Poe and Darley: In his best manner

It had been the dream of Edgar A. Poe to establish his own literary journal, one which maintained such high standards of excellence that it would serve as the flagship of great American writing. He first announced The Penn (based in Philadelphia) in 1840 before deciding to aim more nationally. Poe came close to achieving his goal when the project, reborn as The Stylus, enlisted the help of an up-and-coming illustrator named Felix Octavius Carr Darley, who was already illustrating Poe's most well-read story "The Gold-Bug."

On January 31, 1843, Poe and F. O. C. Darley signed a contract; Darley agreed to provide "original designs, or drawings (on wood or paper as required) of his own composition, in his best manner." He agreed to design up to five images per month at the rate of $7 each. Poe knew that a well-illustrated magazine sold well (one of the reasons Graham's Magazine was so popular while Poe was its editor).  

The Stylus would have been under the complete editorial control of Poe and he would establish its standards from the ground up (unlike The Broadway Journal, for which Poe later became editor and sole proprietor). It would have allowed Poe to continue, without oversight, the type of "tomahawk" criticism for which he was known, sparing no harsh words in his own efforts to push American writers to work harder and write better.

The Stylus never came to be and Poe died in 1849, still hoping it would become reality. The same year as Poe's death, Darley (later acknowledged by some as the father of American illustration) illustrated a satirical poem which poked fun at literary figures — including Poe, his would-be boss:

With tomahawk upraised for deadly blow,
Behold our literary Mohawk, Poe!
Sworn tyrant he o‘er all who sin in verse—
His own the standard, damns he all that’s worse;
And surely not for this shall he be blamed—
For worse than his deserves that it be damned!

Paine: the plant she named Liberty Tree

According to the Old Style dating system, Thomas Paine was born on January 29, 1737. Paine, born in England, was an influential writer in the colonies leading up to and during the American Revolutionary War. His pamphlet, Common Sense (1776), is often credited for shifting the focus of the struggle from one seeking civic rights to one for independence. Though this is his most famous claim to fame, his other writings and other political accomplishments are manifold.

For a time, he wrote for and edited Pennsylvania Magazine: Or American Monthly Museum. It was in that periodical that, under the pseudonym "Atlanticus," Paine published the poem "The Liberty Tree, A Song Written Early in the American Revolution":

In a chariot of light from the regions of day,
The Goddess of Liberty came;
Ten thousand celestials directed the way,
And hither conducted the dame.

A fair budding branch from the gardens above,
Where millions with millions agree,
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree.

Though this tree came from overseas, it flourished "like a native." To its "peaceable shore" flocked many other nations. These people supplied "timber and tar" to "Old England" and fought on that nation's behalf "for the honor of Liberty Tree." But then:

...But hear, O ye swains, 'tis a tale most profane,
How all the tyrannical powers,
Kings, Commons and Lords, are uniting amain,
To cut down this guardian of ours;

From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms,
Through the land let the sound of it flee,
Let the far and the near, all unite with a cheer,
In defense of our Liberty Tree.

Today, some celebrate January 29 as "Thomas Paine Day" or "Freethinkers Day."

Death of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward died on January 28, 1911 in Massachusetts. In her 67 years, she had been an advocate for various reform movements and written over 50 books — her first (Ellen's Idol) published when she was 20 years old, her last (Comrades) published posthumously.

Ward's most famous book, however, remains The Gates Ajar (published well before her marriage to the significantly-younger writer Herbert Dickinson Ward). That book took her two years to write; she then spent two more years revising it "so many times that I could have said it by heart," she claimed. It was ultimately published in 1868 by Ticknor & Fields.

The Gates Ajar describes a conceptual afterlife where people retain their physical shapes and personalities, basically an idealized or perfected version of the living world. The book's popularity came, in part, from such a positive view on death shortly after the Civil War. She received thousands of letters in response and the book had two sequels: Beyond the Gates (1883) and The Gates Between (1887). Told in the voice of the fictional Mary Cabot, whose brother died in the Civil War, the journal-styled book The Gates Ajar comes to an eventual acceptance of death. From the chapter marked "January":

Morning and noon and evening come and go; the snow drifts down and the rain falls softly; clouds form and break and hurry past the windows; shadows melt and lights are shattered, and little rainbows are prisoned by the icicles that hang from the eaves.

