Library of the best American literature: Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers
General
Library of the best American literature: Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers
American literature
After his marriage Mr. Willis returned to this country with his wife
and established a home on the Susquehanna River, which he called
Glenmary, the latter part of the word being in honor of his wife. Here
he hoped to spend the remainder of his days quietly in such literary
work as pleased his taste, but the resources from which his support
came were swept away in a financial disaster and he was forced to
return to active life. He disposed of his country seat, removed to New
York, and in connection with Dr. Porter established the “Corsair,” a
weekly journal. In the interest of this publication Mr. Willis made a
second journey to England, engaging Mr. Thackeray and other well-known
writers as contributors. While absent he published a miscellany of his
magazine stories with the title of “Loiterings of Travel” and also two
of his plays. On returning to New York he found that Dr. Porter had
suddenly abandoned their project in discouragement and he formed a new
connection with the “Evening Mirror.” Soon after this the death of his
wife occurred, his own health failed, and he went abroad determining
to spend his life in Germany. On reaching Berlin he was attached to
the American legation, but went away on a leave of absence to place
his daughter in school in England. In the meantime his health grew so
precarious that instead of returning to Berlin he sailed for America,
where he spent the remainder of his life in contributing to various
magazines. He established a home, “Idlewild,” in the highlands of the
Hudson beyond West Point, where he died in 1867 on his sixty-first
birthday.
Throughout his life Mr. Willis was an untiring worker and his days
were no doubt ended much earlier than if he had taken proper rest.
“The poetry of Mr. Willis,” says Duyckinck, “is musical and original.
His religious poems belong to a class of composition which critics
might object to did not experience show them to be pleasing and
profitable interpreters to many minds. The versification of these
poems is of remarkable smoothness. Indeed they have gained the
author’s reputation where his nicer poems would have failed to be
appreciated. On the other hand his novel in rhyme, ‘Lady Jane,’ is
one of the very choicest of the numerous poems cast in the model
of ‘Don Juan;’ while his dramas are delicate creations of sentiment
and passion with a relic of the old poetic Elizabethan stage.” As a
traveler Mr. Willis has no superior in representing the humors and
experiences of the world. He is sympathetic, witty, observant, and at
the same time inventive. That his labors were pursued through broken
health with unremitting diligence is another claim to consideration
which the public should be prompt to acknowledge.
* * * * *
DAVID’S LAMENT FOR ABSALOM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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