The Literary Retrospect: Year and Walden

The most remarkably original singer of the South was Sidney Lanier (1842-1881), who was chosen to write the cantata for the opening of the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. He was descended from a long line of musicians, and distinguished his poetry by the intermingling of musical effects. He was born at Macon, Georgia, and studied at Oglethorpe College, until the war broke out, when he entered the Confederate service. He was captured on a blockade-runner, and held prisoner for five months. The hardships of war developed consumption, and the rest of his life was a courageous struggle with that disease. Though his art was too fine and high for general appreciation, Lanier is by many regarded as one of the greatest American poets.

Of minor poets, whose name is legion, it is not possible to make even a passing mention. The test of time will sift them according to their quality.

Perhaps the first of our nature-essayists was Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), who was born at Concord, Massachusetts, and died there. The son of a farmer, he was educated at Harvard, and for a time taught school. But after a while he took up his self-appointed work of minute observation of nature. He attached himself to Emerson, who always showed him friendly regard. In 1845 he built himself a hut on the shore of Walden Pond, and lived as a recluse in communion with nature. His experiences and observations were embodied in "Walden, or Life in the Woods" (1854). He had already published "A Week on the Concord and Merrimac Rivers" (1848). Thoreau was an apostle of plain living and high thinking, and practiced what he preached. His life was a protest against all forms of superfluous comfort, and an effort to reach harmony with nature, as the basis of true happiness.

Wilson Flagg (1805-1894) also deserves a place among the American nature-essayists. Born at Beverly, Massachusetts, he was educated at Phillips Academy, Andover, and studied medicine. He was a keen observer of outdoor life and natural phenomena. His writings were contributed to Boston newspapers and to the Atlantic Monthly. His best-known works are "Halcyon Days," "A Year with the Trees," and "A Year with the Birds."

Another man who took delight in the portrayal of outdoor nature with the pen was William Hamilton Gibson (1850-1896). He was also an artist and book-illustrator.

The most startling and debatable contribution to American literature is that made by Walt Whitman (1819-1892). It claimed to be the true voice of Democratic America; and, while the claim has been admitted by a scholarly; few here, and acknowledged by an equal number of scholarly poets in Europe, there is no evidence that it has been so accepted anywhere by the people.

Under the initials "H. H." an American woman won high regard as a poet, and afterwards showed brilliant descriptive power in prose. Later, when her name was fully disclosed, she took up the cause of the Indian, and in history and a popular novel pleaded in his behalf with the Government and the people of the United States. Helen Fiske was born in 1831, at Amherst, Massachusetts, where her father was professor in the college. At twenty-one she was married to Captain Edward Hunt of the United States army, and wandered with him in different parts of the country. When he was killed by the explosion of a mine and her daughter died, Mrs. Hunt was plunged in the deepest grief. After some time she began to write meditative and descriptive poems, which attracted attention by their strong feeling and vivid fancy. Sometimes they took the form of parable or allegory, but they were best when they painted out-door nature. Mrs. Hunt then wrote prose descriptions, which were collected under the title "Bits of Travel," and proved attractive to even a wider circle of readers. They abound in humor as well as pathos, and show the delicate insight of women. Other books of the same class followed. Two novels in the "No Name" series are known to have been from her pen,-"Mercy Philbrick's Choice," and "Hetty's Strange History." The stories published under the pen-name "Saxe Holme" have also been ascribed to her. After she was married to Mr. William Jackson, in Colorado, she became fully aware of the gross wrongs done to the Indians, and exerted herself to secure justice for them from the nation. For this purpose she studied the full history of Government dealings with the red men, and summed it up in "A Century of Dishonor," making a passionate appeal for removal of the national disgrace. This was followed by the powerful story "Ramona," written shortly before her death, in 1885. This expiring effort of her genius is perhaps its fullest illustration.