I sit and watch them, and watch the sick-lamp flicker in the night, and watch the blue morning crawl over the hills; and the old words are stealing down my thought: That is the substance, this the shadow; that the reality, this the dream.

*For much of this information, I am indebted to Nina Baym's introduction to a modern collection of Phelps Ward's series, Three Spiritualist Novels (2000).

Dodge: Quick as a flash he saw his duty

One day, in Holland, a young boy was walking home when he heard the sound of trickling water. Looking for its source, he noticed that in the dike near him was a small hole. The leak in the dike, he knew, could enlarge and cause "a terrible inundation" of water.

Quick as a flash he saw his duty... The boy clambered up the heights until he reached the hole. His chubby little finger was thrust in, almost before he knew it. The flowing was stopped! "Ah!" he thought, with a chuckle of boyish delight, "the angry waters must stay back now! [The town] shall not be drowned while I am here!"

The boy stays all night, preventing the dike from breaking and flooding the town. The story comes from Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates: A Story of Life in Holland, a book published in 1865 by Mary Mapes Dodge. It was an instant best-seller and was illustrated by artists like F. O. C. Darley, Thomas Nast and, later, N. C. Wyeth.

Dodge was born in New York on January 26, 1831. Like many other women writers, her pursuit of a literary career came from a need to support her familty, particularly after the death of her husband when she was 28. Though she became a prolific writer, her popularization of the boy who used his finger to stop a leak became her most enduring work. She focused on writing for children, even serving as the first editor of the popular children's publication St. Nicholas Magazine beginning in 1873. As editor, she successfully solicited the works of writers like Louisa May Alcott, Charles E. Carroll, and Joel Chandler Harris.

It is better far to rule by love than fear

David Bates died January 25, 1870; though born in Ohio, he made his career in Pennsylvania as a businessman. On the side, he was a published poet. The story goes that, one day, his young son was playing with a friend a bit too loudly, disturbing his wife. Mrs. Bates, according to one account, "rushed to her feet" and almost "had their ears boxed," if not for the gentle intervention of David Bates, who urged his wife to "speak gently." The incident inspired a poem, written on the spot, "Speak Gently." It was published by Godey's Lady's Book, allegedly for a massive $100. It was soon set to music and became hugely popular (though all critics admitted none of Bates's other works were nearly as good).

Speak gently! it is better far
  To rule by love than fear.
Speak gently—let no harsh words mar
  The good we might do here.

Speak gently! Love doth whisper low
  The vows that true hearts bind;
And gently friendship's accents flow;
  Affection's voice is kind.

Speak gently to the little child;
  Its love be sure to gain;
Teach it in accents soft and mild—
  It may not long remain.

Speak gently to the young, tor they
  Will have enough to bear;
Pass through this life as best they may
  'Tis full of anxious care!

Speak gently to the aged one,
  Grieve not the care-worn heart,
The sands of life are nearly run,
  Let such in peace depart.

Speak gently, kindly, to the poor;
  Let no harsh tone be heard;
They have enough they must endure
  Without an unkind word!

Speak gently to the erring—know
  How frail are all! how vain!
Perchance unkindness made them so,
  Oh! win them back again.

Speak gently—He who gave his life
  To bend man's stubborn will,
When elements were in fierce strife,
  Said to them—" Peace, be still."

Speak gently! 'tis a little thing
  Dropped in the heart's deep well;
The good, the joy, which it may bring,
  Eternity shall tell. 

The poem was parodied by Lewis Carroll with lines like "Speak roughly to your little boy."

Birth of Murfree/Craddock

Outside Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Mary Noailles Murfree was born on January 24, 1850 (the town was named after her great-grandfather; her birthplace is now marked). After some time in Nashville, the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, before returning to Tennessee. Writing about her home state made her name well-known. Well, not exactly her name.

