Many times during the past four or five weeks I have thought of your cordial
invitation to me to write to you, but I have waited until I have got settled into my
new mode of life before availing myself of the pleasure. Since I saw you I have
spent nearly a fortnight at Mt. Desert— an island which in small space combines
every variety of scenery—ocean and cliffs, mountain and lake, forest and
beach— an loc_vm.00574_large.jpg epitome
of what those who love beautiful landscape (and seascape) prize most. I wished, as
I stood on the top of Green Mountain, the highest point on the island, and looked
down upon a view of indescribable beauty & variety that I could by some magic
have brought it all before your eyes, because I suspected that in Camden you would
have given much for such a sight and also for many a long breath of the fresh brisk
breeze. I can't describe to you the mysterious fascination the ocean has for me, or
how
loc_vm.00575_large.jpg I was stirred
and pleased to hear once more the tone from his "husky-haughty lips"1— those
ceaseless chatterers and orators.
As you are probably aware Bar Harbor, the chief place on Mt. Desert, has become a fashionable resort. A few years ago the natives, (like most of the Maine folk, dull, cloddish creatures) passed from season to season in unbroken monotony, content to grab a few vegetables from ill-tilled, rocky, soil and to live on smoked fish. Not so long before them the Indians themselves built their wigwams and hunted game in the forests.
Now, you meet the rich idlers
loc_vm.00576_large.jpg from Boston, New
York, Chicago and other cities, during their gorgeous turn-outs along well-kept roads. French cooks
poke their white caps from the kitchen windows of costly villas, and French millinery adorns
fashionable ladies. In the season—that is during part of July and the whole of
August—big hotels are crammed with thousands of visitors, and social
extravagance reaches so high a level as in Fifth Avenue in winter. Of all this I saw
but little, because most of the gay people had left, but I could not help
contrasting the unsatisfying
loc_vm.00577_large.jpg showiness and gilded insincerity of some of the drawing rooms I
visited, with the homelike simplicity and comfort of your little parlor, where I
found "plain living and high thinking"2 embodied. For that privilege I shall long be
grateful.
Well, I came back from Mt. Desert feeling much better in body and spirits, having
exchanged some of the heaviness and weariness contracted in Philadelphia for the
beneficient effects wrought by crisp air, blue skies, endlessly fascinating play of
color and shadows in sea and slopes, and old ocean's tranquilizing drone. Without
much trouble I found a sunny room in Cambridge loc_vm.00578_large.jpg and having at last got my books
within reach I begin to feel at home. It is pleasant to be my own master again, and
to be able, for the present at least, to follow my inclinations. If I am reading I need not hurry
to reach the office, or submit to other interruption; if I wish to walk, the day and
the night, and roads leading in all directions, are mine. Occasionally comes the
desire of writing but the proper moment has not yet accompanied it, and I do not
force myself, suspecting that as I gradually outline the strain upon mind and body
which nearly four years of
loc_vm.00579_large.jpg constant journalistic drudgery caused, the impulse to write will
need no coaxing.
I attend several courses at the University, chiefly upon historical subjects. Good
fortune for me has been James Russell Lowell's3 consent to conduct a course dealing
with Dante and Cervantes. I have as yet met him but once, but then I was charmed by
him. You won't detect pedant or such about him, but a splendid example of a
cultivated American, who knows the best that other lands and times have to offer,
but who is still American. I look forward to a closer acquaintance with him.
Certainly, it will be impossible to meet such a man loc_vm.00580_large.jpg frequently without getting much
good. I find it of inestimable value to see in operation traits and principles over
which men theorize interminably. Better, one example of nobility than fifty recipes
for it. And so, in Mr. Lowell, one has a remarkable pattern of the man of broad
culture. When I remember that he dared to lift his voice against slavery years ago,
when to do so was dangerous to one's body and particularly difficult for those who
belonged to the social circle in which he and Wendell Phillips were brought
up—when I remember this, and witness the well-deserved honor of his later
years, I think he must stand among
loc_vm.00581_large.jpg the few thoroughly fortunate poets
who have received during their lifetime what usually is bestowed upon poets' memory.
Of course you are familiar with Lowell's "Commemoration Ode"4—a poem, it seems
to me—in which the best Americanism gets itself uttered in memorable fashion.
I was very glad to receive several weeks ago an account of the horse and phaeton. I
am sorry that I knew nothing of the surprise beforehand so that I might have had the
pleasure of being among those who planned the gift. I hope you are able to drive
every day, and that from your new point of view you will make some observation that
you will share with your loc_vm.00582_large.jpg friends. Do you discover a different aspect in nature and men now
that you look down upon them from the seat of your vehicle? I earnestly wish that
this new possession may bring you much pleasure and improve your health.
I have given the newspapers so little attention during the past month—merely
glancing at its telegraphic news from day to day—that I haven't seen anything
that might interest you, which you have not also seen; but I shall soon be more
regular in skimming the English & American weeklies, and I will send you
whatever I deem loc_vm.00583_large.jpg
you would care to have. I am reading—among a dozen books—Lewes's "Life
of Goethe,"5 bright, easy and entertaining. Like everything that pertains to Goethe
this account of him has an especial charm for me.—But I must stop, first,
because you may find my garrulity tedious, and second, because the clocks have
tolled midnight.
P.S. It occurs to me to remind you of that letter of Sidney Lanier6 which we spoke of in one of our talks—and yet I feel that I have but slight claim upon your good nature.
Correspondent:
William Roscoe Thayer
(1859–1923) was an American historian, editor of John Hay's letters, and a
biographer of Theodore Roosevelt. He would publish Personal
Recollections of Walt Whitman in 1919.