoodsmen were above all things
characteristically American; and it is fitting that the two greatest
and most typical of all Americans should have been respectively
a sharer and an outcome of their work. Washington himself
passed the most important years of his youth heading the west-
ward movement of his people; clad in the traditional dress of the
backwoodsmen, in tasseled hunting-shirt and fringed leggings, he
led them to battle against the French and Indians, and helped to
clear the way for the American advance. The only other man
who in the American roll of honor stands by the side of Wash-
ington, was born when the distinctive work of the pioneers had
ended: and yet he was bone of their bone and flesh of their
flesh; for from the loins of this gaunt frontier folk sprang mighty
Abraham Lincoln.
Looking back, it is easy to say that much of the wrong-doing
could have been prevented; but if we examine the facts to find
out the truth, not to establish a theory, we are bound to admit
that the struggle was really one that could not possibly have
been avoided. The sentimental historians speak as if the blame
had been all ours, and the wrong all done to our foes, and as if it
would have been possible by any exercise of wisdom to reconcile
claims that were in their very essence conflicting; but their utter-
ances are as shallow as they are untruthful. Unless we were
willing that the whole continent west of the Alleghanies should
remain an unpeopled waste, the hunting-ground of savages, war
was inevitable; and even had we been willing, and had we re-
frained from encroaching on the Indians' lands, the war would
have come nevertheless, for then the Indians themselves would
## p. 12396 (#446) ##########################################
12396
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
have encroached on ours. Undoubtedly we have wronged many
tribes; but equally undoubtedly our first definite knowledge of
many others has been derived from their unprovoked outrages
upon our people. The Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawatamies
furnished hundreds of young warriors to the parties that devas-
tated our frontiers, generations before we in any way encroached
upon or wronged them.
Mere outrages could be atoned for or settled: the question
which lay at the root of our difficulties was that of the occupa
tion of the land itself; and to this there could be no solution save
war. The Indians had no ownership of the land in the way in
which we understand the term. The tribes lived far apart; each
had for its hunting-grounds all the territory from which it was
not barred by rivals. Each looked with jealousy upon all inter-
lopers, but each was prompt to act as an interloper when occasion
offered. Every good hunting-ground was claimed by many nations.
It was rare indeed that any tribe had an uncontested title to a
large tract of land: where such title existed, it rested not on
actual occupancy and cultivation, but on the recent butchery of
weaker rivals. For instance, there were a dozen tribes, all of
whom hunted in Kentucky, and fought each other there, all of
whom had equally good titles to the soil, and not one of whom
acknowledged the right of any other: as a matter of fact they
had therein no right, save the right of the strongest. The land
no more belonged to them than it belonged to Boon and the
white hunters who first ted it.
## p. 12397 (#447) ##########################################
12397
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI
(1830-1894)
BY WILLIAM MORTON PAYNE
NGLISH poetry enjoys a unique distinction in the possession of
two women whose works must be ranked with all but the
highest achievements of our song. It is neither misplaced
sentiment nor mistaken chivalry, but the dispassionate verdict of a
searching and objective criticism, that claims for Elizabeth Browning
and Christina Rossetti two seats in the temple of fame not far below
those in which the greatest English poets
of the Victorian era are enthroned. It is
idle to inquire from which of the two we
have received the more enduring work; but
a brief comparison in general terms may be
found instructive. Mrs. Browning has un-
doubtedly won a wider acceptance than Miss
Rossetti, and enjoyed a greater popularity;
on the other hand, the acceptance won by
the latter poet has probably included the
more distinguished suffrages, while her pop-
ularity has of recent years grown apace,
and may in time outstrip that of the older
singer. Again, the matter of Mrs. Brown- CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI
ing's work was to a considerable extent
timely, which does not often mean of lasting interest; the achieve-
ment of Italian unity has somewhat outworn the passion of "Casa
Guidi Windows,' and the problems of 'Aurora Leigh are not exactly
the problems of the present day. But time is not so likely to wither
the flower of Miss Rossetti's work; for there is little of the temporal
about its themes, which are as a rule the everlasting verities of the
spirit. Finally, it must be allowed that Miss Rossetti was endowed
with a more exquisite perception of poetical form than, was attained
to by Mrs. Browning, and that her work as a whole has a higher
degree of purely artistic finish. The rich emotional nature of the
former woman was too frequently content to rely upon the first
impulsive form with which the thought became clothed in the white
heat of her imagination; in the case of the latter, with no less of
:
## p. 12398 (#448) ##########################################
12398
CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI
imaginative glow at heart, there were superadded the powers of
intellectual control and artistic restraint.
Christina Rossetti was born December 5th, 1830; the youngest of
the remarkable group of four children that, with their parents,
made up the London household of the exiled Italian patriot and phi-
losopher, Gabriele Rossetti. She died December 29th, 1894, after an
externally uneventful life of sixty-four years,-a life happy in its do-
mestic relations, and in its intercourse with the circle of distinguished
people that were gathered about the Rossettis; but darkened by much
physical suffering, and in its closing years by a painful and incurable
disease. She was one of the most precocious of poets, and began at
the early age of eleven to write verses, which have been carefully
preserved, and which her brother, Mr. W. M. Rossetti, has thought it
worth while to publish in the posthumous collection edited by him
not quite two years after her death. A volume of her Verses' was
privately printed as early as 1847, and in 1850 she was a contributor
to the Germ. Nearly all of her work that calls for serious consider-
ation is included within the three volumes (Goblin Market and Other
Poems, 1862; The Prince's Progress and Other Poems,' 1866; and
'A Pageant and Other Poems,' 1881) published during her lifetime,
and the posthumous volume of New Poems' (1896) to which allus-
ion has already been made. The titles of her other books, most of
which are of a devotional nature and in prose, are as follows: 'Com-
monplace and Other Short Stories,' 'Sing-Song: A Nursery Rhyme-
Book,' 'Speaking Likenesses,' 'Annus Domini: A Prayer for Every
Day in the Year,' 'Seek and Find,' 'Called to the Saints,' 'Letter
and Spirit,' and Time Flies. ' These books would be noticeable
enough if they stood alone; but the thoughts and the moods which
they embody find a far more intense and rapturous expression in
the four volumes of poems upon which the author's reputation is so
securely based.
Very varied are the contents of these volumes, which range from
a divine simplicity to a richness that is the very ecstasy of religious.
utterance; from a cloying sweetness of diction to a noble auster-
ity; from a picturesque and almost dramatic style to one so chast-
ened and so ethereal that the spirit soars with it to a higher than
the earthly plane. Yet certain insistent characteristics may hardly
be missed anywhere in Christina Rossetti's work: certain qualities of
dreamy tenderness and ardent mysticism, a certain strain of pensive
melancholy, based upon a recognition of the essential vanity of the
external forms of human existence, and upon an unshaken faith in
the reality of that "city of the soul" whereof poets and philosophers
have in all ages dreamed.