Murfree chose to write under the guise of a male writer, using the pseudonym Charles Egbert Craddock. Though many knew the name a false one, none apparently knew her gender. She earned a wide national reputation before surprising her editors that she was really a woman. She collected her short stories in 1884 under the title In the Tennessee Mountains. The collection included her first published tale, "The Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove" (1878):

An early moon was riding, clear and full, over this wild spur of the Alleghanies; the stars were few and very faint; even the great Scorpio lurked, vaguely outlined, above the wooded ranges; and the white mist, that filled the long, deep, narrow valley between the parallel lines of mountains, shimmered with opalescent gleams.

This type of local color story was extremely popular in the late 19th century. Recognized as the first significant writer of the Appalachians, Murfree/Craddock also helped establish stereotypes of that region, including family rivalries. Her story portrays two types of people, an elite group and the more rustic. The author took great pains to represent the vernacular of the latter group:

But I'll tell ye one thing, parson," he added... "ye 're a mighty queer preacher, ye air, a-sittin' up an' lookin' at sinners dance an' then gittin' in a fight that don't consarn ye, — ye 're a mighty queer preacher! Ye ought ter be in my gang, that's whar ye ought ter be," he exclaimed with a guffaw, as he put his foot in the stirrup; "ye've got a damned deal too much grit fur a preacher."

The Triumph of Nature, Founded in Truth

Off the press of Isaiah Thomas, on January 21, 1789,* The Power of Sympathy: Or, the Triumph of Nature, Founded in Truth was published. Today, the book is considered the first American novel — written by a native of (then British) North America and published in North America.

The novel fictionalizes a real-life scandal: a man seduced his own sister-in-law, and left her pregnant. She committed suicide to escape social scorn.

The book seems to have had little circulation outside of Massachusetts. This is not surprising; early printers, even into the mid-19th century, made little effort to find a broad audience. Instead, they focused on garnering regional attention; nationwide circulation of books was too difficult. Also not surprisingly, the book did not carry the author's name.

That detail, however, caused some concern. When the book was first touted seriously as the first American novel in 1850, the anthologist that revived it attributed the text to a Boston poet named Sarah Wentworth Morgan. She was fairly popular — and, it turns out, was the wife of the seducer and sister of the seduced in the real-life scandal.

Just over a century after its publication, in 1894, a Boston editor began republishing the novel in serialized form, still touting it as the first American novel, now attributed to Morgan. A reader came forward, however, to correct the assumption. That reader claimed her uncle, William Hill Brown, was the true author. As years went on, significant evidence came forward verifying that claim.

*Scholars seem to use this date based on the first advertisements for the book which, even then, was called the "First American Novel." For more on the history of this book, see Cathy N. Davidson's Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (2004).

Cranch: If death be final

On the morning of January 20, 1892, Christopher Pearse Cranch died peacefully at his home in Massachusetts. In his 78 years, he had been a minister, a painter and artist, a poet and author of children's books, a Transcendentalist, a translator, and he maintained his sense of humor throughout. One of his last sketches, "The Grasshopper Burden," reportedly got many laughs from his friends, according to his daughter.

Cranch's contemporaries noted that his poems were sometimes too philosophical, coming from the mind rather than the heart. His skill as a writer of sonnets, however, was universally acknowledged. Some of the more celebrated poems of his lifetime were in a series titled "Life and Death," including:

If death be final, what is life, with all
  Its lavish promises, its thwarted aims,
  Its lost ideals, its dishonored claims,
Its uncompleted growth? A prison wall,
Whose heartless stones but echo back our call;
  An epitaph recording but our names;
  A puppet-stage where joys and griefs and shames
Furnish a demon jesters' carnival;
  A plan without a purpose or a form;
A roofless temple; an unfinished tale,
  And men like madrepores through calm and storm
Toil, die to build a branch of fossil frail,
  And add from all their dreams, thoughts, acts, belief,
  A few more inches to a coral-reef.

Cranch was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, relatively close to Nathaniel Parker Willis, who died the same day 25 years earlier.

I wander in pale dreams away

Sarah Helen Whitman was born in Providence, Rhode Island on January 19, 1803, six years to the day before her future betrothed Edgar Allan Poe. Whitman and Poe ultimately never married but their short engagement has overshadowed her role as one of the most famous women poets in the middle of the 19th century.

