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Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches, Longfellow (search)
statue of Venus, by Canova, which he compares to the Venus dea Medici, and his brother Samuel remarks that he was always more attracted by sculpture than painting. Canova was a genius very similar to Longfellow himself, as nearly as an Italian could be made to match an American, and he was then at the height of his reputation. In 1829 Longfellow returned to Portland and was immediately chosen a professor at Bowdoin College, where he remained for the next seven years. When, in 1836, Professor Ticknor retired from his position as instructor of modern languages at Harvard, his place was offered to Longfellow and accepted. This brought him into the literary centre of New England, and one of the first acquaintances he made there was Charles Sumner, who was lecturing before the Harvard Law-School. The friendship between these two great men commenced at once and only ceased at Sumner's death in 1874, when Longfellow wrote one of the finest of his shorter poems in tribute to Sumner's
Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches, Elizur Wright (search)
e was absolute. He had the soul of a hero. During his first years in Boston, Elizur Wright translated La Fontaine's Fables into English verse,--one of the best metrical versions of a foreign poet,--and it is much to be regretted that the book is out of print. It did not sell, of course, and Elizur Wright, determined that neither he nor the publisher should lose money on it, undertook to sell it himself. In carrying out this plan he met with some curious experiences. He called on Professor Ticknor, who received him kindly, spoke well of his translation, offered to dispose of a number of copies, but-advised him to keep clear of the slavery question. He went to Washington with the twofold object of selling his book and talking emancipation to our national legislators; and he succeeded in both attempts, for there were few men who liked to argue with Elizur Wright. His brain was a store-house of facts and his analysis of them equally keen and cutting. One Congressman, a very g
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Book and heart: essays on literature and life, Chapter 21: international marriages (search)
ing in English society, or even that of Continental Europe, gives to wealth an advantage which it may never claim here. The vast estates, the perfectly organized service, the habit of deference, afford a sort of paradise to those who look no further than themselves. Even an American bishop, it is said, is not altogether free from the delight inspired, on English soil, by hearing himself called Me Lud. It is very striking to see the unanimity with which highly cultivated Americans-Sumner, Ticknor, Motley, Hawthorne, Lowell-have expressed in their diaries or letters an American reaction against these splendors, to which they were here and there admitted in England; and an involuntary feeling that, in Hawthorne's phrase, a vast number of people must be housed too little in order that a few may be housed so much. But it is only the thoughtful and cultivated man who finds such drawbacks as this; while he who merely regards wealth as a personal privilege and as something to be spent wh
n a year or two Mr. Keith retired, and Marshall T. Bigelow entered the firm. In 1859 the firm-name was changed to Welch, Bigelow & Co., and as such gained a still wider reputation for skilled book-making. In 1879 John Wilson and Charles E. Wentworth became the proprietors, and largely increased the capacity of the Press by adding to it the well-known establishment of John Wilson & Son. During these years many remarkable books were produced. The productions of Holmes, Sparks, Prescott, Ticknor, Palfrey, Judge Story, Quincy, Everett, Hilliard, Dana, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Whittier, Emerson, Lowell, and many others, first issued from this press, gave evidence of its well-earned reputation for accuracy and scholarship. In 1895 the Press was incorporated under the laws of Massachusetts, with John Wilson as president, and Henry White as treasurer. In order to give enlarged opportunities for executing work, the plant has just moved into a commodious brick building near its old loca
1.457, R. D. Webb, 2.403. Thompson, H. B., 2.24. Thompson, Henry, 1.167; agent of F. Todd, 168, witness in libel suit, 169, card from G., 179. Thompson, John W., 1.167. Thomsonian doctors hung, 1.485; G.'s Thomsonianism made a charge against him, 2.281. Thorneley, Thomas, 1.349. Thoughts on Colonization, 1.290-297; effect, 298-302; cost imperils Lib., 311. Thurston, David, Rev., delegate to Nat. A. S. Convention, 1.395, committeeman, 399, first signer of Declaration, 408. Ticknor, George [1791-1871], coldness to E. G. Loring, 2.55.—Letters to Prescott, 1.439; from B. R. Curtis, 1.501. Tillson, Joseph, 2.46. Times (London), letter from G., 1.354, 366, 367. Todd, Francis, owner of Francis, 1.165, denounced by G., 166, brings libel suit against him and Lundy, 167, 178, offers withdrawal, 197, secures conviction, 195, 196; card from G., 180, final censure from G., 196; influence against G.'s lecturing in Newburyport, 208. Torrey, Charles Turner, Rev. [b. Scitu
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Letters and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Chapter 2: the Worcester period (search)
