The Life, Travels, and Literary Career of Bayard TaylorConwell, Russell H.
General
The Life, Travels, and Literary Career of Bayard Taylor
Conwell, Russell H.
Taylor, Bayard, 1825-1878
From Dresden, Bayard walked to Prague, leaving behind him, as he
then thought forever, the cheerful, hospitable, kind-hearted people,
with whose kin he afterwards became so intimately and advantageously
connected. In Prague, he ascended the heights where the Bohemian kings
and Amazon queens used to reside, heard the solemn mass in one of
Europe’s most solemn Cathedrals, visited the bridge under which the Saint
Johannes floated with the miraculous stars about his corpse, lost himself
in the bedlam of Jewish clothing-shops, and then, staff in hand, hastened
on over the monotonous plains, and through the highways almost fenced
with wretchedly painted shrines, to the Paris of the west, Vienna.
There again were rare, treasures of art on which he might study, and in
study, increase in that dignity and expansion of soul which only such
contemplation can give. He was delighted to hear the composer Strauss,
and his orchestra, and amusingly describes the queer antics of that
nervous little musician. He gazed with awe at the stained banners of the
Crusaders, and, with uncovered head, listened to the grand chants in St.
Stephen’s Cathedral; but his pathetic mention of his visit to the tomb of
Beethoven is the most characteristic.
There was a most lovable trait in Bayard’s character, which became even
more prominent in his after years of travel, which deserves mention
in this connection. He never railed upon the dead, nor ridiculed the
religious belief or acts of devotion of any people, however ignorant or
heathenish. He often mentioned, with emotion, the efforts of the darkened
human mind to find its Creator and Ruler. He treated with sincerest
respect every act of devotion performed in his presence, whether by
Protestant, Catholic, or Mahomedan. There was that in his nature, and his
early Quaker education, that not only kept him in the paths of morality
and on the side of virtue, but through all his writings there runs a
thread of faith in God, which cannot be better expressed than by quoting
one of his own sweet hymns.
“In the peace of hearts at rest,
In the child at mother’s breast,
In the lives that now surround us,
In the deaths that sorely wound us,
Though we may not understand,
Father, we behold Thy hand!”
After leaving Vienna, he went, by the way of Enns to Lintz, which is
situated in one of the most picturesque landscapes of the Danube. The
city is surrounded by towers unconnected by walls and has a very romantic
history. Bayard in his letters speaks of the rural scenes about Lintz
in terms of the highest admiration. It was in these Austrian landscapes
that he composed that poem entitled “The Wayside Dream,” and in which we
find the following descriptive lines:
“The deep and lordly Danube
Goes winding far below;
I see the white-walled hamlets
Amid his vineyards glow,
And southward, through the ether, shine
The Styrian hills of snow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account