Her poem "The Past" (1846):

Thick darkness broodeth o'er the world:
The raven pinions of the Night,
Close on her silent bosom furled,
Reflect no gleam of orient light.
 E'en the wild Norland fires that mocked
The faint bloom of the eastern sky,
Now leave me, in close darkness locked.
To night's weird realm of phantasy.

Borne from pale shadow-lands remote,
A morphean music, wildly sweet,
Seems, on the starless gloom, to float,
Like the white-pinioned Paraclete.
Softly into my dream it flows,
Then faints into the silence drear;
While from the hollow dark outgrows
The phantom Past, pale gliding near.

The visioned Past; so strangely fair!
So veiled in shadowy, soft regrets,
So steeped in sadness, like the air
That lingers when the day-star sets!
Ah! could I fold it to my heart,
On its cold lip my kisses press,
This waste of aching life impart,
To win it back from nothingness!

I loathe the purple light of day,
And shun the morning's golden star,
Beside that shadowy form to stray,
For ever near, yet oh how far!
Thin as a cloud of summer even,
All beauty from my gaze it bars;
Shuts out the silver cope of heaven,
And glooms athwart the dying stars.

Cold, sad, and spectral, by my side,
It breathes of love's ethereal bloom—
Of bridal memories, long affied
To the dread silence of the tomb:
Sweet, cloistered memories, that the heart
Shuts close within its chalice cold;
Faint perfumes, that no more dispart
From the bruised lily's floral fold.

"My soul is weary of her life;"
My heart sinks with a slow despair;
The solemn, star-lit hours are rife
With phantasy; the noontide glare,
And the cool morning, fancy free,
Are false with shadows; for the day
Brings no blithe sense of verity,
Nor wins from twilight thoughts away.

Oh, bathe me in the Lethean stream,
And feed me on the lotus flowers;
Shut out this false, bewildering dream,
This memory of departed hours!
Sweet haunting dream! so strangely fair—
So veiled in shadowy, soft regrets—
So steeped in sadness, like the air
That lingers when the day-star sets!

The Future can no charm confer,
My heart's deep solitudes to break;
No angel's foot again shall stir
The waters of that silent lake.
I wander in pale dreams away,
And shun the morning's golden star,
To follow still that failing ray,
For ever near, yet oh how far!

Morris: Woodman, spare that tree!

"The Oak" was published in the New York Mirror on January 17, 1837. Its author, George Pope Morris (frequent business partner of Nathaniel Parker Willis) later renamed it "Woodman, Spare that Tree!" when it was set to music. Today, it is considered one of the earliest environmentalist poems/songs.

Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
'Twas my forefather's hand
That placed it near his cot:
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy axe shall harm it not!

That old familiar tree,
Whose glory and renown
Are spread o'er land and sea,
And wouldst thou hew it down?
Woodman, forbear thy stroke!
Cut not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak,
Now towering to the skies!

When but an idle boy
I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
Here too my sisters played.
My mother kissed me here;
My father pressed my hand —
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand!

My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild-bird sing,
And still thy branches bend.
Old tree! the storm still brave!
And, woodman, leave the spot:
While I've a hand to save,
Thy axe shall harm it not.

Whittier: To keep our faith and patience

John Greenleaf Whittier based his early career almost entirely on his anti-slavery views, writing abolitionist poetry and articles for The Liberator and elsewhere (he was also a good friend of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison). When South Carolina was the first to secede from the Union, he began to worry about the country; he worried more when Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida followed suit. In response, on January 16, 1861, he wrote "A Word for the Hour":

The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse
Light after light goes out. One evil star,
Luridly glaring through the smoke of war,
As in the dream of the Apocalypse,
Drags others down. Let us not weakly weep
Nor rashly threaten. Give us grace to keep
Our faith and patience; wherefore should we leap
On one hand into fratricidal fight,
Or, on the other, yield eternal right,
Frame lies of laws, and good and ill confound?
What fear we? Safe on freedom's vantage ground
Our feet are planted; let us there remain
In un-revengeful calm, no means untried
Which truth can sanction, no just claim denied,
The sad spectators of a suicide!
They break the lines of Union: shall we light
The fires of hell to weld anew the chain
On that red anvil where each blow is pain?
Draw we not even now a freer breath,
As from our shoulders falls a load of death
Loathsome as that the Tuscan's victim bore
When keen with life to a dead horror bound?
Why take we up the accursed thing again?
Pity, forgive, but urge them back no more
Who, drunk with passion, flaunt disunion's rag
With its vile reptile blazon. Let us press
The golden cluster on our brave old flag
In closer union, and, if numbering less,
Brighter shall shine the stars which still remain.

