PREFACE. THE BRYANT Life-Studies are the results of careful contemplation of the noble subject, WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, in his twofold phases as the poet and as the journalist. The poet exists above, the journalist upon the scene of daily routine-life; and both constitute the Man. The HOMESTEAD-BOOK is but a record of the outlines, and is necessarily incomplete. At the first, the studies were more philosophical. The author contemplated primal American Nature, a Nature leaving its impress on the age. BRYANT is as "many-sided" as GOETHE. He is as severe a study. In our language, maintaining its purity of words and idiom, he is what GOETHE was to the German. In other respects he differs from GOETHE; again he resembles him. debts to both. Literature owes incalculable The purpose has been to paint and delineate, rather than to demonstrate; to show the great poet-editor as the Man that he is, rather than to be his eulogist or his advocate. The task has been one of love, and therefore all the lighter. If its fidelity shall appear, and BRYANT shall be found depicted as he is and has been, the author, more than any other, will be abundantly gratified. |