rfectly fascinated everybody. March, 1859 My lectures are over [for the season]. One of the last was at Dedham, and I stayed at Edmund Quincy's charming, English-looking place. Did you ever hear of an English traveller who, looking out of Mr. Ticknor's window, pointed out as the only two Americans he had seen who looked like gentlemen, W. Phillips and Edmund Quincy? Yet June of the same year found the writer in Pennsylvania. Worcester, June, 1859 I got home from Pennsylvania on Fr with Longfellow or Emerson, as it now seems that men should have sat at table with Wordsworth or with Milton. So I may as well tell you all about my inducting little Harriet Prescott into that high company. She met me at twelve in Boston at Ticknor's and we spent a few hours seeing pictures and the aquarial gardens; the most prominent of the pictures being a sort of luncheon before our dinner; viz., Holmes and Longfellow in half length and very admirable, by Buchanan Read (I don't think an
Mary Thacher Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: the story of his life, V: the call to preach (search)
for my particular poetical studies I never write a sentence without experiencing their benefit and look back with inexpressible satisfaction to one morning last spring when I shut Ecclesiastical History in despair (which I have often re-opened with pleasure) and rushed into the woods to read Browning's Paracelsus! . . . The Browning gospel is flourishing —my Bells and Pomegranates are half with Mr. L. [H. W. Longfellow] and half with——the former is very ardent and has agreed to try and get Ticknor & Co. to republish them, which I before attempted. Again:— I have been writing more in these two months (or six weeks) than in the previous five years—I had begun to doubt whether I should ever feel the im- pulse to write prose—now I have been manufacturing sermons and essays (to be read before the class) with the greatest readiness—all being crammed with as much thought as I can put into them. . . . I have a dozen subjects or so marked out—on all of which I have thoughts
Mary Thacher Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: the story of his life, IX: the Atlantic Essays (search)
to the publication of the book of sea poems, profanely called the Marine Sam-Book in distinction from the hymn-book compiled by Messrs. Longfellow and Johnson, and popularly known as the Sam-Book, Mr. Higginson wrote to a friend:— The best result of S. L.'s [Samuel Longfellow] visit [to Europe] was to transform Thalatta from a past vision to a future reality. . . . We planned it six years ago and now Europe has revived it all in Sam and he has proposed it once more to James T. Fields (Ticknor & Co.) and that bold youth (also fresh from Europe, these two having visited the Brownings together) consented. So the book is to begin to be printed in February and between now and then what copying and debating and selecting! In 1859, the famous Atlantic dinner was given to Mrs. Stowe, which Colonel Higginson has described in Cheerful Yesterdays. To his mother he thus reported a conversation on this occasion with Dr. Holmes:— He [Holmes] was very pleasant and cordial to me, but
Mary Thacher Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: the story of his life, XIII: Oldport Days (search)
g of the mind this winter, more ideality, more constructive and creative faculty—such as I should think my Driftwood Fire would prove to all, if anybody cared for such things. For I am sometimes haunted with the feeling that it is too soon for any ideal treatment in America. Who reads Twice-told Tales? In 1867, Colonel Higginson translated various sonnets from Petrarch, wrote essays and short stories for the Atlantic, continued his army papers, and compiled a little book by request of Ticknor and Fields, called Child Pictures from Dickens, which was issued at the time of Dickens's second visit to this country. The summary of a single day's occupation, jotted down in the diary, illustrates the truth of Mr. A. Bronson Alcott's description of Colonel Higginson as a man of tasks. In one day he had revised a memoir for one of the numerous literary aspirants who continually sought his sympathetic aid, written a book notice and several letters, made the first draughts of two Indep
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays, A plea for culture. (search)
le the leaders of public affairs in America are usually what are called self-made men, this is not the case with our literary leaders. Among first-class American writers, culture is usually in the second generation; they have usually tumbled about in a library, as Holmes says, in childhood; at all events, they are usually college-bred men. It has been remarked, for instance, that our eight foremost historians — assuming that this list comprises Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, Hildreth, Sparks, Ticknor, Palfrey, Parkman — were all college graduates, and indeed graduated at a single college. The choice of names may be open to question, but the general fact is undoubted. Now if it be true that there are fewer among us who rise from the ranks in literature than in politics, it seems not merely to indicate that literature, as being a finer product than statesmanship, implies more elaborate training; but also that our institutions guarantee such training in the one case, and not in the oth