Simms: a fight against bitter prejudice

In a letter dated January 14, 1859, Paul Hamilton Hayne wrote to his unofficial mentor William Gilmore Simms that the older writer's career had become "a fight against bitter prejudice... [and] mean jealousies." Though this was true of "every true literary athlete," Hayne suggested, this was especially the case for Southerners, even when criticism came from fellow "provincial, narrow-minded" Southerners. He went on:

God help all such combatants. 'Tis almost enough to make one forswear his country. I cannot refrain from picturing to myself your fate, had you removed at any early age to Massachusetts or Europe. Prosperity, praise, 'troops of friends,' and admirers, but not what you now possess, and which must be a proud consolation... under disadvantages which would have sunk a weaker mind and corrupted a less manly and heroic heart.

Many Southerners felt under-appreciated in the world of literary arts throughout much of the 19th century. The Richmond-raised (but New England-born) Edgar Allan Poe, for example, conjectured: "Had [Simms] been even a Yankee, this genius would have been rendered immediately manifest to his countrymen, but unhappily (perhaps) he was a southerner." Poe elsewhere claimed that New England "lyricists" were a "magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American letters." When the first important anthology of American poetry was published in 1842, Poe was one of several who criticized editor Rufus Griswold for under-representing the South.

After the Civil War, Simms edited his own anthology, War Poetry of the South (1867). When New England poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow edited his own collection of American poetry, Poems of Places (1874) he specifically noted to Hayne that "as few as possible" of the poems in Simms collection would be represented, "and not of the fiercest."

The same year as Hayne's letter, Simms published the last novel he would ever write in book form, The Cassique of Kiawah — it was published in the North, in New York.

Willises: Thy children bless thee

Richard Storrs Willis did not generally get involved with the bickering between his older siblings, sister Fanny Fern and brother Nathaniel Parker Willis. When Fern produced her semi-autobiographical novel Ruth Hall in 1854, he did not appear to have reason to be upset. N. P. Willis was the villain of the book, renamed Hyacinth Ellet, but Richard Storrs was completely left out. However, the elder Mr. Ellet character, the father of Hyacinth and the title character Ruth Hall, was painted unsympathetically. The father of the book, of course, was also based on the father of the real-life counterparts, Nathaniel Willis, Sr., the founder of America's first children's periodical, Youth's Companion.

As editor of The Musical World and Times in New York, Richard Storrs (a composer whose most famous tune was "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear") responded to the negative depiction of his father. In the January 13, 1855 issue of the journal, he republished his brother's poem "To My Aged Father" (originally published in their father's Youth's Companion):

...Faint has thy heart become. For peace thou prayest—
For less to suffer as thy strength grows less.
For, oh, when life has been a stormy wild—
The bitter night too long, the way too far—
The aged pilgrim, ere he lays him down,
Prays for a moment's lulling of the blast—
A little time to wind his cloak about him,
And smooth his gray hairs decently to die.

Yet, oh, not vain the victories unsung!
Not vain a life of industry to bless.
And thou, in angel-history—where shine
The silent self-forgetful who toil on
For others until death—art nam'd in gold.
In heaven it is known, thou hast done well!
But, not all unacknowledg'd is it, here.
Children thou hast, who, for free nurture, given
With one hand while the other fought thy cares,
Grow grateful as their own hands try the fight.
And more—they thank thee more! The name thou leavest
Spotless and blameless as it comes from thee—
For this, their pure inheritance—a life
Of unstained honor gone before our own—
The father that we love " an honest man"—
For this, thy children bless thee...

The same day, January 13, 1855, Nathaniel Parker Willis responded in his own periodical, Home Journal, claiming that he had gone some time without saying "an unkind word" to his sister but steadfastly chose to forebear "the malignity and injustice." Fanny Fern's harsh words about her family in Ruth Hall left them only "temporarily strained" and she was soon forgiven by all — all except N. P. Willis, that is.

Thoreau: Nature does not recognize it

"I begin my letter with the strange sad news that John Thoreau has this afternoon left this world," wrote Lidian Emerson, wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson on January 11, 1842. "He died of lockjaw occasioned by a slight cut on his thumb." John, age 27 at the time, was the older brother of Henry David Thoreau. The two shared a love of the outdoors and spent a week together traveling along the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (the younger Thoreau later wrote about it while living at Walden Pond).

John's lockjaw came from accidentally cutting himself on New Year's Day. The cut, bandaged without initial concern, soon became infected. His death within ten days was anything but peaceful: he suffered violent muscle spasms and his body stiffened in painfully difficult positions. It is said that he finally died in the arms of his younger brother, who soon developed what he called "sympathetic lockjaw" and showed similar symptoms to his brother, despite never suffering any cut. "It is strange — unaccountable," Emerson wrote in a letter. Just as Henry recovered, the Emersons' son Waldo died of scarlet fever.

Though observers called him calm, Henry David Thoreau stopped recording in his journal for a time and temporarily lost interest in the natural world he loved so much. "How plain that death is only the phenomenon of the invidividual or class," he mused. "Nature does not recognize it, she finds her own again under new forms without loss." Soon, however, the death of his brother inspired him to embrace his own life more.

The death of friends should inspire us as much as their lives. If they are great and rich enough they will leave consolation to the mourners before the expenses of the funerals. It will not be hard to part with any worth, because it is worthy. How can any good depart? It does not go and come, but we. Shall we wait for it? Is it slower than we?

This journal entry was later re-worked into a passage from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Here, Thoreau concluded, "our Friends have no place in the graveyard."

*For this post, I must acknowledge Jeffrey S. Cramer's I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau (2007) and Robert Sullivan's The Thoreau You Don't Know: What the Prophet of Environmentalism Really Meant (2009).

De Forest: The Great American Novel

The Nation for January 9, 1868 published an article by a Connecticut-born former Captain in the Union Army: John William De Forest (pictured), whose article titled "The Great American Novel" began the never-ending quest of nearly every American fiction writer to follow.

After dismissing the idea that a great American epic poem could be written before the country had "agonized and conquered through centuries," De Forest opens the door for the possibility of a Great American Novel: "the picture of the ordinary emotions and manners of American existence." Early writers, he claims, were unsuccessful. Washington Irving "was too cautious" and James Fenimore Cooper "produced something less natural than the wax figures of [P. T.] Barnum's old museum."

Most early American writers, De Forest claims, "are ghosts, and they wrote about ghosts, and the ghosts have vanished utterly." The key, he believes, is creating realistic images of distinctly American characters and events, something he has yet to see. Even Nathaniel Hawthorne, he concludes, created people who "belong to the wide realm of art rather than to our nationality." The closest thus far may be Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book, De Forest writes, has "a national breadth... truthful outlining of character, natural speaking, and plenty of strong feeling."

Three years after his essay, De Forest published one of many novels of his own. Overland (1871) meets the author's own criteria for the Great American Novel by depicting a realistic slice of the American experience (coincidentally? Or, perhaps De Forest invented the term "Great American Novel" to market his own work). The novel opens:

In those days, Santa Fe, New Mexico, was an undergrown, decrepit, out at elbows ancient hidalgo of a town, with not a scintillation of prosperity or grandeur about it, except the name of capital.

It was two hundred and seventy years old; and it had less than five thousand inhabitants. It was the metropolis of a vast extent of country, not destitute of natural wealth; and it consisted of a few narrow, irregular streets, lined by one-story houses built of sun-baked bricks. Owing to the fine climate, it was difficult to die there; but owing to many things not fine, it was almost equally difficult to live.

Death of Joseph Dennie

Author and editor Joseph Dennie died on January 7, 1812 in Philadelphia; he was 41 years old. He published frequently, usually articles in favor of Federalism, and soon founded his own magazine in Boston, The Tablet. After its short run, he wrote for The Farmer's Weekly Museum in New Hampshire before becoming its editor (and printing letters from John Quincy Adams; Adams later wrote Dennie's epitaph). Shortly after the turn of the century in 1801, Dennie founded Port Folio, which continued after his death.

Perhaps his most famous work is a series of essays collected as The Lay Preacher. "The title of this work may appear ludicrous to some, and obscure to others," he wrote in his introduction. It was not, however, a volume of sermons. Instead, Dennie wrote light ("harmless and playful") articles, usually with a didactic lesson, many with Biblical references (many start with a quote from the Old Testament). Here are just a few of the moral lessons he imparts:

"Virtue never dwelt long in filth; nor do I believe there ever was a person scrupulously attentive to cleanliness, who was a consummate villain." (from "On Cleanliness")

"Ye querists... check your impertinent curiosity. Devote not life to hearing and telling new things... Action, not tattle, is the business of life." (from "On Newsmongers")

Of course, as one of the earliest "men of letters" in the young United States, he also offers advice to young men on "The Pleasures of Study":

A book produces a delightful abstraction from the cares and sorrows of this world. They may press upon us, but when we are engrossed by study we do not very acutely feel them. Nay, by the magic illusion of a fascinating author, we are transported from the couch of anguish, or the gripe of indigence, to Milton's paradise, or the elysium of Virgil.

Stowe: I should certainly fall in love with you

"Well, my dear," wrote Harriet Beecher to a friend on January 6, 1836, "about half an hour more and your old friend, companion, schoolmate, sister, etc., will cease to be Hatty Beecher." That day, she married Calvin Ellis Stowe, a teacher at the seminary school where her father was president. "I have been dreading and dreading the time... and lo! it has come," her letter continued, "and I feel nothing at all." Nothing, in this case, referring to the absence of fear or dread.

Though they were frequently separated for one reason or another, the couple managed to have seven children (some of whom died tragically; their first-born were twins, born almost exactly nine months after their marriage). On one of those occasions when they were apart, Mrs. Stowe wrote to her husband that she was "dependent" on him: "There are a thousand favorite subjects on which I could talk with you better than with any one else. If you were not already my dearly loved husband I should certainly fall in love with you." In 1842, Mr. Stowe wrote to his wife, "I want you to come home as quick as you can. The fact is I cannot live without you... There is no woman like you in this wide world."

Though today known mostly for her 1852 novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe was a prolific writer of novels and short stories. Her book Oldtown Folks hearkened back to an earlier United States, before the Civil War, and was inspired heavily by her husband's New England years; the narrator, Horace Holyoke, was born in Natick, Massachusetts, just like Mr. Stowe. One section in particular seems to hearken to Mrs. Stowe's own personal struggles in becoming a domestic housewife:

My mother's gayety of animal spirits, her sparkle and vivacity, all went with the first year of marriage. The cares of housekeeping, the sicknesses of maternity and nursing, drained her dry of all that was bright and attractive; and my only recollections of her are of a little quiet, faded, mournful woman, who looked on my birth and that of my brother Bill as the greatest of possible misfortunes, and took care of us with a discouraged patience, more as if she pitied us for being born than as if she loved us.

The soon to be Mrs. Stowe wrote her letter in an effort to comfort her friend, who was recently engaged and apparently nervous about her own impending marriage. For the information in this post, I am indebted to Philip McFarland's Loves of Harriet Beecher Stowe (2007).

Fanny Fern and James Parton

Fanny Fern (pen name of Sara Payson Willis) had garnered major popularity through works like her semi-autobiographical novel Ruth Hall. Taking advantage of her success, the New York Ledger contracted with Fern as a columnist. The first of what her editors called her "spirited, lively, dashing, unrivalled sketches" appeared in the January 5, 1856 issue. Within a year, circulation increased by over 100,000 new subscribers.

Fern agreed to write exclusively for the Ledger, a deal she maintained until her death. Her weekly column appeared — without missing an issue — for 16 years. At $100 an article, she became America's highest-paid columnist for a time.

On the same date six years earlier, January 5, 1850, Fern's brother Nathaniel Parker Willis published the first article by a writer using the name "Currer Bell" (a pseudonym inspired by Charlotte Bronte) in his Home Journal. That writer was James Parton (pictured), who soon became an editor alongside Willis. Parton began publishing Fern's articles in the Home Journal — without Willis's blessing. In a move that has perpetually baffled scholars, the amiable Willis angrily forbade the publication of Fanny Fern in his magazine. In protest, Parton resigned. Perhaps in gratitude for his loyalty, shortly after Ruth Hall was published, she convinced her publishers to produce a book by Parton. The two soon built up a strong personal relationship.

In fact, Fern and Parton were married in Hoboken, New Jersey on the same day her first New York Ledger article was published — after signing a prenuptial agreement that ensured her literary earnings remained solely her own. He was her third husband and eleven years her junior.

*Much of the information in this article is found in Joyce Warren's Fanny Fern: An Independent Woman.

Melville: All noble things are touched with that

On January 3, 1841, the Acushnet set sail from New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was the whaling vessel's maiden voyage. Also new to the whaling industry was 21-year old Herman Melville, who later said that his real life began that day.

Melville used many of his experiences as inspiration for his novel Moby-Dick (1851), though he changed the Acushnet to the Pequod. The novel's narrator, Ishmael, called it "a rare old craft... a ship of the old school, rather small if anything." The Pequod had seen many voyages, unlike the Acushnet, with "ancient decks" that were "worn and wrinkled." He concluded, "She was a thing of trophies... A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that." As for the whaling town he is soon to depart from, Ishmael says:

In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles.

In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples—long avenues of green and gold. And in April, high in air, the beautiful and bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final day.

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens.

Melville's own whaling experience ended very differently from Ishmael's; the novelist-to-be deserted in July 1842 (he then lived for a few weeks with the Typee natives in Polynesia). The New Bedford Whaling Museum has sponsored a weekend-long marathon reading of Moby-Dick; 2011 is their 15th annual marathon. For information, visit their news page.

*The above illustration is from an 1892 reprint of the novel, depicting Ishmael and Queequeg in search of where the Pequod is docked. Recommended reading: Herman Melville's Whaling Years by Wilson Heflin.

Willis: Winter is come again

The Portland, Maine-born Nathaniel Parker Willis grew up partly in Boston, graduated from Yale in Connecticut, before touring the United States and Canada. Though still young, he had lived a whirlwind life (which he would later make up for as a long-term convalescent in upstate New York). He was just three weeks shy of his 23rd birthday when he wrote "January 1, 1829":

Winter is come again. The sweet south west
Is a forgotten wind, and the strong earth
Has laid aside its mantle to be bound
By the frost fetter. There is not a sound
Save of the skaiter's heel, and there is laid
An icy finger on the lip of streams,
And the clear icicle hangs cold and still,
And the snow-fall is noiseless as a thought.
Spring has a rushing sound, and Summer sends
Many sweet voices with its odors out,
And autumn rustleth its decaying robe
With a complaining whisper. Winter's dumb!
God made his ministry a silent one,
And he has given him a foot of steel
And an unlovely aspect, and a breath
Sharp to the senses—and we know that He
Tempereth well, and hath a meaning hid
Under the shadow of his hand. Look up!
And it shall be interpreted—Your home
Hath a temptation now. There is no voice
Of waters with beguiling for your ear,
And the cool forest and the meadows green
Witch not your feet away; and in the dells
There are no violets, and upon the hills
There are no sunny places to lie down.
You must go in, and by your cheerful fire
Wait for the offices of love, and hear
Accents of human tenderness, and feast
Your eye upon the beauty of the young.
It is a season for the quiet thought,
And the still reckoning with thyself. The year
Gives back the spirits of its dead, and time
Whispers the history of its vanished hours;
And the heart, calling its affections up,
Counteth its wasted ingots. Life stands still
And settles like a fountain, and the eye
Sees clearly through its depths, and noteth all
That stirred its troubled waters. It is well
That Winter with the dying year should come!